Setting: Approximately 11:15 am any Sunday morning late 1970s to early 80s; 6th & P St. NW
Announcer: “Now let’s turn to the back of the bulletin to read the names of the sick and shut-in…”
When I was a kid, this was when we began to get to the end of the “Church Announcements”, a weekly series of sharing about group events, choir rehearsal, trustee board meeting, bible study. This was the reading of the names of those who couldn’t make it out of their homes for many reasons: recent surgery, convalescencing at home or in a senior home. The names to me as a kid were mostly unknown, long-time members I never met. But people my mother or grandmother or grandfather would know. Their friends. Their community that they had created over the twenty years they had been members. People that became important to their lives.
The sick and shut-in list was a way to let everyone in the community know to pay special attention to these members because they were not able to get the same sustenance of community as those who gathered in person on any particular Sunday (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday for that matter.). The announcements would mention whether those members could receive visitors or where to send a card or if they were open to phone calls. Many members would drive by their house, deliver meals, share a cassette tape of Sunday service or call to say, “I’m thinking of you.”
Some Sundays the list was two pages! But, never was everyone’s name in the entire community listed.
For fourteen months, like many other communities, the ENTIRE WES community has been on the sick and shut-in list. Even as yesterday, Mayor Bowser announced a nearly full reopening of the city, we recognize that moving all of WES off the sick and shut-in list is still a process. Even as adolescents are now approved to be vaccinated, we still have families with small children in the WES community. We still have a level of vaccine hesitancy for many reasons and health issues that may continue to keep the community at a less than full vaccination schedule. There will be a long time still before we all get to see each other again as we did in March 2020.
As we go back to in-person, let us as a community, consider treating everyone as if they are still on the sick and shut-in list. No one gets left behind. Make your calls. Send your personal notes. See if you can arrange visits. Assume everyone needs special attention from other members of the community because everyone has now experienced being sick and shut in and it’s not fun.
WES members can find other member contact info here.
Excelsior!
Maceo, Membership Coordinator
maceot@ethicalsociety.org