Dear Plymouth Family,
 
The COVID landscape continues to change as we walk into spring and newness of life. Even as cases continue to increase in Larimer County, many of us are getting vaccinated. On each of three days last week, the count in our county exceeded 150 new cases. Many cases are the easily transmissible new variant strains of COVID. The Larimer County Health website puts us in the red “high risk” zone. The first priority for the Pandemic Team is keeping our people safe, while knowing that coming together in person is important!
I know this has been a long haul and that many of us are feeling the weight of pandemic isolation, and I appreciate your faith and patience as we have journeyed through this together. Having weighed the data, the Pandemic Team is making some changes for Plymouth, including launching a pilot program that will include in-person worship at our 6:00, beginning Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2021.
 
Here is what is already happening:
Middle School and Sr. High Youth Groups are meeting in the Fellowship Hall or outdoors with <10 people, masks, social distancing, and hand sanitizer use. We had a two-session Easter Egg Hunt and drive-in worship on Easter Sunday. Those experiments have gone well!
 
Starting Monday, April 19:
Fellowship groups and small-group ministries like Celtic and Healing Prayer, may opt to meet either in the Fellowship Hall for fully vaccinated participants. (Fully vaccinated means both injections or one J&J injection AND two-week waiting period.) Non-fully-vaccinated participants may meet on the sanctuary lawn. You must make a reservation at plymouthucc.org/cal for either the lawn or Fellowship Hall and agree to the terms below. We encourage boards and committees to continue meeting via Zoom, knowing that there are people in our congregation who may have reasons for not getting vaccinated.

If you do come to Plymouth for such a meeting, please wear your mask at all times (members of staff are still waiting for second doses of the vaccine), use hand gel, and observe social distancing.
 
Starting Sunday, May 23, 2021 (Pentecost Sunday):
We begin our pilot program of in-person worship at 6:00 p.m. (The 10:00 a.m. service is recorded on Wednesday and Thursday, and it wouldn’t be much fun to attend while we’re filming…livestreaming is still unreliable, but we’re searching for a new solution to that.) Maybe you’ve never tried our 6:00 service…this is your chance! I’ve heard over the years that some people think the 6:00 worship is “the Hippy Service,” which made me laugh out loud! Or that we have “Jesus is my boyfriend” praise-band music at 6:00…nope! You might hear a postlude by U2 or a song by John Bell, but it is a totally schmalz-free service! And we have communion every week!

There are some caveats that the Pandemic Team approved:

1. You will need to be fully vaccinated and past the “waiting period,” and you’ll need to bring your vaccination card or sign an affidavit confirming that you’ve been vaccinated. (We know this prevents many of our congregants from attending during the pilot phase, and we’re really sorry for that, but we’re trying to balance safety and connection.)
2. Sanctuary capacity will be at 50 percent, so that means 90 participants. You will also need to make a reservation online. More information on that will be released in advance.
3. You will still need to wear a mask, observe social distance, use hand gel, and be cautious. We’ll be working on safety protocols for communion, limited singing, passing the peace, etc.

 
All of our plans are contingent on no further big changes in COVID cases in Larimer County, and the Pandemic Team will make adjustments to the pilot plan as things progress. We will also continue to look for more opportunities to be together outside as the weather improves…unlike later this week! Thank you for your patience, your prayers, your abiding faith in God. Our staff is as eager as you are to have in-person services and events.
 
I also want to thank the members of our Pandemic Team for their guidance: Barry Beaty, Paula Bernander, Claudia DeMarco, Greg Ebel, Jane Anne Ferguson, Melanie Huibregtse (chair), Judy Lane, Jim Medlock, Bruce Ronda, Nancy Sturtevant, George Theodore, and Harmony Tucker.
 
Be well, be safe, and enjoy the spring!

Deep peace,

Welcome to The Fellowship Hall!
 
We’re glad you’re here! We care about your safety and appreciate your strict adherence to these guidelines…if they seem too restrictive to you, please opt to meet somewhere else.
 
At this point, only Plymouth fellowship groups, small-group ministries, and staff will meet. For the health of our staff, please don’t come into the office.
 
Only meet here if you can agree to these guidelines:

• I have made a reservation at plymouthucc.org/cal or with Barb Gregory in the church office. (barbara@plymouthucc.org)
• Our group has 10 or fewer people.
• I have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and have observed the waiting period following vaccination.
• I have none of these symptoms: headache, sore throat, fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, recent inability to taste or smell.
• I agree to wear a mask continually while I am on the church grounds.
• I agree to keep a minimum of six feet of physical distance between myself and others.
• I agree to use provided hand sanitizer.
• I agree to wipe down chairs with disinfectant.
• We will always open windows for ventilation and close them when we're done.

Need more cleaning supplies? Call staff at 970-482-9212

One of my favorite poems by Emily Dickinson begins:
 
I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
 
A central message about Easter is that sometimes what we assume to be impossible is not. New beginnings and “newness of life,” in Paul’s words, are possible. Six months ago, we may not have thought that a COVID vaccine was possible, but in January this year, things shifted. Three different vaccines are now approved for use in the US. All Coloradoans 16+ years old are eligible to be vaccinated. That is likely to be a game-changer for us!
 
What are the possibilities for us as individuals, as a church, as a wider community, nation, and world? We are being given a second chance at life…unlike the 2.85 million people who have died from COVID-19 around the world and the 555,000 people in the United States.
 
A few months ago, one of our members in her 20s, who was working for the Larimer County Health Department, was an early vaccine recipient, and at Coffee Hour one Sunday she said that she was aware of the privilege of having been vaccinated. That word struck me: privilege. We who have received the vaccine are privileged by dodging death one more time. We do have privilege…so what shall we do with it?
 
How can we take advantage of the second chance we’ve been given? What new beginnings do you see or envision sprouting in your life and in our common life as a congregation? Or as the late poet, Mary Oliver, wrote, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
 
You’ll be hearing more in the coming weeks from our awesome Strategic Planning Team about ways, including a Congregational Conversation on Sunday, April 11 at noon via Zoom.
 
Our Pandemic Team meets again this Wednesday, and I anticipate that we will have information for you soon on more occasions to see one another in person. We are keeping your safety and others’ safety first and foremost and using science (rather than wishful thinking) as the basis for our decisions.
 
We did have two wonderful in-person events last weekend: an outdoor Easter egg hunt (and games, including Pitch-the-Peeps-at-the-Pastor) and a drive-in parking lot service on Easter Sunday with clergy held ten feet aloft by construction scaffolding. Truly, engaging our kids, teen, and families on Saturday and seeing a host of you sitting in your cars on Sunday was one of the most energizing and uplifting experiences I’ve had in the last year.
 
May God help us dwell in possibility as we envision and act upon the privilege we’ve been given in this one wild and precious life.
 
Wishing you courage and newness of life!

I resonate with the words of Rev. Sarah Are, the poet in our Lenten devotional materials this spring, who writes in her Palm Sunday poem (on page 37 of the devotional book):

I wonder if Jesus could feel his heartbeat
In his throat, the way I do when I’m afraid.…

I wonder, because time has taught us
That it is not uncommon
For a peaceful protest
To start or end
With an unjust death.…

I want to hold what matters most with both hands.

I resonate with these words and use them to invite you to hold Holy Week in both your hands this year and in your heart as we revisit again the story of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. Time has taught us in the past year that peaceful protests are deeply connected with unjust deaths. That they may start peacefully and end in violence. That while we must band together in abiding by safety protocols to create herd immunity to a virus, the measures to combat this pandemic do not soften the anger festering under the surface of our social structure. Instead, isolation and fear exacerbate the dis-eases of racism, mental illness, gun violence and distrust of our neighbors.

That is why I want to hold Holy Week in both hands to experience and, perhaps, understand more deeply than ever that the unconditional love of God is tangible in the life, death and new life of Jesus of Nazareth. I want to open my heart to this Love that is God who abides with us in the depths of our pain and the heights of our joy. I invite you, along with all the Plymouth staff, to join me in holding Holy Week with both your hands. Even though we must stay socially distanced, Love will join our hearts through the stories and the music of this week.

Here are the highlights:

• Maundy Thursday Service, prerecorded and released at 7 pm, Thursday, April 1st.
• Good Friday Organ Meditation, prerecorded and released at Noon, April 2nd
• Good Friday Ecumenical Service, prerecorded and released at 7 pm, April 2nd
• Children’s Easter Egg Hunt, 10-noon, Saturday, April 3rd, Plymouth Lawn, please email Tricia Medlock to participate
• Easter Sunday Services
  • 8:00 am “Sunrise” Drive-in Parking Lot Service with Cinnamon Roll Pick-up (please register here - by April 1 for cinnamon rolls)
  • 10:00 am prerecorded Easter Service with Brass Quintet, Virtual Choir and Communion
  • 6:00 pm live Zoom service with Communion

Hope to “see” you during this holy and fateful week!

Blessings on the journey,

PS!! The celebration of Easter does not end on Easter day. It continues into the 50 days of the Easter season. Join with your faith community for “Plymouth Reads” in preparation for our first Visiting Scholar day of 2021, May 16th, with Wes Granberg-Michaelson, author of Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage. Books available in the church office (call to make sure Barb or another staff person is there), $10, cash or check! More info on book group discussions coming in the Thursday Overview.

Dear Plymouth Family,
 
Again, I write to you in the wake of another shooting in Colorado. And as I said in my sermon last Sunday, I will continue to be vocal about the need for sensible gun legislation in our nation.

Last night I was in a meeting with our Strategic Planning Team, one of whose members is a Public Defender, providing legal representation for people in a range of cases, including murder. Something she said really struck home: Many of the people who commit horrendous acts like the one at King Soopers in Boulder last night have severe mental illness and they do horrific things…and the availability of guns makes the fallout so much worse.

As a moral question, I wonder what it is in our society that causes so much mental distress (especially, it seems, among young White men)? What message is our culture sending to people that says violence and mayhem are the only answer? Where are the faith communities in all of this? Why are we a lone voice among faith communities for sensible gun laws?

From a spiritual perspective, I cry out, “How long, O Lord? How long?” What is it in the spiritual lives of Americans (who some claim are a Christian nation) that allows us to tolerate shootings again and again and again? What is NOT being said from the nation’s pulpits?

Columbine. Aurora. Colorado Springs. Thornton. Highlands Ranch. Boulder.

Friends, we in Colorado are at Ground Zero for public shootings. Let’s do something about it. Here are steps you can take:

1. Get involved with Plymouth’s partners at Mom’s Demand Action (part of Everytown for Gun Safety). You can sign up for their outdoor meet-up this coming Saturday. And you can contribute financially.
2. Help to reconvene our Plymouth efforts around reorganizing as we emerge from the pandemic…stay tuned for more.
3. Write to Senators Hickenlooper and Bennet and Representative Neguse imploring change now.
4. Pray now for an end to the culture of violence. Pray for consolation for the family of Officer Eric Talley and for those of the other victims. Pray for our two UCC congregations in Boulder: First Congregational and Community UCC, which is just up the same road as King Soopers. Pray for the shooter and the desperation that led him to this act.

This hits close to home for Jane Anne (who served Community UCC as an interim minister) and for me as a former resident of that neighborhood in Boulder.

In the coming week, many churches will hear the story of Jesus and the Empire’s myth of redemptive violence…that executing Jesus will make it all go away. You will hear about a triumphal parade that led to desertion, betrayal, sham trial, and crucifixion. That should speak loudly to every person who claims to follow Jesus that violence is not his way, nor should it be ours. And we will also hear the story that violence and death is never God’s final word.
 
 Deep peace and more action,

One of the most bewildering elements of prerecording the worship services is the nonlinear nature of the experience from our perspective. For example, we taped the interior portion of the Maundy Thursday service last Thursday. I will record the Prelude and Musical Meditation for that service today, four days later as I write. In addition, we have a weekly template of prerecording the following Sunday service on Wednesday and Thursday. As the music for the 6:00 p.m. Zoom service is now also prerecorded, that necessitates a weekly evening recording session to accommodate musicians’ schedules. Musical Offerings for the 10:00 a.m. service are typically recorded at night as well and sometimes weeks in advance to account for travel schedules and availability. This week, I am also recording the Good Friday Musical Meditation. Simultaneously, Anna Broskie is assembling the virtual choir anthem for the Easter morning Musical Offering, which is a time-consuming task. So, it is not unusual for me to tune in to Sunday worship and be completely surprised by the Prelude (“Oh, I remember playing that one!”)

Now, I do thrive in the abstract as part of my vocation, even unofficially living in my own time zone (approximately 15’ behind: HST— Heiskanen Standard Time!) And this writing is not meant to be a complaint either. One does what you must during these strange times to make it work—that’s it! But this dizzying experience does make you that much more long for the community and connection of in person worship.

I receive my first shot of Moderna on Thursday this week! Many of us in the Plymouth community and millions around the nation are fully vaccinated or soon will be. Isn’t that amazing?! While we all have our head down in being creative and undertaking the work at hand, it is nothing short of awesome to have an eye wide open to the return of physical connection in our church community. And without the assistance of those adept at technology (Anna, Dean Wallace, Stuart Yoshida, Jim Medlock, and others…thank you!!!), none of our online worship services would even be possible.

As a fan of Dr. Who and his/her time machine the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space, don’t you know!), I can’t help but feel as if myself and the staff are bouncing around through time but just a week or two into the past or future. I would prefer to just walk at this point—and wait. Soon, that will be the new norm.

Mark Heiskanen
Dir. of Music

Each morning we stand on the threshold of a new day with its possibilities for change. Some changes we celebrate. Others we mourn or regret. God is with us in each and every change.

Moses stood at a threshold of change as he gave his farewell address to the Hebrew people before sending them across the Jordan River into the land of promise. He led them for forty years, out of slavery in Egypt and through the wilderness pilgrimage. Yet, he could not go with them across the Jordan. At one hundred and twenty, he was on the threshold of death, and God gave the people a new leader, Joshua, for the new pilgrim journey. Change! At a very tough time.

Moses told the people that God would be with them as they encountered enemies in the new land. Don’t we often think of “change” as an enemy? I do…it can be jarring when I want to be comfortable, it can engender hard work when I think I am tired to the bone, it can stir up emotions I don’t want to feel. Yet change has also provided the threshold for the most life-giving events that have blessed me beyond measure. Not that I always recognize the blessings immediately. That can take a while.

Change also teaches me that I am not in control. I am not the Queen of the Universe that someone forgot to consult. (And would I really want all that responsibility anyway?!) I am a pilgrim on a journey through this life with the Holy One as my guide. I make choices, yes, however, my highest calling is to respond to the calling of God that may lead me into unknown territory, to thresholds that I did not expect.

As a congregation we have been called to face SO many changes over the last year. I know that has been exhausting and still is as we look for the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. We have also faced church staff changes. Three of our staff who were with us a year ago, Mark Lee, Mandy Hall and Yendra Tenzca, have answered God’s call to work and ministry in settings that may have surprised them as much as us. And now, we face another staff change with the departure of Carla Cain. I hope you join me in praying for Carla as she moves toward new ministry opportunities back in Iowa and give thanks for the many gifts in ministry that she gave Plymouth in her time here.

Our Leadership Council chose a theme for Plymouth this year that is telling, "Standing at the Threshold: The Pilgrim Journey Continues." Moses would have understood this theme when he addressed his people. I leave you with his words – adapted just a bit by me.

Be strong! Be fearless! Don't be afraid and don't be scared by your enemies, [by change], because the [Holy One] your God is the one who marches with you. He won't let you down, and [She] won't abandon you. (Deuteronomy 31:6 from the Common English Bible).

With you on the journey,

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,

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.

Worship is at the heart of our activity as a congregation…“It is our mission to worship God and to make God’s realm visible…” The problem during a pandemic is that worshiping remotely is vexing, even with the best technology available, because we are dependent upon the not-so-tender mercies of the internet and beta software. You’ve probably been part of a service when something technological has gone awry. I’ll spare you the litany of all that we’ve tried, but as recently as last Wednesday, we had craziness with our livestreaming camera immediately before the service. I’m grateful to Dean Wallace 😇 for all of the audio engineering and Jim Medlock 😇 and his videography team who have supported worship through all of these months. And I appreciate your patience as we non-broadcasters have attempted new ways to connect you with God and with one another.

And we’re still trying new approaches after consulting with the Board of Deacons! Beginning February 7, we will be launching a recorded video on Vimeo at 10 a.m. on Sunday. Why the shift? The short answer is that recording allows us to regroup if technology fails us, and it provides a more put-together experience. There are some big positives, too:

• We’ll be able to include recordings of our chancel choir and hand bells.
• Responsive prayers and hymns can be printed on-screen.
• Lay readers can come into the sanctuary and be recorded.
• If we want to use any sort of video, we can.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 17, and we’ll be hosting a Zoom-based service that evening, allowing you to see other worshipers. That will be the last Wednesday evening service for the time being. Midweek Vespers has had a dedicated, small following, and while the ministers and staff enjoy producing it, the appeal has been limited in our congregation. So, we’re trying something new: returning to our 6:00 p.m. service via Zoom on the first Sunday of Lent, February 21. There are some benefits here, too:

• We’ll have weekly communion with greater interactivity from the congregation.
• We can incorporate lay readers from their homes.
• Those who prefer more eclectic music styles have the 6:00 option.
• We’ll be able to have more interactive activities and discussion.

As we look toward warmer temperatures (not in February!) and the rates of Covid cases in the community, the Deacons, ministers, and staff will continue to consider additional possibilities like parking-lot services, brief outdoor communion, and outdoor worship. Balancing physical safety and intimate connection is a tough act, especially when some of us are receiving vaccine and some of us aren’t yet eligible, and young folks may not be until summer. I know you want to come back and see friends and worship in person…I do, too! But we won’t do that until it’s safe. Even then, it will be different. Coffee hour with large clusters of people, singing, communion in the sanctuary, kids and young families…we’re still likely to miss all these aspects of our communal life. I am grateful for your prayers for us in this tricky time and for your patience with the process.

Deep peace,