Things Seen and Unseen

Hospice

2009-10-24T01:02:00.003-04:00

I cannot say enough good things about LSS hospice. They have been so kind and so helpful to my mother. Until we came to the final stage of her cruel dementia, I had not even realized that Hospice was an OPTION for dementia care. My mother had become dramatically more lethargic over the summer. That wonderful Alzheimer's "Zen" sense of being relational in the moment where you could hug and be hugged or laugh and be laughed with even though you know that she might not know who you are or what the joke was had gone.

We knew her interest in eating had gone when I found a bar of chocolate in my purse and tried to share it with her. Even six months before she had been sneaking into the pantry to steal chocolate chip cookies, eating her dessert first. When I saw she could not register "chocolate" I knew that this horrible disease had robbed her of everything at last.

But I did not know that Alzheimer's patients are eligible for hospice. Our nurse talks to me every time there is a "change." The intake worker was very helpful and explained to me what is covered and what is not covered. I was amazed by how many things can be treated under the heading "comfort." Flu shots, for example, because having the flu is so unpleasant. Broken bones, for example, can be set. The difference, as I understand it, is if a hospice patient falls and breaks a hip, they will go to the ER and get stabilized but they probably will not get some prosthetic device involving titanium or whatever... Antibiotics for a respiratory infection will happen, ICU on a vent will not. Their goal is to make her last weeks comfortable.

I didn't realize that you can "renew" your eligibility for hospice. I suppose there are people who have miraculous cures and cease to be eligible. But sometimes people who seem to their MD's to have less than six months to live surprise their doctors but if the MD still thinks it likely that they will die in six months, they get an extension.

In our case, however, we are looking at weeks not months. I have felt amazingly well cared for by LSS and think that N. has been well cared for, too. And the staff of Meramec Bluffs have been lovely, too. They gently introduced the idea that it might be hospice time. They have kept me up to date on her condition the whole time. And they have been very sweet when we have been there, knowing that we are skating on the thin ice between normalcy and grief.

Dolce Via is Back

2009-03-16T17:49:00.002-04:00

The Dolce Via is BACK and JUST AS GOOD as I remembered it. It has only been closed for two months but they seemed very long.

The website shows the restaurant before they spent two months working on it. It is less cluttered now but just as funky looking and the prices appear to be unchanged. The egg scrambles and deliciously spicy little cubes of potato hash are still fantastic. The blackberry raspberry fruit scones which first lured us the the bakery cafe are still absolutely perfect. They have lost the vintage kitchen table but the cafe still has an eclectic look. The chairs are still kinda dingy and not all that comfortable but adequate. There is still a play area for kids and a big cooler for looking at cakes. And the people who wait on you are still perfectly charming. On Sunday there seemed to be many many babies and small children which was lovely. It is come as you are, whoever you are, as long as you are willing to pay what it costs for the best ingredients carefully prepared and presented. It is at Taylor and Arco.

MDG's

2008-09-26T00:22:00.002-04:00

I promised to blog about the MDG's as part of this day of prayer and fasting for the MDG's while the UN confers about them at the General Assembly. I spent most of the day at the Lutheran School of Theology's workshop on communion between the Methodists and the Lutherans and our interim eucharistic sharing with the UMC. We focused on the document This Holy Mystery, a kind of guide to UMC understanding of th eucharist. The document speaks about how the eucharist should drive us to care of the needs of the poor and to be missional in some other ways. It is distressing that the General Assembly is being overshadowed by the meltdown in the US economy and its threat to the global economy. The poorer we all feel iln the "first world" the less likely we are to be generous to those in other parts of the world.

Hospital art

2008-08-23T21:41:00.003-04:00

So Thursday I went to the emergency room of St Alexius Hospital. I walked there from the main hospital entrance on Broadway. And this involves going along a hallway which has a series of roughly carved wooden panels with figures on them, people holding and touching other people. I thought at first that they were stations of the cross. They looked a lot like examples of "contemporary" stations I've seen. But they were not: each one represented the ways in which over the history of humanity people have helped people to resume breathing. One should a man holding another man upside down, another showed a man rolling another over a barrel so that the barrel would put pressure on the chest and force him to breathe out, another showed a man stepping down on the patient's chest and so on. Each one had a brief description of the procedure depicted and its technique and purpose. It was a surprising display, donated by some patron of the hospital. One of many interesting diversions in a busy day.

What's new in the Parish Hall

2008-07-31T11:46:00.003-04:00

So this past Sunday we had a special parish meeting to let people know what is up with the various property projects. It was the debut appearance of our new projector and screen and sound system. Our senior warden did a great job of putting a power point presentation together and offering a lively and humorous and informative narration along with it.

Meanwhile, the property changes were all around us: the painters were due on Monday and so our secretary had moved everything into the Parish
Hall and on Friday and Saturday people pitched in to move books and other stuff out of the rector's office. It looks as if the offices are almost done except for the trim and the parish hall is almost done. So gradually we will put things back. In my case, we will be trying to get things better than normal, since I have quite an accumulation of papers which probably need to be weeded out: every conference and workshop I have attended, every diocesan convention, that kind of stuff. Louis, our roving photographer, took some pix of people at the meeting (note Ruth Proehl on the screen) as well as some pictures of the offices empty and waiting for their paint job.

Rant

2008-07-09T00:53:00.002-04:00

So, the C of E has voted for women bishops, by a pretty impressive majority. And they have declined to offer any elaborate "flying bishops" scheme to respect the consciences of those who can't possibly cope with having woman bishop. It is actually pretty amazing. You can read more about it here.

Meanwhile Tuesday a.m. on Morning Edition, Renee Montagne was talking to our man in London Rob Gifford about the threat of schism in the C of E and then she asked the British commentator if this controversy had anything to do with the split over homosexuality. And I wanted to yell into the radio OF COURSE IT DOES. The commentator thought that the gay issue is more contentious but that is because he was probably still in grade school when women were ordained in the Episcopal Church and doesn't remember. (And speaking of great "church destroying" cataclysms of the past, we were talking at lectionary group about the General Convention Special Program which caused a huge brouhaha that some people in the Episcopal Church are STILL not over... ) And he thought the homosexuality conversation was a bigger deal because it was about morality.

But here is what I think: opposition to women's ordination and opposition to gay bishops (by which people mean openly gay partnered bishops) is about fear of women and fear of sexual impulses and feelings. Remember in the bad old days before we ordained women in ECUSA how men would say things like "a woman at the altar would just be too distracting", meaning perhaps that she would cause (straight) men to be distracted by sexual fantasies. And an awful lot of the abusive language directed against gay men throughtout the centuries has been about how "feminine" they are. They either don't act like "real men" or they inspire in "real men" feelings of attraction which are distressing and shameful to them. In other words: women remind men of sex, gay men remind men of women and of sex. Homophobia and misogyny are closely linked. (And for the most part, people forget Lesbians even exist in these conversations, I guess because whether they are straight or lesbian women are mainly defined, certainly for much of Christian tradition, as not "real men.") I don't understand why women (or men who fail the "real man" test in some way) are so scary to the dominant white male culture. I don't understand why people feel that God needs to be protected from women, from GLBT people and from conflict of any kind. I don't understand why those who are not persuaded that ordaining GLBT people or women (L or T or straight) to the pr0iesthood and the episcopate feel they must elevate this issue to evidence of general all round heterodoxy.

But I'm getting tired of reading about it. I feel especially tired when I hear and read Bishop Wright, saying of Gafcon (who thought THAT was an attractive acronym for anything) that while AMERICANS deserve censure and external control "the situation in England is quite different."

Episcopalians at Pride 2008

2008-07-01T15:51:00.003-04:00

A little band of St Markans walked in the Pride Parade on Sunday and with others staffed the booth for a couple of hours, handing out flyers and stickers and sharing the good news of the Episcopal Church's welcome for all. There were lots of people from Trinity and from St John's and from Holy Communion and from Transfiguration Lake St Louis and from Advent and from the Cathedral. It is amazing to be at the booth and to hear people come up and say, "I wish MY church were here" or "Thank you for being here, it is great to see mainline churches here." In my judgement, St Mark's isn't quite ready to cancel 10 a.m. church and all go to "Mass in the Grass" in the park at 10:30 on Sunday, but some St Markans were there and so were about 150 other people and one heckler and everything went very well. We dashed up there following our service.

The slideshow is of the parade. We walked behind a fabulous team of drag cheerleaders which had very perky music. The clergy got to ride in a great car belonging to a St John's member. Despite our best efforts the reviewing stand announced us as the Metropolitan Community Church. It also poured with rain for a few critical moments but then reverted to being amazingly warm again. Becket Clark walked up front with the banner and synchronized thurifers, doing a very complicated dance as we marched along.

Saint Mark's gets out in the Neighborhood

2008-05-09T12:11:00.007-04:00

Late April and early May have found St Markans out and about in our neighborhood. On April 24, we hosted Dining out for Life at the Murdoch Perk during Breakfast and Lunch. Lydia and Marylen and Jeff were there when they opened. Jack came shortly thereafter and stayed all morning. Kathi and Sue were also there and so was Louis who took fabulous pics. The Perk gets a pretty steady flow of customers throughout the day, which is nice. St Markans and friends and colleagues of many of us swelled the numbers so that the restaurant was positively CROWDED. Everyone was receptive to our invitation to take the donation envelope and the red ribbon sticker and it was a great day. I don't know how much the Murdoch Perk and its customers contributed to St Louis Effort for AIDS, but we had a great time and had lots of envelopes to turn in.

Then on Saturday May 3, 20 St Markans, called forth by our deacon the Rev. Marylen Stansbery, worked alongside students, parents and teachers at the Busch AAA School, raking leaves and aerating lawns and planting flowers. Ms Shipps, our liaison, gave us a tour of the school. It is full of fascinating examples of student work on the walls and is clean and well cared for. SLPS has fewer resources for caring for the grounds so in consultation with the school Marylen chose this as our first project in our partnership with Busch. Our youth confirmands were there, with members of their families and others. James Lattimer, a former St Mark's member, now living in another city, happened to hear about this project on a visit to St Mark's and came back to help out because he had been a student at Busch when the building opened.
There will be a return visit to seed and fertilize.

St Mark's Winter Slideshow

2008-02-24T22:42:00.001-05:00

Archived memory

2008-02-02T19:05:00.000-05:00

On Friday I called Jim, who has been our house/dog sitter while I've been in Baltimore, from the airport to confer about the snow. And when I looked him up in the contacts section of my Treo, the name that came up just below him was Doug McCreight. Doug died two weeks ago, he had been a priest of the diocese for decades and for a short time lived near enough to St Mark's to worship with us here. For some reason, I can't manage to erase him.
If I scroll the length of my Palm address book, there are quite a few people who have died whose records linger on in my database. Marvin, a friend from Bethlehem, our choir director and organist more than twenty years ago, still shares a record with his wife Polly, even though he died a couple of years ago. Fay Shelton is still there at her Orchard House address. Cora Ida Burdett who died January 11 is there, with both her Nottingham Apartment listing and her nephew's contact information in Washington state where she died in a nursing home. Peggy Phillips and Ruth Proehl are there, too, and many more. It isn't just inefficiency or forgetfulness, although it is partly that. It is that I have come to be glad to be reminded of those whose lives have touched mine, have enriched the life of the church. When I scroll past them, it is a little reminder to give thanks for their lives and to pray for them in God's loving care. And then, curiously, they remind me of the people I have erased. Wendy and Alex are listed but no longer Michael their husband and parent. In a moment of efficiency, I deleted Anne Kelley shortly after her death but I can see her still with her sensible haircut and forthright manner and ready laugh. I deleted Joel Beezley but left his kind and gracious widow. And I imagine sometimes that I can smell his pipesmoke lingering around the vesting area from the years and years when we was lector at 7:30.
There is a little foretaste of the communion of saints lurking in my Treo address book. Thanks be to God!

DECLINE TO SIGN

2008-01-30T23:40:00.000-05:00

At our 2007 Diocesan Convention, we passed this resolution concerning the "Missouri Civil Rights Initiative."

J-168 Missouri Civil Rights Initiative,
RESOLVED
That this 168th Convention of the Diocese of Missouri go on record as standing in opposition to the 'Missouri Civil Rights Initiative (MoCRI),' a proposal for the November 2008 Missouri ballot, attempting to eliminate affirmative action in public education, public employment, and public contracting in Missouri;

that this Convention commends Secretary of State Robin Carnahan and Attorney General Jay Nixon for changing the deceptive ballot title submitted by the Misssoui Civil Rights Initiative to reflect the actual purpose of eliminating affirmative action;

that this Convention calls on all members of the Diocese to become informed about the effects of such a proposal and to cast their ballots in conformity with the Baptismal Covenant, the tenets of our Democratic Republic and their consciences;

and that the Secretary of this Convention immediately send copies of this resolution to the Governor of Missouri, Secretary of the State, Attorney General and both presidents of the General Assembly of the State of Missouri.

If you would like to help work to keep this Initiative off the November ballot, please visit www.stl-jwj.org There is some concern that people seeking to get signature to put MOCRI on the November ballot will be canvassing for signatures at polling places on February 5. Don't be fooled!

Blue Christmas

2007-12-22T01:16:00.000-05:00

Tonight at Hope UCC I took part in a Blue Christmas service, put together by the wonderful Sarah Frederiksen McCann, pastor at Hope, and me. We basically cribbed the service from the Diocese of Ottowa, Canada. You can see their liturgy here. If you go to this link and scroll down, you find a ritual for individuals, in case you were not able or chose not to attend the service for whatever reason. The attendance was modest, at best, but those who were there were grateful for the acknowledgement that Christmas can be a time of struggle for many. We think we will do it again. The culture is so relentlessly cheerful, the emphasis is all on children and joy and family and for those who are grieving or alone or unable to take part in the frenzy of giving by reason of unemployment or other issues, it is a painful time. These are the people whom the liturgy tries to recognize, acknowledging their reality and God's presence with them in that reality. It was not the best attended service we've ever held, but it was full of potential for next year. More advertizing, a little work on the liturgy which was not always as felicitous as it could have been, a little fine tuing of the music (the selections are from the hymnal of the Anglican Church of Canada (which I have never seen) and we were in a UCC church using two different hymnals whose verse numbers etc. were quite a bit different from our hymnal. Kim Jungermann, a member of St Mark's, served as our musician, since the regular musicians of both of our congregations were too occupied by Christmas Eve planning to add another thing to their calendars.

MORE ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

2007-12-13T00:55:00.000-05:00

While I was looking at the website of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana in order to put the volunteer form into Deacon Burnell Esbenshade's article for Markings about a possible Mission Trip, I found another alternative gift-giving opportunity, Bundles of Hope. You can make a donation to the diocese of Louisiana for its work in helping people recover from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. You can print out a certificate to give to the person in whose honor you are buying the bundle. There are several levels of gift available. The link for it is here.

I must say that I also like giving hand made gifts, if not made by me by others, so I seek out art and craft shows all year long. There is a delightful studio show at Nori Obata and Steb Prieto's studio on the overpass of Big Bend where you can buy porcelain, photos, crocheted objects, (by Nori's brother Gen) small rugs, hand made books, glassware blown right there in the studio and fabulous jewelry. Gen and Nori exhibited at our (now defunct) art fair Heart and Hands and Voices. Here is a link to Gen's blog. You can find the details of open studio as well as directions there. And while I am doing commercials, many of my nearest and dearest are getting chocolate products from Kakao, hand-made gourmet chocolates with the finest organic ingredients. My favorite is the Missouri Pecan Clusters with dark chocolate, followed closely by the dark chocolate coated caramels.

Maybe people will comment on this entry and say their favorite places to shop and/or causes to support for Christmas.

The Golden Compass and Beyond

2007-12-06T23:08:00.000-05:00

Having heard about the eagerness of Christian groups to condemn the upcoming movie The Golden Compass, I set out to read it. Actually, I listened to it, being hooked on Audible. And then I listened to The Subtle Knife and then I listened to the Amber Spyglass. The versions on I got from Audible are narrated by Pullman himself and an ensemble of actors voice the other parts, Lyra and Roger and Will and so on. It is the best audiobook series I've heard. Pullman is a wonderful imaginative writer and his parallel worlds, especially Lyra's world, are inventive and delightful. His use of imagery from the Christian tradition and esp. from Milton, his reframing of the Fall, (and, indeed, of the harrowing of hell), his invention of an alternative from of physics, referred to as "experimental theology," all are extremely clever. The books are not as funny as Harry Potter but much more subtle and sophisticated. Pullman's universe may be without a theistic concept of God but it is a very moral world. One of the things about the books is that it is not always clear to the main characters or to the readers where good and evil lie. Even though in Lyra's world, people's demons often seem to symbolize their inner state (a particularly unpleasant character who steals the alethiometer in the Subtle Knife, for example, has a snake demon), it is still hard to know whom to trust and what to do. And then there are people like Lyra's mother who seem to be transformed almost despite themselves by the power of love.
Even though it is shelved in the Fantasy/SciFi section of the bookstore, the Golden Compass and its sequels depict very real children caught in a very adult world. Each of the books ends with triumph tinged with grief and loss, much like life, without fairy tale endings.
I'm looking forward to the movie even though it always distresses me to see worlds that exist in my head transformed into pictures. A review said that the movie makes Mrs Coulter, whose hair is black in the books, into a bleached blond (Nicole Kidman) and that Pullman himself is so enthusiastic about the way that the film makers have translated his work that he said that it made him realize that Mrs Coulter's hair really was blond, not black as he had originally thought. I am not convinced. But I cannot imagine that such richly imagined world which invites those who enter it with Lyra to see their own world with new eyes could possibly be bad for anyone. The film, apparently, tones down the anti-organized religion themes. But in the books, esp. in the first one, when one reads about "the Authority" and "the magisterium" they represent a way of being church that no one could possibly defend or seriously believe was the church as we know it. Marcus Borg says that when his students tell him they don't believe in God, he asks them to tell him about the God they don't believe in. That God is cruel and capricious and all about judgement and not love or mercy and Borg says that he doesn't believe in that God either. The church and indeed the whole concept of organized religion Pullman casts as the enemy in this book is not the church I know nor the God I know. Indeed my experience of God is much closer to the rich description in book three of Mary Malone's mystical experiences of dust, her sense of being one with all that is, even if the way that I would frame or describe that experience is in theological terms.

ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

2007-11-28T18:54:00.000-05:00

If you are tired of the commercialism of Christmas or want to make a statement with your gifts of your Christian commitment to justice and peace, here are some opportunities to give non-traditional gifts:

Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) has a catalog of gifts in a range of prices for purposes such as assuring clean water supply in a village in a developing country, providing for child nutrition, mosquito netting and anti-malaria medicine and much more. Certificates of your gift are provided in exchange for your donation. ERD also packages and sells fair trade “Bishop’s Blend” coffee and coffee gift baskets. The ERD website is http://www.er-d.org/. You can also call Episcopal Relief and Development to order a catalogue at Phone: 800-334-7626, ext 5129

A similar way to make charitable giving fun is by giving to the Heifer Project. They use your donations to provide animals to alleviate hunger and help people become self-sufficient. You can give something as small as a hive of bees or as large as an ark and they give you attractive acknowledgement cards to give to people. Their website is http://www.heifer.org/ or you can call for a catalogue: (800) 422-0474.

A local opportunity for “alternative Christmas shopping” is at Plow Sharing Crafts, a ministry of the Mennonite Church which works with disadvantaged crafts people around the world who are paid a fair wage for their work. (Plowsharing Crafts is part of Ten Thousand Villages). You can find them online at: http://www.plowsharing.org/ Ten Thousand Villages is online at http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/ There are two locations in St Louis, one in Kirkwood at 151 W. Jefferson (314) 909-9401 and the original location in University City at 6271 Delmar (314) 863-3723.

Another fair trade option is MacroSun International. They have a location here in St. Louis at 1310 Washington Ave., 63103 (314) 421-6400, or visit their website at http://www.macrosun.com/.

Trinity Food Ministry is selling Christmas cards for $1.00 a card or if you make a donation in honor of someone, they will send an attractive card as an acknowledgement. For more information on that, call Trinity at 361 4655.

Dr. Mark Manary, a Washington University physician and a member of Gethsemane Lutheran Church, has started an organization called Project Peanut Butter, a ministry with undernourished children in Malawi. He uses a high nutrient food to stabilize starving children which uses peanut butter (made from locally grown peanuts, so the project also supports farming in Malawi) as a base. $25 will feed 2000 starving Malawian children. Donations may be sent to: Project Peanut Butter, 7435 Flora, St. Louis 63143. They also send an attractive thank you card if you make a donation in someone’s honor. You can find out more on their website http://www.projectpeanutbutter.org/.

Magdalene is a two year residential program working with women in Nashville with a history of prostitution and drug addiction. As part of the rehabilitation of the women and as a financial support Magdalene began "Thistle Farms" a line of bath and body products. These are natural products that are as kind to the environment as they are to the body. We showcased these products at our Holiday Luncheon this year and samples for viewing in the parish hall. Please check out their website at http://www.thistlefarms.org/ .

And of course you can always buy fair trade coffee, tea, cocoa and chocolate here at St Mark’s or make a donation to St Mark’s or one of its ministries or funds like the organ fund or access fund, in honor of someone you love. We’ll be happy to send a letter to your friends or family telling that a donation has been made in their honor.

All Souls' Day

2007-11-02T12:53:00.000-04:00

So today is November 2, All Souls' Day, a day when the church remembers those who have died. More and more we blur the line between All Saints' Day-- when we remember those particular heros of the faith who have been outstanding examples in one way or another or whose lives have shaped the Christian tradition-- and All Souls' Day. We blur that line because we know that only God knows what kind of hierarchy of saintliness there is among us, how much each life matters to the coming of God's kingdom. And we blur that line because we have people in our lives who have been examples of wisdom and courage and faith who will never be "officially" saints for the whole church but who have been holy examples for us. And we blur that line because we believe that God makes us holy by our baptism in to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and calls us all to holy lives.
One of the difficulties about keeping a church blog is that many of the really amazingly wonderful moments in ministry are about being privileged to be part of the lives of other people -- I get to hear people's stories, to journey with people as they seek new direction in their lives, as they search for the sacred, as they make commitments to service in the world, as they face disappointment and setbacks, as they struggle with disease and approach death. But mostly, this is material that is not appropriate for a blog. I know there are people who blog about the most intimate details of their relationships but I don't think that a priest can write that kind of stuff about parishioners. But I thought I would post the homily I preached at a memorial service on October 19th on my moribund sermon blog. You can also listen to an old sermon there. Maybe more will appear to join it soon... Maybe not. Here is a quotation from Frederick Beuchner which a friend sent me yesterday

On All Saints Day, it is not just the saints of the church that we should remember in our prayers, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones, the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives who, one way or another, have been our particular fathers and mothers and saints, and whom we loved without knowing we loved them and by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have, or ever hope to have, of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own."
- The Sacred Journey p.74

For the BIble Tells me So

2007-10-25T02:59:00.000-04:00

For the Bible Tells Me So was shown here in St Louis, sponsored by HRC. It was well done, moving and amusing in that "laughing until you cry" way. I was especially touched by the story of the Robinsons and by Gene and his story made me feel proud to be Episcopalian all over again. As a Missourian (by adoption and grace) , I was also touched by the Gephardts' story.

But as the parent of a child who identifies as "gender queer" and another who identifies as bi- (both of whom are not at all clear that the church is a place they will find nurture as adults, grateful though they are for growing up in it in some ways) I noticed the following:

In the lovely animated segment which was a parody of the sex-ed films many of us grew up with but devoted to explaining sexual orientation, the issue of being "bi sexual" was dismissed out of hand in a way designed to make the audience laugh.

There was no household with a child who was gender variant or self identified as "transgender". In fact, in various ways parents described their gay and lesbian children as NOT like stereotypical gay men --portrayed as ridiculously effeminate and "limp wristed" and not like "butch" lesbian women. In other words, the parents acceptance of their childrens' sexuality seemed to be predicated on the fact that the children were gay or lesbian but still stereotypically masculine or feminine.

Please understand that I loved this movie. I loved in particular the story of the Poteat family, where theological convictions about the wrongness of the lifestyle of a lesbian daughter struggled alongside a love for that daughter and a commitment to remain in relationship with her. I was moved by the tragic story of the mother whose religious beliefs made it impossible to accept her child's sexual orientation until it was too late. I loved the stories of parents whose gay and lesbian children turned them into amazing activists. I plan to show this movie when it is available on DVD in my congregation. I have recommended it to friends. But even though it seems too controversial for many PBS stations, it was a reminder to me of how much work we, as a church, have yet to do.

Fall already?

2007-10-16T19:12:00.000-04:00

I just sent out a new e-mail, artfully formatted, in the hopes that it will facilitate better communication in the congregation. On my grumbly days I feel that we don't have a communication problem, we have a listening problem or a reading problem. I just grumbled to someone at the Y that the meeting she was asking me if I planned to attend was one I never had heard of before. "I sent an email" she replied... Yeah, she probably did and I probably didn't read it or didn't transfer the info to my Palm or didn't synch it or... We all get so much data and have so many options for how to spend out time it is amazing any of us can keep track of anything...

In the email I included a link to this blog and to my shame I see that the last posting was in August. How interesting is that?

Since then we've had opening day, two "Children in Church"Sundays (or squirmy Sundays as some of our parishioners say), over a month of 9 a.m. "Life up Your Hearts", two Christian Education suppers in our talking about money series "The M Word". We've had a gifts discernment workshop, several meetings of our youth groups, two stewardship meetings, several choir rehearsals and much more.

Here is how The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori closed her webcast today:

One of my predecessors was fond of saying, "in this church there will be no outcasts." I concur, and I challenge each one of us to consider who it is we would most like to be rid of. That person, my friends, is the image of Christ in our midst. There will be no outcasts in this church, whether because of sexual orientation or theological perspective. God has given us to each other, to love and to learn from each other. May God bless each and every part of this body.

If you missed it (I did) I think you can watch it here .

Kiva Suppers -- Eat in to Help Out

2007-08-21T23:45:00.001-04:00

A group of about 18 Saint Markans gathered for a supper on August 12th. The rector (me) and Senior Warden and spouses were the hosts, our children and their friends provided extremely efficient and amazingly cheerful help. We ate in the parish hall. The guests were to bring money, whatever they would spend on a night out (and that night out might be at McDonalds or at some amazingly fancy restaurant) and we would pool our money and use it to give microcredit loans through the website Kiva.org. The menu was local food from the Tower Grove Farmers' Market-- Lamb kebabs from Prairie Farms, roasted veggies from Biver Farms, a tomato salad with tomatos from various local vendors and local potatoes with herbs from the Speller garden. The desserts were a raspberry tart with local raspberries and jam from Centennial Farms in Augusta, a plum berry crisp featuring blackberries from Centennial Farms. The wines were not so local, which was probably okay, too... We raised (including a couple of donations from people who loved the idea but could not attend) $550. While dinner was getting ready (and we ate local tomato and Black Bear bakery bruschetta with local goat cheese and another kind of bruschetta from local egg plants) people browsed on the Kiva Website for worthy entrepreneurs. We decided on two -- a farmer in Azerbajan and a woman shop owner in Nigeria. But by the next day, when we had set up a Pay Pal account for the church, these two entrepreneurs had been fully subscribed. So Sue, the treasurer who set up the Paypal account, and I "shopped" for other entrepreneurs and this is what we came up with:
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=15912

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=16015

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=15484

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=16073

These loan recipients are like the original ones in representing more than one area of enterprise, more than one geographical area and in at least one case, our loan helped the recipient achieve his or her total loan goal.

It is amazing to think that $550 could make such a huge difference in the lives of four people and their families, allowing them to take businesses to the next step and to be economically independent and able to educate their children. To most of us around the table, $550 is an amount of money we would notice-- not just the kind of change you'd drop on the street and not bother to pick up-- but for few of us was it a life changing amount of money, either. It reminded us of our many advantages and privileges as Americans and maybe made us think about our regular patterns of giving and whether as individuals we might want to become KIVA investors.

Toothpaste and the paradox of choice

2007-05-05T23:05:00.000-04:00

Today I was in the supermarket and thought I should buy more toothpaste as the tube we are currently using is almost used up. When I was a child, we used Colgate toothpaste and it seemed to me that it came in only one flavor. Other families used Crest and others used Pepsodent, although obviously not very many because it went out of business. I had a strong preference for Colgate but John came from a Crest family and I became a Crest convert. But recently when I have gone toothpaste shopping I have noticed that there are more and more KINDS of Crest. There are gels and creams, there are kinds that whiten, kinds that help with sensitive teeth, kinds that have mouthwash to prevent bad breath, kinds that protect against cavities, kinds that prevent against tartar, kinds aimed at kids, kinds with baking powder (the kind I hate the most) and kinds that do various things but have non minty flavors like cinamon, citrus and lemon. There is a kind called "nature's expressions" which comes in Mint and Green Tea, among other flavors. So I am standing there looking for the kind I like, which has Scope and something else in a stripy paste. Can I see it? Can I figure out which-- of fhis vast range of choices-- it is... not really. My goal, of course, is to find the brand of Crest which tastes the most like the Colgate of my childhood. Anyway, as I stood there, wondering which flavor I wanted and which attributes, I was thinking, not for the first time, about an NPR interview I heard with a man called Barry Schwartz who wrote a book called The Paradox of Choice:Why More is Less which describes this very dilemma -- we think as a culture that choice is a good thing but then we are overwhelmed by the problem of choosing. Here is a link to the interview. John's dad always said that Coleman's mustard made their money from the mustard that stayed on the plate not the mustard you put on your meat. I wonder whether toothpaste manufacurers have discovered that the secret to profitability is having so many kinds of toothpaste that desperate consumers buy a kind and CAN'T STAND IT and go back for a different kind the next day...

Catching up... and new Blog

2007-05-05T00:41:00.000-04:00

Maybe I am not cut out to have a blog.

So much has happened... so much to report... and I have not made time for any of it.

But I'm writing now to point out that I have made a blog for the General Convention Deputies from Missouri to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant. If this is interesting to you, you can find it here: http://draftcovenantresponse.blogspot.com

I gather that the office of the bishop will be doing something when the House of Bishops' response is ready but I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to offer input, whenever it is offered. I'll be offering discussion this Sunday and next at 9 a.m. at St Mark's.

On the Road with the Organ Committee

2006-11-06T23:27:00.000-05:00

During 2006, the organ committee has visited several organs in the Saint Louis area, including the Dobson tracker in the First Unitarian Church and the Casavant tracker at Principia College. Last week, four of us (Lydia, John, Bob and Barbara) went to Chicago to visit four more instruments. The purpose of this is to identify organ builders from whom we would like to have bids. At each instrument, those who could play the organ (Bob and Barbara and sometimes the local organist would play for us as well) played a variety of music, so we could hear what the instrument would be like leading hymns and liturgy and for preludes, postludes and concerts. We listened to different stops (or groups of pipes voiced to sound in a particular way) and listened to see how certain stops sounded with other stops. Ideally, each stop is beautiful by itself but blends wonderfully with every other stop. Because we were listening to tracker (or mechanical action) organs, we wanted to be sure that the sound of the action wasn’t noticeable above the sound of the pipes. Another factor we looked at was the “feel” of the action: how sensitive and responsive are the keys to the touch? We tried to assess how well each organ builder had adapted the organ to the space in the church itself. Failure to do this can make an instrument sound too loud, too soft or too muddy. We looked at how each builder had designed the organ to complement or enhance the architectural look of the building. We are hopeful that this trip, undertaken at our own expense, will help the organ committee to identify three builders from whom we would like to have bids. We visited the 21 stop Halbert Gober organ (Op. 11) at Bethany Lutheran Church, Crystal Lake, IL ; which had a spectacular case

the 19 stop Hellmuth Wolff (Op. 37) at St. Giles Episcopal Church, Northbrook, IL ; The 23 stop Lynn Dobson organ (Op. 81) at Kenilworth Union Church, Kenilworth, IL and the 27 stop Martin Pasi organ (Op. 15) at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul, and the Redeemer, located near the University of Chicago. Here is a link to the Kenilworth organ on Dobson' site, showing how the organ itself was built. Here (below) is a picture of the interesting embossed pipes on the Dobson.

Below is a picture of the Pasi in St Paul and the Redeemer. I really like the ribbons over the altar, too.

Below is a picture of the Wolff at St Giles' Church, Northbrook and here is a link to the Wolff website for the specs and other information.

What are trackers, anyway? Well, right above this is a picture of the insides of a tracker instrument and you can read one church's explanation of how organs work here I suspect that I'll be editing this soon with some input from John Speller on websites that explain how organs work.

Painting the World

2006-08-12T22:45:00.000-04:00

Today was the day that the youth of St Mark's, with lots of help from adults and younger children, painted a map of the world on the playground of Scrugg's School. Scruggs is an elementary school in south Saint Louis, more or less due east of the church. We have at least one parishioner who attended Scruggs (probably 50 years ago) and we have a parishioner who teaches there. Over the years we've tried to support the work of this teacher and she helps us to learn about the lives of the children in the school. A few years ago, our Outreach Committee partnered with Faith Beyond Walls, an agency which tries to encourage people of different races and faith traditions to work together, to paint a map of the US on the otherwise rather bare and barren playground. This year, a new generation of youth group got a small grant from Faith Beyond Walls intended to encourage youth groups to engage in ministries of service in the community. And with the money they bought a stencil of the world and a bunch of bright and new paint. So today St Markans touched up the US and painted the world. Three children from the neighborhood stopped by, as they had a few years ago, to see what we were doing and to help. Kids at Scruggs come from all over the world, including Bosnia, Somalia, and Afghanistan, so a map of the world is probably a good thing to have. Parishioners donated some jump ropes and balls and things to the athletic department for playground use and I think there was enough paint left over to paint squares for hopscotch. Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of people at work and of their handiwork. Anna recruited four of her friends from Metro, so that St Louis School grads were doing something for a new generation of SLPS kids. Something odd is happening with the photo uploading. Blogger keeps saying I have done it successfully but no photos appear. Be patient I'll add them soon.

Coffee, coffee and paper

2006-08-03T11:46:00.000-04:00

A friend brought me to the Saint Louis Coffee Oasis at 8 Euclid Street, which is at Euclid just north of Laclede. With luck you can park on Laclede. It has lovely decor, a wonderful whimsical painted wall with a camel saying "I'd walk miles for coffee from St Louis Coffee Oasis" or something similar. They have traditional espresso drinks and then Arabic coffee in various permutations, including an Arabic Latte which has wonderful spices in it. Today Anna had Arabic Tea which seemed to be infused with sage and other herbs and was served in a lovely gold trimmed tea glass (which is a little hard to hold when hot.) They put the Latte in a big glass but you get a Java jacket. They also have many different kinds of baklava and other Middle Eastern treats and lunches including Spinach Pie and Gyros. They advertize Free High Speed internet but I have not tried this. It looks as if this may be wired not wireless since there are little ethernet sockets along the wall, but I'm not sure. They also have tables outside, as many Central West End restaurants do, but with temperatures again in the high nineties or low hundreds, the attraction of sitting outside was rather limited for me.

On Sara and Laclede, over in that area on the fringes between Saint Louis University and the Central West End, there is a newish (year old?) coffee house called 6 North. It is 6 North Sarah. It is in a big new building of "loft style" apartments. The decor is lovely, they have some fabulous artwork including lovely luminous landscapes and huge watercolors of exotic plants. They have comfy chairs as well as tables. The ladies' room (and I assume, mutatis mutandis, the men's room) is decorative with witty sayings about coffee like "Behind every great woman there is a great cup of coffee." They serve Kaldi's coffee. I almost always prefer my coffee drinks hot but one day last week I succumbed to an icy granita like mocha drink there which was absolutely delicious. I have never actually had anything to eat there, but they have a list of enticing sandwiches and a display of delightful pastries.

Next to 6 North is a wonderful paper store called Sage Papers. They have cards, little notebooks an array of social stationary you can put through your printer (make your own cute baby announcements, for example), some lovely art paper or wrapping paper and much more. They also have elegant French correspondence cards marked GL which I am unable to resist. Lovely powder blue, lovely lined envelopes. They had wonderful paper boxes you can use for distinctive present wrapping or decorating. They also had whacky coasters that looked like flipflops.

And did I mention that all this is across the street from the wonderful restaurant Terrene which I believe I raved about here a few months ago. When Mo and Anna were at Metro, we drove up and down Sarah all th time and all this elegant and interesting stuff has sprung up there now we no longer spend so much time in the neighborhood. Oh well.

After the Starm

2006-07-22T14:58:00.000-04:00

Today is a lovely and sunny day and there is a breeze and the humidity is manageable and it is only in the 80's. But even now as we drive through the city it seems that more traffic lights are out than are on, houses and shops are dark and huge branches and even trees still lie on sidewalks and across streets. I missed the storm itself on Wednesday evening. I was driving back from Cape Girardeau where we had had a post General Convention session. All the way up 55 there was sheet lightening and regular lightening. No rain, not much thunder (or not that I could hear with windows shut and A/C on high.) Every now and then the radio would offer a warning about thunderstorms with high winds but since I didn't know what counties I was driving through or what counties were affected by the warning, I decided to just keep driving.I guess the storm must have passed through St Louis while the bishop and deputies were fielding questions about the difference between straining the bonds of affection or breaching the bonds of affection within the Anglican communion. But when I got up to St Louis Hills there were trees and branches down everywhere. The church and its new roof appear to have been unscathed and the big elm in our backyard, alarmingly large and close to the house, held up just fine as did the big tree in the Memorial Garden.
Less fortunate was the apartment building on Clifton on the other side of Nottingham from the church. Streets around the church look like this. Murdoch and Locke were both blocked until well into Thursday. St Mark's was spared when the power went out on Wednesday but Thursday night the lights flashed on and off and then went off altogether until Friday afternoon. Ironically, Friday afternoon there was a second big windstorm which caused even more people to lose power but our power came back shortly after it passed through the area.

Friday AM Anna and I went to the Bread Company with all the other orphans of the storm. According to the power company there were 10,000 people without service in our zip code and it seemed as if most of them were at the Bread Company. I was there from 8 to 9:30 during which time over 150 people were served (you had to take a number.) There was the kind of survivor cameraderie that I've experienced waiting for a ferry off Nantucket after a hurricaine or the kind I imagine people had in London during the blitz, when whole families would go down into the underground to wait out air raids. People were helping one another figure out the Panera free WiFi , passing on what they knew about who had power and who didn't, exchanging rumors about when the power would come on, etc. Those of us who were there to plug in our laptops and get our email shared tables and electrical outlets, no longer strangers but companions.

The incredible heat of last week made me crabby and lethargic and then the power went off. When I think of all the places in the world where people are living with disrupted electrcity, I realize how little patience I have and how dependent on technology (my cordless phone, my computer, my cell phone) I have become and how spoiled by air conditioning I am. I would not have lasted ten minutes in the aftermath of Katrina or in Beirut or in the parts of St Louis where the mayor does not live and which are still waiting for power to come back on.

Post GC

2006-06-28T22:33:00.000-04:00

So now I am in Saratoga Springs NY at the Organ Historical Society annual convention. We've been driving around upper NY state and southern VT in pouring rain, visiting churches which have historic organs and hearing short "demonstrations" of the organs.

Meanwhile, I've been talking with people at Pride about GC and hearing from colleagues and others who feel betrayed and wounded (as is completely understandable) by B033. I have been reading online all the various conspiracy theories -- that the HOB placed undue pressure on the deputies, that the deputies were misled about the level of support in the HOB for B033, that somehow the whole convention, including the PB election was manipulated by people on the fringes, left or right. I've read or heard various expressions of the view that B033 was a wasted effort because the right had already decided to leave TEC before they ever came to convention and that nothing we did has kept Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, SC, etc. from seeking alternative primatial oversight and condemning TEC for failing to respond adequately to the Windsor Report. Meanwhile, I am reading about the Archbishop of Canterbury's reported comments, which suggest that voting for language against my conscience may not have made much difference to him either. Would I vote the same way if I had it to do again? I am not sure. The day I would like to replay is Tuesday, on which we had a chance to bring more acceptable wording to the floor and failed, outmanoeuvered by people who are better at Roberts Rules and the HOD rules than I ever thought about being...

I still believe that there is nothing that God can't make something of, however, that we did the best we could do and we can't right now predict or control how others will feel about it nor how it will all play out in the life and future of TEC and the Anglican Communion.

Scenes from GC 2006

2006-06-24T22:05:00.000-04:00

These are a couple of pictures of the MO deputation, taken when our bishop and resigned bishop were on the floor before the PB election. Below is a picture of the UTO box, thanks to Reynolds Whelan. At some point, someone in our deputation suggested that instead of using the UTO box in the usual way, putting in an offering every time we were thankful for something, we should use it as a kind of curse jar. Every time we were tempted to say something mean about the Elections Secretary (who in other contexts we know to be a delightful and competent person) and the voting process and the people who get up to the microphone to say things that don't need saying or, even worse, to say, "I think I can save the house some time if we just..". The box got pretty full most days -- and fuller still when we did indeed give thanks for the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as our new PB.
Finally, just in case you might not have realized it, here is a photo of GC as a room amazingly full of all sorts and conditions of people.

The hardest day, Wednesday June 21

2006-06-22T21:57:00.000-04:00

During the listening sessions and in other conversations leading up to GC 2006, I found myself saying that I had no idea how I would be voting because I had no idea what resolutions would ultimately come to the floor to be voted on. If you had told me in May of early June that I would find myself voting for B033, I would not have believed it. Here is my version of how and why it happened, which I hope makes clear some of the General Convention experience. I make no claim to speak for other Missouri deputies in this narrative.

Before a resolution comes to the floor of convention, it has been worked on by a committee, which has held public hearings as part of its process. Usually there are other vetting stages, for example each resolution is copy edited and checked for canonical issues. And then Dispatch of Business figures out how and when it will come to the floor. There are 22 legislative committees, all of which have the same process, so there is a ton of legislation coming to the floor. In addition, of course, each resolution has to pass in both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops in the same form. This year’s convention had 9 business days – previous conventions have had two or three more. Committee 26, the Special Committee charged with the Windsor Report response resolutions, had the resolutions which came out of the Special Commission appointed by the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies plus various resolutions which came from dioceses, bishops and individual deputies. The hope was that they would have presented resolutions for both houses to vote on before the PB election, but that did not take place. They worked and worked and worked and held hearings including a giant hearing with at least 1,500 people. Strong opinions across a spectrum of belief were expressed on the authority of scripture, sexual orientation and behavior, the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the wider Anglican Communion, the meaning and propriety of expressing regret or repentance and so on. If you have strong feelings about this matter, you probably can pretty much guess for yourself what the speeches were like.
And although both houses had passed easier resolutions: regret for straining the bonds of affection with the Anglican communion, commitment to work towards an Anglican covenant, commitment to a listening process, willingness to have DEPO and, of course, money for the Anglican Consultative Council in our budget and commitment to the Millenium Development Goals, it was not until Tuesday that we got a resolution responding to the Windsor Report for a Moratorium. It arrived, and its language was pretty unacceptable to most of the house.

A161 (Anglican Communion: Election of Bishops)

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, that the 75th General Convention of the Episcopal Church regrets the extent to which we have, by action and inaction, contributed to strains on communion and caused deep offense to many faithful Anglican Christians as we consented to the consecration of a bishop living openly in a same-gender union. Accordingly, we are obliged to urge nominating committees, electing conventions, Standing Committees, and bishops with jurisdiction to exercise very considerable caution refrain from the nomination, election, consent to, and consecration of bishops whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention not proceed to develop or authorize Rites for the Blessing of same-sex unions at this time, thereby concurring with the Windsor Report in its exhortation to bishops of the Anglican Communion to honor the Primates’ Pastoral Letter of May 2003; and be it further

Resolved that this General Convention affirm the need to maintain a breadth of responses to situations of pastoral care for gay and lesbian Christians in this Church.

Resolved that this General Convention apologize to those gay and lesbian Episcopalians and their supporters hurt by these decisions.

It seemed too negative and too extreme. The apology at the end appeared gratuitous and unhelpful. For many people, at least for me, the “exercise considerable caution” language would have been much more acceptable. Meanwhile, someone rose to limit the time of debate on the motion and someone else rose to offer an amendment which used the even harsher language of “moratorium”. By the time the house had debated the amendment, there was no time left for a more moderate amendment. We voted the original down. I certainly was not savvy enough to know that in voting against it, I was assuring that there could be no more debate of this matter. There was an effort to reconsider, which I supported, but it did not prevail. This would have meant that the Episcopal Church was refusing to offer any response to the Anglican Communion on the matter of gay bishops, it would mean, as I understood it, just ignoring those in the Communion who had objected in 2003. Then the PB called the combined session, our bishop made it clear that this was our last chance as a house to respond to the WR, which I took to mean, our last chance to remain in the conversation with the Anglican Communion. More than that, our new PB elect, for whom I have huge admiration, asked us to vote for the language of B033, language which I would not otherwise have supported. Also, many respected members of the HOD, including GLBT people and allies said that they would be voting for B033 even though they did not want to. This was more or less what Bp Katharine Jefferts Schori said, assuring the house that this language did not close the door to anyone.
So I voted for B033, even though it went beyond my comfort to appease the larger communion, even though I knew it would be very hurtful to many LGBT people. There was much language at convention about sacrifice, how we in North America must sacrifice for the good of the whole communion. I agreed, however, with Ruth Meyers when she passionately observed that no one can make that sacrifice on behalf of others, straight people cannot ask that sacrifice of gay and lesbian sisters and brothers. But I also believe that as the Anglican Communion unravels, B033 allows the Episcopal Church to claim the high moral ground – we went as far – and maybe further – as we could go to stay in the conversation with the Anglican Communion. We cannot be said to have failed to take the Windsor Report seriously and I think we could have been considered to have done that if we had not made some kind of response to the “moratorium” request. I wish we had had a response which calls for others in the communion to take seriously the call for mutual listening and for an end to invading diocesan boundaries but time was up.
A sadness for me is that we have lost the traditional assumption within the Episcopal Church that the job of Standing Committees is to ascertain that the canonical requirements have been met in an election. Now we are asking SC’s to judge whether a person, not the process of election, is a challenge to others in the communion. And we are in the business of judging generally, I’ve had people say not entirely in jest to me that people who drive SUV’s or people who are agains the full inclusion of GLBT people are challenging to them so if they were on the SC they would vote against them.
A greater sadness for me is that we spent so much time and got so much press attention for this and for the PB election that many other things we did are obscured:

We adopted MDG’s and called dioceses and individuals to live into them

We entered into interim Eucharistic sharing with the United Methodist Church

We expressed the view that the teaching of evolution in the schools was not in conflict with a belief in God as creator and WAS the best scientific thing we could do

We adopted the Revised Common Lectionary

We expressed our regret for our complicity as a church in the institution of slavery and called for an investigation of how we might contribute materially to repairing the harm done by slavery

Who else is blogging from GC ?

2006-06-22T07:50:00.000-04:00

It is a little late, I guess, to post this, but someone asked who else from MO is blogging from GC and this is what I know:
Mike Kinman, who has done a fabulous job of the Episcopalians for Global Mission presence and hosted a triumphant U2charist blogged a little but got overwhelmed by work. His blog (which is always worth a look) is http://revmikek.blogspot.com/
Trinity CWE member Matthew Owings has been here for the whole time and has been a delightful and intelligent visitor to Missouri deputy gatherings. He has been blogging here
http://gencon2006.blogspot.com/
Kate Ketcham who is the Wash U Campus Ministry Lay Chaplain has been blogging athttp://bluestockingchic.blogspot.com/

I think that my fellow clerical deputy Ron Clingenpeel has been emailing the cathedral listserve daily, but I am not sure.

Non Missouri blogs are: Nick Knisely of the diocese of Bethlehem http://www.entangledstates.org/

the blog of the Diocese of Washington
http://blog.edow.org/weblog/

Sarah Dylan Breuer's blog
http://www.sarahlaughed.net/gracenotes/

She is also the editor of the Witness http://thewitness.org/contents.php

All of these guys have links to other blogs, too. Explore and enjoy. I am planning to write about yesterday later today.

Windsor Response, Last Day

2006-06-20T08:14:00.000-04:00

It seems to me that the technological aspects of this convention are working less well than at others I have attended. The voting system continues to be so difficult for some deputies that our deputation decided to make the UTO box into a "curse jar" -- covenanting to contribute to it every time we said something negative about the voting process or about the way in which it was being explained to us. And now it appears, when we have big lines at the microphones to speak, that the electronic queuing system doesn't work right, so that the chair doesn't know who is at which microphone and why and who is up next. Anyway, yesterday we got to work in earnest on the Windsor Report Responses. We left at 7:30 Monday night in a fair degree of disarray about A161 which is the one responding to the WR request for a moratorium. Tuesday we voted down A 161. The procedural motions seemed to create a situation in which there was no possibility amending A161 as it came out of the committee to a form more like what came out of the special commission, so the whole thing went down. Today we are having a joint meeting with the bishops and a committee has been working on new wording so despite the fact that the media is already saying things like "US Anglicans defy church" we are still hopeful of offering an acceptable WR response. We did pass two other WR resolutions but 161 is probably the most contentious.

Meanwhile the new title 3 (mainly repairing the too hasty title 3 revision in 2003) passed fairly easily last night, thank goodness.

Presiding Bishop Election

2006-06-19T07:04:00.000-04:00

One of the unforgettable moments about this convention came when the election was announced. It is the custom of the house not to applaud-- especially in situations like this, when a difficult decision has been made which may cause pain to the "losing" side. There were whoops of enthusiasm in the gallery -- which was packed and which was duly admonished. But on the floor you could feel sharp intakes of breath and tears springing to the eyes unbidden. The amazing thing about this election is that even people who thought she was the best candidates thought "but that will never happen" because of her gender and because of some fear that a female primate would just exacerbate the tensions in the Anglican Communion. What was so wonderful -- for many of us-- was that the right thing happened even though we barely dared to hope for it.

Saturday Already

2006-06-17T06:50:00.000-04:00

So, here I am getting ready to go to my legislative committee meeting this morning and I have not posted since the first legislative day. The convention is so intensely covered by the ENS that there is not much that I can add. I have started to post a couple of times, then overwhelmed by sleep have gone to bed without successfully saving my draft. Pretty pathetic. The house of deputies continues to work very slowly. Our electronic voting system seems to be beyond the technical skills of the house, probably because we are too old to know how to program our own VCR's, etc. There seems to me to be quite a lot of unnecessary speech on the floor -- people asking questions or making observations from a microphone which would have been better dealt with in a private way, people saying micro-editing things on the floor, offering views which would have been better done at the hearings, bits of legislation coming to the floor which have to be withdrawn and worked on more. One session caused John to comment that it was like some kind of comedy program. But everyone is playing nicely. Highpoints for me have been: seeing old friends, the PB's forum on reconciliation at which our own John Danforth did a fabulous job and then Dr Jenny ten Paa spoke completely differently and absolutely wonderfully, the liturgies which are wonderfully varied and all extremely well done. Each day there are "visual preludes" displayed on screens. These are lovely slideshows of original art, which also play during communion. I wonder whether some of the triviality on the floor is related to Windsor Report Anxiety -- maybe if we fritter away our time we'll never have to get around to the tough decisions.

First Legislative Day

2006-06-13T23:17:00.000-04:00

Today was the first official day of convention. We got up early, walked up to the convention centre, had a quick fast food breakfast and I went to the Ministry Committee meeting. We are almost done with our task of looking at Canon III:5-9 which is much better than the revision of the equivalent canons in 2003. These canons are about the ordination process of deacons and priests and the life an ministry of priests and deacons. Oddly, although I am not a detail kind of person, I love working on canons and am surprisingly good at finding things which need to be changed or rationalized.

Anyway, after the meeting, we went to Eucharist. The screens were full of slideshows of pictures of artwork. There is a table for the children in the children's program. The choir of Trinity Church Columbus sang -- the were great. The sang early American music -- but not in the styl e of shape note singers, but well. They had a small instrumental ensemble with them which was also wonderful. The organ for the event is a "virtual pipe organ" according to our bulletins.

The first legislative day was mostly a day of ceremonial activities: lovely visit from the Archbishop of York who brought greetings from the Archbishop of Canterbury (which you can read on the Episcopal News Service website.) Messengers go to the House of Bishops to tell them we are all organized and ready, corresponding messengers come from the House of Bishops to tell us that they are ready, too. Greetings from the President of the Episcopal Church women, introductions and where appropriate elections of all the officers of convention and all the people on the dias. Greetings to the representatives of the Church in Liberia who are with us (not sure if this is a first or just that they are not always able to be there.) There was much discussion of the many flags which hang behind the podium. They are a reminder that the Episcopal Church is not JUST the Episcopal Church of the USA but is an international body, including people from Equador and Mexico and Haiti and Cuba and other sovereign nations. At the same time, there is some confusion about the flags. The Haitian flag turns out the be an out of date flag and no one seems to e able to tel lwhich of the flags is from which of the many nations. There is much High Tech about this convention, so we spent some time practicing voting with our little voting devices which look a bit like TV remote controls. We practiced voting "yes " or "no" on an imaginary motion to make cucumber sandwiches the offical food of the Episcopal Church and we practiced election style voting by choosing our favorite hymn out of a list of four. Previous conventions have had electronic voting for "yes" and "no" but I think that this is the first time we are not having paper ballots for elections. For lunch we went to the North Market, just a block or so from the convention centre. This is a delightful place, with some produce -- including Ohio Strawberries and raw buffalo meat-- and lots of prepared take out food. After surveying the scene we opted for the Indian stall, which was tasty and reasonable, even though they did run out of the lamb curry right before I reached the head of the line. Tamsen and I went on a scouting expedition afterwards for tomorrow's lunch options. We also found a wine stall called "the Grapes of Mirth" which is such a great name...

My committee keeps on working. We had a joint hearing with Canons on Title III but hardly anyone came to testify, which either means that all the changes will sail through without any difficulty at all OR it means that people will endlessly argue on the floor things they should have brought up at the committee hearings... We shall see. The schedule is tight -- I dashed from the floor to the diocesan meeting in the Renaissance and back to the convention centre for a hearing. Tiring. Dinner in the hotel, whose real restaurant is under construction. And so to bed.

General Convention Orientation Day

2006-06-12T22:23:00.000-04:00

Well, I have a ton of things to post about Easter and Confirmation but today I am blogging about General Convention. We arrived yesterday evening and settled into our hotel, the Columbus Renaissance. We met for our regular diocesan deputation meeting and social hour Sunday night and then we went to a wonderfully stylish and delicious restaurant featuring "contemporary southern cuisine" called the Brown Stone. Convention gets so busy that we may not manage to eat together again, but this was a delightful evening. Our candid waiter warned against ordering the Creme Brule. I chose not to believe him, but he was right. Otherwise, my dinner (fried chicken with garlic broccoli and roasted asparagus) was perfect.

Today we had room service breakfast because we were so tired from travel, etc. It was okay but probably not worth the extravagance. It might have been worth the extra hour of sleep, however. I went to the organizing meeting of my Legislative Committee, the Ministry Committee (number 14-- apparently there are 22 committees inscrutably numbered 1-26). Our job is to hold hearings for resolutions assigned to us and to bring them to the floor in the best possible form. I am on the subcommittee which is working on revision of Title III, 5-9. The Standing Committee on Ministry Development has worked for three years on this and other resolutions, but we are "another pair of eyes" picking up inconsistencies and trying to make it as clear as possible that the ordination processes for Deacons and Presbyters are parallel. Our committee also has a subcommittee studying new sections of Title III on bishops and their continuing formation, one on the process of reception/ordination of people ordained in other faith traditions and one on "other" resolutions. Tonight we had our first hearing.

Meanwhile, I only had a short time in the exhibit hall but managed to make my first purchase, a lovely scarf with a salt effect wet on wet design AND a lovely celtic border. What more could one want in a scarf! I am thinking that the artist might be able to make us a pottery communion set for Lent.

The afternoon was spent hearing addresses by the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Bishops and then "deputy orientation" at which I picked up the helpful data about the 22 committees numbered one to 26. The PB talked about matters before us and talked a little about the false dichotomy between "holiness" and "justice", which reminded me of the very helpful essay by Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. about the tension between "kingdom Catholics" and "communion Catholics" in the May issue of the National Catholic Reporter (available online here ). Radcliffe's point (and, I think, Griswold's) is that this is a false dichotomy and that if we listen closely to each other we will discover that we have much in common underneath the surface of our divisions. This is where I found my thoughts going, whether this is what Griswold was saying or not-- kind of like sermons, where what you mean to say is not necessarily what people hear. but it may be what the Spirit means you to hear.

Then there was a "conversation", coordinated by Rob Voyle of the Clergy Leadership Institute which allowed tables of ten, with a trained conversation leader, to discuss what we feel passionately about about being a Christian, based on our life's story, what we love about the Episcopal Church and what we imagine the best outcome of this GC will be --- an appreciative inquiry approach to listening to others, really. not unlike the conversations we had at our diocesan listening sessions. That was quite fun. The people at my table were very charming, although most of us were clergy and generally seemed homogeneous, both demographically and in our thoughts. But I found myself feeling less cynical and more hopeful about the future of the church which was, presumably, the aim of the exercise.

Then off to the social/meeting time at the Renaissance. I decided I'd take the lovely complimentary shuttle, to save time and energy, since I am a fairly slow walker. Turns out the shuttle took longer than even my slow waddling walk would have taken. Then after touching base briefly, back to the convention centre for committee hearings. John came to those and we ended quite early. The two of us went to another delicious restaurant which was having a rack of lamb special (yum, yum, when in doubt, order the lamb is one of my restaurant mottos) and it turned out that Monday is half price wine night. The restaurant was Due Amici, only a block from our hotel. My dinner was so delicious I didn't even ask how John liked his. But it looked rather tasty, chicken marsala on a bed of risotto with green beans. Oh, the lamb had garlic sour cream (or cream cheese?) mashe potatoes and broccolini. John had the gelato sampler, which was also quite good, we both had coffee.

After checking in with Anna who is watching over our house and had a doctor's appointment, we watched the tail end of a documentary about the Blitz on WOSU. And so to bed.

Paschal Candle

2006-04-12T20:35:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-11T17:23:00.000-04:00

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!!!

2006-04-04T12:21:00.000-04:00

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.

St John's is branching out

2006-03-25T10:03:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, after coffee at the new and expanded MoKaBe's with my brilliant and energetic colleague and friend Teresa, I stopped in at St. John's Church, of which she is the rector, to see their Living Tree Mural. In the almost two years Teresa has been there as rector, Saint John's has experienced a lot of life and growth and a new sense of its mission to its neighborhood. A symbol of this is its partnership with South City Open Studio and Gallery (SCOSAG) to make a wonderful mural in the entryway to the parish hall. Everyone in the congregation as well as people from the larger community had an opportunity to make leaves for the tree, the tree incorporates a bench for sitting, it is a really spectacular and inviting piece of work. You can read more about the project and its process here.

More Harbingers of Spring

2006-03-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

We had some snow earlier this week but it was not a great deal and had no seriously discouraging effect on the daffodils and forsythia brightening up my yard. Meanwhile, at the supermarket, there is a large display of citronella candles right next to the display of firelogs, as you walk in and over near the pharmacy there is a huge display of sunscreen and other sun related products. And we are past the half-way point in Lent and this Sunday is Refreshment Sunday or, in England, Mothering Sunday.

Harbingers of Spring

2006-03-03T23:43:00.000-05:00

There are some annual signs that Spring is on the way at St Mark's Church every year. One is that Steve, who does our wonderful altar flowers, usually forces some forsythia in the church furnace room. He hoped it would be ready for the Last Sunday after Epiphany but it wasn't. But it was just perfect for our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. The other sign is that he brings several pots of amaryllis bulbs out of hibernation and puts them on the table in the parish hall. The idea is to have them for Easter. They are going great guns so they may be a little early. We'll see. But togethe with the warm days we've been having this week, these are signs that winter is coming to an end. Of course, we could have a blizzard in March...

Saying Good Bye

2006-02-14T19:10:00.000-05:00

One of the things about being part of a parish congregation is that you interact with people of different ages who are not part of your immediate family. Not everybody gets to do this, in our culture, where whole subdivisions can be full of people of a certain age with school age children, where older people move to independent living and assisted living facilities or even to regular apartment buildings which don't allow children. But on a Sunday morning you may find yourself at the communion rail with a two year old on one side of you and an eighty-two year old on the other. But living in this intergenerational community, this household of God, means that some people grow old and sick and even die. Cora has been a part of this congregation longer than almost anyone. For as long as I have known her she's lived just a short walk from the church. She looks the same as ever: wonderfully white hair in tight curls, pink cheeks, trim figure, gold earrings. But we've known for a while that she's not been herself, growing forgetful, reluctant to go out in public and we've worried about how she's been coping while wanting to honor her dignity and independence. She has no family here but her nephew from the west coast came a few weeks ago to help her move back west with him. Well miss her, here, and her pew mates and other long term friends took her out to lunch at Pietro's -- her favorite place, it appears, lucky guess on my part-- to say good bye. Here we are, bidding her farewell.

Meanwhile, just last night Ruth, another older parishioner died. She had been a faithful member of our early service congregation and of a Tuesday morning service which dwindled away to nothing as people became too ill or infirm to attend it. She was tiny with whitest white hair and a fascinating configuration of wrinkles which seemed to be the legacy of decades of smiling. The fog of dementia had claimed her several years ago but when I went to see her a couple of weeks ago she was just as sweet as ever, taking my hand, thanking me for coming. And she could say the Lord's Prayer with me, though she seemed pretty vague about who I was and why I was there. So the joys of being part of this multigenerational family have their sadnesses, too, as those who have been so much a part of our lives slip away into illness and into death. But they continue to be part of God's life, just as we who remain are, even though we miss them.

Eating in South St. Louis

2006-01-09T14:38:00.000-05:00

We really don't understand how this has happened, but a few blocks south of our house (just south of the venerable Del Pietro's) at 5815 Hampton there is now an establishment called The Pitted Olive. It is elegant looking, with rich earth tones and gleaming cold display cases. There are three eat in tables for two plus a tall bar type table for six. They offer a limited but tasty and reasonbly priced selection of wines and beer (John had Bass Ale for lunch today) and have several tasty sandwiches and salads on offer. They also have lovely things you can take home and heat up like stuffed pork loin, stuffed chicken breast, vegie lasagna and much else. Last week the special was a steak sandwich with blue cheese and caramelized onion sauce. The bun was nicely toasted, the steak was big tender chunks cooked to order (not the shaved well cooked beef often offered in steak sandwiches)the cheese and the sauce just delicious. The only problem was that it was messy to eat because it was so well filled. And it came with a choice of side salads. This week, the special was barbecued ribs which were served with a side of beand and rice with andouille sausage. The combination was smokey, spciy and delicious. John reports that the split pea soup is good and Mo gobbled down the chicken with wild rice soup and an oatmeal butterscotch cookie. Oh, and we had Creme Brulee for dessert. Very very tasty. How can this be happening, here on south Hampton where the last exciting restaurant opening as St Louis Pizza and Wings? Also, they are offering a service where they will deliver three delicious meals to your house per week for $30.00 per person plus a delivery charge... Check them out on south Hampton or on the web at:
www.thepittedolive.com

Funeral Home Marketing

2006-01-07T19:00:00.000-05:00

We use candles on our table often and since we aren't smokers and our gas stove has a pilot and a Piezzo spark, we have to work hard at finding matches. So when I was first in St Louis, I discovered that one of the ways that funeral homes keep their names before the public is by leaving matches around for you to pick up in public areas. We have a number of packs of matches at our house picked up over the years from a well-regarded local funeral home, depicting its familiar horse and buggy logo, conveying, no doubt, that you can rely on them since they've been in business a long time.

I don't know what made me notice this, exactly, but I discovered at a "visitation" that this local funeral home no longer gives away matches but gives away emery boards (still with the name and logo) instead. For some reason this seems quite funny to me. I can understand why they might have chosen to phase out matches given the well established links between cancer and heart disease and smoking. It might make them seem at best insensitive, and at worst too eager for new clients.

So here is the question I have: Why emery boards? Are they trying to stem the tide of grief-related nail biting? Do men use emery boards as much as women do? And if not, are they aiming to increase market share among widows? But even as I am puzzling over this marketing ploy, I have to admit that I'm not sure what I would hand out if I were them. Kleenex? They are pretty generous with good quality name brand tissues in every room already. Hand sanitizer? Toothpicks? Obviously coasters and cocktail napkins are out (although at one point they did have styrofoam cups with their logo on them in the hospitality lounge).

On the same table as the dish of complimentary emery boards there was a dish of wrapped (yeah, in the logo) candies which I thought would be peppermints or lemon drops but which I discovered too late (after having spent a whole day with them floating around in my suit pocket)were in fact chocolate covered mints which don't travel well at all.

BTW, despite the familiar logo, this particular funeral home has merged with another (it has been merged for a while, but they now put it on their signs) and seems to be part of a big national company called Dignity Memorial which I imagine as being like the company that the family funeral home on Six Feet Under are always fending off. Maybe they vetoed the matches and brought in the emery boards. They also offer other services, like helping you sort out the estate of the deceased, which is probably very useful. But they offer courses for children on how to avoid kidnapping, too, which seems less obviously linked to their core business but I guess is supposed to be good marketing for boomer parents, or something.

I guess because I love our Episcopal burial office, and Episcopal funerals and memorial services with Holy Communion, I feel sad when people choose the symbols and rituals of funeral homes over a funeral or memorial service in church. Often, I think, people think it will be "less fuss" or "less trouble." In families which encompass a variety of religioust traditions, funeral homes can seem like neutral ground. But when I am at a funeral home, I find myself wondering what exactly they mean to convey, why they do the things they do. Their staff are almost always white males of a certain age, for example. Their default musical offerings are soft and full of tremulant. Here in St Louis, funeral homes have decor touches like a fish pond stocked with goldfish, a room decorated with images of the 1904 World's Fair, rooms designed to look like the great room of an English manor house and various chapels. What are they trying to convey? What hope? What comfort?

Christmas at St. Mark's: Not so Silent Night

2005-12-26T13:18:00.000-05:00

Finally, here are some photos from Christmas Eve night. Bob and his family did a great job of decorating the church (although they hope that someone else will take up the challenge next year) and it looked lovely in the evening. I managed to learn how to take pictures at night with my little digital camera and I wanted to take a picture especially for Dan who was a valued member of St Mark's until his job took him away to the west coast. He is missing us and we are missing him and he said he wished he had St Mark's pictures to share with friends in his new parish. So here they are. St Mark's 5 p.m. service and Scott and Emily getting into the spirit of the Bell Banner during the closing hymn.

Christmas at St Mark's II

2005-12-26T13:05:00.000-05:00

A more subdued pre-Christmas party is the party held on a Tuesday in Advent for anyone who would like to attend. Several years ago we had a small faithful group which attended a Tuesday morning eucharist and gradually death and aging decimated the population. Christmas event was begun as a chance for people who could no longer attend church regularly to visit with others and as Christmas gathering for those who can't drive at night or for some other reason choose not to attend the ebullient multigenerational party described in the previous post. Over the years, various people have hosted this party. This year Emily our seminarian hosted and she enlisted her entire family to help her with setting up, cooking and serving. A delightful time was had by all and mothers everywhere are full of compliments about the children's role in the meal.
Here are a couple of pictures from that gathering.

Christmas at St. Mark's I

2005-12-26T11:51:00.000-05:00

The St. Mark's "Christmas Party" was held this year on the fourth Sunday of Advent. It must have originated as a party following the hanging of the greens but at some point the party dwarfed the hanging of the greens. This year several of our children played their instruments, flute and violin and all of them did a great job. We had carol singing and then the seemingly inevitable (and not the rector's favorite moment) visit from Santa, to the delight of children and doating parents. Here are some scenes from that joyful chaos,including long time St Markans and a newborn.

Doug and the Nurture Committee did a great job of making sure everyone was invited, we had a good meal at a good price and everyone got home in time for bedtime, since Monday was a school day.

Be Alert

2005-11-28T23:40:00.000-05:00

I love it when unexpected things happen in the midst of our very formal liturgy. Until yesterday, my favorite examples were the time the new fire at the Easter Vigil burned so fiercely that we could hardly get near it to light the paschal candle and the year that the pyrex follower on the Paschal Candle exploded on the day of Pentecost. Yesterday, on Advent I, as we processed into church singing "Come, thou long expected Jesus," one of the torch bearers managed to set the spectacular dried arrangement on fire by accident. We kept on calmly processing as the fire spread from the lowest part of the arrangement to higher twigs and flaming grasses fell to the ground. The crucifer/acolyte was on it in a second. He dashed across the altar area and put out the sparks with his bare hands. HE was into the Advent spirit of alertness!

Early on Sunday

2005-11-28T23:33:00.000-05:00

Early on Sunday, we arrived in the rain and dark at the Lambert East terminal to send Mo and Anna back to school. It seemed as if every college student studying outside of Missouri was there, too, being sent off by their parents, grimly cheerful, hugging them and getting ready to return to empty nests, watching as they took off shoes and backpacks and jackets and made their way through security and disappeared beyond the barrier. Here I am with Mo and Anna. We look as if we've been up all night partying but in fact I think we got rather disheveled in the cold and windy rain. We tried to get the vintage airplane that hangs in the airport in the background but you can barely see it.

Under construction

2005-11-26T18:54:00.000-05:00

Meanwhile, having had a successful capital campaign and designated $35,000 from the Proehl bequest to the project, the vestry has authorized replacement of all five of our flat roofs. The new roofs will be tapered and less likely to have pools of water on them than they were before. No one seems to remember when the last time these roofs were replaced, except for the parish house high roof which was done in 1993. The roofers have been here almost every day with a crane. Sometimes they are working on two roofs at once. For a few days there was a port-a-potty on the office roof but now it is on the grass behind the church. You really have to be here to get the full effect of banging on the roof and of seeing men and women working on the roof. But in case you can't see it for your self, here are some fuzzy crane pix.

Kinloch/Katrina

2005-11-26T18:24:00.000-05:00

The week before diocesan convention, Marylen and I went out to see the apartments which are being rehabbed by Faith Beyond Walls/Interfaith Partnership. FBW is working with the city Kinloch to create as many as 31 housing units. They are in the next cul de sac over from some apartments FBW already rehabbed and near a playground FBW helped put up, so they are helping a whole neighborhood to be revived, as well as providing housing for people who have been made homeless by Katrina. The people who will live in these apartments are already living in the Fergson/Florissant school district, so moving into more permanent housing will not disrupt their lives any more than they have already been disrupted by the hurricane itself. FBW is working with Catholic Charities and St Patrick's center to identify the families and offer them the suppor they need to put down roots in a new place. People will be able to live there rent free for six months and then pay a rent scaled to their income. A lot of the work is done by Faith Beyond Walls volunteers from varied faith traditions who come together to work together on projects like this to make a difference in the St Louis community. Below is a picture of the apartments which are being fixed up and of me presenting a check for $5,000 from St Mark's to Beth and Rina from Faith Beyond Walls. The contractor for the work is also in the picture. . I didn't mean to be looking away but I was explaining how the camera worked when I should have been posing. There is still much to be done on the units: window coverings, mail boxes, some appliances. And there are several more units to be rehabbed, after the mold is removed from them. For more on this project and on how you can help, visit Faith Beyond Walls and click on the "Disaster Relief" button.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

2005-11-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

Anna and Mo are safely home for Thanksgiving. My sister and her family had a safe trip to NYC which included trips to the Met, MOMA, Rockefeller Center and seeing the big balloons blown up on Wednesday evening and then flown on Thursday a.m.

Here at St Mark's Thanksgiving features worshipping with our sisters and brothers at Hope UCC and Gethsemane Lutheran. This year was our turn to host the service. Pastor Kendra Nolde of Gethsemane preached a fine sermon and she read an even more wonderful poem about giving thanks by Gerhard Frost. Steve had done spectacular dried flower arrangements. The offering was for Faith Beyond Walls/Interfaith Partnership's work in rehabbing apartments for people who are settling in St Louis having been flooded out of homes in Louisiana. (More about them below.) Sue from St Mark's made coffee and muffins for coffee hour but most people just dashed home to tend their turkeys or set their tables.

Then we had Thanksgiving dinner at St Mark's parish hall. I can't remember how long we've been doing this for. I refer to it as the "orphans' Thanksgiving dinner" -- it is really for people who don't have extended family to celebrate with or who, for some reason, aren't celebrating with them. This year we had several people from St John's church, including their rector Teresa. We also hosted Bishop Bullen and Fr. John from the Sudan and a gentle who said he'd heard about our dinner at the Friends meeting. There were about 36 of us, I think. At least we set the table for 32 and didn't have enough and had to set up another table. We had a maple glazed "olde New England" recipe from Epicurious.com with an herbed bread stuffing. I forgot to do the maple glazing, however. We also had the orange and basil turkey from Splendid Table. Once carved up they were pretty much indistinguishable. The Spellers also brought roasted brussels sprouts with red peppers, shallots and balsamic vinegar from the Dierberg's Everybody Cooks magazine and mashed potatoes. People brought wonderful and amazing things: mashed potatoes with noodle gravy, sweet potatoes baked with strudle topping, corn pudding, cauliflower cheese, an amazing array of pies, gingerbread and much, much more. Beverly made sure that we had creamed onions, a relish tray and whole berry cranberry sauce, all staples of my childhood Thanksgivings and (thousands of miles away) of hers. My image of Thanksgiving is of gathering as many people as you can around the table and just of eating. Once or twice as a kid, I took part in various Plymouth Thanksgiving costumed processions, back in the days before our eyes were open about the founding Thanksgiving myth. But mostly we just sat around all day and ate. And I realize that some of the people who were fixtures around my grandparents' table may themselves have been people with no extended family to party with: "Uncle John" who never married, varioud dutch uncles and aunts who didn't have children of their own or if they did never spent holidays with them.

Idle hands are...

2005-11-20T11:04:00.000-05:00

Several of the needleworkers of the diocese of Missouri sat together for convention. There were others sprinkled throughout the hall, none male as far as I could see. I think it helps me to focus on what is going, helps me to feel productive when what is going on is not terribly constructive and it also makes me think twice before going to a microphone, lest I find myself all tangled up in my knitting. The sock was in attendance at convention but preferred to stay in the room.

A new deacon for MIssouri

2005-11-20T10:29:00.000-05:00

This year's diocesan convention was in Columbia MO in a comfortable Holiday Inn hotel. You can read about the formal actions of convention on the diocesan website, here. At the eucharist at Calvary Church, Susan Bartlett of Rolla was ordained deacon. Now there are four Deacons in the diocese of Missouri and three of them are women. Having spent five years on the COM hoping to encourage more people to recognize a call to the diaconate and privileged to have a deacon here at St Mark's, I was delighted that at long last another deacon was ordained in Missouri. Above are: Susan Bartlett in the middle with Marylen Stansbery of Saint Mark's on the left and Susan Naylor of Emmanuel on the right. Below is another picture of Susan with her presenters, including Beverly Van Horne and her husband Peter.

Felting Follies

2005-10-11T18:09:00.000-04:00

I've been making felted bags. My first one I made for myself. It was in reddish orange Araucania Nature Yarn with handles from Fiber Trends Fabulous Felt Totes pattern. I only used one kind of yarn and I loved the handles which are a special kind of I-cord. I made a purse for Anna using a lovely tweedy purple yarn which Marylen gave us. It was a shoulder bag with a flap, loosely based on a Two Old Bags pattern. At first it was too big and the strap was way too long and stretched out with use but I shortened the strap and refelted the whole thing and it is much better now. Anna used it all summer, which was pretty nice of her, since even having a wool purse can seem hot in a hot and humid St Louis summer. Then I made another one for myself, to use as knitting bag. This was a Two Old Bags pattern called double handle project bag. Here are pictures of it pre-felting and post-felting. The book is there to help you see the change in size. One of these days I plan to try some needle feling ornament on the green striped bit. Little sheep or something. Here it is big:
And here it is smaller:

Then, Mo decided ze wanted the Knitty Satchel . I knitted it somewhat more flaboyantly than the Knitty website did, putting contrasting color around the pockets and using it to reinforce the strap. Mo picked the colors, also Araucania Nature Wool. Here it is big:

And here it is smaller:

And here it is with its pockets exposed to view:

The main learning experience from this project is that yarn shrinks vertically more than horizontally, or so it would appear. But Mo can probably run it through the washer a few more times and get it even smaller.

I also made a small "Boogie Bag" and matching cell phone cosy and am finishing up another Knitty Pattern, the French Market Bag. Next I want to try felted slippers!

I love the way that felting is so forgiving: mistakes just disappear in the felting process, you can pull stuff out of the washer and stretch it to shape -- even stretch it a little if it is too small. I love the way the fibers join together and make a solid fabric, almost unrecognizable as a knitted project.

On Target

2005-10-07T19:18:00.000-04:00

Our new local Target store is open. The official ribbon cutting was Tuesday -- they had live music and everything. And it has been open ever since. The parking lot is packed. It is a LOT bigger than the old one. Sue, who has seen the garage, says that it is great. I walked there so I did not have to focus on parking. We were amazed that there was so much food. No fresh meat or veg. but loads of frozen stuff and a nice mixture of things at good prices. Quite a lot of Target's own brand stuff. Lots of stuff our family likes: delicious Alexius oven fries, Carrs Water Buscuits, brussels sprouts. It is the talk of the neighborhood. We walked all around it but bought nothing but usually we go there several times a week for stuff like printer ribbons and socks and cleaning products. If you think I am obsessed with the Hampton Ave Target you should look at the entries in this person's blog over the last year: Brick City:
http://www.alejandroisonline.com/blog/brickcity.htm

Celebration Sunday

2005-10-06T14:38:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday was the Celebration Sunday for the Our Hope for Years to Come capital campaign. The decorators went all out with a festive balloon theme. Ann and others made a nifty balloon arch at the entrance to church. She is pictured here with her mom and members of the 7:30 congregation. You can "come as you are" to St. Mark's, but after this photo Ann changed into a dressier cute outfit to go to 10:00 church.
Kelly made lovely arrangements of balloons in the sconces and had the "vision". Many many people were here at six in the morning to blow up balloons, set out refreshments, etc. so that the 7:30 congregation could enjoy the celebration as fully as the 10:00 a.m. celebration. At 10 we had a trumpeter which added a lot to the music. The choir and organist did a great job with the Vaughan Williams Old Hundredth and the congregation sang along when it was our turn. Here is a picture taken during the peace, which is often a joyful if chaotic moment, here enhanced by balloons.

At the announcement time, Rod and Kevin, the co-chairs, announced that we were very near our goal and expect to surpass it. We received several pledges during that service (the rector is not the only procrastinator at St Mark's) so we probably will surpass it. Even as I type, the property committee is getting the roof consultant to draw up specs and get bids on the three "low" roofs (rectory, parish hall office and kitchens and archives/sacristy wing of the church) and on repairing or replacing the other two (church and main parish hall roof.) The last of these is only about 12 years old. Apparently, one of issues is that in the wake of Hurricaine Katrina, roofing materials may be in short supply or experiencing price increases. The oblation bearers brought up champagne and home made bread for communion. Ken, formerly a barkeep, did the honors, opening the wine with a resounding pop before we poured it in the chalice, a festive touch we usually save for the Easter Vigil. The main joy of this campaign is that the callers had such a great time -- they enjoyed their visits, some reconnecting with old friends, some making new connections, almost all hearing positive enthusiasm about the life of this parish. Roger Ricketts of Ricketts Associates was our consultant for the campaign. He did a really nice job of helping the callers to feel prepared and positive about the whole process. Before we started, he conducted a feasibility study and conservatively but accurately predicted what we could hope to raise. He probably was not including the children of the parish, however, who managed to collect $27.36 for the campaign. Here is a picture of Carter, proudly delivering the banks to the counters, with Celeste the Godly Play teacher in the background.

Sock goes to school

2005-10-06T00:55:00.000-04:00

On September 23 and 24, I went with Kathy and Jack from St Mark's to the diocesan Episcopal School for Ministry. Our team is in the congregational development track. The idea is that we will learn things about the dynamics of congregational systems and theories of leadership and of church growth which we can take back home and which will inspire us to grow and thrive as a congregation. This weekend we had a workshop with Michael Burroughs in which we looked at our leadership styles and at situational leadership. It is pretty interesting stuff although Michael does it from his perspective working with the military and with businesses (mainly in the health care field) and has not really given much thought to how the insights might translate into the church. Anyway, the TA for this class is Emily. I was disappointed that she did not bring any knitting -- she was travelling light. I managed to work on two knitting projects during the day and a half we were at ESM. In the timehonored tradition of knitting blogs: Here is a picture of Emily, me and my sock.
The sock in this picture is now finished and has a companion which is more or less the same size but has only made it to the first row of instep.

Experimenting

2005-09-17T20:28:00.000-04:00

I have just downloaded Blogger for Word. It allows me to write a document in Word and post it to my blog. I am not sure quite what the advantages of that might be. So this is just an experimental blog. Speaking of experiments, on The Splendid Table today was a man who recommends home coffee roasting. The Christian Education committee has been considering offering three events. One would be bread making. Another beer making. Maybe home coffee roasting should be the third. I’m sure we could think of some rationale for it. I’m not sure about Jesus but I bet Paul would have been a coffee drinker, if it had been around.

Espresso Alert

2005-09-17T16:28:00.000-04:00

Today I was driving up Hampton and discovered that there is a new cafe in our neighborhood, just south of Holly Hills on the right hand side if you are driving north on Hampton. It caught my eye because they've stained the sidewalk a nice terra cotta color and have very attractive black cafe tables out front. Inside, the building has yellow walls and nice artwork and attractive floors (tile and wood laminate, I think). It is called Plato Cafe. The young man who confessed that this was his first solo latte said that he had started the business with his brother. He bought the building which "was a mess" a year and a half ago and has rehabbed it in his spare time. Right now they have sodas, bagels, coffees and cookies. They opened Monday. They plan to expand into sandwiches. Their coffee is good although it makes no claims to moral virtue (e.g. Fair Trade or organic). They don't sell coffee, only serve it. Anyway, I am now on a mission to encourage these recently arrived entrepreneurs. It is much hipper looking than The Sweet Life on Chippewa. Also hipper looking than most businesses on South Hampton. Anyway, I hope local readers and St Markans will stop by and give them a try. Maybe this will inspire us to revive Theological Cafe or be a good venue for a Shawl Ministry field trip.

Belle

2005-09-05T08:34:00.000-04:00

Our lovely dog Belle was put to sleep today. She has been with us since 1996 when we adopted her as a puppy from the Missouri Humane Society and the girls named her for the female lead in Beauty and the Beast. She was a German Shepherd/ Beagle mix. She used to "roo" like a beagle. She was fierce in protecting our house, not always gentle with children, clear that she was Top Dog over our younger dog Sophie. She was intelligent and reasonably well trained. She was equally able to train us. For example, she used to play an elaborate game, refusing to go out into the garden without a lot of pleading. She had trained us to beg, to play this game of tag. She was sweet and affectionate.

In the last few years she developed a seizure disorder. We let her sleep in our room after that, so that if she had a seizure, we would know about it. This time last year, when we came home from vacation, she had multiple seizures and we had to take her to the emergency vet who, at vast expense, adjusted her meds and got her stable. In the last few months, she'd been having trouble standing up and staying standing, her walking was a little awkward. She tended to be slow to get up. Every now and then she'd surprise us-- dashing out into the garden with Sophie as Sophie chased rabbits and birds.

We were worried enough about her that we took her to the vet before we left town. He seemed to think she had arthritis and put her on another medication. But while we were away, Jim the dog sitter was worried that she was not eating, etc. and took her to the vet again.The vet drew blood and when I called on Saturday, he seemed to think that none of the blood tests were worrying. But by Sunday, she could not move at all, Lynn our other dog sitter took her to the vet who said that she had fluid in her abdomen and had septic peritonitis. John and I dashed home (we got the message leaving church in Holyoke MA at about nine a.m.) driving all through the night. We chose not to subject Belle to exploratory surgery and we kept her on palliative care until we got there at 6:30 a.m. today. Everyone at the Animal Emergency Clinic is incredily nice and supportive and aware of the complex emotional issues about people and their pets. They return calls immediately, they call you with updates on your pet's condition. I can't say enough about what great care they give to pets and owners.

When we got there, we told her we were home and we loved her. Her ears perked up and her eyes moved, which the vet said was more response than they'd seen all day, but she was plainly a very sick dog. So when we were done, the vet put her to sleep. She was a great dog.

Coming Attractions

2005-08-24T18:19:00.000-04:00

Today I had lunch with Emily our new seminarian intern. September 11, Celebration Sunday, will be her first Sunday with us. She will be putting her bio in our newsletter (which you can read, on our website, but not until early next week.) We went to Ellie Fortella the only one of the Great Restaurant group in Saint Louis I have never visited. It was Great, their name does not exaggerate. But even more great is Emily who will lead a three class adult series in September on Praying the Lord's Prayer, Living the Lord's Prayer and who will preach about once every six weeks and who will lector and chalice bear and assist around the altar. She is gentle and funny and bright and eager to learn and happy to be coming to St Mark's. She'll do some pastoral visits and hopefully during the time she's with us she'll tell us about Mechtild of Magdeberg, the medieval German mystic on whom she wrote her thesis. And we have all of our speakers lined up for All Speakers Great and Small. Pretty exciting!

End of Summer

2005-08-22T09:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday (Sunday) was a surprisingly busy day. On some summer Sundays, many people are away or people choose a lovely bike ride or other outing over church. But yesterday there were lots of people in church. When we offered a "Back to School Prayer," hordes of people came up, from kindergarten to college and we had three teachers, one of them about to start his first year of teaching high school social studies. One reason that church was fuller than usual was that Lindsay and lots of people from Episcopal Campus Ministry were here for Lindsay's last Sunday in Saint Louis. She was the intern at the Episcopal Campus Ministry last academic year and she's moving back to Philadelphia for the next phase of her work and vocational life. Lindsay prepared for confirmation with our class at St Mark's and because she was staying with Marylen our deacon was part of our common life in many other ways. Lindsay and I share our alma mater Bryn Mawr College so we spent a fair amount of time together on and off this year. So Saint Mark's made a good place for a liturgical send-off. We gave her a yellow shawl that the Shawl Ministry had started for Lindsay when she was having a rough time last winter, we prayed for her new life and her safe travel. We should have prayed for Alicia who has been here helping her pack and who will be driving back with her in Lindsay's aging Volvo. I'll miss having her around and wish her well in Philadelphia. She's full of fun and talents and energy and I don't think it will be long before she discovers work to satisfy and delight her.

The other big excitement this Sunday was that just as we got to the end of the offertory hymn, the organ started to cipher. That means that a pipe sounds without any key being pressed. For some reason that I don't know, it always seems to happen with a high pitched pipe it is impossible to ignore. So the organist turned it off and we said some parts of the service we normally sing and sang part without accompaniment. He kept testing to see whether it would stop by itself, surreptitiously turning on the organ blower to see if the offending pipe would sound. But it did. So finally he played the closing hymn on the piano an dmost of the choir (which has been on vacation for the summer) gathered around him to give him moral support.

I preached as sermon which was rather fun to write, playing fast and loose with the gospel for the day. Someone asked for a copy of it and I may post it here later. Right now I have a zillion things to do to get ready to go on vacation Thursday.

All Speakers Great and Small

2005-08-17T23:46:00.000-04:00

We got together this evening to imagine adult education offerings at St Mark's for the fall. We designed a speakers series with outside distinguished scholars (the great) who will be announced as soon as they have confirmed that they are available. Then we decided that three of us had something intelligent and intelligible to say, so we were the small. These sessions will be Sunday evenings from 5:30 to 8:00 with supper, a format that has worked really well for us.

But then we fell to fantasizing about speakers we'd love to have if we could afford it: Marcus Borg, John Spong, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Jim Wallis. A Put Saint Mark's On The Map Speakers' series. At some point in its past, either to celebrate the 25th or the 50th anniversary, I forget which, James Pike was a featured speaker at Saint Marks' Church.

This evening we also sketched out two experiential experiences we have yet to calendar, one about brewing beer and the other about baking bread. In both baking and brewing yeast transforms the ingredients into something that is much more than the sum of its parts, a kind of alchemy. We could brew beer on Saint Brigid's day and those who wanted to could plan to drink it after Easter. And bread baking is always appropriate and replete with theological themes.

Here is a poem (prayer) attributed to St. Brigid.

I'd like to give a lake of beer to God.
I'd love the Heavenly
Host to be tippling there
For all eternity.

I'd love the men of Heaven to live with me,
To dance and sing.
If they wanted, I'd put at their disposal
Vats of suffering.

White cups of love I''d give them,
With a heart and a half;
Sweet pitchers of mercy I'd offer
To every man.

I'd make Heaven a cheerful spot,
Because the happy heart is true.
I'd make the men contented for their own sake
I'd like Jesus to love me too.

I'd like the people of heaven to gather
From all the parishes around,
I'd give a special welcome to the women,
The three Marys of great renown.

I'd sit with the men, the women of God
There by the lake of beer
We'd be drinking good health forever
And every drop would be a prayer.

Today at the Farmers' Market at the Schlafly Bottlworks, the air was heavy with the sweet smell of fermentation from the microbrewery there. It does make the image of heaven as like a lake of beer quite appealing.

Rain

2005-08-14T17:53:00.000-04:00

We had thunderstorms yesterday in the afternoon and early evening with spectacular cloud formations. As the storms began there was lots of wind and at least one big branch down on Donovan between Nottingham and Landsdowne. And then even after the thunder and lightening stopped it rained and rained all night. It was so great! It has been so dry here that the trees look tired and thirsty. I can't remember how long it has been such we've had so much rain, since mid-July at least.

Backblogging again & A few of my favorite things

2005-08-12T17:40:00.000-04:00

I posted a lot of entries I had been working on over the last several weeks today. Highlights of this week: Mo the camp counseller is home from her summer job. Anna the office girl has another week of work to go. Our house is full of the twins and their friends, cooking, eating and playing cards and I have promised to teach them Hearts before they all go back to college. We are continuing our festival of locally grown produce, visiting the Farmers' Market at the Schlaffly Bottleworks on Wednesdays and the Greenmarket in the Central West End on Saturdays, thereby getting local lamb and chicken and eggs, beautiful tomatos, squash and eggplant and blackberries and peaches. Yumm. It was at the Greenmarket that I ate my first ambrosial fruit scone from La Dolce Via bakery. It was the lightest and fruitiest scone I have ever eaten. So now I think of excuses to meet people at La Dolce Via at Taylor and Arco where it turns out that the coffee is every bit as transformatively delicious as the fruit scones and the people who work there are nice and they have a child friendly area, which I like in a restaurant even though my days of coaxing toddlers to be good while Mommy eats are over.

The week at St Mark's started with the funeral of a long time member, who requested the St Louis Ragtimers to play at his service. He was over eighty but died of cancer only a couple of months after his diagnosis, which seemed way too soon. Tuesday, the Shawl Ministry had its first field trip. We brownbagged and went to Knitorious, the lovely, friendly knitting shop on Southwest at Clifton. We brought lunch, chatted, Melissa taught me how to do three needle cast off, Mo and I bought yarn for felting projects and a good time was had by all. On Thursday I went berserk and cleaned out the shelves in the office and the shelves in the closet where the office overflow goes. Vestry that night made plans for the fall: refinishing the badly damaged floor around the altar, sending a team to the Congregational Development School, scheduling a small rummage sale for late October, planning for Opening Day on September 11 and Trivia Night for October 15th. Today I met a new parishioner at another favorite coffee location Hartford Coffee on Hartford, just south of Arsenal and East of Grand. My top picks there are the sausage frittata and the lox and bagels. St Mark's is going to start getting and selling Hartford Coffee's fair trade grown and locally roasted coffee very soon. I hope.

I guess none of this sounds very strenuous but it is hot and humid and I am longing for vacation.

Celebration of a New Ministry in De Soto

2005-08-11T19:03:00.000-04:00

So last week we went to De Soto, Missouri twice. Once for the memorial service of Chandler Crawford who had been a priest for over 60 years, most of them in one part or another of the diocese of Missouri. He managed to hang onto traces of a New England accent which I always found endearing and he was unfailingly kind to his younger colleagues and quite active at clergy events, etc. The second time was August 4 for the Celebration of a New Ministry of the Rev. Beverly Van Horne and Trinity Church. Beverly has been called to be Priest in Charge for redevelopment. She's working half time. De Soto is still the home of the Union Pacific Car Shops, continuing a long railway heritage. It also has two Methodist churches with women pastors (so Beverly won't be the only woman at the local clergy group) and two funeral homes on the main street which runs parallel to the railway tracks. Beverly invited me to preach at this service which was very flattering. Here is the sermon:

CELEBRATION OF A NEW MINISTRY DE SOTO MO August 4, 2005
On this joyful evening, when we gather to celebrate a new era in the life of the congregation of Trinity De Soto and your new priest in charge Beverly Van Horne, we heard about God sending the Spirit on the seventy elders so that Moses would not have to shoulder the burden of leadership alone. But I invite you, like Paul Harvey, to listen to the rest of the story.
Our lectionary often leaves out some verses and I’d like to tell you the story we heard from the book of Numbers in its larger context. Before the point where we began to read tonight, we learn WHY God told Moses to gather people into the tent of meeting. Moses, you remember, has led God’s people out into the wilderness. They wanted to go, they were eager for a new and better life. But before too long, the people began complaining and whining, as sometimes happens in the midst of transition and of change, people lose heart on the way to seeing God’s promises come to fruition. God has brought the people out of slavery in Egypt; God has fed them in the wilderness with manna from heaven but is that good enough for them? Oh no. They complain to Moses about the lack of variety in the menu. They are tired of that boring manna, day in and day out, and long for leeks and cucumbers and garlic and melons. They start to talk about slavery in Egypt as the good old days. At least the food was better.
Then Moses starts whining, too. He tells God, this isn’t his idea of ministry, he didn’t sign up for this. The people are acting like babies, he tells God, why doesn’t GOD be their nursemaid. Moses tells God I’m not their Mom, you are, you take care of them. Clergy and congregational leaders often do feel overwhelmed by the demands of their communities, communities in which people sometimes behave, for various reasons, like these infantile Israelites. Leaders can get hooked into the idea that it really is their job to be all things to all people, to be the mom and the nursemaid, instead of trusting all to God and calling one another to speak the truth in love and to grow up into maturity in Christ. . But God’s vision of leadership in community is very different. So, as we heard, God tells Moses to gather the elders into the tent of meeting and God showers out God’s spirit upon the elders, making them all leaders, all prophets whose voices are of value in the life community, whose speech should always be listened to respectfully as if it were the voice of God.
But that’s not all. If we read a few verses further, we discover that there were two of the elders, Eldad and Medad, who, for whatever reason, were not in the tent of meeting but the spirit of prophesy descended on them anyway. They were going around prophesying and Joshua, Moses’ helper, rushed up to Moses, all alarmed, telling Moses to stop them but Moses says to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!!”
I don’t know how our lectionary decided which verses to read and which to leave out but I wish we had Eldad and Medad at this service, because all over the Episcopal Church congregations are feeling the winds of change but are slow to allow God’s Spirit to speak to them from outside the comfy tent, preferring to recreate or to preserve the imagined good old days, planting and cultivating cucumbers and melons and garlic rather than allowing God to shower new gifts of manna upon them from unexpected quarters. But God’s Spirit is trying to shape and to grow our churches, not just from our beloved Prayer Book and Anglican tradition but also from outside the Episcopal tent. We can learn much about church growth, about spiritual practices, about approaches to working with children and youth from other Christian churches, we can learn a lot about the character and longings of our communities, about how to offer a warm welcome to visitors, about how to share the good news about what we have to offer as Christians in the Anglican tradition from secular approaches to marketing and advertising. And most of all, we need to be ready for Eldad and Medad to show up some Sunday in our churches—even right here in Trinity Church in De Soto, ready to hear the spiritual hungers of new comers, ready to listen with respect and even to embrace their ideas (however unlike the way we’ve always done it in the tent of meeting they may be). Even though the book of Numbers says, in a verse we hardly ever read, that when the Spirit rested on the 70 elders and they prophesied, they did so only once, the experience of God’s people and of the Church has been that God’s Spirit keeps on being poured out on our churches, calling us to be thriving communities committed to Christ’s work of reconciling all people with each other and with God, serving our neighbors in Jesus’ name, engaged in joyful worship of the God who ever brings life out of death and invites all people to feast together at the table where Christ is the host.

Beverly: I know that you will resist the temptation to be anybody’s nursemaid or Mom but I know that you will nurture this congregation. You are wise and mature and you will love this congregation, in fact I know that you love them already. By your word and example you will help this congregation live into their baptismal promises, to grow into the individuals and the church community that God already knows them to be.
Be a faithful priest and pastor, present in times of joy and times of sorrow, offering comfort and challenge and gathering all at the Lord’s Table. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, share with the people of this congregation your imagination and your humor. Be gentle to yourself and remember that part time means part time and that God is still God and God’s grace is at work even if you are under-prepared or too tired to take on one more thing. Trust in God and in God’s people and don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. Keep learning, keep praying. And don’t’ stop knitting.

People of Trinity: Earlier this week, many of us here, gathered to give thanks for the life of the Rev. Chandler Crawford. For an outsider, it was a wonderful snapshot of the life of this congregation: You were showing pastoral care for Catherine and her family and for one another in your grief. You were showing careful and thoughtful hospitality to visitors, you sang and joined in the prayers with vigor. Love and trust Beverly. Be gracious enough to assume that she is doing her best and meaning no harm, even when she does things – as even the best priests inevitably do—that surprise or even hurt you. Speak the truth in love to her and to one another and trust to the reconciling power of God. If you and your new priest Beverly keep your eyes on the promised land, keep your minds and your hearts open to the Spirit, if you embrace change without looking back, if you continue in vigorous faith, open handed hospitality and care for friend and stranger, it won’t be long before this church is as busy on Sundays as it has been this week.

Busman's Holiday Episode the Second

2005-07-28T16:41:00.000-04:00

Thursday John went with the tour and I took the day off to go to Dedham to see my mother who was glad to see me although she had no clue who I was or what I was doing there. It seemed to me that she was losing speech even in comparison with our visit in May. I looked for a knitting shop called Black Sheep Knitting Company and Italian restaurant I had visited in May and failed to find them because they were in Needham and I thought, for some reason, it was in Newton where there is a pleasant enough knitting shop called Putting on the Knitz and a little Italian place. Then I came back to the nice cool airconditioned motel and vegged out. Meanwhile John visited seven more churches and a Portuguese Buffet Dinner. I was jealous of the Portuguese buffet and was sad not to have seen the Memorial Unitarian Church in Fairhaven which is supposed to be absolutely spectacular but otherwise I was glad to be more leisured.
On Saturday we went to Taunton MA. John delights in pointing out that this part of southern Massacusetts has lots of place names from his home county of Somerset: Taunton and Bridgewater, for example. And he was thrilled to visit St John's Church Taunton , a very sweet white framed Gothic Church because the nearest church to his childhood home in England was St John's Taunton (a dark Victorian Gothic building with a spire, links to Forward in Faith and other conservative church groups and -- perhaps I should not be surprised -- without a website). He insisted I take a picture of this banner.

St John's Taunton MA is a small congregation yoked with two others in Bristol County and the proud owners of E. & G.G. Hook&Hastings Opus 764. It turns out that practically the whole organizing committee of this conference have been organists at this church at one time or another. Lois Regenstein played a delightful recital on it. ways.
I liked the carving on the case of this instrument, too, so here it is close up. Obviously there are some things I still need to learn about placing photos in my blog. Bear with me.

My three favorite things about this day were
1) Barbara Owen's recital at Berkley Congregational Church in Berley MA on an 1830's Hook and Hastings, both because she played two pieces by the local American Composer Oliver Shaw, (who wrote organ music to commemorate every imaginable event, apparently--on Thursday we hear programmatic music to commemorate the visit of Lafayette to Providence RI, also by Shaw) and because she gave lively little program notes including observations about registration.
2) St Mary's RC Church(Hook and Hatstings Opus 1674) which was plainly not the most prosperous church in the world (it was the one we were warned had no bathrooms) but the organ has been held together with string and chewing gum and duct tape by dedicated organ enthusiasts from all over the area and I like the idea of people giving their time to restore and maintain a historic organ.
3) We had a CLAMBAKE in a shed at West Presbyterian Church in Taunto which apparently hosts clambakes to raise money. It reminded me of the clambakes my grandparents used to put on for their friends. We'd sit at trestle tables in the garage, the guys would boil the Clam Bake in metal trash cans out in the yard. We'd have lobster and clams and corn and potatoes and carrots and hotdogs and it was great. No lobster at this clambake, breakfast type sausage instead of hotdogs and bread stuffing was served, which was a new one on me. Also Boston Brown bread.
You can see that we all really got into it!

You can learn more about the Organ Historical Society, this convention and next year's convention by visiting their website www.organsociety.org. The Convention website tells you a lot more about the organs we visited than I can even understand. You can see a lot more pictures by peole who attended the convention here.

Busman's Holiday Episode One

2005-07-28T09:27:00.000-04:00

I devoted the week of July 10, precious vacation time, to looking at hot old churches, such a refreshing change from daily life. We went east for the Organ Historical Society's annual convention. My husband John had identified what he thought would be the three best days and we drove there and back. We stayed in the Radisson in Brockton, Mass.

Brockton, for readers who don't know, is not a classic holiday destination. It was once a bustling industrial city thanks to the shoe industry, it was the first city to electrified by Edison. But since the shoe industry moved south and then abroad, it has been all down hill for Brockton. It has some lovely old buildings but also, like so many cities, block upon block of derelict buildings, blocks of people living in substandard housing, hanging out on the street corners in this hot weather because there are few good jobs. When I was a very little girl, my grandparents lived there and I assume my grandmother grew up there before attending the nearby Normal School , now Bridgewater State College in Bridgewater, but I have no idea why they lived there or how long or what they did. Being there made me wonder about my grandmother and her family.

The Radisson is part of a huge shopping center on the north end of the town. We didn't see anything in Brockton, however. We got onto big white busses at 8 a.m. every day and we came back after 9 p.m. And we went from interesting old organ to interesting old organ. One day I stopped counting after organ number eight. At each church, an organist demonstrates the organ by playing various pieces which show you what it can do and by playing a hymn which all sing vigorously. Then OHS members swarm around the instrument commenting on its appearance, construction and sound, using the special language of organ geeks: spotted metal, chiff, . On the bus and at meals they swap stories of playing services under bizarre circumstances and talk about organs they have known (and yes, they make puns and double entendres galore about transplanting organs, whose organ is biggest, etc.) They speak of great 19th and 20th century organ builders like Erben, Hook and Hastings, E.M. Skinner, Johnson and Jardine with the tones of awed admiration which other people reserve for talking about celebrity sightings. The huge preponderance of OHS members are males who will not be fifty again and who also like vintage trains. Several OHS members are Early Music enthusiasts and at least one was sporting a "Clavichords for World Peace" T shirt.

We had a great time but as a non organ geek, I found myself noticing other church things: how off putting it is that one bathroom had a plethora of signs about what not to flush and instructions for the preschool classes on handwashing; the cool folders the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts gives to parishes for their newcomer packets; the subltle ways in which churches communicate that they are lively communities or preservation societies. As our congregation struggles with making our 1938 building accessible to all people, I was feeling grateful that we at least have bathrooms on both levels of the church building, unlike some of these lovely older churches which have no bathrooms at all or whose gracious hosts direct you to the building next door down a flight of stairs. It was very very hot in MA and I faithfully drank water and in consequence could probably conduct the Church Ladies' Room Historical Society tour of Southern Massachusetts so I had plenty of opportunities for such reflections. .

We visited Christ Church, Swansea (Geo. S. Hutchings & Co. Opus 515), a lovely little church Henry Vaughan building like a little English church with an absolutely spectacular monument to the benefactors of the church in the lovely green cemetery. Also in Swansea was First Congregational Church, (E. & G.G. Hook Opus 460) which has a fascinating old fashioned chandelier.

Lunch was provided by Good Shepherd (RC) Parish in Fall River, speedy and courteous service. Someone claimed that now Indian casino gambling has caused bingo to cease to be a source of revenue for churches which instead are doing more and more catering for crowds. We visited First Congregational Church (Ernest M. Skinner Co., Opus 191) which has absolutely fascinating abstract Tiffany windows in the East end. You can see a picture of them here. We had dinner in a church that has ceased to be a church at all and is now the International Culinary Institute of Fall River, quite a spectacular Victorian Early English Gothic structure of red brick and stone (or concrete) almost as flamboyant as those English Victorian churches on which it is modeled, sometimes referred to as "blood and bandages". The organ survived but no attempt was made to play it. When it was Central Presbyterian Church, it was Lizzie Borden's church but this played no part in its decline, apparently. Or in her behavior, for that matter. Then on Thursday evening we went to St Anne's Roman Catholic Church which has statues in its clerestory arches, intended to make you feel surrounded by the Communion of Saints. They have a Cassavant. We had a concert of organ music and choral music. Luckily I am not a music critic.

Parables of daily life

2005-07-24T10:34:00.000-04:00

The empire of God is like the surprise lilies which come up as if from nowhere in the midst of summer when nothing much else is in flower.

The empire of God is like a church at 10 a.m. on a summer Sunday when only a few people are in church and by the peace the place is full of people of all ages and energy and spirit.

More views of Saint Mark's Baby Boom

2005-07-10T19:34:00.000-04:00

On July 10, we baptized baby Mackenzie Faye, just a week short of her birthday. It was a joyful occasion, as all baptisms are. Here she is with her mom, admiring her cake and here she is at the font with me, testing the water before she gets any more of it on her head. Carter, the ten year old theologian in training who is my trusty acolyte for baptisms, when I need someone to hold things for me so my hands are free for water and oil and holding the baby, is also in the picture, making sure he misses no interesting details. There is a lot to like about the Episcopal baptismal rite especially the words of the baptismal covenant more and more shape our understanding of what it means to live as Christian people and this great prayer we pray after the baptism:

Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy
Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the
forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to the new life of
grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them
an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to
persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy
and wonder in all your works. Amen.

Techie Triumph

2005-07-08T14:26:00.000-04:00

I haven't done anything this difficult and ultimately pointless since I sat in the Bodleian Library for about a week with Polish grammar books and dictionaries to try to learn enough Polish to read a book for my thesis. I have spent way too much time looking at the Blogger help pages, resizing my pictures (actually, had used Photobucket to post them originally which I think was my main problem) and scrutinizing html in order to figure out what tag I had lost. In case you wondered, "How can I get my Profile and links back where they belong?" is apparently not a FAQ. I compared my blog with another one based on the same template. And then I just experimented until by dumb luck I got my profile, etc. back where they belong. Of course in the process I have doubtless introduced tons of useless code (at one point, for example, I had the Blogring box in two places only one of which displayed on screen) AND it still is not perfect. Too little space between blog and sidebar content, colors chosen to echo those of St Mark's are not quite right and I haven't even checked to see if they work on anything except IE. I have learned a lot but it is about hubris not CSS and HTML.

Only a wannabe techie

2005-07-07T14:46:00.000-04:00

I am having a hard time with getting my profile and my links to stay up at the TOP of my blog instead of at the bottom. In the process of trying to fix this, changed templates which meant all my links went away. They'll be back soon. I know how to fix that and saved my old template edits so it should be fairly easy. I am also tinkering with colors. But I am thinking that some of my photos are just way too big, so I am working on changing them. (I put them in using the blog posting function of photobucket and am replacing them using Blogger's own uploading software.) Anyway, if anyone reads this and knows a brilliant and easy way to change the situation, please let me know. I fixed it on my old template but at the price of having my blog way over to the left side of the screen which I didn't like.
So, consider my template under construction and bear with me.

New Priests Celebrate

2005-06-27T17:00:00.000-04:00

Beverly's first eucharist was Saturday at 5 p.m. followed by a pot luck supper. Over fifty people attended and it was a great and joyful time. Sunday at 7:30 was Sally's first eucharist and she preached at both services. Here is Beverly in the wonderful silk chasuble made by Chris and the beautiful stole her "Group 7" friends (shown above) who came all the way from Hawaii to be with her for this weekend had made for her. The leaves are native Hawaiian leaves, apparently, beautifully quilted.

Below is a vertical view of chasuble and stole:

Below are Sally and Beverly and Marylen and me. We've had a good time being a team over the last few years and everyone at St Mark's will miss Sally and Beverly very much.

Every now and then new people or visitors will comment on seeing so many women behind the altar. I think most Saint Markans are over the novelty and the four of us have stopped noticing. But we will all miss Sally and Beverly and the energy and spirit with which they have been among us as transitional deacons.

Bearing Witness

2005-06-26T16:16:00.000-04:00

At the gates to Tower Grove Park on Saturday morning, there were two men with huge crosses over their shoulders. I guess they were there to call us all to repentance, to bear witness to the fact that LGBTQ people cause Jesus to suffer. Mo and Becky engaged them in conversation, because they noticed that the crosses were hollow and asked what they stored in them. The protesters said sandwiches. Also, I suspect, the pink fliers from "Operation Save America"with which they blanketed Pridefest, claiming that God had made Michael Jackson an object lesson about the evils of homosexuality (How many things are wrong with this thesis? I won't dignify it with a refutation.) Mo and Becky noted that the crosses were on wheels and that the men had shoulder pads, so they were carrying the comfy cross, in a way. It seems odd to use the cross as a weapon for scaring people away.

While I was at Soulard shopping for altar flowers, someone stopped by the Oasis/Integrity booth to offer my husband John a ticket to heaven, assuming that he'd quickly convert a queer ally into a Christian homophobe, not reckoning with the fact that John has a D. Phil. in theology and was unlikely to cave easily. I am sorry to have missed this! Apparently Sunday there were lots of people proclaiming that they had been "saved" or "healed" from homosexuality.

The thing that always amazes me about Pride is how many of the vendors are selling double glazing and mortgages and banking services-- not exotic "alternative lifestyle" items or sex aids but basic citizen, family-next-door goods and services. Many churches and church groups, although the MCC always has the best booth. I always buy the Dignity lemonade, I feel it is the least I can do. I guess part of my own homophobia is that I'm always worried I'm going to encounter things which offend or shock me, but it was pretty tame. Okay, I was a little embarrassed to be standing talking to Margie from church about her HGTV tote bag next to what seemed to be a display of whips at a booth with a name like Fetish World.

I think next year the Episcopalians need to have fans to give away. If it is even close to as hot and humid next year as it was this year, we will instantly become the most popular booth at the fair. The most popular give away this year seems to have been the HGTV canvas bags, although a parishioner told me that the Stonewall Democrats had so many people at their booth you could hardly get near it. The food area had quite tasty fried potato strips, a new junk food I had not encountered before.

I wasn't at the booth for very long, although I was wearing my (hot) clericals and love the looks that we get from people, startled that Episcopalians are there or that clergy are with them. And I was heartened by people who seemed to know about the Episcopal church and admire our bold welcome.

Make her a priest...

2005-06-25T08:50:00.000-04:00

On Friday June 24 Sally and Beverly were ordained to the priesthood, together with Doris and Renee. But Sally and Beverly are especially dear to us at St Mark's. Sally has been a member of St Mark's on and off throughout her life and was active in the parish before her discernment group was formed and she has worked with me on our 5 p.m. Saturday service since she was ordained transitional deacon. She also worked with our confirmation class, bonding with the youth in particular in just minutes. Sally is going to be curate at Grace Church in Kirkwood and among her responsibilities will be children and youth, at which she is a natural. And Beverly came to us in the fall of 2003 for an internship, so she could experience her pastoral identity in a congregation other than that in which her call had been discerned (and in which her husband Peter is the rector) and, as she puts it, "she refused to leave." But now she is going to be priest in charge for redevelopment of Trinity Church in De Soto, Missouri and she will do a fantastic job.

It was a very hot night which seemed hotter because we knew that not far away there had been a catastrophic fire at a company which makes propane and other bottled gasses. The airconditioning in the cathedral seemed unable to keep up with the heat of a full cathedral and vestments didn't help. Curiously, it didn't seem hot at all as the priests in attendance gathered around each of the four candidates to join the bishop in laying hands on them. We were sharing in a ritual which had changed the lives of each of us in ways we would never have exptected on our own ordination days. We were connecting the newly ordained by that simple gesture of touch with each of us and those who had laid hands on us and two thousand years of Christian clergy whose names we know because of their preaching or teaching or writing or holy lives and whose names we will never know. In that holy huddle we remember that we are called and connected by the Holy Spirit.

Worth a Thousand Words

2005-06-22T13:09:00.000-04:00

It has always been one of the hard and fast rules of the Episcopal Church that we don't take pictures in church. The idea, I guess, is that it is distracting from the liturgy and makes it seem like a "show" or a "performance."

The idea, I guess, is that it is distracting from the liturgy, makes it seem like a "show" or a "performance" rather than an act of praise and worship. Moreover, liturgical worship is all about being "in the moment" -- not something that you can capture and "freeze." I buy all of that and continue to be adamant that photography (especially flash photography) is not allowed during weddings, which are crazy enough without brides and grooms being blinded by flash and forgetting to say "I will" instead of "I do" or falling over photographers lying in the aisle to catch the procession, as if they were capturing celebs at the opening of a film or something.

When we started our parish website or when we were working on the "activities" page of our picture directory, all we could find were pictures of people eating and drinking. We do a lot of that, of course, but if you wanted to see what it would be like to go to church here, you would be out of luck. Every now and then, people would pay no attention to my stern warnings about how inappropriate it is to take photos in church and present me with great pictures of the bishop's visit, of children standing around the font at a baptism, of the altar piled high with food on our Harvest Home/World Hunger day. So I have relented. We live in such a visual culture that I feel as if images of worship have their place in telling the story of Saint Mark's Church.

So, above , you see the Rev. Marylen Stansbery, our deacon, pouring the water into the font.

And here you see Carter intent on his task of holding the book for the blessing of the water.

William, the baptismal candidate, seems more interested in Carter's hair than in the holy mysteries.

William, the baptismal candidate, seems more interested in Carter's hair.

And below he is, about to be sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ's own forever.

Shawl Ministry

2005-06-22T12:36:00.000-04:00

This is a fun picture of Shawl Ministry (see Knit Together, back in April) at work. Marylen knits, Sue prefers to crochet with her elegantly turned wood crochet hook. She is the most productive of our shawl producers and keeps track of who each shawl is sent to and makes lovely cards to go with them. Carol mostly crochets, too. We are taking the summer off from meeting and maybe even from knitting, since having six feet of fuzzy yarn in your lap is not as much fun in summer as in winter.

Rummage sermon

2005-06-19T17:24:00.000-04:00

PROPER 7 YEAR A June 19, 2005 Saint Mark’s Church, Saint Louis MO
We are almost at the end of the Flea Market and Barbecue weekend. It has been an interesting few weeks, as people have cleaned out their houses and brought things in and an interesting weekend watching people shop. One person’s junk is another person’s treasure. The tool belt or old purse or mixing bowls that you no longer have space or use for turn out to be the very treasure someone else has always wanted. As people worked this week, each of us discovered and staked out the things we wanted to buy at the preview sale, either for ourselves or as a gift for someone else, something that no one else wanted that seemed to US like just the perfect thing. It always seems to me that there is some kind of parable in a rummage sale, that what seems expendable to one person seems irresistible to another. And this is how we, all of us, seem to God: precious, treasured, irresistibly lovable.
Every culture treats some people as expendable: in some cultures it is daughters, who are so much less valuable than sons that new born girls are smothered or left on a hillside to die of exposure. In other cultures with strict caste systems, it is those of the lowest caste, the untouchables. In our culture, we could argue, it is homeless people or mentally ill people or very old or indigent people; people who, as a culture, we don’t care about. African American young men living in poverty are treated as expendables by the dominant culture: their street deaths barely make the news (unlike the demise of suburban white families in tragic minivan accidents or the abduction of white female teens), their high imprisonment rates are not deplored in editorials. But they are precious in the sight of God, God knows their names, weeps alongside their mothers and their girlfriends, rages with them when they are the victims of injustice. They may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are not expendables in the heart of God, even if they have made some poor choices. They are precious and lovable.
Some scholars who study Jesus in sociological and historical categories, see Jesus and most of those with whom he spent his time as expendable. Lepers were expendable, so were people possessed by demons and the woman with a flow of blood. But Jesus himself and his companions were, by the standards of a culture which valued landowning, expendables, landless peasants for whose welfare the culture was unconcerned. But Jesus touched such expendable people, Jesus gathered them for meals, Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God was in the midst of them.
So in today’s gospel, Jesus sends his disciples out into a hostile world, into a world that offers them no welcome, that gives their good news no hearing. He warns them of persecution, by the authorities and even by their own families. But he offers them courage by reminding them that in the eyes of God no one, no living creature, is expendable. They are as precious as the sparrows which sell for two a penny but God cares for what happens to each and every one of them. Even the hairs of their heads are numbered. Jesus encourages his disciples, throwaway people in the eyes of the dominant culture, by assuring them that God cares for each hair on their heads, for each sparrow that falls. We are none of us rummage, none of us expendable in the eyes of God, we are all God’s longed for, precious treasure, holy and beloved.

So that is how it works!

2005-06-16T12:20:00.000-04:00

I am still learning about this blogging business. I just finished up a long rant about FAITH COMMUNITIES TODAY: A National Survey of Episcopal Congregations 2005 which I had begun and saved as a draft on May 19th. It appears that when you do that, it publishes it as a May 19th post. So that makes me look like much less of a blogging slacker!

Dear Blog, Sorry for not writing...

2005-06-13T17:35:00.000-04:00

One of the important aspects of having a weblog is, of course, posting. There is not much point in having one if you don't write in it. Someone pointed out to me that the Episcoblog webring expects you to blog at least once a week, which means that I am about six weeks behind. In that time I have driven to the east coast, picked up my children from college, visited my sister and her family and my stepmother (who spent the whole visit wondering who we were), seen friends in Reading, come home, worked on the brochure for Saint Mark's capital campaign for roof repair, met with campaign committee and consultant to get ready for the Our Hope for Years to Come campaign, which we launched on June 5th. In honor of the campaign launch, I significantly decluttered my office, so that people could be invited in to look at the impressive damp spot in one corner, in case they needed proof that we need a new roof but no one did. But the committee provided a great brunch with two kinds of breakfast casserole, one of them an amazingly delicious French Toast one and everyone's energy seems high. Also in June, I experienced the baffling disappearance of the memory chips from my computer in a locked building, which made work rather complicated (although it only cost $60 to make my computer good as new and no data was lost or anything.). The congregation has been hard at work on a giant Flea Market (the committee thought "Flea Market" sounded more enticing than "Rummage Sale") which has benefitted from several people moving house and others being inspired to get rid of stuff. It is amazing how much stuff there is, almost overwhelming. There will also be a barbecue all day Saturday. This past Saturday we drove to Camp Shawnee in Waldron MO, near Parkville (four and a half hours from home) to deliver Mo who will be working as a counsellor there this summer and got back in time for the 5 p.m. service. Anna has had my car most days because of her job and a house-sitting gig, so there have been some adventures in transportation. And there was the usual round of visits, meetings, people in the hospital, preaching and generally doing my job. So... Have I made enough excuses for not blogging yet? I have thought about blogging a lot but even though blogger has all kinds of convenient ways of posting to your blog remotely, thought transmission is not yet one of them.

None of the above?

2005-05-19T15:19:00.000-04:00

Early in May, before I went on vacation, I received a copy of a survey of Episcopal Churches. It is to be filled out by the resident clergy and asks a number of questions about the life and health of the congregation. I managed to fill it out online in the time allotted, only to get another copy, reminding me to fill it out and extending the deadline. I am delighted that the national church attempting a comprehensive survey and glad to be a part of it. But it was puzzling. Some of the questions were quite straightforward, like "How often does your congregation hold regular weekend worship services?" There are some where I realize my perspective as the priest may be different from that of my congregation. The survey asks me how well the following adjectives describe our largest weekend worship service, on a scale of "very well " to "not at all":

Reverent
Informal
Filled with a sense of God's presence
Joyful
Formal liturgy
Exciting
Thought-provoking
Welcoming to newcomers
Contemplative
Contempoary
Predictable
Disorganized
Has a sense of expectancy
Participatory

How would I know? One person's reverent, formal or contemplative liturgy is another person's predictable liturgy, I'd say. I often am obsessed by the things that aren't as organized as I think they should be: typos in our elaborate bulletin which is meant to be user friendly for newcomers, endless announcements by parish leaders who have not submitted announcements for the bulletin in advance or who just don't believe that people read them, acolytes who breathlessly appear, still doing up their cinctures and the snaps on their albs, during the awkward silence after the prelude is over. I don't think that "Will the acolytes and readers make it in time?" is what is meant in the survey by a "sense of expectancy." Actually, many of these questions about liturgical style, demographics, programmatic evangelism and newcomer incorporation, congregational identity would make good questions for a vestry or evangelism committee to discuss, since they invite us to evaluate areas of our life that we don't often stand back and think about. And I have to say that I felt quite proud of this congregation's people and ministries as I went through this process of answering the survey. And my guess would be that most of the rest of the Episcopal church is as hopeful, welcoming and outward looking as we are.

But the most disconcerting section of this survey was the question about conflict. "In the last five years has your congregation experienced any disagreements or conflicts in the following areas?" You are invited to answer NO or YES on a scale of not very serious, moderately serious, very serious. And here are the conflict areas:

Money/Finances/Budget
How worship is conducted
Priest's leadership style
Program priorities of the congregation
Use of church facilities
Actions of General Convention 2003 regarding the Bishop of New Hampshire
Other:________________

The GC 2003 question seems so specific compared to the others that it seems out of proportion. Is this the REAL question the survey is wanting to discover an answer to? I invited vestry members to fill out the questionnaire for me, so I would have some input, especially on the one's where my self-assessment might color my answer. Only one did and she answered pretty much as I would have answered but she very kindly put no answer at all in the line where you are supposed to assess the clergy leadership style and the option was " Effective administrator."

Life, the Universe and Everything

2005-05-02T18:54:00.000-04:00

Today is my day off and I spent the afternoon at The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. About twenty seven years ago, we sat the kitchen of 149B Woodstock Road, Oxford, listening to the very frist radio episode. It was wildly imaginative and incredibly funny and there are parts of it that are lodged in memory forever. I'm not sure I read the books but I listened to the various Hitchhiker's sequels and watched the BBC TV version. So parts of the Hitchhiker's Guide are etched on my brain, like, "Goodbye and thanks for all the fish." In our family, we often describe things as the Guide, edited by Ford, described earth, as "Mostly Harmless." But it was long enough ago that I am not one of the people whose enjoyment of the movie was ruined by things that were left out or changed. On the other hand, as I watched, there were things I had forgotten about that made me helpless with giggles in anticipation, like when Bill Nighy was reluctant to say his name. It was lovely to look at and the animated book was great. Stay for the credits and you'll get to see even more of the book. I did wonder whether if you had managed to live on this planet without previous exposure to the Hitchhiker's Guide you would think it was as much fun as John and I did.

Knit together

2005-04-26T11:27:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite collects is the one for All Saints' Day in which we pray:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one
communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son
Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those
ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love
you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy
Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Knitting is a great image of interconnection. In Christ in some mysterious way I am intertwined, interconnected, knit together with God's people living and dead, not just the ones I like or choose but all of them.

I learned to knit from my Aunt Anstes. She'd sit in our living room on her visits back east and knit away. My honorary "aunt" Virginia and her mother, Mrs Nichols, were also constantly knitting. I particularly admired the knitting of socks on multiple needles while carrying lively conversations. I have knitted on and off, since then. Most of what I have learned about knitting I learned from books which always makes me wonder whether I am doing stitches in the mirror image of the way that I should be doing them.

When I was in college, I knitted or crocheted in lectures. I am a person who learns well from what I hear and knitting kept me able to focus on listening. I think that now, in meetings, it also helps me to think before I speak a little more than is natural to my personality type. Sometimes. As a student and young adult, I knitted scarves for less than grateful boyfriends, blankets for other people's babies and my own, Christmas stockings for spouse and children. I also crocheted granny squares into blankets.

When our deacon the Rev. Marylen Stansbery got the Shawl Ministry started, I took up knitting again after a long hiatus. It took me a while to get back into the rythm of knitting, but I liked the idea of keeping my hands busy to still my mind and heart for prayer. I also realized that I had been praying all along, in much of my past knitting, for friends who were pregnant or for their babies. I also like the idea that often several of the prayer shawl ministry people will knit on the same shawl, even in only a row or two. That means two things: one, it is the gift of a praying community and two, prayer shawl ministry is all about process and not product: if we all knit on the same shawl, it is not likely to have consistent stitch tension or look perfect but that is not the point. When we give them to people, we pray that as they are wrapped in the shawl they will know themselves held in God's loving embrace and in the prayers of the congregation These are images of abiding in God's love and being in Christ that mean a lot to me. There is a Shawl Ministry website http://www.shawlministry.com that offers patterns, advice, prayers and much more.

Here is a picture of me with Marylen in the first ever St Mark's Shawl.
I have to admit that I take the shawl with me a lot, sometimes for warmth, sometimes if I am doing something stressful or far from home.

Since the twins went off to college, leaving us with a suddenly empty nest, I've been knitting a lot for them. They are in New England, after all, where it is a lot colder than it is here. And they both have wild and ecclectic dress sense. So they asked for adult versions of the classic Ann Norling Fruit Caps, starting college as a tomato and an eggplant. I sent them the Fiber trends pumpkin hats time for Halloween. Here is Mo in a fabulous pumpkin hat:
Over Christmas, I made each one a kitty helmet hat from Stitch N Bitch. I also made them each two pairs of mittens, one with a flap so they could get their fingers out if they needed to, an alpaca boucle roll brim hat and for Anna a chenille helmet from a Vogue book. Needless to say they are now begging for mercy. These projects are slightly more stimulating than the prayer shawls yet easy enough that they don't require much concentration and they give me someplace to focus my anxiety about Mo and Anna being off on their own far from home.

Quilting and More scenes from Confirmation

2005-04-26T11:06:00.000-04:00

More photos from April 16th Confirmation. Here is the Rev. Sally Weaver with her confirmation students and a stole they made for her with a lot of help from Susieqquilting.
SusieQQuilting is a fabulous quilt shop owned by a parishioner. I don't even quilt and I find myself loving to visit the shop because everything is so beautifully displayed and the colors are so wonderful. Susie has introduced me to fabric knitting; she'll cut spectacular fabric into convenient strips for her customers to knit into fun fabric scarves and bags.

Let all things their creator bless

2005-04-23T21:41:00.000-04:00

When Scott came to pick up the Saint Mark's banner at church to carry in procession at our diocesan flower festival, he joked, "Cold? Rainy? Blustery? Must be Flower Festival weekend!" After warm days this week, the temperature today will drop into the 30's tonight (but not below freezing, mercifully).

We awoke to a wet morning and the planners at Christ Church Cathedral, who had spent weeks imagining the layout of the street fair in the closed streets surrounding the cathedral decided to move everything inside. Even when the weather cleared it was cold and windy, so it was a wise choice. The weather did not prevent a big crowd from coming to celebrate the glory of God in nature and to hear our Presiding Bishop preach, eruditely and not without humor, mostly on what we can learn from St. Francis about nature and our place in it as part of creation.

As usual, the Missouri Botanical Garden provided the cathedral with lots and lots of flowering plants, which members of the cathedral artfully arranged into a spectacular display. It was less playful than the year that there were huge stalks of corn, more colorful than the year that nothing seemed to be in bloom and people called it the "Leaf Festival." There were lots of people from St. Mark's there, which makes me happy, because one of the things about being Episcopalians is that we are connected with our bishop and with others in our diocese, and diocesan events are one of the places that we are particularly aware of that reality. Even though we were dressed for a cold day in the street and packed into hot crowded rooms in the cathedral, it was one of the best Flower Festivals I can remember. The cathedral did a great job of engaging neighboring businesses, including the wonderful Sen Thai Restaurant as well as lots of churches. All Saints Church seemed to have about three tables, one for the youth group and two for other groups in the church. When I teased an All Saints' parishioner about having so many tables, she smiled and said "We are blooming!" Everyone's energy seemed high and it felt like a good day to be an Episcopalian. Processing with other diocesan clergy, I loved seeing so many people from all over the diocese, Episcopalians new and old, feeling our connection in Christ. I read on some e-mail list that people were speculating about whether the Presiding Bishop was not attending Pope Benedict XVI's inaugural mass because he wasn't invited (instead, the Ecumenical Officer at 815, Bishop Epting and the Bishop for Europe, Bishop Whalon will be attending). I prefer to think that the Presiding Bishop wanted to honor his commitment to preach in St. Louis today and again tomorrow, as part of the Flower Festival.

You have never seen a church like this before

2005-04-17T13:31:00.000-04:00

Saint Mark's is a remarkable building and people who love it, love it and people who don't, don't. It is small but has a very high ceiling and wonderful reverberant accoustics. People describe the architectural style as "moderne" and "art deco." Saint Mark's makes no attempt to look like a nice little English medieval country church, unlike many Episcopal Churches. On Saturday afternoon, Esley Hamilton, a local architectural historian and preservationist, brought distinguished visitors from Chicago and Harvard to see our church. Admirers of architecture frequently come to see the building. I like to call it a "numinous space," although some may think this is because I just like showing off that I know the word "numinous." It actually is a space that feels full of the presence of God, what I once heard someone call a prayed in space.

This week, Tom Krepcio's blog has wonderful pictures and commentaries on the windows: http://www.krepcio.com/vitreosity/ This blog has wonderful commentaries on other St Louis area stained glass and Krepcio's website shows his own really interesting glass and has much other interesting stuff.

Living Outisde the Lines

2005-04-15T01:31:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday night, I went to "Living Outside The Lines: St. Louis Discusses Gender Variance," a panel discussion on Transgender Issues. It was part of a series on health care issues, called "Inside Out" and although some of the panelists had horrendous stories about their experiences of being badly treated by health care providers it was about a whole lot of transgender issues. I was in awe of the panelists who were funny, vulnerable, wise people.

The thing that amazed me the most was how sure they were of who they were, sure enough that they would make almost any sacrifice to live into that identity. Some of them, in pursuing their identity had lost children and parents and partners, jobs, friends and insurance. One of them, the partner of a person who had transitioned from Female to Male, talked frankly about how she had had to reimagine her own identity as her partner transitioned. The moderator was a nurse practioner from Southampton Healthcare (2340 Hampton AvenueSt. Louis, MO 63139(314)647-2200.) She was funny and wise, moved the conversation along, affirmed the bravery of the speakers, some of whom were coming out as transgender for the first time and was generally a gracious facilitator in every sense.

Just before the panel started I visited the room in the basement of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University which used to be labelled "Ladies" or maybe "Women" but which now says "Restroom." There were quite a few other people coming and going from the room, some of whom, looking at the other people there, were not at all sure that they were in the right room. Striding out of the restroom door I ran into a person who appeared to be a straight white male who seemed rather alarmed to see a straight white femle coming out of a restroom he was planning to enter. Also entering was another person whom I would have classified as a straight white female who was saying to a friend, in a puzzled tone, "This USED to be a ladies' room." It was a good prelude to the panel, a reminder of what it feels like for some Trans people to have to choose between the Ladies' Room and the Men's Room and to feel unwelcome in either and of how deep seated society's gender assumptions and expectations are.

For a short annotated bibliography on Transgender issues, visit Left Bank Books . Visit and support them anyway, because they are a great independent bookstore.

2005-04-10T16:50:00.000-04:00

Another view of the lineup

Diocesan Confirmation

2005-04-10T16:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we had confirmation at Christ Church Cathedral. We had five people being confirmed, two people being received and we presented another person for another congregation. Here are some of them with our bishop. In some years there seem to be hundreds of people being confirmed and received and it goes on forever. Praying for each person as the bishop says the prayer and lays hands on him or her, I fall into a trance like state. This year there were just enough people to remind us that we are part of a church which extends far beyond our own congregation but a small enough group that the service was over in an hour and a half. Four of our candidates were unable to attend and will be presented on May 7.

Diocesan Confirmation April 9, 2005

Reading Paul on Fridays

2005-04-06T20:28:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I enjoy about Saint Mark's is gathering with a group of people on Friday mornings, known as the Friday Book Group. Over the years, we have read and studied various things. We've read Marcus Borg's Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally and The Heart of Christianity. We've read Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief. We've read John Dominic Crossan's The Birth of Christianity and Who Killed Jesus?. We've read Roberta Bondi's Memories of God (although I seem to love this book more than most of the rest of thre group did) and Nora Gallagher's Things Seen and Unseen. This Lent we read Stephen Patterson's Beyond the Passion:Rethinking the Life and Death of Jesus. This made us want to learn more about Paul.

We have really enjoyed learning about how scholars can help us to see the Jesus movement in some new ways, in the the process hear anew what God is saying to us in our time. We are women (who else is free at 10:30 on Friday mornings ?-- although we know that some male parishioners with regular "day jobs" are often reading along side us) who have grown up believing that Paul was responsible for people thinking that Scripture expected us to wear hats and be silent and be subservient to our husbands and other males. We are aware of the ways in which our understanding of Paul has been shaped by Augustine and by Luther and we resist that Paul. We are ready to see how scholars are rereading and rediscovering Paul in his first century Jewish context and hope to learn from his mission and ministry about how we can proclaim the Good News in some new ways in our very different place and time.

First post

2005-04-05T22:25:00.000-04:00

Having spent the afternoon saying to my friend Emily that I have no idea what makes people want to blog, I am starting a blog. I asked her, "Why would anyone want to do this? What would I write about that anyone would want to read? How would I manage to post to it without feeling either exhibitionistic or self-absorbed?"

Having recently passed the half-century mark, I worry that I may be too old to be a blogger. But I also love to try new things and I love the idea of the ways in which the internet makes it possible for people to communicate with each other and connect with each other. So this blog will be about my life as the rector of St Mark's Church in Saint Louis. It will contain some thoughts, some reflections, some news, some photos and some updates.

The title I chose comes from the ancient Nicene Creed in which believers express our trust in God as the creator of all that is, "things seen and unseen." But it is primarily a tribute to one of my favorite books about being a person of faith in the Episcopal tradition, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith by Norah Gallagher.