Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
Ah, the new normal! What times we live in; times I never in my wildest imagination thought would come to pass. My in-laws, Rich and Linda Stone, arrived on Wednesday afternoon from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, having received negative COVID test results prior to boarding their commercial flight to Toronto. Rich was also “randomly selected” for a second COVID test after they landed. That evening, we received word that a student at one of our children’s schools had tested positive for COVID. Better yet, it was someone our child eats lunch with every day!
We decided nonetheless to Keep Calm & Carry On, and proceeded to have a lovely traditional Norman Rockwell–style American Thanksgiving feast in the rectory dining room on Thursday. It was the first time my family had all sat down to a meal together in that room, though Andrew has gotten in the habit of “taking breakfast in the dining room.” Since we had been unable to spend our final New England Thanksgiving feast together (except via a brief Zoom conference call), it was lovely to have the family together in one place again. We had a grand time.
Celebrating American Thanksgiving with Anne's parents. Note in the background the Jack Bush painting “Easter Procession,” the first artwork to be hung in the rectory.
In the limited time we had together, we laid plans to do a lot of things around the house, and some things around town. But then on Friday morning, our child who lunches with the unfortunate school chum also came down with some suspicious symptoms. So that child stayed home from school and we went to get father-child COVID tests at Toronto Western Hospital. I decided it was prudent for me to get tested, because John Lawson’s funeral was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday I was to preach, looking forward to singing for the first time ever with this congregation, and I was scheduled to officiate at our first live Lessons & Carols service since 2019. I suddenly saw myself confined to the rectory on Advent 1, and spending all that time in the house while others sang for joy in the church was not a happy thought.
All’s well that ends well, though, because our tests did come back negative, and the nurse advised that since the last time our child had interacted with the person who tested positive was over a week ago, a negative test would augur well, and we could be much more confident than if the exposure were more recent. Add to this the fact that we are all fully vaccinated, and we had an extra statistical probability going in our favour. Of course, tests can be wrong, and fully vaccinated people have been infected – it’s all a matter of timing, et cetera, et cetera – but in going about our usual routines, observing the usual precautions, we were reassured that we would not be taking any steps that could be judged imprudent given the times we live in, the seemingly endless Coronatide that this decade has been observing for far too long.
Thankfully, our child’s pal is doing just fine by all reports, and the two friends look forward to resuming their mealtime routines soon enough. But this is the new normal, isn’t it? It happens all the time. One’s plans can suddenly be halted by a sniffle or a headache until we have religiously observed a newfangled and thoroughly secular Liturgy of the Hours, a vigil by the side of the computer or smartphone, reverently entering our birthdates, test dates, and medical record numbers every hour on the hour in the hope that our prayers will be answered, and all shall be well. What times these are!
Of course, even had we gotten back unfavourable results, as people of faith, we believe that our times are in God’s hands. Advent is about the redeeming of time for people who have been blighted with sin and death for eons. All the plagues of history cannot compare to the One of whom we can say, “and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.” Those words from the Book of Common Prayer are quoted on the dedication page of Kara N. Slade’s new book, The Fullness of Time: Jesus Christ, Science, and Modernity, which my father-in-law hand-delivered to me upon his arrival. Its author is a friend with a colourful history: a one-time NASA scientist (with a doctorate in mechanical engineering), she earned a second doctorate in Christian theology and ethics and is now involved in teaching and chaplaincy work in Princeton, New Jersey. The book got blurbed by Joseph Mangina of Wycliffe College, so it must be good. I think I shall treat it as my Advent devotional…If I have the time, that is. Perhaps you’ll want to take some time to read it, or some other devotional, such as the one recommended by Jess Nee below. There’s no time like the present, after all.
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector
Every Advent, I look for a new (or old) devotional to take me through the season. This year I was particularly excited to see the release of “Awaiting the King: Reflections for Advent 2021,” written by Anglicans across Canada (including our former bishop, Jenny Andison) and edited by Jonathan Turtle. I invite anyone who is looking for something to help them more deeply enter into the season to join me in working through this daily devotional. Download your free PDF copy here. – Jess Nee, Warden