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Scientists called it the Anthropause.
The rest of us called it the life-altering, routine-disrupting, hope-challenging COVID-19 pandemic.
Five years ago, the World Health Organization alerted humanity to the highly contagious virus that has now claimed more than 7 million lives.
Medical personnel labored beyond the point of exhaustion. Schools, churches, and restaurants closed. Work shifted from conference rooms to spare bedrooms. Teams played “home games” in front of empty stadiums. Everyone learned how to use Zoom. People abandoned handshakes and hugs, wore masks, and suddenly became aware how often they touched their faces.
Earlier this year, Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times authored a piece called “15 Lessons Scientists Learned About Us When the World Stood Still.”
Researchers quickly realized the Anthropause was the opportunity of a lifetime. What would happen to schoolkids, families, communities, corporations, nations, and Nature when people, en masse, retreated from life outside their homes?
Some of the discoveries were easy to predict.
Education took a hit. Miller writes, “Remote school wasn’t enough. Across the country, in rich and poor districts, and among students of different races, test scores in reading and math fell. Many students still haven’t caught up.” The sooner children were able to return to their classrooms, the better they did.
Some findings were worthwhile and a little off-beat.
During 2020, doctors reported only 6,300 foot injuries from women wearing high heels. “Only” is meaningful when compared to the previous four years, which averaged 16,000 such incidents. The pandemic thus gave us concrete proof that women wearing high heels at work and social gatherings is both an uncomfortable and dangerous fashion choice.
Some discoveries fell into the category of, “That seems about right.”
With parents and children sheltering together in place, kitchens, family rooms, and playrooms suddenly became a lot more cluttered. Dishes piled up. When researchers studied who actually took on the extra housework, it was dads (typically) who patted themselves on the back for heroically pitching in. But moms, in almost every case, did the vast majority of the work.
Then there were the observable changes in the world of nature.
What happened when people momentarily gave the outdoors back to other creatures?
Miller notes that “animals began breeding more and traveling farther. Dolphins whistled longer, birds changed their songs, sea turtles laid more eggs.” In some locales, the delicate balance of predators and invasive species was thrown out of whack. Crows and raccoons, which have fully accommodated themselves over the years to life in crowded cities, mysteriously tended to retreat.
Both our presence and our absence in the natural world, in other words, actually matter.
Scientists also noted what happened when people “rediscovered” Nature.
Many individuals, unable to crowd into an AMC theater or Macy’s or their favorite bar, took nature walks. A study in Hong Kong revealed that those just down the street from urban green spaces were more contented than those who felt boxed in. “A study in nine countries,” Miller notes, “found that access to nature – even a balcony or garden at home – buffered the stress of lockdowns and improved people’s moods.” Those with windows looking out on vegetation felt measurably happier.
None of that should come as a surprise to students of the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Human life, according to the book of Genesis, first flourished in a garden. Everything God created was “good.”
What’s the first thing God declared to be “not good”? “It’s not good for the Man [or Adam] to be alone” (Genesis 2:28). This wasn’t the moment, by the way, when God connected Adam to Eve. Instead, he introduced him to an extravaganza of animals and birds. As America’s exploding pet industry confirms, furry, feathery, and even scaly creatures can be wonderful life companions.
Only recently have pastors and preachers begun to grasp that God’s instruction to the first humans to “work and take care of” the Garden of Eden was a call to stewardship, not to thoughtless domination (Genesis 2:15).
People of faith have all too often cultivated a militaristic attitude toward Nature, with endless talk about conquering the mountains, taming the rivers, clearing the forests, and overcoming the threats of wildlife.
What’s a healthier way to see Nature?
It is a treasure that glorifies God.
Instead of imagining the world as little more than raw material available for our benefit, followers of Jesus are increasingly coming to see that the cosmos was created for God’s glory and pleasure. It is a masterpiece of beauty and complexity that is worth sustaining at all costs.
This, by the way, is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue – a political football to be kicked back and forth between progressives, conservatives, radicals, and reactionaries.
Loving God surely includes loving and preserving the world he has made.
Especially now that we have evidence that our willingness to live out that vision might actually make the dolphins whistle longer.