Lock-down Delusion?

He was homeless. And lonely. Very lonely, in fact. Furthermore, he felt that he was afraid of being mugged, even stabbed. Therefore, unable to sleep, he kept himself on the move, wandering from one place to another, constantly glancing behind to see whether he was followed.

He was also very hungry and thirsty. Eventually, he gives up. He lays down on the ground, feeling very suicidal. "To hell with life," he thought. "Let someone come and kill me. Or maybe, if I were to fall asleep here, I may not wake up again. I don't care anymore. I had enough!"

That was around 842 BC.

Elijah journeyed through the desert for forty days, or just short of six weeks. Yet he was supernaturally supplied with the appropriate food and drink, more than once. Yet despite such care taken of his welfare, he maintained a twisted cord of emotions: Loneliness, along with fear, and anger has driven this fellow to a remote mountain where he met God, and after throwing out a plethora of complaints, protesting that he is the only faithful one left throughout the whole of Israel, God eventually got around to saying that he has reserved for himself seven thousand men who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1Kings 19.)

Maybe such a revelation might have been encouraging for him. Then again, he might have also thought to himself: If there were seven thousand godly men in Israel alone, apart from any in Judah, then why has none of them made any effort to come and offer me food, drink and shelter, hidden and protected from my enemies?

I think that having such thoughts would be perfectly human. For throughout the forty-day journey, he was running away from Queen Jezebel, the dominant wife of King Ahab and who also wore the trousers. He was fleeing from her after performing a spectacular showdown against 450 prophets of Baal, Jezebel's idol, and not only putting them to shame but having them all executed.

Were these 7,000 godly men converts of Elijah's spectacular showdown? Probably not, for the Scripture indicates that they had already chosen to stay faithful to Yahweh, the true God of Israel since childhood, having never bowed their knee to Baal throughout their lives. Those who witnessed the contest between Yahweh and Baal might have been impressed with Elijah's spectacular victory, but for some, it doesn't necessarily depict true and lasting conversion. Left unconverted, the temptation to return to Baal worship becomes irresistible.

So there he was, feeling lonely, and suicidal. And this also makes me wonder how many were tempted to feel that way during this present Coronavirus lockdown? At least there were some parts of it which seems beneficial. Emptier roads for starters, resulting in cleaner air and a slowdown of climate change. Office employees working from home instead of the daily commute, whether by private or public transport. Still others on furlough, remaining employed by the business which was forced to close for the duration of the pandemic, resulting in a long paid "holiday" for its workers.

By the grace of God, I didn't find this lockdown financially difficult, due to being on State pension. Fortunately, I was not under compulsion to stay at home, as was the case, I believe, in Spain and Italy. Instead, I was still free to go out and exercise once a day, either walking or cycling. 

With both swimming and the gym locked away, so to speak, with walking, I have enjoyed the wonderful privilege of admiring Rhododendron bushes in full bloom, the magenta flowers glowing in the Spring sunshine. Funny, really. These species were originally imported from China and has established themselves well here. Yet there are many gardeners, environmentalists and perhaps horticulturalists who have taken a dislike to this bush, seeing it as a foreign invasion, and there was even a faceless bureaucrat sitting at the Council office of Bracknell Forest who had sent out an order to have much of the Rhododendron at the back of one street destroyed, thus removing the sound barrier between the busy traffic and the homes of many residents and leaving an ugly scar on the landscape. 

Rhododendron in full bloom near my home, taken May 2020.

Cycling is another form of exercise taken during the lockdown. These days it takes more of an effort to ride a bike long-distance, as a couple of other cyclists overtook me by quite a wide speed margin. Perhaps my age and state of health combined with the solar heat taking it out on me, yet there is that lovely feeling of accomplishment as I rode to Dinton Pastures, a country park some nine miles away from home, with its beautiful Black Swan Lake, dotted with forested islands and surrounded by a bridleway cutting through a forested environment lining both sides, thus combining the day out with both cycling and walking.

But there is the detrimental side to the lockdown, and that's how much I miss the church! At Ascot Life Church, along with all other churches in the UK, we now have "virtual services". This means that instead of being in the physical company among brothers and sisters in Christ, there is this figure speaking from the screen of my laptop. Although I can see him and hear him, all he is doing is looking into and speaking to a camera. He has no idea who is in the audience, and each member of the audience have no idea who else is watching - unless comments are posted, which scrolls up alongside the picture. But even then, we as an audience or congregation can't intercommunicate with each other.

As such, a virtual service is a very poor substitute for the real thing. There is no sense of love, no fellowship, no intimacy, no hugging, no greeting, no private news shared personally between members, and most importantly, no coffee & doughnuts! But at least the preach comes over well, and this has caused me to wonder whether the High Speed 2 railway project is already obsolete even before the very first track length is laid, as the purpose of the project is to whisk executives to their conferences as quick as possible. Has the use of computers made this HS2 a white elephant for the national economy? After all, we now have this Zoom app, which delivers pseudo-fellowship communication among partakers.

This also means that no one in my church can meet up over coffee. This used to be a favourite activity, for someone in the church, especially one of the Elders, to meet up at Starbucks. Here, we can advise each other, as I can give advice as well as receive it. Such meetings were very useful during times of crisis, like at the present when my beloved develops a toothache, just as the lockdown has closed every dental surgery in town. Like this, moral and spiritual support is compromised, as the telephone or Zoom could never replace the person-to-person counsel and intimacy which arises from it. Hence the lockdown has given me a sense of isolation, the feeling of remoteness, which even surrounded by talking pictures, fail to meet what Jesus Christ had in mind when he established His Body here on earth.

And this "social distancing." That means when I approach an oncoming pedestrian whilst on the footpath, we both alter our courses to ensure neither of us passes within two metres of each other, although to compensate, we often greet each other with a "hi" or even with the thumb up. It's as if every person not with the household is some kind of abomination. Go too near and you will die. 

And the economy under dire threat. According to the Press, this national lockdown is the end result of advice delivered to our Government by one bureaucrat, Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, who warned that the UK death rate of 250,000 or more could occur unless the Government imposed a total lockdown. The likelihood of this being true scientific modelling by Imperial College is questioned by the previous modelling of the BSE crisis of 2002 as standing with an estimated 150,000 deaths in Britain. The actual number of deaths from CMJ, a related disease in humans, stood at less than 200 overall.*

It's from such sources such as the Imperial College where our ministers had taken fright and have put our national economy into a coma, from which it may not fully recover. Therefore it's meant to be this weekend when our Prime Minister will begin his "slow, steady lifting" of the lockdown. This includes some gardening centres re-opening, allowing picnics in parks, exercising outdoors more than once a day, and a bubble of family members and friends of no more than ten persons are allowed to come together. 

But there be no church meetings, no pubs, no coffee bars or restaurants, no leisure centres, and social distancing still enforced. As Dr John Lee has written, Boris Johnson lacks the courage to kick-start the economy to its pre-pandemic level, lest a second, more severe wave of infection was to occur. Also, according to this doctor who is an expert in pathogenicity, believes that if the virus were to infect more people, (with the vast majority suffering only minor symptoms) it would have to mutate to a less harmful form to preserve itself. Therefore he suggests that younger people should return to work and to live normal lives whilst at the same time the elderly and the vulnerable should be given adequate protection. 

Our PM lacking courage? That's not the same man who promised a golden age of national prosperity for all of us after leaving the EU, is he?

My good friend, PhD holder and geneticist Andrew Milnthorpe have always been sceptical about the lockdown, and he said to me that such action was way over the top. At first, I was taken back by what he had said, surprised at his apparent apathy for the spread of the virus. But since then, two journalists had both written that this national lockdown was a farce and the average Briton should not tremble with fear over the daily reporting of the number of deaths. One of these writers was Dr John Lee, who wrote in the Saturday Essay page of the Daily Mail. The other writer was Peter Hitchens. As the Bible says, when two or three agree, then the evidence is more likely to be factual.

Black Swan Lake, Dinton Pastures. Stock photo.

Maybe this lockdown had just one other benefit. It might have caused more people to think about God. I have heard a report that more people have gotten into prayer as a result of this pandemic. If this was such a good opportunity for the Gospel to be heralded, this is it. If churches such as Ascot Life Church, the Kerith Community Church, and other churches advertise their virtual service on to social websites, chances that more people may tune in, for it's much easier to go online at home than it is to bother driving to the church building full of strangers.

Despite all it's setbacks, God can work through the lockdown, as nothing is impossible with God.

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*Dr John Lee, Daily Mail Newspaper, Saturday, May 9, 2020.