When my sister and I were kids, our favorite baby-sitter didn’t just read story books at bedtime, she made up stories just for us. We loved her. We also acted out fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel. In childhood, it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between make-believe stories and real-life stories. Perhaps that’s true in adulthood, too. Which story is true for us and which is something we’ve been told by society that doesn’t fit our reality?
The stories we choose to tell about the last year will not only speak our truth, but will shape the future. What is the story of your year of pandemic? What jumps out at you when you think about the past year? What relationships sustained you? How does the last year affect the central theme of your life and the life of our community?
The central theme of my life is creative expression. As pandemic fatigue set in, I’ve had to dig deep to find my creativity. I’ve also needed to cast a broader net to find nuggets of meaning and collaborate with more people to create processes and structures that serve our new way of being and doing church. This won’t stop whenever we return to in-person church. We are living a new reality that calls on all our creative faculties.
I look forward to summer worship services when Worship Associates continue to tell their stories and we support each other during the “in-between” time. We plan to continue online only summer worship services at 10:00 a.m. through Labor Day weekend. Please join us!
Yours,
Rev. Dena McPhetres, Associate Minister