An odd email

Today I got an email sent to all retired Episcopal alumni of Virginia Theological Seminary. Here it is.

Dear Retired Alumni,

These are indeed unprecedented times and we need your help.

The anticipated number of people who will die from this pandemic will be too large for our hospitals medically, and has already exceeded what the Church can respond to pastorally. Too many people are dying at the same time.

I am writing to invite you to join a new effort we are launching. We're creating a national phone hotline that will connect hospitals with the next available priest to offer the “Ministration at the Time of Death” over the phone.

We are hoping to find 100 retired clergy who can offer at least 2 hours a day. Approved volunteers will access the system from their computers or an app on their phones. These on-call priests will then log in for a scheduled period of service and log off when they are done. If you are logged in, the system will route calls to you (assuming you are not already on one).

If you are interested in serving in this capacity, please fill out THIS FORM and we will contact you for confirmation and orientation.

And of course, we ask for your continued prayers for the Church’s faithful response and leadership throughout this terrible pandemic.

This is odd to me for several reasons.

First, I believe 'last rites' are more to comfort the family gathered by the bed than they are for the dying person.

People dying from this virus DON'T have family by the bed. They are in isolation.

 Second, I believe there needs to be a personal connection by the priest to the dying person--some knowledge of the life and history of the dying person.

Doing it by phone to a total stranger seem odd to me, if not false.

Third, I don't think God cares if a dying person gets 'last rites' or not. God isn't concerned with our rites and traditions. God loves the dying person.

So, if there's no personal connection and no family present and God isn't concerned, why take a health care worker from their job to hold a phone?

I've done lots of 'last rites' (or, as the email calls it, "Ministrations at the Time of Death") and it is a moment of comfort for gathered family and a chance to say 'good-bye' to a loved one.

 But this seems really odd to me.

Bern thinks I should respond to VTS and say all these things. But she is a bit agnostic and more likely to 'strike back' than me.

 Yet, this is one of the oddest emails I've ever gotten--besides the one saying I have to pay $10,000 or they'll release a video on YouTube of me masturbating to Porn.

That was really odder that "last rites" by phone to a stranger.

Eleanor time

Every day, Bern does face time with our almost 4 year old granddaughter, Eleanor.

Tim and Mimi are working from home in their house near the Poconos--well outside Manhattan, where they normally live and work.

I go in and talk with Eleanor a little, but Bern plays dolls with her and reads her stories and they make up songs. Mimi says that Tim, who is a musician of some merit, is teaching Eleanor to make up songs. She is really good at it.

Eleanor time gives Tim and Mimi a brief break.

Eleanor gives Bern a tour of the house every other day or so.

Today, Bern showed her the flowers I gave her for her birthday tomorrow.

Bern always has to end the call. Eleanor would face time for hours and hours.

It's really incredible sweet, their time together.

At least a month to go

...and that's optimistic.

People are staying home. I know that because the readership of my blog is up!

I talk to my neighbors from a long distance away, but not close, like we used to.

I didn't go out today at all. Talked to some people on the phone. I usually drive around for a while to see how shut down Cheshire is. But not today.

Bern has been making us masks from cloth dinner napkins because they can be washed and reused.

Mine is forest green.

I'll probably do it when I go out to the grocery store and the wine store. Maybe on Wednesday--because I have to get Bern a birthday card (April 2nd). My late father's birthday was April 1st, a standing joke in the family that Virgil was born on April Fool's day. For 15 days, I'll only be two years older than Bern. You know, I think, that we first met when she was a freshman in high school and I was a senior. Cradle robbing, I know.

I have known and loved her for all but 14 years of her life.

Amazing! And wonderful.

Staying at home is, in one way, a gigantic pain in the ass.

In other ways, it puts me in touch with my introverted, only child self.

Whenever I've taken Myers/Briggs I am on the line between introvert and extrovert. I use up all my extrovert with church. These days I am an introvert alone.

Bern is a genuine introvert. We don't spend much time together though we're both in the same house all day. Distance is glory for introverts.

All her birthday presents have arrived. I ordered them on line since no where I could have found them is open. I'll get her some flowers at Big Y since I don't think florists are operating. And a birthday card.

How blessed am I to have been in love with her for 56 years?

More blessed that I can even imagine.

Wash your hands. Stay at home. Pray for the best we can hope for.

non-Funerals in a time of pandemic

One of the most heart-breaking videos I've seen of the world wide virus was a priest in Italy sprinkling holy water on dozens and dozens of coffins.

That will be the funeral for those people.

As an Episcopal Priest, I fully know how cathartic funerals can be for family and loved ones. When I was at St. John's in Waterbury for 21 years, we had dozens of people join the church after coming to a funeral there.

Funerals are one of the most important things a minister or rabbi or Imam can do is preside over a funeral.

Yet, all the people dying from Corona 19 will not have a funeral in the traditional sense. People cannot gather the way they do for funerals in most places.

And for good reason--stop the spread of the virus.

A mega-church pastor in Florida was arrested this week for having services with hundreds of people.

Good for Florida.

We are doing church on-line.

But how can you do a funeral on-line?

No chance for family and loved ones to touch the casket or the urn.

No chance to hug each other and mourn.

No chance to stand by a grave and say 'good-bye'.

No chance to find closure.

Yet another painful and isolating part of this pandemic.

No funeral for grandma.

Imagine the wrenching pain of that....

So, another month

The president extended social distancing until the end of April.

Not enough.

We had a house in Delaware for memorial day for all out kids and granddaughters and Bern's brother and we're not going to do it.

Bern's birthday and mine and Easter will be just the two of us. Easter was usually 14 folks around our table.

We plan to go to North Carolina with John, Sherrie, Jack, Mimi, Tim and Eleanor in September.

Maybe....

We must do what we must do.

Nothing like this in my life-time or yours.

Stay at a distance, wash your hands, do what we must do.

Who knows for how long?

A time like no other I've ever known.

But we must do what we must do.

Do that too.

OK?

I hope, for all of our sake's, you're willing to do that too.

Be well and stay well, dear friends.

surprise call

I got a surprise call from a polling place doing a poll for the Republican National Committee.

How they got my number is a mystery to me!

I get at least half-a-dozen emails from the DNC every day--but never from the Republicans.

It was a one question poll: "do you think the media is being fair in their coverage of the President and the Republicans?"

I responded: "absolutely, positively!"

The woman paused, then said, "well, that response isn't down here...but I write it in...."

All in a days work for me.

Keep your social distance. If you need people to give you more room, just fake a cough into your hand. Be sure to wash that hand when you get home.

An old African greeting is "be well and stay well, umfandusi."

Umfandusi means "my dear friend".

That is my greeting to you in this strange time we find ourselves in.

On-line church tomorrow

We've decided to keep streaming church services. We'll use Emmanuel, Killingsworth, since that's where Ted, our streamer, is.

It's Lent V and the readings include the valley of the dry bones and the raising of Lazarus. Two lessons that give us a foretaste of Easter.

Ted and Garnet and I will have communion and invite those watching to spiritually 'commune' with us. I thought about inviting people to put bread and wine in front of their screens, but then got an email from the bishops of CT that we can't long-distance bless bread and wine! So, I won't do it, even though I trust the Holy Spirit to pull it off.

It's at 10 a.m. but will be available on Facebook after that.

Here's how to access it, if I can figure out how to copy Ted's email.

here is the direct link to the group on facebook for Emmanuel church that you can see Jim on Sunday.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/237145316318688/

 you can also search on facebook for it at Emmanuel episcopal church, killingworth, ct

I did it! Sometimes I amaze myself!

Since I figured out how to do that, I'll send you a youtube link my friend Chuck ("Charles" really, he hates when I do that).

Subject: "The Log-Year 2"

https://youtu.be/qsDU_tTgsFw

It's a video of a long in Pennsylvania and the animals that cross it. Very soothing for the soul in these strange times.