Considering what I see other people going through, I’m doing okay. I’m learning to do things differently and it isn’t easy. I am an Episcopal priest who reached mandatory retirement in December 2019. While I expected a little down town, perhaps visiting family in Rhode Island, I found myself needed by a little church close to my home. It was about a month before the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n
With no Sunday worship scheduled, I began sending uplifting messages to my parishioners. But what to do with older parishioners who didn\u2019t have e-mail? We began \u201cdrive-thru\u201d services on Palm Sunday, and I continue to e-mail messages as well.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s challenging to work with older people who are afraid to venture out while trying to keep them involved. I\u2019m beginning to use Zoom meetings, and while they do the job right now, they lack a great deal, not the least of which is human contact. Christians hug, and in some cases, when an older person lives alone, Sunday worship is the only time they are touched. It\u2019s a definite human need, and to me, that is what I miss most.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2020\/05\/Rev-Elizabeth-Nelson-2-364x487.png\")
As terrible as all this is, there has definitely been a silver lining: people are getting out of themselves and helping one another\u2026parents are spending more time with their children\u2026children are watching as kindness after kindness is being shared. It\u2019s priceless! It\u2019s a way God takes lemons and makes lemonade!<\/p>\n
My husband is still working and for the most part our day-to-day life is scheduled. What do I do with my free time? Since I\u2019m 72 years old, I stay home, except for Sundays and grocery shopping every two weeks. Nothing exciting. I\u2019m cleaning and straightening up more. I\u2019m just enjoying my home. After so many years of working, I\u2019m finally getting the chance to notice things that I\u2019ve lived with for years. Most days, it\u2019s actually a blessing.<\/p>\n
When this is over, our little church will have a lot of rebuilding to do. I have a devoted core group of people who will be there to help, and I trust that God has a plan.
\nConsidering what I see other people going through, I’m doing okay. I’m learning to do things differently and it isn’t easy. I am an Episcopal priest who reached mandatory retirement in December 2019. While I expected a little down town, perhaps visiting family in Rhode Island, I found myself needed by a little church close to my home. It was about a month before the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n
With no Sunday worship scheduled, I began sending uplifting messages to my parishioners. But what to do with older parishioners who didn\u2019t have e-mail? We began \u201cdrive-thru\u201d services on Palm Sunday, and I continue to e-mail messages as well.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s challenging to work with older people who are afraid to venture out while trying to keep them involved. I\u2019m beginning to use Zoom meetings, and while they do the job right now, they lack a great deal, not the least of which is human contact. Christians hug, and in some cases, when an older person lives alone, Sunday worship is the only time they are touched. It\u2019s a definite human need, and to me, that is what I miss most.<\/p>\n
As terrible as all this is, there has definitely been a silver lining: people are getting out of themselves and helping one another\u2026parents are spending more time with their children\u2026children are watching as kindness after kindness is being shared. It\u2019s priceless! It\u2019s a way God takes lemons and makes lemonade!<\/p>\n
My husband is still working and for the most part our day-to-day life is scheduled. What do I do with my free time? Since I\u2019m 72 years old, I stay home, except for Sundays and grocery shopping every two weeks. Nothing exciting. I\u2019m cleaning and straightening up more. I\u2019m just enjoying my home. After so many years of working, I\u2019m finally getting the chance to notice things that I\u2019ve lived with for years. Most days, it\u2019s actually a blessing.<\/p>\n
When this is over, our little church will have a lot of rebuilding to do. I have a devoted core group of people who will be there to help, and I trust that God has a plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Considering what I see other people going through, I’m doing okay. I’m learning to do things differently…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-special-class-notes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4000"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4409,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000\/revisions\/4409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}