You won’t find it in the Guinness Book, but we’re setting a world record that hopefully won’t be repeated. Normally the season of Lent lasts for forty days, after which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter. But what I see is that Lent began on February 26, 2020 and never finished. We’ve been locked down in the pandemic for a whole year, and it hasn’t let up yet.
The Book of Common Prayer tells us that for more than a thousand years “it’s been the custom of the church to prepare for Good Friday and Easter by a season of penitence and fasting.” (p. 264) Lent is a time for stepping back to take a look at our lives, often giving up a comfortable habit for a while to see how that feels. In doing that, we’re following Jesus on his forty-day vision quest in the desert, when he was tempted by Satan and waited on by angels. Then after the darkness and agony of the crucifixion the glorious resurrection comes, as reliably as the sun rising in the east.
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Picking up some scattered debris around the churchyard, I paused at Kitty’s grave. It had warmed a bit, welcome after too much ice and cold, so I stayed there a while. I remember her fondly, and miss her, too. I said a prayer then carried on with yard cleanup, an unexpected chore that morning, nice to be outdoors. Nearby Kitty’s grave is Betty’s, and on the other side of the belltower is where JoAnn lies in rest. I said a prayer for them as well, and called to mind the picture of their faces, the sounds of their voices. I remembered how truly alive they were, all of them dear, funny, strong, faithful Christian women. They were widowed for some time, all of them. None, I thank God, knew the devastating impact of this past year: pandemic, shutdown, fear and anxiety.
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Laughter, games, art activities, punch in little dixie cups, and cookies with cream fillings are what I remember most about Vacation Bible School (VBS) on the Navajo Nation. Churches came in droves to visit and minister to the children and families. It was the place to be for Elementary and Middle School kids. We loved to see all the smiling and welcoming faces of new people from the big cities willing to play with us and read, sometimes ready to teach some kids how to play the piano or the ukulele. The partners all loved to sing bible songs - so loud it seemed the windows would burst.
I was a baptized Episcopalian but VBS and Holidays were mostly the only times I went to church as a child. My parents and most of my relatives in my community follow the ways of Navajo teachings, ceremonies, and prayer. My mother was devout about prayer. Each morning, before the sun began to light up the horizon, she would start her daily prayers.
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Every month ECFVP offers five resources on a theme. This month we've asked the Rev. David Peters, a 2017 ECF Fellow and church planter, to choose five resources from Vital Practices to highlight. Please find his choices below. Please share this email with new members of your vestry and extend an invitation to subscribe to ECF Vital Practices to receive Vestry Papers and this monthly digest.
I’m a church planter that for the first year mingled with people every day, trying my best to get to know them, especially the ones who didn’t go to church anywhere. Then the Pandemic hit, and my ability to mingle ceased. I had a lot of grief about that, some of which was just the fear of failure, fear I would flop as a church planter.
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Donald V. Romanik, President, Episcopal Church Foundation:
Hello. My name is Donald Romanik and I am President of the Episcopal Church Foundation. It's been about a year since we've been living with this pandemic of COVID-19. When we locked down about a year ago this time, little did we know that 12 months later we'd still be struggling. Clearly, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We have three new vaccines that people are starting to get, and eventually we will go back to some sense of normality.
As I look back, clearly it was challenging and frightening, but there also some good things that we have to remember. Personally, I got in touch with a lot of people I haven't spoken to in years, started appreciating the simple pleasures of life, like a meal with my spouse across the table. And in our local faith communities, we learned to pivot and do things in new and different ways, from online services to phone calls, to contacts with people; we really need to celebrate the successes over this past year.
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Optimism is high, and vaccines are rolling out. President Biden recently changed his tune, moving forward the timeline to have sufficient Covid vaccines for all American adults by the end of May. The forecast looks good for a lot of American cultural life. Maybe even for Christian churches and religious gatherings?
Maybe. Maybe not. That’s hard to tell at this point, although any increase in in-person numbers would be a welcome sign. How many will return? And how soon? How often? Will we get back to our pre-Covid numbers? When? Has a pandemic unalterably shifted people’s sense of time and connection, and in what ways?
Lots of this will be a “wait and see…”
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“Don’t discuss them.” That was among the worst advice that I was ever given. (Sorry, mom and dad!) Especially after the past four years, I’ve realized that what we should have been mastering was HOW to discuss religion and politics with integrity.
Think about it: religion is our belief system. It’s how we organize and make sense of the world in light of something far greater than us. It provides us with a way to conceptualize God and our place in the universe. It gives us a community with whom to celebrate and with whom to mourn.
Politics determines how we are governed. As we learned on the 6 of January, our particular form of government is highly fragile and depends on our willingness to actively participate in it. Politics provides us with a forum within which to debate policy and chart the future of our nation.
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