A blog from Senior Leader Amanda Poppei

When I was a child, my mother went through a (surely ill-advised) phase of substituting carob for chocolate in cookies. It’s possible this happened only once, but the horror of the moment is forever seared in my brain. There I was, biting into a perfectly nice chocolate chip cookie, only to discover…something that was most decidedly not chocolate. It kind of looked like it, it had a similar texture, but the taste? No fool I. The cookie was rejected. Better no cookie than this poor facsimile placed before me. 

I thought of the Carob Cookie Crisis last week, when talking with a WES member about some of the programming plans I’ve been working on. As it becomes clear that we are in this social distancing thing for the long haul, we are starting to shift from the initial impulse to just get everything we were already doing online toward a more intentional approach.

What kind of programming will work best for a virtual (or possibly hybrid: no large gatherings, some small gatherings possible in time) congregation? What needs do people have now that they didn’t have before? How can we reach especially our overloaded families, whose kids are zoomed out already…and whose parents can only meet after bedtime, at which point they are, themselves, ready for bedtime? 

Anyway, with all that in mind I was sharing thoughts for some new or extended programming, and trying to raise enthusiasm about it. “But you know,” said whoever it was I was talking to (I honestly can’t remember. The days are a blur, I think it might be February, and I recently wrote the year as 2012. So, just know it was some human). “But you know, it’s just not the same as being together.” 

No. It definitely is not. It’s carob. It’s not chocolate, and it’s okay for us to notice that. It’s okay for us to mourn it.

I can feel the pull in myself to do just what I did as a child: to reject the carob cookie, because if it’s not chocolate I don’t want to bother. I felt that way on my first zoom happy hour with friends. All we could talk about was COVID. We couldn’t actually order margaritas. Our children kept running through the room. The whole thing was totally carob and I wasn’t sure I wanted it. 

We’ve figured out some new ways of being together, those friends and I. We have rules about how long COVID talk can go on, and ways to switch topics. We put our kids in their own zoom room. We are figuring it out. It’s still carob. But I’m starting to get a taste for it. 

The same is true of WES–of almost everything in our lives right now. As we figure out the way forward, as we learn and create what might be needed now, we may have to eat some carob cookies. Singing along to the computer isn’t as good as singing together. Having our Deepening Circle over zoom isn’t as satisfying as sitting in the Library together. And I think that if we don’t say yes to some of those carob cookies, we are going to be very hungry indeed. 

And you know, carob–it turns out–has its own flavor. It’s not chocolate, but if you know it’s not chocolate, then it’s actually not bad. Because we are entirely virtual, WES members who have moved away are able to participate fully in our programming. Folks who have always wanted to come to WES but live in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Annapolis…they are reaching out, attending online and asking how they can be involved, and whether they can stay involved when we start meeting in person again some day. It may just be that there is something in carob that we can’t find in chocolate (fiber. It’s fiber). 

If you haven’t yet checked out some of our carob offerings, I hope you do. Check out, perhaps, our upcoming showing of Humanitas, the amazing film by Ethical Culture Emerging Leader Jé Hooper. Join a Friday happy hour zoom check in, or one of the book groups. Come to platform, and find out how fun the chat function is. They’re not chocolate chip cookies–and that’s a loss. But they’re still homemade. Hope to share them with you soon. 

Warmly,

Amanda