Letter from Lindy Dec 27

Beloveds,

“The great task of religion is to keep us fully awake, alert, and conscious. Staying awake comes not from willpower but from a wholehearted surrender to the moment—as it is. If we can truly be present, we will experience what most of us mean by God (and we do not even need to call it God). It’s largely a matter of letting go of resistance to what the moment offers or of clinging to a past moment. It is an acceptance of the full reality of what is right here and now.”

This quote by Richard Rohr captivated my heart this week as I write to you for a newsletter that will not land in your respective inboxes until after Christmas. To honor these holy-days, we are trying to frontload much of our work 10-14 days before, so that we, too, can celebrate the time with a few days off.

As I turned from my current letter for the week of December 20 to this one, I found myself imagining how you experienced the season: filled with hanging of the greens, the cantata, our children’s pageant, the longest night prayer walk, and Christmas Eve. Your worship team’s desire was to create a season in which we honored Pilgrim traditions, living into them in new ways, as the year 2020 has taught us. I pray each one nourished and nurtured your spirit, as we continue to make our way through.

Part of why this quote resonates is because I wonder if I haven’t allowed myself to be fully present to the moment/s of this year for I have been longing for, in Rohr’s words, “past moments” of the ways things had been. Certainly if “this pandemic cup could pass from my lips,” I would magically wave COVID away and resurrect the 1.6+ million deaths to life. But instead God invites us to accept the reality of what is right here and now, fully awake, alert and conscious, so we might not only be present to the suffering around us, but learn and grow as God’s beloveds, from this time and tragedy to become more, better than we have been. There is much justice work to be done. I pray we do not squander this God moment to usher in on earth a deeper and truer reflection of the kindom of Holy hope.

For now, I pray you are resting. Enjoying. Sacred time. With those who surround you. Knowing that we could not live into this season as we are used to doing. Tables filled with family, friends and food. Laughter and singing and rejoicing with good cheer. Those will come. We trust with hope. And we need to continue to take care. Do our part to help us through. For, as was remarked at the last mayor’s religious roundtable, “there is a light at the end of this tunnel, but we must handle with care these days, weeks, and months, for we are decidedly still in the tunnel.

So Pilgrims, on the cusp of a new year, let us stay awake, alert and fully conscious and do our part to keep our community safe.

Grace, love and peace,

Pastor Lindy