Sunday, March 15, 2020 was the last day I preached from Live Oak’s chancel. The next Sunday, our service was held via Zoom, and we began our year of being One Year (kind of) Apart.
It is, for me, a very clear memory. Most people stayed home and watched the service on Facebook Live. A handful of members came. I remember standing a distance apart from them, but coaching some through how to download Zoom on their phones and computers. That day is simultaneously so recent and yet so long ago. I feel much older than just one year, how about you?
This Sunday, we will mark that anniversary with a special service, bringing together some of my UU colleagues across the country as we reflect on this past year and offer messages of hope. It’s a special service, and I hope it will help us feel connected to UUs around the country. We have had one very special blessing this year: I know of no UU church who pushed back against safety guidelines for congregations. All of us were clear: the safety of our members and the wider community was the priority.
The next two months are going to be a wild combination of feelings, I project. We may feel the heaviness of the memories from a year ago, and a greater emotional proximity to what, and who, has been lost. We may be giddy with excitement about the vaccines and how are lives can begin changing, or jealous of those able to get the vaccine when we cannot. Fears may still lurk in our minds about the covid mutations. We may be ready, more than ready, to just MOVE ON ALREADY from all of the heavy feelings, and get on with life.
And we may feel all of those feelings ourselves, in the space of an hour. Let us be gentle with ourselves, and each other. There was no one “right” way to get through the pandemic, and there is no one right way to leave it. And we’re not there, yet.
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Sunday, March 14, 10:00 am “One Year (kind of) Apart”
Mx. Katharine Childs, Unitarian Church of Montreal
Rev. Matthew Crary, Borderlands Unitarian Universalist
Rev. Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church
Aisha Hauser, CRE-ML, Church of the Larger Fellowship
Rev. Walter LeFlore, Unitarian Universalist Church of Roanoke
Rev. Nancy McDonald Ladd, River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork
Rev. Darcy Roake, Community Church Unitarian Universalist, New Orleans
Rev. Nathan Ryan, Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge
Kathy Smith, CRE, Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge
Rev. Pamela Wat, First Unitarian Church of Wilmington