Dear Friends in Christ,
At its August meeting, the Vestry met with a member of our parish who is a physician and who has been providing guidance for our parish over the nearly 18 months of the pandemic. At the meeting, he offered an overview of where we have been and where we are now, and vestry and clergy were able to ask questions. It was a very good and, in some ways, very challenging meeting. I came away from that meeting with a sense of an emerging consensus among us about how we view the coming months as we try to regather for the life and ministry of St. Mary’s. I’d like to share that emerging consensus with you.
Our lives this past year have appropriately included an emphasis on caution through guidelines and restrictions for the ways we may or may not gather. On balance, I think that was an approach that our congregation largely appreciated. It fit the time of the acute onset of the pandemic with all the uncertainty and fear that came with that.
And now, I think we have entered into a new time calling for a new mindset and approach. If last year we experienced as an acute onset, now we have entered into a time of a more chronic condition. We are going to have to learn to live with the presence of COVID. And it is appropriate for us to find ways to go ahead and live our lives, and be smart about that. And, we need to be generous hearted for each other. So, we are going to go ahead and make plans to have Sunday School, for example, but in an outdoor setting. We are going to go ahead and carry on with our lives in person at St. Mary’s and make plans for things we love. And we will be smart and creative and loving about how we do those things.
It’s complicated, I know. But we have all been doing complicated for a while now! This parish has shown itself to be resourceful and strong and loving and resilient and faithful. That is who we are. That is who God is calling us to be: to go ahead and live our lives, be smart, and be loving for one another. And above all, have faith in God and God’s faithfulness for us and for this world God loves, that has brought us so far together.
Your brother in Christ,
The Reverend David May
Rector