Dear friends,
Happy New Year!
I know the current situation is not what we hoped for in 2022, but all we can do is continue to show up for one another and simply do the best we can each day.
Please add to your prayers the many people at CCSM who have tested positive for COVID-- no hospitalizations that we know of yet-- please keep in close touch with us so we can pray for you and reach out to people. Like many places across the country, our county has the highest number of COVID-19 cases we have ever had. The more we can do to reduce transmission and disease risk throughout January, the better we protect the capacity of hospitals and healthcare workers to keep treating those needing care as well as the many other essential operations that keep us all safe.
For that reason, as I announced Sunday, we will be ONLY ONLINE through January 23rd (and online for our congregational meeting that day) and then reassess. Hopefully we will see omicron descending by then as it has elsewhere.
May all us us commit to doing our best to stay connected with one another. In that spirit, I offer this blessing by Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber:
A blessing for the new year:
As you enter this new year, as you pack away the Christmas decorations and get out your stretchy pants,
as you face the onslaught of false promises offered you through new disciplines and elimination diets,
as you grasp for control of yourself and your life and this chaotic world,
May you remember that there is no resolution that, if kept, will make you more worthy of love.
There is no resolution that, if kept, will make life less uncertain and allow you to control a pandemic and your children and the way other people act.
So this year,
May you just skip the part where you resolve to be better do better and look better this time.
May you give yourself the gift of really, really low expectations.
May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.
May you expect so little of the people in your life that you actually notice and cherish every small lovely thing about them.
May you expect so little of the supply chain and the service industry that you notice more of what you do get and less of what you don't and then just tip really well anyhow.
May you expect to get so little out of 2022 that you can celebrate every single thing it offers you, however small.
Because you deserve joy and not disappointment
So, I wish you a Happy as possible New Year.
