epiScope: Praying for Minnesotans

Statement from the Right Rev. James L. Jelinek
Regarding the I-35W Bridge CollapseOn behalf of the Diocese of Minnesota, we offer our prayers to all who are affected by the devastating bridge collapse in Minneapolis yesterday. The University Episcopal Center is about a half mile away from the site, and, to our knowledge, all are fine.

The prayers and well wishes have been streaming in overnight from across the country. People are checking in with one another – quick emails that say “you ok?” and “were fine” are filling the airwaves. We will keep all posted with any news we receive regarding people we know and love who were victims or witnesses in any way. Weve had many questions asking, “What can we do?” For now, well let the emergency personnel do their work and let them tell us what might be helpful when they are ready. But we can do what we do best – pray.

We pray for those who have died, may their souls and the souls of all the departed rest in peace.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for those who may still be trapped, those who are injured, and for those whose loved ones have not yet been accounted for. We pray for perseverance, and strength, and hope.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for those whose vocation serves the common good; for first responders, search and rescue, fire fighters, police officers, paramedics, for those who work in hospitals and blood banks; the newsrooms and media centers; for places of prayer- our churches and temples and mosques and our homes.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for those in leadership; for our governor and mayors, for state and federal agencies, and for coordination of services in the immediate and distant future.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for ourselves and our children. Calm our fears, comfort our sorrow, and guide our response. Set us at the difficult task of studying and rebuilding for the future. Grant us patience in the days ahead.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and they also have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.

Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer

They will be added to our prayers this Sunday and in the long weeks to come.

News from St. Nicholas with the Holy Innocents

7.29.07

Luke 11:13 “Give us each day our daily bread.”

We develop a superficial kind of freedom,
which in the end is not freedom at all,
because we just imprison ourselves more.
It’s not the freedom to choose any brand of toothpaste you like.
What people too often seek is freedom of the ego
instead of freedom from the ego.

Freedom of the ego means that I can do
whatever I like in relation to others.
The more my will triumphs, the more free I am.
That is nonsense, illusion.

The freedom Jesus was talking about…is the freedom from the ego.
In other words, I’m not tied down to my own selfishness.
It’s the freedom to do God’s will,
to love other people,
to be one with them and the whole universe.
— South African Dominican theologian, Albert Nolan

Rummage sale a huge success on many levels

As I listened to the prelude this past Sunday, I looked around at those gathered together for worship and smiled as I realized that almost as many people were in attendance at church that morning as had been physically present at some part of the rummage sale. Before I revealed the rummage sale gross sales total on behalf of us all during the announcements, I reported on the number of our members that helped with the sale in some fashion. At least to me, this was even more important than the “bottom line” that often gets reported about these fundraisers. As I see it, the “bottom line” was that thirty-two members of our one congregation selflessly gave of their time from Thursday night to Saturday night to be present at the sale. And, many more who were unable to be at the sale had donated items, hangers and bags, priced items, hauled items, and lent tables prior to that. The most gratifying aspect of the sale was that it was truly a community effort. The “bottom line” was that we came together-united under a common cause-to achieve something truly great. Yes, we made money to advance our mission-$5,011 to be exact-but more importantly, we made it very clear to ourselves and one another that we are now one family. This fact was simply undeniable as we worked together, laughed together, ate together and yes, even disagreed and problem-solved together. One thing that has frustrated me since the beginning of the New Year is the repeated reference to the two parishes we used to be. While I realize that this was inevitable as we grew to know and love each other, I remember hoping several times that I’d never hear about a reference to which congregation any of us used to belong to. At least from where I stand, we are at that point, and it is truly an honor to be part of this community. With deep gratitude, –Douglas VanHouten

Discerning our parish name:

As we continue our discernment of possible new names for our parish – looking at three names that had wide appeal at our June parish meeting: Good Shepherd, One Bread, One Body, and St. Mary Magdalene – I want to ask you once again to engage in a personal spiritual exercise. Take some time from your schedule this week and go to a quiet place.

• Spend some time quieting yourself and asking God to be with you in your prayer.
• When you feel ready, spend some more time letting all the reasons for selecting the name St. Mary Magdalene come into your mind. As you end this time, write down the reasons that name should be the one we choose.
• Finally, spend another 10-15 minutes letting all the reasons for not selecting St. Mary Magdalene come into your thoughts. Again, write them down.

This is a discernment process, not a political one, and so it is important to suspend your personal preference so the spirit can speak to you – and all of us — about our name. Let go of your desire, and see what happens. On Sunday, July 15, we began our process by considering the name Good Shepherd. This past Sunday, we focused on the name, One Bread, One Body. The results of both these discussions are posted on flip charts in church and you may add to them. You also can add to them by email to onebreadonebody@sbcglobal.net This Sunday, I ask you to focus on our third possible name, St. Mary Magdalene, using the procedure noted above. After July 29, we’ll leave the results on flip charts. During the next four weeks, I hope you will read and ponder the results. We’ll hold another parish meeting on August 26 to see where the Spirit has led us. David Taylor will be in charge of white smoke…. Seriously, what I will be looking for on the 26th is whether we are coalescing in a particular direction. I’ll try to work the process so we continue to have some fun and remain loose and open to the Holy Spirit. But I won’t force anything. If we are not in substantial agreement of some sort, then that will be a sign we are not ready for to make this change – and that will be fine.

Adult Education

The adult education group will be meeting today at 9:00 am to continue our discussion of Native American spirituality.

Help move the rummage sale leftovers this Sunday

We are going to donate the leftovers from the rummage sale to the Kenneth Young Center – and we need your help. This Sunday, after church, we are going to load up as many SUVs, minivans, wagons, cars, and pick-ups as we can and head over to the Young Center, located on the western side of Elk Grove Village. Twenty minutes of your time will help us clear out the POD and reduce our only rummage sale expense. (Thanks to several kind donations of products and services by parishioners.)

Gardening for God : Our garden is beginning to bear…vegetables!!

Thanks to the green thumb of Bill Barlow and some assistance from AA members with watering, we will be able to provide produce for our own food pantry and area pantries as well. Our tomato plants and beans are beginning to yield an abundant harvest, with melons not far behind. We are asking for volunteers who are willing to pick and deliver vegetables to local township food pantries during the week. If you are able to help with this ministry to the hungry, please contact Bill or Mary Anne

Volunteer to help with the food pantry

The St. Nicholas with the Holy Innocents food pantry is open on the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Volunteers are needed to be on hand to greet the guests, pass out grocery bags, and provide any needed assistance while they choose their food. If enough people participate, your commitment will be every few weeks or months. If you would like to help with this ministry, please see Mary Anne O’Rourke.

Collecting school supplies for Clearmont

It is close to August, and we all know what that means – back to school! Through August 26, we will again be collecting school supplies for needy children. The school supplies will be donated to Clearmont School, where they will be distributed to children whose families cannot afford to purchase them. We will also have some on hand for families who use our food pantry. Please place your donation on or under the table at the entrance to the worship space.

If you shop at Amazon…

…be sure to visit it through our web site and part of your purchase will go to our church, thanks to the work of Ginny Gibbs. Go to our web site at onebreadonebody.org. Click on more news and events, which will take you to the blog and then look around until you find and click the Amazon link (the search box is in the left-hand column –Editor).

Food pantry items particularly needed include…

Help replenish the food pantry by bringing one or more non-perishable items each Sunday and placing them on or beneath the table just inside the worship space. Items that we particularly need for the pantry are canned fruit, tuna, canned pasta such as Spaghetti O’s and ravioli.

Bishop’s committee report

No official actions were taken at this meeting. The following topics were discussed:

Several matters related to schedule and vacations. Also, the timing of “Recovery Sunday” – a celebration of the recovery ministries, particularly AA — in our church. Originally, we had been thinking of holding this in October, but September is National Recovery Month and so Steve will talk with some of the AA people about possible dates.

Preaching dates were assigned for the remaining Sunday in August and several September Sundays.

Our “Kick-off” Sunday – anyone have a better name for it? – will be September 16. We will return to two liturgies that day, with a celebration of community that will include activities for children and adults.

Disposition of the donatable leftovers from the Rummage Sale and the importance of removing the POD quickly to minimize charges and maximize our sale profit. Items to be included in One Bread, One Body.

Realigning our budget to reflect the work of our teams and other areas of ministry, and to make funds available directly to each team.

We reaffirmed our decision to replace the west windows of the worship space with clear glass windows rather than stained glass. The three green stained-glass pieces already in the church will be moved to three of those five windows. Steve noted that an anonymous parishioner is donating $500 for new stained glass. That will be used to replace the green dove window in the baptistry with another dove that will be more similar stylistically to the other stained glass in that area.

David provided an update on estimates he is receiving for various work in the church.

Discussion continued about our approach to the 2007-08 program year. There is increasing agreement – though not consensus – that we should focus primarily inwardly during the year, seeking to build community and prepare ourselves for aggressive growth efforts following the completion of the building. We expect, however, that beginning the building will result in increased visitors, and we do expect growth during the 2007-08 year.

Potential outreach efforts during the year were noted, including outreach to the gay and lesbian community and possible offsite offerings. Most members of the committee agreed with Steve that space and construction considerations made it preferable to do major outreach to families with young children in the 2008-09 program year, after the building is completed and we have the space to try some new and expanded approaches with our children and young people. This discussion will continue at the next meeting.

Ministry Team News

Nurturing Team.

The nurturing team plans on making prayer blankets for Pam Linick, who moved to Virginia on July 20 to be near her son, and Carmen McCall. Please continue to pray for both of them.

Inviting Team.

The Inviting Team will meet this Sunday at 11:15.

Give Mary Anne your number…

Mary Anne O’Rourke is coordinating a new and amazingly easy fundraising effort. If we register our Dominick’s “Fresh Cards” with the store, Dominick’s will return a percentage of our purchases directly to the church. Simple as that. You can contact Mary Anne at mor1313@yahoo.com

Parish Baseball Outing

On Friday, August 24, Karen Martin, is organizing another baseball outing to see the Flyers – and fireworks – that same evening. Game time is 6:45 p.m. and tickets are $10. See Karen for tickets, or contact her at kwillmar55@sbcglobal.net

What’s your story?

One of my projects before summer’s end is to help us as a congregation tell our story more effectively. We do this in many ways and one way is through some great stories on our web site from members who share what led them to the parish. But we need more. Lots more. Would you consider adding yours? I would be happy to help you write or edit it, or if you don’t want to write it yourself, I will interview you and write it for you. Thanks!

One bread, one body: one!

This week’s observation from Fr. Steve Martz:

As I said this past Sunday, and as Douglas observes in his report above, what struck me most about the rummage sale was its oneness. Part of my job as pastor of this congregation has been to try to attend carefully to the feelings and dynamics of each of the churches that have come together to become one bread and one body. What we have been doing is hard work that evokes all sorts of feelings. And so I have continued all these months to think of “Holy Innocents” and “St. Nicholas.”

When I got home on Saturday after two nearly full days of rummaging (but not nearly as full as the days put in by some), I realized that I had not thought once during those two days about the two distinct congregations. Never thought, “Oh, Tim is from Holy Innocents” or “Heather is from St. Nicholas.”

Once home, I realized that for the first time I had been immersed in our congregational life for many hours without ever thinking of congregations, without worrying whether this was too informal for the Holy Innocents people, or that was too traditional for those from St. Nicholas, or any of the other minute feelings and thoughts on which I have been focused this past year.

Of course, I am not so naïve as to assume that everything is now completely blended and there will never again be a moment when we don’t wish things were the way they used to be. Each congregation carried decades of its own history into this marriage and birth of a new congregation, and it is impossible ever to let go completely all that history, all those relationships, all the ways of being and doing unique to each former congregation. Still…

My fundamental paradigm for pastoring has always been clinical, and so I presume – as I would if this congregation were my patient – that my recognition of our increasing oneness reflects the congregation’s conscious or unconscious – it doesn’t much matter which — recognition of the same dynamic. I suspect I am simply picking up what is.

Certainly what was achieved in this rummage sale – both in terms of revenue and parishioner involvement – could only have been achieved by one, quite new and completely wonderful congregation. Thanks to all of you who have chosen to become a part of it – and thanks for letting me be a part of it with you.

Lots of love, — Steve

Schedule of events for the week beginning July 29:

Sunday the 29^th

Worship at 10 a.m.

AA meets at 7:30 p.m.

Inviting Team meets at 11:15 a.m.

Volunteers need to move rummage leftovers, also at 11:15 a.m.

Monday the 30^th

AA meets at noon

AA meets at 7 p.m.

Tuesday the 31^st

AA meets at noon

AA meets at 7 p.m.

Building group meets with architect, builder, diocesan officials at 7 p.m.

Wednesday the 1^st of August

Bishop’s committee meets at 11 a.m.

AA meets at noon

Food Pantry is 6-7:30 p.m.

Thursday the 2^nd

AA meets at noon

GA meets at 7 p.m.

Friday the 3^rd

AA meets at noon

Saturday the 4^th

AA meets at 1 p.m.

AA meets at 8:30 p.m.

Sunday the 5^th

Worship at 10

“Will You Sit Still and Pay Attention!”

A homily for the people of St. Nicholas with the Holy Innocents
by Ethan Jewett

22 July 2007 The Eighth Sunday After Pentecost
Amos 8:1-12 + Psalm 52 + Colossians 1:15-28 + Luke 10:38-42

I grew up a very distracted child. Paying attention was always a real challenge for me, and it was only during graduate school that I learned that my inability to sit still and just pay attention was a medical condition. Once I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, I heaved this great sigh of relief and thought that everything would be different; I’d get my medication and stop being such a flake. Sometimes I marvel at my own naiveté. It’s true that the medication made me fidget less and focus for longer periods of time on the task at hand. But I was and am still very distracted. The problem isn’t just the way the neurons in my brain are firing, but the relationship I have with the rest of the world. And I suspect that this is a dynamic that many of you may be able to relate to.

It’s not easy to keep my eye firmly focused on the important things when there’s so much else swirling around in my peripheral vision. The world seems to be packaged in a way that makes it impossible to sift through all the chaff. Information overload and overstimulation has become a way of life that I just can’t shake, unless I became a hermit and sheltered myself from Comcast digital cable, daily news feeds, and the blogosphere. How can I stay grounded and focused in a world obsessed by how long Paris Hilton spends in jail? Maybe St. Antony of Egypt and the early desert fathers were onto something with their get away from it all attitude.

Today’s Gospel reading is uncharacteristically short, but I love its brevity, simplicity, and leanness. “Here’s the take-away message,” Jesus tells the overly distracted Martha, “let Mary listen to the important things I have to say to her.” Many of us fall into the same trap that ensnares Martha. We become so concerned about all the errands that need running, the chores that need doing, and the incidental tasks of daily existence that we simply can’t sit still and pay attention to the important stuff. It’s a swarm of gnats buzzing around our heads that we just can’t seem to swat away and disperse.

The trouble is that we need a space that grounds us and reorients us to the essentials and puts the trivial and incidental in their proper perspective and place. Today’s Gospel suggests that it is Jesus’ teachings that provide that grounding space for us in the spasmodic world in which we usually live. But this refocusing can’t take place if we don’t insulate ourselves, at least for a few moments, from the constant buzzing around our heads. Why should Jesus have to shout over Paris Hilton, Larry King, or some trend-obsessed Internet blogger? How well can we expect to hear what he has to say with all this background noise?

Upon closer inspection, there is more going on in the Gospel reading than Jesus’ simple rebuke of Martha. “She had a sister named Mary,” the Bible tells us, “who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” This is a pregnant statement that has much to say about sitting still and paying attention. Mary sits at the Lord’s feet, first of all, in the traditional posture of a student in the presence of her teacher. This is a deliberate and intentional act signifying Mary’s readiness and openness to listening. She is receptive. This may seem like a simple act, but how often are we unwilling or unable to stop what we are doing and sit face-to-face with someone to communicate? Much of our communication transpires in the quick e-mail sent before we toddle off to lunch, or the few words shouted over our shoulder to someone on the other side of the room, or the laconic text message sent while driving on the expressway. Yes, I’m guilty of all of these. I’m a master multi-tasker. No one thing or person is worthy of my undivided attention.

Pretty insulting, huh? Yet, these values are reinforced all of the time in the messages the world peppers us with, and we hear these messages so often that we accept the values they convey without really reflecting on them. It takes a conscious, deliberate act to stop and say, “No, wait a minute, that’s not what I believe.” I WILL give this person my undivided attention and really listen to what she has to say. Listening is the first step in hearing and understanding, and the first step in listening is putting oneself in a position to be able to listen. Turn off the TV. Turn off the iPod. Turn off AOL Instant Messenger. And God forbid, turn off the cell phone. Now maybe we can sit still and pay attention. OK, I know by now, most of us would be going through withdrawal symptoms from being disconnected from the media and technological onslaught that is the rhythmic hum of our daily life. But the hives and the cold sweats will pass, truly they will.

For many of us, Sundays provide that respite from the gnats buzzing around our heads when we get grounded and reoriented. Yet, to be come truly receptive to what God has to say to us, about ourselves, others, and the world, we have to make a habit of taking the time for quiet, reflection, and introspection. As with any skill, we need practice, lots of practice. Or else, by Monday afternoon, we’ll be Martha obsessing about paying the bills, taking the car in for an oil change, or getting that project off your desk so the boss won’t yell at you. The TV will be back on blaring in the background about Paris Hilton, and e-mails will be littering up our in-boxes. We’ll forget that we should giving our child who’s growing up so fast our undivided attention, taking the time to listen to our friend who’s lonely or frightened, and thanking God that we’re healthy. Are these things less important than our to-do lists and our Blackberries? Let’s take 10 minutes a day, shut it all off, put it all away, find a quiet place, and make a space for God to speak. Silence, pure silence for us to just sit still and pay attention.

Amen.