This poem by Unitarian Universalist minister Lynn Ungar has been passed around via internet, appeared on Facebook and was included in Day One of the Abbey of the Arts Novena For Times of Unraveling. It is well worth reading if you have not yet seen it.

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

Rev. Lynn Ungar serves the Church of the Larger Fellowship, a church without walls that serves people around the globe with resources founded in Unitarian Universalist principles and sources of faith.

My thanks to her for these words and for her calming and insightful presence now and always.