We persevere. This year has been tough in such varied ways, yet we sojourn on. As Rev. Alice reminded us in our September 20 service titled “Beguiled by Beauty,” “We’ll get through this together, with outstretched arms and helping hands.”
Hurricane Sally is the latest challenge for our church community. The slow-moving Category 2 storm blew furious-ly, dumped water, and toppled trees and power lines along the Gulf Coast. UUCP members, friends, and neighbors experienced downed trees and rising waters causing loss of power and internet and damage to homes and yards. Part of a tree and branches also litter the church property, but the building and our signs are fine.
By the time you read this column, I expect that we will mostly have returned to pre-Sally operations and be facing other things. However, let us reflect on the effort it takes to get back to “normal,” a beautiful, wondrous effort that draws on our interdependence. Within hours of the storm making landfall, members were checking on one another. Board members and Cluster Group Leaders divided up our Members’ and Friends’ Directory and reached out to each household to check on them and make note of any emergent needs that we could address. Angels among us delivered generators, water, and ice and cleaned up debris.
This natural disaster underscores the importance of our church community and the processes we have for sharing information and checking on one another. We have utilized Cluster Groups for years. The Cluster Group is a type of phone tree. Groups are assigned geographically and denoted with a letter of the alphabet. A volunteer leader or leaders from the group call each household to relay important news or to gather information such as how the person is doing. Being a Cluster Group Leader is an important but manageable task for someone who doesn’t mind talking on the phone. (We are in need of more leaders, so please talk to Nancy Hagman if you’re interested.) With Sally, there were definite hiccups related to the power outages and connectivity problems, yet the system enabled us to marshal our resources to assess our congregants’ well-being, which is the embodiment of beloved community.
Before Hurricane Sally, the Board was finalizing a survey on recongregating. You should have received the survey (or very soon will) by email or by U.S. mail if you don’t use email. The survey will assist us in determining our pri-orities. The Board and church leadership continue to consider how to move forward during the COVID-19 pandem-ic. Until a vaccine is safely developed, tested, and widely administered, gathering in person is risky.
The survey info also may be used in part for updating the UUCP Long-Range Plan and goals for our next five years. Enhancing our online presence as we have done during COVID, improving our air circulation system in the build-ing, and addressing racism at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels are all examples of goals that we have undertaken or contemplated and that we may include in our Long-Range Plan for the coming years. Stay tuned for invitations to share your thoughts and to participate in the visioning and planning process. Your ideas, your compassion, and your energy for our UUCP community and for our interconnected web of life are welcome and needed.
Until next time,
Lauren Anzaldo Board President