When You Can't Come to Church

It's been an, uh, interesting Birth Week thanks to this coronavirus. At Tuesday evening's Council meeting while eating ice cream and other treats for the Pastor's 61st birthday, after having already taken actions over the past week to minimize the risk of infection, we did everything but completely shut down Resurrection. And then Thursday afternoon the Governor ordered everyone in the state to stay at home, except for "essential business," from Friday evening through Tuesday, April 7. 17 days Yes, we can shop for food and medicines -- toilet paper had already disappeared from the shelves -- and there are other "essential services" that continue (the list includes "licensed medical cannibis dispensaries and licensed cannibis cultivation centers; reproductive healthcare providers"). But basically everything is shut down.

So how does one pastor a flock when, to try to prevent the spread of a disease for which there is no known treatment, he's not supposed to be in others' presence? Especially when most of the congregation is people who are considered most vulnerable -- the aged (which in the US is 60+ -- so that includes me!), those living in close proximity to others (such as senior communities, all of which were already closing to "outsiders"), etc. -- while many of the "younger" set work with them.

Our most visible step is for me to live stream daily prayer. For the beginning, that's Morning Prayer (Matins) at 10 o'clock in the morning, Evening Prayer (Vespers) at 7 in the evening. Every day. Started Friday evening with Facebook Live from my page. I'd played with that before, but it actually works rather easily with the iPhone app. Even as we were making the decision to do this Thursday evening, I took the first steps to do this on my YouTube Channel, since lots of folks aren't on Facebook. I've not broadcast live there yet, but I have uploaded the last three. Here's tonight's Vespers:

You are welcome to share these links with others.

I'm learning that it's one thing to pray the offices in the church my myself, it's another thing to pray them in the church with a (small) congregation, and it's yet another to pray them by myself while on camera. But I grew accustomed to the first two, so I should become accustomed to the third. Though hopefully not too comfortable.

Once upon a time in the face of grave danger people flocked to churches. Today even those who want to aren't able to do so. For the short term I think that's okay; this gives our health officials, scientist, and the medical profession (yes, I'm avoiding a now-common description) time to get some sort of handle on the spread of this disease. For the moment, streaming congregation-less worship services is a starting point for the Church to keep its connections. But it's only a start, particularly for a Faith where "he became incarnate from the virgin Mary, and was made man."

At the heart of being a pastor is being with the flock I've been called to. That happens when we come together, on the Lord's Day, on other days. We can offer "virtual" or "remote community" for a short while. But many in the Church are unable to access even that. What do we do for them to remain among us?

Another Chernobyl? Not Quite!

Since the earthquake and tsumani in north-eastern Japan, students of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institue of Technology (MIT) have been maintaining a weblog at http://mitnse.com for "information about the incident at the Fukushima Nuclear Plants." The purpose of the MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub is

not to provide up-to-date information about the ongoing situation at the nuclear facilities in Fukushima, Japan, nor is it to promote to a pro-nuclear political agenda. Rather, we are trying to provide non-sensationalized, factual data from engineers in a manner that the general public can understand. We are fighting to decipher conflicting news reports and manage the frustrating lack of clarity to provide this information.

The key is "non-sensationalized, factual data" at a time when the various broadcast (or "narrowcast") news media seem to specialize in sensationalizing serious matters.

Here's their take on today's news reports:

New Provisional INES Rating + A Chernobyl Primer
Posted on April 12, 2011 3:32 pm UTC by mitnse

Today the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency revised its INES rating of the Fukushima Daiichi event. The previous assessment treated the events at each of the ailing reactors as separate: the core damage to units 1-3 resulted in an assignment of a 5 (accident with wider consequences) for each reactor; the problems at unit 4′s spent fuel pool were assigned a 3 (serious incident). NISA is now treating the situation as a single event, assigned a rating of 7 (major accident). This rating is still being assessed as information about the disposition of radioactive materials originating at the reactor site comes in.

Because the rating is now the same as that assigned to the Chernobyl accident, the blog has received a number of questions about how the events at Fukushima differ from it. We present a sequence of events at Chernobyl, along with links to some denser technical matter for interested readers, and an IAEA report on the human costs of the disaster. For comparison, it’s been estimated that the radiation released by the Fukushima reactors is 1/10th that released to the environment at Chernobyl.

The rest of the post describes what really happened at Chernobyl, the worst nuclear accident in history.

But catch that closer: "it’s been estimated that the radiation released by the Fukushima reactors is 1/10th that released to the environment at Chernobyl." This is no Chernobyl. The sensation of Fukushima Daiichi is just how safe nuclear power is.