Or Facebook Live. Or Youtube. Or any number of places to help us worship together while keeping physically apart and spiritually close. A church in Lawrence is doing by having people drive to their parking lot to watch a minister leading them while listening to the service on a radio station. The Kansas Zen Center leads meditation practice on Zoom. And if like me, you find the holy in the living earth, there’s plenty of opportunities for communion right now too with an explosion of blossoms to admire, gardens to plant, and trails to walk. The point is, we have options, people, so why is there any fuss whatsoever?
In the great state of Kansas, the state supreme court today will hear the case of Governor Laura Kelly suing a legislative committee that overturned her order that no more than 10 people meet in places of worship while we’re approaching the pandemic apex. A small committee decided the governor overstepped her authority in trying to keep Kansans safe on and beyond Easter Sunday. Petty politics aside, as Forrest Gump’s mother told him, “Stupid is what stupid does.”
Praying at home also protects those who protect us: the nurses, doctors, technicians, and others working so hard and putting their own lives at risk to take care of people with Covid-19. These people, who often can’t hug their spouses or children and have to tend the ill while wearing protective gear and putting in long hours, are put at far greater risk by people congregating in large groups where they’re much more likely to spread the virus widely. Listen to the wise words of my friend George Thompson, a doctor who is leading the call for us to worship safely.
I’ve been praying via Zoom with our Jewish congregation for over a month: attendance at our Friday evening Shabbat services is up, and these weekly services life us up. The first time we did this, close to 40 people (instead of the usual 10-15) showed up, families and singles lighting candles and showing off challah (if they made some) in their Brady Brunch-esque Zoom windows. A week ago, when our service ended, hardly anyone would leave the call, all of us staring at our screens with hunger to connect and love in our hearts.
Earlier this week, we held our first Zoom seder, Ken, Daniel and I set on the back deck instead of the laptop while Forest, who works at a grocery store and lives with 20 people, sat six feet behind. Within minutes, we had friends and family from Tucson, Winnipeg, Orlando, Brooklyn, and other locales taking turns telling our story of Exodus, singing prayers together, and during the meal, divided into break-out rooms where we could catch up in earnest. Two and half hours after we started, we ended the call with joy and renewal. Of course, it would have been more ideal to have been together in the flesh, but what we were living brought home the lessons of Passover in powerful ways.
As a Jew, I’m well-acquainted with the narrative of plagues from Passover and history of efforts to annihilate us (so goes the old joke that sums up every Jewish holiday, “they tried to kill us, we lived, let’s eat”), and in all those stories — especially Passover — there’s the core refrain of stepping up and taking action to protect the community and survive as a people.
Action is key here: it’s not like Moses just shrugged and went back to his habitual patterns and old life after the Pharoah refused to free us. Instead, he and other brave leaders packed up and headed out of Egypt, crossing the parting Red Sea to wander the desert for 40 years. They didn’t know how long they would wander before finding some semblance of home, and they had to adapt, making new definitions of community and home along the way.
We’ll likely just have weeks or months to wander through Netflix offerings and pace in our backyards before we can resume meeting friends for dinner in restaurants, going back to school and work, and even meeting in person at synagogues, churches, mosques, temples and the like. But the thing is, that like the wandering Jews, we’ll have moments of making do, doing without, and praying fiercely for our loved ones and beloved communities.
Protecting the herd, ensuring the survival of our most vulnerable, requires us to put our faith in staying put and our butts on our couches. Just like with so many other aspects of our lives, we are called to pray in new ways as if our lives depend on it because they do.
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