The Year of the Missing Harmonies
In living, worshiping, and being a church within the context of a historical year – a year, really, that feels Biblical in its proportion – we wonder how historians (in fact, how our children and grandchildren) will reflect on 2021. What names might they use, what words might they choose to describe it?
There are of course the obvious words that fill our media: COVID 19, Global Pandemic Year Two, Delta Surge, the omnipresent Omicron variant. Virtual learning, virtual worship, virtual love, virtual disconnection. Political polarization that in this country felt almost tribal. Anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, a war on science and truth. Another sacrificed life and soul for driving or jogging or living while black or brown. All of this straining our mental health, social cohesion, sobriety, our families and children. It was the year of extreme weather, heat emergencies in the temperate Pacific Northwest. Life threatening cold. Historical flooding. The year we ran out of time, it seemed, to fool ourselves into thinking that the impacts of Climate Change and Global Warming were somewhere in the distant future.
Each of these intersected deeply with the life of First Congregational – impacting each of our members, families, and friends for sure. But the church itself bore the weight of this history. 2021 was existential.
So, I hope it’s not trivializing if we also call 2021 the Year of the Missing Harmonies. Or the year we missed harmonizing.
What I mean is: Though God was with us. Though we were with each other (in any way we could be and at least virtually). Though we were church together. Yet we had to learn how to be church together within the exile of a Pandemic. We were church without joining together in song, without the beautiful resonance in the diversity of our congregation, the layers of our voices, hearts and minds we weave together when we join in body and simply – sing. We missed standing together holding our hymnals and belting out some classic spiritual together. Whether we sing on or off key. We missed the choir of our faith community – that is, we missed our actual choirs, and we missed the choir that is simply our gathering. The layered harmony of our lives when we gather. The sound of our children as backdrop and harmonizing with a sermon. The buzz and hum of the social hall. The chance for unexpected, unscheduled, non-Zoom, unmasked and unscripted connection. The spiritual care that comes simply from an unmasked smile, a passing word of encouragement. The hugs and tears and laughter and joys and sorrows that in some ways can only be shared in person.
And still we were church.
It almost goes without saying that we began the year weary of virtual worship. It was a weight and a strain on us all. But perhaps it was more of a weight and a strain on our amazing staff because of what they held and carried for all of us. And still they preached into that camera and cared for us, and we cared for each other, and we gathered. And we were church. When Pastor David transitioned to Davi – the first transgender queer pastor in our congregation or our conference, we were church, and we learned to use they/them pronouns. And Davi continued their divinely inspired preaching, in person or online. We looked for ways to say goodbye to our beloved and longtime Minister of Faith Formation, Sharry Nyberg – wouldn’t you know we timed her celebration in June in tandem with our first tentative attempt at in person worship. Outdoors, we decided, not realizing that this would coincide with a strange, rare extreme heat emergency. So, we took a breath and pivoted. We moved indoors and propped open the windows and researched ventilation. And still we were church. Even when the Delta Variant swept in and moved us online six weeks later. Still, we were church.
Despite missing our harmonies, it was the year Membership Board taught us the concept of extravagant welcome – even if we mostly had to be extravagantly welcoming via Zoom. It was the year the Trustees launched their Quest to build a major maintenance reserve for the physical body of our church facility, which is waiting patiently for our full return. It was the year Mission and Justice caught fire, guiding, and inspiring our way deeper into environmental, economic, and racial justice. It was the year Pastor Sharon and the church were awarded a Lilly Sabbatical grant for next spring and summer, this opportunity for spiritual re-awakening and rejuvenation, this chance to explore our faith stories, our spiritual roots, our deep, historical journey with God.
It was a year we invested in our first ever Worship Tech Coordinator, to help us un-tap and uncover the latent power of connecting and worshipping online in our virtual exile. Despite our church demographics that skews to the senior, we have learned and embraced so much technology this year, and the church is well perched to use the power of technology to forward our mission, to touch new lives, inspire deeper faith, and do God’s work in our community and in this crazy world (and perhaps engage our youthful tech-savvy members and friends in all new ways).
And despite the virtual exile, we shared music. We think of the deeply moving and soulful spirituals and blues that arose out of the brutal history of slaves so far from home -- how could we keep from singing? In fact, the pain of exile compels us to sing all the louder. Some of us learned to record, to create and share recorded music – awkwardly at first, true, for most of us, but slowly we built back in harmonies across the virtual distance. Then, just before Christmas, we allowed ourselves to hum again in church and behind masks – for now, a safer version of harmonies. And we gave the nod to up to four people singing at once in our sanctuary – masked of course, distanced. But slowly we began to reclaim the missing layers. Some of our voices may be rusty, but still we sing, hum, re-connect. We pine for that harmony, as we pine for each other through the exile of this Pandemic.
The parent in me thinks, too, of the Whos in Whoville who gather to sing “Welcome Christmas” after the Grinch steals all their presents. Perhaps in time we, like a Pandemic-harassed Grinch, will look down on 2021 and wonder, “maybe there is something more to Christmas (and church) than (in person) … presence.”
Of course, we do not know what 2022 will bring, what names it will be called, who we might say goodbye to, to whom hello, what vision will be formed and fulfilled, who and what layers, when and what harmonies we will make. But we are, still, God’s church. And we’re still singing.
Bill Henkel, Moderator
