There’s a heaviness on my heart this morning as I process what it means that over 200,000 have now died from this pandemic. That number got stuck in my head last night and I tried to think of what more to say beyond that dreadful number. 200,000. Much has been said about it. We can read the news articles about this number and they will quickly outline their reasons for why this number and they will tie this number into arguments about what went wrong and what could have been and what still could be. And all of that is important work.

It’s also important work to simply say the number. Perhaps to say the names of some among that number. I think of John Prine, one of my favorite singer songwriters who died early on from COVID-19. His music got me through some of the weight of the early months of this time. I played it on the Bluetooth speaker early in the morning while screening employees in the basement.

It’s important work to not let this number be an abstraction – not just so that we can humanize the dead, but so that we can humanize our own processes, our grief in the ongoing struggle to come through to the other side of this pandemic. Instead of reading the articles and arguments, last night I looked for a prayer. And I found one from Jewish liturgist and poet, Alden Solovey:

God of consolation,
Surely you count in heaven,
Just as we count here on earth,
In shock and in sorrow,
The souls sent back to You,
One-by-one,
The dead from the COVID pandemic,
As the ones become tens,
The tens become hundreds,
The hundreds become thousands,
The thousands become ten-thousands
And then hundred-thousands,
Each soul, a heartbreak,
Each soul, a life denied.

God of wisdom,
Surely in the halls of divine justice
You are assembling the courts,
Calling witnesses to testify,
To proclaim
The compassion of some
And the callousness of others
As we’ve struggled to cope.
The souls taken too soon,
Whose funerals were lonely,
Who didn’t need to die,
Who died alone,
Will tell their stories
When You judge
Our triumphs
And our failures
In these hours of need.

God of healing, an end to this pandemic,
And all illness and disease.
Bless those who stand in service to humanity.
Bless those who grieve.
Bless the dead,
So that their souls are bound up in the bond of life eternal.
And grant those still afflicted
With disease or trauma
A completed and lasting healing,
One-by-one,
Until suffering ceases,
And we can stop counting the dead,
In heaven And on earth.

And after I read that prayer a few times, I found a song came into my awareness. This was a song that I had found and used for our August Community Memorial service. It’s called “God Give Us Life” – the first line is “God give us life when all around spells death…” And it’s a beautiful little song that I offer to you this morning for your grief, for your process.

I encourage you to attend to your spirit in all of this – take a break from the news and doom scrolling and notice the need for stillness, for prayer or song or ritual of remembrance to honor the ongoing experience of loss – even as you also honor the love that keeps on loving in you and through you as you keep on going, each new day. Because we know that the loss we feel is the ache of love alive and well in us. Nurture that love.

– Rev. Joel Eaton

Here is a short piece from forest bathing….I hope you enjoy Woodstock VT.

– Rev. Kimberly Wootan

The first nights that bring frost always sober me up somehow.  The cold nights, the need for sweaters and sweatshirts, the falling leaves, and the shiny glimmer of frost on the fields are indicative of our beloved New England Fall. But we are human and generally speaking we don’t love change and every fall we must get ready for the leaves to fall and a pulling in and browning of all things green….. such loss that our hearts ache. Fires and friends and good work will keep our souls warm and give us courage for the days ahead. But we are know that winter is coming, creation tells us that death is around the corner and we must make the best of our short time here on this planet.

Be good to each other.
Be good for your neighbor.
Be good for the world.
Be good to yourself.
It is needed.
You are needed.

A poem for your musing:

A Sunset of the City

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
And night is night.

It is a real chill out,
The genuine thing.
I am not deceived,
I do not think it is still summer
Because sun stays and birds continue to sing.

It is summer-gone that I see, it is summer-gone.
The sweet flowers in drying and dying down,
The grasses forgetting their blaze and consenting to brown.

It is a real chill out. The fall crisp comes.
I am aware there is winter to heed.
There is no warm house
That is fitted with my need.
I am cold in this cold house this house
Whose washed echoes are tremulous down lost halls.
I am a woman, and dusty, standing among new affairs.
I am a woman who hurries through her prayers.

Tin intimations of a quiet core to be my
Desert and my dear relief
Come: there shall be such islanding from grief,
And small communion with the master shore.

Blessings on your day,

Michelle

Today my heart is heavy with worry about my church members and friends who on top of everything else going on in the world are dealing with the wild fires in California and Oregon. So I turn to Tolkien and remember:

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

The world is indeed full of uncertainty but it is also full of love and caring. I am reminded of the beauty lost in the landscape and the help, with warmth and compassion that is being put into action. When things fall apart people show up, with masks for breathing, food, a place to rest, and prayers.

While we on the East Coast have our own worries, there is still much that is fair. The leaves are beginning to paint the landscape with color, the nights are cool and refreshing, and in the morning a new day starts full of possibilities and love. People say “hi” as I walk the dog in the morning. Neighbors are still months later checking in with each other.

So for today the practice can be; say a prayer for the world, notice the beauty and share your love and compassion.

– Rev. Kimberly Wootan

So I had one of those mornings this morning. Everything went grand with my ritual/routine with the dogs, my clothes were ironed, and I had the band width to make breakfast and coffee and I left with a kiss from my beloved. Then everything went to hell… dropping off the dogs my coffee cup (still full of lovely iced coffee) spilled all over the passenger side floor and on top of my bag (which of course was open). Then as I pulled away from dropping the dogs off, I looked down to see left over greenie residue (dog treat) all over my shirt from the puppy. Oiy.

So needless to say I had to take a deep breath. I got more coffee when I got in today. Took another deep breath and laughed at myself a bit.

Monday, Monday.

So here is my prayer for today:

Matthew 18:15-20

A recording of this week’s Word Working broadcast, 11 am on Channel 919, Betty Strong and Rev. Joel Eaton, hosts. You can download this week’s Word Working handout here.

Today is September 11, nineteen years after the day that lives on as deep wound in our nation’s life. We can all remember where we were when we saw the news or saw the faces of those we love beginning to process the shock. It was a time of destruction and disaster, of innocent lives lost, both victims and helpers trying to save the victims. And this tragedy lives on in our memory: “painful to remember but impossible to forget.”

And so today we remember and honor the people – for some of us they were names and stories of people we felt deeply connected to but never knew, for others of us they were friends or family. We remember and honor the people who we lost 19 years ago. Each us was affected in our own way by the events of that day and each of us have been impacted differently by the aftermath, the road  of recovery and healing that we as individuals and as a nation have been on since. We also remember the first responders, the firefighters, police, EMTs, and the nurses and aids and staff in hospitals caring for the wounded. We remember the helpers and we feel deeply their work as we go today into our work here, in the midst of a very different but also painful disaster.

We who are wearied from this pandemic, and all that has been heaped on to it the last six months – civil unrest, hurricane and tornado, wildfire and violence; we who are in the middle of another time that will for our future selves be painful to remember and impossible to forget: we stare directly at burning buildings, at news headlines of COVID deaths, at another story of innocent lives lost, or wildfires, and can become enervated and despair.

Fred Rogers gave us an enduring bit of advice for ourselves and our children in the midst of disaster: don’t just see the whole in the world that has opened up, but widen the angle of your lens and see the menders, the healers, “the helpers” as he put it in one of his last TV appearances before he passed:

“You know, my mother used to say, a long time ago, whenever there would be any real catastrophe that was on the movies or on the air, she would say ‘always look for the helpers. There will always be helpers.’ Ya know, just on the sidelines. That’s why I believe if news programs would just make a conscious effort of showing rescue teams, of showing medical people– anybody who is coming into a place of a tragedy, to be sure to include that. Because if you look for the helpers, you’ll know that there’s hope.”

Fred Rogers

This quote was circulated a lot after subsequent disasters and once again when we entered into this time of COVID-19. And it remains important as a reminder to us:
there is not just illness and death, disaster and uncertainty, and the fear and grief they evoke. There are also helping hands, healing intentions. There are staff bucket brigading lunch trays up the stairwells to make sure hungry residents get their food and no one gets trapped on the elevator!

If we remember that healing always comes in us and in our communities (though it takes time), if we remember that helping energy always comes forth after the pain and trauma, we can rise in the energy of hope, just for today. To be a part of that work once again: the mending that comes after the tear.

May you be well and supported today, and may the blessing of God or all that sustains you keep you safe, grant you peace and fill you with all that you need, just for today. Amen.

– Rev. Joel Eaton

I am sitting in my darkened office, thinking about the spiritual discussion we were having on channel 919 about rituals. I talked about the rituals that I have created with having a new puppy in my home. We talked about how routine can become ritual when we open to the sacred in our embodied living of our lives and awakening to the good that is alive in our moments. I believe that simple ritual is a primary way to build in awareness and resiliency into our days. Life with a puppy is challenging, a pain if you take that view, but I have made ritual of my mornings with the puppy by slowing down, observing her delight in toys, food and exploration. It helps to ground me into the moment of now. I can laugh and smile at the simple new things she brings. She makes my heart swell up with love and I am aware again of the unconditional love this little creature brings. So though I am getting less sleep, I have more sacred because of this fluff ball.

May you spend time creating rituals out of your routines that you allow the good and the meaningful to flow through your days.

– Rev. Michelle DeCoste