Day Seventeen of Being Closed - Hide and Seek

One of the best parts of our ministry as a church is that we own and run a church nursery school. This is a wonderful place filled with love and warmth provided by an awesome set of staff. It has grown and developed down through many years to be a place that won the best school award for our whole city last year.

While many nurseries have chosen to close ours is committed to staying open to serve the children of key workers. The children still there in these lockdown days have parents who are doctors, nurses and pharmacists as well as supermarket shelf stockers. Where usually there are a hundred children in and out each week the numbers have massively reduced down to just a handful or so. But we are open and those children will be cared for and loved. The staff have said that the nursery play ground has been a particular benefit to some children who would otherwise spend all their time enclosed in flats.

The church has always supported the nursery with regular visits and it has been my joy to make those times to tell a story and sing a song happen in these last couple of weeks. The problem is how to explain our current way of life to a small child of 2 or 3 years old?

As I walked through the very, very empty city streets it occurred to me that everyone was in a way hiding from the virus; that this time of fighting corona virus was in fact just like a global game of hide and seek. Those who hide the best stay safe and survive. The ones who hide successfully end the game alive. The last thing that any of us want is for the virus to find us.

The job for most of our nation is to stay inside and stay well. With a warm spring weekend approaching this is going to be a bit problematic. Yet this is the game that we have to play if we want to emerge from this weird dysfunctional form of existence anytime soon. Our playing well also protects those who can't hide but have to put their own lives on the line in ambulances, A&E departments and intensive care wards up and down the land. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica, "make it your ambition to lead a quiet life." For the next two weeks this should be our goal. Stay well hidden and survive. Then we and our NHS workers may all get to come out and play.