Hansen Wendlandt, Nederland. We’re all figuring this out as we go. From impromptu restaurant take-out widows to ubiquitous Zoom meetings, from trying to meet anxious anger with patience to finding appropriate ways to be in nature – there are so many new strategies for life and so many opportunities to shape a better world for when the pandemic subsides.

  Like many non-profits, Nederland Community Church is doing our best in this crisis, to find ways to keep meeting our mission, namely, to embody some light for our little corner of the world. For instance, we recently secured a disaster assistance grant that will do three things: keep our Community Advocate (nedadvocate@gmail.com) working for two more months, double our fund to help neighbors with small financial needs, and increase a public health response for the upcoming summer homeless campers. Some of us who have weathered this quarantine fine so far, might need help come May or June. Please do reach out, to us or the many other great agencies at work in the mountains.

  Also, we’ve moved all of our ministry online. Who knew we had staff and volunteers with all the technological skills that Pastor Hansen definitely does not have!?! Worship comes ‘live’ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m., and stays uploaded forever at our website (www.nederlandcpc.org), or video channel (www.youtube.com/hansenwendlandt), or social media (www.facebook.com/nederlandcpc). If you’re new to our services, you can check us out, coffee in hand, slippers in toe, no lighting coming down on your head. And you can mute the preacher anytime you want!

  We’re also soon going to start up on Zoom our Book Club, Bible Study, and Men’s and Women’s Groups. (The last two are really just a good excuse to drink a coffee or beer together, so we can be a little closer to each other’s lives). Anyone is invited. The details will be on our website and Facebook, after we work out the kinks, but reach out (ncpcpastor@gmail.com) to make sure you get an invite.

  As well, whether you need any direct help, or have any desire to take part in our open faith community, we’re encouraging everyone to take some time to ground yourselves in the peaceful gestures and postures of a deeper, more abundant life. Care for your own heart and that of your neighbors. Wear your face masks to be in solidarity for those who are more vulnerable. Consider giving blood or platelets at Vitalant in Boulder. Donate a meal to hospital workers.

  Or, now that the great toilet paper drought is over, the one item in shortest supply right now is probably kindness. Share that with workers at the grocery, folks at call centers, our friends at the transfer station, maybe even the flatlanders who don’t quite know what they’re doing up here. Send a note of gratitude to the people who are still working hard to keep our world going, like teachers and plumbers, public works and delivery truck drivers.

  Make sure to embrace joy! Talk a walk and appreciate the new wildflowers. Laugh with your friends and family. Try a new recipe. Practice more yoga. It’s ok to binge watch Tiger King; maybe even better if you can use these great online tools to play Scrabble or check out a house concert. Wherever the darkness comes in, embrace the light.

  Finally, I want to encourage you to notice the cracks in our society. None of what we are seeing is new, even if some of it is being unveiled in a more drastic fashion. (The scary word ‘apocalypse’ literally just means ‘unveil’ or ‘reveal’, which is where we get the title for that last and weirdest book of the Bible. It’s not about ‘end times’, by the way, but rather an end to the hard times and a beginning of a new way of peace.) I refuse to return to a normal that wasn’t working for so many people, and I invite you to learn about a more just vision of community – a more fair system of health care, of income inequality and opportunity, of racial and gender dynamics, of environmental stewardship.

  For all the truly hypocritical and judgmental things that have far-too-long defined my own faith tradition, the major threads that get woven through all spiritual enrichment are about inner healing and grace, radical welcome and compassion for neighbor, and organized justice for all. Wherever we can rehearse that together now, thank you. And however we can advocate for that in the world to come out of this crisis, may it be so.

(Originally published in the April 23, 2020, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)