Transplanting and Sustaining: Covid-19 Special Issue

All We (Can) Do
Jadan Anderson
(1) A sunk cost is unrecoverable.
(2) The number one mistake in rational
decision-making is basing decisions on
what has already been lost.
The agent should move on, quickly
now. Without looking back, continue
forward. Dwelling on sunk costs
is only beneficial insofar as the agent
can reflect on that experience of loss
in order to prevent, as far as possible,
a recurrence. I was taught (and I do
agree) that this system of moving on
is efficient in a world where losses are
inevitable. In some ways, I also think
this system squares quite nicely with
the biblical motif of forsaking what
is behind and pressing on in stories
of transplantation, of conversion, of
evangelism.[1] More than avoiding
being turned into a pillar of salt, moving
on can be an act of faith.
I am not proud to admit that the news
of COVID-19 spreading did not really
occupy my thoughts until it locked my
dormitory door. Far from feeling mostly
grief or even fear at the pandemic
rapidly taking lives and life as we knew
it, I was irritated at how much of the
time I spent this academic year had
been rendered unrecoverable.
We were all in the middle of something
before lockdown effectively put a
stop to it. Before being confined to our
makeshift homes and government-issued
twelve-foot-wide bubbles of
space, we were planning concerts and
vacations and summer plans. We were
sacrificing sleep to marginally more
polished essays and extracurricular
loves. We were building relationships.
The world beyond Yale was doing
the same: planning, building, sacrificing.
And though some of these doings
have merely changed in the medium
through which they are being done,
we have all experienced sunk costs of
time, sleep, mental and emotional energy.
But, of course, that loss was a risk
inherent before the coronavirus outbreak
and will continue to be long after
humans have developed resistance
and the economy has recovered. I had
forgotten that anything and everything
anyone does can at any point become
a sunk cost. All of the choices we make
are choices under uncertainty––no
outcome is guaranteed––and the
shocks of this viral outbreak have not
really disrupted reality but rather are
forcing us to reckon with it.[2]
The illusion of certainty has emerged
as a prominent theme in all of the literature
surrounding the crisis, which
calls for a re-evaluation—or recollection—of
everything, from the vulnerability
of our impoverished, to the
weaknesses in our healthcare system,
to the consequences of our tendencies
toward discrimination.[3] It is also a
common undercurrent in the slew of
at once convicting and edifying articles
speaking directly to coronavirus
in relation to our Christianity, which
encourage us to get creative with the
ways we worship, implore us to invest
in the communities in which we find
ourselves, and remind us that lament
is holier than fear. Generally, we have
come to recognize our false sense of
permanency. Now, we feel an urgency
to count the illusion as sunk and simply
move on.
But the faithful thing to do in this time
may not be to move on to whatever
new “normal” lies ahead. Well, at least
I don’t think we should move on so
quickly. The mere fact of uncertainty
is not the lesson we are meant to learn.
The proverbs taught us that lesson a
long time ago.[4]
The real lesson through this uncertainty
is—I think—actually one about
trust, particularly where we place it.
From the beginning, the only sure thing
has been Him alone. Deuteronomy 31
reads, “Be strong and courageous. Do
not fear or be in dread... for it is the
LORD your God who goes with you.
He will not leave you or forsake you”
[5]; Isaiah 54, “For the mountains may
depart and the hills be removed, but
my steadfast love shall not depart from
you, and my covenant of peace shall
not be removed”[6]; Romans 8, “For
I am sure that neither death nor life...
nor anything else all in creation, will
be able to separate us from the love of
God.”[7]
Some of the anxiety and sense of injustice
at relocation (the latter, at least
on my part), some of the temptation
to hoard groceries and amass rolls of
toilet paper, is symptomatic of the
knowingly or unknowingly misplaced
trust in the buildings, places, routines,
living conditions, communities, and
loved ones in and alongside which
we’ve been blessed to consistently live.
This trust, this dependency, is meant
for God. If we move on too quickly,
I am afraid we will forego the mercy
(yes, mercy) we are being shown in
this time. That is, the chance to learn
and relearn how to rightly place our
sense of security in God. After all, He
is ubiquitous and unchanging in place
and time; chaotic home lives and suffocating
solitude are not excluded.
Though I’m not sure what that looks
like in our individual walks, surely remembering
and re-evaluating come
first.
And if I can offer another encompassing
idea: the other key lesson we
learn through this uncertainty is one
of value. We make choices based on
what we value, and we decide to do
what is most likely to get us what we
want or as much of what we want as
we can get. While I have realized the
extent to which I put my trust in the
permanence of life as I knew it at
Yale, I’ve also had to reckon with the
value I place, as we all do, on my output:
papers written, concerts conducted,
meetings attended, advice given,
grades achieved.[8]
Here’s the thing: it is written that when
we have given ourselves over to Him,
we become slaves to righteousness.
[9] Our new command is to do all in
love.[10] As Christians, then, in terms
of what we do, I think we should be
experiencing far fewer sunk costs. To
do something in love means that we
are no longer moving toward a value
based on output, toward whatever end
or output or destination we desire. To
do something in love means that in
the moving, in the doing, we have already
succeeded. I will remember the
costs in time, sleep, tears, energy; I’ll
also remember the basic tenet of our
faith, that in God what seems a loss is
not so. In remembering, if I find that
I have done anything in love, I cannot
in good faith count it as a sunk cost.
It is gain. He is giving us a chance
to relearn that. When this passes, we
should and will move on. I pray that
we do so wholly. But I don’t want to
move so quickly as to miss how He is
moving now.
[1] “But one thing I do: forgetting what lies
behind and straining forward to what lies
ahead, I press on toward the goal for the
prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus.” - Philippians 3:13-14, ESV
[2] DeLorenzo, Dear Students: There is
No Afterwards
[3] Coronavirus & Quarantine: What Big
Questions Can We Be Asking?
[4] “Do not boast about tomorrow, for
you do not know what a day may bring.” -
Proverbs 27:1, ESV
[5] Deuteronomy 31:6
[6] Isaiah 54:10
[7] Romans 8:38-39
[8] Hopkinson, It’s Time We Talk About
Productivity
[9] “But thanks be to God, that you who
were once slaves of sin have become obedient
from the heart...and, having been set
free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
- Romans 6:17-18, ESV
[10] “Let all that you do be done in love.”
- 1 Corinthians 16:14, ESV
.
10 Covid-19: Spring 2020 logos . 11