Pastor’s Corner: Haves and Have-Nots

March 10, 2021

We have entered a strange phase of our life together: the time of the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. With all the strangeness and stresses of this pandemic, this may be the strangest. I pray that it will not be the most stressful – I’ve had all the stress I want, thank you.

During this period, people who have received the vaccine will begin to live their lives in ways more like they’ve lived before the pandemic. They’ll get out more. One friend who was recently vaccinated announced that in two weeks he would be free. I expect that will be the sensation for all of us – once we’ve received the shot(s) and once the waiting period for full effectiveness has passed.

In the meantime, others will still be waiting.

For now, public health experts advise those who have received their vaccination to still be cautious about exposing others to infection. Wear a mask, keep physical distance, don’t come together in large groups.

We will be considering how to make our worship experience available to some among us who have not had Internet access. The question of vaccination will come up, I am sure. We will be trying to balance concern for those without one kind of resource – a COVID-19 vaccine – against concern for those without another kind of resource – the ability to watch Internet video – as we maintain our concern for the physical and spiritual health of our congregation. If this sounds like something impossible to balance, it may well be. We’ll do the best we can with the information we have.

In the meantime, hold in your hearts those who have not yet been vaccinated. Let us give them our love until their turn arrives, and love them ever after.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric

Photo: Army Spc. Angel Laureano holds a vial of the COVID-19 vaccine, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., Dec. 14, 2020 (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando). Courtesy U.S. Secretary of Defense – https://www.flickr.com/photos/secdef/50744965182/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97927382.