Paschal Candle

Every year someone at St Mark's makes our paschal candle. For the past several years, Scott has done this, using the wonderful soft colored wax from the Hearth Song catalogue. He picks up images from the year, like the labyrinth, Missouri flora and fauna, even a bicyclist. This one is a homage to our stained glass windows, I thnk. This year he is also making baptismal candles for the four people (two adults and two children) who are being baptized at the Easter Vigil. Sometimes children and youth do this but this year has been so busy we've not managed to fit it into their curriculum!

Palm Sunday at St. Mark's Church

Despite some menacing weather reports earlier in the week, Palm Sunday was a lovely, clear and sunny day. We gathered in the parish hall, blessed our palms, began singing "All Glory, Laud and Honor" and walked around the parish hall in procession and into church. My colleague Steve, who does our flowers and cares for our grounds, points out that the gospels don't tell us that the people of Jerusalem went to the florist to get branches, they probably grabbed whatever branches are near to hand. So Steve equipped us with pussywillows (which is what our Russian Orthodox brothers and sisters use for Palm Sunday) and flowering tree branches, as well as palms.

HELP!!!

Isn't this a fabulous picture of my office? The amazing Dave Walker has numerous websites with lovely cartoons, many about church, many on other more general topics (turnips, for example). This cartoon comes from his We Blog Cartoons site which allows you to use cartoons like this one on your blog. He has a blog, he has a site called cartoonchurch.com with many fabulous cartoons which translate well into Episcopal Life from their native English habitat. Dave walker is the one who did the fabulous summary of the Windsor Report and an explanation of the Anglican Consultative Council.
Check them out. Buy them for your parish magazine (I plan to). You can also buy greeting cards and download a twelve month cartoon calendar. He is doing a cartoon a week for the Church Times, which is sort of the Church of England equivalent of the Living Church.