No one is more frustrated than a patient in the hospital who can’t get a diagnosis for their symptoms. Doctors run tests, technicians program state of the art machines, blood is drawn, x-rays, sonograms and CAT scans are taken. Stacks and stacks of the patient’s history, clinical studies and test results are piled up in the diagnostician’s office.

Some of the symptoms could be from that. Some of the symptoms could be this. No one is sure, and because no one is sure, the minimum care is offered. The patient is still uncomfortable, and more than that, the patient is scared. Nothing like a set of unknowns to set the imagination free to conjure up all kinds of reasons for why the patient doesn’t feel well.

The anxiety of the not knowing what’s wrong is almost more difficult to endure than any disease that might be diagnosed.

Once the disease is named, no matter how difficult the diagnosis, there is a noticeable sense of relief in finally knowing what’s wrong. “Now, at least I know,” the patient will say. “Now, we can put together a plan.”

In Genesis 2, God gives Adam permission to name all of the animals. (That certainly explains names like “orangutan” and “ostrich”. I’m sure Adam used up all of the easy names early on in the process.) We easily forget how important this power is. As human beings, as bearers of the Imago Dei, we have the ability to name our environments and experiences. If you think about it, we actually call things into existence as we name them.

This, of course, is one of the major problems with our current experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. We don’t know what to call it. We haven’t even given it a nickname. We’ve had the “swine flu”, “bird flu”, and the “Spanish flu”. But COVID-19…it’s still COVID-19.

This, of course, is one of the major problems with our current experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. We don’t know what to call it. We haven’t even given it a nickname. We’ve had the “swine flu”, “bird flu”, and the “Spanish flu”. But COVID-19…it’s still COVID-19.

Is it the “flu”? Well, sort of, but not exactly. Is it contagious? Yes, very. Can it kill you? Yes, maybe…especially if you’re sick already.

Should I stay in or go about my regular routine? Sure, as long as you wear a mask, wash your hands often, and stay six feet away from everyone else. Like I said, we’re having a hard time putting a name on this one.

In one of the most important books ever written, Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl writes of how he began to recognize the ones who would survive the concentration camps and those who wouldn’t. According to Frankl, those prisoners who could find a reason to endure the hardships of the death camps usually did. Whatever it took, they would find a way to get through the torture of the camps and return to whatever they dreamed was on the other side of their suffering.

To survive the camps, you had to have a reason. You had to be able to determine your “why”. Simon Sinek, thought leader and author, says that in leading people in this postmodern culture, you have to “Start with Why.” If you can’t present a compelling reason for what you’re doing and the way you’re doing it, people won’t follow your lead.

Now, we’re stuck at home, watching the daily statistics of how many people tested positive, how many people were admitted to the hospital, and sadly, how many people died. We wonder when our office will re-open, and others wonder IF their offices will reopen. Students are in school – sort of—most of the nation’s students are engaged in some kind of online experience.

January and February were pretty good months. Then, in March, we were told to go home. There was a virus, that we couldn’t see, that was going to kill all of us. This was the end of the world we were told. Everybody started reading Revelation and adding up all the numbers to see if any added up to 666.

2020 has become a year that we can’t explain. And that’s a problem. If we can’t find a reason why, if we can’t give this moment a reason, we may not survive it. I don’t mean we’ll all fall over dead, but there’s more than one way to die. For most of us it happens not when our heart stops beating, but when we decide to stop living.

It’s not the suffering itself that overwhelms us but suffering with no meaning. A mother in labor endures a lot of pain, but she celebrates her pain because her child is being born. The word in every gym is “no pain, no gain”. Most of us can endure suffering if we know the reason for our suffering.

But it’s time like these, days and days of mind-numbing quarantine, that seem to drag on forever, that saps the strength from our souls.

If someone could just tell us “why”, we’d be OK.

But it’s time like these, days and days of mind-numbing quarantine, that seem to drag on forever, that saps the strength from our souls.
If someone could just tell us “why”, we’d be OK.

Well, that “someone” is each of us. These moments will mean whatever we say they mean. God has given us the power to name, the power to call something a name, and thereby, define its reality.

Are these days the results of failed policies and botched decisions by our nation’s leadership? Are we the victims of clumsy regulations and greedy corporations that have robbed us of our happiness?

We are if we say we are.

Or, has the pandemic made obvious the things we already knew to be true? Church attendance has been in decline for years. We’ve known this. COVID-19 made it impossible for us to ignore this reality anymore. Now, churches are going to have to make the hard decisions we should have made years ago, but we’ll do it this time. Why? We’ll have the pandemic to blame.

In my own life, I have realized – to my utter dismay – how many hours I’ve spent being engaged in things that don’t matter. I’ve made some changes, and when my friends ask why, I blame the pandemic.

Opportunity or chaos? Like most things, COVID-19 is a mixture of both. We didn’t cause the pandemic. It just showed up. But what the pandemic is – what it will have meant when it leaves – depends on us.

We have the power to name.

And it matters what you call it.