Morning Prayer 12.6.14, Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, c. 342 | The Daily Office

Happy Feast of St Nicholas! We will celebrate tomorrow at the Sunday morning service at 10am, with the Rt. Rev. Jeffrey D Lee, Bishop of Chicago, presiding. Come and be welccome, and “be St. Nick” with us!

St Nicholas of Myra, by Fr. Tobias Haller BSG

The Daily Office | Diocese of Indianapolis: St Nicholas of Myra

The Daily Office site is an incredibly rich resource for prayer, spirituality, and the inner life for people of faith. Each day they post the prayers and readings of the day, and the offer webcasts and sometimes live webchats. I’ve managed to attend one (they’re held during my work day, so it was a day I was off for some reason) and it was very interesting and uplifting to share that with people from all over the country and the world. The daily posts also include beautiful images and photographs to illustrate the holy persons who are commemorated that day, gathered from many sources (many from Episcopal churches who have commissioned art or submitted photos for use by the site).

The icon at the top of this post is a particular favorite of mine, as it’s by a blogger whose work I’ve read for years, Fr. Tobias Haller BSG. He writes poetry and posts icon sketches at his site “In A Godward Direction.”

Another icon of St Nicholas that is new to me is this one from an Episcopal Church in Ohio:

St Nicholas of Myra, by Kelly Latimore, icon at Grace Church, Pomeroy OH

St Nicholas of Myra, by Kelly Latimore, icon at Grace Church, Pomeroy OH

Thie one depicts Biblical images of sailing ships – Jesus walking on the water, and also in the boat with His friends. St Nicholas holds a modern riverboat tug, because Pomeroy’s position on the Ohio River means that the sailors under the saint’s protection are on our inland waterways and not just at sea.

Although there will be no Saturday evening service today, the Feast of St Nicholas is “transfered” to tomorow, so that the whole community of St Nick can gather and celebrate with Bishop Jeffrey. You are most welcome to join us, tomorrow and always!

Unity, Harmony, Singleness In Action

WeAreStNick

“Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”
-A.W. Tozer, “The Pursuit of God.”

And there you have it. Complex and at the same time so very simple and concise. Aiden Wilson Tozer touched many hearts with his preaching and grassroots ministry. As an Evangelical minister, preacher and writer, Tozer knew how to communicate with his congregations. He spoke to them and listened to them and worshiped with them. Together, they formed community that was strong, faithful and unified.

Unity, as defined by the Free Dictionary is: “1. The state or quality of being one; singleness. 2. The state or quality of being in accord; harmony. 3. The combination or arrangement of parts into a whole.”

St. Nicholas is many things: we are diverse, we are multicultural, we are openly and demonstratively welcoming and inviting. We are young, old and many ages in between. We are black and white and various shades as well. We are urbanites and suburbanites; our roots and heritages are found in other countries far away and as close as a mile from our church. We are also imperfect and flawed. We are frail and finite; we are mortal and at times become victims to sin. But still and most importantly we are united. Our unity is forged through our friendships and our commonality as believers in a loving and benevolent God. We are sisters and brothers and heirs of the Kingdom of our Heavenly Father and Jesus, His son. We worship as a community. We celebrate and grieve as a community. We succeed and yes, on occasion, we shall fail as a community. We try and when needed, we will try even harder. This is what a family does…it works hard at staying together…at being connected…at being in harmony…at being unified.

The next few months, we will be receiving mail from the Bishop’s Committee, the Senior Warden and myself. These letters concern both our annual Stewardship Drive and Capital Campaign. This is a rare and unique time in the history of our church. The Stewardship Drive is a yearly event. We are all familiar with this. Every Episcopal church in this country encounters this. However, our Capital Campaign is quite new to us and we certainly hope and pray, an event we will not have to revisit for many, many years to come.

We are asking much of our community because much is needed to help rebuild and strengthen our church for now and the long-term future. With the kindness extended to us by the Diocese and the funds already on hand, we are well on our way toward our goals. Yet, there is still help needed as well as much work to be done. Much of the work we are undertaking is long overdue. With this in mind, it is up to us, here and now to do what is “good, right and just.” Please know this; I am very conscience of the generosity of this amazing community — this loving family. No one will be pressured nor will we come “a-knocking at your door.” We ask each member to share as we are able, as we are willing.

Let us see our unity, our harmony and our singleness in action. Let us build our house of worship stronger, better and more beautiful. “For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
1 Corinthians 3:9.

And let’s make a joyful noise…a resounding sound so others know that some thing good is happening at St. Nicholas…and we shall all rejoice at the efforts we put forth.

Thank you again and yet again. You are all in my prayers and always in my heart. Unity is a wonderful thing…

Amen.

manny@stnicholasepiscopal.org

Manny

Father Manny150

The Vicar’s Corner: Thelma and Ray’s Love Story

St. Valentine’s Day:  We have associated this mid-February moment as a time of true love and romance, boxes of chocolate and red roses, too.  I can still remember the cute, little Valentine cards we would pass out to our “home room” classmates in grade school.  Heck, I even remember giving a card to my homeroom teacher which from 1st grade to about 7 was a nun.  And why not?  Love is not to be limited to a select few but to all.

So now, it is my pleasure to share with you a true “love story” as has been shared with me.  Sit back, enjoy and savor…

Thelma and Ray

            Born and raised in Chews Landing, Gloucester Township, NJ, my family lived three houses past the cemetery for St. John’s Episcopal Church – est. 1789.  I was accepted into the Army Student Nurse Corps for my senior year at Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia.  I passed my state boards and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in the Army Nurse Corps in March 1960 at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, TX.  After orientation I was sent to Fort Knox, KY with all of that gold – and the tanks.  Having spent 10 months in KY, I decided that it would be great to go overseas and put in for a transfer – and my orders said “Ryukyu Islands”?  Where?  Oh -it’s Okinawa – ten thousand miles away!  And everyone said I’d love it there.

Before I departed for Okinawa, I went on leave to visit my folks and started the long trek – off to California and then a military contract jet flew me – and over 100 other members in the military – from California to Anchorage to Tokyo to Okinawa – refueling at each airport.

Ray was born in the Chicago area.  He attended IIT and graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering.  He was in the Air Force ROTC and was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. upon graduation.  He hoped for an assignment to Wright Patterson Air Base in Ohio to do research and development.  But WAIT – “the needs of the service come first” – and the need for Communications Officers was critical.  So they did send him to a place with an “O” – Okinawa, where he was to be in charge of a communications transmitter site.  And then one day, it was announced that – for the first time – a jet instead of a propeller plane bringing military personnel would be landing.  Ray was on the roof of the flight operations building at Kadena Air Base and saw the jet land – and I was in it!  But he did not know that.

Okinawa is a volcanic island – 10 miles wide and 60 miles long.  Camp Kue and the 300-bed Army Hospital supported personnel from all branches of the military, their dependents and selected Okinawans.     Then one day I had a patient with a kidney stone who was an Air Force officer from Kadena Air Base.  He and another officer shared a room.  I learned that he was from the Chicago area and we chatted a bit.  He was discharged from the hospital and went back to duty.

Time passed and he called me at my quarters (shared with two other nurses) and asked me out.  We had pizza at the local Pizza Manufactory – complete with candles in Chianti Wine holders.  We dated for a while, time passed – and Ray asked me to marry him.  Do you suppose it was because he knew I could cook?

            So we set the date for 21 April 1962 – and flew home space available on a military contract plane.  We flew commercial air from San Francisco to Chicago and I met his folks and his relatives. We drove his parents’ car to NJ

and got the marriage license (the clerk didn’t know how to spell Illinois!)  And the minister had to go to the town hall to pick up the license and swear that he wouldn’t do the marriage prior to noon on Saturday.

Our Wedding Day was perfect – beautiful and sunny!  The wedding photo in the newspaper had the caption “Lieutenants Wed”. (We were both 1st Lieutenants by then).  The day after the wedding we drove back to Chicago, caught a flight to San Francisco and went to Travis Air Force base to fly back to Okinawa on a space available flight.  Here we were with our marriage documents hand  – and when we asked for a room at the Visiting Officer’s Quarters, they sent me in one direction and Ray in the other.  My ID said Stiles and his said Malecek.

Our transport back landed at Hawaii and scenic Wake Island on the way back – and no, it wasn’t a jet!  Three eight hour legs.

One of Ray’s friends attempted to come to our wedding.  The travel agent said it was an elaborate hoax!  There was no “St. John’s Episcopal Church on the Old Black Horse Pike in Chews Landing in New Jersey” – so Tom did not attend.  And we have had people remark that it was odd that Ray and I lived 800 miles apart in the states – but had to go 10,000 miles to meet.

Ray was reassigned to K. I. Sawyer Air Force Base in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where he was in charge of maintenance of the navigational aids on the base.  I had resigned my commission in August and was discharged from the Army and went to Michigan by way of NJ.  Our February daughter – Jean, was born on 23 December 1962 and weighed in at 4# 14 oz. and it was 23 degrees below zero.  Her weight dropped precipitously, she failed to maintain her temperature and she spent 27 days in the isolette before they agreed to let us bring her home – at her birth weight!

After Ray was completed his tour of duty we moved to the Chicago suburbs and Ray was employed as an electrical engineer.  He designed computer controlled test systems.  Our son, Ron, was born on 20 February 1966.  We then bought a house in Wood Dale where we have lived since 1966.  After both kids were in school Thelma decided to become an operating room nurse at Northwest Community Hospital.

We will celebrate our 52nd Wedding Anniversary in April – and yes – we know that God does indeed work in mysterious ways.