Well, I never thought my second semester of seminary would be upended by a pandemic. We are cautioned about our expectations and are warned that many things will surprise us in this journey, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable to have pandemic at the top of the list of “Things I Did Not Expect.” So, after an extended Spring Break, faculty and administration scrambled to figure out how to make our formation continue and we just finished our first week of Zoominary. They have done a fantastic job in pulling this together quickly.
But it’s hard. It’s hard for students, administration, and our professors. Community and connection are part of our formation. The Seniors will not have a graduation ceremony. We will not get to say goodbye to many of them. Everyone all over our country and our world has stories of adjustment, frustration, disappointment, depression, isolation, along with learning to be adaptable, working on coping skills, learning to breathe. Many are risking their lives to save us. Many have lost loved ones.
Today is Palm Sunday. One of the students left a bag of palm branches by the Episcopool for students to put up on their doors. This year we individually waved our palms or logged on to a church video stream to sing along to “All Glory Laud and Honor” because these rituals and holy days mean something to us. I hear a wail go up that we cannot attend our churches to proclaim the Resurrection on Easter. It is a feeling of deep sorrow. We will miss the gathering at the Vigil and the Great Fire. We will miss washing each other’s feet and kneeling at the cross in the darkness of death. We will miss Easter lilies and joy on Easter Sunday. We will miss these things as we have known them and celebrated them year after year.
This year, as we stand at the empty tomb early Easter Sunday morning, we can remind ourselves that an empty tomb is still a sign that Jesus has risen. Resurrection still happens and that is what the empty tomb points to. There is hope in the emptiness, there is hope in the darkness. We may gain an appreciation of our corporate ceremonies because they have been taken away this year, but remember that it is for life that we are not gathering. It is to spare as many as we can, to “flatten the curve” so we have the capacity to care for those who do fall ill.
Just as the Jews found ways to save scraps to create makeshift candles and used potatoes as candle holders in order to celebrate Hannukah in the prison camps, so, too, will we find our way to express our prayers. God is in us and our hearts and spirits will join with the angels and saints in heaven who gather around the throne to sing “Alleluia! He is Risen!” as nothing can remove us from the love of God. Not even a pandemic.
Magdalena's Musings 