Everything’s different. Everything’s the same. Things are constantly changing, improving, regressing. COVID changes everything and nothing. Now we’re at least coming back together, not only at church but with family and friends – and it’s not easy.  We didn’t like being apart and being isolated, but stories every day remind us that we are still tired, abraded, and unused to even the simplest pleasures – getting ice cream, going out to eat, gathering with friends. Though there is a flow to life, sometimes – like now – the current isn’t a simple flow, it feels more like a whirlpool that’s hard to free ourselves from. Church can help.

This Sunday we’ll take some time to check in with ourselves, center, focus on how to stay on our path, being the people we believe in being, make room for celebration and hope along with lamentation and course-correcting – with intentionality, patience, gladness for all that blesses us. Life is still here for us, and we are here for it, together.