New Wine, New Wine Skins

New Wine, New Wine Skins

". . . and some fell on stony ground . . ." Jasper, 2008

Quite coincidentally, we hit upon and watched The Diary of Anne Frank on a film streaming service, and I looked for something to read and found Alison Pick’s Far to Go on a bookshelf, and—given the many free hours COVID-19 has forced upon us—I’ve become a bit preoccupied with times of horror and destruction and the rebuilding after loss and sorrow.

Quite naturally, I couldn’t avoid the “why?” question, the one with which we’re currently wrestling in an uneven match whose outcome is still in doubt. The film and the book both focus on the lives of Jews caught up in the worst holocaust of all time for that ethnicity: the NAZI’s final solution beside which the exile to Babylon pales in significance.

And then, we binge-watched UNORTHODOX, about a young woman in an Orthodox Jewish enclave of New York who by personality is unsuited to the rigours of her culture, escapes and is pursued for the Jewish child she is carrying.

The Old Testament of the Bible is full of suffering followed by relief followed again by willful disobedience and suffering: Slavery in Egypt, lost wars with neighbours and myriad other disappointments, Desperate cries to God so poignantly sung out in the Psalms of lament.

And always and always the wish to go back, to have things as they were before whatever tragedy was currently stalking the people. The looking-back through a rose-coloured, rear-view mirror. The forgetting that it was whatever persisted in us before which allowed our current dilemma to happen.

There’s great reluctance to admit of a need for a new and different way forward. It’s probably the fear of the yet-unknown that prevents our learning from our tragedies, that too often makes us cry out, “Yipee, it’s business as usual again!”

COVID-19 is unlike the Babylonian Exile or the Holocaust or the decimation of Mennonite colonies in Russia. For a change, it represents a crisis remarkably similar from Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic to Tasmania off the south coast of Australia—and everywhere between. This fact points, possibly, to the primary lesson: civilization and survival are dependent on the integration of all humanity around the simplest principles—justice, mercy, humility perhaps. In practical terms, the lesson has been demonstrated in the sharing/not sharing of information about infection details, sharing/not sharing of personal protection equipment, coordinating/not coordinating efforts to control the spread, cooperating/not cooperating across borders regarding travel restrictions.

The signs pointing toward a way forward are all there to be read: fossil fuels can’t be trusted as profit-making commodities; the sky over Los Angeles is blue for the first time in a long time; technology means that we need less and less travel to get things done (the gas tank on my Ford was half-full six weeks ago and it’s slightly less than half-full today), meals cooked at home and eaten around a table with family have merit; the more we shop at home, the better nearby services become; given the need, nations that were often antagonistic can cooperate, pandemics know no borders so pandemic preparedness must know no borders either. Noting these and other signposts toward a different future is an opportunity we ought not miss.

My cultural heritage is predominantly Russian Mennonite; I also curate a Mennonite Interpretive Centre. So my background story includes the martyrdom of Anabaptists in the Sixteenth Century, the migration to America of the land-starved in the 1870s and 1890s and the rape, pillaging and murder of Mennonite colonists in Russian Ukraine during and after the Russian Revolution along with the resettlement of the lucky ones in Canada. Very much simplified, the response to the Mennonites’ tragedies was, for some, to recreate in Canada the conditions of the “golden years” held in memory. For the forward-looking, adaptation strategies were chosen; new wine required new wine skins.

Zionism and the establishment of the ethnic state of Israel was a major part of the Jewish “going forward” after the Holocaust.

The history of planned, significant change in response to crisis isn’t great, I admit. We mostly do things differently because necessity forces change on us. We drive less because we can’t afford the rising cost of fuel; we learn to bake our own bread because the local bakery has shut down, we take the bus to work because there’s no place to park except in an expensive, crowded lot. But there is obviously a future out there for mankind, a future that responds to our time and conditions. Let me ramble a bit about what I see as some of its possible characteristics:

1. Governments have intervened heavily in the economies during the crisis. Some of the habits of government management of the economy will linger, be more acceptable than now because so many people and enterprises have been bailed out by governments. Regulation of the corporate world will become more deliberate, income distribution along with taxation rules will be jigged to achieve greater equality of means in the public.
2. Urban dwellers particularly will find the fouled air of thousands of vehicles unacceptable after the blue skies of isolation, and will support government efforts to apply taxation to the luxury of cheap, easy pollution. Environment will be the top issue in elections; reluctant participants in green plans will be taxed into conforming: possibly a hefty tax on every square foot of living space above 600 per person, prohibitive taxes on fossil fuels and fossil-fuel-burning vehicles, road tolls, bridge tolls, etc.
3. Local, municipal, provincial amenities will grow to fill a vacancy left by reduced “snow-birding.” Watrous and Moose Jaw will expand, offer winter getaways under glass, become genuine, affordable health spas more like Baden-Baden in Germany. People will rediscover snow holidays.
4. Canada will be double-tracked coast to coast. Passengers will travel by rail quickly and comfortably, the train itself modified to be an experience to look forward to. Dollars collected from fossil-fuel and luxuries will be applied as subsidies to clean, efficient public transportation.
5. The COVID 19 virus may well hang around forever like the various viruses responsible for ‘flu and colds; we’ll get used to periodic “stay at home” times, will have found ways to be more safely social than we’ve figured out this time around. If a vaccine is developed, herd immunity will still be hard to achieve because the fringe protests will strengthen in proportion to the advocacy for vaccines. Freedom vs. legislation will remain a societal sensibility.
6. At present, our highways and byways, streets and roads cater for fossil-fuel-driven vehicles. As we learn to live and work, shop and socialize closer to home, roads and pathways will cater more for bicycles, electric scooters and pedestrians. The pace of life will slow down, become much quieter.
7. Technology will obviously adapt quickly to the new normal. Virtual meeting, video phoning, on-line learning will become less cumbersome and cheaper. Policing of privacy on the web will be possible since government intervention will have become less repugnant to the majority.
8. Conversations about individual freedom and collective responsibility will occupy us a lot. The tension between government regulation and personal right-to-choose will continue, but with new parameters. A partial solution may be found in an opt-in, opt-out system for things like health insurance, military service, payment for services not required, etc.
9. As a Christian Church in this time, our role is clear as it always has been, namely to actively promote and prosper the peaceable kingdom inaugurated by Jesus Christ. But now, the justice we advocate for must spread beyond borders to the entire globe. The prospect of finding handles on this enormous task cries out for the unity of all Christian Churches worldwide. The “Holy Spirit” will wear the garment of necessity. We need a new, universal confession of faith.
10. The erasure of ethnic, racial distinctions has begun in our global, multicultural community, but it’s far, far from completed. If we embark on a “new way forward” after this as opposed to a “business as usual” retreat, its possible that the voices for ethno/racial justice, mercy and humility will become so militant and strong that they will drive bigotry into submission.

What kind of future are you and I pondering today? What are we prepared to support and what are you and I prepared to give up? Will we accept new wine skins for this new wine?