Z-Notes, 10/1/20
I’m out and about again!! Hoot! Hoot! I had a mother who taught my siblings and me not to think too highly of ourselves, so I am way more likely to berate myself than to reach over my scapula and pat my trapezius. However, I’m proud of the way I endured my seclusion. Now, a whole lot of the time felt rather normal as I spend lots of time by myself, anyway. I fretted a bit about the additional alone hours. However, I had a lot of work to accomplish and no one to grump about the PCs on the dining table. I do not intend to take up a hermitic lifestyle. We’re still distancing, but I am happy that I can again see the real whites of some eyes.
Several projects will consume my time this month, some of which I wrote about in the October Newsletter that you should receive about now. We’ve had to step up the speed of some staff replacements, though I am only a smallish cog in that ecclesiastical machinery. Part of the interim task includes taking a look at present staffing models and imagining how to accomplish our work differently. As bittersweet as retirements and resignations are, new opportunities pop up where we can think creatively about how we will move forward together. One never knows for sure, but we are not expecting any more staff departures for a while.
Program staff met last Monday to chart out what the Advent and Christmas seasons will look like this year. Work has begun on that project but is far from finalized. December once seemed so far away; and we hoped that “normal” could be used to describe how life was proceeding. NOT! We are dreaming about ways our still-disrupted life together can pluck as many of those “normal” heartstrings as possible. We will succeed…to some extent. Some of us will be less unhappy than others of us; but none of us rejoices in the acceptance of how 2020 will end, either at Third Church or in our world. God’s Spirit, the glory of this portion of God’s story of redemption, and the luscious memories we carry—not to mention the goodies we will STILL prepare and devour—will carry us along our way. But wait, it’s only October!
We’ve pared our Theologian in Residence Weekend to the bare minimum of activities. The Rev. Alex McNeill, director of More Light Presbyterians and our denoted theologian, will only be in virtual residence. Co-sponsored by other churches and Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, he will address the theme, Ministry Beyond the Binary and preach a sermon this Sunday entitled Giving Up? I am expecting the weekend (and next Monday) to be rich and rewarding. I hope you will click on the connectional links and share in the experience.
Blessings!
Pastor Zomermaand
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585-271-6513, ext. 105; 618-606-1053 (after hours; emergencies)