Welcome to The Plague Pit – issue number 12.

This guest issue is courtesy of Canon Giles Goddard, vicar of St John’s Church, Waterloo. Ten years ago, he founded the Waterloo Festival – an annual celebration of arts, community and heritage. This year’s festival opened online a few days ago and runs until the end of June.

Canon Goddard is also co-founder of Faith in the Climate, the interfaith environmental action group, and chair of the General Synod Human Sexuality Group. He has kindly sent this account of recent Easter celebrations in his parish, in the shadow of COVID-19.

At dawn, before the sun is up, I light the Easter fire in the street outside the church. From the fire I take a flame and light the Easter candle. I lift the candle high and carry it into the darkened church, followed by the congregation.  

‘The light of Christ’ I sing, and the congregation respond ‘Thanks be to God!’ – and, as the sky lightens outside, we hold our first service of Easter – followed by champagne for breakfast at 7 a.m.

Except, this year, it wasn’t like that. This year I lit the Easter fire in my back garden and carried the candle up the fire escape into my living room from where I livestreamed the service to the congregation in their living rooms, around Waterloo, the South Bank and across the world. We toasted one another after the service using coffee cups or champagne glasses.  Here’s a screenshot from that moment. It was easily the weirdest Easter service I have ever taken or hope to take.

The church of which I am vicar – St John’s, Waterloo – is between Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals in London – two of the centres for treatment of COVID-19. The death rates locally are very high, and we have been taking the lockdown seriously.

Many of the congregation work in the NHS, as midwives, doctors, nurses or administrators.  But here, in the middle of it all, there is silence and sunlight, and the whole coronavirus thing seems very far away.  Outside my window the birds are singing in an empty churchyard, usually filled with students from King’s London having their lunch.  It makes me think of the ‘Phony War,’ – the months between the declaration of war in September 1939  and the beginning of real hostilities  – except that in this case the war is anything but phony. Several of my congregation have had brushes with death in the past few weeks. They have, thankfully, recovered, but it was touch and go for some.

The church has migrated online. We quickly took the decision to go with Zoom and WhatsApp, and many of us were on a steep learning curve, not without its problems. Grandparents (mostly) knew about WhatsApp and have used it with relish –  but not Zoom. Younger people migrated easily and then phoned others to give them a hand.  

At the start we hadn’t set the security levels right, and so, during a big online gathering which we usually hold on Good Friday in Waterloo Station, we were horribly zoombombed with racist and fascist slogans and hard-core images. I stopped the service quickly but it was a harsh reminder of the nasty realities around – perhaps, as some said, appropriate for Good Friday when we remember the Crucifixion of Jesus.

What are our learnings so far?

It’s been observed many times, but clearly this virus affects the most vulnerable disproportionately. Not just medically: here in Waterloo many people and families are in small flats with nowhere to escape to. One member of my staff team has been furloughed so she is at home all day with a 7 year old who she is trying to home school and a 2 year old: her husband is out working as a hospital porter. Another family of five includes two teenage girls one of whom is struggling with eating disorders and a very active 9 year old. It’s hard.

We are reaching out to isolated older people who aren’t able to access the internet and are often lonely and afraid.  One of my congregation is a doctor in a specialist mental health hospital where infection is rife, and the patients have little understanding of social distancing or why they need to be quarantined. Another is a midwife working with teenage mums, and PPE is a constant struggle for her.

On the other hand, the community engagement here is amazing. A thriving local WhatsApp group provides volunteer support to people very quickly. Our Foodbank has gone over to deliveries and is supporting hundreds of families across Lambeth. And the church community is active in all sorts of ways, not least with a virtual coffee morning and a virtual pub every day.

Part of my role is to try to support the congregation and other  residents of the parish practically. But I also try to offer spiritual support in several ways.  First, through all the online  ways of building community. I’ve had a real sense of love, (and people haven’t been embarrassed to use that word) as we have tried to support one another.

I have also had a great many conversations, online or by phone, about the reality of death around us. It’s not something we can escape from. Many are responding by trying to live in the moment, making the most of the time they have at home to read, meditate or pray. Some are clearly thinking about the reality of death for the first time. A common response is a recognition that the most important thing in life is our relationships – with God for those who are religious, and with one another, and with our environment, transformed so suddenly by the lockdown. .

There is also great fear. Fear about the illness and death, but also fear about the future – fear about work and employment, fear about when and how this will be over, and fear about what awaits us.

Two great Spanish mystics from the 16th century have been much in my mind – Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Theresa was an abbess who struggled constantly with ill health. John, thirty years younger than her, was a priest who spent nine months imprisoned in a former toilet so small that he couldn’t lie down, because his fellow monks considered him a heretic. They were friends, who worked together to reform Christianity in Spain – and they both had an intense awareness of the infinite love of God.

John of the Cross’ most famous work is ‘The Dark Night of the Soul,’ which he wrote after escaping from his cell. During his time in prison he felt completely alone, abandoned and lost. But he realised that, even though he felt alone, he  was still being held in the arms of infinite love, and that sometimes the greatest spiritual discoveries are made in the darkest times.

None of us have any idea when and how we will return to normal, and what ‘normality’ will look like. But it’s clear to me that many people are thinking differently about their lives and their priorities, and I hope that the new thinking will last into the future. Stretching out the bonds of love towards vulnerable communities will be more important than ever and here at St John’s we’re even more committed than we were to trying to make that happen. 

Canon Giles Goddard