Early holiday greetings, everyone! This week’s blog is one of those two-parters: one blog on two subjects.

The first has to do with my schedule for the rest of our virtual, half-time ministry. Through no fault on your end, my weekly hours have far exceeded the contracted twenty. The idea was to get to know QUUF’s “insides” – how things work, and who does what. My thanks to your lay leaders and staff for helping me along the way. As Mary and I continue with all the arrangements and packing to join you, life has gotten even busier. We’ll be flying out (open airports withstanding) on January 5, and I’ll be leading my first service on January 11. Inside joke: We will finally retire the cutout of my image.

Meantime, I need to keep a closer watch on my weekly schedule, and take better care of myself. Mary and I will do the packing on our time, but your leaders and I have work to do along the way. So, I’ve been temporarily stepping back a bit, mostly related to meeting time and tasks that can be delayed until we begin the in-person stage of our shared ministry. Thanks for your understanding.

Part Two is about why you and I do this work anyhow.

At staff meeting this week, I began our time with an uncredited, but timely reading for the times:

How would it be if just for today…
We thought less about contests and rivalries, profits and politics, winners and sinners
And more about helping and giving, mending and blending, reaching out and pitching in.

How would it be?

Friends, there is no hiding from the drone of evil whose sounds are everywhere. There’s no denying you and I are alive in America at such a dire moment. And we are called by all that is good and right to resist. Yet, evil on such a scale has a way of poisoning even those who despise and resist it. It ruins whatever it touches. This is to say it’s okay to grieve an America so adrift…to be angry, even hopeless if that’s where you are today. But we can’t open the door every time evil wants to bring us low. That’s a guaranteed road to despair.

So, we can take a break now and then? It doesn’t mean we’ve stopped caring. And when we claim those pauses, we might ask the question: How would it be?