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Dear Jeffrey,
Six months ago, when Harvard’s campus had to be suddenly de-densified (a word I heard for the first time in my life last March), we thought we would be worshiping remotely for the time it would take to reduce the spread of the virus and bring it under control. We could not have imagined then our situation now—that after six months, it is still not safe to worship in our sacred spaces, to study face-to-face in our classrooms, to sit by the bedsides of our hospitalized loved ones.
But here we are. Students will return to campus this fall in very small numbers, most will study remotely, and most courses will be taught only online. At the Memorial Church, we continue to broadcast the Sunday service on WHRB 95.3 FM and gather for study and fellowship on Zoom. Unable to hold daily Morning Prayers in Appleton Chapel, we share the meditations, music, spiritual practices and prayers of our far-flung community in a daily newsletter.
We miss our in-person fellowship—talking around the coffee pot before the Faith and Life Forum, studying in the Student Oasis, sharing meals and conversation with guest preachers, passing signs of God’s peace from hand to hand during worship. But over the course of these six months, we have strengthened our bonds. We have cared for each other and mourned the loss of dear members of our congregation. We have made pilgrimages together to Jerusalem and the Holy Island of Lindisfarne over Zoom, navigating pilgrim paths and crossing the thresholds of sacred places using words and images and our own imaginations. We have read together books and articles by Valeria Luiselli, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ta-Nehisi Coates and others to sharpen our attention to the demands of this moment and to all the ways we are called to change. Wes Conn has transformed our multi-class Sunday School into a one-room schoolhouse, with the help of the older students. Our Student Advisory Board continues to meet and to lift us all up through their profound gifts for friendship and their creative approaches to living in these days. The UChoir also meets regularly and this summer organized a fundraiser for the Boston NAACP. Members of the Grant Committee have stayed in touch with the organizations we support and invited members of the community to get to know these organizations better through virtual tours and online connection. Throughout the pandemic, we have been determined to stay turned toward one another and, with one another, toward the world.
In spite of the limitations the coronavirus continues to impose, we are looking forward to a new year of connection and transformation. Last year, we focused on the practice of pilgrimage; this year we will turn our attention to the rich deposit of wisdom in other practices of faith. Each month we will explore a new constellation of ways in which human beings have cultivated resilience and hope in solitude and community; through practices of study, work, and refreshment; through nourishing body and soul with a rich table life; through music-making, caregiving, testimony and protest; through prayer and discernment; and through practices, like pilgrimage, of moving through the world with care for others and the earth we inhabit. Our theme for the year is Practicing Hope: Habits of Resilience and Resistance. Human wisdom about caring for each other and thriving together has been passed down through the practices of every religious tradition. We invite you to join us as we learn with and from Harvard’s multireligious community and imagine new ways forward together.
In these days of uncertainty, the Memorial Church remains a place of welcome at the heart of Harvard: a place to encounter each other and the world around us in new ways, a place to think and pray, protest and lament, grieve our losses and renew our spirits. It is your generosity that undergirds the engagement, connection and outreach that is possible in our intergenerational community. We invite you to support continued opportunities for deep engagement at the Memorial Church with a gift to our Annual Fund.
“The gift of spiritual practices is that they cultivate courage, so that we will risk more for one another,” writes Divinity School alumnus Casper ter Kuile in his new book, The Power of Ritual. Join us this year as we seek courage and hope in the practices of faith. Join us to practice being the people, and the community, we hope to become.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Paulsell
Interim Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church of Harvard University
Susan Shallcross Swartz Professor of the Practice of Christian Studies, Harvard Divinity School
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