March 11, 2025 - The Anniversary of a Day of Change and a Blog Rememberance

Five years Ago Today the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. A year later, in 2021, after the death of more than 600,000 Americans, artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg organized a memorial to them on the National Mall. The image here is part of how she remembered and honored those who died.

Shortly after on March 22, Pastor Ray passed away. 

We, as a nation, appear to be forgetting. or at least not honoring collectively, the memory of those who died. Rather the wake of COVID brought horrible lies and conspiracy theories which grew and nurtured authoritarianism around the world. We saw a further fracturing of communities instead of to connection, empathy, and compassion. 

That said, this is the blog entry posted on March 24th that starts with his Lent message for the March newsletter that year is a remembrance.

Know that I am with you as you journey to the cross this Lent, and know that the Lord is with you, too. 

Pastor Ray McKechnie

This was how Pastor Ray closed his letter in our March monthly newsletter.

On March 22, 2020, he passed away from a sudden heart attack.  Our community obviously feels this loss deeply and we continue to pray for Pastor Ray's family, especially for his husband, Eric.

The 23rd Psalm came to mind all day, both preceding and during Sunday's zoom meeting of the congregation. Particularly the words "He leadth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul" and yes, the King James translation is still the one I repeat in my heart. This was, coincidentally, the Psalm reading in Sunday's lectionary.

Yet I hardly felt I was being led beside the still waters on Sunday. These past few weeks have taken many off our sure footing as we began to learn how to cope with the coronavirus. Pastor Ray was beloved by so many of us and his sudden death was like being tossed in the rapids rather than by the still waters. Despite that feeling, yesterday also helped me to know God continues to lead this community, and those around us, to live life and love beside those still waters.

The Second Reading - Ephesians 5:14 "for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." picks up on Pastor Ray's last line of the newsletter. Both suggest another invitation or approach Jesus can give us. We can have faith that Christ can shine on us, in us, and through us even in our grief.

I felt this shining on us, in us, and through us was present in two musical highlights in worship when these readings came up three years ago. I doubt Annie, Vaune, and Kim, at that time, made their selection of  Jennifer Knapp's Peace primarily to support the sermon or the readings, and yet Peace did support and resonated with the sermon then, Pastor Ray's passing now, and readings. The lines "That I might hear a simple word" and "All tempests He will bind with a mighty word" was relevant to the gospel's story. The blind man first heard and then followed Jesus' word before he saw Jesus. Although it must have been coincidental, the lines in the verse "And when my enemies draw near / I pray that they will find / That I'm protected and secure" strongly echoed the sentiment in Psalm 23.

Today's First Reading is Samuel 16:7 - "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."

This verse captures one dimension of the difficulty encountered in the Gospel Lesson of The Blind Man Healed. Whatever truth we communicate about God publicly, we rely on outward appearance as a touchstone or point of reference. God's presence and attributes are not truly recognized through direct sensual evidence, even in our own hearts. We discover them through faith. The questions then become:

    How do we communicate about God and our faith to others? 
    What is the vocabulary that can used to share our God and faith experiences?

Look at Ephesians and how true that verse feels. Look at how Pastor Ray closed his letter. The words are a challenge to keep them true in a different way than he meant but that makes his words, perhaps, even more meaningful .

With Eric (his husband), we will work through a community response while we practice our not gathering. It is likely to be different, regarding a traditional gathering memorial or celebration of life anyway. What has not changed is this congregation's desire to live into the moment and resolutely search for and find our love-in-action response specifically for this time and in this place.

We shared our grief through a zoom meeting on Sunday night and I have faith that we will find a way to collectively honor him and lovingly support his husband in this moment.