In a blog post published a couple of days ago, Canadian theologian and writer Brad Jersak comments, “Covid-19 has generated a wide array of involuntary responses and reactions. These range from panic to courage, hoarding to sharing, alienation to creative community.” Then he asks, “How has it changed your lifestyle? How has your way of being undergone a reset in a healthier direction? Might these new habits be an invitation for a permanent course correction?” I am minded of that instruction of last resort for mal-functioning mobile phones – “reset device to factory settings.” Hit the button and you have no idea what you might lose, but things just might work again. 

Now, it seems, everyone is talking about a reset. One man who has been talking about it for years is the environmental activist, cultural critic, farmer, and poet of the American wilderness, Wendell Berry. He is an avid avoider of screens and all things electronic. Now 85 years old, he moves slowly, purposefully, to a different rhythm. A true prophet of the soil, here is one of his best-known poems, entitled “The Peace of Wild Things.”
 
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
 
Today’s Psalm is attributed to David from a time when he was hiding for his life, isolated in a dark cave, away from every secure thing he had ever known. David was in a wild uncertain world, but it gave him the chance of a “reset to factory settings” as he discovered the God who was intent on fulfilling God’s purpose for his life – which in his case turned out to be nothing less than initiating a new royal dynasty for Israel. David had no idea that this kingdom (beginning in a time of trouble) would one day be reborn as the Kingdom of God!
 
Psalm 57:1-3
Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
    for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
    until the destroying storms pass by.
I cry to God Most High,
    to God who fulfils his purpose for me.
He will send from heaven and save me,
    he will put to shame those who trample on me.    
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.

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Chris Denne