Dear Plymouth Family,

It has been some time since I wrote to you with an update on the unfolding dimensions of the pandemic and how they affect us at Plymouth. As you've seen, there is a lot going on with changes afoot in our worship life with prerecorded services on Sundays at 10:00 and the return of our 6:00 p.m. Sunday service, now available by Zoom.

The Pandemic Team met two weeks ago, and as our moderator Bruce Ronda reported in the Overview, their counsel is to go slowly. You may also have noticed that the Larimer Country Health Department has moved its Risk Dial Level to Yellow (Concern) this month, but the data as reported in the New York Times (captured above on 2/27/21) don't seem to support that move unless economic vitality, rather than public health data, is considered. The NY Times data suggest that we are in the red zone with "Very High Risk."

I can tell you that the Pandemic Team is taking hard data into account in our decision-making. As part of our go-slow approach, our building will remain closed, and starting tomorrow, March 1, we are going to open the building occasionally to our youth groups for gatherings of ten or fewer students in the Fellowship Hall only, with masks, social distancing, and open windows. (There are protocol sheets, cleaning supplies, and plenty of hand gel in the Fellowship Hall.) If that step goes smoothly, and if the numbers of new cases in Larimer County declines, our next step will be to open the Fellowship Hall to Plymouth groups of 10 or fewer people, such as our spirituality and fellowship small groups. Boards, Committees, and Ministry Teams will continue to meet via Zoom for the time being. Staff are still working primarily from home, except when we need to be in the building. And you are welcome to come walk the labyrinth and to add prayers to the Lenten prayer tree outside the North Wing doors!

I know that many of our older members are receiving vaccine, which is great! But there are still many of us who are not yet eligible. And unfortunately, faith leaders' eligibility was reclassified by the state government Friday, so we are now in group 1.B.4, which is no longer the next group in line. (Some staff are getting vaccinated by virtue of their age.) I want to acknowledge that it is difficult not to let our newfound enthusiasm lead us to conclude that we should be back together in person soon. When we do come back, please don't expect things to be the same. Until we're all vaccinated, things like singing, coffee hour, children, young families, young adults are all likely to be missing from our remembered Sunday experiences. I'm not trying to be a downer...just trying to manage expectations.

I ask for your patience and understanding that our first concern is your safety. As always, your clergy are available for online, telephone, and outdoor pastoral counseling. And please do let us know of any emergencies and hospitalizations!

As we continue to exercise patience and good judgment, I give thanks to God for you, and my prayer is for your good health, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Blessings!

Visit plymouthucc.org/text either to join the weekly texts or to provide your cell number to the church (but not receive weekly texts).

In the scripture texts above, two prophets and a psalmist prophets and a psalmist call us to begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday. They call us to ancient rituals and spiritual practices of repentance. To repent is to come to God with a need for change, with, hopefully, a humble need to turn around in some way and get back on a better path of relationship with the Holy One. Repentance does not mean beating ourselves up with unproductive guilt. It means opening our hearts to transformation.

What needs transforming in your life, in your heart and mind this year? How do we enter the repentance of Lent this year – after the pandemic and political trauma of the last 11 months – heeding the call of the prophets and the psalmist to fast with social justice, to bring a contrite heart ready to be torn open with Love?

We find time to be with God and one another in gentle, humble ways. We lay down expectations of what needs to happen next and learn to wait for the surprising ways the Holy shows up to transform us from the inside out. Waiting with patience for “a slow wind to work words [and works] of love around us as an invisible cloak to mind our lives" as the poet, John O’Donahue, reminds us to do in his poem, “Beannacht.” We go slow and steady as we continue to move through this tedious pandemic, as one by one we are vaccinated, as bit by bit we are able to come back together in community. We slowly, steadily and faithfully repair the breaches of racism, incivility and hatred in our country with education, understanding and communication.

To help you in your slow and patient journey through Lent this year:

• Worship with us tomorrow in our Ash Wednesday Zoom service at 7 pm. Bring a small amount of vegetable oil to anoint yourself and/or family during the traditional imposition of ashes ritual. (Link to Zoom service will come in an email Wednesday afternoon.)
• Worship with us on online Sundays: at 10 am (on our website or on the YouTube premiere page) and at 6 pm (by Zoom). Note: the non-website links change each week and will be in the Saturday email.
• Join and/or create a book group with Plymouth friends…Marty Marsh and Anna Olsen will be leading a Wednesday morning group starting 3/3 at 10 am to study Love is the Way; Holding on to Hope in Troubled Times by Bishop Michael Curry. Their group is limited to 8 participants. If it fills and you would like to gather another Zoom study group on this book, let me know! I can help you make a new group happen. Don’t let technology stop you! We have people to help. And you can choose your own book on spiritual practices, Black Lives Matter, white privilege, or Bible study
• Get a group together to read and discuss the Lenten devotional booklet, “Again & Again; A Lenten Refrain.” If you haven’t received your copy, contact the church office. We have more. And I can help you with a Zoom room.
•  Read David Petersen’s Lenten Bible Blog to help the Ash Wednesday, Sunday and Holy Week scriptures come alive for you! Pick out one of the biblical themes Dr. Petersen gives us each week to pray with and ponder how it connects with your daily living.
• Check out Fort Collins’ World Wisdoms Project and their FREE March 4th online program, “You Do What? Spiritual Practice in Times of Crisis” (While it is a stand-alone organization, the World Wisdoms Project has been “adopted” by Plymouth as one of our ministry teams under the Christian Formation Board because of Plymouth members involvement.)
• Starting Sunday 2/21, come by the church and put a prayer on the Again & Again Lenten prayer tree located outside the north door. See specifics in Thursday’s Plymouth Overview.
• Call a church friend you haven’t seen in 11 months! Contact one of the ministers if you would like to help run errands for someone.
• Check out Larimer Food Bank or Habitat or Neighbor 2 Neighbor or another social justice agency for volunteer opportunities.
• Light a candle and be still. Just for a moment. Stare out the window and marvel at the beauty of our world, broken as it can be. Slowly read the whole of John O’Donahue’s poem, “Beannacht,” mentioned above. It is perfect for times such as we are living in.
• And know that you are not alone! The pastors and all of Plymouth’s staff are here for you. Reach out!

May we all find ways to answer the call to Lent, to open our hearts to God’s surprising changes, to turn around and find a new way home to our center in the heart of the Holy One.

With you on the journey,

I love the tongue-in-cheek comment from our Sunday Forum Ministry Team: “Haven’t we been doing Lent for a year now? I’m tired of giving stuff up!” Yep…it sure feels that way, but for most of us, we’ve been giving up stuff perhaps without much spiritual benefit.

So, maybe don’t give anything up for Lent this year! Maybe this season of spiritual deepening (which starts in only 8 days!) can be an opportunity to offer yourself something more nourishing than further deprivation. If there is one thing none of us need this year, it’s a more-abrasive hair shirt or flagellum!
Soon, you will receive a Lenten devotional in the mail from Plymouth. Like our Advent devotional booklet, this comes from a group of young clergywomen called A Sanctified Art. I hope that you enjoy it and engage with it!

One of our members, David Petersen, a renowned Old Testament scholar and formerly dean of Candler School of Theology at Emory University, will begin offering a weekly reflection on the reading from the Revised Common Lectionary. You’ll be able to find it online at plymouthucc.org/lent2021 as the season begins. We are amazingly fortunate at Plymouth to have such scholars among us!

If you are feeling in a crafty-prayerful frame of mind, I invite you to join me for a two-part Prayer Bead workshop, February 20 & 21. We’ll learn how to create a strand of Anglican Prayer Beads (all tools and materials provided…a $43 materials fee is requested) on a Saturday morning and then pray with them and write our own prayers on Sunday afternoon via Zoom. You can learn more and sign up at plymouthucc.org/adults (I’ll also be doing beads with our Middle School and High School Youth Groups.)

And the aforementioned Forum Ministry Team has great plans for you on Sunday mornings in Lent at 9:00 a.m. via Zoom. Their first foray on February 21 is an exploration of the themes of Lent (wilderness, searching for God, grief, repentance) have been a part of our pandemic journey. The following week, Wayne Carpenter will offer “How to Be Sick,” an exploration of chronic illness, its losses and discoveries.

As I invite you to engage your spiritual journey fully, I leave you with this offering from the cycle of Celtic prayers I use with Anglican Prayer Beads:

You are the love of each living creature, O God.
You are the warmth of the rising sun.
You are the whiteness of the moon at night.
You are the strength of the waves of the sea.
You are the life of the growing earth.
Speak to me this day, O Lord, speak to me your truth.
Dwell with me this day, O Lord, dwell with me in love.
Amen.

Blessings to you!

P.S. Our Ash Wednesday service will be on Zoom at 7:00 p.m. on February 17…look for an email invitation.