My reg­u­lar rou­tine on a Thurs­day morn­ing involves sub­ways, pod­casts, and scrolling through Twit­ter as I com­mute into Philadel­phia. This morn­ing it was wor­ship­ping at the Pen­dle Hill Barn. Its 8:30 meet­ing for wor­ship on its way to becom­ing a dai­ly spir­i­tu­al prac­tice for me. One of the sur­pris­es of this new enforced lifestyle is more time spent with Friends in worship.

Some­times I switch into gallery mode to scroll through the faces of the oth­er Zoom atten­dees. I give a smile and prayer as I see dear Friends met and befriend­ed over the decades. I’m in wor­ship day after day with peo­ple I haven’t seen in years or only know through email cor­re­spon­dences. Many of course, are peo­ple I’ve nev­er met, giv­ing pre­cious min­istry or pal­pa­bly hold­ing the wor­ship space in love. Friends are sep­a­rat­ed by hun­dreds of miles; some are propped with pil­lows in bed. Yet here we are, together.

Some day our old lives will return. At 8:30 on some future Thurs­day morn­ing, I’ll be swip­ing my tran­sit card, ear­buds tight­ly squeezed in, and feel sad that a ground­ing dai­ly prac­tice has fall­en away.

Some­times I for­get to share my own con­tent, in this case an inter­view with four orga­niz­ers of the FGC Gath­er­ing who talk about the dis­ap­point­ments of can­celling this year’s Gath­er­ing — but also the pos­si­bil­i­ties in host­ing an online version. 

The 2020 FGC Gath­er­ing Goes Online 

A video inter­view with Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence staff and vol­un­teers around the can­cel­la­tion of the in-person 2020 Gathering.

Friends Journal 

Great idea now that we’re all wor­ship­ping vir­tu­al­ly via Zoom:

Mem­bers of Moun­tain View Friends Meet­ing, a Quak­er con­gre­ga­tion in south Den­ver, are open­ing their cur­rent­ly vacant meet­ing hall to doc­tors and oth­er first respon­ders who are on the front­lines of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and need a home away from home. 

https://​www​.west​word​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​d​e​n​v​e​r​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​-​g​r​o​u​p​-​o​p​e​n​s​-​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​-​h​a​l​l​-​t​o​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​c​a​r​e​-​w​o​r​k​e​r​s​-​1​1​6​7​4​865

From my col­league Gabe Ehri:

One of the few con­stants in the uni­verse is change. The cos­mos tends toward entropy and dis­or­der, and we humans do all we can to exer­cise agency, to cre­ate order, to rec­og­nize beau­ty and jus­tice. Like oth­er peo­ple, Quak­ers have cre­at­ed insti­tu­tions — church­es, NGOs, and schools, for exam­ple — to ful­fill shared social and prac­ti­cal needs and to enjoy the sta­bil­i­ty that comes with hav­ing some­thing to hold onto in a chang­ing world.

Love in the Time of Coronavirus 

Car­ry­ing on with the care of our meetings.

Friends Journal 

On Sat­ur­day I talked with the author of the Friends Jour­nal arti­cle about Quak­er meet­ings’ adap­ta­tion to COVID-19. We talked about the online meet­ings replac­ing in-person First-day wor­ship and also some of the cre­ative ways the pas­toral teams of some Quak­er meet­ings and church­es are sup­port­ing iso­lat­ed members.

In cri­sis is oppor­tu­ni­ty. I won­der if the tools we’re adapt­ing to care for one anoth­er (both spir­i­tu­al­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly) will remain use­ful after life returns to normal.