Guest blog by Megan Jahnke

Our family has a sweet dog named Storm. She is a 1 ½ year old Husky/Malamute mix and is a VERY active dog. She requires daily exercise which is often in the form of walks – we walk her twice a day, every day. Often when we tell people this, they wonder if that kind of commitment is daunting – I mean, we need to carve almost two hours out of our day, each day, just to get in her daily walks! But my answer is no, walking her is actually one of the best moments of my day. We brought Storm home in January 2020 and three months later the world shut down. Storm became my saving grace, my escape, because, when you are a mother of three young boys and you can’t send them to school, or bring them to the zoo, or even make a trip to Target to distract them, you need something that offers you a moment to escape all the chaos! Storm became that escape – an hour to myself where I could pop in my earbuds and listen to a podcast or just listen to nature as we strolled through the neighborhood and I took a moment to breath.

The last 14 months have been so hard for so many. We continue to live through a life altering pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 3 million people worldwide. It has caused us to shift our lives completely – we started working from home, putting distance between ourselves and our coworkers, having to shift to virtual interactions that lack so much of the interpersonal communication we experience during in-person interactions. Parents became teachers, and teachers took on a surmountable task of trying to connect with and teach their students over a computer screen. Many were alone in their homes, missing family and friends, wondering when they would once again feel the touch of another human. Political leaders caused division among us and hateful words were said on both sides of the spectrum. As a people, we were all experiencing the pandemic differently and even separately, but we were never alone. As a collective people we walked through this pandemic together and together, we are forever changed.

As we begin to move out of the height of the pandemic, we are a changed people. What life looked like as we walked into the pandemic, it will not look the same as we walk out. As someone who is vaccinated and able to once again hug my family members, I still find myself shying away or stepping back to give myself distance. I find myself fearful for my young sons who are still not able to get vaccinated – while we are moving out of the pandemic, their lives are still at risk. I feel like I am living in this strange limbo, knowing we are making progress in the fight against Covid, but also having an acute awareness that we aren’t totally there yet. 

Throughout the entirety of the pandemic, the church has had to navigate what life looks like for their congregations. Bishop Curry and our local diocese, ECMN, has continued to put emphasis on living the Way of Love through this pandemic. How would Jesus call us to love our neighbors well through a deadly pandemic? In a recent email sent by Bishop Loya addressing the CDC’s recent changes to Covid guidelines he suggested that our decision making be “guided by questions of what love looks like, what it means to be fully inclusive, and what it means to seek good for the other, particularly those who are marginalized in any way.”

As we move forward as a church and community, it may not always be graceful and we may not always see eye-to-eye. We will all move at a different pace and will all have different levels of comfort. Some will be ready to take off their masks and others will feel more comfortable remaining masked. Some will feel ready to attend worship on the lawn and others will still prefer to attend virtually. But, as we move forward, however slow or fast, my challenge for us is to always move forward in the Way of Love, seeking to treat one another with care and to make decisions that reflect the love of Jesus to ALL of His people. And, I encourage you to find that one thing that gives you a moment to breath. This has been a challenging road to travel, but just know, we can do hard things and you are never alone.