Draft Transcript - Address given by Zoom on Thursday, March 4th 

Greetings to the Episcopal Deacons Conference. Thanks for the privilege of being invited to speak to you today. I do need to say that I speak to you from the context of Canada, where our history and, to some degree, our cultures are somewhat different. And, certainly, the polity of our churches has differences. But I also know there are fundamental similarities in the call and the Ministry of Deacons across the church. And I trust that there will be a good sharing of that ministry between us tonight.

I thought I would speak in three parts. One is to talk about diaconal ministry prior to the pandemic, diaconal ministry during the pandemic, and looking ahead to what we hope will be an end to the intensive time of the pandemic, though I suspect we will not see the end of COVID-19 in our midst.

And so, to begin briefly with pre-pandemic diaconal ministry, certainly over the last 30 to 40 years in Canada, we have been trying to nurture an appropriate and right to reclaiming of the role of deacons in the church. And that is a continuing challenge not just for deacons, but, because in my experience, it is not necessarily been a part of the seminary training for priests. And their only experience has been as transitional deacons, not always prepared for team ministry with a vocational deacon or a deacon in your parish. And those tensions are from our undue emphasis on the specialness of the ordained. And there are times tensions both within diaconal ministry as between diaconal ministry and other ordered ministries.

For some deacons, there can be an undue claiming of liturgical privilege that obscures the liminal nature of the ministry of a deacon. There is that constant paradox of the primary task of the deacon being on the margins of the church in the invisible places, sometimes, drawing the church out to its margins. And the secondary task of being the icon of

servanthood in the liturgy, reading the gospel, setting the table, dismissing the people. As tasks that are privileged for the sake of others, as a sign, as a witness, as a call.

Deacons live in the liminal spaces between church and world, interpreting the church to the world and the world to the church. Calling out people to the edges to serve with you. In a sense, to work you out of your role in that particular ministry so that you might look around for where is the next place that the church is being called to the margins. Scanning the horizon for emerging needs where no one is connecting church and world. Recognizing the presence of Christ on those margins and among the people there, that may have been in pastoral care, with seniors, in prisons, with the homeless, with youth. It may have been in justice and advocacy work for both the secular world to pay attention and the church. And then, the liturgical rules are meant to highlight that service, preparing to feed the world with the gospel.

Pre-COVID, there was a fairly clear rhythm to that work, always with some tensions, but you knew what was required. The classic text for that work, founding act in the selection of deacons to assist with the ministry needed to the widows, to release the apostles for their ministry of evangelism. And so, we were fairly clear in the pre-pandemic time of what that ministry might look like.

And then, the pandemic hit. And, of course, we were first faced with the huge challenges. The radical upheaval as lockdowns have prevented the face-to-face ministry and building of relationships that is so critical to diaconal work. Being the face of Christ in places where that face may no longer be able to be seen, let alone be present. Pastoral care was disrupted as hospitals, and ICUs, and seniors homes were shut down to visiting. Prisons, institutions of any kind, would allow only online or phone connections, if any. And the relational ministries with those most in need were shut off even as those most in need were marginalized in pandemic care. The homeless, the people in shelters no longer had places to isolate safely. Seniors cut off from any contact with family or church.

And we saw sacramental ministry disrupted in what, in the early months, we were calling a Eucharistic fast. And a fast from in-person ministry gatherings or severely reduced gatherings, no contact, no sharing of the peace, no communion, no singing, filing quietly, leave quietly. And in some places, and certainly here in Canada, that Eucharistic fast

continues heading us into a second Easter with the unlikelihood of all places being able to be open even to a few people.

The ministry of grieving well is both so needed and so difficult. Funerals have had to happen with no one present or very few. Communities have not been able to gather to grieve. And there has been the attempt to continue parish work, the ongoing work of daily parish activities, of Bible studies, of prayer, of worship. And for some, there has been a disruption of the team ministry as priests and deacons were isolated from one another physically, and at a time when priests were desperate to figure out what this new ministry needed to look like. And it was hard to delegate and to share when you didn't know where you were going. And there was a very human need to be in control, and some deacons experienced a sense of isolation and being cut off more than others.

The positive learnings of COVID. The liturgical opportunities have come to us in new ways. In non-Eucharistic worship, we have been reclaiming the daily office, morning prayer, evening prayer, compline. Some of the bishops here in Canada have been offering daily prayers, even as some of you have joined the Archbishop of Canterbury - or the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, I mean, or other clergy and bishops in your own communities. Shut-ins have been able to be present more readily. Some who were previously disconnected from worship and gathering were now connected. There was a greater willingness to embrace change in the liturgy since everything is changed. And there was a sense of equality as we worship together on Zoom, where all the faces are able to be seen equally.

Alongside the discovery of new connections that have been able to be made through technology, Zoom is certainly my new best friend. Connecting deacons with each other, able to connect across the country or around the world without leaving your home, helping committees and groups to meet more regularly, and to be able to continue to deal with the things that need to happen. And the incredible reduction in the costs of travel, travel across the country or across the diocese, and being able to use those resources in new ways.

There have been wonderful creative moments, prayer shawls delivered. Phone, Zoom, and WhatsApp being used for meetings and connecting. Increased requests for prayer being able to be shared, and distributed, and prayed. New opportunities to discuss death

and dying in the face of our own mortality with family, with friends, with parishioners, with others. And there are collaborations that have been made possible across former parish boundaries.

Certainly the old concept of the geography of a parish has become far less necessary. Although it's been declining for a long time, I think this really has disintegrated it as we find parishes sharing with one another. Sunday schools working together. I heard of an isolated rural parish with no regular priest able to connect with a city parish hundreds of kilometers away or miles away for worship, Bible study, and support. There is a sense of freedom of the spirit in Bible studies and breaking down walls of differences and some ease of sharing in a format that is different than in-person gathering. Constant reinventing, flexibility, resilience, creativity, all of these are positive things that have emerged out of COVID.

And COVID has revealed afresh issues that have been present in our midst. But COVID has stripped away the veil of denial that we are so ready to accept. The Black Lives Matter movement. The death of Jorge Floyd. The renewed recognition of systemic racism. The recognition that the creation can and will recover if we will pay attention, because it began to recover very quickly when we stopped traveling, polluting, and putting so many fossil fuels back into the atmosphere.

We did discover also the inequities all around us. We saw those who are marginalized because they could not access technology. Maybe they didn't have the hardware or maybe the Internet capacity was not there in their community. Certainly in Canada, we saw that in our remote and even not so remote areas where broadband was not accessible. We also saw so many people who are essential to our daily lives who are poorly paid and called on to put their lives at risk for us, personal support workers, grocery store workers, migrant workers, supplying food, supplying medical care, supplying our daily necessities.

So, with all of that before the pandemic, with all of that that we've experienced during the pandemic, what do we see post-pandemic, if that is even possible? Well, certainly it is not here yet. We have varying degrees of vaccination. I know that there are parts of the United States that are moving very quickly on that. Canada has been somewhat delayed by low production of vaccines in the places that were contracted. We have here continuing cycles

of lock down. We are only just emerging, in the province I live in, from two full months of full lockdown. The recovery and the reopening will not be smooth. It will not be a straight line. It will be peaks and valleys of openness and lock down again depending on the spread of variance. And so, we still have some months to go. And even when it is relatively quiet, when the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual toil has been added up, that will linger for many months and maybe even years. We may be able to open our buildings, but that does not mean that people will feel safe and confident to come back for worship, or fellowship, or programs.

In Canada, in 2004, I think it was, we had some severe outbreaks of SARS. And I remember following SARS how difficult it was to reclaim some of the things we took for granted prior to SARS, not least of which was the use of the common cup for the Eucharist.

How do we reclaim what was missed most during the pandemic and continue to claim what was freeing and life-giving? And continue with new or renewed revelations of where those margins are where diaconal ministry is most essential? First, I think we must - must pay attention to the grief. It will undermine the future if it is not attended to in the present.

There is the grief of the pandemic, of the lives lost, of the people we were unable to be with as they died. The grief of the loneliness. The grief of being out of control and unable to manage what was happening. The grief of lost jobs, lost businesses. The grief of loss celebrations, birthdays and anniversaries, graduations, births. Not being able to hold a grandchild in its first year of life. Just because some of those griefs of specific things may have been 12 months ago, that grief had no opportunity to be shared, to be talked about, to be faced, to be lived through fully. There will be grief for so many things, relationships that were wounded during the pandemic, marriages that did not survive, children who are stressed from online school, offline school, in-person school, out of school time.

How will you, as deacons, assist the recognition of that grief and its depth? How will you bring the practices of our faith that will honor and heal these griefs? There will be opportunities in the coming years to mark this time, what was learned in past disasters, and what will be your role in helping us, as a church, recognize the grief.

One particular kind of grief that I discovered during the pandemic was one that I had no name for, for several months in the fall. Until I listened to a webinar from another denomination in the United States in which the speakers were talking about the term moral injury. It is used primarily in talking about the effect on soldiers and members of the armed forces. But as they spoke about it, it seemed to me that its definition was capturing something of what I was experiencing. Because moral injury speaks to the effect of participating in or observing the violation of our deepest held moral or ethical values.

And through the summer and fall of 2020, we watched the implications of racism revealed, of our lack of care for seniors in long term facilities, certainly here in Canada, and I'm not sure how far that extended into the states. We watched the impact of the fact that I, as a white, educated, employed woman could stay at home and have everything I needed delivered to my door, because somebody else was putting their life on the line for me. And they were often people who are racialized, often people who are underpaid, and often people under protected.

And that grief of knowing that that was how we structured our society was causing me a deep grief of the moral injury of knowing that I participate in this. And have I done enough? Have I even begun to try and change it? How will we acknowledge our part in the pain of the world and then choose what to act on? And deacons have a particular role in assessing your context. What is most important and most urgent in your community?

And, of course, we, in Canada, watched alongside with you during a presidential election that was deeply divisive, and how will the wounds of that division be addressed. And what is the role of the church, even as we in Canada, acknowledged that we have the roots of those same divisions present among us, though not as visible. Grief work will be big for you, for all clergy, for all parishes.

And then, what needs to be reclaimed? Certainly, sacramental ministry will be rejoiced in when it is able to be fully present again in the church. In-person visits and gatherings for building relationships. Continuing and ongoing advocacy. Ministry that was and will continue to be important to those who were on the edges, the homeless, the marginalized, those in prison, seniors, youth, anyone who we do not see, who becomes invisible to us. We need to reclaim all those places where deacons have been at work.

What needs to be retained from the pandemic? I hope and pray we will have learned new ways of connecting online that are useful for certain kinds of ministry, certain kinds of meetings, certain kinds of decision making. It's not everything. But, finally, we have been pushed by necessity to use it and we've discovered that we can do it, we can learn, we can change, and we can find some of the gifts - even in Zoom. We can collaborate across deaneries, across dioceses, across the country. We can share ministry together for support, encouragement, and learning. We will need to assess resource allocation, what is essential to be in-person, because there are some things that just did not work on Zoom. So, what will be those things that need to be in-person? And what can be online? And what resources are then freed up for other ministry?

We have connected with those who would not or could not come to church, sometimes seniors and shut-ins, sometimes others who were afraid to open the door of that building that's rather scary, and discovered online worship that would allow them to meet God.

What has been revealed in the new or newly seen issues? Certainly, the things I've spoken about, systemic racism, the underemployed, trying to hang on to multiple jobs for a living wage, the most vulnerable in a pandemic, both as victims of it and as spreaders of it. The value we place on the most essential services like food delivery, grocery stores, pharmacies, health care, the long term care of seniors. Do we really value them enough to pay for what is required? The need to deepen community and to recognize that we are in this together for the common good. As Hemingway said, "The bell tolls for thee". We need to look at the divides in our countries, violence and political divides, economic divides, and ask, how will we be part of healing them?

Post-pandemic, diaconal ministries will include dismantling racism, recognizing in our baptismal covenant the call to respect the dignity of every human being. What does racism look like in your community? Visible, hidden, denied? How do we proclaim a view of the kingdom of God that is different?

I deeply was moved and enjoyed reading Bishop Michael Curry's Love Is The Way, which you might be tempted to think of as a kind of warm, fuzzy book, but it's hardly that. It takes us into the heart of how love will challenge, discipline, change, transform. I think we will need to deepen community. A community that's willing to sacrifice for others, is willing to wear masks for the sake of others, that deeply engages with scientific research and tries

to understand how science and faith exists side-by-side as gifts of God, as ways of understanding and seeing and knowing our creation. Willingness to engage in change for the sake of the whole, building bridges between church and others and deepening relationships.

Deacons will be needed to help the church discern what is most important now. It may be different than it was prior to the pandemic. And there will be renewed places for diaconal leadership to lead the church in education, engagement, and renewal.

Now, I know that none of what I have said will be news to you. It's just a summing up of what we have already experienced and drawing -- At the core of diaconal ministry is the call to serve God as a servant of the church and the world. Both have, through the experience of COVID, presented challenges. But your ministry has not changed its definition and call is still the same. But it has been reframed, and like any metamorphosis, will take time to take on the new shape needed. You will need to ground yourselves in the spiritual practices to keep you rooted in your primary call, because it would be easy to become distracted.

Listen deeply to the church in its birth pangs of something new. Listen deeply to the world that is trying to sort out the impacts on everything. Listen for the voices, long standing, new, newly revealed that will tell you in your community where the need for the good news is the greatest.

Deacons are an essential partner in ministry for the whole church and the world. A critical lynchpin keeping us connected. Witnessing to the servanthood of Christ, serving the people of God, and the church, and interpreting one to the other gracefully, graciously, joyously, passionately.

May God give you courage and strength for all you are called to do and be for the sake of the good news of Jesus Christ in our beloved church. Thank you.