How are you doing?

As we move deeper in to this strange and uncertain time, I suspect that you, like me, are a jumble of emotions. I miss my old life. The one where I knew what day it was, and what I was supposed to do that day!

I miss you! I loved seeing our community in person. Whether it was a week night or a Sunday morning. I loved the hugs, laughter, news, and worship time. I miss my pastoral calls to see Maureen and those in hospital or home bound. I suspect you miss seeing your St. Paul's family too.

When God's chosen people, the Israelites, were exiled in Babylon, they mourned for what they had lost. Psalm 137 begins, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept." The whole question of the psalm is essentially, how do we do this? How do we sing the Lord's song upon an alien soil? (v 4).

Truth be told, online meeting is alien soil for most of us. Listening to the numbers of COVID-19 infections, being told to stay home, and stay distant, is all alien. The unknown is fearful.

Allow yourself to sit down and weep for what you've lost. There is tremendous anxiety and fear all around us, but we are God's people; grafted into the deep roots of our Jewish ancestors. And know, that while we grieve, and while we ask "how do we do this?" God is already guiding and accompanying us into this new land.

I'm trying to be intentional about feeling the sadness, because it grounds me in reality in a way that fear cannot. Please join me in looking inward at your own heart.. God meets us there, always. Even as God is guiding us toward tomorrow.

----Pastor Rebecca