Dear Ones,

It is June and every plant is reaching it’s grateful face to the sun, absorbing the long-awaited warmth of summer. What a long winter- it felt a decade long. Pandemic lock-down and the resulting isolation was hard on our spirits. We humans are social creatures and we need each other! As the fresh summer sun shines, infections are receding. More than 80% of people in the US over 65 are vaccinated! Nearly half of the people in Ohio have had both shots. Hopefully soon children will be able to be inoculated. It is getting safer and safer for us to gather together.

After this long time of isolation it is normal to have a lot of feelings about returning to a more social church life. I feel excited to meet you in person (finally!) but after sixteen months of caution I feel vulnerable being face-to-face. I am a very extroverted person but I find myself tired after short in-person interactions. Perhaps you are also having complicated feelings. There is grief, remembering all those we lost to Covid. And there is joy because a vaccination was developed so much earlier than expected, and now we in the US are much safer. There is fear about the virus’s spread around the world, especially for our Unitarian kin in India. Perhaps you feel guilt because you made it to safety when so many other people did not.

Grief is a strange and unpredictable journey. Be gentle with your tender heart as we move away from this international trauma. Impatience, tears, anger, and exhaustion are all normal feelings to have at this time. You will likely need extra rest this summer. You might feel more cautious and desire more time alone. Kids might not want to leave home for camp or spend time in group activities. We might feel nervous spending time with elders or people with compromised immunity, even if we are fully vaccinated. We spent sixteen months in an extreme state of caution. It will take a while for our bodies and spirits to feel safe again. You aren’t doing it wrong and there isn’t something wrong with you- we all feel strange.

If you would benefit from greater social interaction please join me on Tuesdays on Zoom for the Support Group for Being Human or in-person on Thursdays at noon for a brown-bag lunch outdoors at UUCA. If you would like to talk one-on-one I would love to meet with you, but let me know sooner than later, because I am off duty in July.

Most excitingly, we are having an All-Church Ice Cream Social on June 18th from 5-9PM. Come hear great music, eat sweet treats, play fun games, and see your wonderful church family. If you don’t feel quite ready for a big group event, don’t worry- we will have another picnic in late summer. Be gentle with yourself! You are precious!

We hope to be together again for in-person worship services this fall. For a few months we may need to have two worship services. The fellowship hall has a high-tech air filtration system to keep us healthy, but it isn’t as big as the sanctuary. While it will be hard to not see all our friends at one service it should be temporary. Please be patient as the worship team, musicians, and I move to multi-platform worship (meaning we will be online and in-person). Glitches will happen. However, we hope to be able to offer you a choice of high-quality, participatory worship in your living room or at the church. How cool is that?

We are moving out of a time of international crisis. It will take time to feel normal again. Go slowly and trust your intuition- you are wiser than you can imagine. You know what is right for you. Let’s make gentleness- for ourselves and for each other- our theme for this new time.

With great affection,

Rev Kate