Faith Works 4-4-20
Jeff Gill
Disoriented is a word with many meanings
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In the ancient world, the cosmos of the Bible as it was written down, the core direction was the East.
Our more modern scientific technological age uses magnetic North as a compass bearing, an earthly version of the heavenly pole star. Maps and our mental models all put North at the top.
But older Roman and Greek and Hebrew maps put at the top, the anchor point of their maps, not North, but East. The Orient, the East. The Latin word "oriens" means "rising," "the direction in which the sun appears" (depending on your dictionary and etymology).
So to orient a map means – then – to put East at the top. Oriens, orient, the East. Today, orienting a map means putting North in its place, at the top, and orienting your compass arrow pointing reliably to the north with the map's directional arrow. Our planet's magnetic field creates a compelling focus towards the north, and True North is how we orient a map today. Even if the word "orient" means . . . East.
Head turning, isn't it? I know. And right now, we are all DIS-oriented. Disorientation is common. Our standard points of reference: leaving for work, heading to school, home versus activities outside of the home, they're all disoriented. Everyday schedules are disoriented.
And as I've been working through these last few weeks, I am myself disoriented. My East is now North, or maybe not even that well oriented. Everything is at least a quarter turn off kilter. I am in many ways a typical American male, and whether as a Christian minister or community member, I define myself in reference to my father.
Dad was an active force in my life, and often when I encountered a question or a curiosity, my first reaction was "Dad will find that interesting." A book I'd read, a situation I was in the middle of, the times and the seasons in general: what would Dad think about that? He was my East, my basic orientation.
East is now shadowed, darkened, set aside. East is no longer the primary orientation. Now I'm trying to adjust to a new True North, magnetic and scientific and objective and impersonal. Where the compass points, which should be good enough. It works for many, after all.
Yet it's still new, and different, and disorienting. If my Dad is dead, and he's not my primary orientation for navigating through life, then . . . sure, there's the compass in my hand and the other navigation tools he's helped me master through the years, but it is still . . . disorienting. And I am . . . disoriented.
No less so are many of us. Without Sunday worship, at 10 or 10:30 or 11 am, even Saturday night or Monday morning, it is truly disorienting to not have a gathering for praise and thankfulness and petition with the Lord our God. I am being blessed weekly by friends and colleagues who are putting the basic outlines of worship and communion and preaching online, but to not have the experience of going to a place, and coming together in a space, and worshiping as I've done my whole life, minister or not, it is truly disorienting. My East is misplaced, and there's not even a solid North to latch onto.
Yet Christendom made our way from an Eastern, Oriental focus for navigation through maps to a magnetic and Northerly orientation. It had to be confusing at moments, but we made the shift. We will all navigate this pole shift of a transition, from public worship to online services and back again. Some things will change, and in fact much, after it's all said and done, will not.
None of which means it isn't terribly, painfully, confusingly disoriented. I know that's how I feel right now. But as the compass needle swings back and forth and back and forth and back, it will at some point settle down again, and orient us, and show us in which direction we should go.
Jeff Gill is a writer and storyteller and pastor in Licking County; tell him how you've felt disoriented at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
