Dear UUSSers,

With Gov. Cuomo’s PAUSE order, we appreciate that houses of worship are still considered essential even as we are being encouraged to not gather in person. We hope you are adhering to staying home. We hope you are still washing your hands thoroughly and frequently. If you are anything like us, you are still needing to get mindful about stopping touching your face! We hope you have enough food, medicine, toilet paper, and other necessary supplies as we continue to ‘weather’ this together.

These times are so uncertain. If you don’t have what you need, reach out to each other or to us. Message folks on Facebook or text. This is hard and it is going to get a lot harder. But we can still strive towards our better selves.

The MoonCatcher Project and individual sewers are creating masks. The congregation did a special collection for Planned Parenthood this past Sunday. Some of you have been making calls to the White House to mark your frustration that action has not been taken to protect those who are imprisoned or those who are in detention centers. You are frustrated at the mis-information coming from the so-called President and that local medical professionals don’t have what they need. Some corporations are taking matters into their own ‘hands’. GE, Ford, and 3M are working to make respirators and ventilators post haste. Governors are leading the way as the national administration fails to share accurate information in this health crisis. And some of you are simply and profoundly, flattening the curve by staying, working, teaching, learning from home.

We can lean into our 7 principles as we care for one another and the Earth. You can offer to pick stuff up for a neighbor who can’t get out to the grocery store. You can make some phone calls to folks you haven’t seen in awhile. You can attend UUSS programs and worship via Zoom. We have recently taken in a young adult who was a little one in Lynn’s daycare. Stella’s college in NYC has asked students to leave campus and she can’t yet make it home to Oregon so she is staying with us, though we are all a bit nervous about it. So, we are being vigilant about wiping down all of her luggage before loading it into the car, frequent hand washing, using separate bathrooms, and practicing ‘distant’ hospitality.

Let us have the courage to rely on one another and the strength of this community when we falter, and to celebrate with one another when we make our way through another day. We can not predict the future but we can be part of shaping it, together, as we live into our principles, bring more kindness, notice the beauty, feel our feelings, and practice physical distancing and social re-imagining.

We are on this wild ride with you. Reach out if you need us.
With care and in faith,
Rev. Wendy and Rev. Lynn