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Wild Goose Publications - Sutch Pickard Jan

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65 pages

English

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Christian liturgy

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Publié par	Wild Goose Publications
Date de parution	29 juillet 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849527354
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0330€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, many people turned to writing: diaries, letters, cards, poems. Human words, sent out across the void of our isolation, shouted into the storm over which we had no control. What we could do was communicate with each other, raise our voices against the silence of separation, argue with our own doubts, call out to God, express our fragile hope.
Here are the voices of just a few – members and associates of the Iona Community – with poems, psalms, songs, affirmations of faith and prayers written during a full and fraught ten weeks.
We offer these human words believing that when the darkness seems overwhelming, light dawns; that into the silence of our worst fears God speaks a living Word.
Jan Sutch Pickard is a member of the Iona Community, a former Warden of Iona Abbey, a storyteller, liturgist and Methodist lay preacher. She has twice served as a peace monitor with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. Her other books include Out of Iona , A Pocket Full of Crumbs , Walking Through Advent and Sing But Keep On Walking .
www.ionabooks.com
Voices
out of lockdown
Jan Sutch Pickard (ed)

www. ionabooks .com
Contents of book © individual contributors Compilation © 2020 Jan Sutch Pickard
First published 2020
Wild Goose Publications 21 Carlton Court, Glasgow G5 9JP, UK www.ionabooks.com Wild Goose Publications is the publishing division of the Iona Community. Scottish Charity No. SC003794. Limited Company Reg. No. SC096243.
PDF: ISBN 978-1-84952-734-7 ePub: ISBN 978-1-84952-735-4 Mobi for Kindle: ISBN 978-1-84952-736-1
Cover image © Callum Redgrave Close | Dreamstime.com Other internal images © Jan Sutch Pickard
All rights reserved. Apart from reasonable personal use on the purchaser’s own system and related devices, no part of this document or file(s) may be transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Non-commercial use: The material in this book may be used non-commercially for worship and group work without written permission from the publisher. If copies of small sections are made, please make full acknowledgement of the source, and report usage to the CLA or other copyright organisation.
Commercial or online use: For any commercial or online use of the contents of this book, permission must be obtained in writing from the publisher in advance via PLSclear.com .
Jan Sutch Pickard has asserted her right in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this compilation and the individual contributors have asserted their rights to be identified as authors of their contributions.
Contents
Preface
Introduction: Words, silence and the Word
Nobody saw it coming
Because
We haven’t cancelled worship
Through glass doors
Beatitudes for these days
In a time of Covid-19
A poet imagines a seashore during lockdown
Anosmia
Another walks beside
Isolation
Listen to the stones
Hazel twigs
Now
Refugee
Good Friday
Prayer – in every breath
We will not give in to fear (Psalm 23)
We say farewell as best we can
Resurrection will come
I lift up my eyes (Lockdown Psalm)
Unprecedented challenges
Covid-19 haikus
In perilous times
Gathered and scattered
From within dark times
Touch
Affirmation of faith (based on Psalm 130)
God grace us
Blessing
We will meet
Postscript: A local community speaks out of the lockdown
About the authors
Index of authors
Preface
These are the voices of a few people living through the Covid-19 pandemic, and what government and media called ‘lockdown’, the restrictions imposed in European countries in March 2020. While using a word that many people will recognise, we acknowledge that it is abhorrent to some. None of this material was commissioned; it represents what a handful of people were moved to write, often with urgency, from the common ground of this crisis, which isn’t over yet.
Much is still being written, in many languages, about experiences which people all over the world will recognise. There is so much powerful writing out there, right now, being published in different ways. What do we have to offer here that may be unique and useful? These writers are members and associates of the Iona Community, a radical ecumenical international movement with a down-to-earth approach to theology.
Putting together this collection is an example of our ‘engaged spirituality’. It explores shared experiences and asks tough questions. Faith for these writers takes different forms, but doesn’t find easy answers.
For the most part, because of length, we haven’t attempted to include prose, although from the Community and wider society we’re aware of reports, articles and reflections, which are well worth reading. Instead we focus on poetry, psalmody, prayer. There are repeating riffs on themes that touch us deeply. You’ll find here, however, two pieces of prose, written with care in all its senses, about the similar ministries of a hospital chaplain in the Netherlands and someone working in a hospice in the UK. These twin pieces give a glimpse of the ways that those who are part of the Community have responded to this crisis, using professional skills in medicine or counselling, and giving pastoral support. Others have been teaching children, giving on-the-ground neighbourly support, shopping, working with food banks, supporting campaigns for justice, reaching out to the lonely and helping folk to keep singing even when in isolation, producing online liturgy, and communicating, from podcasts to postcards.
In this we are simply responding as so many other people of faith – and those who say they have none – are doing. Many positive things are happening in our communities at this time, and the Iona Community is learning from these as well as from the crisis and – at this crossroads – both taking action and reflecting. May the reflections that follow help all who read them.
Some of these pieces first appeared in e-Coracle, the online magazine of the Iona Community (Neil Paynter, Ed.). My thanks to Neil for his patient, persistent and sensitive work in helping to bring together this collection at such short notice.
Jan Sutch Pickard
Introduction: Words, silence and the Word
First there was the silence of thinking that an outbreak of disease on the other side of the world had little to do with us, preoccupied as we were with the climate crisis, the plight of refugees, and the chaos of Brexit: silence which was lack of response.
Then there were the voices of those who saw more clearly what was coming: scientists, epidemiologists, hospital doctors, the World Health Organisation. Our response was the silence of not wanting to hear, or of questions hanging in the air.
Then there was the clamour of our questions, of What will happen now? How much danger is there? Where is it? What can we do? How can normal life go on? Inside – the cold silence of fear.
Then it was clear that the pandemic was upon us, among us, and lockdown was imposed. Communities were silenced by shock, of incredulity. And then, as each person or household ‘sheltered in place’ , the silence of isolation broke upon us: a silence that roared in our ears.
Many were completely alone. But even couples, families, were cut off from each other. Sure, we had phones, radio, TV, Internet, FaceTime, Skype … soon there were Zoom conferences being set up. There were daily briefings and hourly news bulletins, political bluster and breaking news. It was a perfect storm, and we were all at sea. But all this noise of a 21st century society in crisis couldn’t drown out the silence underneath – of loneliness and the fear of death.
Into this chaos came words. Many people turned to writing: diaries, letters, cards, poems. Human words, sent out across the void of our isolation, shouted into the storm over which we had no control. What we could do was communicate with each other, raise our voices against the silence of separation, argue with our own doubts, call out to God, express our fragile hope.
Here are the voices of just a few – with poems, psalms, songs, affirmations of faith and prayers written during ten weeks of lockdown in the spring of 2020, from mid-Lent to Trinity Sunday.
We offer these human words believing that when the darkness seems overwhelming, light dawns; that into the silence of our worst fears, God speaks a living Word.
Jan Sutch Pickard
Nobody saw it coming
– Liz Delafield
‘I wrote this as part of a Church Action on Poverty workshop. The first line was given in the workshop. I am a primary-school teacher. The final week before lockdown was an extraordinary experience. In England, schools have been open to keyworkers and vulnerable children throughout the pandemic. Now plans to open more widely are causing a great deal of stress.’
Nobody saw it coming.
It changed everything.
All those things that seemed important yesterday,
Ofsted, SATS, spreadsheets of data, observations,
suddenly wasn’t.
We began to realise what was.
People,
keeping safe,
being happy,
little things like soap.
May we always remember
how it felt,
when the unimportant important things came crashing down.
Yet with them important important things.