A Companion of Ostriches
Psalm 119:49-72 • Psalm 49, [53]
Job 29:1, 30:1-2,16-31 • Acts 14:19-28 • John 11:1-16
I had big pandemic plans. When we were told to stay home back in March (remember March?) I finally felt like I could live out my introvert dreams. I would cook all the food, read all the books, learn a new language, plant a garden, and finally finish all those ongoing house projects that constantly linger in a half-finished state. I would do all this while praying daily, making time for spiritual reflection, and obviously still maintain all my professional and personal relationships at the same pace as before.
But that’s not what happened.
I have not gone to restaurants and I have not gone near big crowds, but I also have not become a bread-baking, crafting, literary queen. Because truth be told, everything the past few months has felt harder. Basic tasks became weighted in a weird way. Simple things, like a quick trip to the grocery store, are now strategic, planned events requiring special equipment and emotional energy. My pandemic ambitions became to just get through each day without becoming totally disheartened and drained.
So when Job cried out in the readings today, “I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches,” I heard him. I heard his exhaustion, his stretched-thin-ness, his lack of energy to even describe his suffering. You know you are at a true point of despair when animal similes are all you have left to describe your pain.
I assume Job chose jackals and ostriches as examples because of the weird shrieking noises they make out in the desert landscapes they inhabit. Like Job’s wailing, their cries can simply disappear into the wilderness, with no one around to hear them. But jackals and ostriches also do an extraordinary thing - they survive in areas we consider uninhabitable. They thrive in seemingly empty, lifeless, forlorn places. Faced with a harsh environment, they have adapted, and learned how to move about this world.
So like Job, I am a companion of ostriches. I am crying out in frustration over the suffering and chaos this pandemic has and is causing. But, I am also determined to thrive within those new limits. For me, baking bread while learning French probably isn’t the solution, but I can learn how to adapt to this new place. To make my world inhabitable and life-giving, most days at least.
Written by Emma Mitchell
When not serving the youth and families at St. Paul’s as the Youth Director, Emma is spending lots of time at home, learning how to thrive in a pandemic, with her husband Dave and small menagerie of animals.