Programming During COVID-19
Programming updates will be communicated as we know them. As of now, to practice social distancing, all March programs have been cancelled.
Here is a poem from Rev. Theresa Soto at First Unitarian Church of Berkeley that we would like to close with:
2 hrs
she wanted to know if
I understood how important
the event was.
and I looked at my hands, palms up,
for a second.
I thought about the saliva pooling
behind my bottom teeth.
droplet transmission
and rulers—three feet, six feet.
six is the radius of transmission.
I want you to be the number of feet away
that keeps us alive
as many of us as possible.
last week, I sat in the doorway and
squirted people’s hands with sanitizer
as they dispersed. reflections of the divine
and vectors.
pandemic sacrament
next week, all the sanitizer may be gone.
your friends getting treated in a hospital hallway.
doctors wearing diapers, collapsing, sometimes dying.
When I ask you to stay home
to stop the social spread of COVID-19,
I still know that you are strong and
beautiful and brave.
I know that you have taught yourself to
understand that love is an action.
but, today, beloved, today, love is an
inaction—of stopping, of staying, of
holding, not hands, but hearts.
of holding the space between us, not only
as a buffer, but also as holy.
there is so much we don’t know about
the tiny parasite taking over cells,
reproducing at an alarmingly rapid rate.
I know more about you; that your insistence
on business as usual maybe be tinged with
other things, but is mostly dedication.
you must now dedicate yourself to the survival
of this community in the painstaking way of
an artist painting on a grain of rice.
I do know how important
your life is, thrown together
with ours.
we are a fragile masterpiece.
(the vulnerable age was
lowered to 50 yesterday.)
please stay home.
—on a day of social distancing
Here is a poem from Rev. Theresa Soto at First Unitarian Church of Berkeley that we would like to close with:
2 hrs
she wanted to know if
I understood how important
the event was.
and I looked at my hands, palms up,
for a second.
I thought about the saliva pooling
behind my bottom teeth.
droplet transmission
and rulers—three feet, six feet.
six is the radius of transmission.
I want you to be the number of feet away
that keeps us alive
as many of us as possible.
last week, I sat in the doorway and
squirted people’s hands with sanitizer
as they dispersed. reflections of the divine
and vectors.
pandemic sacrament
next week, all the sanitizer may be gone.
your friends getting treated in a hospital hallway.
doctors wearing diapers, collapsing, sometimes dying.
When I ask you to stay home
to stop the social spread of COVID-19,
I still know that you are strong and
beautiful and brave.
I know that you have taught yourself to
understand that love is an action.
but, today, beloved, today, love is an
inaction—of stopping, of staying, of
holding, not hands, but hearts.
of holding the space between us, not only
as a buffer, but also as holy.
there is so much we don’t know about
the tiny parasite taking over cells,
reproducing at an alarmingly rapid rate.
I know more about you; that your insistence
on business as usual maybe be tinged with
other things, but is mostly dedication.
you must now dedicate yourself to the survival
of this community in the painstaking way of
an artist painting on a grain of rice.
I do know how important
your life is, thrown together
with ours.
we are a fragile masterpiece.
(the vulnerable age was
lowered to 50 yesterday.)
please stay home.
—on a day of social distancing