Transplanting and Sustaining: Covid-19 Special Issue

Exile: Transplanting and Sustaining
Bradley Yam
It wasn’t too long ago that I was walking
through cross campus with a beloved
friend on an uncharacteristically
warm February afternoon, watching
Yalies bask in the sun on the grass,
thinking to myself that I was so blessed
to be here, so blessed to be among
friends, so blessed to feel at home. Later
that afternoon, we were chatting about
Yale’s architecture, and she mentioned
she could see the seal of Connecticut
on a building from her dorm window
and its motto “Qui Transtulit Sustinet”
–– or “She/He who transplanted
sustains.” It spoke directly to my deep
fear: what would happen to this home
when I graduate? Would it all fade
away like a dream, those bright college
years? Would I be able to transplant
well? How could these good things
be sustained? Fast forward a month,
and my head of college, Prof Near, is
hosting us at a Saybrook dinner just
before Salovey announced the closure
of school. The conversation was rife
with speculation. I gazed down at the
dinner plates we ate on, the old Saybrook
plates that the dining hall had
used. I started. They bore the same
words etched indelibly in my mind’s
eye: “Qui Transtulit Sustinet.” The order
to evacuate the dorms came soon
after. What has happened since then,
you already know.
So we find ourselves prematurely uprooted,
ejected, exiled. Our reckoning
has come early, and we are unprepared.
The question in my mind
remains: what does it mean to be
transplanted? What does it mean to be
sustained?
It doesn’t seem too far a stretch to say
that we are now in a kind of state of
exile as a result of the pandemic.[1]
The question for Christians everywhere
now is how to respond to the
crisis. We may argue that Christianity
actually does best when Christians
do not flee from the crisis but dive in
headfirst to provide care to the community
(x-ref). Some have argued that
the best thing that Christians can do
right now is suspend all church services
and stop meeting together. Andy
Crouch from Praxis Journal instead insists
on the importance of meeting as
the body of Christ but with the highest
levels of hygiene and abiding by the
constraints given to us by our local
health authorities. In a time of chaos
and uprooting, it is more essential than
ever to ensure that we are transplanted
well, and that we grow roots where
we might end up: wherever that might
be. What is the right balance to strike
between listening to the math and listening
to our hearts? How do we be
the salt and light of the earth in a
time ruled by fear, anxiety, loneliness
and claustrophobia? I suggest that we
might think of answers in two ways:
transplanting and sustaining.
Transplanting and Sustaining both the
Body and the Soul
The mathematics of this global pandemic
seem elegant and undeniable.
Quoting a Georgia Tech professor, an
article in WIRED pointed out that,
given the assumption that 20,000 cases
are circulating in the US, at a dinner
party with 10 people, there is a
0.061% chance of infection, and at a
mega sporting event with over 10,000
people, there is a staggering 45%
chance of infection. We are desperately
grappling with the numbers of
infected as they exponentially outgrow
our comprehension. While we are battling
exponential forces so huge that
only logarithmic transformations can
help us understand their magnitude,
we desperately look for an inflection
point, a sign that things are slowing
down. But they only exceed our expectations.
Against this unseen foe, statistics
are our best weapon, and helpful
modelling and simulation allows us to
understand the macro-effects of our
individual decisions. These numbers
make the cancellations of plans, classes
and activities understandable, if not
more bearable. [2]
The math says that social distancing
and, if possible, total quarantine are
the optimal strategies in the game
against contagion. This will extend
the duration that the virus lives on in
our society by preserving pockets of
unblemished population that it can
creep upon, but overall it will “flatten
the curve,” i.e. reduce the load at any
given point in time for the healthcare
system so that society can continue to
cope with regular illnesses. While the
elderly and the immunocompromised
are still most at risk, new reports are
coming out to show that younger populations
are not risk-free from becoming
a burden to the healthcare system.
Social distancing seems to be the best
thing to do for our bodies.
In the age of social media, online shopping
and Zoom meetings, it may not
be obvious why we continue to meet
up at all. But thousands of college students
still travel millions of miles in total
every fall and spring to congregate
on a campus that they call home, to be
with their friends, and take classes in
the same building, even if they could
arguably have a much better time
watching recorded lectures from their
bedrooms. Now? Locked dormitories,
deserted stores, empty movie theatres
––the social distancing that the current
health system requires is perhaps
more painful than the effects of the virus
itself for young people. The empty
spaces that social distancing has created
in its wake speak to us about our
powerful need for presence. Ironically,
physical presence is fundamentally important
for the health of our soul.
The importance of presence is difficult
to explain other than with the idea
that we are beings made to exist in relationship
with other such beings.[1]
The idea that we require the presence
of others and God to fully be ourselves
is central to Christianity. In Genesis
2:18, God says that “it is not good for
man to be alone.” In the beginning
Man was with God. His ultimate fall
results in exile: the ultimate social
distancing. The present crisis and the
conditions of loneliness, isolation and
deprivation is perhaps not novel, as
much as revelatory of our fundamental
human condition: alienation. We
often risk so much, even death, just to
be with others. While we are in transition,
we must not forget that we must
care for both our body and our soul; so
intertwined are the two that the very
physical separation that helps the body
may destroy the soul. So, in order to
be transplanted and sustained well, we
must find strategies that address both
body and soul.
Transplanting Roots: Physical and
Digital
The answer from the techno-optimist
seems to come in the form of online
communities. It seems like we can convert
any of our previous activities into
an online version with a quick Zoom
invite or, in the most extreme cases,
full replicas of real-world locations on
a Minecraft server. These meetings are
a heartwarming stopgap in a time of
transition, but I am skeptical that they
will ever fully meet our need for fully
embodied presence. I am also concerned
about our temptation to default
to our online communities to maintain
a sense of normalcy and comfort that
has long since passed. Yes, we need to
Zoom into our classes, but contrary
to popular opinion, simply uploading
and replicating the University experi-
.
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