Resources for responding with compassion

 

Respond with Compassion

For more than a month now I have been meeting with 100+ parish leaders from around the diocese via Zoom. It's been in part away for me to get familiar, and to get to know, the wider diocese of which we are a part. The resources available to us are quite considerable and not at all like what I have been used to. I have always served in dioceses that are small and very limited in what they can offer members of this branch of the Jesus movement, as your former bishop, Michael Curry, might put it. 

One of the things I would like to do here is to make a brief note of some of those resources. I expect others will emerge on a regular basis in the future.

Before I go ahead with that, however, I would like to say something about the other thing that has impressed me over this last month of meeting with the diocesan leadership. Speaking just for myself, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the breadth of suffering around the world and here at home and right next-door, figuratively speaking. The leaders in the diocese regularly talk about the challenge of being responsible to one another as we navigate the Covid pandemic. In just a matter of weeks we have witnessed a terrible destruction of earthquake in Haiti, the chaos suffering and death in Afghanistan, even as we anticipate the challenges we will face in this country as we receive refugees from that war. I see on the news ravages of the fires in the west, a part of the country I am very familiar with and have friends and family living in. We have witnessed the massive distraction of hurricane Ida. Our small parish family has experienced brokenness, both figurative and literal.

People from around the diocese experience the same kinds of things. And they're doing things about it. One of the things I learned about the diocese was the tremendous coming together of many different folks to develop a mission strategy. A video has been produced to survey the wide range of ways that the diocese is working to be a faithful part of this branch of the Jesus movement. You can see the work that has been done to date at: https://www.episdionc.org/mission-strategy/. The document outlining the strategy can be found at: https://www.episdionc.org/uploads/images/video-accompaniment\_826.pdf.

Earthquakes and hurricanes, tornadoes and floods can remind us of our own responsibility to prepare for a response to catastrophe. Congregations are asked to develop their own strategies for responding to various unplanned events. Various resources and templates are provided at: https://www.episdionc.org/preparedness-planning/.

Some of the ways that we can help our neighbors in need is through
financial contributions. Some prominent ones are:

• Episcopal Relief & Development
  
• Thoughts on responding (how to help)
  
• American Red Cross
  
• General Hurricane Repsonse Fund (Episcopal Relief & Development - funds will be used where most needed, regardless of storm name or location)

Around our part of the earth there are many working to respond to needs. The page https://www.episdionc.org/immigration/ provides links to a number of inspiring stories and examples. Now that the initial Afghan evacuation has taken place, there will be many and long-lasting needs associated with refugees. Resources for making a response can be found at: https://www.episdionc.org/refugee-ministries/.

This is only a taste of the ways available to us to respond with compassion to the sometimes overwhelming need we see in the world around us.

In the coming days we will be observing the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. And I am filled with questions about how to most appropriately respond as a Christian and as a parish leader to this anniversary. I can well remember the ways in which I responded both individually and at Saint Mary's in Honolulu in the days following 911. We are now 20 years on. One who was just born then has been killed in the final days of the Afghanistan war. How can we mark and remember?

Again the diocese has provided links to a number of resources. Look to
the page
https://www.episdionc.org/blog/liturgical-resources-for-marking-the-20th-anniversary-of-911/.
In particular the Swindell Committee's Liturgy of Lament, Longing and
Hope,
https://www.episdionc.org/blog/bishops-commend-swindell-committees-liturgy-of-lament-longing-and-hope/.

---

The cover of that liturgy has the following quotation:

Starlings in Winter

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

― Mary Oliver, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

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Mother Teresa gave us the gift of one simple quote. In her humility she said that most of us can not do great things, but we can do small things with great love.

Earlier in the week I heard a story on NPR about a musical piece that was composed in the agony of the separation imposed by Covid and was intended to be a living response to it. The interview can be found at https://the1a.org/segments/covid-piano-music/. The piano excerpts are haunting and poignant.

Another musical response is highlighted here: [https://www.npr.org/2021/08/30/1031480366/jennifer-koh-violinist-covid-pandemic-alone-together]. The title of the story is: Isolated By Pandemic, Violinist Jennifer Koh Nurtured A New Community Online. "It was one of the most beautiful experiences I've had, to be honest," Koh says, "to see how much my community cared about each other, and also about the younger generation and about the art form itself."

Each of us, alone and overwhelmed though we may feel, is part of a much larger whole. Reach out and touch one person. Find ways to express compassion. I have watched that happening at St. Paul's. Just this week there were folks who stopped in at the church to pray for another parishioner. Meals were prepared and shared. Phone calls made. I give thanks for the work we do together.

Fr. Dale