“This is torture. I loathe this litany. Lent is not really supposed to be about suffering, so why am I making myself suffer? Is this harder than giving something up? Why am I so unholy that I can’t pray this stupid litany?”
“But we are God’s people. We tend to repeat our mistakes, large and small. Thanks be to God for reminders from this introverted but incontrovertibly gifted servant of God of what is important and what should be released from our attention. Maybe there will be one less mistake today, because of his wisdom.”
“This is why faith formation in the “good times” is so important. The pay-off comes in the crisis. I’m proud of my community. I’m learning from them how to be church in the time of pandemic.”
“I weep and grieve and summon all my willpower not to break down as I am shopping or attending church or returning library books or writing this meditation on my best friend’s perilous days ahead.”
“For us right now, who face a time of unprecedented anxiety and uncertainty in this time of global pandemic, being asked to shelter in place and remain out of gatherings of more than ten people, it is nonetheless vital for us to remember that we are all part of one large, beloved flock, under the loving gaze of the Lord Our Shepherd”
“What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?”
“It is important to emphasize that suspension of in-person gatherings is not a suspension of worship. I very much encourage and support online worship.”
“In my small living room in Central Missouri I felt connected to hundreds of people – bound by our shared desire to hear God’s word for us in these days and to give thanks for the body of Christ that transcends time and place.”
“Sundays are feeling strange. In my diocese, no Chalice. And definitely no touching. The first week of the Plague at the Peace we wandered around like BBs in a boxcar, bowing, smiling sheepishly, uncomfortable.”
Ours is the only species that will create, watch, and calculate, its own demise on this planet.