Tideline Newsletter: Reflections (September 2021)
A note from the editor: Many of us have experienced changes in relationships during our imposed isolation. Some people developed meaningful and enjoyable Zoom relationships, some met neighbors they had not gotten to know during their normal routine, some may have discovered new ways of being with their spouses and their children. And some may have experienced a deterioration or even a loss.
Walter Brueggemann, an often quoted theologian and scholar, tells us that our relationships with others reflect, indeed define, our relationship with God, that our ministry is in the way we relate to others.
In this issue, members share their stories of relationships.
From the Rector - Jody Greenwood
In our editor’s invitation for this edition of Tideline, Geneva expressed emphatically, “When we tell our stories of relationships with people and with institutions, we are also revealing our relationship with God. So please let’s tell our...
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Making New Friends - Bates Toone
Making new friends during Covid proved difficult, but as soon as many of the restrictions were lifted here at Plantation Village, some of the people in my building asked me if I would be willing to share my art work. So we set a time, a place in ...
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Tapestries - Luleen Anderson
“Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn, with cherubim woven into them by a skilled worker.” Exodus 26:1 (NIV) I think of a tapestry as a metaphor for our lives and the way we...
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Family - Sharon Irwin
In the spring of 2019, one of my sons became very ill. I had gone to Jacksonville, Florida, to be with him in early January and again in February. In April my daughter and I both went as he seemed to be getting worse. Finally, in late May we deci...
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All Things New - Erin Pike
The visit to Ohio, which the thought of had once frightened me, was now one of the greatest blessings. While with family, I sat and watched them. I smiled with them. I cried with them. I played with them. I ate with them. I talked with them and l...
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Relational Love Defines COS - Carole Tallant
As the days of the pandemic rolled on, I realized my naïve hope that we would soon return to church was not to be, and so I began searching for other ways to maintain and expand the relational love that for me is the foundation of COS. My searc...
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Lenten Changes - Mary Beth Kohler
Every Lent for the past 4-5 years, I have “paid it forward” during Lent. Any time I go through a drive-through for coffee or whatever, I also pay for the person behind me. This year, due to many paying online, it was sometimes difficult to ac...
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Poetry and the Pandemic - Lucia Robinson
Walter Brueggemann has a wonderful book called Finally Comes the Poet , which I bought as one who dabbles in poesy and grew up believing God handed the King James Version down to Moses on Mount Sinai. Its primary concern is preaching, which Brue...
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Ending a Relationship - Rey Smith
When I saw the email requesting articles on “Relationships,” I quickly deleted it. I’m definitely not one to share my feelings on relationships in public, let alone in writing. But when Geneva Reid stops you in the hall at church and direct...
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Lessons in Kindness - Geneva Reid
Among other lessons I learned during the pandemic was the overwhelming need for kindness. Watching the world news more than ever before, I ached in response to the universal suffering I witnessed. As a child who grew up reading Charles Dickens, ...
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