I’ve been very careful since the pandemic began. Masking, social distancing, washing hands, rarely leaving my home. Except for one Sunday when I was one of three persons at a live-stream worship, I’ve worshiped via the Internet. I haven’t received communion since Lent, 2020.
But today I am in a motel in San Diego, California. My 28 year old cousin died unexpectedly, and I have come to be with my family and to officiate at the burial. We’ll be outside and masked, but this is another pandemic first for me.
I know that funerals can be hot spots, and I will do every safe practice I can. But when I heard the news, I knew this was what God would have me do.
I won’t say I’m not a bit anxious. I am. A good part of my job this past six months has been helping churches plan how to gather safely. I know the challenges.
I’m also grieving. New grief on top of all of the other grief that my heart has been carrying. Like so very many of us this Coronatide.
This morning while I was on the plane to San Diego, a sermon I preached and recorded Friday before I left, live-streamed during worship at Grace Episcopal, Houston. It was a stewardship sermon about how we live our lives loving God and loving our neighbor.
So I’ve left my pod for two days, and then I’ll return to my pod again. But today and tomorrow I’ll be loving God and loving neighbors in California.
Almost everyday at 4.15, I stop whatever I’m doing, put in my ear buds, and log into Facebook.
The sisters of Our Lady of Grace, Beech Grove, Indiana, livestream their evening prayers. They began inviting us to join them early in the pandemic, and it has become my Coronatide worship.
Those that have had the gift of worshipping with the Sisters know the Benedictine rhythm of evening prayer —opening words, a hymn, a slow chanting of Psalms, a scripture, silence, Gospel antiphon, singing of the Magnificat, Gospel antiphon, intercessory prayers, the Lord’s Prayer, a blessing, the closing words, and then a soft bell to let us know that prayers are over. You can tell I’ve done this a few times to know the liturgical drill.
Except a few weeks ago they added more bells. Rung with purpose. With an exclamation mark of sound. Before the gentle bell at the end.
When coronavirus deaths began mounting in Indiana, the Sisters decided to end their evening prayers by ringing one bell to remember each person from Indiana who had died from COVID-19 that day. They did it to honor each Hoosier (their words) who was no longer with us because of the pandemic.
I have to admit. Sometimes I want to skip out early. It’s hard to hear those bells. To count them. To know the grief associated with each bell. And to know that if we had better health care in our country, for all people, and if we’d had had a thoughtful national plan for fighting the coronavirus in the spring, that there would most likely be fewer bells rung each evening at the Monastery. Maybe there would be nights when the bells didn’t ring. Maybe we’d whoop an Alleluia! instead.
The fewest bells rung on an evening that I’ve been with the Sisters is 4. The most is 29. Each bell is a grief-filled prayer.
In Texas, where I live, ringing daily bells to remember Texans that have died from Covid-19 would take a long, long time. Much longer than those Hoosier bells.
In America, ringing daily bells to remember all of our brother and sister Americans who died from the pandemic—would the bells ever stop?
And if we rang one tone of bell for people of color who had died? Or for the death of people without insurance? Or people who died alone? Would we begin to appreciate how much we must change and how deep our sorrow is?
Yesterday, 1,164 Americans died from COVID-19. That we know of. By the Sisters bell ringing rate, we’d be ringing bells for 95 minutes.
Today, in Texas, 189 people died from COVID-19. We’d ring the bells for 16 minutes.
And in Houston, where I live? 18 people died today. The number of bells we would ring in my city would be more than than the number of Hoosier death bells I heard at prayers tonight from the Monastery.
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The Lord Almighty grant is a peaceful night and a perfect end.
AMEN
May the Divine Assistance be always with us and with our absent sisters and brothers.
This is the third blog I’ve begun in as many days. The past two have gone into the draft folder:
A white lady of privilege. Wearing a mask in Ascensiontide.
Sunday night I joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Grace for their Taize worship vía Facebook Live with prayers for healing. I lit candles.
I sat quietly praying with the Sisters, and as they sang I began to sob. Sobs from the depths of my spirit.
I had not wept that deeply since an afternoon years ago many weeks after my dad had died. As it does, unexpectedly when we think all is well, grief hit, and I sat on the stairs of my home and cried with tears too deep for words.
There are no words to express the sorrow, the grief, the anger, the loss of these days.
I can pray, adapting this litany of peace from the Archdiocese of Dublin by Kevin Pearson
A litany for those without words
When peace is fragile, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When tempers are raised, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When atrocities occur, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When talks break down, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When agreements are broken, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When darkness weighs upon us, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When we cannot see you, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When hope seems faint, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit. When faith seems difficult, and we cannot breathe, Come Holy Spirit.
Come Holy Spirit, so that we can breathe. Receive all who have died, particularly from disease, especially the disease of violence, so that we can breathe. Comfort their families and communities, so that we can breathe. Chasten the violent, so that we can breathe. Champion authentic leadership, so that we can breathe. Renew the peace of our cities, so that we can breathe. Come Holy Spirit and breathe new life into our ailing world. Amen
In the silence, may we listen for how we are to be the answer to this prayer.
I’ll admit. My Lenten disciplines didn’t play out the way I’d planned. I didn’t get very far in the book I’d planned to read everyday. I didn’t do my daily prayer walk. I did pretty well fasting from unkind words. Mostly. The almsgiving was actually the star of Lent with endless new opportunities to offer my tithe.
So now it’s day two in the 50 Days of Eastertide. I’m not sure what day it is is the season of coronaboundtide. Still I am thankful for the reworked words of St. Benedict, Everyday we begin again.
On Holy Saturday, the last day of Lent, I prepared for Easter.
I mixed together whole wheat flour and filtered water in a glass bowl. I had decided to create my own sourdough starter.
I filled a whiskey barrel with dried leaves, packing peanuts made from corn (thank you Rebecca Wood), and potting soil.
On the Sunday of the Resurrection I made a flower garden with my morning coffee.
The first worship of the day was with the Sisters of Our Lady of Grace. The schola sang words of the resurrection gospel from Luke of women and fear and spices and bowing faces to the ground and being perplexed and remembering his words and idle tale and my soul was lifted. Later I listened to a wise sermon from our bishop. And even later I worshipped with my Bend family and their church beautifully named New Hope. Imagine—worship in Indiana, Texas, and Oregon. It was like Jesus appearing through locked doors to the disciples.
Between worship, I planted seeds in my new driveway garden. Job’s Tears. Sunflowers.
The miracle of wild yeast had begun to transform the whole wheat flour and water into something new. Now full of life and bubbles, I began the process of throwing a bit of the starter away each day, and feeding it new flour and water (there’s science and best practices that explain why some of the living starter has to be removed and disposed of before it can be fed again). It will be a twice a day process until the starter is ready to be used.
On this Easter Monday, the starter I fed last night has grown twice it’s size and is now waiting for its morning discard and feeding.
House of Grace 