Dear Congregation,
It was just about one year ago, on March 8, 2020 that we last worshiped together in the sanctuary. Worship was cancelled for the next Sunday as the Covid-19 pandemic became very real. In this past year we’ve managed to continue to have weekly worship, by the grace of God. We’ve gone from doing the new thing of live-streaming worship on Facebook an empty sanctuary with just a few of us present to lead the service, to live-streaming from my living room beginning April 12th when the strict “Safe at Home” restrictions took effect, until April 14th when a few of us returned to an empty sanctuary to lead Facebook worship, and then to the happy day of November 15th when CCC moved to in-person and Facebook worship in the Garden Sanctuary. We have survived! Thanks be to God who has been our comfort and our strength throughout this strange journey!
I’ve heard so many people say, “I can’t believe a year has gone by!” It has been certainly been a year like no other. Now, with the arrival of the vaccines, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, as people are becoming vaccinated. The promise is that everyone will be able to get the vaccine by May. What wonderful news! We are headed toward what is being called the “new normal” not sure exactly what that will be. So I thought I’d share this poem by The Rev. Mary Luti as a reminder that God will be with us no matter what the future brings.
In Christ’s love, which is not bound by time or circumstance.
Pastor Candy
Blessing for the Future
Bless, o God,
the unanswerable
the hypothetical
the possible
Bless the silence
the shrug
the hard to say
the “who knows?”
the “have to wait and see”
Bless the markers
the absence of markers
the path
the no path
the indistinct
the clearing
Bless the arriving life
the nothing-normal-about-it new normal
the un-scouted
the future
the unknown
Bless you in it
the presence
the firm
the knowing
the power
the same love
Bless you in it
the center
the serene
the hidden near
The gleaming
The boundless mercy
The same love
The same love
Here and there
The same love
Now and when