Pandemic

Pandemic

Know that we are connected / in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

Lynn Ungar
hands holding a lighted candle

© 2014 baona/iStock

© 2014 baona/iStock

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What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love—
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.


Originally published on Facebook, March 11, 2020, and republished here with permission.

Listen to a choral arrangement of ‘Pandemic’

Composer Martin Sędek has set Lynn Ungar's poem to music for piano and chorus.

Hear ‘Pandemic’ read by UUA staff

The Unitarian Universalist Association produced this video of Lynn Ungar and several members of the UUA staff reading Ungar’s poem.

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