Separated but Whole: Pursuing Health and Redefining Community Amidst COVID-19

Abstract

In his speech "Health is Wholeness," Wendell Berry says that when we are healthy, we are unconscious of our bodies—only sickness brings our attention to them. He also says that people’s sense of wholeness is tied to community, and any removal from common life together is a denial of wholeness and a removal of health. As we find ourselves in this strange COVID-19 moment, we are wrestling with a sudden awareness and anxiety about our own bodies while also hearing the call for social separation that takes us apart from the communities which provide us meaning. This is precisely the type of issue that Berry describes; a closer look at Berry’s theological leanings may give us the resources we need to find hope and meaning during this crisis. Within COVID-19’s clear violation of wholeness, Berry’s understanding of health as interconnection and orientation toward one another under God’s divine love is a faithful and loving way to find meaning during this crisis. If we follow Berry's assertion that under Christ the community is the smallest unit of health, then observing social distancing for the sake of public health is faithfully in line with a theological vision of health as wholeness.