A word to the Members of Trinity Church:

This has been a strange and unusual week for most if not all of us. For most of it the staff and I have been working from home, making various arrangements, catching up with the news about the coronavirus, and calling many of you on the telephone. We have wrestled together in a zoom meeting on Wednesday about how we can best serve you right now. We discussed doing services online, but we wonder whether they would be up to the quality of the many others that we have provided links to, and will continue to do so. We have come to a partial conclusion that the best thing we can do in these weeks of enforced quarantine, is to keep in touch with all of you as much as we can, particularly by phone and email. I also think we are going to share a few meditations each week by Alan and me, and perhaps by some of you if you wish to be bold.  We can put these on our website and our Facebook site. I would like to do some or all of these orally, as we do with sermons and meditations, and to do them on a regular schedule so you can know when to look for a new one. Right now we are planning to do them on Friday and Saturday and Monday and Wednesday. We will post them at noon of those days and we'll start this Saturday. You can listen to them as you have time and the quiet to do so. I am also asking our Senior Warden Tatiana Schweibenz to write a news of the parish piece one day each week or to trade that off with other Vestry members. For example, this week the Finance Committee is meeting, the Search Committee continues to meet, and the Vestry will meet on Sunday, so there will be plenty to report. 

I want you to know that all these meetings are going to be from our homes or offices, and we are trying to maintain the safety suggestions from the Center for Disease Control and the Rhode Island Department of Health. Fortunately, there are an increasing number of phone services that we can use. 

In addition to the reflections and meditations and sharing the news, I am asking each of the Vestry members to call the 15 or so households on each member’s list, even once a week if possible. This will also give us the opportunity to update all the contact information we have for each of you and enter it into our computerized system so we can from now on keep this current. Remember that Pam Alexander and her TLC team and Alan and I are willing to coordinate help for you. 

Alan and I are most concerned about those of you who live alone, and we shall start calling each of you once a week sometime between Monday and Friday. If you do not have voice mail or your message machine is usually full, then please call us when you think of it. 

I shall also be calling each of the members of the Vestry weekly, so that I may know if there are any concerns they have heard from you. As I wrote last week, this is a time to be regularly in touch with people you know and love and you may even become closer as friends. We may have to be alone, but we do not need to isolate ourselves. And once you have done all the spring cleaning you can stand, pick up the book you’ve been wanting to read, or take up an old or new hobby. 

You the parish have been so generous and profound in your pledging and the Vestry and I are most grateful for that. We have some concerns over the next few months. About half of us pay by bank draft or electronic transfer, but the rest of us do not, and so I want to remind you to put a note in your calendar each week or month to write your check and keep your pledge current. Remember always, that if you have a reversal in your financial picture and cannot afford to continue your pledge at the current level, please let us know. We will understand that, of course; but knowing if we have to consider reducing our expected income we shall also consider reducing our expenses. I still believe that generosity comes from gratitude, not when we are afraid for our futures. 

One last thing for this week and next: a number of people are working diligently on finding ways to prepare and serve the Community Meal safely each of the next two Mondays. We will probably have take-out, but if I know our cooks it will be delicious. This is an opportunity for some younger members of the parish who are not as susceptible to the virus to volunteer. 

Know that this is a good time to redouble your prayers—a lot of people need help and need it now, and also pray for caregivers to stay healthy. God’s every blessing to all of you. 

+Jim

Trinity Church

1 Queen Anne Sq.

Newport, RI 02840

www.TrinityNewport.org