Increasing internet use combined with Covid-19 has devastated our time with each other.

Restaurants closed as people ate at home. Workers met on Zoom. Shoppers avoided stores to buy over the internet. Town halls and religious groups experimented with hybrid meetings. Today, schools struggle to cope with returning students after two years of attempts at remote learning.

Covid led us through separations resembling a time of war. We are struggling to adjust. A lifestyle already dictated by automobiles and suburbs was upended further by the pandemic.

How do we relearn our people skills? How do we learn to meet together again? How do we come out from our home burrows?

How do we integrate singles back into society again? How do we help those caught in the drug epidemic to find restoring community? How do we overcome the easy use of guns to interrupt peaceful gatherings?

We are in search of community, of people gathering safely to share lives. We are in search of those willing to commit to each other and to care for one other.

As we confront our changed society, may we have the dedication, patience, and discipline to persevere and overcome the currents that would tear us apart.

May we grow the communities we so need.