ViaMedia

Category: Coronavirus

  • We Can’t Go Back…So We Need to Take Care of Our Mental Health

    by the Rt Revd Dame Sarah Mullally DBE, Bishop of London and former Chief Nursing Officer

    Sarah Mullally

    ‘Coronavirus has our brains pinging on “future threat,” driving global anxiety and shared fear, as we all live in this extreme state of uncertainty.’ So wrote Jan Bruce in Forbes magazine on March 5th. And if shared fear was a reality then, how much more so now? After three months of daily death tolls, R values and government appeals to stay at home, it is not surprising that a certain amount of anxiety might hang over the public’s heads.

    This week, the mental health charity Mind quantified the impact. In a survey of 16,000 people, they discovered that 65% of adults and 75% of 13-24 year olds with pre-existing mental health conditions said that their situations had worsened. More than a fifth of those aged 13 or older without prior mental health difficulties described their mental health as poor or very poor.[1]

    We needed the stats, the briefings and the message to stay at home. Coronavirus was and is a killer. Understanding the risks helped us to stay alert in a time of real danger. And I’m also acutely aware that many people have faced fearful burdens on top of the virus itself.  Those who have lost their jobs or have been put under severe financial pressures. The elderly who were shielding and less able to socialise online. Those who struggle with loneliness at the best of times, finding their feelings exacerbated by circumstances. Others found themselves suddenly trapped at home with abusers. They faced fears not just from an unseen killer but from a visible threat.

    But the general climate of fear that has been so successfully inculcated in us, leaves us with a conundrum. How do we encourage one another to wisely emerge from lockdown? How do we begin to navigate this brave new world of face masks and social distancing? A world in which we can meet with six others but cannot sing in church. Some can have a picnic in the park while others remain shut up at home. We have permission to roam but the newspapers warn of a second wave. We want to support the economy but can feel, more than anything, emotionally shattered.

    Thankfully, before COVID-19 hit, we had been moving towards a greater awareness of the need to attend to our mental health. Notably the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge spoke out last year. I was grateful to be able to speak on these issues at Lambeth Palace alongside Dr Jacqui Dyer, President of the Mental Health Foundation and the Archbishop of Canterbury last year. The increased engagement with mental health awareness day is evidence of what Justin Welby wrote then: “it feels like something is beginning to shift.”[2] It is becoming okay to not be okay. And in this regard, the Christian story has an important contribution to make.

    In the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians he says:

    “We have this treasure,” [the treasure being the glory of God] “in jars of clay” [the jars being us] to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

    Paula Gooder, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, tells me that there were two types of jar in the first century. One was dark and thick used for display. The other used the thinnest material possible so that it would crack in the kiln. The cracks enabled light to diffuse out from within when a lamp was placed inside. The jar was purposely created to be vulnerable, so that the light would shine through it. This, says Paul is God’s design. Our fragility, vulnerability and brokenness is by design, so that the light of the glory of Christ might shine brightly as we persevere in living for Jesus through it.

    All of this means that as we emerge from lockdown, we do well to talk about our mental health. To talk to each other, to make it integral to our ministry life whatever context we find ourselves in, for mental health to be a subject for prayer in public as well as in private. In this way we can each find the comfort and support that we need.

    I’m doing all I can to ensure that the NHS provides the mental health services that our nation will need through my role in the House of Lords. But in the first instance, Paul doesn’t point us to specialised support groups but the shoulders to cry on that he provides in the church. The brothers and sisters that should be available to us all. The challenge to us as churches, is to continue to have a culture in which everyone feels safe to share their struggles and feel able to speak openly.

    Our fear is not something that we need to hide. It is something that can be harnessed in our walk with God. So often it is when we are at our wit’s end that we recognise our need to cry out to the Lord for help (Psalm 107:27). So often, in God’s peculiar plan for this world, it is when we have received comfort from Him and his people, that we are best equipped to comfort others in return (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

    [1] https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/uk-government-must-urgently-plan-for-recovery-from-coronavirus-mental-health-crisis-says-mind/

    [2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/18/children-alone-uk-mental-health-problems-listening-stigma

     

  • We Can’t Go Back…Even When We Do!

    by the Rt Revd David Walker, Bishop of Manchester

    david-walker

    From this weekend, churches have the option, subject to a risk assessment, of reopening their premises for public acts of worship. Over the next few weekends I expect, and indeed hope, that we will be able to undertake simple, practical measures that will reduce the risks of infection at such gatherings, sufficiently to comply with the government requirement that our buildings be Covid secure. Congregation members may stagger their return over a number of Sundays, there will be no grand reopening ceremonies, but physically we will have indeed “gone back”.

    Except, there is never any true going back.

    The past, even the very recent past, is always a different country. Whilst separated from public worship in our buildings, we have continued the mission of Christ’s Church in different ways. We have proclaimed the Gospel from virtual pulpits we never knew existed, and many have responded in joy. We have nurtured one another in faith, using every technique of telecommunication to deepen our fellowship, share our tears, console our bereavement and relieve our loneliness. We have served the poor and hungry in our communities. We have been stirred to pray and act for justice, so that hungry children will be fed over the summer holidays, the homeless will not be cast back onto the streets, and Black Lives will Matter, both more and to more of us, in the time to come. We have shrunk our carbon footprint, travelling less, buying fewer disposable commodities, and enjoying the sights and sounds of a nature beginning to breathe more easily as many of us have been able to do also.

    We are not who we were four months ago. We have lost, lamented, learned, longed and loved. We cannot be squeezed back into our former shape.

    When I first began to work with parishes on recruiting new priests, I quickly discovered the huge value of “the vacancy”. It was only when the previous incumbent had left that a parish profile could be drawn up that didn’t simply say, “Same again please, bishop, only 20 years younger”. It was only after eight or nine further months had lapsed that a new vicar could arrive and not be expected to take on every single duty that had accrued to their predecessor. Time needed to pass for things to stop happening, for other practices to cease being unthinkingly presumed; only thus can we make room for the new.

    If I were inventing a liturgy for the return to our buildings, it would be to invite each worshipper, new or returning, to make the baptismal renunciations and professions of faith before crossing the church threshold the first time. We enter anew, casting off unsustainable or unwanted habits, discarding long hoarded prejudices, released from behaviours that exhaust and drain our energies. Ready for the future.

    My hope and my yearning is that these months of lockdown have readied us to be a Church that treasures its people and its resources enough to release them to where the opportunities and challenges for mission are the greatest; not a Church that seeks to do everything just as we have always done, but to do it more frantically and with fewer assets available than ever. I hope for patterns of ministry that do not tire our clergy and lay leaders to exhaustion, but equip them to expend their energies building the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed; for ways of meeting and ministering that do not tie up so much of our energies in maintaining the wrong buildings in the wrong places; for radical simplification of the bureaucratic hoops we so often have to go through on the way to achieving any significant change.

    It would be foolish to pretend that most of us have not been impacted by the stress and strain of these last months. I can hear the siren voice within myself, the voice that wants to go back to things as they were. Maybe just for a year or two, it whispers, a time to rest and regain impetus for the future. And yet I know that to do so would be fatal. Indeed, it would simply add to the burden of exhaustion without offering new hope. Developing new vision and purpose, and doing it now, will bring not only fresh energy but refreshment and renewal. When we are clear how we are going to be different, we will find rest in release from the things we have stopped tiring ourselves out with.

    So, I welcome the fact that we will be publishing the Living in Love and Faith resources, and commending them for study and engagement, this autumn. I dare to hope that reading them in the light of our emerging from lockdown will provide fresh insights into who we are, and how we might be the Church better. I welcome the work I see being done to help us focus on what the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion might mean for us both as individuals and as church communities over the next five to ten years. I welcome the fresh energy that lies behind what should be the self-evident phrase that Black Lives Matter.

    The next few weeks and months will not only be a time to fling open the doors of our buildings to welcome our people, but a time to fling open our hearts and minds to welcome with equal enthusiasm what the Holy Spirit is yearning to breathe into us.

  • We Can’t Go Back…to 2020 Vision

    by Dr Rachel Jepson, Member of General Synod, Teacher and PhD in Education ? “Death and Life After Death: Children’s Concepts and Their Place in Religious Education”

    Rachel

    “I have come in order that you might have life ? life in all its fullness.”

    John’s Gospel, Chapter 10 Verse 10

    Engaging with what is happening in the world around us is both a personal and collective privilege and responsibility.  COVID-19 has vividly reminded me of the importance of fully living in the moment ? that this is the only moment I can influence.

    This pandemic is a chance for our education system to be far more holistic than it has ever been.  All those who are responsible for, and are a part of our formal education system ? the students, teaching and non-teaching staff, parents/guardians, governors, inspectors, the Department for Education, and the teaching unions have a golden opportunity to reflect on and assess the purpose of education and how that should be manifested.

    More joined-up thinking, action, and discernment is desperately needed.  As a consequence, there should be less compartmentalisation and separation of the formal place of learning in school, college or university from the home and the community in which people live.  The pandemic is starkly reminding us that how we live is interwoven with our neighbours whether they are family and friends, or acquaintances and strangers.  We do not live mutually exclusive lives.  Thus, a greater and more consistent willingness to be alert to and informed by each other’s narratives and realities is imperative.  In turn, this should lead to greater understanding and acceptance of one another.

    The pandemic keeps presenting us with the harsh realities of life.  Consequently, it is important for schools to embrace this chance to facilitate their students being able to explore the concepts of death and life after death.  Research affirms that children, including young children, are capable of considering these concepts and they should be given the opportunity to explore them further.  School is an advantageous and universally available place where meaningful consideration of the search of these concepts should occur as school is a familiar environment for discovery, learning and understanding for children.  Religious Education is the most relevant area of the school curriculum where children’s discovery and learning can be focused on the exploration of these concepts through investigating ultimate questions with the rites of passage and doctrines of the major world religions.  Accordingly, the meaningful and worthwhile updating of Religious Education syllabi for implementation by teachers and those responsible for Religious Education should be a priority.

    Furthermore, it would be healthy and wise for every school, college and university to make sure that they have a bereavement policy in place, and for the plan to be discussed and disseminated to every member of staff.  Familiarisation with it is key.

    Those in education are being forced to embrace digital technology.  In many places there is increased staff confidence with it as a result, for example, of daily staff communication which has, in turn, helped colleagues to work together.  Hopefully, this should mean that in future it can be used more to communicate with the aim of reducing workload.  Similarly, for many students there is increased confidence in digital technology.  Yet for others, such as, in some rural communities, it has led to confusion and anxiety.  Significant numbers of students do not have any idea how to open, access or write an email, yet this is what is being expected of them by their teachers.  It is not part of their every-day experience.  Parents in rural communities are not necessarily equipped to support their children in this digital age either.  As a result, for too many students a gap is emerging between the progress made by some of them and those sadly left behind.  There are cases where students have been provided with laptops with internet connection paid for and set up.  The issue is that without the knowledge, the students are unable to use them.  It would appear that the information technology curriculum has not been sufficient in embedding these skills which many adults take for granted.

    At the same time, the pandemic is providing more opportunities for families to learn together.  Sometimes this is through the range of tasks the schools have facilitated for the students’ learning; sometimes this is through how families are choosing to navigate the situation and seize opportunities, especially for their children to develop life skills.

    Excitingly, there are numerous, fantastic examples of students of all ages engaging in learning in and from their local environment and community ? from exploring the seaweed found on the beaches of Orkney and uploading their findings to the British Seaweed Survey; to observing the barge loads of granite being delivered to the shores of Withernsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire.  Secondary school students, including GCSE Geographers, had been learning about coastal management before lockdown.  During their walks, students became curious and knowledgeable about what they were witnessing.  They then sent photographs to their teacher, enthusiastically informing her.  These experiences make for far better awareness of our environment and an appreciation of where we live.

    From my teaching experience in the UK and South Africa, I am keen to see those in education continue to go outside and explore, as well as members of the public continue their personal journey with nature which has been evolving throughout lockdown.  This will create and build relationships with the environment which will, in turn, promote pro-environmental behaviours and, hopefully, mark the furtherance of saving our planet for which we have been given the charge of custodians.

    During COVID-19 fresh, creative ways of teaching are having to be used, particularly through experimenting, observing, playing and researching rather than classroom-based lecture work.  The lockdown has also seen a vast expansion of life skills being taught ? from cooking to sewing to maintenance skills.  These skills are generally not taught by parents anymore, due for instance, to the pressures of home life, work, after-school activities.  However, lockdown has forced us to stay together and pass on these important skills.  These relationship building activities have shown that education can happen in different ways, as well as, teaching our children and young people on how to become resilient and to deal with issues that face us in life head on.  They are tangibly realizing that they can survive, and in some ways, thrive in challenging times and come out the other end.  Without them necessarily knowing it, these too, are vital life skills which will help them to have the courage to take risks as they journey on through life.

    This pandemic is a golden opportunity to embrace the change and feel empowered to choose to live life in all its fullness.  Every educator, regardless of location, has the privilege and responsibility to encourage and inspire the grappling of ideas for the sake of the children and young people in their care.  Face-to-face interaction is a necessary component for meaningful learning.  All in all, enabling them to become engaging, joyful, global citizens.

    My hope and prayer is that everyone has the willingness, ability and confidence to hold onto what they know to be worthwhile, to those whom they cherish, and come alongside the rest of humanity.  While remembering the power and impact of loving kindness on us all.

  • We Can’t Go Back…To Looking After No 1!

    by the Ven Malcolm Chamberlain, Archdeacon of Sheffield & Rotherham and Member of General Synod

    Malcolm

    On Monday 4th May, six weeks into the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown, The Guardian newspaper published an article by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett under the heading ‘Why coronavirus might just create a more equal society in Britain.’ In it they wrote about how the present crisis “has given rise to more neighbourliness, sociability and a desire to take care of each other.”

    It would be a fascinating study, well beyond the scope of this blog post, to put that statement to the test. Perhaps even more fascinating to chart a journey from how we were as a nation to what we may have become. At a superficial level, I can’t be the only one to have noticed how the initial selfish stockpiling of loo-rolls and pasta soon gave way to wonderful acts of human kindness. Indeed, in the midst of much tragic loss and disturbing uncertainty, time and time again we’ve been reminded of the human capacity for great generosity.

    I was particularly moved, for example, when, right at the beginning of the lockdown, the carers at Bridgedale House care home, not far from where I live in Sheffield, made the sacrificial decision to isolate with the residents in order to minimise the risk of transmitting the disease to those vulnerable people. For some this meant leaving behind partners and young children for several weeks, at a time when their lives were being affected too.

    We’ve heard stories of people spending their time and money to shop for and deliver groceries to those unable to leave their homes; of generous donations to foodbanks at a time of unprecedented demand; of holiday cottage owners housing NHS and other frontline workers free of charge; of café and restaurant owners providing food and refreshments for essential workers at heavily discounted prices or even for free; and, of course, there was Captain Tom’s incredible 100th birthday walk. As a fan of David Bowie, I still wish the army had given him an honorary promotion, so we could have sung about ‘Major Tom’!

    And I haven’t even mentioned the countless small, but no less significant, acts of generosity carried out by ordinary people day after day after day. If one positive effect of the Coronavirus pandemic is the much-needed reminder of the power of human generosity in overcoming adversity, we simply cannot go back to the self-obsessed ‘look after number one’ culture we have previously inhabited.

    We are not lone islands, even if economic policy has at times seduced us to such self-centredness. We are co-members of the human race, lovingly created by the same God who calls us into relationship with our Creator and with one another. The COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the awful consequences of poverty, institutional racism and injustice, as evidence suggests that the virus has a more devastating impact on the poor and on BAME communities. More positively, the COVID-19 pandemic has opened our eyes to the benefits of cleaner air, with enforced travel restrictions reducing global carbon emissions by some 17%. We cannot go back.

    But let’s be honest. We can go back and, sadly, we probably will.

    When we eventually return to a new normality free from restrictions, it will be all too easy for us to forget that feeling of sharing in a common crisis, and return again to simply looking after number one. I’m writing this in the week that non-essential shops were allowed to open again, and was gobsmacked (not in a good way) by images of one such store where eager shoppers were literally wrestling with each other to get in the door as it opened – no thoughts of social distancing or, it seems, of anyone else’s needs. Faced with such images, it can seem as though nothing has really changed.

    So how can we live differently? How might we emerge from the lockdown as more generous and caring people? And how might such generosity demonstrate our oneness both as members of the human race and, for those of us who might call ourselves ‘Christian’, as followers of Jesus Christ?

    There may be a clue in the letters of the New Testament. As the Church began to spread across Asia Minor, St Paul regarded generously giving to meet the needs of others as a key sign of commitment to Christ and a powerful demonstration of unity. Tom Wright comments that, having realised just how poor the Jerusalem Church had become, Paul started to imagine “what an impact it would have if the churches of which Jerusalem had been so suspicious … were to band together and send real and lasting financial help.”[1]

    And so, Paul closes his first letter to the Corinthian church by explaining how they were to go about collecting gifts for their fellow believers in Jerusalem. And it wasn’t only the wealthy that gave generously. In chapter 8 of his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul points to the example of the Macedonian Christians, who, by the grace of God, had been giving voluntarily out of their relative poverty, begging earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry. I love that! These materially poor followers of Jesus were literally begging for the chance to enjoy the privilege of giving!

    As we potentially begin to slip back into old habits and power structures that advantage some over others, I wonder, do you, do I, regard generous giving as ‘a privilege’? Might we have more to learn from God about this essential mark of Christian discipleship. Whatever our financial means, however much spare time we have, whatever our gifts and abilities, might we have room to more fully reflect the generosity and abundance of the God who created us? Or what about our church or our diocese or our other networks – can we see ways of working together to better embody the kind of generosity that reflects our shared humanity?

    If the coronavirus pandemic has caused us to live more generously and pursue the common good in the face of adversity, surely we cannot go back.

    [1] Wright, Tom, Paul A Biography, SPCK: London, 2018, p257

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Ignoring Those We Do Not See

    by the Rt Revd Ruth Worsley, Bishop of Taunton

    Ruth

    ‘You don’t belong here’ were the words spoken to me on my first Sunday evening as curate.  I must say I felt quite affronted, I was nervous enough.  It had been quite a journey for me to take to ordination.  Brought up within a very conservative non-conformist Christian tradition where I had no role models of women in leadership, I had undertaken much soul-searching and wide-ranging debate to get to this point.

    Over the 12 years I spent in that parish, I discovered however what was behind those words.  This was a multi-cultural community with white working-class, living alongside changing, mobile and growing immigrant groups.  It was dynamic, colourful and constantly challenging for a new curate like me and I loved it.

    Unlike most of the diocesan congregations ours was richly diverse.   However the leadership was not.  Those of us in leadership put that down to the lack of confidence of our congregational members but it became clear during my ministry there that we had been using that as an excuse for some time.  ‘Empowering the laity’ didn’t just mean offering them opportunities to develop but also making space for them.  So we set about making some fundamental changes to increase the visibility of those we had overlooked.  Long-term middle-class white members of our PCC stepped down to make room for others drawn from our growing black and Asian congregation.

    One of the small but significant things we did was to make all our PCC members chalice assistants.  A tiny structural change but it meant that immediately we had 6 BAME members up front and visible to the wider congregation.  And what we found was that not only did they become visible but we also brought children and young people to the fore with the 2 16 year olds who were serving a year on the PCC.  Suddenly more of us could see ourselves mirrored in those participating in visible roles.  And it grew confidence, folk could begin to see they had something to contribute.

    That 20-year old memory has come to mind again for me in sharp relief as I’ve reflected on this period of lockdown.  Who are those who have remained invisible to me over those years and yet now I am beginning to see once more?

    In the early weeks of lockdown, my colleague +Peter met a woman in her wheelchair along his walk.  She told him that she had not been able to access church for 4 years or more and yet that week she had been 4 or 5 times.  How?  Through the digital possibilities of the internet allowing her the freedom to enter into worship and not finding her physical constraints to be an issue.  We cannot go back to ignoring those we cannot see!

    Last night I visited a local residential care home to thank the carers who have given selflessly during this time of anxiety and fear.  They have gone the extra mile to keep our seniors safe and yet often have come second when it comes to PPE, personal pay and conditions, and in feeling society’s appreciation.  We were told our visit made them feel valued as they had felt excluded from the clap for carers with the spotlight being on the NHS.  Izzy also told us how important the weekly local church’s YouTube service had become to their residents.  In the past the church had taken the occasional service in the home, but now residents were able to feel part of the regular congregation.  We promised that we would seek to continue these acts of worship.  We cannot go back to ignoring those we cannot see!

    Social care has been underfunded for many years and we have known that.  The Dilnot Commission, set up 10 years ago, proposed a range of ways in which we could provide affordable but appropriately financed care into later age.  Some of our carers still remain on pay that does not constitute a living wage.  The media attention which has shown how care homes have borne such a terrible cost in loss of life due to them taking second place, has caused us to sit up and take note.  If we truly appreciate the contribution such carers make to our society then we must join in bringing about change to the political systems which govern such care.  We cannot go back to ignoring those we cannot see!

    And there are so many more whom we have overlooked both in the Church and wider society in terms of either our unconscious bias or our unwillingness to choose to see them.  Whether it is fear of difference or the comfort of homogeneity, we have narrowed our vision and lost sight of the broader horizon over the years.

    I say ‘we’ but let’s own it…’I’. ‘me’!  Early passions in ministry which sought to speak out for the most disadvantaged have settled into a pattern of balancing out the needs of all and thus diminishing the injustices of those whom I fail to see.  The cause of those of a different ethnicity or sexuality, the concerns of those with mental or physical health needs, the case for the eldest or youngest in our society has often remained unrecognised.

    But there are signs of hope.

    The fear of pandemic has led to society re-evaluating what is important in life, our values, our purpose and those we love.  ‘Key work’ is no longer focused on the financial markets as we have seen the economy tumble but rather on those who offer us a service of care.  The more vulnerable in our communities have experienced an outpouring of generosity from neighbours and volunteers as they have become a focus of attention rather than remaining hidden and unseen behind closed doors.  We cannot go back…

    As I write this I’m reminded of the vignette of the child being brought into the company of Jesus by a parent.  The disciples tried to muscle them out of the way, an unimportant intrusion, not worthy of notice.  Jesus’ response was to draw the child into the centre as the focus of attention.  His challenge to the disciples was not only to see but to become like children themselves.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Lockdown Testimonies – Sue

    by Sue, a Lay Minister who was born as a deaf person  Sue - Deaf Church

    Lockdown/shut down, frustration, isolation, loneliness was a normal life for me…then Covid 19 came to stay and our lives have turned upside down!

    I am used to being isolated and frustrated, as are most deaf and deafened people, but this was something new and a challenge – how would I survive this?

    No one to Skype with as my camera packed up, and peering at my phone to Skype gives me a headache. No text messages from the grandchildren (should I text to let them know I am still alive?).  At least I have Facebook and can have a little chat with my brother who lives abroad, but no-one else uses it or thinks to use it to chat with me.

    We have two family allotments next to each other.  I can go there and have a chat with my daughter and a cuppa together on each others’ plots without breaking the rules and a distant chat with other allotment holders – except they are too far away and I can’t see to lipread, so we inch a little closer because they can’t hear my soft voice, (soft because I am terrified of having the classic ‘loud deaf voice’). The sun is in our eyes so we stand under a nearby apple tree and now it’s too dark for me to see to lipread again. A bit of shuffling about again, like some sort of weird crabdance, and we can converse.

    And then there’s church.

    I mainly only attend the small Tuesday morning service (in one church of the team) where we sit round a table in the back.  Despite being only at arms length away I can’t hear the person opposite me or sometimes next to me, but we are a friendly little group and we manage together. I attend church (main one of the team) some Sunday’s but if it wasn’t for the service sheet handed out it would quite literally go through one ear and out the other. There being no other deaf person there I sign to myself. A brief text informed me church was closed and my heart sank – how can I live without my Tuesday mornings?

    Facebook came to the rescue.

    Church services online and hopefully subtitled or at least with things written down to follow, except it rarely happens. A still photo of the church, while someone talks in the background is no good to me.  Even being informed to download the service sheet doesn’t help as I have no idea where we have got to.

    Please remember the deaf and hard of hearing. Do I know how to do open subtitles? Alas no. One day they did have a go but they forgot to tell me, so I missed it. It didn’t work very well, it was hilarious (or so I am told) with mistakes but at least they tried. Nor does informing me near the end of the service that there will be open subtitles on Youtube – what good is that? It’s a bit late isn’t it? And as far as I know it hasn’t been done again.

    The vicar has a go at signing the Peace (got it off google) and I sit and cry. Not because he has done it for me, but because I have sat for months in church on Sunday’s and only one person has asked me to show them how to sign the Peace – and it wasn’t the vicar. Why couldn’t you ask and do it for me in all those months? Why have I had to wait until now?

    Bored, I explore Facebook.  I come across the Ex -Salvationists and, as I was brought up in the Army (I haven’t been for the last 40 yrs) and have relatives still there, I sign up and joy of joys, someone posts the UK Territorial Officers doing a little talk with subtitles.  I fall on it like some starving soul desperate for bread (it’s been 5 years since I last had any access to a sermon).  I can’t wait for it each week. I pray that when this is all over they will continue, otherwise I will die of starvation for want of spiritual food. Even the General has a little talk, subtitled, and if it isn’t, it is written out in full. By contrast I have yet to find one by the Archbishop of Canterbury with subtitles.

    Things have improved – there are services with signing (thank you Gill), which allowed me to join in with the retirement service of the Archbishop of York and I was delighted to see him sign (I wonder who taught him?). Locally Evening Prayer, although not subtitled, is at least written out so I can follow it.  I have my Bible to hand, but I have to read fast and ahead to make sure I know where we are when the virtual page changes. Prayers, I do on my own as I can’t hear that bit and on Sunday’s I don’t hear the sermon but that is normal life for me to miss out on things. and I do what I normally do – I either think on one of the readings or I daydream instead.

    Zoom is useless as I can’t lipread everyone.  I can’t help smiling when the muted mic causes problems for people – welcome to my world!

    But…despite the problems I do get more out of the online services than sitting in church.

    Normal life for me is to feel shut down, isolated and very frustrated and very lonely and that is just in the church service. Online, despite the problems, I am equal, one of them, part of the world-wide company of Christians.

    Lockdown is easing, life is slowly returning to ‘normal’ but will the services still be online? Or will my lockdown/shut down, frustration, isolation, loneliness be once again normal life for me?

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Preserving Bricks & Mortar

    by the Ven Nikki Groarke, Archdeacon of Dudley and Member of General Synod

    Nikki

    A small group of beleaguered disciples, tired, fearful and disappointed, uncertain about the future, meeting behind closed doors, wistfully reminiscing about the crowds who had at one time gathered with them. Now it’s just the faithful remnant.

     The Holy Spirit comes, and they are transformed, heading out into the public arena, living life fully as Christ’s followers, drawing others to join them by their love for each other and their neighbours, and their accessible, amateurish but heartfelt teaching and worship.

    We have all reflected recently on a story something like this over Pentecost. However, what I am describing is not the early church, but rather what I have seen played out in many small congregations across my diocese in these last few months.  In multi-parish rural benefices and urban teams, where previously ten to fifteen committed long term members met in multiple locations for worship, now a hundred or more gather online together, energised and engaged each week, making new friends and attracting others. It’s easier to join a crowd than a clique.

    For many years across the country, weary church wardens have with dogged determination, fought to keep regular Sunday services going in their church building, not wanting to betray their predecessors by allowing the church to die on their watch. Failure and local wrath have been constant threats  Then, overnight in March, the doors of every church building were closed, unilaterally. And they were not responsible. It was not their fault. A Kairos moment?

    Lockdown was dramatic and shocking for church communities. Emerging from it will be far more nuanced, and no less difficult. Already MPs and journalists are politicising the ‘draconian’ refusal to permit the use of church buildings for private prayer and funerals. Bishops across the country are tweeting  (including my own)!  Passions and anxieties are running high amidst uncertainties and swathes of guidelines for ‘whenever we can reopen’.

    Churches will soon be allowed to open again, and that is right. But please let’s not rush back to opening them all.  Church buildings are different, have different purposes and callings, and can sometimes get in the way of God’s people truly being church.  And we have too many of them.

    It’s very easy to say. “Open your church building from tomorrow” to gain some support from vocal campaigners.  But what about the tiny rural church with no mains water, where handwashing isn’t possible?  How do you clean an ancient building with nooks and crannies when you can’t slosh the bleach around?  How do you safely open a huge cathedral with multiple entrances and many chapels, when staff are furloughed, closure of cafés and shops and no tourists has caused a financial crisis, and most volunteers are vulnerable or shielding?  Practically there are many issues to be overcome.  The challenges will be met of course.  Clergy and church members will rise to the occasion creatively, just as they have adapted to the constraints of recent months with resilience and faith.

    But what about the opportunities of this Kairos moment?  Strategically is it right to go back to dispersed, fragmented and often insular worship in every place?  Surely this is the time to courageously ask the questions few previously dared voice.

    Should this church be used for worship each Sunday in the future?  Can we re-designate for occasional use – weddings, funerals, harvest and Christmas?  Can we formally close, and recognise the building’s importance as a local heritage asset, treating it as such rather than trying to meet unrealistic expectations of it becoming a vibrant community hub when we all know in our hearts that this role is filled adequately by the village hall or pub?  Dare we contemplate allowing our building to become perhaps a beautiful ruin?

    Place is important of course, and prayed in places are undoubtedly holy.  It is important to have sacred space where we can gather, celebrate the sacraments, reflect amidst beauty.  Buildings where key life events have been marked hold special significance and will always be places of pilgrimage.  But not every church building is beautiful, many are not fit for purpose, they are often in the wrong places where settlements have moved. Some were built for dubious reasons – as follies or status symbols.  One size does not fit all, and we need to grasp the freedom the current closure gives us to treat each case individually.

    If congregations and weary wardens can be released to be church, rather than being burdened with the responsibility of preserving bricks and mortar, maybe the new life we have seen emerge in lockdown might blossom and flourish – not forever online – heaven forbid! But in vibrant Christian communities meeting in the most appropriate church building in a grouping, or even in a school hall, focussing their energies and enthusiasm on serving their communities, fed by corporate worship with many others, sharing gifts and skills as they grow in discipleship together.

    My theological college principal often reflected that policy is usually at least ten years behind practice in the Church of England.  Re-designating masses of church buildings can, if we are brave to seize the moment, be trialled instinctively as we begin to embrace the new normal. The legislation to make it formal will take Chancellors and Archdeacons and General Synod many years and tie us all in knots, but let’s not be deterred.  We cannot go back to a uniform approach to church buildings draining the life from the church.  Let’s invest in some, reinvent others, and dare to let some quietly stay closed for ever.

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Breathlessness

    by the Rt Revd Philip North, Bishop of Burnley


    Philip


    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Following the lynch-mob style killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, his dying words have become the cry of dispossessed and impoverished BAME communities first in the States and then across the globe. Long decades in which they have suffered on a daily basis from structural racism, inequality of opportunity and the denial of their personhood has exploded into a mighty welling up of anger which has left the Trump administration floundering and governments around the world struggling to keep up.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    That is also the cry of COVID patients, a condition which fills the lungs with fluid such that the breath is forced out of a person. At first we were told this pandemic would be a crisis for everyone. Already it is revealing itself to be a crisis for the poor. Those from urban areas and BAME communities are dying in hugely disproportionate numbers. And as the massive economic impact of lockdown reveals itself, it will inevitably be the poor who pay an unfair share of the cost, for the impact of crisis is always delegated to those who are already deprived.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Unspoken, spoken then hashtagged, this is becoming the cry of all who feel constricted and suffocated by poverty or injustice.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Those are not recorded amongst the last words spoken by Jesus from the cross, but they might have been, for crucifixion, like COVID, works by forcing the air out of a person’s lungs. Every breath becomes such unspeakable agony that eventually the body has to give up trying. On the cross, Jesus identifies himself with all who cry out, ‘I can’t breathe.’

    Yet his breathlessness has purpose, ‘It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you,’ Jesus says at the table of the Last Supper (John 16, 7). By undergoing breathlessness, Jesus unleashes for us the irresistible, life-giving breath of the Spirit who renews all creation.

    The Spirit’s breath, released at Pentecost, is the gift that Jesus gives to his Church. So in a post-COVID world Christians must be utterly single-minded in breathing that breath over a world that cries out, ‘I can’t breathe.’ Nothing else will matter.

    First, over the breathless, we must breathe out the Spirit’s breath of life. During crisis, through generous service and imaginative use of the online environment, we have made contact with a new fringe. What we need now is a new evangelism in which we live and speak the Gospel with joy, an evangelism motivated not by institutional survival but by the passionate desire that people might breathe.

    And this new evangelism must begin amongst the poor, because that is the place from where renewal always springs. Dioceses are going to have difficult decisions to make about deployment and pastoral organisation in the years ahead, but such decisions must honour our commitment to inner city, outer estate and post-industrial communities. If now becomes the time when we disproportionately withdraw people or buildings from places of poverty, then God is dishonoured and the Gospel is fatally undermined.

    The lesson of history is clear and consistent. An evangelism that prioritises the powerful does not work and cannot last. Instead we need to hear the voice of the breathless. We need to speak good news to the poor. Our best leaders, our richest resources, our finest theologians, our most engaging preachers must be offered to the places where life is hardest. Only then we will re-engage a nation with the person of Jesus.

    Next, over the breathless, we must breathe out the Spirit’s breath of justice. The COVID pandemic has laid bare the harsh levels of social and economic inequality which so damage our common life, which deny opportunity, which take away hope and which lead to countless costly social ills from poor health to spiralling prison populations.

    The action of local churches in addressing inequality through acts of charity has been heroic in this pandemic. But charity can be a fool without justice. Foodbanks, for example, merely prop up innately unjust structures unless we campaign to change those factors which have rendered them necessary: low pay, unfair benefits, family breakdown. As UK churches, our voice in naming injustice and calling for political and economic reform has for too long been inconsistent and disjointed. We need a united Christian voice: perhaps a new ecumenical body, which can campaign consistently and vigorously.

    But if we are to address injustice nationally we must name it within our own structures. The vast wealth disparities between dioceses cannot be acceptable in the future as some dioceses go to the wall whilst others fall back on eye-watering levels of historic wealth. Harder still will be naming and addressing the deep-seated racism that still exists within our own common life and which prevents so many BAME Christians from breathing. We have no authority to name injustice nationally if we are so wantonly failing to put our own house in order.

    And third, over the breathless, we must breathe out the Spirit’s breath of peace. The fallout of this crisis is likely to be deep and sustained economic depression with concomitant pressures on relationships at every level. The church, filled with the Spirit, is called to model the new humanity. We are challenged to live differently under the bonds of love, valuing every human person as a child of God. That is the peace that the Spirit breathes.

    If we are to do that effectively, we urgently need to do better at living with difference. We must find ways to conduct debates such that they do not destroy relationships and leave us too exhausted to engage with the world. A nation that is crying out for breath cannot afford the luxury of a divided and quarrelsome church, obsessed only with its own internal wrangles. Those who look to us seeking the breath life should find a community of peace. Without that all our words and prayers will be hollow hypocrisy.

    ‘I can’t breathe.’

    It is the ultimate cry of despair. As those filled with the Spirit’s breath, if we can hear and respond, then perhaps this terrible crisis can be the dawn of a new age of faith.

  • We Can’t Go Back…to Pretending!

    by the Ven Peter Leonard, Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight, Chair of OneBodyOneFaith and Member of General Synod

    peter leonard

    Like many others I have experienced a ‘Corona Coaster’ of emotions during lockdown. One day I’m coping and am positive and on other days it simply seems black and I just want to hide away. I’ve known for some time I would be writing this, and I have thought and prayed about it, resulting in a dozen different ideas for what it could look like and what it would try to say. It has proved to be one of the most difficult pieces to actually commit to paper and I suspect this is because I am grappling with some really unpalatable truths that perhaps I have not been completely honest about before. Has the current pandemic highlighted the deep divisions which exist within the institutional church and is it too flawed to be rescued? Has the Anglican ability to ‘fudge’ issues finally run out of credibility?

    The church has also been on a corona coaster of ups and downs. I’ve seen churches work closely with local communities to support the most vulnerable through a range of practical and spiritual ways. Faith has been lived out and worship offered to God by caring for the sick, the lonely and the vulnerable.

    There has also been unhealthy levels of competition and judgment between clergy and others in terms of the worship they have offered online or offline and the service they have given to their community. There have been deeply unpleasant and very public arguments on social media about whether churches should be open or not and the significance of our buildings. Even during a global pandemic, homophobia remains a given in the church and I wrote about this here. Most recently the appalling murder of George Floyd in the USA brings us face to face once again with the systemic racism which we cannot hide from in our own country and church.

    So, what is it that I am suggesting we don’t go back to? I don’t want us to go back to simply putting up with these divisions and injustices. I don’t want us to go back to being dishonest about them and pretending that they aren’t there or that they aren’t massively significant, deeply damaging and part of the reason so many people do not want to engage with the church institution in its current form.

    As Chair of OneBodyOneFaith I insist on positive campaigning, not simply bemoaning our lot but suggesting and living out ways for things to be better. What do I need to say to drag myself out of this ‘pit of despair’ I have landed in? The answer for me is in the story of the early followers of Jesus in Acts chapter 2. Having received the gift of the Holy Spirit we read that the followers of Jesus:

    42 …devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

    They were devoted to each other, a strong word which implies a deep commitment and level of relationship. These people sold their possessions to support those most in need, creating a way of living which ensured everyone had enough. What are the depths of relationships in our churches? Are we devoted to each other and what would that look like if we were?

    They also devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. Learning assumes two things, that we don’t know everything and that we can be better. When a church community or leader assumes they know everything then power and people are abused. We are constantly learning including our faith and our knowledge and experience of God. We have to learn to express, to proclaim and live out our faith, the gospel, afresh in each generation. We now find within our generation we need to work out what faith means in a pandemic situation and in the aftermath of it.

    This is a picture of a local community with a way of life so attractive that people were drawn to it and wanted to be part of it. And let’s be honest – who wouldn’t want to be part of it? This is a church who:

    • were devoted to one another
    • wanted to learn and improve
    • cared for one another and ensured everyone had enough
    • worshipped together, in the temple and in their own homes – every day!
    • and ate together – they were generous, and they were glad

    Perhaps my difficulty in writing this is acknowledging that I am part of a church institution which has too often failed to live like that.

    I don’t want to go back to propping up an institution which is flawed, which too often ignores injustice and sometimes even perpetuates it. I want to go back to being a follower of the way. I want to live my life based on the life of Jesus Christ with love at the core, the very heart of everything.

    Jesus said that he was the way, the truth and the life. I want to follow that way, live by that truth and receive that life.

     

     

     

  • We Can’t Go Back…to not Caring about Care

    by Alison Webster, Deputy Director of Mission (Social Responsibility) in the Diocese of Oxford and author of ‘Found Out‘ and ‘You Are Mine’

    Alison Webster

    I have spent a lot of time recently looking out of windows. Commuting long distances by car is no more. Attending endless meetings in small rooms with other people is no more. Work has become a matter of inhabiting an armchair at home, looking out of the window, doing mental work. And sitting at my desk looking through Microsoft windows, at a myriad of collegial faces, gathering in the unity of Zoom.

    I have embraced a life of staying put. I have been forced to pause. I now see from the inside out. Am I being turned inside out?

    As I look at the world outside my window, I notice things inside myself. I become acutely aware of things I have valued, often without even noticing that I valued them. I see that my life is an ableist life. It has the marks of an uncritical participation in the assumptions of mobility. It is a life where I ricochet from one fixed point in the diary to the next; careening from one damn thing to another, in a world of exteriority. looking from the inside out, I start to see things differently.

    As I look at the world outside my window, I hear stories. And some shocking inequalities are brought newly into focus.

    There is the story of Vivienne, a care worker who does not feel valued. Her workplace is terrifying. She works for the national living wage of £8.10 per hour, nights and weekends, then comes home to the one room she shares with her young son. The kitchen and bathroom are shared with 10 other adults and several children. There can be no ‘social distancing’ here. This is not temporary accommodation; she’s been here for three years. The rent is £600 a month, more than half of her earnings. She would welcome protective equipment, testing, recognition, decent pay, secure working conditions, and proper training and support. Her dream is for her son’s happiness.

    And then there is Tabitha, also a care worker. She became ill with Covid 19 early on. She couldn’t breathe or speak. She was off sick for 28 days with symptoms, but without income. If not for the daily hot lunches brought to her by a faith group, she wonders how she would have survived. Now back at work she walks an hour each way because she can’t afford public transport.

    And finally, the story of a friend of mine, a mental health care worker and a poet who, long before the current crisis, raged frequently and eloquently about ‘the neoliberal “caring” failure’. She says, ‘The failure of mental health services to adequately respond to the most broken psyches in society is a function of the lack of value placed on the complexities of humanity. The lived wisdom of authentically responding to a suffering person is not to be found in a manual, nor a diagnosis based on a medicalised reality. It is to be found in the heart. The heart of the human being doing a 13 hour shift, getting kicked, punched, spat at, and being top-down managed by folk with one eye on the profit-making balance sheet, and both feet firmly placed within the global market of the “caring” industry.’

    In her brilliant book, ‘Radical Help’, Hilary Cottam says this, ‘Good care…is emotional labour: it is intensive, exhausting, sometimes lonely and boring, but always about deep human connection and relationships. Our current Welfare institutions cannot provide care. Worse, they cannot even speak a language with which we might begin to think warmly and humanly about what is needed. Caring for each other is not about efficiency or units of production. It is about human connection, our development, and at the end our comfort and dignity.’

    And now we have a window. A window to achieve political change. We cannot go back to accepting the structures of an industry that monetises frailty and drives the hardest, leanest, meanest possible bargain.

    As individuals and families we have taken to the streets weekly to clap our carers, whilst simultaneously tolerating a system that has put those same carers at risk of dying. And they have died. At twice the rate of the general population.

    Citizens UK has launched its #LivingWage4carers campaign, centring around the shocking impact of Covid-19 on the social care sector. Together with an alliance of organisations and senior figures, Citizens is calling for a new financial settlement, raising all employees up to the real Living Wage. Let’s join in with that.

    Let’s join in knowing that this is a start, but it is not enough. It is nowhere near enough.

    We need an economy that reflects a different reality. One that serves not just the ableist autonomy of the few, but the vulnerability and interdependence of the many. An economy based on good love. Good love invests time. Good love connects. Good love brings us out of ourselves. Good love recognises that everyone has needs, and everyone has something precious to give. We need to move towards this economy now. Covid 19 has taught us this. It has shown us the need to de-atomise ourselves, so that all of us get to participate in the world outside our windows, even if we cannot go outside.

    Music in Podcast provided by Ben Okafor (used with permission)

    Photo by Amaka Okafor