Midway through the first week of strangeness with the prospect of many weeks to come, we are looking for lifelines. One is staying in touch with family — and, I’m glad to say (dinosaur that I am), more through phone calls these days than through texts.

Another are the spiritual tethers that keep us connected. My parish church was open last Sunday but will not be next, so count it among the number offering online Mass. A dear friend who lives in Paris sends me links to the resources her church is sharing, which include music, reflections on Scripture and a complete Sunday service.

I’ve also been exploring the world of online sermons, finding one of my favorites, Forrest Church, whose books I read long ago and whose homilies I’d long wanted to explore. They do not shy away from difficult topics. From a sermon titled “How to Make the Most out of Hard Times,” he reminds us that in Greek drama the crisis is not the outside event but the way we respond to it. “The moment of crisis is the moment of decision.”

These days can be seen as a prison or a prism. We are either locked in by quarantine or freed by it to see the world in a new way. As I sit here marveling at the morning light, how it spills through the shutters and lands on the bookshelves, I remember … on a typical workday I would be missing this.