“This is precious balm for our souls as we ourselves are facing the surge of this illness. We are all only as healthy as the most ill person among us. This is not only a statement of enlightened self-interest. This is not only a goad for us to return to the ideals of the common good and civic virtue that has been in reality a far-too-elusive goal throughout our history.”
We are living through a grievous situation and many separations, yet I find sometimes that a foolish hope persists.
The church I’m preaching at just got Zoom bombed with anti-LGBT hate speech. We’ve stopped and restarted with a password protected gathering. I’ll try to go live here later for my sermon. Hate doesn’t stop in a pandemic. Lord, have mercy. – The Rev. Laura Everett
Lord be near me,
today and always
in sickness and health
in worry and peace
in fear and calm.
“Most of us are doing fine, learning to live with uncertainty. I feel content. Attentive to others’ needs, but not feeling lonely or abandoned. I have enough to eat, my cats, the Prayer Book, Scripture, and a library full of books. My neighbors keep an eye on each other in a low-key and unstressed way. I even use social media some.”
Luci and Jordan on the Portugese saint and martyr, Quiteria
“Social distancing isn’t really what we are doing. What we are doing is physically distancing ourselves. What we need to do is social engagement. This will require setting boundaries around work, which has been a tyranny working its tendrils into our lives after 5:00. Now, as we work from home, what we must do is set clear work hour boundaries. The tendency will be to take our laptops into our community spaces. Don’t do it unless you are going to watch a movie on it. No. We need to make sure that we reign in the work creep and reengage in the familial life in the house and outside of it. Once we have reigned in our work, we can use our time to break out of isolation beyond the workday.”
“…depending on how a monk feels on any particular day or hour or moment, one was either protected by the cloister gate or imprisoned by it. One was either shut down by the vows or enlivened by them.”
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the entire Church is in a liminal time. We know we will emerge different from how we entered this era, but we cannot see what that will look like yet. And we do not like it. Trust me that while it is stressful, there are also blessings to this time.”
As any doubt over the far-ranging consequences of different views on economic matters color our upcoming presidential election, our theology and civil engagement are absolutely intertwined.