Bored. Lonely. Stir-crazy. These are words I hear a lot when I ask people how they are doing. For most of us, the pandemic has isolated us from friends, family, and familiar activities. The greatest suffering has come for those who cannot be with loved ones because they are in facilities that are locked down. We have even had to do the Prayers at Time of Death over a Facetime or Zoom.
Some of us have been able to find new ways to worship, pray, and visit using online, virtual tools, like our daily Zoom Morning Prayer at 8:00 AM and Compline service at 8:00 PM. Even more of us are able to participate with Sunday morning worship watching the service live on Youtube.com. If you are reading this newsletter, you are probably one of those people. There are many, unfortunately, who either cannot use the virtual technologies or just don’t feel that it is an adequate alternative. These are the people I am most concerned about.
This isolation has touched all of us, and we can do something about that. In the spirit of the St. Francis prayer, “Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.” I invite you to call someone this week and check in. Ask how they are doing. Make that connection by phone. Think particularly of those friends who do not use the Internet.
“For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” In comforting the boredom, loneliness or stir-craziness of a friend, you will be comforted yourself.
With love,
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