I am fully vaccinated, but last Saturday night you would have found me sitting outside at McMenamins Zeus Cafe with a mask on. Our family has decided that we will wear our masks when we are at an outdoor restaurant until the server brings our food. It’s a mark of respect. The waitstaff don’t know if we are vaccinated, and in fact our daughter just was able to get her first shot. It doesn’t cost us much to wear our mask for the time it takes to order and get our food. When we’re done eating we put our masks back on as the staff clears the table and we pay.
We have chosen as a church to move more slowly than others, to keep our mask on, to wait to reopen in person. This is because we know that our actions are a tangible way for us to love our neighbors. We know that God is with us and that while we miss gathering in person for worship our faith is much more than an hour on Sunday mornings. As the rules change and the CDC issues new guidance we continue to move not at the pace of the world, but at the pace of the church. We will continue to sacrifice hugs and handshakes. We will hum along to hymns in the sanctuary. We will wear our masks while we are gathered. For there are those among us who cannot get vaccinated. There are those among us with immunodeficiencies who decreased protection from the vaccine. And there are those in our neighborhood, our wider circles, our community who need us to sacrifice a little longer so that they might be safe.
We are the people of the parish, who put God’s call to love our neighbors, to sacrifice some of our own desires and preferences, so that we might live out God’s dream for us all.
- Eilidh
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