From the Pastor
Dear friends,
I don’t know about you, but I feel like nothing is certain anymore. The sand shifts beneath our feet. Covid is bad, getting better, bad again. Some people think vaccinations will cause sterility (this is not true by the way) while others think they’re the answer to all our worries (and neither is this.) There are wild fires raging again in California. Drought in the west. Meanwhile, I’ve been complaining about all the rain in Saratoga this summer and wondering where the “typical” summer loveliness has been…Truth continues to shift and change no matter who is in the White House. Some think masking children is necessary to keep them safe and some think masking children is child abuse. We just ended the longest war in U.S. history and it ended in a spectacular disaster. Is it because I’m getting older or is it the unique time period that we are in that I realize how uncertain life and ways of life have become?
At our last Governing Board meeting I told our elders that I am committed to be in church every Sunday, leading worship. I will be there, in person, ready to welcome whoever else wants to be there. Ready to live stream to those not able to join us in person. But regardless, I will be there. I can’t go back to zoom church or the uncertainty of “will we be in person or not?” I loved zoom church for what it was, but I need certainty. I need the certainty that a weekly rhythm of Sunday worship provides for me. I need to stand in our sanctuary and remember that we live in God’s world and that we are all God’s children. I need to stand in our sanctuary and hear the old stories that have been told in multiple languages throughout the earth for millennia and more, through changes that make our own feel small. I need the church – the strong foundation we have been given – and the communal act of prayer, singing, and reaching out to Holy Mystery. Maybe you do, too? I hope together we can continue to find a way forward into whatever unknown future God has in store for us.
If you’re comfortable, please join us for Welcome Back Sunday on September 12th in person. Our regular worship will resume at 10:45am. It will be a lot like worship in June. We’ll have to wear masks. We’ll social distance. We won’t pass the peace or sing as much – but we’ll still be church. If you can’t make it in person, we understand and invite you to join us on our Youtube channel. You do not need to register to attend. Sunday School will begin again.
Before worship on that Sunday, Reilly and I will offer a brief service of the Sacrament of Holy Communion at 10am on the Nolan House porch (weather permitting.) It’s been a long time since we’ve been at the Table together, sharing in the bread of life and remembering the presence of Christ and we hope you will join us.
Regardless of how uncertain so many things feel, we are making plans! In the newsletter that follows, you’ll see a lot of ways to engage in our communal life as Church. You’ll see a lot of hope that plans we are dreaming up might come to fruition. It is good to plan, to hope and to remember with certainty that regardless of how things shift around us, we are still united in God’s love. It’s good to be Church together!
In hopeful anticipation,
Pastor Kate
REMINDER: There is no worship service on Sunday, September 5 (Labor Day weekend)
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