Pandemic
​by the Rev. Lynn Unger

Sing While Washing Your Hands 
adapted by Mike Phoenix

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath--
the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love--
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.

3/11/20

untitled by ​Lee Allison Paczulla

blessed are the elderly, and the immunosuppressed
blessed are the fearful, the anxious and irritable
blessed are the ones who use humor to get by
the ones who could use a vacation anyway
the ones who fear for their life
blessed are the ones who are sick of it:
all the flawed logic, the security theater
blessed are the ones who cry out “this is why we need a safety net! a kinder society! a new world!”
blessed are the health care workers, the administrators catching heat for every decision, the messengers with no power over the message
blessed are the sad, and the lonely
blessed are the healthy and the sick,
the well and the unwell
blessed are all of us just trying to do our best
blessed are those who stay kind and clear, who keep our eyes open to each other
blessed is our neighbor
blessed are we all
blessed are we all
blessed are we all.

(Image above suggest by Martha House,
​recreated by Rev. Matthew)

Come, scrub your hands with me
Come, scrub your hands with me
​Come, scrub your hands with me
That we might save humankind,
And I'll bring you soap,
When soap is hard to find
And we'll sing a song of health
And keep the damned germs confined.

​from "Come, Sing a Song With Me"

on a day of social distancing
​by Rev. Theresa Ines Soto

she wanted to know if
I understood how important the event was.
and I looked at my hands, palms up, for a second.
I thought about the saliva pooling
behind my bottom teeth.
droplet transmission
and rulers—three feet, six feet.
six is the radius of transmission.
I want you to be the number of feet away
that keeps us alive
as many of us as possible.
last week, I sat in the doorway and
squirted people’s hands with sanitizer
as they dispersed. reflections of the divine
and vectors.
pandemic sacrament
next week, all the sanitizer may be gone.
your friends getting treated in a hospital hallway.
doctors wearing diapers, collapsing, sometimes dying.
When I ask you to stay home
to stop the social spread of COVID-19,
I still know that you are strong and
beautiful and brave.
I know that you have taught yourself to
understand that love is an action.
but, today, beloved, today, love is an
inaction—of stopping, of staying, of
holding, not hands, but hearts.
of holding the space between us, not only
as a buffer, but also as holy.
there is so much we don’t know about
the tiny parasite taking over cells,
reproducing at an alarmingly rapid rate.
I know more about you; that your insistence
on business as usual maybe be tinged with
other things, but is mostly dedication.
you must now dedicate yourself to the survival
of this community in the painstaking way of
an artist painting on a grain of rice.
I do know how important
your life is, thrown together
with ours.
we are a fragile masterpiece.
(the vulnerable age was
lowered to 50 yesterday.)
please stay home.

Blessing in the Chaos
To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,
that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.
Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.
— Rev. Jan Richardson,
​United Methodist Minister