faith! - Heather Bacon Rogers

The pandemic has taught Heather Bacon Rogers a few things, but perhaps most importantly that her previous life was too busy.

“I started to really look at my calendar back in February and every single minute of my day was taken up,” she said. Living at a different pace has forced Heather and her husband William to change some things that she hopes will remain long after this is over.

For one, they now cook for one another, each taking turns. They are not merely “making dinner,” she said, but rather preparing meals “in order to be in fellowship with one another. I hope that stays the same.”

Also, before the pandemic, William often was on the road for his tech company. Working from home, he is still busy, but he is not on the road, so there is time to be with one another more often than in the past.

“Here is something I have found in quarantine: I like William. I like his company. I find him funny. I like spending time with him,” Heather said.

Their other changes? They no longer eat meals in front of the television. Heather, in fact, has limited her exposure to television and social media altogether. She scrolls Instagram once a day, and takes one whole day off each week. She had to make that shift to allow herself to rest in the midst of all the unrest she was seeing, and absorbing.

She is also reading more than she did before. Currently she’s reading books to prepare for her return to work, where she is the weekend manager for Historic Columbia. The organization is doing a lot of work to ensure that the story of slavery and Reconstruction are woven into their tours. Being prepared for that work is extremely important, and involves preparing instruction manuals, reading historical sources as well as talking as a staff about race in this country. This work was happening prior to the pandemic, but is proving to be even more important now with the “Black Lives Matter” protests taking place across the country.

“As terrible as this quarantine and virus is, I think it is giving us some opportunities we didn’t have before,” she said. Among those, she hopes, is a deeper understanding of ourselves as a society, and as individuals.

Heather points to the Bible reading she does daily as evidence that mankind has come through very difficult times before.

When the pandemic began, her daily habit of reading the Bible had her in Isaiah in the Old Testament. She almost flipped ahead to the New Testament. “There was a lot of death, famine and disease in Isaiah that had me down, but then there are glimmers of hope that there will be times when things will be better . . . that even through these terrible times, there is still a way to hope.”

Heather is currently wrapping up her fifth read through the entire Bible. This spiritual practice started several years ago when Bishop Waldo encouraged reading the Bible in its entirety over a specific schedule as a community, something a number of St. Martin’s members participated in, including Heather.
Since that first experience, Heather’s reading has involved several different versions of the Bible. She is currently reading “The Jesus Bible for Teens.” She has also read the New King James, and a chronological version, which she loves except “when you reach the Crucifixion, you get it four times. You don’t realize how heavy that lays on you.”

Recent events – a rise in cases of COVID-19, a lack of understanding in the country about the role racism plays in our policies and actions – have forced Heather to dig deep again into the stories of our faith. She recalls a moment after hearing comedian/critic Trevor Noah speak about the death of Rayshard Brooks, the 27-year-old Black man fatally shot by an officer with the Atlanta Police Department.

“I actually found myself, old school, on my knees, crying out in prayers. I don’t pray like that, but I was actually on my knees. ‘How are we here? Help us. Help us be your Kingdom,’ ” she found herself pleading.

And soon after her prayers of anguish, she felt a sense of calm. “All of a sudden I just felt, we can do something. This time we will do something,” she said.

She is not sure how that will take shape, but she finds herself even more committed to her work with Historic Columbia, her spiritual practice of daily Bible reading and her volunteering with the young people at St. Martin’s. Heather has been a youth volunteer for the past nine years, serving as a chaperone on trips, assisting with EYC and taking part in Zoom gatherings this spring. She’s grateful to be a part of St. Martin’s in the midst of all that is happening right now because she knows St. Martin’s to be a community that dares to stretch and grow into what the Gospel says.

“I think we’ve been striving to do better as long as I’ve been here” she said.

Heather Bacon Rogers and her husband William joined St. Martin’s after being invited to a young adults gathering almost 10 years ago. Once they visited, they never looked back.