January 8, 2022
Dear friends in Christ,
I had occasion this week to go back and read the Window newsletters from all of 2020. I was looking for information for Carolynn Luby, Trinity’s Archivist, and I found most of what she needed to keep accurate records of Trinity’s worship and other activities. What I ALSO found was an unexpected message of hope for myself, and for this community. Reading the Clergy Reflections Christopher and I wrote throughout that first pandemic year, as well as news about how you all were reaching out to each other with “virtual peace,” notes, phone calls, our reading groups, pre-recorded services, photographs of the church, What I Love About Trinity messages, outreach activities, and more; I was struck by how well we have weathered this challenging time together. Really! Trinity is a community of faith and hope, care and love for this place and for one another. It was helpful to be reminded that although we are all tired of the ongoing, constantly changing nature of these Covid days, we are grounded in faith in Christ and care for the world. This week, when I read Amanda Gorman’s new poem “New Day’s Lyric” it resonated with this story of Trinity through the pandemic:
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
I believe as we enter 2022, with all that is in store for us, we have been readied by the experiences of the past two years! We mend when we mourn those we’ve lost, the things that are past. We tend to our new needs, the needs of the world, the new ways we worship and gather. Although we feel battered, many of you have shared how you have grown, reconnected, learned new technologies, new recipes, new ideas. We have indeed been readied by what we were not anticipating, what we were not ready for. So now we go forward; a Christmas people; a people who know the Light of the Incarnation, people who walk the way of the Cross, looking for Resurrection. Looking forward not backwards. Tomorrow we will reaffirm our Baptismal Vows during the 8 am and 10 am services. May those promises guide each of us in this new year.
Blessings,
Nancy+
Full text of the poem:
"New Day's Lyric" by Amanda Gorman (2022)
May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
Steadily we vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.
This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.
What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.
Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.
We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.