Easter - closed churches and open faith

Easter Day - and the churches are empty across the nation, across chunks of the world even.

Some bemoan this, that on our holy day our buildings are closed, claiming it sends out a message that our faith is irrelevant and has nothing to offer in these virus days.

I beg to differ - the church has been forced into new ways and patterns, we seem to be engaging more, with each other and with the community.

On a normal Holy Week and Easter I would be leading services hidden away in church buildings, a brief open air on Good Friday led by an ecumenical colleague, to church folk in one village and maybe 1 or 2 passers by who hurry past.

This year I have led no church services, I have sent out worship material in advance, I have invited people to place palm crosses in windows and redecorate for today - Easter Day.  This year I have posted in community facebook groups explaining that they may see some crosses amid the rainbows and why, wishing all Easter greetings.  This year I have had 58 positive responses to that post in one community alone, almost all not church attenders, and it continues with today's Easter post.

This year when we could not meet inside the church I made a point of telling the story outside the building (at church near manse).   Visible to those out on their walks, emailed to contacts across my churches, used in my community facebook posts.

This year I worried about those who didn't have internet access or resources - posting and phoning - and have challenged myself about not including those unable to attend in previous years. Just because there are more I have been stirred to act. I have worried about zoom worship and video clips because it excludes some, yet I have in the busyness of regular church services been less alert to how those not able to come any year can be a part of our worship.

This year I have thought of how the excluded can worship, for too long we have thought of those less able to get to our buildings as in need of visits, calls, but not resources to worship with us.

This year I have heard of church people choosing to engage with worship from various sources, and have spoken about how they used the reflections I circulated, I have seen their crosses in windows and front gardens when walking and photos emailed.

This year it feels that our Easter journeys have been more public, have been wider for many, and have challenged me deeply about our patterns of  inclusion.  Lessons I need to process and apply in life beyond Coronavirus.

The first Easter the followers of Jesus were scattered in different places, some - a group of women, or just Mary of Magdala depending which gospel - head for the tomb, the message is sent back to others, still more are hiding in locked rooms or heading home to Emmaus. Maybe this year we are closer to the dispersed, confused, still mourning first followers of the risen Christ.

Good Friday - rituals lost and found

It is Good Friday

A day when the churches are traditionally full of ritual - from the high churches that have stripped altar and church to a bareness to mark the solemnity of the day, to the ecumenical gatherings that walk behind a cross carried through their communities.   And in a couple of days the ritual of newly lit Easter candles, the cry 'He is risen' and response 'He is risen indeed, Allelulia'

Others follow a ritual of chocolate and the hunt for eggs, but this year we are stripped of our rituals and the hunt for eggs is mere practicality, alongside that for flour and the elusive toilet roll. 

I remember our conversations in college about the place of ritual in human life and community. In the past religions were a gathering point for community rituals. This is less the case today, certainly in the UK, although many still look to churches and faith when it comes to a funeral.  And where no religion is invoked there is still a rhythm, a ritual to our stages of life, and of death.  We are in a time where even that most precious ritual is denied people, first reduced numbers and now in many areas no gathering at all at crematoria. A scaled down farewell, with no touch to wipe away tears, no arm to support the grieving. Before that no bedside vigil at the hospital no final moments close to loved ones.

We are in a time of worldwide insecurity, and national upheaval that has changed everyone's lives, in such times our need for some roots, some shared connection is very real. Ritual offers that, and as other rituals - of faith, and beyond - are stripped away we find new ones. The Thursday clap for the NHS, or wider to all keyworkers, has within 3 weeks become one such ritual.  It holds people in a shared activity at a set time, a bonding in unity despite our separations. It offers a sense of doing something meaningful.  On facebook people celebrate where their street has performed well, or bemoan if it is too quiet, and wow betide any that question the effectiveness of the now sacred ritual. Like all rituals, we come as we are, our motives and feelings may be mixed, but the ritual stretches beyond those that take part.

On this Good Friday - I hear the echoes of crowds in Jerusalem centuries ago, The crowds cheering on the preacher on the donkey, with a wide mix of hopes of how he might change their lives; then the crowds called on to choose between the one who threatens to rebel against Rome and the one who turned over the tables and spoke of the holy temple being destroyed.

On this Good Friday - I recognise in the cross the cry of those who feel forsaken, alone, abandoned.
And I recognise the heart ache of those forced to be distant from loved ones in pain and in the shadow of death, those who yearn to offer comfort but are kept out of reach.

On this Good Friday we again stand with those who are only able to do the basics in care for their dead, and must wait before fuller farewells can be offered.

On this Good Friday we sit and wait, stripped of so much and yet called together in new ways and new rituals. A world turned upside down, and the undervalued and under paid lifted up in true recognition. I pray that the cheers of the doorsteps morph into a real change in wages and resourcing of medics, carers, cleaners  and  others who are now revealed as those we rely on.

On this Good Friday - we weep and we wait.

I am who I am

It has been a very long time since I last blogged, and we are now in the strange world of Coronavirus. I have been a minister now for over 10 years and in Jan 2020 started my sabbatical, so only returned to my role on April 1st, the day of the fools!  Yesterday I had my birthday in shutdown after a weekend getting hard copies of Easter resources to church folk not on the internet.  The calm after a flurry of activity.

I have spend most of my sabbatical in quiet and alone, so already acclimatised to how I am now living, in a way my life has not changed as much as it has for many. Unlike friends and others in the job who I meet online I am not feeling loss or angst about not leading worship week by week and especially this Holy Week into Easter.  I do not feel personal anxiety about the virus - I am physically healthy and keeping to the distance rules, although family members are more vulnerable I trust that they are also being kept as safe as is possible.  I also have insight about microbiology and biochemistry from my degree days. 

But I wonder also if the medication that supports my mental health - to balance the highs and lows of bipolar - also has a numbing factor.  I recognise the pain of others and their anxiety but it does not create the emotional link that triggers a direct reaction in me.  Does this give me resilience? Not constantly drained by the care of others. Or simply make me unemphatic?  Does this make me a more useful minister or a worse minister? Or just simply make me the person and the minister that I am?

I go with the latter, I am who I am - I am called as who I am.

Whatever you are feeling and however you are coping is a valid response, we are who we are, and there are no rules of how we should feel, even if there are sensible rules about our movements.