FIRST PRES-COVID MEMORY PROJECT
BULLETIN #1 (May 20, 2020)
Dear Presbyterian: this is the first of the First Pres-COVID Memory Project’s bulletins.
We hope to be able to send them to you almost every week (unless you send an “Unsubscribe” message).
With expenses like photocopying and stamps paid for by an anonymous donor, the bulletins will cover:
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1.Reply to:
“I’m really busy. Keeping a journal is too much of a burden right now”
No surprise that many of you will not have time to “keep a journal.”
We anticipated that doing a full journal would appear to be too much of a burden for many, even most, of the addressees. That’s what the fourth paragraph of the Invitation letter was trying to say.
Every option is open:
Just write down a paragraph one day when something seems especially worth remembering.
Or take a single photograph.
Or recall an observation you made at some point
Or you can ask to be interviewed for any number of minutes.
Or just talk into your smart phone for a few minutes some evening.
The goal is to record what you, a member of the church, a unique individual, a child of God, did and thought: your particular observations, meditations, reactions, acts,(for example, of service, of caring, of love, or maybe even of neglect), songs, relationships.
A record of how you lived through some part of the COVID-19 crisis.
Some people have asked to start their remembrances as early as January 1, 2020. Sure. That might be a good starting point for all of us.
Or you could go even further back.
Where you “came from” as the disease entered the scene will be important to people trying to understand the record of where you went.
And it doesn’t matter when you do this or how often
2.When will this project be finished, that is, when can I make a “final deposit” of my journal/diary, my poem, my photo, my notes?
It’s up to you.
Whenever you want these to be deposited at Cornell, just give me a message and I’ll tell you how to label them so Evan Earle, Cornell’s head archivist, and his assistants will recognize them as part of the First Pres-COVID project. He will expect you to spell out your conditions of access. If you do not, he will assume your material is accessible immediately by anyone.
3.Can I write in Karen, Chinese, Spanish, or any other language besides English?
Certainly. Dealing with foreign languages is a standard part of the job of serious researchers.
4.What should I write about?
Whatever seems important to remember.
Whatever made you laugh or cry, angry or inspired.
Whatever lifted you up:
the heroism of the frontline workers
the ways ordinary folks expressed their gratitude for those workers
resilience
resourcefulness
worship services
prayer
music -any kind
things discovered, things created
Whatever let you down.
the suffering of the sick, the bereaved, the unemployed, the rejected, the suddenly deprived,
the sudden rush of uncertainty
the worry that responding to the epidemic is taking up all the energy that belongs to
climate change
the injustices
the losses
the politics
The Quakers would say “whatever moved your spirit.”
Whatever you dreamt about.
Whatever you prayed about.
Whatever music you listened to.
Bible passages or political editorials.
The joy and/or frustration of:
your kids
your pets.A dog sometimes moves the spirit profoundly.
your cooking experiments. For me a source of many bearable failures.
your gardening experiments. Less easy to bear.
the entertainment offered you
the ways you entertained yourself
The way people found themselves struggling together as one people in 197 nations
OR
The way people turned inward
Confrontation with the Big Questions of what this all means
OR
Relief that most Christians do have a kind of understanding of what it all means
CONTEXT: OUR CHURCH IN HISTORY
This section of the Bulletin invites you on a journey into the little-known and the should-be-better-known history of First Pres. The past has been my profession, after all, so I have an obligation to offer you some opportunities to give historical depth to your journals, videos, or jotted-down paragraphs.
Attached is the cover of the most recent attempt to write a history of the people of the First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca. You will learn more about its contents and availability in bulletins to follow.
CORRESPONDENCE, CLIPPINGS, SUGGESTIONS
This will be the interactive part of the bulletin and of my emails. Also a place to share Facebook posts, reading recommendations, questions about archiving, essays and long thoughts, poems, anything worth sharing now before the end of the COVID crisis.
Presbyterian Salt 