Dear WUU Community,
Spring is here! The daffodils and forsythia are in full bloom, and the dogwood buds peeping out. On my porch, the pot of oregano I thought had died over the winter is already springing up green and fresh again. Each year the spring always seems like a miracle, but maybe never more so than this year when life has been so hard and sad and lonely. May it gladden your heart as it does mine.
I’m happy to share some good personal news with you too: since Virginia moved to classify clergy as eligible for the Covid vaccine as part of group 1B, I was able to get my first vaccine shot a few days ago, with the second one to follow soon. For the time being, I will continue to limit my interactions with congregants to outdoors-only, at least until the scientific consensus is in about whether vaccinated people can still transmit the virus to others. I take your safety very seriously and don’t want to do anything that could jeopardize your health.
But still, with the nationwide vaccination campaign moving more quickly than I had ever expected, these days of masking and distancing will not last forever. We will be able to safely gather again as a community—we just need to hang on a little longer until it is truly safe for all.
Many of you have asked me about when I think that time might be. I wish I knew!
What I can tell you is that your WUU Board is working hard to develop a set of public health metrics we can use to know when it’s safe to regather in person. Check out https://covidactnow.org/ to get a flavor for what your board is looking at. Right now, things are much better than they were over the winter, but our area is still at high risk for another outbreak. So it’ll be some time yet before we can in good conscience invite you to return to our sanctuary on Sunday mornings. We want to do this right and not put you or anyone else in the community at risk.
That said, with the warm weather here, things are looking up for outdoor get-togethers. Your WUU Board has authorized groups of up to 25 to gather outdoors on campus, with precautions of course. This, we can do. If you have any questions about how to set up a safe outdoor gathering, please reach out to me or your board president, Ariel BenYishay.
And let me add a most sincere thank-you to each and every one of you for your understanding, your grace, and your good humor in the face of so much uncertainty. In this month of April, our congregational theme is Becoming. How apt for this season of not-yet-but-soon, we hope! May the spring blossoms be harbingers of better things on the way, for our community and our world.
With gratitude and love,
Rev. Laura