The Silver Lining: Is there any way we can keep it?

The pandemic and the shutdown

A strange silence broods over the land.

It is early April 2020 and Australia is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Attempting to halt the movement of the virus, the government has placed severe restrictions on everyone. Night after night, television brings news of more severe restrictions. Even families can no longer get together. Anything to protect us ‘oldies’. Shopping must be done alone, for necessities only, and we must keep one point five metres between us and the next shopper. And this is after the initial panic buying, when frightened shoppers grabbed armfuls of all necessities. Toilet paper ran out in most stores! Fear is etched on people’s faces. The news each night tells of multitudes of deaths in various countries, statistics growing nightly. Health workers are catching the virus as they help the sick. Some die. Businesses fold as restrictions have forbidden shoppers, tourists and others, so alarming numbers are out of work, with long queues outside every Centrelink.



I was lucky. All I had to cancel was several get-togethers with friends. Church and church-related meetings are live-streamed or done on Zoom. I could go grocery shopping if I kept my ‘social distance’ from other people.



 It has a weird feel to it. Is this it? Is this pre-apocalyptic?



The silver lining

There is another side to all this, too.  A silver lining. A sobering one.

Each afternoon I take a solitary walk around the streets, along the edge of the arboretum by the river, enjoying the beauty. I soak in the unusual quiet. I am awed by the eerie silence. Bound by legal restrictions and often cowed by fear, most people stay indoors. We’re painfully aware that in many countries, death stalks the streets day and night, ravaging society.



As I walk amid the solemn silence, I wonder what God is saying in all this. A voice whispers, ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Ps. 46:10).



In this slow, quiet though tragic world, I gaze at the beauty of creation. The skies are clear. A light shower of rain brings moisture and joy to the forest beside me and birds twitter and sing. A whipbird’s sharp moist call pierces the silence. Another woman passes me and smiles, ‘Hello, how are you coping?’ ‘Well, thanks.’ It’s the first time we’ve spoken in my four years here. She waves as she goes on her way. A couple in their garden call out, ‘How are you?’ This is not an area where people often communicate but friendliness and smiles have emerged. Gardens are flourishing as people have time to tend them. I pause to admire a rose and ponder on this phenomenon.



A silent pall rests over the land but clatter and smog have lifted. There is a nervous peace.



It’s not just here either.



In Northern India a little boy sees stars, whole constellations, for the first time ever in a clear black sky as the air is freed of pollution. Nearby, in the daylight, people gather and gaze at the Himalayas emerging from the smog, gleaming with snow, visible to them for the first time.



It’s amazing what we don’t see.



The Glass House Mountains

Several years ago, my friend Glen invited me and my sister to have a picnic with her. Our destination was a lookout up in the beautiful Glass House Mountains.










When we arrived, clouds had engulfed the mountains. It was cold and damp. We piled on anoraks and shivered our way through the misty air to the lookout. Where were the Glass Houses? We were surrounded by a white world with no view at all. Heavy mist enveloped the entire landscape in its white blanket. Hills and valleys – and the Glass House Mountains – were invisible.



As we gazed, the mist swirled and shifted, and huge dark shapes nudged their way out of their white shroud. One after another, enormous rock-faced mountains appeared. The Glass House Mountains. We watched in awe as the white world was replaced by a group of large, strikingly-shaped towers of rock (the Glass House Mountains are actually the cores of old volcanoes). A giant, God-made pottery exhibition.

They had been completely hidden behind the dense white mist.

The pall begins to lift


So now we begin to see the invisible pall of the virus lifting, and only God knows what the next phase looks like. I believe if we learn to ‘Be still’ and hear his whispers, we will have his safety.


In a quiet, slower world, we can see God’s creation and at times hear his voice. But probably we will soon – of necessity – re-create the noise and smog that drowns out the simple beauty he has given us to enjoy.


Fortunately, God continues to whisper to us. Even amid our noisy, glary world, he finds ways to speak to our hearts.

‘Be still and know that I am God’ Ps 46: 10