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Neil Mancor's 2nd Blog entry in response to the Pandemic
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Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. William Shakespeare, Macbeth
“There is a time for everything,” writes the Sage,“ and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die”. Countless times I have used these words at funerals to convey a sense of God in the whole of life from the beginning to its end. But these words do not seem right for the time we find ourselves in now. Lives being cut short before their time, so much of the world coming to a standstill. There is a time for everything – but not this, not now.
Time is hanging very differently these days. Until recently my days were neatly divided up into different compartments all designed to keep time moving quickly: get up, get ready, take the train, go to work, go to the gym, back to work, home, go out again. Every day the routine was repeated the time would be filled. Until now. Until this time. I don’t know what to do with this time, this moment we are in. Time came crashing in for me over the weekend but especially on Monday last week. I still went into work as usual, still clinging to the old time. Then it shifted. I came home with a large bag of everything I would need for a prolonged stay at home. I even tidied up my desk and as I closed the door to my office I stepped into this time. Now moves with a different rhythm for us all.
Have you ever noticed how time is so often viewed as a commodity to be spent wisely and invested appropriately as if it were a financial transaction? It even has a morality of its own: we certainly do not want to waste time as if it were a precious metal or something. After all time flies. The key to time is not spending it but investing it wrote Stephen R. Covey. I really admire Stephen Covey and this sounds like great advice but right now it just feels exhausting to imagine having to invest time all the…time. Better to have a cup of tea. There is a lot of wisdom in cups of tea.
Or time is like a living twitching being which can be slayed like a dragon. After all, we’re just killing time, we say when we are doing nothing much. I imagine time lying at my feet twitching in its death throes having been vanquished at last. Yet in fact surely it is time that is the vanquisher, pulling me along in its wake. I do not quite know what to do in this time where so much is happening and nothing at all – at the same time.
One friend suggested helpfully: maybe this is the end times. I don’t even want to go there.
I should use this time well. I should take the extra time that has opened up to improve my French, do some chores around the house. I should pray and draw closer to God in this time. Theological students love discovering the Kairos sense of time in the Scriptures. This moment now. The ordained moment. Here it is: a time God has given us. But I refuse to see this as an instrument God has engineered for me to pay attention or improve my spiritual life or become a better person or for us as a species to wake up and realize we need to go back to Church. This time is not about me or you but about us all as a species in peril.
We have been pitched into an unending present moment. We cannot see when it will end and normal time will reassert itself and we will all go back to the way it was. But we won’t go back to the way it was because life can never be the same again and after all, time waits for no one. There is no time there is only now. Right now people are dying and others are sick. Right now others are losing their jobs and many are scared. Right now I am trying to find the words to pray but find only silence.
But perhaps what the Scriptures do help us do is put this time in the context of God’s vast eternalness. For there is a time for everything under heaven. And God is in it all. It it is God who can hold this time in His eternal changelessness and maybe that can help me move from the time that was and enter what is with a measure of grace. After all, there’s no better time than the present!
Neil’s Digital Calendar – in Response to the Pandemic
Monday Weekly Blog Post published on website / social media
Tuesday 11am “Neil’s Let’s Talk” via Zoom All Welcome
Tuesday 7pm Compline on FB Live
Thursday 7pm Revive Group via Zoom Closed Group
Friday 10am “Clergy Connect” via Zoom Diocese of Montreal Clergy Blog Discussion / peer support
Sunday 7pm Compline on FB Live All Welcome
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Are you feeling Digital overwhelm???
We are dedicating our weekly Live with Lee-Ann broadcast on Tuesday, March 24th at 10 am to supporting you!
We will have Marketing strategist, Jen DeTracey and will be answering your questions, concerns and trying to support your digital ministry initiatives!
Join us
Our Congregational Development Coordinator, Neil is here for you during the pandemic!
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Blog Post 1. Finding Faith: Facing Fear.
Rev. Dr. Neil Mancor, Congregational Development Anglican Diocese of Montreal.
Wednesday 18 March, 2020
Wow. Life can change in a moment. Last Friday I went into work downtown as usual. Caught the 8:14 train as always; got off at Lucien L’Allier and walked over to Place Cathedrale; went to work. Everything was normal. But then it wasn’t. It was the cancellations that got my attention. First this Church, then that. Later whole Dioceses suspending services. Many other closures all over the place. Airlines starting cancelling flights. Companies told their staff not to come into work. Gyms were closing. The news was unsettling as whole cities began to shut down. But I have to go work.
And then Sunday came. A Sunday without Church as I have always known it. All of a sudden, everything has changed. We stopped going into work and have to work from home. Routines disrupted, life has ground to a halt and it is hard to see what will replace it or how long it will last. It is the uncertainty of it all – the sheer, relentless, wide open uncertainty. Fear sets in. I find the fear almost overwhelming at moments. Its not that I am so afraid of contracting COVID-19. But the fallout of it all is fearsome. The implications are vast and unknowable. I don’t know if we will be ok. I don’t know what life might look like when this ends. Will it end?
God: God where are you in this? I don’t know how to pray into this; I don’t know what to pray. Thy will be done on earth indeed. The whole Earth seems to be swirled into this vast, strange crisis.
But then I remember that we serve a God who is vast and mysterious. Never easy to understand, impossible to grasp this God yet presses into our lives and walks with us through it all. Does that mean anything right now? But nothing else makes sense of the with-us God revealed in Jesus Christ who pitched his tent and lived amongst us.
So here I struggle: to find God with us.
Neil’s Digital Calendar – in Response to the Pandemic
Monday Weekly Blog Post published on website / social media
Tuesday 11am “Neil’s Let’s Talk” via Zoom All Welcome
Tuesday 7pm Compline on FB Live
Thursday 7pm Revive Group via Zoom Closed Group
Friday 10am “Clergy Connect” via Zoom Diocese of Montreal Clergy Blog Discussion / peer support
Sunday 7pm Compline on FB Live All Welcome
What we really need, you might say, is a canon for social distancing or a canon for carbon reduction.
/The woman at the well: canon theologian for our times
Montreal Dio principal Jesse Zink was to preach and be installed as canon theologian of the Diocese of Montreal at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, March 15, 2020. With the cancellation of services, the sermon was written but never preached—but is shared here. The lectionary gospel text is John 4:5-42.
Special Live Webinar + PDF on Digital Ministry and Outreach during a Pandemic
/View the webinar aired live on Facebook on Tuesday March 17th
Digital Ministry during a pandemic special webinar tomorrow morning at 10 on Live with Lee-Ann
/Tomorrow morning at 10 am we will hosting a special edition of Live with LeeAnn
In light of the directive from our Bishop to suspend services until further notice, we’d like to encourage you to try remote options. For some guidance in that department, we will focus on methods/best practices for digital ministry tomorrow, March 17th at 10am.
Bring your questions, concerns and let's find ways of staying connected during this period of social distancing.
Social Distancing won't stop us from connecting! Digital Supper Club / Lenten Prayer Course
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Social Distancing won’t stop us from connecting and building our community with prayer, conversation, worship and reflection tonight starting at 6 pm on Zoom!
Monday, Mar 16, 2020 06:00
Click here to Join Zoom Meeting
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Call me if you need more information or help with zoom 514 953-4060
Diocese of Montreal to suspend holding church services after today (March 15)
/Dear Colleagues and friends in the Diocese of Montréal,
It seems clear to me now that, out of love and care for one another and the cities and towns in which we live and work and worship and serve, that we should all suspend holding church services after today. We will monitor the situation and see whether Easter can be publicly celebrated or not. At this point, I believe that public health authorities are discouraging any non-essential meetings or gatherings.
We will need to be creative in staying in contact and praying with and for the people we serve, especially the most vulnerable. Please make use of all the resources and leaders at your disposal.
May the Lord be with you and strengthen the bonds of fellowship in your ministries.
Faithfully,
+Mary
