Reflections by Rev. Bill Weaver

There’s a song from way before my time that says:

“There's got to be a morning after,

if we can hold on through the night.

We have a chance to find the sunshine; 

let’s keep on looking for the light.” (I think it’s the theme song from a 1972 movie called The Poseidon Adventure, but I’m not going to say that’s authoritative …)

Anyhow, I was driving to church last week, when the radio announcer stated something to the effect of “today marks the five-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic restrictions in Alberta.” I couldn’t believe it, but sure enough … March 12, 2020 … time flies …

Five years ago, the world changed in ways we could not have imagined. The pandemic arrived like a storm, scattering us into isolation, silencing our shared spaces, and disrupting the ways we lived, worked, worshiped, and cared for one another. For many, it was a time of profound loss—the loss of loved ones, routines, security, and connection. Even now, as we move forward, we are still reckoning with the weight of what we endured.

And yet, in the midst of this upheaval, something else happened: We were reminded of what truly matters.

At the height of lockdown, when the days blurred together in isolation, I found myself slowly fraying under the weight of it all—working from home while three kids struggled through online school, longing for normalcy, aching for the presence of community. In the early months, I led worship in my living room, off a rudimentary setup of my iPhone taped to a scrap 2x4. In an attempt to find something—anything—that could ground me beyond the despair, I picked up a few bottles of craft paint and turned to my living room window.

With clumsy, untrained hands, I painted Easter lilies in the middle of a stained-glass pattern across the glass. It was an amateur effort at best, streaked and uneven, but it was something to focus on. And, more than that, it was a reminder - at least I painted every stroke hoping it would be … a reminder that - even in Lent, even in the long night, our faith has always clung to the promise that morning will come. That there will be an empty tomb. A new day. A dawn that breaks into the deepest darkness and says: this is not the end.

We learned how deeply we need each other—not just in moments of crisis, but in the ordinary, sacred rhythms of daily life. We learned that presence is more than proximity; it is a way of being with one another, of bearing witness to joys and griefs, of showing up in love. And we learned that healing, in its fullest sense, is not just an individual journey, but a communal one.

For many, the years of lockdown brought more than loneliness; they brought a quiet unraveling. The absence of touch, face-to-face conversation, and spontaneous connection left many feeling adrift. Even now, as gatherings have resumed, we carry a deeper awareness of how fragile—and how essential—human connection truly is.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the lives of my elders. Seniors, already vulnerable to isolation before the pandemic, bore an unimaginable weight as restrictions cut them off from family and community. Many spent months, even years, without in-person visits, their lifelines reduced to phone calls and window waves. The toll on their mental and physical health was profound, revealing how easily the most vulnerable among us can be forgotten.

This reality is a call to us now. As we rebuild - and I do believe we are still rebuilding - how do we ensure that our communities are places of true belonging—not just for those who can easily participate, but for those whose voices and presence we too often overlook?

For faith communities, the return to in-person gatherings has been both a gift and a challenge. Some have come back eagerly, longing for shared meals, communal singing, and the warmth of being together. Others have struggled—either because of new habits, lingering anxiety, or a deeper questioning of what faith and church should look like moving forward.

But if the past five years have taught us anything, it is this: living our faith is not just about words or doctrine. It is about presence.

It is about showing up for one another in the flesh, offering a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, a table where all are welcome. It is about recognizing that the divine is not found only in sacred texts or sermons, but in the quiet, everyday acts of love and care we offer to one another … and the moments of grace we offer to ourselves.

And yet, presence also requires action. If our churches and communities are to be places of healing, they must also be places of justice.

The pandemic did not create inequality; it revealed it. It showed us, in stark relief, how those already struggling—the poor, the unhoused, the chronically ill—were pushed even further into crisis. It reminded us that economic injustice is not an abstract issue; it is a matter of human dignity.

As people of faith, we cannot turn away from this truth. We are called not only to comfort, but to advocate. Not only to pray, but to act. And as communities of faith began to gather again for in-person gatherings, we found ourselves asking important-yet-hard questions: how do we ensure that no one in our community is left without support? How do we advocate for systems of care and compassion that do not just offer charity, but create lasting change? How do we make sure our spaces—both sacred and secular—are truly inclusive, not just in welcome, but in practice?

The Way of Jesus has always been a call to love—not in sentiment alone, but in tangible, lived-out ways. The call to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and set the captives free is not a poetic metaphor; it is an invitation into the work of justice and mercy.

Five years later, we are still healing. I don’t believe that anyone got through COVID unscathed. We are still learning how to carry the weight of the what we have endured, how to navigate the complexities of grief, hope, and rebuilding. Those lessons take time. But the lessons of these years were never meant to leave us where they found us. 

Maybe you, too, remember those first days and months in 2020. Maybe you remember where you were, and what you were doing. Maybe you don’t, or maybe you do, but you wish you didn’t. Wherever you find yourself, moving forward takes grace. Building communities where no one is forgotten requires choosing presence over convenience, justice over complacency, love over fear. Faith is not just belief—it is action. It is the work of showing up, again and again, for one another.

And through it all, remember we are not alone. The God who sustained and held and loved us through the fear and uncertainty still walks beside us now, still calls us toward life, still leads us through Lent’s waiting toward resurrection. Because, as the song says, “there’s got to be a morning after.”