In a time when we are threatened by a pandemic, we may find courage in what we have learned about facing other challenges. Hospice ministry, for example, addresses things in their wholeness—the whole of a life, the pain shared by a whole community, the “hole” that is left when a loved one dies. Healing happens throughout the process.

Rev. David Carl Olson is in the twelfth year of his tenure as Lead Minister of the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (Universalist & Unitarian). Olson has served congregations in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Boston, Massachusetts, and Flint, Michigan before coming to Maryland. By profession, he is an Equity actor, a theater producer, and liturgical musician in Episcopal, United Church of Chris,t and Reform Judaism settings. He was once told by an astrologer that he would make a living “on his feet,” and dutifully has spent much of his life on picket lines, in marches, and doing door-to-door electoral politics.