After two years without a shepherd, the flock at the Woodstock Reformed Church finally has a new pastor. Reverend Cari Pattison will be guiding the congregation through the tricky transition back from being unable to gather physically due to Covid-19. Though “live and in-person worship in the sanctuary” resumed on November 1, much of the church community is expected to continue its participation via Zoom technology, streaming every Sunday at 10 a.m. The new preacher’s sermons can also be heard on YouTube.
As might be expected of the institution at 16 Tinker Street that literally owns Woodstock’s iconic hippie gathering place known as the Village Green, the Reformed Church has “a history of picking pastors who made some unconventional choices,” in Pattison’s words. Her predecessor, Reverend Josh Bode, left after a ten-year stint in Woodstock for missionary work in Oman, where Christians constitute less than seven percent of the population.
Pattison characterizes the congregation as “diverse,” both politically and spiritually. There are parishioners whose families have worshiped there for generations, along with some who also practice Buddhism and come for the sense of community. “It’s pretty amazing to me that a church like that stays together,” she says.
Hurts yet to hike out
Cari Pattison isn’t the first woman pastor at Woodstock Reformed. But the Kansas City native is a certified trailblazer in another sense: After leaving her twelve-year gig as associate pastor at the Reformed Church of Bronxville – a very different sort of congregation, large and mostly affluent – she took half a year off to through-hike the Appalachian Trail, from south to north.
At age 42, Pattison felt the need for some extended time in what she likes to call “the nature” to process personal losses: divorce, a miscarriage, failed attempts at in-vitro fertilization, another breakup.
“I won’t let my life be defined by the blows that invariably come to us all,” she writes in an early chapter of her AT blog. “Still. There are hurts I have yet to hike out. Losses I can only lament into a hailstorm. Questions that need to be hurled from across a ravine, waiting for an echo reply.”
She made it more than halfway, to Mile 1314.8 of the trail’s 2192-mile total length, in southern New Jersey, before breaking her ankle in July 2019. The blog Pattison kept of the AT experience, which you can read at https://thetrek.co/author/cari-pattison, is beautifully written, immersive, insightful, peppered with wry humor as well as practical tips for trekkers. Chief among the benefits of the undertaking, she writes, were the human bonds she forged along the way, the sense of community fostered by interdependence among her “trail family.” Her AT nickname (every through-hiker is assigned one by trailmates) is Sprout.
Pilgrimage to Woodstock
Pattison spent most of the year subsequent to her injury as “clergy-in-residence” at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, also taking a part-time job selling outdoor gear at Rock and Snow in New Paltz. Following a long recuperation and regimen of physical therapy, she returned to where she left off on the AT in June 2020 to shave another 275 miles off her goal. Through-hikes are discouraged these days due to the pandemic, however, so finishing hers is a project for another year.
Pattison had begun hiking the Gunks and the Catskills during her years of living in Yonkers and preaching in Bronxville, so the transition further upstate was a smooth one. She recalls her first introduction to Woodstock as “a pilgrimage” to visit a writer she greatly admired, Abigail Thomas. She found herself “drawn to the creativity” of the community, along with the locals’ “hunger for connecting with this Earth that we’ve been given.” Her mission now that she’s leading the Reformed Church is to develop a synergy with that community, though the physical isolation imposed by the pandemic is making that a very gradual process.
Since her recent installation ceremony, more of Pattison’s church work has consisted of administrative meetings, conducted remotely, than in group worship or the nurturing one-on-one interactions that clergy refer to as “pastoral care.” But alternative communication approaches developed within the congregation over the past year continue: prayer chains, a weekly e-blast. The new pastor has been conferring with other leaders of the congregation to determine “how and when do we open our doors to outside groups,” such as twelve-step programs, or to revive the church’s food pantry, meals-on-wheels program, nursery school and so on. Weather permitting, she’s also looking at making more intensive use of the Village Green for community-building events such as concerts and art shows.
One of Pattison’s first initiatives as pastor is “a challenge of reading through the whole Book of Psalms this fall,” she says. If parishioners read one psalm each morning and evening, they’ll complete all 150 by Christmas Day, while nourishing themselves on spiritual messages that speak to people enduring challenging times. Like walking the Appalachian Trail, it sounds like a big task, but it’s doable in small steps.
Meanwhile, introducing herself to her new flock is Reverend Pattison’s top priority. She says she wants Woodstock Reformed to be a church where anyone can feel welcomed and valued. “Whoever you are,” she says, “I’d like to get to know you.” Her regular days at church are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and she’s always reachable by e-mail at pastorcariwrc@gmail.com.
Join the family! 
