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The coronavirus genie escapes it bottle
My family and I live between two major metropolitan areas—Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia—where community transmission of COVID-19 has occurred. If hand sanitizer is available somewhere in my county, I have yet to find it.
Our local UUMA chapter has cancelled its spring professional days. Services of ordination and installation have been postponed. Congregational leaders are responding to constantly changing circumstances, with many seriously considering moving entirely to online services.
As Doug Muder puts it, the coronavirus genie has escaped its bottle.
The COVID-19 virus broke out of containment this week. A week ago, you could still draw an imaginary boundary around the places affected and hope it stayed inside. . . .
Now, though, “community spread” has started: People have COVID-19 even though they have no traceable connection to China or any other area with a known outbreak. . . . A cluster of cases in Washington state raises suspicion that the virus has been spreading undetected for weeks. The virus is out there now, and before long you will have to assume that anybody might have it. (The Weekly Sift, March 2)
Practicing rhythms of resilience
Karen Hering invites us to live in rhythms of resilience.
We cannot see the full arc of history to know exactly how or when today’s injustices and suffering will be addressed. But . . . . as we experience the adversity, setbacks and inevitable heartbreak of working to end oppression, we find resilience in the rhythms of breathing in and breathing out, opening and closing, resting and acting, drawing inward and reaching out. Resilience connects past and future in an arc bent and continually rebounding toward justice, through our dreams and actions, our faith and work, our imagination and daily practice. (Karen Hering, March 3)
Nicolette Toussaint resists the label “elderly,” despite her being older than age 65.
Personally, I’m opting for what my peer Diane Witt wittily suggested: “I want to be an elderberry.”
“That’s an elder who’s still juicy, right?” I asked.
“Juicy and extremely nutritious,” she replied.
Alrighty, then! Just consider this column my elderberry whine. (Post-Independent, February 27)
For Jake Morrill, a UU Christian, “Lent is a wilderness time.”
A time when it’s not clear how, or if, Love will win in the end. A time to ponder Love’s elusiveness. Its absence. I’ve known times when I’ve wandered, bereft. Maybe you have, as well. What if Love wasn’t a far porch light, toward which we had to trudge? What if it was a wild goose, a wet dog? Instead of some grim pursuit, in our desire to meet it, we’d be compelled to sing out. To invite, to entice, it. (Facebook, March 1)
Catharine Clarenbach invites us to get enough sleep—and enough play.
[Rest], renewal, downtime, vacation—for me, they all really do lead to one thing: creativity. When my mind is clear and refreshed, my memory better than usual (not that it’s ever great, ahem), and my body limber and languorous, I am more likely to have something to give you when you need it. If I have allowed myself to receive simply, openly, without guilt or shame or watching the clock, then rest assured (ha!) I will have something to put out into the world sooner rather than later. (The Way of the River, February 28)