I’ve been in the habit of blogging a sermon on a Sunday if I’ve thought it is worth sharing. But for today, and for the foreseeable future, there is no sermon to write and no church service to lead. We are to live life very differently for the next few months and maybe longer as we distance ourselves from others, and for those of us with underlying health situations (for me asthma and high blood pressure) we are to self isolate, just getting some fresh air each day maybe as long as we aren’t near other people.
As the country is forced to hibernate some people are not coping with it at all. I heard a story from March, in our Circuit, where an irate shopper in Tescos grabbed a worker there by the throat. He’d presumably been told he couldn’t have more two packets of pasta. I’m hearing terrible stories of disgraceful behaviour like that in other supermarkets, of food banks where food is being stolen, of a pub which after being told to close put a pop up version on the street outside which last night was full of punters, of beaches on the south coast in spring weather full of people, of people just being stupid and irresponsible who say “but I don’t have any symptoms.”
The more positive side of humanity is coming out in this unprecedented time in our history. Communities looking out for the vulnerable, the NHS soon to be at breaking point served by an amazing selfless workforce, and churches working out how to be church when we cannot be physically together. Some have discovered how to share worship for tomorrow on the internet, others are offering resources to use in our homes at the time we would have been together, either digitally or posting service sheets out to members who haven’t ever done technology or social media. I have really appreciated finding a Circuit whose staff do morning prayer into a webcam and can share it with me on my phone, and a cathedral streaming two of their clergy saying evening prayer from my beloved book of common prayer each night. It’s important in self isolation we find some rhythm of worship and prayer and we find times when we do those things together while apart.
This is a time of real uncertainty for us all. Normal life has been cancelled. We have been told to stay at home! We are self isolating in holiday accommodation in south Lincolnshire in the Fens. Our rental home has our stuff in it but we are not living there now. On top of all the problems we have had, the owners are trying to sell it and they want us gone as soon as possible. We are living very near the Wash. It is a wonderful place to self isolate - there’s nobody about in these parts on a normal day! But we are here in the wilderness wondering how our questions can be answered.
If I’m not meant to be shopping, how do we get food? We have no family near and no neighbours. I’ve asked to go on a list of the vulnerable in our Circuit.
How do we get all our belongings out of the Old Vicarage and into storage when we aren’t meant to be out of where we are staying?
We were meant to be away on Holy Island for Easter. I don’t think that it is sensible and the Island doesn’t want us there really.
We are meant to be moving into a temporary home in May. I can’t see that happening. You can’t move house when you aren’t meant to move, can you? So I hope and pray we might be able to move in August when I am due to start a new appointment even if social distancing is still enforced and I have to meet my new congregations over the phone! I’m relieved the two Fen holiday places we are using have few bookings now as people cancel their holidays, so we should be able to stay here if we need to.
Meanwhile it’s hard to keep sane mentally and we’ve only done a few days of this! It’s so easy to just sit and watch endless rolling news. I need to get into a routine and find some light in a dark time. Rylan on Radio 2 today was a real spirit lifter. I’m beginning to see how vital it is going to be to have regular contact with friends in this period. Even if it is only a few minutes messenger chat. Though I’ve discovered Microsoft teams and Zoom so we could see each other as we chat and we could have meetings!
And what about spiritual survival? I keep thinking about Jesus in the wilderness. He had to be rooted in God through a time of fear and uncertainty. We are being asked to do more than 40 days of this. I need to rediscover urgently my prayer life and I need to use this time to soak myself in God through reading, space and seeing that my questions and things I can’t resolve will sort in time. Prayer is a good place to start... I like these words from Canon Jessica, one of the clergy at Ely Cathedral:
‘Each day, for the last three days, I’ve prayed for half an hour, from noon to 12.30 pm. I’m going to go on doing it, each day, and if you are the praying kind perhaps you might like to as well. The companionship would really help, even when we can’t see each other.
My prayer isn’t being a very impressive kind of prayer. Nothing to live up to! It’s been pretty undisciplined, a bit random even, darting and scudding all over the place, from intensive care wards in Italy, Iran, to our hospitals here, prayer for particular people in particular situations, prayer for this city and its Cathedral, for people facing economic disaster, for the fearful – prayer blown by the wind of different concerns and anxieties and fears.
But as I go on sitting there, watching the changing colour of the clouds and the weather, I steady down as well. The words settle. The light brightens. And I emerge from my half an hour into the rest of the day just a little more calm and courageous than when I started.
On Mothering Sunday, the Church is asking people to do something very simple. At 7 pm, put a lighted candle in your window. Be the light in the darkness of what’s happening. If you aren’t a words sort of person – or even if you are – you might want to do that too, as we will be. It says something about our care for each other – like the waves of applause for medical workers coming from the apartments in Paris, or the singing from balconies in Milan. Like prayer, it joins us in love and to love, while we are alone together.’
And one more thing in this enforced time of separation. It feels like we are living in a very unsure world. But there is certainty among all that feels like it will never be the same again: spring is coming! So I love this poem from our President:
Nobody said the sun should not rise
Or the birds must not to sing
Conveyed to the bees
A delay in the spring
Nobody chimed in the ear of the corn
There was no need to sprout
Or told the bright crocus
'No need to come out'
Nobody mentioned to frogs in the pond
Don't bother to spawn
Or told the bird choirs
Be silent at dawn
So, why be downhearted
Although hymns we can't sing
We may be in trouble
But no one told Spring
I don’t know how things will work out over the next few months. I had plans. Now, we cannot make plans. It’s scary but I need to remember my faith: that after darkness comes light, after sadness comes joy and after dying comes life. This will not last for ever but we have to stay in and be good and find some meaning in each day. God will not forsake us, even if we have to worship a bit differently for a while.
The Psalm for morning prayer today has an apt verse: Psalm 108, verse 39. The Psalm reminds us that God blesses his people “and again, when they are minished and brought low: through oppression, through any plague or trouble.”
Let’s take a day at a time of this mad period, and try to find some good in it.
Let’s be sensible. I know being indoors until June at the earliest won’t be easy - and even harder for Lis putting up with me being cooped up. But as they say staying in may save us and others.
And let’s chat and let’s find God together. Our faith is he is in chaos, confusion and even self isolation. And you know what? Even if we need to do some social distancing, his love is closer than ever.
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