RE-Flections
from Beryl Aschenberg, Director of Religious Education

Time has new perspective these days, doesn’t it, Friends? Now, each hour seems to bring the need for discernment. What we know at the time of this writing is that in addition to going “virtual” with our Sunday Services, our Sunday Morning Religious Education classes are being postponed until safer times. As are all Follen gatherings larger than 10 people. So FUUY will not be meeting for time being, nor will OWL nor will Coming of Age groups gather in person.

The message that I want to convey right now is “Stay away AND stay connected.”

Our online Worship will be Multigenerational this Sunday, and hopefully into the future as well. Get your family together to participate this Sunday, and connect with your beloved Follen Community. The RE Action team is working to create resources for spiritual sustenance within our community, the Youth Advisory Team will have a virtual meeting to determine ways for FUUY youth to connect, and I’ll be communicating with COA and OWL advisors to see how we might offer support to our young people during this time of rapid change and anxiety.  In the meantime, I offer you this beautiful poem written by UU Minister, Lynn Unger:

Pandemic

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.

–Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

In faith, with love,
Beryl

PS  Claire and I are receiving offers of assistance, and will be sharing those as we can. For instance, Follen Member and educator Tammy Mulligan has shared this link: https://teachersbooksreaders.com/  Look for her reading the book “One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of Gambia.”