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Posts Tagged ‘coronavirus’

Bread for Life

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , on 25 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Encouraged by a friend who was asking about sourdough a week or so ago, I posted my recipe and resurrected my starter. It had been sitting in the kitchen for many many months and had turned to a sort of strange buttery substance with a black liquid on top. I probably should have thrown it away but I kept on meaning to restart it.

I actually managed to inspire myself as I reminded myself of the joy of sourdough baking – it’s honestly like a sort of magic – making just flour, water and salt raise itself into a loaf. I used a spoonful of the ancient buttery starter, and threw the rest away, and followed the starter recipe. And today we had sourdough for lunch in the Vicarage – a sharp nutty loaf to go with some simple cheese. The starter has a bit of a way to go to make a perfectly textured loaf, and I need to get back in the sourdough groove, but it was still delicious.

When I restarted this blog, I wrote about our parish smelling of bread and spices. Sometimes the scent of bread and spices is right here in our Vicarage, not in the streets outside, but we hang onto the hope of the gospel – the bread of life, the aroma of grace. In these uncertain days, bread and spices will keep us pointed to the only way of hope.

IMG_20200325_132115161

 

 

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Homeschool, Homegroup and Home Hair

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 24 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

We’re settling into a new normal here in the Vicarage, as I expect many of you are. And in the second day of homeschool a certain amount of disillusionment has set in. Turns out that learning Tudor church history from a textbook is not that easy. But then we discovered that if you read it to yourself out loud and record it, you can actually concentrate on Henry VIII’s vacillations about communion without being distracted by squirrels.

The day finished with our small group meeting over Zoom. Although a couple of members couldn’t join us – it’s going to take a while to get everyone up to speed with the technology. But we also had the blessing of a group member who can’t usually attend because he lives too far away. I think that many churches will be doing many things – including groups – differently when this is all over.

What I won’t be doing differently in the future is my hair. I like my haircut. But for now it is certainly going to be different. I called my hairdresser to make an appointment a couple of weeks ago because it was getting a bit long, but she was off with a bad back. So I was wondering what to do about my fringe and had been thinking about finding someone else to do it. And now I can’t do anything! Except ask the Vicar or one of the boys to cut it *nervous face*. I have thick hair in a shortish bob and a heavy fringe so when it grows I start to resemble Hamish the Highland Cow, a firm favourite with our kids when they were young. I don’t keep toffees in there though. Yet.

Hamish

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Locking Down, Lamenting in Hope

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 23 March, 2020| 1 Comment »

So when I restarted this blog back on 26th February, just 26 days ago, no-one would have imagined that by time Lent was hardly half done we’d all be locked down, that church would be shut, that weddings and baptisms would be forbidden, that the Vicar would be recording Bible reflections and Morning Prayer to YouTube and Facebook and that all our meetings would be happening on an app I had barely heard of until a few months ago.

And I also didn’t realise that my reflections on coping with a messy head would actually become tips for coping with the weirdness of a global pandemic. I had a messy head about other life things, but now Covid19 has come along to mess with all our heads. So much is not normal. So much is strange. The boys are home schooling. The Queen is sat in her student flat with the campus almost empty. Our days are revolving around video uploads and contacting parishioners online and over the phone.

The Vicar’s reflection tonight was about lament, and there is so much to lament at the moment: the removal of the normal, the deaths that have come and will come, the battles faced by medical staff, the struggles of businesses, the increase in domestic violence, the anxiety and the disruption. And we are lamenting and will continue to do so as this virus causes pain and trouble.

And yet we are people of hope here in the Vicarage and in this parish. God’s people under siege in Jerusalem so many years ago could say that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. And we can say it too. We are waiting here too. Waiting quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

[Text in green circle over photo of hawthorn blossom] The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord..

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Getting up to Speed

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 20 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

So today was the day of the Vicarage getting up to speed with tech. The Vicar and I are  already fairly comfortable with technology – we both blog and tweet and have Facebook accounts. We’ve uploaded videos online before and we can populate a website. Perhaps the advantage of our backgrounds in engineering – we’re not scared by machinery.

Because now church is going mostly online – there will be no Sunday services or midweek meetings for the foreseeable future. And so we’ve had a big day of pretty fast learning. We had to get a church YouTube account, we’ve been drafting blog pages and we’ve been getting our heads round Zoom and finding out about Facebook Live.

The plan is also to record and broadcast a daily prayer service at the times we’d usually host our Open Church. So people will be able to connect when they might normally come in for tea and toast. And we’re going to broadcast a morning service live on Sundays. And we’re hoping to run youth Bible studies and prayer meetings and maybe even some toddler and kids work over the internet too.

We’ve also found a telephone service which is accessed through dialling in, so people who don’t have the internet will be able to listen to a short message or a sermon over the phone. And we’re going to deliver leaflets with details around the parish and service sheets to those we think would like to join in with the services. And of course we’re making lists and aiming to phone people up and contact them individually throughout the week too.

Phew.

And I’ve been having to remind myself that this Sunday is just the start of an extended time of doing things differently. So we can adjust and improve as time goes on, but hopefully start in some sort of helpful way.

The old joke made to vicars is that they only work one day a week. And now of course the joke will be that they don’t have anything to do at all. But actually what is happening is that the week long work is changing and there are steep learning curves being climbed by gospel ministers here in the UK and all over the world as they develop ways of pastoring through this pandemic. Pray for us – for videographic mercies, for photocopying grace and for our bandwidths on Sunday morning.

 

exponential learning

Graph of time vs clergy competence in tech since last week

 

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Messy Head Hacks: #5 Craft, Obvs

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 19 March, 2020| 2 Comments »

There is something enormously stress busting about working with your hands. Craftsmen and women have always known this. But some of us have been a bit late to the party. I’ve been told by a trauma specialist that repetitive movement is very good for a messed up head – so running – making repetitive movements with your legs, and crochet and knitting, where the movement is in your hands, are all good when you’re feeling stressed, whether from ongoing trauma – or from a current difficult situation.

And I can confirm that this is absolutely true. I decided in September that I would crochet a blanket. I’d admired ripple blankets I’d seen in glimpses of people’s living rooms online for some time, and I found out about the definitive tutorial website for crochet blankets. And Dreamer, who is already an experienced crocheter, mentioned that she had thought about making a blanket, so I knew I’d have company (or maybe competition). I was a complete crochet novice, so I practised by making half a scarf. And then I ordered the kit from Attic 24: a woodland blanket (although I used the slightly simpler neat ripple pattern). And it couldn’t have been better – glorious colours to match my living room – and hours of distraction for my restless fingers and buzzing head.

And when one wave of stress finished, so did my blanket. And it fits the chair perfectly.

Woodland ripple blanket

I lasted about a fortnight before buying the kit for another one – this time one perfectly designed for the Queen – whose favourite colours are muted blues and pinks and whose college at university is called Fylde (you’ll see the link if you read the description). And this one is going to be my quarantine blanket I guess.

Dune blanket progress

On last night’s Midlands Today they had the veteran presenter Nick Owens reporting from his self isolation and talking about what he’d been up to. He described a visit to a wool shop, where yarn was flying off the shelves. Perhaps not as fast as loo roll, but he said that there were a lot of purchases. Obviously by sensible people who realise that you can have a productive, creative and beautiful way to deal with stress. So whether your head is messy from something else, or it’s getting messy because of the constant news agenda, why not join me in fiddling with yarn instead of a phone?

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On Things Not Being Normal

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 16 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

It’s really not normal, is it? Such strange times we are living through now. We had a PCC meeting tonight and were discussing some issues with our services, and timings for the APCM (the annual meeting), as I checked in on Facebook to see what Matt Hancock had said in the House of Commons about whether churches should continue to meet. My FB feed told me that they shouldn’t, but the Church of England guidance isn’t out yet. So we are in limbo. This level of uncertainty is something pretty unsettling to be living with. And making any plans feels a bit pointless. But we have to keep on looking ahead, even if things are cancelled in the morning.

So I’m going to leave my worries with Jesus and try and get to sleep before midnight. PCC was enough trouble for today. Jesus said so.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34/picture of church and Victorian terraces across metro line, blue sky with clouds behind

A view of our church from the other side of the metro line

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On Dealing With Too Much News

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 13 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

This coronavirus crisis feels a bit like election season did – there’s just so much news. Every half an hour something new is cancelled. There are graphs all over the internet giving a fresh perspective and interesting and learned experts giving opinions which help you feel like you might get a grip on what’s happening. It’s a big global event with huge repercussions and it’s also a close to home personal one, with some disruption and changes in view for our family.

I’m staying with my mum at the moment and we’re discussing various planned holidays and family events over the next few months and wondering which ones, if any, will go ahead. The Queen’s university (I know! How can she be that old?!) has suspended face to face lectures, and she thinks the exams next week might be cancelled. (So she rather regrets staying up very late last night to study the genetics of viruses for the biology test. Although, who knows if it might come in handy some time soon?) I get an email from the boys’ schools every day with an update of cancelled events, and I send messages to the family Whatsapp group with handwashing reminders.

The Church of England is updating its guidance to churches frequently – no cup at communion, no full immersion baptisms, standing for communion and other procedures to help us to protect people from infection. Behind the scenes clergy and laity are energetically debating how to serve and guard their flocks and parishes and bring God’s grace into a frequently overwhelming situation. My timelines are awash with random pundits asking what the government or the church are up to and making alternative pronouncements. It’s confusing and stressful, and there’s so little I can do about it all.

So I’ve made some decisions about what to pay attention to, although the drama of the frequent announcements will probably keep distracting me. But I’m going to read some things by proper scientists, and I’m going to keep on washing my hands often and for 20 seconds (whilst praying the Lord’s Prayer, which fits). I’m going to try and read things written by Christians who lived through plagues previously, and say some of their prayers. I’m going to pray about how I can serve those who will be in need because of this crisis, especially in our parish. And I’m going to pray the Church of England’s Collect provided to be prayed In the Time of any Common Plague of Sickness. Pray with me?

In the time of any common Plague of Sickness. O ALMIGHTY God, who in thy wrath didst send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest: Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Bishops and Pestilence

Posted in Church, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 7 March, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I wrote a few days ago about music as salve for the soul. And today I’ve been listening to another new favourite group – Poor Bishop Hooper. At the beginning of the year, they started a project called EveryPsalm – releasing a song, with accompanying artwork, based on a Psalm every week for three years. Their music is mellow and lyrical, meditative. And a great way to work through the Psalms at a slow pace.

Curious about the group’s name I had a noodle about the internet and discovered that Bishop Hooper was a reformer, and Bishop of Gloucester and then of Worcester between 1550 and 1554. He was married to Anne, who was one of the first women to be married to an English bishop. He was martyred in 1555 after the Catholic Queen Mary came to the throne. When he became a bishop he surveyed his clergy and found that many of them didn’t know the Ten Commandments, and that a good number did not know who was the author of the Lord’s Prayer, a situation that he worked hard to remedy.

I was interested to see that amongst his writings was the very topical Homily to be Read in the Time of Pestilence. A good reminder that, in all times of difficulty, everyone needs to repent and believe the gospel.

From Homily to be read in a time of Pestilence

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