By way of an introduction.
Ever since Lockdown started, I've wondered why I wasn't writing.
I love writing.
I've no particular agenda, just the joy of the words, so I had imagined that in the new regime I'd delight in filling my days with word upon word upon word.
I even chose a notebook from my stash to contain my ramblings...
Four weeks on - NOTHING!
I think perhaps at first my brain was too overloaded with emotions to even begin to try and distil them into words...but all the same, this is an extraordinary time, and I am conscious that there is so much being learned as we go through it together. So, I'm writing now, not because I feel I have anything significant to share but really because I want to capture the moment and try to make sense of it all for myself.
If you feel like reading, that's great...but I'm fine if nobody ever does!
These are my thoughts, memories, impressions...
Perhaps I'll be able to look back in a decade and notice significant changes emerging from this experience.
Perhaps I'll use it in "do you remember?" conversations with Ellie (who will then, unbelievably, be entering her teens).
Perhaps I won't be here, but at least I'll try and learn while I can.
Wars and rumours of wars
2020 was going to be such FUN. MY year!
I had a sabbatical booked, - the first in 16 years of ordained ministry - a moderately significant birthday to celebrate, and some wonderful plans as to how I might manage both.
I had a delightful new grandson to engage with and a strong and happy relationship with his older sister to continue: there's alot to be said for being the available adult in a household where a new baby has done just a wee bit of supplanting...
I didn't plan any leave after Christmas - really, once we hit spring my sabbatical would be only days away - though thankfully I did continue to make the most of the here and now opportunities, heading down to London to the theatre with some parts of the family, and continuing my regular Friday jaunts to Cambridge to cuddle those grand-babies too.
That's something I'm incredibly thankful for.
It was in January that we began to hear more about a new virus that was hitting China hard. One of my oldest friends has a son teaching English there, and I was concerned for him - and for her as a worried and distant mum - but beyond that it didn't seem likely to impinge. Chinese New Year arrived and because I was busy I didn't indulge in my habitual Chinese supper from the take-away up the road: I learned later that already they were suffering as customers began to stay away, as if you might catch the new virus simply by interacting with anyone of Asian descent. Feeling superior, I dismissed this attitude as ridiculous - and anyway, that virus was still far away...we were an island...it wasn't going to affect us.
Except that slowly, almost imperceptibly, it did.
Overnight it seemed that Italy had become a "plague zone". Just the north at first. I could still feel envious of friends heading to Venice for Carnival - until they were sent summarily home. Then there was news of the whole country going into lock-down., just as UK half-term hit, with lots of families heading to Italy to ski. Suddenly this didn't seem a far-away unreal disease. It was getting closer. I found myself hating the distance between Coventry and Cambridge, would wake up with my face damp with tears at the idea that I might be separated from those I loved most - either by a country in lockdown or, most fearfully, by death. I had not really known my own grandparents, my parents had died while I was still in my teens, and so the whole experience of becoming a grandmother was the most amazing and joyful discovery of new love as overwhelming as that which had flooded my world when my children were born. I wanted (and want) so desperately to be part of their lives - to see them grow up and watch their story unfold...Since Ellie was born I had felt so very sorry for my own parents, who had missed this total delight.
To realise that there was a significant risk that I too might leave the little ones early was more than I felt able to bear....
Those were tricky days to navigate.
We began to have planning meetings at the Cathedral, imagining how it might be if we had to close the offices, how we could best work from home, naively rejoicing that our ruins would allow us a space to gather even if it was felt unsafe to continue to worship inside.
Then we hit March. The shops began to empty as people recognised the probability of being confined to their homes for a while. Loo roll, pasta and tinned tomatoes found themselves popular as never before. Because I'd spent much of last year gently preparing for a No Deal Brexit I found myself embarrassingly well-off for many staples...so started giving things away. No matter how much I might sometimes wish things were otherwise, my adult children all have lives, jobs and homes a good 80 miles away so the supplies designed to feed a family really weren't going to come in handy.
News bulletins became more pessimistic day by day.
We realised we were not looking at "ifs" but "whens".
For some weeks we had suggested that people might prefer not to share the Peace with a handshake, that if they felt vulnerable they should avoid the common cup at Communion.
This advice did not land well!
Our congregation is mostly retired, with experience of the great crises of yesteryear, and for some time they were resolute in their refusal to take precautions. The prevailing attitude seemed to be something along the lines of
"I've come through worse than this...and life is for living. I'd rather die now, having spent time seeing my friends and fully engaging with life than simply exist within my four walls..."
It was not until the narrative changed to "Protect Others. Protect the NHS" that they became compliant - but by the Third Sunday of Lent things felt different..
We were told that only the President should receive the wine.
Our planned guest preacher sent a recorded sermon instead of coming in person - and some cathedral stalwarts decided to stay at home.
I was conscious of a huge weight of significance as I placed the Sacrament in hand after hand as the choir sang - so very beautifully that it seemed a distillation of all I love most about cathedral worship.
With each familiar face, each pair of hands, I found myself half engaged with an inner dialogue, composed of thoughts like these:
I may not be able to feed you for a time.
You are old, not in the best of health.
Will you be here when we gather once more?
Do you know how much you matter? How much you are loved?
But of course, "all" I actually said was "The Body of Christ keep YOU in eternal life".
As always, that was enough.
After the service, our usual coffee was cancelled. Instead I begged people to leave their contact details so that, once we were separated, we could keep in touch.
"What do you mean, if we are separated?" asked R, robust and indignant as he must surely have been throughout his 8 decades...
Probably this was just as well.
If we had really REALLY grasped how life was about to change, there might have been more tears than could easily be contained in one Sunday morning.
As it was, I chatted and prayed with a few people, exchanged glances with Christ on the Sutherland tapestry - who looked as weary but loving as usual - and headed downstairs.
Public worship in that space was over for the moment.
Ever since Lockdown started, I've wondered why I wasn't writing.
I love writing.
I've no particular agenda, just the joy of the words, so I had imagined that in the new regime I'd delight in filling my days with word upon word upon word.
I even chose a notebook from my stash to contain my ramblings...
Four weeks on - NOTHING!
I think perhaps at first my brain was too overloaded with emotions to even begin to try and distil them into words...but all the same, this is an extraordinary time, and I am conscious that there is so much being learned as we go through it together. So, I'm writing now, not because I feel I have anything significant to share but really because I want to capture the moment and try to make sense of it all for myself.
If you feel like reading, that's great...but I'm fine if nobody ever does!
These are my thoughts, memories, impressions...
Perhaps I'll be able to look back in a decade and notice significant changes emerging from this experience.
Perhaps I'll use it in "do you remember?" conversations with Ellie (who will then, unbelievably, be entering her teens).
Perhaps I won't be here, but at least I'll try and learn while I can.
Wars and rumours of wars
2020 was going to be such FUN. MY year!
I had a sabbatical booked, - the first in 16 years of ordained ministry - a moderately significant birthday to celebrate, and some wonderful plans as to how I might manage both.
I had a delightful new grandson to engage with and a strong and happy relationship with his older sister to continue: there's alot to be said for being the available adult in a household where a new baby has done just a wee bit of supplanting...
I didn't plan any leave after Christmas - really, once we hit spring my sabbatical would be only days away - though thankfully I did continue to make the most of the here and now opportunities, heading down to London to the theatre with some parts of the family, and continuing my regular Friday jaunts to Cambridge to cuddle those grand-babies too.
That's something I'm incredibly thankful for.
It was in January that we began to hear more about a new virus that was hitting China hard. One of my oldest friends has a son teaching English there, and I was concerned for him - and for her as a worried and distant mum - but beyond that it didn't seem likely to impinge. Chinese New Year arrived and because I was busy I didn't indulge in my habitual Chinese supper from the take-away up the road: I learned later that already they were suffering as customers began to stay away, as if you might catch the new virus simply by interacting with anyone of Asian descent. Feeling superior, I dismissed this attitude as ridiculous - and anyway, that virus was still far away...we were an island...it wasn't going to affect us.
Except that slowly, almost imperceptibly, it did.
Overnight it seemed that Italy had become a "plague zone". Just the north at first. I could still feel envious of friends heading to Venice for Carnival - until they were sent summarily home. Then there was news of the whole country going into lock-down., just as UK half-term hit, with lots of families heading to Italy to ski. Suddenly this didn't seem a far-away unreal disease. It was getting closer. I found myself hating the distance between Coventry and Cambridge, would wake up with my face damp with tears at the idea that I might be separated from those I loved most - either by a country in lockdown or, most fearfully, by death. I had not really known my own grandparents, my parents had died while I was still in my teens, and so the whole experience of becoming a grandmother was the most amazing and joyful discovery of new love as overwhelming as that which had flooded my world when my children were born. I wanted (and want) so desperately to be part of their lives - to see them grow up and watch their story unfold...Since Ellie was born I had felt so very sorry for my own parents, who had missed this total delight.
To realise that there was a significant risk that I too might leave the little ones early was more than I felt able to bear....
Those were tricky days to navigate.
We began to have planning meetings at the Cathedral, imagining how it might be if we had to close the offices, how we could best work from home, naively rejoicing that our ruins would allow us a space to gather even if it was felt unsafe to continue to worship inside.
Then we hit March. The shops began to empty as people recognised the probability of being confined to their homes for a while. Loo roll, pasta and tinned tomatoes found themselves popular as never before. Because I'd spent much of last year gently preparing for a No Deal Brexit I found myself embarrassingly well-off for many staples...so started giving things away. No matter how much I might sometimes wish things were otherwise, my adult children all have lives, jobs and homes a good 80 miles away so the supplies designed to feed a family really weren't going to come in handy.
News bulletins became more pessimistic day by day.
We realised we were not looking at "ifs" but "whens".
For some weeks we had suggested that people might prefer not to share the Peace with a handshake, that if they felt vulnerable they should avoid the common cup at Communion.
This advice did not land well!
Our congregation is mostly retired, with experience of the great crises of yesteryear, and for some time they were resolute in their refusal to take precautions. The prevailing attitude seemed to be something along the lines of
"I've come through worse than this...and life is for living. I'd rather die now, having spent time seeing my friends and fully engaging with life than simply exist within my four walls..."
It was not until the narrative changed to "Protect Others. Protect the NHS" that they became compliant - but by the Third Sunday of Lent things felt different..
We were told that only the President should receive the wine.
Our planned guest preacher sent a recorded sermon instead of coming in person - and some cathedral stalwarts decided to stay at home.
I was conscious of a huge weight of significance as I placed the Sacrament in hand after hand as the choir sang - so very beautifully that it seemed a distillation of all I love most about cathedral worship.
With each familiar face, each pair of hands, I found myself half engaged with an inner dialogue, composed of thoughts like these:
I may not be able to feed you for a time.
You are old, not in the best of health.
Will you be here when we gather once more?
Do you know how much you matter? How much you are loved?
But of course, "all" I actually said was "The Body of Christ keep YOU in eternal life".
As always, that was enough.
After the service, our usual coffee was cancelled. Instead I begged people to leave their contact details so that, once we were separated, we could keep in touch.
"What do you mean, if we are separated?" asked R, robust and indignant as he must surely have been throughout his 8 decades...
Probably this was just as well.
If we had really REALLY grasped how life was about to change, there might have been more tears than could easily be contained in one Sunday morning.
As it was, I chatted and prayed with a few people, exchanged glances with Christ on the Sutherland tapestry - who looked as weary but loving as usual - and headed downstairs.
Public worship in that space was over for the moment.
1 comment:
Kathryn: your comment about attitudes not changing until it became about protecting each other and protecting something we all hold dear (the NHS) are the glimmers of light that have helped me. I was re-reading a book on change management this morning, One of the cardinal principles of navigating change is to share the problem with people, not just the solution. If we see the problem first we understand the solution more clearly. I am encouraged by the fact that people will still try and help - often at great personal cost - when they are allowed to see and understand the problem that has to be solved. Thank you for putting this out there. I hope your family stays well.
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