Cori Connors: Virtual Jesus

Vir. It’s a very old word, from a very old language.

The Latin term “vir” means “man”. It’s the root of virtue, and virtual.

Virtue, according to Webster’s Word Histories, is

“The sum of the excellent qualities of men, including physical strength, valorous conduct, and moral rectitude.”

At some point the word flip flopped and somehow became the veil that men put over women, but didn’t necessarily require of themselves. Sermons are given on virtuous women. Their price is far above rubies. Virtue is sometimes limited to the concept of chastity. We tell our girls to protect their virtue at all cost, but forget to drill the same into our boys. We limit the definition of virtue by emphasizing the list of “should not’s” instead of focusing on the list of “should’s”. But that’s another topic for another time.

Nowadays, the average kid would totally know what you are talking about when you say something is “virtual”, but they might not be able to explain “virtue.” And their definition of virtual would likely include technology.

Two words basically float to the top of my brain when I think of the year 2020: “pandemic” and “virtual”. One necessitated the other. And frankly, in general, we were blessed to be able to interface with each other virtually, when real-life interaction was out of the question.

I’ve been pondering today the difference between virtual and pretend. For some reason virtual gets more credibility, when in reality it can totally be made-up. We attend our virtual meetings and select the background to fit the mood of the day. The desk is piled with stacks of mail, a sweater and hat from yesterday’s walk, and a dirty cereal bowl? Just click on a screen shot of Hawaii and there you are with a beautiful Hawaiian sunset in the background. I attend Sunday morning meetings with other leaders in our congregation every week. We know each other really well. I feel emotionally safe with each of them. Still, when I want to take a sip of my protein shake, sitting off camera, I tap a key and temporarily turn off the video. Virtual cannot possibly represent the whole of us.

I’ve been serving as a leader in the women’s group in our church for nearly a year now, and we have not yet met face to face as an organization. We meet virtually at least once a week, and I am grateful for that. But we learn things about each other when we share actual space, when we breathe the same air, when we can read faces that are not blurred by the dim light of technology. I miss the sound of a room full of laughter, of women singing together, the beauty of hovering silence when one of us testifies and tears overcome us and we are not able to speak. I miss the faint rhythm of a sleeping baby in her mother’s arms, or the confirming whisper of a sigh. I know I am not the only one ready to take off these figurative virtual glasses and get back to the real.

Last night my sisters Sherry and Libby treated some of our friends and neighbors to a night out to the movies. It was a glorious gift for the people to whom and with whom they minister. They rented out the theater and we watched the movie Risen, about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was divine to share space, with safe social distancing, doing what people did before the pandemic. A dozen or so women who love each other and love the Lord. It was a poignant movie, the violence of the events of that Friday in the meridian of time being contrasted by the profound love and joy of the events of the Sunday that followed. I’ve been pondering all day how that story was related to us, virtually, and how it had power in the telling because people used the best of their talents to bring it to us. I was grateful.

Tomorrow we will be fed once again, virtually, by the witnesses of our prophet and apostles and other church leaders in our semi-annual General Conference. For that I am grateful as well.

But tonight I am trying to be still. To find the calm. To close my eyes and own the reality of the events that others have been telling us about. Through scripture, through decades of lessons in Sunday classes and from the family room couch, in conversation at the dinner table, or the side of the bed, or the seats of the car. We have talked and shared and questioned and witnessed. We have doubted, and confirmed, and doubted again, and been born again…repeatedly. I have been converted many times, and expect the pattern to continue until I meet Him face to face. I hope, by then, to know Him well.

For now, I am learning in my mind, virtually, and in my heart, by the witness of the Holy Spirit. But I have confidence and true hope that one day I will see, in reality, the flesh and soul of the most virtuous man who ever lived.