A Word from Mitch-Weekly COVID update

This past week I took a picture with my phone and was promptly informed that my phone's memory was full. This forced me to start the task of clearing off some space. I'm notoriously bad about not deleting anything. I have voicemail from last year and contacts saved in my phone from ministry six to seven years ago.

"It's Lent," I thought to myself. "Time to make some space." In the process of making this space I came across the name, number, and address of my friend William Barnwell. It stopped me in my tracks. Father Barnwell, a former associate rector at St. Martin's, died from COVID on March 27th of last year. "That number can stay," I thought to myself. "I'm not ready to delete it." Fr. Barnwell's great gift to the church was in his work of social justice and community building. He was great at bringing small groups of people together to talk, listen, and then act out the gospel. He was unapologetically liberal, and, yet, Washington Examiner conservative columnist Quin Hillyer called him one of the great teachers in his life. The Examiner would later do a full-page story about William. Such was his knack for bringing people together.

As we come up on the dubious milestone of a year of lockdown, fittingly in Lent, I invite you to take some time to jot down and share with one another the memory or a memory of someone you have lost. COVID has not been a time when the "normal" practice of funerals and mourning has been available. In my work, I know that, for many, grieving during this time has been relatively incomplete. Perhaps this process of intentionally remembering and sharing might be a way to offer closure. Perhaps, and, hopefully, it can lead to a smile. The church is a place where sacred stories are kept. These stories are the stories of our scripture, the stories of our faith, and, yes, the stories of our members. The sharing of these stories between friends and loved ones is part of the glue that binds the church together. As we slowly emerge from lockdown, as more and more people are vaccinated, we will need to regrow and renew our community. One place to start is with the sharing of stories.

In Christ,
Mitch+