Dear Ones,

“Summertime… and the livin’ is …”
 
The lyric tells us that the livin’ is easy in summertime. This was certainly not the case last summer, as the pandemic raged across the world. With roughly half the adult population in the U.S. now vaccinated, more and more of us are looking forward to hosting guests in our homes and/or traveling to see people we’ve been away from for far too long.
 
As we move back to in person worship, we’re all working with incomplete – and sometimes contradictory – information. As I spoke to Chris Raskind this morning, for example, the idea of singing together came up.
 
The current guidance on singing is that it’s still too soon to return to congregational singing the way we have in the past. So, we’re working on creative ways to enjoy music without singing. Maybe we’ll invite you to hum. Maybe we’ll have some more videos. Maybe we’ll invite you to use some hand gestures with the lyrics. We invite you to play with us, as we work on this!
 
Play! Yes, play. Play is the theme for June, and given that we’re moving back into the Sanctuary, and working on figuring out how to livestream from there, and moving into the summer when a number of us are gone at least part of the time… We’re going to need to approach everything with a sense of humor and play!
 
There will be some missed pitches, some bobbled catches, and we will just have to muddle through as best we can. At least we’ll be in good company!
 
I am really looking forward to seeing you all in person again.
Be well, and stay safe everyone!

Blessings,
Rev. Lori Hlaban