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Good morning. Here we go again. I imagine most people watching the announcement of a second national lockdown in England had a similar range of reactions: exasperation, grief, frustration, fear, fury, resignation. No one likes being trapped. Everyone wonders what levels of endurance we have in us, and what worse things may lie ahead. People have faced more extreme challenges, of course. On being taken hostage in Beirut in 1987, Terry Waite made three resolutions: no regrets; no self-pity; no false sentimentality. In other words, don’t dwell on how the past could have been different, don’t tell a false story of the present that makes it all about you, and don’t take refuge in a fantasy about the future. Those convictions got him through four years in captivity. They’re not a million miles away from ancient Stoicism. The former slave Epictetus said it’s not what happens to you that counts, but how you respond to what happens. So long as we focus on keeping control of our reactions, he said, we’re free. Nothing, not even a pandemic, or four years as a hostage, can defeat us. It’s a wise approach, and a lot of Christians say if they weren’t believers, they’d be Stoics, because Stoicism teaches you to stop criticising, blaming and accusing others, and look inside yourself to find peace. But there’s one thing missing from Stoicism, and that’s the quality St Paul highlights when he faces his own lockdown. Writing from prison, Paul lists no fewer than 17 forms of trial: hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, and finally anything else in all creation. Paul uses this comprehensive list to say, ‘Nothing whatsoever can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus.’ Many of us, in the face of the pandemic, just feel powerless. Unlike a Stoic, Paul embraces that fragility. He accepts he’s going to be overwhelmed sometimes. So instead of making himself impervious to adversity, Paul invests in relationship. He decides that the heart of the universe is connection with God and one another. He spends his lockdown pondering the one relationship that’s more enduring than all the others. Everyone in England now has a short period to consider how to endure the month ahead. Terry Waite spent his lockdown dismantling regret, self-pity and sentimentality. Paul spent his investing in the relationships that really matter. We have three days to work out how to spend ours.