Coronavirus pandemic prompting soul searching for life’s meaning: Nick Ahad

Growing up, half my family were Muslim, half were Christian and I was raised a good Catholic boy in a school which had a church on the grounds and where Friday mass was an immutable feature of my childhood. I even stayed and did all the extracurricular classes required of good Catholic children in preparation for your first communion. When you’re raised with that much parable and ceremonial storytelling, the love of a narrative is ingrained.

There are no atheists in foxholes, they say, and boy are we all in a foxhole right now. Don’t worry, I’ve not turned Arts View into some proselytizing tool, I’m not going to start evangelising. Not in a conventional way, at least.

As we all now contemplate the reality of our own version of the Book of Revelations, I wonder what it means to be in a foxhole in a time when religion seems less relevant, but narratives continue to dominate our lives.

The story we are all living through right now is changing daily, hourly, minute by minute. It feels like we’re reading a Choose Your Own Adventure where the pages are being turned by some unknown force before you’ve reached the end of the paragraph. Were I to applaud the Arts Council for its £160m pledge this week to the arts sector, or berate the Government for leaving the self-employed hung out to dry, the story will have moved on before the ink is dry on this column. So instead I offer advice that won’t reach its expiration date before The Yorkshire Post arrives in your hands.

If there are no atheists in foxholes, and we’re in a foxhole right now – find your religion. I don’t mean literally, but the thing you believe in that gives your life meaning. That might mean returning to a particular book or author. It might mean listening to REM’s Automatic for the People on a loop. It might mean staring at the Degas print you have on your wall, or flicking through a book of your favourite paintings. It might mean recording your thoughts in a notebook or it might mean picking up your long-abandoned guitar in the corner.

It’s always the art, isn’t it? The narrative might be hidden in poetry that you love or music that sings to your soul. It’s time to turn to that particular thing in which you find divinity and cherish it. We’re going to need it.

To quote the Persian poet Rumi, to whom many might turn right now, “this too shall pass”.