Most of the people I know moved to online worship quickly, recognizing its necessity for public health. But shifting to online service just as quickly showed how digital interactions are so different than being together in person.
The Reverend Kit Lonergan, rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Groveland, Massachusetts and a colleague of mine from Harvard, told me via email, “There is immense holiness in seeing the hands of people as they open them for communion, or having someone cry into your shoulder and feel the wetness of tears staying there for a while, or being able to read in the eyes of someone how they really are doing (not just New England ‘fine’). So nothing we do online can replace that.”