Colin was scheduled to play his viola for today’s service.  He writes, “This is a piece by French composer Faure called Apres in Reve ‘After a Dream.’ I planned to play this during your service after Assurances of Grace. Indeed, some calm music may be what we need in these uncertain and unpredictable times.”  Colin’s music

To learn more about Colin:  Halcyon

Today was another beautiful day.  Enjoy the signs of spring. Enjoy the opportunity to spend time alone or with close family.  Wash your hands. Read a book.  Write a book.  Draw a picture.  Sort through the old family pictures.  Rake some leaves. Bake a pie. Call someone.  Knit a sweater.  Build something. Pray.  And pray some more.

The poem below is helping me through my fear. Resting in God is enough.  May we find the grace in stillness.

Pandemic

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath–
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.Promise this world your love–
for better or worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

Lynn Ungar 3/11/2020