As we learn how to adjust our lives given the reality of the coronavirus and the request to do our part to slow its spread by practicing social distancing, I invite you to join me each week to take a moment to cultivate a ‘habit of grace.’ A new video meditation will be posted on Mondays through May.
March 23, 2020: Pandemic
Hello. This past week I came across two passages, one from the Bible, one a poem. The one in the Bible, I was just reading through parts of Matthew’s gospel and was reading through the Sermon on the Mount and got to chapter seven where Jesus says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
In this time when we are all called to physically distance from each other, physical, not social, but physical isolation for the good of each other. I’m mindful of the words of Jesus when he said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Maybe that’s a frame for having to live in a time of physical isolation.
The other thing that I came across was a poem. It was in an email from Thistle Farms, a ministry that many of us know, led by Becca Stevens. It was a poem called Pandemic. It’s by a poet named Lynn Ungar, who’s also an ordained minister, and in the poem she says:
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has become clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
Have a blessed week. God love you and keep the faith.
—The Most Reverend Michael Curry,
Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
Poem Used with permission of the author, Lynn Ungar.
The Most Rev. Michael Curry
The Most Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He is the Chief Pastor and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chair of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church.
Presiding Bishop Curry was installed as the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015. He was elected to a nine-year term and confirmed at the 78th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 27, 2015.
The descendant of enslaved Africans brought to North America by way of the trans-Atlantic slave routes, Presiding Bishop Curry was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 13, 1953. Presiding Bishop Curry’s father was an Episcopal priest and his mother was a devout Episcopalian. She died at a young age, and Presiding Bishop Curry, along with his sister, was raised by his father and his grandmother. His father, mother, and grandmother grounded him in Christian beliefs and practices through their example and their teachings.
He attended public schools in Buffalo, New York, and, even at a young age, he learned about social activism through his father’s leadership and his own dedication to righting a broken world.
Presiding Bishop Curry was graduated with high honors from Hobart College in Geneva, New York, in 1975. He received a Master of Divinity degree in 1978 from Yale University Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. He has furthered his education with continued study at The College of Preachers, Princeton Theological Seminary, Wake Forest University, the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary’s Seminary, and the Institute of Christian Jewish Studies. He has received honorary degrees from Episcopal Divinity School; Sewanee: The University of the South; Virginia Theological Seminary; and Yale.
He is married to the former Sharon Clement, and they have two adult daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6210 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
The Episcopal Church welcomes you.
