I want to thank all of you who let me know that our service and my sermon last Sunday resonated with you. Living with the virus for a year felt like an important milestone to mark. We tried to make space for the complicated streams of meaning, the losses and the blessings, that are part of this last year. 

We will continue that reflection this coming week, beginning to look to what possibilities and what challenges the future may hold. 

But this week, I have been in a quiet space, trying simply to be present to the unusual bright sunlight, the warming temperatures, the rain and the hail of nature’s clear insistence on renewal. 

Last Sunday, congregant Susan Cunningham shared a post she had written after returning from a few days at the Oregon coast. It spoke to me in this time when presence to the world feels like such an important calling for us all. With Susan’s permission and with thanks to her, I share it with you. I hope that it resonates with you as it did with me. 

Susan wrote: 

“We returned from four days at the coast. It is literally amazing to discover how thoroughly exhausted I have been over the past many months of worry and quarantine and anxiety and fear and creative paralysis and, well, as I humbly recognize all these continuing thoughts and feelings, all the same worries and fears most of us have been experiencing. Here we are. Over a year into a broad and deadly pandemic. Over a year of isolation, changed lifestyles, grief and frustration.  
 
“And then we went to the coast. The sky was still there. The waves were froth filled and huge. Gulls played upon the wind. We walked the beach for miles and laughed at the dogs running after frisbees and sticks. We drank in the salty air and examined the tidal pools for treasures.  
 
“And I sat with tidal rhythm. Tide out and then returning. Repeat and repeat. Thunderous wave sounds. Brisk wind to take breath away. Sun. Rain laced with hailstones. Sun again.  
 
“It felt like before times.  
 
“And we wore masks. Washed our hands. Physically distanced. Took our own pillows and disinfected surfaces. Even so … 
 
“It felt like before times and it soothed our worries and outlook.” 

Blessings,  

Bill