In recent days I've spent some time in remembrance and in celebration of the life and music of David Bowie, who succumbed to liver cancer six years ago on January 10. He would have also turned 75 on January 8, marking an unofficial three-day Bowie holiday this time of the year. He was a musical artist of great pop success but also of deep artistry revered for his visionary performance style, eccentric and eclectic songwriting, and his expressive forays into acting and painting. An ever-evolving Renaissance Man who will continue to inspire for generations to come, Bowie demonstrated perseverance and adaptability oh so well...

I am reminded of his 2013 album "The Next Day," his first album of new material in a decade after suffering a heart attack on stage in 2004. Recorded in extreme secrecy, it was a surprise announcement as Bowie was presumed retired from the music business. The cover art immediately drew a response. It was the same cover of his renowned 1977 album "Heroes," a surreal photo of Bowie engaged in an act of mime whose intention he only knew, but with a white box rudely overlayed in the center. Within the box, the generic black lettering of the current album title can be seen: "The Next Day." Looking inside, the album liner notes are also recycled from previous use but crossed out with the new production crew and musicians simply written above it. The same, but not the same.

Bowie was making a somewhat facetious point with the album's cover and sleeve design by saying, "Here's more of the same!" The connection to the original "Heroes" album is quite clear in this collection of brilliant tunes—an ode to his glorious past and his own mortality. He does so however with the knowledge that there is no literal going back. But the spirit of purpose, creativity and optimism still carried forward as it always had with Bowie—always a new creation.

Let's see what the Next Day will bring, shall we? 

Mark

“Surely the LORD your God has blessed you in all your undertakings;
he knows your going through this great wilderness.
These forty years the LORD your God has been with you;
you have lacked nothing.” 
– Deuteronomy 2.7

“Early in the morning,
Joshua rose and set out from Shittim with all the Israelites,
and they came to the Jordan.
They camped there before crossing over.”
– Judges 3.1

Does it feel to you as if we’ve been wandering the in the wilderness for forty years? There are days when it seems as if it’s been that long since we’ve worshiped together in person. I have missed seeing you in the pews and in the Fellowship Hall…missed deeply the hugs and smiles and words of kindness and encouragement.
 
Even without being together physically, there is a force that has helped us maintain our bonds across these 15 months of pandemic isolation. A few weeks ago, Jane Anne preached on the text from John’s gospel in which Jesus tells us to love one another as he first loved us. My sense is that God’s love is the force that has held us together as a congregation during our pandemic pilgrimage. And as we love one another with that same love, we build community.
 
But now, we are approaching a different stage in that journey. Like Joshua leading the Israelites out of the wilderness, we are camped along the banks of the River Jordan, and we are about to cross over into a new land. I know some of us are ready to cross the Jordan today with no waiting on the bank! Others of us are nervous about what it might look like on the other side…that things will be different…that we may not know how to relate to one another exactly as we did.
 
Let’s wade through the water together…get our feet wet together…and make it across into the next stage of our Plymouth pilgrimage as we arrive home. Come on back! Wade in!
 
Some of the Israelites got really tired of the taste of manna, and I know some of us are really tired of recorded services on Sunday. (Manna and broadcast services have been life-sustaining, if not fully pleasing our palates.) So, join us for our Outdoor Service at Rolland Moore Park on June 6 at 10:00. (There is only one service that day…bring a blanket or lawn chair.) Come on back! Wade in!
 
With the new guidance from the CDC last week, our Pandemic Team (which meets again next week) will likely be able to liberalize our opening even further. Stay tuned! Our Leadership Council last week approved the installation of a new livestreaming system in our sanctuary that will enable us to stream services with worshipers in the pews! That will make Sunday morning hybrid (in-person + livestream) worship possible, once it’s installed early this summer! Come on back! Wade in!
 
In the meantime, if you are fully vaccinated, please plan to join us this Sunday evening at 6:00 in the Plymouth sanctuary as we have our first in-person service since March 8, 2020. You do need to sign up in advance…just go to plymouthucc.org/worship. Come on back! Wade in!
 
See you at church or in the park soon!

You may have wanted to fill those blanks in with a four-letter word other than “Week,” but resist the temptation! The last year has been filled with more “pivots” and “adaptive challenges” than any in our lifetimes.
 
Our very first livestreamed service was on March 15 (the Ides of March!), 2020, as we started to learn more about the spread of the novel coronavirus that would change so many lives, as well as changing our nation, community, and congregation.
 
And while it may seem slightly premature, I want to express my gratitude to each of you for being patient, keeping yourself and others safe, demonstrating flexibility, and going with the flow as much as you have! Please keep up the great work…we’re getting closer to the end of the pandemic day by day.
 
I just returned from a meeting in Santa Fe with two of my three UCC CREDO colleagues (and am self-quarantining), and even though ours is the largest of the four congregations, ours is the only one of those four UCC churches that has not lost a member to COVID. That has required sacrifice and selflessness and generosity of spirit…way to go, Plymouth!
 
Our Pandemic Team continues to monitor developments and is taking a deliberately slow pace in restarting our in-person activities. This month, our Middle School and High School Youth Groups are having their first gatherings with ten or fewer participants, masks, distancing, and open windows in the Fellowship Hall. If that goes well, we’ll extend that opening to other fellowship and spirituality groups within the congregation.
 
Holy Week is not far off — there are only two more Sundays in Lent! And we are busy planning for an online Maundy Thursday Tenebrae service, a noontime organ concert on Good Friday, and an online ecumenical Good Friday service at 7:00 p.m. Easter Sunday will feature three different services: a drive-in service in our parking lot at 8:00 a.m., a recorded service (with brass!) at 10:00, and an interactive Zoom service at 6:00 p.m. (And for the kids there will be an in-person Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday…sign up by March 28 at plymouthucc.org/kids.)
 
We’ve had to make adjustment this year…lots of them. Thank you for hanging in there and being part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I’m very grateful to you and proud of all of us at Plymouth. Blessings as we walk through these final days of Lent.
 
Peace,

Psalm 126
When the LORD changed Zion's circumstances for the better, it was like we had been dreaming.
2Our mouths were suddenly filled with laughter; our tongues were filled with joyful shouts.
It was even said, at that time, among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them!"
3Yes, the LORD has done great things for us, and we are overjoyed.
4LORD, change our circumstances for the better, like dry streams in the desert waste!
5Let those who plant with tears reap the harvest with joyful shouts.
6Let those who go out, crying and carrying their seed,
come home with joyful shouts, carrying bales of grain!

Today’s reading in our Advent devotional book, Those Who Dream, invites us to contemplate Psalm 126 in word and in an abstract visual that depicts the ripples of the Negeb river flowing through parched desert land, the tears of the people’s pain sowed in exile and the seeds of new life sown when God restored their dreaming and their fortunes. This week we can see some glimmers of restoration in the midst of our pandemic exiles as the first vaccines are administered here in our country. Thanks Be to God!

Throughout these last nine months we have persevered in dreaming God’s dreams of justice and love and in “Being Church” as we came together:

• in livestream and prerecorded worship services
• in our online/virtual Alternative Giving Fair (raising over $15,000)
• in our virtual Sleepout and Drive-in Vigil for homelessness prevention (raising over $20,000)
• in our summer “Plymouth Gives” campaign (raising over $20,000 for Outreach and Mission, LaForet, 2020 pledge support)
• in our Zoom and online Christian Formation classes and curriculum for all ages and the outstanding Visiting Scholar Retreat Day
• in our continued connection with those in our Plymouth community who are most isolated or have had Covid-19, and
• in so many acts of sharing God’s love and justice that you perform each day that are not quantifiable or known to me or Hal or Carla.

Thank you!!! Thank you for continuing to “Be the Church!” even in the midst of all the pain and frustration and fear of our world. We may sow in tears, but we also reap in laughter, love and God’s abundance. Sowing the seeds of God’s presence in our world and reaping the reward of relationship is holy work for all seasons. It is particularly poignant during the darkness and waiting and preparation of Advent.

Many blessings as we keep on keeping on “Being the Church” and following Jesus on the Way.

With you on the journey,

P.S. There are many Christmastide events coming up! See them at plymouthucc.org/events.

Six months is a long time to have a church building closed. I was imagining what it would be like if our physical home had been closed because of a fire or flood or some other disaster. I suspect it would be far more difficult for us to have jumped onto the livestream band wagon if none of the other churches in Fort Collins were having to take similar measures. But we find ourselves still feeling as though we are living in exile from the people and the structural home we love.

I keep thinking about Psalm 137, a lament that speaks of an exiled people who long for their homeland:

By the rivers of Babylon --
there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked
for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Lament is a perfectly acceptable form of prayer at this time in our common life. I suspect that many of us are growing tired of livestreamed worship, and I can tell you that I am really weary of trying to connect over the internet with the hundreds of people whom I suspect are out there, but whose reactions and responses I cannot see. I am tired of the hollow feeling of singing hymns with only four people singing in the sanctuary. It seems as if we have “hung up our harps” and God only knows when we will be back together and able to sing robustly “one of the songs of Zion” with a choir and a congregation. And like anger, lament is okay...but it’s a lousy place to get stuck.

We have to move forward from that place of feeling crummy about the state of our lives and recenter ourselves. The wisdom of the Psalms again comes to our aid, providing a pivot (ugh...I’m tired of that word!) moving us from imploring God to doing what we can do by being faithful. Psalm 13 is short and to the point:

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my
heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my
enemy will say, "I have prevailed"; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
[pivot] But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Each of us has something to be grateful for...some bounty that God has entrusted to our care. Even if it something as elemental as waking up this morning, we can give thanks. I find it difficult to be grateful and grumpy at the same time, and since we have a choice about our own outlook, I make an attempt to live in gratitude. I’m trying to pivot into the love and goodness of God, rather than to get stuck in the mire of lament and self-pity. Singing helps...even if it’s alone in the shower.

Isaac Watts, a Congregational minister in London in the 18th century, usedPsalm 90 as the basis for his hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” and for those of us who feel as if we are in exile — who miss our home — it contains these lines about our true home, which never closes down: “Still be our God while troubles last, and our eternal home.” Don’t be afraid to call on God directly in these uncertain, stressful times. We all need to allow ourselves and one another a bit of grace to feel our lament, and we also need to acknowledge that this pandemic is not going to last forever, and there will come a day when we can return to our fellow members and our church building.

Keep the faith!

This may surprise you, but I LOVE CHURCH. I love Sundays when we gather as a community to read liturgy, pray, sing familiar songs, connect with each other and learn in our educational programs. As churches around the country close their doors and open up Facebook Live, YouTube, and Zoom to for their worship services, there is a lot of chatter that the church is not a building. And, there is a lot of talk that society will forever be changed by having experienced COVID-19, including the institution of the church. Being adaptable is key and that also brings with it challenges.

Your church is finding new ways to worship, connect and care for you. We have increased our online presence, we are reaching out more by phone and mail, and we have increased our care by providing supplies and financial assistance and so much more. Please let us know if you need anything.

So while the church is not the building, we have enjoyed reaching beyond our walls and our physical boundaries and hearing from folks afar. Yet, I know all of the staff at Plymouth looks forward to us all being together in the building again AND with those online. It’s too early to tell how this pandemic will impact the institution of the church, but I know the Plymouth will adapt to effective ways to be the living faith.

Holy Week is upon us and Maundy Thursday is my favorite worship service of the entire church calendar. I even love Good Friday when there is darkness because we move to silence on Saturday, then finally the celebration of ‘He Is Risen’ on Easter Sunday. I wonder if we are ready for Easter. The pandemic news is dire for some and uncertainty surrounds us. I know I am ready for the Easter message that moves us from death to resurrection to new life.

I wonder what it is like for you to worship via Facebook Live? Let us know.

Carla