Fermata 3 Jun 2022: Resting with COVID
Taking a Note TO Rest
Fermata is the weekly newsletter describing some of the past week’s highlights from Notes of Rest, my contemplative-musical retreat that interweaves text, music, and questions for the sake of cultivating stillness, introspection, and creativity in communities so that all may rest. I'd love to host a Notes of Rest for your church, seminary, or affinity group. Feel free to reply to this email to start the conversation! (I also sometimes include updates about The JuJu Exchange, my jazz-electronic fusion band.)
Upcoming Appearances:
POSTPONED UNTIL FALL Notes of Rest at North Shore United Methodist Church (otherwise
June 5)
Hi everyone,
Wow. These days the news just keeps piling up! I hope you’re able to choose health and name the chaos in your life as such. One such difficulty for me this week was a different kind of Notes of Rest session: getting COVID for the first time. The sickness has reminded me why I started this retreat in the first place: that no matter the restlessness surrounding us, we can choose to give and receive notes of rest for ourselves and our communities nevertheless.
Part of the reason I started Notes of Rest was because I wanted to encourage in myself and in others the kind of deep character formation I saw in my faith-filled, joyous grandparents who lived with all sorts of physical and social pain. For instance, I wanted/want to live with the joy of the Lord of my 90+ year-old Grandma, who smiled her way into heaven despite her various health challenges down the stretch. I wanted/want to live with the self-dignity of my Papa, who held his head high all his life despite the fact mainstream history never acknowledged his role as a Black gunner in the Navy during WWII. By cleaving to joy and dignity despite their pain, my grandparents modeled rest for me and so many. Now I proudly share that inheritance with the world through Notes of Rest.
Left to right: Papa & Grandmommy (Ma’s Parents), Grandma & Grandpa (My Dad’s Parents)
And so when COVID came knocking this week with a gang of symptoms (windedness, lightheadedness, fatigue, slight loss of taste, big ol’ fever, bad cough, joint soreness), I had to slow down and practice what I preached. I had to cancel all of my in-person appearances for the next week - The JuJu Exchange, Notes of Rest, church - and had to sleep a whole lot more during the days to let my body heal. (Thank God for the vaccine and booster and my loving wife and parents!) Moreover, I had to decide to what my attitude was going to be during this. Sure I can play the song “It Is Well With My Soul,” but is it actually? When “sorrows like cease billows roll” over my life, do I still have a song to sing to God? When I am sick, do I remain generous like my Grandmommy? (Once when I came to visit her in the assisted living facility, she snuck me some of her food because she wanted to make sure I ate even though I was full and she needed to eat.) When my body hurts to move and I can’t get my own groceries, can I smile and still praise God like my Grandma?
Pain always invites us to turn inwards and focus on ourselves at the exclusion of all else. If I had gotten COVID before Notes of Rest, I would’ve won an Oscar for how dramatic I’d have been about how sick I was. But Notes of Rest has helped me pattern myself after the spiritual wisdom of my grandparents such that I now ask different questions. (My wife Carmen, a pediatric resident, is also quite thankful that the theatrics have subsided.) Of course one should extend self-compassion in times of need, but we don’t need to get stuck there. To this end, I draw my main Notes of Rest inspiration from Jesus, whose selflessness wasn’t thwarted by the humiliation of the cross (“Father forgive them for they know now what they do”) even as he sought to his personal needs (“I am thirsty”).
If you are someone who lives with chronic pain, I pray that this Fermata encourages you. I salute you, and am thankful to be held accountable by your witness. My mild bout with COVID is not the same as what you daily experience, but I am thankful that this has provided a small invitation to enter deeper consciousness of what you go through. You are not alone in your trials. I hope my music and words can accompany you through your trials.
If you are an elder, who sees more years behind you than before you, I pray that this Fermata has encouraged you also to live with a sense of hope and joy. Our society is ageist, and I lament how we ignore you. Just know that you always have a place here in Notes of Rest. There is so much you have to give, even down to your smile.
And if you’re like me, someone who is generally healthy and who sees more years ahead of me than behind me, I pray that this Fermata reminds us to pay attention to the character we are forming. As my Auntie said about the marvel of my Grandma’s cheery disposition ‘til the end, “the way you live is the way you age.” I pray that we can think about our daily practices of thankfulness, faithfulness, dignity, and praise, as investments in lifelong formation. Should we live to be 90, how will we have aged? Will we have grown into balms of rest that ground others, or into festers of restlessness that corrode others?
For us all, may we become people who can more readily receive notes of rest from our gracious Creator and give notes of rest to ourselves and to an exhausted world.
abundantly,
Julian
P.S. Here is a podcast I did a few months ago while I was in Seattle for Notes of Rest. This was a dope conversation. Discipleship Lab: Music, Theology, Imagination and Faith with Julian Reid on Apple Podcasts
P.P.S. Some of you may know I always wear orange at shows. I do so to stand in solidarity with Black boys in prison forced to wear orange because they’re deemed especially dangerous or have sought to escape. But going forward I also wear orange to protest gun violence. These atrocities will continue until they don’t, and so I labor in hope towards that day. You can learn more about the cause here.
Profile photo from Unsplash.