When we first started this stay-at-home stuff, I wasn’t fazed.
We can do this. It won’t last forever. At the time I was wondering if we would worship
together when Easter rolled around. It didn’t take me more than a week to
realize that wasn’t going to happen. Then it seemed like maybe it wouldn’t be
until May that we worshiped together again. Last week, I adjusted my thinking to June.
Yesterday I read some guidelines that the Wisconsin Council
of Churches have outlined after considering all the scientific facts. They were
devastating. I spent most of the day sobbing.
While it may be that we can finally stop quarantining
ourselves, that won’t mean that we’ll resume worshiping as we once did. Recommendations
included distancing from one another, wearing face masks, removing all the
hymnals, thorough disinfecting the space after every worship (can this be done
multiple times on a Sunday?), refraining from any socializing before or after
worship, limiting the number of people who can attend, and making worship off
limits for people at risk or over the age of 60. Since I’m 67, that last one
stung. How is that going to work?
Of all the guidelines, the one that was a death blow to my
heart was the one that said no singing. No singing?! I’ve been stressing over
how we ever will be able to commune face-to-face again. How can I stand at the
altar and consecrate the elements? How can we receive communion wearing face-masks?
Is there any safe way to commune in person? That’s where my head’s been. It
never occurred to me that an even bigger
concern could be singing! In all the scenarios I had envisioned, I never
considered that singing would be off limits.
Today we heard our governor’s plan for re-opening Maryland.
Nothing he said contradicts what I read coming out of Wisconsin. With all the restrictions being suggested, I keep wondering how we’ll ever be able to do
it. Even more so, I wonder why we would even want to. Why bother trying to worship in person
when everything about worship that is meaningful will be taken away? For
many people, the only way worship will be possible will continue to be online. That also may be true for those who can come to the church building for worship with all the restrictions in place.
I am trying to accept this and I know I’ll get there
eventually. Right now, I grieve.
I hear you, Pastor Nancy. God's deep peace be with you. I grieve with you and for you. I think of the exiled Israelites when they were taunted by their Babylonian captors, "Sing us a song of Zion! (Oh wait, Zion is destroyed.) "By the rivers of Babylon, we lay down our harps and wept when we remembered Zion." After a number of years, they did return, but it was nothing like what they had remembered. Like you, I fear and am fairly sure that is what we are facing for the pre-vaccine future. Laying down our harps, and weeping when we remember Zion.
ReplyDeleteYes, Bishop, that's exactly what's happening. Thanks for putting it within a scriptural framework.
ReplyDeleteSending peace and love your way.
ReplyDeleteThanks to you both for your reflections. This is where I have been, too, since reading this article. Colleagues in The United Church of Canada seem to be chiding me to embrace the new thing God will bring from this. I need to grieve before I can get there.
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