My father's grandmother lost both parents in a yellow fever epidemic. My father's father lost his twin in the flu pandemic of 1918, and later spent decades in a wheelchair. My father was a child of the Great Depression, and a World War II veteran. And, despite all this, or because of it, he was a stubborn optimist. On the piano, he loved to play " Look for the Silver Lining," " Accentuate the Positive," and " On the Sunny Side of the Street." I miss the comfort and counsel of my parents as we go through this traumatic historical period. In their memory, I try to channel the blessing of optimism.
And so it was that I have been looking for silver linings, and I found one, on zoom.
Five years ago, I created a facebook group to bring together "doing both" interfaith families of any two (or more) religions, from across the country (and the globe). For five years, this Network of Interfaith Family Groups(NIFG) has been a place to share ideas and resources and support, especially for families who feel isolated, in geographic areas where they don't know many (or any) other interfaith families doing both, or don't have the support of clergy.
With the start of the pandemic, we began to meet every week on zoom. Gathering online, with our partners, children, and pets wandering through, has been a revelation. From Iowa and North Carolina and Tennessee, from Boston and Rochester and Pittsburgh, we now get to tell our stories, and brainstorm together. Why didn't we think of doing this sooner?
Our gatherings are rich with new ideas. A teen interfaith kid meet-up? A big sibling program for interfaith kids? A family interfaith summer camp? And we get a chance to celebrate all of the many ways to give interfaith kids interfaith education, whether it is in one of the "big three" interfaith family communities (DC, NY, Chicago), or in a three-room schoolhouse like the one in Philadelphia, or a one-room-schoolhouse like the one in Ames, Iowa. And we share ideas with the many parents who are looking for support in homeschooling interfaith education for their kids in an era when homeschooling is, well, universal.
Discovering this new community, one that existed but did not come together with sound and moving pictures until now, has been a rare bright spot for me in these dark times. Like most of you, I have now lost friends to the virus, and when we finally reach that sunny side of the street, a whole string of delayed funerals, of family and friends, await us. With the blues on parade, community has never meant more to me, though we must work harder to find and create it. We persist, in that stubborn belief that the sun will come shining through.
Journalist Susan Katz Miller is an interfaith families speaker, consultant, and coach, and author of Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family (2015), and The Interfaith Family Journal (2019). Follow her on twitter @susankatzmiller.