PRESENCE IN PANDEMIC
It is Sunday, March 15, 2020. I’m staying home from church today. The Anglo-Catholic parish where I’m an intern is still holding services, after thoughtful consideration and consultation with epidemiology experts; but I am not there. Rather than risk four hours of public transit, I am doing the responsible thing and staying home, despite my reluctance.
In the past few days, I’ve been holding a quiet distress in the back of my mind at the mass closing of churches around me. My thoughts have gone thus: We as a church have made it through the plague, through every pandemic and disaster and disease. We are the Body of Christ, and if we do not come together as a body, we are at risk of forgetting what this means. Christians have throughout our history expressed and deepened our solidarity through physical presence. It is by coming together in prayer and worship, by sharing a sacred meal, that we know ourselves to be bound up inextricably and beautifully in one another’s lives. Who are we—who can we possibly be—when this presence is taken from us?
Add to this the strengths and grave weaknesses of my personal life of faith: I am a distractible, lazy, hesitant and thick-headed sort of believer. Despite years of my best efforts, I have never succeeded in building a robust worship life as an individual. I pray in a sort of constant running argument, and in the occasional experiences of grace which fall upon me like April rain; and I haul my ass to church to keep myself honest. I take on roles of leadership in worship, not only because I have something to offer, but because it’s much easier to make myself show up when others are counting on me. What will my life of worship look like without the chance to serve in this way?
I was raised in the Episcopal Church in Virginia, and formed by my priest father’s and grandfather’s decidedly “low church” liturgical styles. During my time in formation for the priesthood I’ve been exploring the Anglo-Catholic liturgical tradition, relishing the vocabulary of materiality it offers me. I’ve come to see that my father’s understated liturgical minimalism and my current parish’s joyful maximalism are two different expressions of one of Christianity’s great insights into the nature of the divine. We believe that God, in and through the Incarnation of Jesus, is present in the material world. Our lives, all of our lives, are permeated with the sacred. And Christianity offers insight into the endlessly paradoxical nature of this divine presence: we are not God, we are desperately far from God, and also God is closer to us than the beating of our own hearts.
Worship is for me at the center of this paradox. We take things which are ordinary—some food, some drink, a table, lamps, the clothes on our backs—and we ask God to make them holy. And then we treat these holy things with the casual reverence of a surgeon with her tools. We dare to consume the flesh and blood of our savior weekly, more than weekly, daily even! As much as we need or desire! We rely on the muscle memories of our bodies, on the unconscious tuning of our voices, to offer our praise to the God who is utterly strange and other. The low church of my childhood emphasizes the humility of worship, its essential accessibility to the human mind and grounding in human frailty; this liturgy points starkly and plainly to the Word of God. The high church of my present formation emphasizes a complex patterning of the body and the shaping of the material world in song, iconography, and incense; this liturgy is a formal dance in which God reaches us through all of our senses.
And to me (born and raised in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer), the apex of it all is the table, where we share a common meal and a common cup. In a life where I have often gone without what I needed, my faith has been sustained by knowing that at God’s table, I will never be turned away. But now these nourishing rhythms are kept at a distance. Today, I have to stay home to keep my siblings in Christ’s Body safe. What shall I do?
First: I will recognize that we are in a new place in the Church. We as a worldwide society know more about how disease works than we ever have before, and this knowledge has the potential to save more lives. Churches are closing their doors to public worship, not because we have lost the faith of our ancestors, but because expressing this faith has to look different in light of this new place. We are still the Body of Christ; and caring for Christ’s body means caring for those most vulnerable to disease. I will allow myself to grieve this new distance, and I will trust that God’s grace is larger than my grief.
Second: I will participate with the body of the faithful. This morning I took part in the National Cathedral’s livestreamed worship, sang along with the hymns (and the anthems, since there was no one next to me to get annoyed), spoke the prayers, and took heart in knowing that I was surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses who join in every Eucharistic celebration.
Third: I will approach home worship with the same care toward context that my liturgical ministry always demands. This means thinking about space, about time, about objects and vestments and sound. This morning was an experiment in digital worship. There will be a lot of experimenting in the next few weeks, I think, and the challenge will be to develop the best things to come out of experimentation into habits, into that crucial space of reverent routine that encourages us to feel and receive the presence of God. (See below for some ideas as you develop your own habits of home worship!)
Fourth: I will not turn aside from the great paradox of presence. After all, God’s presence in our worship is always a paradox: seemingly impossible but utterly dependable. In our little homes, in our little spaces, mediated by the internet or a phone call or by our flexible imaginations, we participate in the songs of angels and archangels: Holy, holy, holy, we sing. Lord God of hosts: Heaven and earth are filled with your glory.
Home Liturgy: Some Ideas
a) Space. Where will you worship? I’m in a smallish apartment and don’t have a comfortable, single-use space for home worship. I’m exploring whether to set a corner aside just for this, or whether to incorporate worship within a multi-use space like my dining room table or my couch. If you are streaming worship on your TV, how will you mark the space as holy during worship? Setting things aside for special use is how liturgy works; but just as our sacraments are created from simple bread and wine and water, so our holy spaces can grow from the quotidian of our lives.
b) Time. When our abilities to pattern space are diminished, we must lean into the patterning of time. Personally, I’m trying to participate in livestreamed services more than replaying past liturgies. I’m setting an alarm for morning and evening prayer, and I’m giving the Daily Office my best shot (pray for me, please). Think about the rhythms of your day, and try to weave even a short sentence of prayer in at regular intervals.
c) Speech and Music. Worship out loud. I’m firmly in the “singing is both a right and a duty” camp, but I know that singing out loud is terrifying for many people. When we participate in a livestreamed service, there may be no congregation singing, and we might have to try to sing along with pro musicians or just the organ. What if we all took this chance to sing our hearts out, knowing that no one is there to judge our voices? What if we pretended we were in the shower, or in the car, or wherever it is that we find it possible to sing out for the sheer pleasure of it? Make a joyful noise, the Psalmist says; not make a beautiful noise. I think it will feel silly at first. And I think it will give God great joy.
d) Stuff. Set a clean white tablecloth out, and put your laptop on it. Set candles on each side; light them just before the service starts, and extinguish them once it has ended. Gather a prayer book, a cross, an icon. Set a houseplant out, to remind you that God’s creation exceeds all our imitations for beauty. Burn incense.
e) People. Talk with your roommates, your family, those you share physical space with. If they want to join you in worship, think through these elements of rite together. If they don’t, talk about what each of you needs to be comfortable sharing this space while you pray. Consider checking in, in friendship, with those you love near and far. Remind one another that we are the Body of Christ, together or apart.
f) Bodies. Don’t sit the whole time. Stand, kneel, bow your head, along with the rhythms of the service. Fast before worship, and eat a good meal after it. This is not the right time to make our minds do all the work of faith. You’ll get distracted, you’ll feel silly and awkward, you’ll be sad and afraid. It’s okay. Let your mind do what it’s going to do. Let your soft body teach you what it knows. Let God do the silent work of filling in the gaps. Let God’s blessing shower you like warm rain on the earth. All will be well.
