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Good morning. Ping. It’s the little message that’s got us all on edge. But what happens if you get pinged while you’re on holiday? You can’t stay anywhere.
You can’t travel by sea or air. That’s the situation Paul McErlean, and two friends from Northern Ireland, found themselves in a few days ago. Near the end of an 18-mile hike in rural Wales, Paul learned his recent Covid test was positive. The three companions were in a pickle.

They posted a baleful tweet, asking for advice. They were overwhelmed by helpful replies, including a former Home Secretary who offered her caravan, before they holed up in a vacant property in Cheshire, where they played a lot of Monopoly.

If we look over the last 18 months, a consistent theme for most of us has been powerlessness. We feel powerless in the face of the public health situation, powerless to function amid regulations about travel or social contact. That dreaded ping sums up our perpetual vulnerability. In an instant, plans and hopes are crushed, and we feel imprisoned and paralysed. In my 30 years of being a priest, I’ve found powerlessness a consistent theme. Almost everyone feels powerless to some degree. The pandemic’s multiplied that by ten.

So it’s incredibly liberating to say, ‘I think I might be able to help.’ For 18 months it’s been so hard to utter those simple words. We’re all shy of being an imposition, but the truth is, most people are pining to feel useful, and know they have things that can benefit others. We’ve been deprived of most of those opportunities for a long time. I suspect that’s why the beleaguered hikers got so many replies.

For me, this story demonstrates two dimensions of what Christianity is all about. On a simple level, the Bible portrays Christians as the three hikers – lost and hungry, needing the help that only God can give. On a deeper level, the gospels show us how Jesus himself becomes vulnerable, sharing the profound powerlessness of the hikers. He says the way we respond to those in greatest need is a measure of how we respond to him.

The pandemic has thrown up moments of truth, confronting us with our own powerlessness. But that vulnerability may increase our awareness of something deeper. That is, how profoundly we each long to find moments when we can actually say, ‘I think I may be able to help.’

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