Kelly Moody: “Everything Has Changed”

by on March 16, 2020 with No Comments

Associate for Spiritual Formation Kelly Moody recently sent the following letter to the participants in Children and Family Ministries at Saint Mark's. Her reflection is relevant, however, not just to parents of young children, but to all of us, and so we are sharing it here.

“Everything has changed.”

We say that in Godly Play at the beginning of a new liturgical year, and it seems appropriate in the wake of the news all gatherings over 50 people are prohibited, restaurants, gyms, libraries and museums are closing, and public and private schools are cancelled until at least April 25. Everything external about the way we go about our daily lives has changed this week, and it’s making waves. The impact of these changes will vary among us, but the anxiety that comes with disruption and uncertainty will accompany each of us to some degree. That is to be expected, and I pray that we will be divinely gentle with ourselves and one another as we live into a new reality, and seek creative ways to support the emotional, mental, and spiritual health of our children and ourselves.

Though these external changes to our daily lives are temporary, we ourselves will be changed during this season, too.  We will be formed by the cessation of gathering and activity in deep ways. It is always true that we are formed by our attention and action, but perhaps it’s easier to notice in unusual times like these- times of enforced ceasing.

As members of the Church, the Body of Christ, we have a model for living fully in the face of disruption, and seeing and celebrating God's presence in hard places. It is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and the Eucharistic shape of our weekly worship. And as it turns out, it is the pattern of our liturgical calendar, too, which conveniently locates us now in the season of Lent, a time to cease. Every year in Lent, we remove certain things from our worship space and simplify our liturgy. We set aside aspects of celebration and feasting and distraction in order to turn our attention to God’s still, small voice. We are doing that in far more drastic ways this year! But we do so with intention each year to follow Jesus’s path of preparation for surrendering his life on the cross, knowing transformation will come through surrender, somehow. And so, we have a unique opportunity this year to practice surrender.

The question is, to what, or to whom will I surrender?  

I am here to say that until this week, I had not yet been very intentional about surrendering to anything more courageous than the entropy of my own overcrowded and busy life this Lenten season. I'd even taken on too many Lenten disciplines! Truth be told, sometimes our churches become markets of frenetic activity, too, just like the rest of the world.

But not this year. This year we are given the gift of a remarkable ceasing. Folded into the worldwide disruption of COVID-19 is an opportunity to make a different Lenten choice; to show up to our own formation differently and listen to the still, small voice of God calling us gently and persistently to be still and know, and to be changed by that knowing.

The path before us is a bit rocky, but it is not uncharted. We are in the company of Christians throughout time who have found their way through disappointments and unexpected challenges by the light of Christ, in the presence of Christ, and with the love Christ. We are in the company of one another, and we will continue to be formed by our faith every time we gather for prayer and worship by livestream, or make contact with one another by phone, or meet together by Zoom in the weeks ahead.

And, we are in the company of Christ, now and forever. That will not change!

Peace to you and your families.

Kelly

Sandra Smith: A Reflection on Social Distancing

by on March 13, 2020 with 4 Comments

Sandra Smith is a longtime parishioner who was recently named Cathedral Chaplain. Her perspective as an immune-compromised person is uniquely valuable at this time, when we are all forced to consider the effect that our choices and habits could have on others. She submitted the thoughtful reflection below:

Thank you all—the people of our Church and of our State—for participating in social distancing as we all navigate preventing and containing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. I am very proud of and grateful to our Church specifically, and our city and state governments, Seattle and Washington, for implementing social distancing as a norm.

As an immune compromised individual (living with cancer at this time of COVID-19), I am very aware of who is coughing nearby, and whether they cover their cough appropriately, and the distance between where they are and where I am. I have to be. I don’t have the robust immunity of someone who is healthy, so I may not have the ability to fight infection, and that can affect my health quite seriously and quickly. I don’t shake hands or hug people today, and don’t attend groups. I wash my hands fully and frequently, before preparing food, before eating, after using the bathroom, and after touching shared common area surfaces.

It may seem like a crazy response to someone who is healthy that I’m washing my hands so much, or distancing myself from those I care about, and constantly discerning all the surfaces I touch with a heighten awareness and vigilance. I want to protect all of you from the spread of this virus as much as I don’t want to catch it myself. I don’t want you to get sick, nor to unknowingly affect others like me whose health isn’t robust either. We are one people interwoven with each other.

So I am continuing to respond to life with an informed cautious response amidst this virus, now in tandem with the advice of my medical care team, the cancer support agencies I rely on, and my Church who have all sided with “an over abundance of caution.” I attended a family memorial exercising social distancing norms which was awkward and difficult to not hug, but the last thing I wanted to do was to transmit anything to my family. So not hugging was my way to love them intensely.

Let’s continue building up our community and family connections in creative ways by phone, web-conferencing, email, sending letters and texts, settling into the still place where I believe God resides, speaking to our hearts. As my mom always said, “This too shall pass.” Be vigilant.

From the Dean: Reframing the Challenge

by on March 13, 2020 with No Comments

The following is an excerpt from the Dean's letter sent out on March 7, 2020. For the full text of the letter, and information about Saint Mark's response to the current viral outbreak, please visit the cathedral's Coronavirus outbreak information page.

Every Lent we retell the account of Jesus’ forty-day retreat in the wilderness as a time of temptation, but also as a time of prayerful discernment, for Jesus and for all who follow him. Jesus began his worldly ministry in earnest only after that time apart. With this in mind, I wonder if we might see this time as not only a challenge but also an opportunity—to see it as being afforded a time in which life is changed, and to ask ourselves, for what purpose?

Or, to extrapolate, what if we were to frame this time in which many of the daily practices in the busy-ness of life are reduced, or withdrawn, for a time—in this way, can we see it as sabbath time? What would you do differently if you saw this as sabbath? More rest, more recreation (re-creation, as God intended), more quality family time, more time to pray, more time to journal, and to do so with intention. What will you do?

With the prospect of fewer meetings, and with this image of sabbath in mind and on my heart, I am engaging my centering prayer practice with more intention, and I am going to re-read two books—Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s landmark book The Sabbath, and Walter Brueggemann’s wonderful book Sabbath As Resistance: Saying NO to a Culture of Now. I might encourage you to explore one or both, and perhaps later this month, if the health crisis persists, as I expect it will, we will make plans to host on-line book discussion groups using Brueggemann’s book. (I’d encourage reading this book regardless!). We can and will continue to form community in life-giving ways!

We press on, friends, trusting in the pervasive presence and love of God as the guiding force for us all. I am grateful to be on this journey with you all! I am,

Affectionately,

The Very Reverend Steven L. Thomason
Dean and Rector
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