Learning Lessons from Covid
Dear Friends,
I hope you found Romilly’s reflections on money stimulating. We turn now to a new series.
We can all remember what it was like to live through the various lock downs we had in the UK, daily briefings from London, followed in Scotland and Wales with briefings from our First Ministers (who were both seen as being rather more serious than the then Prime Minister). We remember a lovely spring amid the dreadful headlines, marvelled at the opening of Nightingale Hospitals (but now know they couldn’t really be staffed well), and worried about not seeing friends and loved ones. I remember conducting funerals where chapels were set up like exam halls with socially distanced chairs, no singing, and very few mourners allowed to be present. I remember grappling with technology to ensure my congregations (and others) could worship.
As the virus lifted, vaccines were rolled out, and life returned to normal I remember the profound anger that came from the revelations of attitudes at the highest levels which were so different to what we had to endure. An MP travelling home on the train to Glasgow after getting a Covid diagnosis later lost her seat. Parties in No 10 and top political advisors going for a car ride to check eyesight whilst The Queen was stoically socially isolated at Prince Philip’s funeral captured a national mood and, later, meant a government was ejected from office. Since then we’ve had public enquiries and, now these have concluded, Gethin Rhys, a retired URC minister and member of St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Cardiff, offers a week of reflections on the remarkable events of 2020-22 considering what we might learn for the future from our experiences.
With every good wish
Andy
The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship