Interview with Howard Burnham

Responses from Howard Burnham, 2/13/2021:

Please give some general background: who are you, what would you like the reader to know about you, and how did you come to be at St. Mary’s?

I am an English ‘legal alien’ with a green card. I claim to be a quarter ‘American’ from my paternal grandfather, a much-traveled Californian mining engineer. I have an honors degree in Modern History and half my life has been spent in education. Since coming to the US, I have worked in theatre. All my life I have been drawn to the Anglican tradition because of its tolerant broad base, its lovely liturgy and uplifting rituals. I have always been an ‘occasional conformist’ rather than a regular attendee at Episcopal churches. Thus, moving from SC to PG I gravitated to
St. Mary’s, where the late Winston Elstob helped me start my literary and theatrical activities here.

How has the pandemic affected your day-to-day life?

As I am semi-retired, the pandemic has not greatly affected my daily life, apart from the frustration of not being able to travel and ‘work’.

Can you trace how your feelings have changed from the beginning of the pandemic in March until now? Have there been patterns or themes to your feelings?

It took me about three weeks to realize that this would be a long-haul horror. As an historian, I should have recalled the two-year Spanish Flu epidemic post WWI. I have become increasingly concerned and troubled about young families and school children.

How have you stayed involved with St. Mary’s during this time?
Regularly attending Zoom services.

What has St. Mary’s meant to you during this time?

The fellowship of the community is beautiful and reassuring, albeit I am not a very social animal.

How do you imagine St. Mary’s in the future? Will the pandemic have changed us permanently? How?

I cannot comment on this. I repeat that I love the rituals of the Episcopal Church and the fellowship of St. Mary’s, but I am a very wobbly Christian with one toe dipped in the polemics of the late Christopher Hitchens. Thus it would be presumptuous, if not hypocritical, for me to contribute anything here.

What habits or practices have been the most important to you?

The company of my wife. We have lived permanently in a small space for a year now with only couple of very minor ‘spats’.

How have you dealt with the uncertainty we all face?

When not being a head-in-the-sand ostrich, by keeping busy writing new material for my presentations.

Has your relationship with God or spiritual things changed? How?

Truly. I am not sure that I have one. Like the dying poet Heine to his wife: “God will forgive me. That’s His job.”

What would you like to do that you are not doing now?

Stacking shelves for Christian Social Concerns. Visiting friends in SC and England. Also acting again with PacRep.

What about this time has surprised you the most?

The tolerance and decency shown by the majority of people with whom I have been in contact.

What has been the most difficult thing about the pandemic for you?

Selfishly, the inability to perform live theatre.

Has anything about the pandemic been positive for you? What?

The ongoing series of Zoom theatrical presentations that I have been able to give with the Monterey County Theatre Alliance and also with Monterey Public Library.

What would you like to say about the pandemic, the church, or your life that you have not said already?

I think I have said too much already!