TODAY

the 2 mile drive to church was eerily quiet. Traffic was so light, not many cars for a Monday morning when the school buses should have been making their rounds and moms and dads driving their kids to school. Sunday morning traffic was near non-existent.
   Yes, we had worship Sunday morning with 21 folks and made changes - no passing of the peace, no passing of the offering plates, communion was forward with little cups, not tables, and there was no handshaking following worship. We forget to tell the the couple who did coffee hour not to do so. So there was coffee and snacks. Several stayed even a physician and her husband who were visiting from the next town over where their Lutheran church was closed.
   I find that I am having to navigate differently in this strange landscape of isolation and separation. We are in exile, the diaspora of the faithful in the 21st century. I will be working with the church office administrator to try posting a facebook video and putting out website and facebook devotional minutes and thoughts, trying interactive where folks can post photos or comments on where they see grace in their day or week, things they are doing while social distancing, etc.
   I have some learning to do!
   I pray for our churches and faith communities as we find ways to stay connected and remember one another. To deliberately isolate and distance ourselves from one another is unnatural and moreso in our congregations when so much of who we are is about community. We have to redefine community or at least how to be community in this strange and threatening time. I pray God's Spirit be at work within us and all around us.
   Funny, our Tues. night Bible Study just finished Presbyterian Women's Horizon study on God's Promise: I Am with You. It was such a rich, full, satisfying, encouraging study and generated good discussion reminding us of God's promise to be with us from the Old Testament through the New Testament. I can't think there would have been a better study to prepare us for this trying, challenging time than to hold fast to God's promise of being with us when we feel powerless or discouraged. I pray that those who attended are holding this study close to them.
    I pray for all who are suffering, feeling isolated, lonely, grieving the loss of a loved one in our world. I pray for us all as we navigate providing spiritual care during this pandemic which for most of us is a new thing.
    I see the crocuses blooming - a sign of hope. I know that Easter services may not happen this year, but Easter still happens. The miracle of new life and life after death is the crux of our faith. It's what
gives us hope to face today, to face this pandemic, to face tomorrow and we do so knowing that God is with us, ever, always.
    Perhaps, when we survive this pandemic and see our way through, we, too, will breathe new life,
see life differently, feel the glory of freedom, relish again a hug, a handshake and coming together and being together may mean so much more. May we live for this day. May we look forward to this day and the Easter it will be.