A Year Later

 March 2020--the WHO labeled Covid 19 as a "pandemic." It's been more than a year now that we have been worshipping at home on Sunday mornings, doing choir "gatherings" on Zoom instead of rehearsals at church, wearing masks,  avoiding errands, and getting take-out meals instead of eating in restaurants. All of this seems somewhat normal for now.  I have a desire to summarize the year and I really do not know how to do so.  Maybe my desire is a wish for closure but there is no closure yet.

Instead I could record the new normal for this week--for the first few days gone by and what is to come.  

Sunday morning sitting on our sofa, we attended a wonderful adult church school class that had been videotaped earlier in the week.  Dr. Shane Berg, professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary, sits across from Dr. Dave Davis, our pastor at Nassau Presbyterian Church and discusses the gospel lectionary for the week.  This Lenten season the gospel is from John with a theme of "Presence in Absence."  Dr. Berg presents the history of scholarship on the passage and the two of them talk about how to make that relevant for preaching.  It's a 20 minute glimpse into a process that follows up on our Lenten small group discussion earlier in the week and leads into better focused listening to the sermon that follows.

We worshipped via a livestreamed service from the Nassau Church sanctuary.  We followed the service via a pdf of the bulletin and sang along with the hired choir section leaders who lead us in the hymns.  Sometimes we have communion participating with our crackers and water.  This past week we had a congregational meeting after church via Zoom in which we voted "Yes" to a 2% bonus for the clergy by raising our hands--clearly shown on the screen.

At least live sports are back on TV unlike last spring so Jim watched the Players tournament recalling his memorable play one time on the Sawgrass course and then lots of NBA basketball.  The NCAA brackets were posted and for the first time in decades Duke is not in the tournament.  They missed the ACC tournament due to Covid issues as well. 

Most weekdays pass by with nothing to record.  I try to take a walk listening to "Pray as You Go" on my iphone app as part of my Lenten discipline.  We eat a light lunch as part of my efforts to lose weight.  Sometimes it is a yogurt smoothie. Jim has his work which this week involves reading a doctoral dissertation (one of his last ND students is defending in April) and starting research for his new project on the Second Temple.  I read lots and look for more to read.  

Tuesday is my day for Bible study Zoom meetings.  I meet with 6-8 women from our church in South Bend.  I  love seeing their faces and it is so good for me to think about other people's concerns as we share prayer requests.  Tuesday evening is our Lenten small group from Nassau Church.  We are about ten of us on the Zoom screen.  We are led by two young seminarians and we always begin with an "ice breaker" which can take quite a bit of time as each one tells his or her story.  

Wednesday has meant another Zoom meeting at one pm because I signed up for a ThinkND four week course on  sacred music led by J.J. Wright.  I remember J.J. as a conducting student when I sang in a rehearsal choir at ND several years ago and it is fun to see him taking charge of this course and leading the Folk Choir. There will be no Nassau Church "choir gathering" tonight because there is a church wide hymn sing on Zoom instead.  I don't know if we will participate.

Thursday is usually my day to practice the organ for an hour at the Kingston Presbyterian Church but tomorrow I will not practice because it will be a red-letter day for us, I hope!  We are scheduled for our second vaccine--me at 8 am, Jim at 9:45 am.  This will mean a very early start for our 56 mile trip to Rowan College in Gloucester County.  Getting this vaccine will not make a big difference in how we live at first at least but I will feel so relieved to have the process over.   As I have written more than once, there was a lot of stress in getting an appointment.  Jim emailed with someone in Ottawa, Canada this am who is having even more difficulty.  So we are thankful we were able to be this far along in the process.

Friday we have no plans.  We may have some side effects from the second dose.  Many people do have chills and fever and aches.  We shall see.  It is supposed to be a sign that the immune system is working the right way! 

Friday night we always watch Washington Week on PBS for a 30 minute talk show about the news of the week. 

 Saturday is our pancake, or for me, waffle day and then a grocery shop at McCaffrey's. We wear our masks and try to avoid being close to other customers.  The cashiers are behind plexiglass shields.  The shelves are full unlike some times last year when there were shortages.

 Saturday has also meant a curbside pickup of my requested books at the Princeton Public Library.  Jim parks the car in the alley and I go up to the doors where there is a librarian waiting to get my books.  What a great service!  

And that is a pandemic week.  I revel in any emails I receive or phone calls.  Sometimes it is a Facetime call which is how Dan and Alex keep in touch.  

We think about what we may do after we are vaccinated  but we will probably not fly anywhere distant.  I hope we can see more of our children and grandchildren.  I'd like to eat in a restaurant again.  I hope Jim can give his presidential address at the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio in November in person. We might go to the Jersey shore for a few days in April to see the ocean and the sand--a change of venue in a beautiful place would be lovely.  We both have bloodwork to be done in the next two weeks so I would like to be relieved about those results so we can go on a mini-vacation feeling more carefree. "Carefree" has not been the word that comes to mind to summarize the last year!  

--------------------It's Saturday afternoon and the first day of spring.  The huge pile of snow by our garage has melted.  I bought pansies today and put them in a larger pot on our deck.  We went for a walk through the fields to the canal. 

We have had no side effects from our vaccines other than a sore injection site.  We stayed "hydrated" as we were advised to do.  Maybe that helped.  Although this was our third trip to Rowan College, I put the wrong campus into my iphone and we were lost!  By asking a passer-by and putting Rowan College of South Jersey into my phone again, we got on the right track.  We were a bit late for my 8 am appointment--although early for Jim's 9:45 am appointment, but no one seemed to notice or care.  The process went smoothly again--maybe even better than our first vaccine.  We are very thankful to have the vaccinations done and are eager to have our children and grandchildren vaccinated as well.