Weaving a Stronger Cord

When, in the summer of 1993, incessant rains forced rivers from their banks and flooded the Des Moines Water Works, forcing the utility to shut off the water supply, faucets were left bereft.  All over town.  Toilets didn't flush.  Showers didn't spray.  Drinking cups were left dry.  It was a difficult time.

But miracles spilled where water refused to flow - Anheuser Busch canned water instead of beer and freely gave it away.  Neighbors helped each other.  And the city organized water distribution centers.  Bring your own jugs and wait in line and return home with a few gallons of that which only days before we had universally taken for granted.

One of my favorite memories from those difficult days was standing in the water line at midnight in the grocery store parking lot, alongside the richest and poorest - all of us in the same boat, each of us holding our empty and rinsed milk jugs, waiting; equalized by catastrophe; unbathed and thirsty.

Today has been the first day of spring, though nothing about the presenting circumstances bespeaks new life.  In central Iowa the clouds have hovered, the rains have fallen, the lightening tonight streaks the sky, and tornado cautions are in effect.  All that, and COVID-19.  For the most part we are home.  Hunkered down; closed in; socially distant and hyper-cautious.  Restaurants are closed by gubernatorial decree; employees have been laid off; colleges classes have moved to the internet; grocers are on reduced hours; the stock market is roller-coastering down and then up and then down again; shelves are empty and nerves are taunt.  We panic at the sound of a cough.

Last night we compared this crisis to the tremors of 9/11.  This is worse, we concluded.  When the aircrafts crashed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, there was a finitude to the crisis.  Within days we knew what was what.  The fallout continued for years, but at least the numbers affected, the crisis itself, the task ahead were known before very long.  It was what it was.

This, on the other hand.  We don't yet have a clue what all this means and where it is taking us.  We have no way of knowing how long it will be unfolding, how far the ripples will extend, and how many will be claimed.  Not limited to a geographic focus, this crisis is seemingly everywhere, enveloping all of us, shoving us onto a fog-drenched road that veils any glimpse of what's around us, let alone what's ahead.

And yet...

...there are candles piercing the opaqueness.  Pastors are broadcasting prayers and inviting us to pray along.  Musicians are performing free concerts online - Susan Werner, Ken Medema, The Indigo Girls, Paul Simon and Willie Nelson just to name the ones so far of whom I have become aware.  Doctors are posting daily updates and offering helpful advice.  Fitness practitioners are leading exercise regimens for whoever logs on.  Neighbors are checking on each other.  Customers are paying it forward - buying gift cards, ordering carry-out, and leaving generous tips.

Yes, we are frightened.  Yes, we are anxious.  Yes, we are stressed because we don't know where this is going and how long this will last.  Yes, we are staying home and getting cabin fever - never mind the coronavirus.

But closed in, we are reaching out.

Doing what we can.

Stacking sandbags against the flood that is this threat.

Lifting each other up.

And claiming larger truths:  that in each other's keeping, the tide will not wash us away; that though alone we are scared to death, together...

...together...

..."Two are better than one...for if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

And we are, creatively, impulsively and imaginatively weaving a multi-cord strand.

And together we will not be broken.

It is officially springtime even though circumstances defy the designation. It's bad out there.

But strangely, gloriously, it's good.  There is life amidst the death.

Green, piercing the winter detritus.

And somehow, amidst the spontaneous music and prayers and phone calls and mutual concern, we are already bearing fruit.

Hang in there.  We are in this thing together.  And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Clergy Reflections on the Church and Social Distancing

We have been making some changes around our farmstead.  They were not prompted by the stirrings of our imagination, but by changing circumstances that necessitated them.  They were, I'll confess, accompanied by grumblings - after all, they were not what we "wanted".  But something funny happened along the way.  The grumblings mutated into laughter.

And gratitude.

Because the resulting shape of our changed circumstances has, we have had to confessionally admit, been unmitigated improvement.  The present that necessity created is better than the past that we had leisurely fashioned.

I think about that just now amidst the chaos created by an epic pandemic.  Schools are closing, businesses are locking their doors, people are cancelling vacations, and churches are...going online.  It's not a unanimous choice.  Some are defiantly "staying open," channeling the spirit of Mordecai in the Hebrew Scriptures who wondered aloud to his cousin Queen Esther:  "Who knows? Perhaps you were made for just such a time as this.”

"It would be unfaithful," they believe, "to close."
"It is irresponsible to gather together," counter others.

What's the church to do?

Trust me, I am not the guide for such things.  Gratefully, at this stage of my ministry, I am no longer tasked with the institutional responsibility for guiding such choices.  The moment has, however, tugged at me, forcing an internal conversation about what it means to be the church - especially when it comes to worship.

The church is, as Paul so deftly and metaphorically noted, a "body" with interacting and interlocking parts.  We "have to do" with each other.  Our diverse gifts are manifest "for the upbuilding of the whole."  There is more than a single way, of course, to actualize that intention.  Connection, it seems to me, is the core value - a value no more insured by gathering together in a single room, than it is prohibited by physical separation.  There are the diaconal functions of caring for those in need.  There is the importance of shared learning and worship - of "singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs".  Those "table legs," along with fellowship, and holding all things in common.

Once upon an earlier, more naive and narcissistic time in my ministry I assumed that the most important part of congregational life was the formal gathering together for worship, and within that, the presentational elements - the musical offerings, and the sermon.  Indeed, those are the only dimensions of worship effectively conveyed via "livecast."   And while in my professional days I would not have been immune to the need to "earn my salary" by dispensing a sermon via any channel available to me to those paying me to provide one, I've changed my sense of it all since then.  I don't mean to hint that such presentational elements are unimportant - there is a reason why, after all this time, faithful continue to gather in the company of preachers and choirs.  We ache for inspiration and edification; we are drawn to that which is larger than ourselves.  At their best, such musical and homiletical offerings are corporate, but let's be honest enough to admit that congregants in the pews are too often passive recipients rather than active participants; mere consumers of religious goods and services, rather than actors in a choreography of praise.

If the church were actively and routinely accomplishing its mission - making disciples - instead of simply convening attenders, churches would be populated by preachers and pastors and prophets of myriad description, in diverse locations and not simply within the walls of the church building.  There are lots of ways to preach a sermon - with or without words, as St. Francis reminded us.  There are lots of places to read the Bible.  The pews do not own the hymns.  There are countless opportunities to be "in each other's keeping" whether or not we are in each other's presence.

As this pandemic and its implications continue to unfold, we will continue to adapt and respond.  Some will continue to unlock the church house doors and welcome whosoever in.  Others will encourage "social distancing" and offer a word and song online.  We'll do what we are led to do.  Regardless, I'm convinced that key in it all is the intentionality of our interconnection.  I'm less concerned about our meeting together than I am about our shared responsibility for each other - and the "others" we have yet to meet.  Telephone calls to check on a neighbor or the place bound or the lonely, or to glean from the wise, or to simply catch up with a friend do not transmit viruses.

They simply transmit care and nurture connection - the lifeblood of the church.

Who knows?  Maybe that can go viral.


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