Pastor Annette's Blog
"OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS SHOWN ME, I CAN SPEAK BUT A LITTLE WORD NOT MORE THAN A HONEYBEE CAN CARRY AWAY ON ITS FOOT FROM AN OVERFLOWING JAR."
~ MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG, 13TH CENTURY MYSTIC |
"OF ALL THE THINGS GOD HAS SHOWN ME, I CAN SPEAK BUT A LITTLE WORD NOT MORE THAN A HONEYBEE CAN CARRY AWAY ON ITS FOOT FROM AN OVERFLOWING JAR."
~ MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG, 13TH CENTURY MYSTIC |
June 24, 2020
Beloved: Already this morning I’ve been to the doctor for a check-up and to Walmart for a long list of things like eye drops and laundry soap. From the store and doctor’s office, I came to work and have been here ever since, except to go out for lunch. I’ve not actually left the house in two days and "out for lunch" was to the kitchen and back. So goes the summer in semi-quarantine. We don’t eat out but we do get carry-out from restaurants. We don’t have our normal gatherings but we had a picnic at a park for my sister’s birthday, our lawn chairs the appropriate distance apart. My garden is bigger since I have no travel plans, thus no worries about wasted food. I have home life figured out, but what of church? As congregations begin to reconvene for worship, we too are thinking, praying, talking our way to a new way of holding life together, together. I am so grateful for your thoughtful response to the deacons’ survey and want to share four conclusions I have drawn from what you told us. If and where I have missed the mark, I count on you to correct me. The strongest message I received from the survey responses is that you want everyone to be as safe as possible. Secondly, you very much want to be together in person when such safety is possible. Third, clarity is important to you — you want to know exactly how gatherings will work before deciding to attend. Fourth, you want an online worship option to continue for people unable to attend in-person worship gatherings. Succinctly, I understand you to say these are your priorities, though not necessarily in this order:
As your pastor, let me say this: if we have to wait a year, two years, three years to gather like we used to, we will wait. We will wait patiently, joyfully and gratefully for the experience of waiting, as others who have also waited. People of faith have always waited through times of unknowing, discomfort and fear. So can we. So will we. In the meantime, we will find ways to gather that will be new, that may be strange and, possibly, that we end up loving. But all these new ways absolutely deny this disease the contact it requires to infect other people. On my watch we shall not aid the enemy. To that end, while we still have no definite plans to gather in-person for Sunday morning worship, on Sunday July 5th at 4 PM I’ll be in a lawn chair in the church parking lot, wearing my mask and some bug spray, to host Life Together Live. You, your lawn chair and your mask are invited to join me. We will park in the lower back lot and sit up near the front porch in the shady area, 6 feet apart of course. We won’t hug or shake hands. We won’t provide refreshments. We won’t have a sound system, so we will have to talk loudly to one another. We’ll only stay an hour or so. If it rains, we’ll take our chairs into the sanctuary and follow the same seating and masking procedures. Only the upstairs bathroom will be available, with disinfectant wipes for everyone to use on surfaces after every use. I’ve been thinking about things this way lately: I would be terribly sad if our building burned to the ground; but wouldn’t it also be terribly exciting to build a whole new building from scratch, a building built to fit our life together, rather than a life together organized to fit our building? I choose to imagine this pandemic as our chance to build a church program that fits our life together, both now and post-pandemic, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone but you all. Just one more word: you have been awesome givers through the first months of the year. As of the end of May, we are ever so slightly behind budget, about 5%, and I wanted to bring it to your attention so as to get it caught up before we have a problem. No doubt everyone is busy with so many things. It’s easy-peasy to give your offering online now at ubcbloomington.org/ give. You can also mail it to the church, and counters will get it taken care of quickly. Thanks so much! ~peace & prayers, pastor annette PS – Don’t forget our plans for participating in MCUM’s safe, socially-distanced annual “Each One Feed One” food drive, as shared by our awesome MCUM donations coordinator. It will take place this coming weekend, Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, June 28. This year, due to COVID-19, people in different neighborhoods across town have been recruited to volunteer their homes as drop-off sites for donations. Two UBC-ers' homes will be drop-off sites for church folks and their neighborhoods, and you can just leave items outside their homes in specific spots described in a detailed e-mail. Each month MCUM distributes over 7,000 pounds of food to more than 200 families. Now, their food pantry has been hit hard by the pandemic and they have experienced an increase in demand. They are hoping to raise 12,000 pounds of food through this food drive. If you aren't able to donate directly to this food drive, please remember that there are lots of different ways to help out right now, including donating to MCUM through their website or through the church; or you could send a donation to our coordinator or one of the UBC staff, and they will shop for the items for you.
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June 16, 2020 Beloved: I filled the feeders, watered the porch plants, pruned the tomatoes, and hung laundry on the line. I washed our patio table and took the dogs twice their usual number of times. Finally, I gathered up all my work things and carried them out to the patio so I can at least pretend to get some work done today. Seventy degrees and no humidity has it feeling like Michigan in August, and every fiber of my being wants to be outside. Except for maternity leaves, I haven’t spent so much time at home since I was a child. Most days I never leave the house. I have put gas in my car twice since the end of March. We still don’t eat out or shop for more than essentials and things we need to garden. In the last three weeks or so we’ve had more people coming and going from the house, the kids and their friends mostly. We have no summer travel plans except to bring the youngest home from college, there and back again. I miss my previous routine but I also don’t. I miss being with people in person. I don’t miss the traffic. I miss eating out. I don’t miss the higher bills on our credit card. I miss being at the church through the week and on Sundays, swapping stories with our church administrator. I will definitely miss working on the same patio table with my husband on a glorious summer day like this. If I know anything at all, I know this season will not last forever. For all we can and cannot do to hasten a good outcome, we can choose to be present to each day’s gift and lessons in the meantime. What have you noticed and learned in these days of quarantine, about yourself and about the world?
time rather than be present to the movement of time.
Early morning to mid-morning. Noon to late afternoon. Each time has its own feel and even its own light. I find a certain little pinch of joy in recognizing this. The ebb and flow of noise inside and outside the house that I have only discovered staying home day after day is a gift of quarantine I didn’t anticipate and hope I don’t forget. Sometimes I get the urge to check out, to binge-watch TV reruns or play solitaire on my phone for thirty minutes at a go. That’s boredom, not contentment. Time to go outside. Even a nap is time better spent. Of course, there is also the news — always urging me to DO SOMETHING! This world’s need compared to my life energy is so vast, I am overwhelmed before I can begin. I find being present to the moment helps there too, centering me in the reality of what one person can do: a lot, in fact. One person can attend a protest. One person can read and learn and discover the racism within their own thinking. One can write letters. One person can encourage. One person can confront, with love, the misunderstandings they come upon. All these things feel doable when I am present to the moment and to the eternal quality of time. As you go about your day, I pray you find joy in the empty spaces. June 2, 2020
Beloved: Another black man was murdered in police custody last week in Minneapolis. His name was Mr. Floyd. Peaceful protests have been infiltrated by rabble-rousers turning cities upside down with violence and vandalism. Meanwhile, I can’t stop wondering if it’s a sin to keep my seat in this quiet room with a sweet breeze coming through the window, where all I hear is birdsong, road noise, and a sighing dog. Shouldn’t I be doing something in the wake of such violence and tragedy? How can praying possibly be enough? Would one more set of marching feet make any difference anywhere? I keep thinking about John Woolman, that 18th century Quaker forever working on his own heart; when he was divinely led to speak, he hardly spoke to more than a handful at a time, usually just one or two other people. After thirty years or so, not a Quaker in North America still owned or traded slaves. Systemic change is called for in every corner of our culture: economic, social, political and otherwise. Today, if possible, laws allowing excessive force by the state must change. But as Woolman knew, the fundamental change required happens in the human heart and begins with my own: the painful, painful work of tweezing out the shards and splinters of my own attitudes about this thing called race. Race – itself a made-up notion to reinforce the attitudes that allow me to maintain my place in the deep disparity between white, brown, and black people groups. Prayer and conversations with people also willing to do the work is all I know to do, and it’s the hardest work there is, it seems. It contains less space for speaking than for listening. It requires trust not easily found and/or maintained. I do pray God’s blessing on the brave ones marching peacefully in the streets, and for God’s protection. And I pray for the courage to pray that human hearts might also change in the days to come. Take care. |
I write a Tuesday morning devotional to members and friends of UBC. It is also posted here.
Enjoy! Pastor Annette Copyright
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