Mid-week Message
from our Developmental Lead Minister
March 16, 2021
Friends,
I have two updates for you this week. First, I have decided to learn to live with my backyard moles. Majority opinion is that traps, poisons, repellents, underground sound emitting devices – even eliminating the grubs the moles feed on – all these are temporary fixes at best. Moles are a fact of life here in middle Tennessee, endemic you might say.
The second update I have has to do with the reopening plans for FUUN. Your Board of Directors appointed a Reopening Task Force. The members are Jacob Hathaway, Mary Lindsay, Barbara Snook, Scott Weaver, and me. The Reopening Task Force is hard at work and early indicators are that the soonest possible reopening would be the end of May, but more likely August or September. Not what any of us want to hear, I know.
I wish I could tell you in a sentence or two just how complicated it is figuring out when and how to safely reopen. The Reopening Task Force is developing a phased reopening plan along with guidelines for the limitation of risk and recommendations for the use of space and the scheduling of programs.
While the Reopening Task Force is not ready to put forth a plan just yet, I did want to at least let you know that progress is being made. I also want us all to have some realistic expectations. The reality is that while the pandemic may end, the virus is most likely here to stay – endemic – part of life. There will always be a risk, so the tricky part of all this is figuring out when it is safe enough to reopen and how we can mitigate risk to the most vulnerable among us.
Finally, thank you to those who have responded thus far about your year of pandemic – what you’ve lost, what’s given you hope, what you’ve learned, and how you’ve grown. To date, I’ve only received 3 names of people known to you who died from COVID. My guess is there are more. If you would like the name of someone you knew who lost their life to COVID shared in this Sunday’s service, get their name to me by noon on Friday – leadminister@firstuunash.org.
I do hope you plan to partake of Sunday’s worship service, either live via Zoom at 9 am or when it is rebroadcast on Facebook and Youtube. Taking the time to commemorate the year we’ve all been through is important for our individual and collective healing.
What I know for sure is that there is a resiliency to life. We are all part of an interdependent web of being. Life calls us on.
Yours in shared ministry,
Rev. Diane