Diocese of Montana Newsletter, July 2020
There is an old rock n roll song from Eddie Cochran that was released in July of 1958, “Summertime Blues”. Basically, the song is a lament of a young man who is encountering adulthood in the midst of summer; he misses all the things he could do in earlier summers. I have been humming it a fair amount recently, not just for the changes in my life circumstances, but for everyone’s life changes. As a nation, we are in the midst of pandemic fatigue and our natural responses to it. We are not used to staying the course this long, especially when there is no particular way that we can respond. During World War II, our 
parents/grandparents/great-grandparents focused on growing Victory gardens, making first aid kits to be donated, collecting scrap metal and other such activities. These activities made the wait in this “in-between”, or luminal, time tolerable. Pandemic fatigue takes its greatest toll when the effects of those distractions no longer help. We are tired; we are not working efficiently, we are worried or scared, and we have no real knowledge of the path this virus has put us on. The natural response is to say, “I am sick and tired of this, I am done with following all these rules that don’t make sense to me.” It is much like the young man in the song: we are called into being a new way and cannot yet see a clear path, but certainly feel the pain of the change. This change causes feelings of fear, anger, grief, confusion and frustration.
Click here to read the complete newsletter, including the following:
- Got the Summertime Pandemic Blues
- Resources
- Around the Diocese
- Camp Marshall's Online Summer
- Prayer for a Pandemic
- Season of Creation, Sept. 1 - Oct. 4, 2020
- How the Church can survive when there is no in-person worship
- United Thank Offering 2021 Annual Grants
- Children's videos telling Bible stories
- The Great EpisGOpal Virtual Race
- 2020 Diocesan Convention: resolution deadline, nominations, plans
- Emmanuel, Miles City - remodeling update
- Clergy Conference rescheduled: Sept. 1 - 3
- Episcopal Service Corps recruitment for the 2020-21 service year
- Ecumenical: The Way of Love
- St. James, Bozeman: Part-Time Youth Director position