Wednesday, March 27, 2024

A pastor, rabbi, and monk share their reflections on the coronavirus [Free read]

Pastor Tyler Daniels pictured in the pews of Zion United Methodist Church in Leland. (Port City Daily photo/Johanna F. Still)

SOUTHEASTERN, N.C. — As the nation braces its way through the brunt of the coronavirus curve, sacred religious spaces remain empty.

Many religious communities have transitioned to online worship in an attempt to fill a weekly void. Though some organizations have defied government orders to stop all large gatherings, for the most part, the majority of religious institutions are trying to reach their members online.

Related: In Pictures: Stay-at-home order takes effect in Wilmington, Carolina Beach [Free read]

Rabbi Barry Kenter, the interim rabbi of Wilmington’s B’nai Israel Congregation, is practicing safe social distancing from New Rochelle, New York. Since the gathering restrictions, Kenter’s congregation quickly pivoted to Zoom conferences.

“So you have all these people who are sharing a screen. They can’t share the same physical space, but they are in a virtual space that actually brings a tremendous amount of comfort. There’s a real sense of community,” he said.

In Leland, Pastor Tyler Daniels is trying a more direct, old school approach for members of Zion United Methodist Church: calling each of his more than 60 parishioners and recent visitors individually. “I’ve called each member individually, which took forever. It took like three days,” Daniels said. “I was just letting them talk. If there was anything they wanted to talk about. And this week, checking in to see if they needed anything.”

At the Wat Carolina, a Thai Buddhist Monastery located outside Bolivia, things carry on mostly as usual. Outside of special events, the monastery typically does not congregate more than 10 people in one place. It remains open to visitors daily.

Port City Daily asked each religious leader for their reflections on the global pandemic. Their words appear below:

[Author’s note: Interviews have been transcribed verbatim with minimal edits to clarify a language barrier. The views shared by religious leaders do not reflect the views of Port City Daily or Local Voice Media.]

Pastor Tyler Daniels, Zion United Methodist Church, Leland

Pastor Tyler Daniels pictured in the pews of Zion United Methodist Church in Leland. (Port City Daily photo/Johanna F. Still)
Pastor Tyler Daniels pictured in the pews of Zion United Methodist Church in Leland. (Port City Daily photo/Johanna F. Still)

“I told somebody the other day, there’s no guidebook on this. Because none of us ever, no one’s ever had to be a pastor through a pandemic, since 1918 I guess. So you know that there’s no guidebook, there’s no rulebook, there’s no right or wrong way I don’t think. It’s just kind of, I have a lot of people that are calling me that are saying positive things about being closed. Of course, I’ve heard negative things about being closed. However, hearts are coming around to see the gravity of our current situation. 

I think the narrative was, if we’re faithful, if we trust in God, we should be able to worship together and everything will be fine. We’re seeing that throughout the country, God also said not to be stupid. To be smart about what we’re doing. I’ve called each member individually, which took forever. It took like three days. I was just letting them talk. If there was anything they wanted to talk about. And this week, checking in to see if they needed anything. Because I didn’t want some of our older members to go out. If you need something, I can go get it, or someone can go get it for you. Unless it’s toilet paper, probably can’t find that. 

Just checking in on not only our most vulnerable but all of our members. Just to see if there was any need that was being presented. A lot of the narrative that I kept hearing was, I don’t know if my daughter, I don’t know if my son, I don’t know what they’re going to do, that they’ve lost their job. I wish I had a bank account that I could just help them whatever way I could. I think that that’s kind of the narrative around many things right now. It’s that this person, this person lost their job. We’re seeing higher unemployment, and so the thing that I just kept going back to, actually with every member, it was around St. Patrick’s Day the time I was doing it, I was praying a prayer from St. Patrick. It’s basically him saying Christ is before us, Christ is behind us, Christ to our right, Christ to our left. So in all these things, I do think there is, of course, I believe there is a protection for all people. But also feel that this could have been a time to really have some negative impacts on the church too. Because of the churches that were staying open

I don’t think that we can be responsible if we are continuing to mingle, continuing to be around each other. And just being in a church, I’m human, I love to hug, I love being in community. So I love loving on my people. So I even have to be mindful of that even when we come back. But one of the things I’ve tried to offer is that when we do come back together, whether that’s in two weeks or six months, whatever it is, that Sunday will be our Easter. Even though Easter is happening in two weeks, that Sunday will be our Easter. We’re still going to celebrate, we’re still going to do the same thing that we’ve always done in the past. 

In talking to the older members, none of them can remember a time where we didn’t have church for even two weeks. Because when Florence came we were out for one Sunday. We were in the fellowship hall for one year and three months with half of it ripped apart. We’ve kind of been through a lot together in my short tenure here. But we’ve also seen a lot of really, really good and positive things coming out of it. 

I’ve seen the best of humanity. I’ve seen people kind of going back to an older way of life I guess? Where we actually used to check on each other and love each other and made sure that everybody had food and shelter and whatever they needed. Even this morning, I was reading this article, of 40,000 nurses and doctors volunteering their time out of retirement in New York, coming back to help out with this. My wife’s in nursing school right now. Just, thinking about, unfortunately, I’m thanking God that she was not yet out of school. And that’s probably a bad way to think because I know that she wants to be. But I think the other beautiful way to think is just like, in Florence, we’re still seeing firefighters and EMTs and police officers and grocery store workers, and doctors and nurses, and the list goes on. For so many years, the heroes were always the military, not that this is a bad thing. But that’s what you always heard. And I think we’re seeing now, the lady that checked you out at Walmart or the grocery store? He or she is there keeping us alive because we don’t know how to get food any other way. 

I think we’re starting to see some beautiful things come out of that. Some of the people that we may have written off or some of the people that we may have overlooked, we’re seeing. Which is really really a beautiful thing to me. Because if you really think about it, and think about how often, say you’re waiting on a prescription, you get mad at the person that’s checking you out and it has nothing to do with them, or waiting for a prescription or being rude in the line at the grocery store, drivers being rude on the road. I think that people are really starting to see that as it turns out, we need each other. As it turns out, we need community. As it turns out, we don’t like to be isolated. We’re so super connected now through technology and everything else that we don’t do well with isolation. 

I hear people also saying that God has done this. No. No. I don’t believe that. I do believe that God is there in the aftermath. It’s kind of like, God didn’t put a hurricane, Florence, into the ocean to come and destroy the church. But God was there when we had volunteers come and help us to pull the church apart and put it back together. 

I think it’s really flipping a lot of narratives. I think when we do get back in, people will see we need the community, we need each other. And unfortunately, we had just finished a meeting about three days before I got the email to close the church, to start a neighborhood garden so that we could actually start working with some of our homeless population or impoverished in Brunswick County. Especially the northern part of Brunswick County. Because they are very, very hidden, living in the woods and everything else. Like anybody else, they need nutrition and love. So we had just OK’d that and unfortunately had to put it on hold. That didn’t go too well with me. I had a parishioner bring over a big tiller, and we live right next door, so we’re going to make a garden behind the house because we don’t have anything else to do right now. And maybe when this is all over we can be master gardeners and really begin to impact the lives of those around us.

Really getting back to, I think we as a people need to get back to the dirt, if that makes sense. 

Another thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is speaking with our most vulnerable members. And not only members of this church, but people in the community. Say I go see someone in our church that is elderly that is a shut-in, for instance. Most of their life is quarantined. Sometimes, the only interaction they get is when a church member or somebody goes and sits with them for 30 minutes. I’ve been focusing more there. I’m calling, to make sure that they know if they need anything, all they have to do is call. Because their life and their reality is hard in normal times. It’s just like some of our homeless families. Their lives are difficult in normal times. Much less times when it was hard enough to have affordable living in Brunswick County anyways. 

That’s a lot of what we as a church have been focusing on, the affordable housing crisis. We must move from profit over people, in Brunswick County, to people always over profit. There has been an influx of people coming in to Brunswick County, and of course we do not want to push anyone away, but we also do not want to push out our impoverished, or people who have been here for generations, because they simply cannot afford to live in the place they were raised.  And it’s really, really hard to see in a rural church. This church has been here for a long, long time. I’ve seen families that have been here for a long, long time that have been struggling to make ends meet when it was fine a few years ago. But all we keep hearing is luxury this, and luxury that, and luxury this. And that’s great. But I think that this virus is bringing us back to reality a little bit. 

I’m hoping this will bring us back to see the most vulnerable. And maybe people that don’t know that they’re vulnerable will say, ‘Hey, I need some help.’ Or we’ll see the necessity of getting our hands dirty again in the dirt and growing things on our own. Maybe we’ll begin to argue a little bit more with the water supply in Brunswick County and what that’s doing to us. So I think what’s been very interesting is to look at the carbon emissions since everything’s been shut down. It’s much lower. Greenhouse gases and all that has been super low especially since China was shut down. 

So I’m hoping we will also realize that. How much we’ve been harming God’s creation. 

I’ve heard people say that this is God. I’ve heard people say that God is striking down everybody. I don’t believe that. I do believe in a spiritual warfare. I do believe that there is an evil that persists around us. But at some point, I think being organic, as people, these things happen and have always happened. I don’t know, I can’t say that it’s directly around evil. 

I think we want to very quickly push things off on either God or Satan instead of seeing that maybe we as a people have been harming the planet, harming each other and the virus is just something — it happens. And unfortunately, it could have very much been avoided, for the most part. But again, profit over everything. 

I do believe there are spiritual forces around us that are either for good or for ill. And I think a lot of that will come into play now with us being in our own minds, being scared and full of fear and false hope. I think that is more spiritual wickedness than I do the actual virus itself. I think that fear itself can be that of the devil. 

I’m not one of those people that’s like, ‘Hey, let’s have church, everybody come in and let’s hug on each other, love on each other,’ because that would be us not being very smart. But at the same time, I think that the fear, the false hope, the rhetoric around it, is part of that spiritual warfare, or spiritual wickedness if you will. 

I know we will get through this together, we will get through this by being unified and looking our for each other, and caring for the least of these around us. There is not a doubt in my mind that better days are on the horizon. We will make it to the other side of this “curve” and the other side is beautiful and filled with people who love one another and look out for one another.”

Rabbi Barry Kenter, B’nai Israel Congregation, Wilmington

“In Wilmington, there are a number of people who are alone. And who just, being confined to space, it’s bad enough when everything is good. But then you say, you can’t move, you can go out, you can’t do anything. You’re really frustrated. And that sense of being so isolated. I ran into a woman yesterday who lives downstairs from us. She’s 90 years old, she’s been stuck in her apartment for weeks, and she says she doesn’t know what to do. She says, ‘I have nobody to talk to.’ So the Zoom technology is giving a chance for people to open up and carry on a conversation. It’s not quite the same thing but at least you don’t feel as isolated. 

I think people need to see other people’s faces. This whole idea of social distancing, they don’t want you to even go for a walk here. You kind of have to move off to the side, can’t look a person in the face, it’s all of that. It’s just very uncomfortable. Because we’re raised to be social beings. When I was a kid, my mother would say to me, ‘Barry, always look people in the eye.’ And so not to look people in the eye is just so off-putting. 

That would be my first thing to do, to help someone, would be to give them a hug. At some level, it is reaching out to them, either by phone, by email, by sharing their pain. By asking them to share pieces of their loved ones, and letting them know they have sources of strength within themselves and they have the resilience to get through this. 

But we’ve been here before. We’ve got through these periods in the past. We’ve not personally experienced them in recent memory. But there was the flu pandemic of 1918-1919. One of the great challenges for me as a rabbi was when I would be going to cemeteries and there were all these tiny little stones from babies who died in that flu pandemic. And I could only imagine the pain that their families were experiencing. I can go back in history to periods of the plague and the cholera epidemic in the 1850s and the black plague and go back and back and back and back. We’ve been here before, we’ve come through them. What we didn’t’ have in the past is we didn’t have the kind of technology that’s available to us to reach out and help people. And so there’s a possibility that we will not be as panicked. On the other hand, there’s so much that’s on television, it adds to our panic. 

Passover is coming up this coming week. In Hebrew, it’s called the yetziat mitzrayim. It’s the exodus in Egypt. The Hebrew word for Egypt is mitzrayim. But if I re-vocalize that word it actually means to come out of narrow places. To come out from places that are confining. When the Israelites left Egypt, they will go through the agony of slavery. They will come through that first Passover night. They will be pushed out of Egypt. They will come to the sea of reeds, the red sea. They are going to cross through that sea and get to the other side. The image in the bible is the walls of the sea are on one side and on the other. So walking through these narrow walls. But they come through to the other side. And so I think that what I’ve been trying to share with people, is that we’re going to get there, it’s going to take time, it’s a process. 

We’re so used to things being instantaneous, maybe we need to realize that things take time. And to allow that time to happen so that we can get to the other side. 

I don’t think the virus has a personality. So it can’t be good and it can’t be evil. It is what it is. It’s how it came into being, I’m not even sure any more than I’m sure than people could have understood how the flu pandemic of 1918 started. Or how the cholera epidemic began. Or how the black death emerged. Nature is nature. There are parts of nature that we see as being good and beautiful that we all love to go out and look at beautiful trees and the flowers and so on. And then we also know that hurricanes come up. And hurricanes are part of nature. And I don’t know that hurricanes are seen as evil or as punishment. Hurricanes happen. And so I think this is the same, unfortunately, we’ve never experienced a virus like this. That is just so out there. Everywhere. And the way in which it’s transmitted. But no, I don’t see this as having either a good or evil quality to it. I certainly don’t see this as being punishment coming from god, because in my theology, God doesn’t work this way.

Bhante Sombat, Wat Carolina, Bolivia

Wat Carolina's Bhante Sombat pictured in a building outside the main temple in Bolivia, Brunswick County. (Port City Daily photo/Johanna F. Still)
Wat Carolina’s Bhante Sombat pictured in a building outside the main temple in Bolivia, Brunswick County. (Port City Daily photo/Johanna F. Still)

It’s a very big problem. Very big problem. Not for a few people, but for human beings. Big problem, big one. 

It never happened like this before, right? You know about cause and effect? Everything that happens is an effect. If we can know what is the cause, we can understand. Right now, who knows about why, why it happened? Do you know why? People do not know why it happened. Without cause, we have no effect. Not the same thing, because it’s a very deep problem, it’s a deep one. 

My teacher, he told me, something bad could happen like this. It came from some person who had a bad idea. They want to do something that people do not imagine. It’s very difficult to understand. Very dangerous too. I’m really careful, because if somebody knows exactly the secret, it’s really dangerous. You know? So, it’s not an easy thing to do, but OK, we can compare. If we say directly, it’ll be very very dangerous. It’s not easy to do that. 

You know about the bad person, bad guy who had bad idea to do something bad, bad thing happened? They’re looking for the happy life so they want to shed to become anew. Somebody they understand about the end of the world. When will the end of the world happen? Some people, they believe it will come someday. The end of the world. But we don’t know exactly when. and how. And why. But some people, think someday, the end of the world can happen, but we don’t know exactly when. Or why it will come. Because bad things happen, bad vibration, bad energy happen, it can destroy everything. The whole earth can be destroyed, gone. 

In Buddhism, they have a theory about the end of the world. Not only one time. It’s gone, and it starts again. It’s gone, and it starts again. Not only one time, but many times, many times. By fire, or by the water. It can happen like that. What is it? Bad thing to clean. A lot of people are going to die at the end of the world, before the new world. Like a spring. 

It takes a year. A circle. A circle of life. But this time, it’s a long, long circle. A big circle. It happened in the past, in the past it happened already many times. If we study about history, do you know who built the pyramids in Egypt? We do not know exactly. Because the people who built it, they have gone to die a long time ago. We don’t know exactly the story about why they’re gone. But something happened, they’re gone. So it happened again, it happened again, but it takes a long time. 

Like now, it’s starting to happen. It can create the world. Another country cannot save us. Very big thing, very important thing for protecting the battleship. Like the battleship. America is the head. Other countries in the middle. If the head sinks, all of the boat, gone. So we need to protect the head. Don’t let it sink. Because it’s very important. Takes a very big effort. And how? How can we protect it? How can we solve the problem? The big problem, how can we solve it? 

It’s not an easy thing. But if we try very hard, we can try. If we can know exactly, do the right thing, right away, like we’re taught, the problem will be OK. But it’s not easy. We need to try. Use wisdom. Use the intelligent way. 

You have mind. Where is your mind? We have body, and overmind. Overmind is a powerful energy. Over heart, but not over mind, is body. Body controls mind, but your mind is the power. Without power, what happens? It doesn’t work. Without mind, the body cannot work. So our minds are very important, very strong. You cannot see the power, right? But we can compare our mind with electricity. 

We have very pure minds, very beautiful minds, but it’s covered by something. What is it that covers our mind? Becomes a dirty mind, not a purity mind? Greed, stealing, corruption. Anger, wanting to kill somebody, kill many people. Delusion. It covers our mind. People think if you kill somebody, you can still go to heaven. Wrong understanding. 

We need to purify our mind. How? We need to purify it by practicing generosity, the first thing. And then, morality. No killing, anger is gone from mind. No stealing? Greed is gone from mind. No sexual immorality or intoxication? Delusion is gone from mind. Practice generosity and morality. And then, we need to practice meditation. How can we purify ignorance? By wisdom. 

Right now, bad things cover our mind. So what can we do? Start from generosity, morality, meditation, and wisdom. And find absolute happiness like that. 

That’s the way to solve the problem. The virus, we need to kill it. How can we kill it? Generosity, morality, meditation, and wisdom. Without generosity, we’ve hopeless. The problem is like fire. We need to put water on the problem. Generosity is like the water. Makes the fire calm down. Without generosity, more and more fire can burn around the world. So we solve the problem by starting with generosity. 

Many people try to do it. But need to do, exactly how? What kind of generosity can have that power? Sponsor people to become a monk and build the Pagoda. 

We need to understand the problem. Don’t think it’s one thing. It’s not one thing. It’s not an easy thing. Save a life. Save a life. Don’t save money. If you’re thinking about saving money for economy, you’re doing to die, money cannot help anything. Save people’s life first. If you save money, money goes to die. What for? When you listen to news, people say, save the economy. But the people are going to die. What happened? Right now, the concept, save our life. Save human life. Don’t think of the economy first. Yes, money is good. But use it for good thing. For cleaner mind. For generosity. But do it right. If you don’t do it exactly right, there won’t be enough power. Right now, we need the power, not normal power. We need superpower. You know superman’s power? We need some superpower like superman to protect us. The superpower you get from Lord Buddha. He teaches you Dhamma and his disciple Sangha is a superpower. Will solve the problem. And practice to do it, is generosity, morality, meditation, and wisdom. We can solve the problem. 

We need to make a strong mind. Strong concept. And strong action. Not only talking, talking is not enough. 

At the temple, we pray and we meditate. But not enough yet. We need to do it more, more, more, more, and more.  Create a good vibration. Create a good temple. We have the destination for a clean mind. Try it. Try it. Let’s guide people to do good things. Do the right thing. If the economy’s first, they do not understand the value of life. Save people’s life first. Do good things. After that, we can do anything else. Save lives first. Many people together can do a good thing. We’ll be OK. 

The people have a magic power. That creates something like that. It’s not only nature. You know the rain. Can we make the rain fall? The King of Thailand, the 9th king, not the 10th king, his father, the 9th king, he can make the rain. Why? Because his power. They have a superpower. Not many people can do it like that. Just a few people. The people think, ‘No they cannot do it.’ But somebody can do it. 

Go to Washington State, go to New York, go to Portugal, go around the world. How come it can spread out every state? Everywhere around the world right now? Without a power, it cannot do it. It’s a human being who has a power. Black magic. People do not think they can affect the rain. But, a king can do it. Power can do it. It’s not easy for somebody to understand. They think, oh, it cannot make sense. Because they do not learn about something like that. It’s not nature. Because it comes from a bad mind. Bad concept. It wants to do bad things, black magic. We need to fight with white magic. White magic is our power. 

How can we do it? Generosity. We can win. If it is stronger, it can win. Positive power and negative power. Negative power is a bad thing. Positive power is a good thing, it’s fighting.


Send tips and comments to Johanna Ferebee Still at johanna@localvoicemedia.com

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