On Monday afternoon, the sun illuminated the campus, giving a good view of Massanutten from the Campus Center during the Week of Prayer on One Year of Pandemic. Claiming our stories, honoring those experiences, and seeing hope– those were three things Brian Martin Burkholder, University Campus Pastor, said were important for the week. Each day, from Monday March 22 to Friday March 26, the prayers have been and will be held at 3:13 in front of the Campus Center or via Zoom.
Burkholder said this event is part of marking “what we’ve been through and what we’re still in.”
Each day, the prayers follow a theme, following the progression of: Lament, hurting and suffering communities, leaders, healing, protection and equitable distribution, and hope. Burkholder said that each of these ‘around the world’ can be implied.
Burkholder mentioned the first line for Monday’s theme of lament, also noting that all the resources were provided by Mennonite World Conference. The leading line for Monday says, “We lament the more than 2 million people who have died and the deadly impact of the pandemic on the vulnerable, especially children.”
Junior Elizabeth Eby, Pastoral Assistant, was one of the readers for this week. The first day’s theme resonated with her specifically to lament opportunities that she couldn’t have as a student. Specifically, she lost the opportunity to go on cross-cultural in the Fall of 2020. She mentioned this loss is something we are all going through, naming that acknowledging lamenting that loss on the first day of the week is quite important.
Nancy Heisey, Professor of Bible, Religion, and Theology, laments the number of people she has known who have died during COVID. She also laments not being able to gather, which is a missed opportunity to mark those tragedies. After the Pandemic, she also hopes that change will occur based on the injustices in the world.
The focus of Tuesday through Thursday, according to Burkholder, is recognizing the global impact the pandemic has had. One such impact is Third-world countries will not having have access to vaccines as quickly as those we do here in the United States. He also noted his focus on rRecognizing justice and justice issues.
The end of the week will focus on hope, and Eby can see the light at the end of the tunnel for COVID. She recognizes that the normal we approach after the pandemic may be drastically different than the normal we once knew.
Burkholder was careful to say that moving to hope too quickly brushes aside the trauma we have faced. The most important point of this week, to him, is that “collective voice is very powerful.”
