21.06.2021
‘Time to take stock’ – Pastoral letter from Archbishop Michael Jackson
Dear friends,
Not only is the summer now upon us. We are at the longest day of the year already. Our society feels different. Our country looks different. And, while caution remains our watchword and compliance remains our requirement, there is a much greater sense of what is humanly possible and what might be a new horizon. This has not come about by accident. It has come about by the hard work and deep commitment of experts in terms of assessment, analysis, intervention, innovation; the heroic efforts and the tireless work of everyone on the ever–expanding Front Line right across our country; the truly miraculous outcomes of contemporary sciences in developing a range of vaccines for use worldwide in order to stem the ravages of the coronavirus. But behind and within all of this there is the commitment to goodness, to neighbourliness, to order and compliance, to kindness and to solidarity on the part of you who have made the transition from Lockdown to Openup happen – step by step, on the ground. It could be a lot different. It is a lot different in other parts of the world. For us here and now it is good as it stands. We need to keep it like this. When those charged with the reopening of society compliment you, please accept the compliment. It is genuine. It is well deserved. To this I add my own thank you and my own appreciation. The road may, at many points, have looked negative. It now looks quite a lot more positive.
The summer season is the time to break the cycle of repetition and to have a holiday. It can be a simple holiday at home or from home. The important thing is that it break the cycle of what has become predictable and that it give time and space that are free, or at least more free, from the anxieties we have carried for one another and for ourselves over the year and a half through which we have just lived and, sadly, through which others have not managed to live and survive. We mourn their passing in devastating times and circumstances. We still have significant issues relating to specific grief and general wellbeing to identify and address sensitively, structurally, personally.
Perhaps then, before you let it all slip out of your memory, if that is what you decide to do, and nobody could really blame you for doing this, you might think about taking stock in whatever way taking stock works best for you. I am suggesting that you take stock of what you have gained and lost, what you have learned about yourself and about others, what are new blessings that you have experienced in these months. There are many further things on which to reflect, for example, people, places and happenings that you now treasure; fresh priorities that you have set for yourself and have managed to keep up; good habits that you have formed along with new and different appreciations of so much that hitherto you took for granted. You may not be too sure how these came about. You may not be too keen to share them directly with others. You don’t have to. But I suggest to you that they are worth your own attention while the moment is still warm.
Some people will have no difficulty with moving out again into the wider society and for them I am truly delighted. A large number of people have said to me that they genuinely now find conversing with other people really difficult. Talking about something other than the coronavirus or something Covid–19 related is difficult when it has been the focus of so much media attention and energy together with individual anxiety for the best part of a year and a half. If you do not, in fact, find general conversation and engagement with others difficult, then you might think of helping someone you know or, even better, someone you don’t know and happen to meet by chance, to move beyond Covid–conversation. We have only really begun to identify the wellbeing issues facing us with a very steep gradient ahead of us on this path. We are ill–equipped to address them effectively and empathetically. We are now being encouraged by responsible people to grasp the future with excitement. We surely do not want others to be left behind as we move forward. There already are, and will continue to be, so many situations that need us to work together, to cooperate and to collaborate, and to make the effort to do so if we are to shape the new possibilities opening up. And many of them will be simple rather than complicated. And many of them may cost very little, if any, money.
And we should remember that in March 2020 it was the then Minister for Health who spoke of kindness as a primary virtue for our times. This was driven by human and not by specifically religious concern. It is all the better for it. Kindness might wisely become a continuing watchword, a cherished aspiration and a nurturing focus of hope. Again, I wish to thank all of you for the good things you have done. Again, I wish to thank all of the Front Line workers in the visible and the invisible sectors for what you have done. 24/7/365 has become a working reality for so many unsung heroes and heroines. Again, I wish to encourage you to take a break and to rejoice with God, with yourself, with your family and with your neighbours that you are here today and that tomorrow is coming.
In the Hebrew and the Christian Scriptures, Ecclesiastes chapter 3 speaks about time itself in a timely way. I suggest that we might think of adding to its exploration of time and times and timeframes as follows:
For everything its season, and for every activity under heaven its time: … a time to set aside and a time to start anew …
Yours sincerely
+Michael