Hope this finds you safe and well.
I was just thinking the other day there the words and terms we're now using which weren't really in our vocabulary say this time last year.
Words like social distancing, contact tracing, lockdown, self isolation and asymptomatic.
Did you ever think you'd be talking about being with other people in a bubble? Or getting in to 'bubble trouble' if you misbehave and break in to someone else's bubble.
Another term I just learned of recently is quaranteam.
We talk about PPE now as if we've known and been using this abbreviation for years. And there's WFH ( work from home).
Or we say I'll be zooming today or zooming this evening for this or that meeting.
Just as all these words and terms have emerged, what's also emerged is the digital parish.
Parishes really have been plunged into the unknown with live streaming and reaching out and sharing more and more than ever before content online.
Someone said that what would have emerged within five years has been concertinaed into five months.
Live streaming and increased online usage have helped us to see how we can respond to Christ's challenge to 'put out into the deep' in new and very different ways.
While I long desperately, and I'm sure you do too, for the day when our lovely parish church of St Andrew can be open fully and daily again without social distancing, what these times have shown, with the emergence of the digital parish, is that the Church is not just about bricks and mortar.
Have a safe, socially distanced and bubble trouble free week.
Fr Mackle
I was just thinking the other day there the words and terms we're now using which weren't really in our vocabulary say this time last year.
Words like social distancing, contact tracing, lockdown, self isolation and asymptomatic.
Did you ever think you'd be talking about being with other people in a bubble? Or getting in to 'bubble trouble' if you misbehave and break in to someone else's bubble.
Another term I just learned of recently is quaranteam.
We talk about PPE now as if we've known and been using this abbreviation for years. And there's WFH ( work from home).
Or we say I'll be zooming today or zooming this evening for this or that meeting.
Just as all these words and terms have emerged, what's also emerged is the digital parish.
Parishes really have been plunged into the unknown with live streaming and reaching out and sharing more and more than ever before content online.
Someone said that what would have emerged within five years has been concertinaed into five months.
Live streaming and increased online usage have helped us to see how we can respond to Christ's challenge to 'put out into the deep' in new and very different ways.
While I long desperately, and I'm sure you do too, for the day when our lovely parish church of St Andrew can be open fully and daily again without social distancing, what these times have shown, with the emergence of the digital parish, is that the Church is not just about bricks and mortar.
Have a safe, socially distanced and bubble trouble free week.
Fr Mackle
