There\u2019s a heaviness on my heart this morning as I process what it means that over 200,000 have now died from this pandemic. That number got stuck in my head last night and I tried to think of what more to say beyond that dreadful number. 200,000. Much has been said about it. We can read the news articles about this number and they will quickly outline their reasons for why this number and they will tie this number into arguments about what went wrong and what could have been and what still could be. And all of that is important work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s also important work to simply say the number. Perhaps to say the names of some among that number. I think of John Prine, one of my favorite singer songwriters who died early on from COVID-19. His music got me through some of the weight of the early months of this time. I played it on the Bluetooth speaker early in the morning while screening employees in the basement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s important work to not let this number be an abstraction \u2013 not just so that we can humanize the dead, but so that we can humanize our own processes, our grief in the ongoing struggle to come through to the other side of this pandemic. Instead of reading the articles and arguments, last night I looked for a prayer. And I found one from Jewish liturgist and poet, Alden Solovey:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God of consolation,
Surely you count in heaven,
Just as we count here on earth,
In shock and in sorrow,
The souls sent back to You,
One-by-one,
The dead from the COVID pandemic,
As the ones become tens,
The tens become hundreds,
The hundreds become thousands,
The thousands become ten-thousands
And then hundred-thousands,
Each soul, a heartbreak,
Each soul, a life denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God of wisdom,
Surely in the halls of divine justice
You are assembling the courts,
Calling witnesses to testify,
To proclaim
The compassion of some
And the callousness of others
As we\u2019ve struggled to cope.
The souls taken too soon,
Whose funerals were lonely,
Who didn\u2019t need to die,
Who died alone,
Will tell their stories
When You judge
Our triumphs
And our failures
In these hours of need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God of healing, an end to this pandemic,
And all illness and disease.
Bless those who stand in service to humanity.
Bless those who grieve.
Bless the dead,
So that their souls are bound up in the bond of life eternal.
And grant those still afflicted
With disease or trauma
A completed and lasting healing,
One-by-one,
Until suffering ceases,
And we can stop counting the dead,
In heaven And on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And after I read that prayer a few times, I found a song came into my awareness. This was a song that I had found and used for our August Community Memorial service. It\u2019s called \u201cGod Give Us Life\u201d \u2013 the first line is \u201cGod give us life when all around spells death\u2026\u201d And it\u2019s a beautiful little song that I offer to you this morning for your grief, for your process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n