Friends,
The Presiding Clerks Table at FMC deeply thanks the Facilities Reopening Group (FROG) and Reopening Working Group (ROWG) for their hard work during the COVID pandemic to preserve the spiritual community of FMC while trying to keep us safe. We know that their efforts to discern the best rules and guidelines for our community have often felt tiring and thankless, due both to the ever-changing twists and turns of the COVID pandemic and to different perspectives within the FMC community. Members of our community differ in their attitudes toward risk, our personal risk in getting COVID and how serious that would be if we did catch COVID, whether we are vaccinated and boosted, whether we have gotten COVID already, and what we perceive as the risk for the community as a whole and the cost FMC has paid for the diminished sense of community during the COVID period. This is a difficult balance for each of us individually, to say nothing of trying to find spiritual unity together.
To help heal these differences, presiding clerks agree we will plan a series of listening sessions/discernments this Fall. We pray that we may find spirit’s unity among our differences on this topic. In the meantime, may we speak and listen to each other with tender hearts and love for our broader FMC community.
— The Presiding Clerks Team (Ian Harrington, Otavia Propper, Betsy Roper, Tom Sander, and Lynne Weiss)
