1 November 2021
Dear Friends and Members of Shadow Rock!
It’s good to be together, and we have come to appreciate our gatherings even more after enduring the long isolating months of the COVID pandemic.
The truth is life has always been a rhythm of separation and togetherness, exile and return. Our preschool children learn that their parents come back after they drop them off. Our life partners come back after long business trips. Our service men and women come back home after a war, mostly. We may prefer the “return” bit, the “bring you back to this place” bit, but separation and connection are always part of the story. Even on our most “normal” days, our lives are a rhythm of gathering and dispersing, coming together and going apart, and calls to worship and offers of benediction.
This past year has been a profound experience of this ancient pattern, and as challenging as it’s been, we can take solace in the knowledge that for all time human beings have experienced seasons of exile. And here’s the point: thanks to this very human phenomenon, over time our faith — and our congregation — have helped us live through such seasons with grace and hope.
At our core, Shadow Rock UCC is a very human community of reunion, homecoming, and return. Perhaps the last 18 months have heightened our awareness we live in a world full of exile and uncertainty. Remember last Christmas? For the first time we set up a lighted tree outside to remind everyone that our congregation stands as a beacon of hope, welcome, and radical hospitality. This is only one example how we perceived and responded to our community’s need.
With all of this in mind, we invite you to join us in giving thanks for the resources — spiritual, theological, physical, and financial — that support our healing and life-giving work.
Please stay tuned for the nuts-and-bolts information you'll need to make your pledge. Heidi will be in touch soon with a simplified, technology-enabled process.
In the meantime, thanks to each of you for who you are and for all that you do. Together, we will pool our resources and together, we will celebrate God’s beautiful gift of “a future with hope.”
Blessings,
Shadow Rock 2021 Stewardship Team
Bob Lee, Heidi Zinn, Marilyn Rampley, Ken Heintzelman
