We all have stories about our experiences with this pandemic, but it’s hard to share them without being able to gather in church. Greta suggests we write them down. She started us off with a serious piece about her experience at TJMC and the strength it has given her to survive these times. Laura Wallace follows up with a different strategy, humor.
We would love to have more stories, more insight, humor, family news, and whatever is important to you to share here. If you have something to contribute, let the communications team know at communications@uucharlottesville.org.
Laura’s Story
Chicken Soup for the Soul Chicken
It’s not that I’m not brave. It’s that I’m a pure coward. My head is down so far it’s disappeared into my neck. I am ripe for a late-life career in zombie movies. I have too much toilet paper and I apologize. If you need some, call me and I’ll put a roll on the porch. It’s double-ply or I’d give you two. Don’t touch anything while you’re here.
I am ashamed of my privilege and have enough soup. I am horrified and heartsick over the suffering around us. The politics are giving me too much adrenaline, but I can’t stop clicking. I am getting older faster. I had my 70th last month and my parade was cancelled. Injustice is everywhere. I just can’t understand the priorities.
Well, I get it about staying home and not breathing on people who have to be out. That seems rude. But I know many do care about our fellow citizens, because they come forth in our cities in armed battalions to shoot the virus. I am very grateful for their protection.
I disdain social media, so I write only a few comments a day in the Post and the Times. I go back to see how many Likes I got just to be civil. That doesn’t matter, of course. I don’t think Times readers are more intelligent so their Likes matter more. That would be arrogant. Narcissistic.
Speaking of zombies, my dog has become one. Previously, she had many interests. Now she just sits and stares at me. She used to have a wide vocabulary. Now, two words: Foooooood. Borrrrred. She is currently grounded for breaking the primary contract. I fell down (I’m fine) and called her for comfort. Next thing I heard was clickety-click as she zipped by to go hide on the bed. What kind of faithful companion is that? Come see me when you feel better? Not in my job description? You seem to have confused me with a nurse? Oh. She’s talking again.
I’m late for my Zoom session, better go. My therapist is helping me avoid seizures or breakdowns during Zoom events. She lunges close to the monitor and frowns emphatically when she’s concentrating hard. It feels like she’s jumping out from behind a bush. My nerves.
Laura Wallace
Greta’s Story
On 9/11/2001, when the Twin Towers came down in New York City, it seemed like the world as we knew it was coming to an end. How could such an attack happen in New York City? In America?
At the time I was a Worship Associate and I was scheduled to help conduct the service the following Sunday. The idea for the service was that people needed reassurance, something sturdy and dependable that they could hold on to, to give them the strength they needed to face the uncertainty confronting us. We would use small stones to provide that reassurance, stones people could hold in their hands when they needed strength.
It was my task to provide the stones for the service. I drove north on 29 to the Luck Stone Plant and explained what I was looking for. They pointed out an area filled with stones of the appropriate size and said I could choose whatever I wanted. When I looked from a distance, it was just a big pile of stones. But as I began to pick them up, one by one, I saw they were each unique. Varying slightly in size, shape, shades and patterning of color, they were really lovely. I chose them one at a time, and it took a long time, because we needed to have a stone for each person in the congregation. We expected, given the situation, that the congregation might be larger than usual that Sunday. I must have selected and purchased over 200 stones.
To be honest, while I clearly remember selecting the stones, I can’t remember everything about the Sunday service in detail. I’m not sure whether the stones were passed down the pews in baskets or placed on a table in front of the sanctuary. But I do know that everyone had an opportunity to select their own stone, one from among many.
More problematically, I didn’t really remember who the minister was. It was a period of change in ministers. Our long-time minister, Wayne Arnason, left. Interim Minister Kim Beach came for one year. Then our new settled minister, David Takahashi Morris (as he was known then) arrived. I served as a Worship Associate for at least two years during that period, and I was uncertain which minister led the “strength stones” service. Wayne Arnason and Kim Beach both told me that they had left TJMC by the summer of 2001.
David Takahashi Morris arrived at TJMC on August 1, 2001 and six weeks later the Twin Towers came down. At the time, I don’t think I realized what a challenge it must have been to try to help his very new congregation cope with the uncertainties we all faced at that point.
The message that I remembered and followed after that Sunday service was to keep the stones close by, where we could pick them up easily when we needed the strength they could provide. For me, these stones represented the strength of our congregation; we would all be supporting each other in the coming period of uncertainty. The stones also symbolized the values of our UU faith, which would remain strong to guide us in the coming days, weeks, and months of uncertainty. These were comforting ideas.
I kept my stone in the space between the two front seats of my car. I would reach out to grasp and hold it periodically as I drove around town, going to and from my office in the UVA Curry School of Education, running errands, buying groceries, attending medical appointments, visiting friends and family members. Wherever I went, my stone was there to comfort me when I needed it.
These days my small strength stone sits by my alarm clock on the small chest next to my bed, the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. I have a larger strength stone, acquired later, that sits on the window sill in my TV room, where I sit when I watch the morning and evening news programs. It is a heavier stone, because the news is heavy indeed. I glance over at that stone from my chair when the news seems impossible to accept or comprehend. I absorb its strength from a distance.
I am not alone in turning to the power of my two strength stones to reassure me in times of uncertainty. Last October, riding home with Cindy Benton-Groner from the annual retreat of my women’s group (originally a TJMC Covenant Group), I mentioned that Sunday service when we selected our strength stones. She reached down between the two front seats of her car and picked up her own stone. “I still carry mine right here,” she said.
In this present time of uncertainty, brought to us by the novel coronavirus pandemic, as we shelter in place in our homes, and wonder how such a health crisis could occur in America, in Virginia, in Charlottesville, we all need the kind of reassurance and strength those small stones provided our congregation in September 2001. We can’t meet now in a Sunday service to select a strength stone for this current time of uncertainty, but we can each look around our home to find some item that serves the same purpose. We can each identify our own symbolic source of strength, something to represent the community that binds us together, the faith that provides the values we live by, or the love we share with friends and family which buoys our spirits.
I wish you all well in your search for your own symbolic strength “stone.” May you find it soon and keep it close in the days, weeks, and months ahead. And may we all stay strong, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay connected.
Greta Dershimer