Dear friends, As promised, I am writing to you with a followup after our church council meeting this Saturday morning. Our conversations were full and marked by the anguish we all feel as we try to listen to both our deep desire to be together, especially at a time such as this, and as we try to pay attention to the known nature of this particular virus — highly infectious and causing severe distress which requires hospitalization in approximately 15% of cases. (See “Simple Math Offers Alarming Answers.”)
After an hour and a half of conversation, the church council is recommending the following as policy until the situation with the pandemic changes enough to warrant reconsideration.
1) We have decided to cancel tomorrow morning’s worship service. We reached this conclusion for two reasons: a) The pandemic only just started in the US and the east coast is one of two areas in the United States showing the same, alarming, exponential growth of confirmed cases as in China, Italy and Spain (See Rachel Maddow interview with Dr. David Ho). If indeed this is the case, we are all better served, early on, not to meet and to avoid meeting in groups. b) The kind of worship we are envisioning might happen going forward requires some extra time to prepare and to think through.
2) We will hold worship again starting next week (3/22) . In the meantime, we will be exploring ways for us to connect, through the online world, with those of us who cannot worship because of illness, or underlying health conditions (including being a caretaker of a loved one with underlying health issues. The most agonizing thing about this whole conversation is the recognition that we need each other — we need to be in community and in worship, we need to sing and we need to be together in prayer — and that being together is risky and risks the efforts of the greater good to limit the explosive spread of Covid-19.
3) In keeping with recommendations from the University of Vermont Medical Center and their own policy, all meetings and worship services at the church will be limited to 25 or fewer people. If practical, we keep those meetings that are more than 2 individuals in the sanctuary, thus limiting the amount of cleaning we have to do. After each use of the sanctuary, it will be thoroughly cleaned — preferably an initial cleaning by the people using the space and once a week by our janitors.
Along with that policy, we reiterate the absolute need for self-monitoring and common-sense hygiene practices. If you are coughing, sneezing, have a temperature or feel otherwise ill, it is in the best interest of the common good that you stay home.
There are several areas of our conversation about which we are clear. We will take this seriously and be responsible. We will continue to care for each other. Our lines of communication, phone, text, email are always open. No one of the staff is ever going to be asked to work while feeling sick nor will sickness be a cause for any action from the church but support. The church council will be part of the conversation, likely using technology, like Zoom. I will be in touch with you through emails like these and text messages (particularly as announcements might relate to worship.) These are obvious and we commit to them.
What is less clear are things like: Shall we worship out-of-doors? What kind of technological platform shall we use to broadcast worship? How shall we actually limit worship attendance to 25 people? We will have ideas to try, if not outright answers by the end of next week.
Thank you so much for your expressions of support for me, personally, and your concern for us communally. None of us asked for this. All of us have to deal with it. Dealing with it proactively makes good sense.
Last week (March 9 – 10) was the Jewish celebration of Purim. That day is set aside as a commemoration of Queen Esther and her story is relevant. Esther became the queen when Queen Vashti was executed by her king. Esther was then picked out of a lineup in a beauty pageant! Esther was put there surreptitiously and the king did not know she was a Jew. When the decree came down from the prime minister that all Jews should be killed, Esther’s servant, Mordecai, was distraught. But there was nothing he could do, because no one could only talk to the king except by invitation, on pain of death. Neither he nor Esther had had an audience with the King in a month. His counsel to her was the famous line, “Do not think that in the King’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. But if you keep silent at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for such a time as this.” Esther’ story is memorialized in Purim for her acts of bravery in recognizing that she had to respond and for saving the Jews as a result. We are here, at a time such as this, to be a positive community, modeling responsible care for each other. Please do not deal with issues of loneliness or fear alone. You may call me at any time. Likewise, please remember that we have neighbors for whom a phone call might be a little bit of a life-line.
You, my friends, are the lights of the world. And I wish you all peace.
Peter