The counting comes easily: More Americans have died from the coronavirus than during the entire Vietnam War. Total U.S. fatalities would overflow Dodger Stadium. More people are infected than live in the state of Delaware.

So why is the grieving so hard?

The enormity of the pandemic death toll is wrapped in a wall of silence, not connecting with our politicians, the media nor the public. Thankful applause echoes nightly for nurses and caregivers, but there are few candlelight vigils for the dead; churches are shuttered; most families cannot even hold funerals.

Doesn’t our national loss deserve more than just checking the number on CNN every hour, and shaking our heads as the death toll tops 50,000, then 67,000 and beyond?

Media coverage of the death toll seems clinical and for-the-record when it needs to be somber and shared, like the sounds of John F. Kennedy’s horse-drawn caisson clambering down Pennsylvania Avenue, or the tearful reading of the names on the anniversary of 9/11 every year.

Read it all.

Counting the dead is easy, but why are the victims not mourned? My column in USA TODAY:https://t.co/mlKPKkEan8

— David Colton (@DColtonNow) May 5, 2020

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

5 May 2020

Tuesday of the 4th week of Eastertide

Entrance Antiphon
Rv 19: 7, 6

Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to God,
for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns, alleluia.

Some of my recent photos. pic.twitter.com/oGLaOJTxc1

— Kalina Boulter (@KalinaBoulter) May 5, 2020

Read it all.

Even as the monasteries of the Orthodox Church are besieged by the coronavirus, apocalyptic-minded priests balk at state restrictions on public worship https://t.co/RdGvtcP5qd

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 6, 2020

Several recent books by leading economists have critiqued the capitalist worldview and its structures as inherently flawed. Branko Milanovic’s Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World, offers a slightly different take: it’s complicated. While capitalism needs major corrective measures, he argues, it is the only viable option. He brilliantly frames structural deficiencies and articulates goals, but many of his proposed measures fall short.

Milanovic traces the emergence of capitalism as the globally dominant socioeconomic system and distinguishes a Western form of capitalism—“liberal meritocratic capitalism”—from the “poli­tical capitalism” prevalent in au­thori­tarian regimes. He attributes growing inequality in countries like the US to a concentration of wealth at the top, higher dividends on wealth, and marriage patterns. Milanovic posits “people’s capitalism” as an alternative that can grant everyone an equal share of income.

It’s a noble idea, but how do we accomplish it? Some of Milanovic’s suggestions, like tax breaks for the lower and middle classes or more investment in public schools, might help. But he pays insufficient attention to the massive wage gap, the lack of guaranteed universal income, and the way factors like race and gender accentuate meritocratic capitalism. He suggests incremental shifts that would keep poor people alive but without leading to major structural changes.

Read it all and see what you make of the book choices also.

Among the lyrics are:

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now is ascended, my Lord evermore
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him
From rising again

Listen to it all.

In his five years as a hospital chaplain, the Rev Steven Chewning has anointed the sick more times than he can remember.

The ritual of applying oil to the forehead of someone ill or dying is considered one of the most intimate of Christian sacraments. But when Covid-19 restricted Chewning’s access and left him working from home, a family’s request to anoint a young father who was intubated and critical forced him to get creative. While performing the rite over speakerphone with the help of a nurse (who is an atheist), Chewning found himself not only reimagining his own duties, but the very conception of holy space.

From his bedroom, the chaplain recited his litany, reading from James 5 and Mark 6, where Jesus first sends his disciples to anoint the sick. “O Holy One, giver of health and salvation, send your holy spirit to sanctify this oil,” he prayed, his words ringing over the drone of the ventilator. “As your holy apostles anointed many who were sick so may those who in faith receive this holy unction be made whole. Can you please rub a drop of oil on the patient’s forehead?”

“You want me to make it like a cross? I think that’d be meaningful.”

“Yeah, sure, if you don’t mind.”

Read it all.

“Like the ancient Israelites who carried God in a tent while they wandered through the wilderness, chaplains are having to find God in unexpected places.” @bryanmealer @guardian #COVID19 https://t.co/Xkr9EuO811

— Kristin Collier (@KristinCollie20) May 6, 2020

The National Day of Prayer is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. Our Task Force is a privately funded organization whose purpose is to encourage participation on the National Day of Prayer. It exists to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, to create appropriate materials, and to mobilize the Christian community to intercede for America’s leaders and its families. The Task Force represents a Judeo-Christian expression of the national observance, based on our understanding that this country was birthed in prayer and in reverence for the God of the Bible.

Read it all.

Pray and worship with us online on the National Day of Prayer! pic.twitter.com/JbFYFcRs9h

— Daniel Fusco (@danielfusco) May 5, 2020

We give Thee thanks, Almighty Father, Who hast delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of Thy Son: grant, we beseech Thee, that as by His death He has restored to us hope and peace, He may raise us up with Him to life eternal; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

“He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” -Luke 24:35 “The Emmaus Disciples” by Abraham Bloemaert (1622) @RoyalBelgianFA pic.twitter.com/Xr2BC37Qmk

— Lady of Good Counsel (@ofgoodcounsel) April 16, 2020

The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tables of stone like the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let no flocks or herds feed before that mountain.” So Moses cut two tables of stone like the first; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth, and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thy inheritance.”

–Exodus 34:1-9

South Carolina’s public health agency plans to test nearly a quarter million people for COVID-19 over the next two months, partnering with healthcare facilities and a private lab as part of a new, coordinated assault on the pandemic.

As part of that new strategy, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control will quickly test all 40,000 residents and employees of South Carolina’s nearly 200 nursing homes, where the respiratory disease can spread quickly and prey on vulnerable residents. At least 84 nursing home residents and employees have died so far from COVID-19.

The agency also is stepping up plans to hire contact tracers. It is identifying a pool of up to 1,000 people who can be hired and trained to track down where the virus has been and where it might spread next, a crucial piece of the state’s outbreak containment strategy.

Read it all.

South Carolina’s public health agency plans to test some 220,000 more people for COVID-19 over the next two months, including all 40,000 residents and employees of the state’s nearly 200 nursing homes.https://t.co/pdqd9rWONC

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) May 6, 2020

A few years ago, “zoom-zoom” referred to a Mazda car commercial. Today people are more likely to think of an online screen filled with small squares of virtual people holding a meeting. In the Anglican Church of Canada, this is especially true for all of the bishops and the Primate!

Prior to the imposed isolation, my calendar was filled with travel to different parts of Canada to share in parish and diocesan celebrations, present the Award of Merit to last year’s recipients, and meet with diocesan leaders, clergy and parishioners to talk about their mission and ministry. Suddenly I was confined to home in London, Ont., with my cat, feeling disconnected and unsure what I could and should do now.

Over these past weeks a new rhythm of life and ministry has emerged—and with it, reflections on what the future might hold. First, many activities prior to COVID-19 have been transformed into virtual meeting opportunities. Church House staff meet regularly online to continue the work General Synod is called to fulfill. This even includes a weekly coffee break to stay in touch with one another in our relationships and share coping strategies. It is good to see and hear colleagues, though it can be mentally exhausting to engage online for hours every day. We are learning to pace meetings, provide breaks and even have online breakout groups for discussion. Our technological learning curve is steep, but new skills are being mastered!

Read it all.

We are starting to get new data measuring the possible impact of the coronavirus situation on religious behavior in this country. Gallup’s April 14-28 survey finds 27% of Americans reporting having worshipped virtually within the past seven days. Another 4% claim to have worshipped in person, despite the coronavirus restrictions in place in most states.

The combined total of 31% who have worshipped within the past seven days either virtually or in person is roughly in line with recent, pre-virus trends. This tracks with what I reported in 2001 and 2008 — little lasting change in general worship behavior after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the beginning of the Great Recession. As was the case then, the disruptive virus situation has apparently neither expanded nor diminished Americans’ existing worship propensities.

The unique feature now, of course, is the fact that this pattern of worship behavior has stayed stable even as the way in which worship is carried out has shifted dramatically. While we don’t see a substantial change in the number of Americans who are worshipping, we do find a major shift in how they are going about it.

The 27% of Americans who say they have worshipped virtually is calculated on the base of the entire U.S. adult population. But about 20% of the population has no personal religious identity and would not be highly likely to be worshipping in any situation. Among the population of those with a religious identity, 33% have worshipped virtually.

Read it all.

New data show little evidence of major change in the percentage of Americans worshipping during the virus situation, although most now worship virtually. https://t.co/jbwwFLVEx1

— GallupNews (@GallupNews) May 1, 2020

How shall we understand freedom? Perhaps because I am in a state, South Carolina, where candidates….[not long ago] were running around saying “you are free so vote for me!” this has been much in mind.

There is a lot of sloppy thinking about freedom these days. For too many it only means the ability to choose a candidate or a product. Or it is understood to be the removal of external constraints, as in I need the government out of my—then fill in the blank: my business, my body, and on and on.

Christian thinking about freedom is a totally different animal.

For one thing, in the Scriptures, freedom has an interesting relationship to time. Freedom is something which was present in creation, and which will be fully present again at the end of history when God brings it to its conclusion. But what about the present? The people Jesus spends time with—say, for example, the woman at the well (John 4), or Zaccheus (Luke 19) are not free but constrained, imprisoned, and encased. When Jesus rescues them, freedom begins, but even then it is lived out in the tension between the already of new life in Christ and the not yet of the fullness of the eschaton.

So apart from Christ people who think they are free need to hear the bad news that their perceived freedom is an illusion. One would like to hear more from preachers these days on this score, since they are addressing parishioners who are workaholics or poweraholics or sexaholics and/or addicts to heaven knows what else. Why is it that a group like AA seems to know more about real freedom than so many churches? Because they begin with the premise which says their members are enslaved—that is the first of the twelve steps.

And there is so much more to freedom then even this. In the Bible, real freedom moves in not one or two but three directions.

Freedom from is one piece of the puzzle—freedom from sin, from the demands of the law, from the tyranny of the urgent, from whatever constricts us from being the people God intended us to be.

Equally important, however, is freedom for, freedom for Christ, for service, for God’s justice, for ministry. Paul wonderfully describes himself as a bondservant of Christ Jesus, and the Prayer Book has it right when it says God’s service is “perfect freedom.”

Freedom with should not be missed, however. For Paul in Galatians Christian freedom is not the Christian by herself changed by the gospel. This has too much in common with the individual shopper in Walmart deciding exactly what kind of popcorn or yogurt she wants. No, real freedom is to be liberated to live for Christ with the new pilgrim people of God who reflect back a little of heaven’s light on earth. A real church is one where people enjoy koinonia, fellowship, the richness of God’s life shared into them which they then share out in Christ’s name by the power of the Holy Spirit to the world.

Paul says it wonderfully in Galatians: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Do not settle for anything less than this real freedom, freedom from bondage, freedom with our fellow pilgrims, and freedom for the God who made the heavens and the earth.

–The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall Harmon is the convenor of this blog

Freedom! 😁😀👍❤️

U:Cheezeburger pic.twitter.com/sq7lYuVYc4

— Carlos Andreas (@candreas2k) May 5, 2020

How should colleges educate students? We have wandered a long way from what Michel de Montaigne thought should be the first principles of education.

For it seems to me that the first lessons in which we should steep his [the student’s] mind must be those that regulate his behavior and his sense, that will teach him to know himself and to die well and live well. Among the liberal arts, let us begin with the art that liberates us.

Montaigne did not mean “liberation” as the devotees of Paolo Freire’s pedagogy understand it. Montaigne wrote, “He who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all subjection and constraint.” No education matters more.

Modern American colleges dedicate themselves instead to life without limits, and the cant progressive politics of our day. The mission statements sprawl, paragraph piled on paragraph. Bureaucrats and professors unable to edit themselves teach an object lesson in the fruits of indiscipline. “Virtue . . . is a state of character concerned with choice,” said the philosopher; and colleges unable even to choose one guiding institutional virtue educate their students to a similar incapacity to choose, to develop character, to live by virtue.

Of course, students miseducated in such a regime display little virtue in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. They have no knowledge of how to die well, or even that they should.

Read it all.

Today’s college students no longer know what it means to live or die well.https://t.co/xd3HUc2y8D

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) May 5, 2020

Listen to it all.

Lyrics:

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrow’d hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win.
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we may for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean wash’d from sin,
May live for ever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again;
And for Thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
The day of resurrection! Earth, tell it out abroad;
The Passover of gladness, the Passover of God.
From death to life eternal, from earth unto the sky,
Our Christ hath brought us over, with hymns of victory. Amen.

The Vanderbilt-AstraZeneca team is far from the only group trying to identify or engineer monoclonals against SARS-CoV-2. Unlike the many repurposed drugs now being tested in COVID-19 patients, including the modestly effective remdesivir, the immune proteins specifically target this virus. Whereas some groups hope to sieve a neutralizing antibody (a “neut”) from the blood of a survivor like Dr. X, others are trying to produce a neut in mice by injecting them with the spike protein. Still others aim to re-engineer an existing antibody or even create one directly from DNA sequences.

Many researchers are optimistic that antibodies will, relatively quickly, prove their worth as a preventive or remedy that buys the world time until a vaccine arrives—if it does. “We’ve got at least 50—and probably more we don’t know about—companies and academic labs that are all racing horses,” says immunologist Erica Ollmann Saphire of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, who leads an effort to coordinate and evaluate these candidates. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which developed a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies that worked against the Ebola virus—a notoriously difficult disease to treat—may be out of the gates first with a candidate monoclonal drug entering clinical trials as soon as next month.

Saphire says many questions remain. “We need a sense of the landscape: What are the most effective antibodies against this virus? If we need a cocktail of two, what is the most effective combination?” she asks. “And you might want a very different kind of antibody to prevent infection versus treating an established one.”

Read it all.

Monoclonal antibodies could potentially be used both for treatment and prevention of #COVID. @WHO happy to work with developers on facilitating trials & mechanisms for affordable access.
The race is on for antibodies that stop the new coronavirus https://t.co/2vNmdFVw3l

— Soumya Swaminathan (@doctorsoumya) May 6, 2020

By Aug. 4, DHEC projects the state could have over 1,100 deaths from the coronavirus, up from about 360. DHEC’s website no longer notes, as it had, that the projections assume social distancing into June.

“I believe we’re moving in the right direction at exactly the right time,” Gov. Henry McMaster said Tuesday. Statistics from businesses as well as health professionals informed his decision to allow businesses around the state to resume some services, he said.

“We probably had fewer restrictions than any state in the country,” McMaster said. “We have information, facts, statistics from businesses to see what’s happening, we’ve had experience to see what’s happened with other states… we certainly know how to contain it.”

Residents in a trio of Richland County ZIP codes where the coronavirus is most prevalent will have access to nasal swab testing next week, in a partnership between local officials and the Medical University of South Carolina.

“I do think we have the tools and resources necessary to defeat this pandemic, but it takes exactly what we’re doing right now,” state Rep. Ivory Thigpen, D-Columbia, said during a Tuesday press conference at the South Carolina Statehouse.

Read it all.

As of Tuesday evening, South Carolina has documented a total of 6,841 positive tests for the virus, and 296 patients who have died.https://t.co/dZPuCucTcS

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) May 5, 2020

Almighty God, Who didst bring again from the dead our Lord Jesus, and hast brought life and immortality to light with Him through the Gospel: grant that we, who are raised together with Him and are partakers of the joy and hope of His Resurrection, may daily die unto sin and walk on earth in the power of His endless life in heaven; to Whom with Thee and the Holy Spirit be praise and thanksgiving, dominion and power, both now and for evermore.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Common Carder Bee ‘Bombus pascuorum’ on Green Alkanet. This must be one of the nicest things for me, seeing bumblebees on wildflowers.”Let us linger a while…It is a glory of tender green and shaded amethyst and the grateful hum of bees, the very voice of Spring.”~A Morse Earle pic.twitter.com/8iUSv8oo9Z

— Nature Delights (@byNatDavidson) May 5, 2020

For you yourselves know, brethren, that our visit to you was not in vain; but though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the face of great opposition. For our appeal does not spring from error or uncleanness, nor is it made with guile; but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please men, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never used either words of flattery, as you know, or a cloak for greed, as God is witness; nor did we seek glory from men, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

For you remember our labor and toil, brethren; we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you, while we preached to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our behavior to you believers; for you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

–1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Risen Christ,
faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep:
teach us to hear your voice
and to follow your command,
that all your people may be gathered into one flock,
to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.

“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” -John 10:14-15 pic.twitter.com/0tcIhern3H

— P is Social Distancing (@HighChurchQueen) December 6, 2019

While church buildings remain closed for public worship, in line with Government advice, the Bishops agreed in principle to a phased approach to lifting restrictions, in time and in parallel with the Government’s approach, with three broad stages as infection levels improve:

1. An initial immediate phase allowing very limited access to church buildings for activities such as streaming of services or private prayer by clergy in their own parishes, so long as the necessary hygiene and social distancing precautions are taken
2. Subsequently access for some rites and ceremonies when allowed by law, observing appropriate physical distancing and hygiene precautions
3. Worship services with limited congregations meeting, when Government restrictions are eased to allow this

The Bishops agreed that the decision on the timing of when to implement the revised advice on ministers or worship leaders praying and streaming from their church buildings should be made by individual Diocesan Bishops, depending on their local situation.

Read it all.

The House of Bishops are backing a phased approach to revising access to church buildings.

Read more on our website: https://t.co/TGxdhui49b

— The Church of England (@churchofengland) May 5, 2020

Americans are concerned about the present state of the economy and believe conditions are worsening, but their six-month predictions for specific aspects of the economy are less dire — particularly in terms of the stock market and economic growth.

Read it all.

Hauntingly beautiful–do not miss it.

…[Today] the bishops of the Church of England will meet to consider the growing opposition to their policy of banning clergy from saying prayers in their churches.

To recap: on 24 March the Archbishops of Canterbury and York wrote to the clergy of the Church of England with the following instruction: “Our church buildings must now be closed not only for public worship, but for private prayer as well and this includes the priest or lay person offering prayer in church on their own.”

The guidance of the government makes it specifically clear that clergy are allowed into their churches on their own to pray and to broadcast prayer. And the Roman Catholics and other churches continue to do so. But the C of E has banned its clergy from doing this, in some Dioceses with the threat of disciplinary action hanging over those who do.

The deep unhappiness about this continues to grow. Today a letter was sent to The Times signed by hundreds of clergy and lay people complaining about the current restrictions. And as the resistance grows so too does the counter-resistance — with arguments from those defending the official line appearing all over social media.

Read it all.

Let priests pray in their churches – The Post https://t.co/rjbvaGtWxG

— Robert Paterson (@marerskine) May 5, 2020

You may now see what I’m doing there: those who turn the gospel into its benefits and then construct the gospel for the sake of personal benefits (salvation, redemption, justification, transformation, meaning in life, going to heaven) are glory-makers like the selfish athlete. As sport is about the city and its team, so the gospel is about God and his Son Jesus. Yes, for sure, the gospel brings benefits but it is first about Jesus – the gospel story is the story of Israel that finds its climax in the story of Jesus – and then about us. (See King Jesus Gospel)

Look at the gospel summary passages in the New Testament and you will see the point (1 Cor 15:1-28). Where’s the focus?

“What’s in it for us?,” is the question asked by the one who turns the gospel around into a benefit-package. Benefits themselves can be distorted and benefits can distort the gospel.

Evangelism that focuses on Jesus and tells people about Jesus and draws people to the glory who is Jesus have it right; those who entice people into the benefits that come from the gospel are turning it around. Robert Jenson in his Systematic Theology, says this: “gospel messengers,” are ones who say “We are not here to entice you into our religion by benefits allegedly found only in it. We are here to introduce you to the true god, for whatever he can do with you – which may well be suffering and oppression” (1.51). That’s right.

Read it all.

When the benefits of the gospel shape the gospel itself:https://t.co/htD7exgNsW

— Scot McKnight (@scotmcknight) May 4, 2020

Around 60,000 families forced onto Universal Credit by Covid-19 could have essential support restricted by the government’s hated ‘two-child limit’.

Families who have to claim the benefit because of job losses and illness will find they are denied support for more than two children.

Ministers have refused to scrap the policy, even temporarily during the coronavirus crisis….

A new report by the Church of England and Child Poverty Action Group said the virus crisis had exposed the injustice of the policy, which mostly hits working families.

Read it all.

60,000 families forced onto Universal Credit by coronavirus ‘to be hit’ by two child limithttps://t.co/RYQayoOmGK pic.twitter.com/yIytrcTJMd

— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) May 4, 2020

In her room on Saint Joseph’s, Flo would often stay up until 2 a.m. trying to finish her prayers. For a while, she had run a fever, suffered from diarrhea, and kept coughing, but her symptoms didn’t last long. Surrounded by statues of Jesus and Mary, beneath pictures of her six kids, 23 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren, Flo prayed for courage, for the health of the staff, for everybody who was sick in the home. She especially prayed for Karen, her friend from the dining hall. “I was really worried about her. We have different things wrong with us,” Flo told me this week, her voice quiet over the phone. For weeks, she didn’t have much information about how her neighbors were doing, even those who lived just feet away. After a month of separation, toward the end of April, Flo finally left a couple of messages on Karen’s phone.

Since then, the two women have spoken just once, mostly about nothing. They aren’t afraid of death, but they don’t want to talk much about it. Karen told me that she didn’t ask Flo about the coronavirus outbreak, because she was scared she’d start crying. Flo didn’t ask Karen about it either. “Maybe a part of me didn’t want to know,” Flo said.

Karen constantly imagines what it will be like to return to the dining hall when the outbreak is over. Her table, like so many others, will be a little emptier: Pat, who was 87, is among the residents who have died. There was no memorial service where the women could say goodbye to their friend. Pat’s son, a priest in a Delaware beach town, was not even able to celebrate Mass at her funeral.

Both Flo and Karen are lifelong Catholics, and they believe firmly in the promise of Christianity. “When you’re people of faith, heaven is not a scary place,” Karen said. “It’s a place you’re looking forward to, that you’ve been working for all your life.” The residents encourage one another. They’re ready to go home, she said. “Just maybe not today.”

Read it all.

We give Thee thanks, Almighty Father, Who hast delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of Thy Son: grant, we beseech Thee, that as by His death He has restored to us hope and peace, He may raise us up with Him to life eternal; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

For those who love going to country houses to see the glory of spring, not the same but here’s my garden this morning pic.twitter.com/Wa6FamJXSz

— Richard Cox (@CllrRichardECox) May 5, 2020

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brethren beloved by God, that he has chosen you; for our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit; so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us what a welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

–1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

South Carolina has officially begun loosening restrictions on travel, commerce and recreation implemented during the initial spread of the coronavirus, as the state tries to regain its economic footing ahead of the summertime tourist season.

Monday marked the end of Gov. Henry McMaster’s stay-at-home order, which placed a $100 fine on anyone outside their home for a reason other than work, visiting family, exercising alone or going to an essential business such as a grocery store.

Dine-in restaurants and close-contact businesses such as barbershops and gyms remain closed, along with playgrounds and nightclubs. But restaurants were being allowed to begin serving people in outdoor dining areas Monday, as long as tables were at least 8 feet (2.4 meters) apart, parties were limited to eight people and strict sanitation guidelines were followed.

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“We have a lot of people saying we are going too fast. Others say we are going too slow,” Gov. @HenryMcMaster said on Friday. “I think we are doing it just right.”

My story on the gradual reopening of South Carolina. https://t.co/wETIhaXuhQ

— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) May 4, 2020