The Rev. Randy Bush: What fills the space between us?

Dog walks are now both an excuse and a necessity. They are an excuse to get out of the house and walk around the neighborhood. And they are how we see other people during these days of “stay at home” orders and pandemic precautions.

To the dog, the walks are just what they’ve always been — an opportunity to do what needs to be done outdoors, a chance to sniff and study and mark a territory that makes sense to dogs, if invisible to human eyes. A dog walk with a human also means negotiating bubbles of personal space — a government decreed 6 feet between me and anyone else out for a stroll.

We have become skilled at estimating what 6 feet looks like. It is slightly more than the outstretched, non-touching arms of two adults. It is an invisible couch. It is far enough so that breath exhaled is not air inhaled, but still a space that can accommodate a reasonable conversation between friends. It is a space wide enough to hold three or four FedEx boxes, depending on what you ordered. It is the two steps back that the delivery person takes after dropping off the take-out dinner order by the front door. In normal times, such distancing would have been a mark of distrust and suspicion, but we know these are not normal times.

To understand many things you must reach out of your own condition. — Mary Oliver

Walking the dog the other day I saw two women chatting on a front yard seated in chairs 6 feet apart. They seemed happy; I didn’t notice more than that, because the mask I wear routinely causes my glasses to fog over slightly. Often it’s all I can do to see what the dog is up to. I miss seeing more. I miss a lot of things — handshakes, hugs, not having to wipe off the groceries I unpack from bags or worrying about whether the kind woman who cuts my hair will have a business when this is finally over. Our lives have shifted from childhood games of London Bridge and holding hands while spinning circles to unrelenting matches of tag, trying hard not to be touched or designated “it.”

What fills the space between us? Mostly questions, some anxieties and fear, a healthy dose of frustration plus impatience. We tell ourselves that we keep our distance so that we are safe and others are also protected. The 6 feet between us feels crowded with all our neighbors, people we’ve never met, even people from lands we’ve never visited — because only if we all keep our distance and they keep their distance, can we get through this.

The church building is closed, so worship is now done remotely. It is an imperfect solution, but it has moments of honesty. We watch the services seeking out the familiar in a time of so much strangeness: a prayer we would say each week, a hymn that we always liked, faces of those we trust who are (God bless ‘em) doing the best they can. Yet sometimes the words of Scripture are more pointed than ever before. I was hungry, but you gave me no food. I was thirsty, but you gave me nothing to drink. I was alone, but you didn’t call or write or check in. I was broke and afraid, but nothing was offered to make things better. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but those thoughts are always close to the surface when we stop long enough to wonder how others are doing.

What will church be like once this season passes? Parishes that have long emphasized physically receiving the sacrament of bread and wine are now forced to focus on other aspects of ministry. Will there be new wisdom about life together that doesn’t center on an altar? Congregations and worship halls that set themselves apart by screens, video feeds and “virtual church” are no longer any different from every other house of faith that is streaming some form of worship into homes and handheld devices. Will people of faith find new commonalities once the medium stops being confused with the message?

Saddest of all, during this season of disruption and vulnerability, something raw and violent was caught on camera that has sent shock waves through our land. A cruel death by kneeling on a non-resisting, handcuffed man truly scared us. Because if this is how we close the distance between us, heaven help us.

“Only connect.” — E.M. Forster

For right now, the space between us is filled with extended dog leashes, invisible yardsticks and air. But as we walk, we shout greetings across the divide more often than we used to, mostly because we are hungry for interactions. These past weeks we have learned to see people, who risk so much for our sakes, moving about in that in-between space, and we’re grateful for them. Belatedly, to be sure. And because of the racial tensions arising from the death of George Floyd, we have been forced to look across the divide, sad that it exists at all. Sad that so many have been estranged and treated as the “other.”

When we are allowed to move into that space between us again, I think our first steps will be chastened. It should not have come to this. Too many died because of the way we chose to move about this planet before all this. We have now seen too much to go back to what was done before.

That is why something else is in the space between us: the knowledge that we can learn from our mistakes. We can see with clearer eyes and unfogged glasses those people we overlooked before and have harmed even now. We can continue to reach across the divide to help, to support, to connect.

Hope is in the space between us. Seeing that is both an opportunity and a necessity.

The Rev. Randy Bush is senior pastor of East Liberty Presbyterian Church.