Technology Meets Faith Amidst this Novel Plague

Passover and Easter have much in common. Some of it is tragic—pogroms and blood libels. Some of it is symbology—the Seder, the Last Supper, and the Pascal Lamb. And some of it is about timing: springtime, renewal, rebirth.

This year, they share another, more novel commonality: The Plague of 2020. They share a world where social distancing, quarantine and lockdown are keeping people from celebrating with their families at services, in home, at restaurants or resorts or wherever, and instead, are causing a surge of creative outreach and connection to ensure that “alone” need not mean “lonely.”

To me this is a holy confluence of all that I have been writing and thinking about since I began my own journey with coronavirus (from which I have thankfully recovered).

The first is the human side of technology: the enablement factor vs. the worship cult. We have turned to technology to facilitate the most basic of human needs: to connect. And it is our own deep creativity and longing for that hug, that smile, the embrace, that makes the amazing technology available to us so valuable. No deeply immersive digital experiences needed to bolster the power we have at our fingertips—just simple humanity, displayed on a screen, where I can be myself with you. Where I can smile at you.

The second is the message of our holidays. For those who celebrate either Easter or Passover, both are holidays of renewal, of new beginnings, of fresh starts and new thinking.

Neither holiday, nor its religious beginning, was ever about “a New Normal.” In fact, it’s the opposite: both were about being dynamic, evolving, exciting, and yes, while time might have created a stultified normal, the confluence of pandemic, technology and holidays might just push us back to their real roots.

It makes no difference if you are a believer, practitioner, followers of a different faith or simply agnostic. We can all learn from these two events observed within two great and lasting faiths.

People first and yearning to extend beyond a new normal state of being…Listen:

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining – they just shine” – Dwight L. Moody

And there you have it…we are the light. Nothing more, nothing less. Be safe, be well, be dynamic and shun normal.

What do you think?