Pictures from our wonderful Animal Blessings on St. Francis Day!

We received so many wonderful pictures of the Animal Blessings, indoors and outside!  Here are just some of our favorites.  Thanks so much to all who participated, and to our God for making all of the wondrous variety of creation!

Holy God: 

No sparrow falls without your attention; nothing dies that is lost to you; 

nothing comes into being without your love.  

Give us just and compassionate hearts, that we may serve the earth and all its creatures,

 holding fast to the vision of your peaceable reign in which all will live with you

             eternally; through the Risen One, Christ our Savior.  

Amen.

Shabby Scriptures

The word of our God shall stand for ever.—Isaiah 40:8

My Bible is falling apart. And no wonder; I received it at Sunday school on September 29, 1957.

With colorful plates, maps, a concordance and student dictionary complete with illustrations from ark through Zion, it was perfect for a child.

Of course, I’m no longer a kid. Over the years the inexpensive leatherette cover has broken off along the edges. The gold leaf gilding on the title rubbed off years ago and “Holy Bible” has become a dull gray shadow. In fact, the entire front cover sloughed off a couple of months ago, taking the first forty nine chapters of Genesis with it. I stuck it back with cellophane tape, but even that has loosened, so I keep my Bible together with a rubber band. My shabby Scriptures.

They should look a lot worse. For the first thirty years I owned this Bible, I thumbed through it only casually, mostly at Sunday school. Then a dear friend introduced me to daily devotional reading—just as I was going through a divorce with four small children to care for. Bible reading became part of my early morning routine. Over the next fifteen years I underlined and highlighted my favorite passages, all the verses that really made a difference to me. Now I wouldn’t trade that Bible for a more handsome or sturdier edition. It’s my constant companion, my never failing guide through life. No matter what struggles I’m going through, I can always turn to it for the help

I need.

Yes, my Bible may be falling apart, but thanks to the wisdom in its pages, I’m not!

Dear Lord, thank You for Your Word hidden in my heart.

—Gail Thorell Schilling

The Sunday, November 20, 2005 entry by Gail Thorell Schilling included in the “Daily Guideposts 2005” is reproduced with permission from Guideposts, Guideposts.org. Copyright © 2004 Guideposts. All rights reserved.

Help Me to Trust Your Time...

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.—Ecclesiastes 3:2

Blue flax, newly transplanted from a friend’s yard, fluttered by the mailbox as I stared dumbly at the letter from my landlord of five years. “Therefore, you must find another rental before September 1.”

I shook my head in disbelief. Just a few months earlier the same landlord had invited me to choose new carpet and plant a garden. All spring I had removed sod, forked loam, fertilized and planted gifts from my friends’ gardens. Now the delphinium, lavender, lilies, tulips, daffodils and veronica would stay behind. I’d be gone before the painted daisies, grown from seed, showed their colors.

Leaving my garden was the least of my worries. Where would I go? Rentals were few, and my job search hadn’t turned out the way I had hoped. After twenty three years in my cozy community, why was everything falling apart now?

Or was it? For several years I had pondered relocating two thousand miles back east to my native New Hampshire to keep closer tabs on my frail parents, who were now in their eighties. Was this the right time?

Within days, pieces of the transcontinental move clicked together: I would live at my parents’ summer place in New Hampshire, just an hour away from them, and teach at a nearby junior college. Carol, my friend since college, would drive back with me. I would keenly miss my community and my garden, but I knew my parents needed me nearby.

Minutes before departing, I dug up the English rose I’d planted just weeks earlier. “Rosie” would travel with us and begin a new life in New Hampshire, too. As I started the car to begin our journey, Carol slid in and offered me a nosegay plucked from my now abandoned garden. She smiled.

“Something pretty for the trip—and seeds for your new garden.”

Lord of creation, help me trust Your time, not my own.

—Gail Thorell Schilling

The Thursday, August 26, 2004 entry by Gail Thorell Schilling included in the “Daily Guideposts 2004” is reproduced with permission from Guideposts, Guideposts.org. Copyright © 2003 Guideposts. All rights reserved.

Grace - and Pie

But unto every one of us is given grace.… —Ephesians 4:7

“I'm just stupid!” wailed my daughter Tess, then twelve, as she slammed her bedroom door. She had tried to make macaroni and cheese out of a box; unfortunately, she hadn't drained the water before adding the cheese powder. Now her siblings teased her about her “orange soup.”

“Dear Lord, this child needs a success, quick! What can I do?”

Try again. Cook something easy with her. Don't give up or she will too.

When I invited Tess to make dessert, she zeroed in on a new recipe, Pink Angel Pie: prefab pie crust, a can of cherry filling and some meringue. How hard could that be?

First, she jerked the plastic wrap off the frozen shell, sending it skidding across the counter to shatter on the floor. Before she could cry, I picked up the pieces and swallowed my rebuke. “You know, Tess, pie dough is just like clay. You can just pinch it and press it back together.” Next, she opened the can of cherry filling and dropped the gooey lid on the kitchen rug. I stayed calm.

Now the tricky part: separating eggs. Once again, I withheld critique as she fished a few egg shell shards from the bowl, then beat the egg whites soft and high, splattering meringue on the cabinets. With a flourish, my increasingly confident daughter spread the fluffy topping on her creation and slid it into the oven for browning.

Well, Tess's dessert drew rave reviews from her siblings, and “orange soup” has become a family legend. Best of all, God gave both my daughter and me grace when we sorely needed it, thanks to Pink Angel Pie.

Gracious Lord, thank You for sending abundant grace wherever we are, even in a stained, meringue spattered kitchen.

Digging Deeper: Ps. 21:6–7; Luke 6:37–39

—Gail Thorell Schilling

The Monday, February 11, 2013 entry by Gail Thorell Schilling included in the “Daily Guideposts 2013” is reproduced with permission from Guideposts, Guideposts.org. Copyright © 2012 Guideposts. All rights reserved.

Abundant Life

by the Rev. Kate Atkinson

read the full sermon on our website - here

We talk a lot about the abundant life that Jesus offers us.  It crops up in sermons, in prayers, and in conversations. But what exactly is it? And why is it so important?

The interesting thing about abundant life is its quality of simplicity.  That may seem like a contradiction in terms: the word “abundance” suggests a large quantity of something; a generous supply of whatever we think will bring us pleasure.  And, frankly, many of us spend a lot of time seeking out those things.  We strive to accumulate money, clothes, to enjoy good food and drink, to acquire material possessions of all kinds, along with other evidence of our wealth and success.

But the power of abundant life comes from the absence of trappings.  Abundant life is found in uncluttered, unpopulated, uncomplicated moments occurring in the midst of a hectic lifestyle that’s familiar to us all.

In order to receive the full benefit of abundant life, we have to make space for it. In the jam-packed, technology-driven culture of western civilization this may be an alien concept but it’s essential – and it’s biblical too!

We’ve always known that our bodies are designed with a requirement for rest and refueling – and as civilization has advanced, we’ve recognized a need that goes beyond the basics of food and sleep.  That’s why vacations were invented!

But Jesus invites us into something more than a vacation.  He urges us to follow his example; he invites us to spend time in God’s presence, to be restored and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus understands that our bodies and our spirits need rest and sustenance.

How will we respond to that invitation?  It may be a little easier at this time of year, when God’s Creation beckons to us in so many ways. We might take a solitary walk on the beach, or hike up a mountain with friends.  We might wander through the woods or skim across a lake.  Or we might relax in our own back yard, listening to peaceful music, or birdsong, or the wind in the trees. 

There are as many ways of finding rest and restoration as there are people in need of those things – and we know when we’ve discovered our unique way because we experience a divine abundance unlike anything the world can offer. We may not even be able to express it but the effects are unmistakable.  We’re re-energized from deep within our soul – overflowing with the peace that passes understanding.

Unlike so much that we hear about today, abundant life is not “all about me” – it’s all about God.  It’s all about moving away from the distractions that crowd our daily life.  And it’s about recognizing our need for God’s restorative love – love that can be expressed in any number of ways but is always intended to inspire and delight and energize us.

Abundant life is waiting for us all the time – on the outer edges of our vision, on the fringes of our awareness. All we have to do is step toward it, take a breath, and receive.

3 Practices that can Change our Life and Transform our Church!

by the Rev. Kate Atkinson

Over the past three years, the Taskforce for Reimagining the Episcopal Church (TREC) has been hard at work examining our church structure, governance, and activities at global and local levels – and everywhere in between.  One result of their efforts was the development of three practices, rooted in the gospels, which inspired a theme for the 78^th General Convention of The Episcopal Church.  It showed up in the opening remarks from our current Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and our House of Deputies President Gay Jennings. It flowed through the speeches from the nominees for Presiding Bishop; it appeared in the sermons at our daily Eucharist; and it featured in the materials on display, and our daily prayers and songs and conversations:

Follow Jesus

into the neighborhood

… travel lightly.

There was a powerful sense of the Holy Spirit in Salt Lake City, inspiring us to recommit to what Bishop Curry calls “the Jesus movement … the movement of God’s love in this world.” There was a clear and genuine response to that call to follow Jesus wherever he may lead us next.

And where is Jesus leading us?  The stories we heard at General Convention, the resolutions we passed, the new directions we agreed upon, these all helped us to understand that what we call “the neighborhood” may not always be familiar surroundings. As Jesus reminds us in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a neighborhood is any place that offers us the opportunity to make new connections, to build new relationships, to discover who our neighbors really are.

And, as Jesus instructed his disciples, when we begin to explore those new neighborhoods, it’s important to leave our luggage behind.  Traveling lightly means letting go of old ways of doing things, old prejudices and pre-conceived ideas of ministry and mission.  Traveling lightly means being open to learning from the people we encounter, hearing their stories, allowing them to tell us what they are looking for; not the other way around.

We have an adventure in store for us – this church that could sit back and boast about all we’ve achieved but chooses instead to keep moving forward.

As Bishop Katharine said when she preached on the story of Jairus’ daughter, it’s time to get up:

 “Get up girl, and boy, and woman and man,” she told us, “get up and dance!”

Find out more about the 3 Practices at:

http://www.docdroid.net/148t0/3-practices-tec-download.pdf.html

Our New Presiding Bishop!

There was much buzz at the church this week about our new Presiding Bishop-Elect, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry.  A charismatic man, a deeply grounded man, and one who can reach out to you as he speaks - his election as Presiding Bishop is historic as he is the first black Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church.  Known for his book "Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus" *, as well as his dynamic speaking ability, we thought you would enjoy the opportunity to have him introduced to you through these video links.
Enjoy!

This is Bishop Curry's sermon from the closing Eucharist of the Episcopal Youth Event in Philadephia, PA July 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTDRnr0fGBQ

This is a video from the website, scholarpiests.org, with Bishop Curry speaking about the Eucharist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USOMZpGheBc

And this is the sermon Presiding Bishop-elect Curry preached at General Convention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj_N3OsHxxo

May we all hold Bishop Curry and all other Bishops, Priests and Deacons in the church in our prayers as they move forward doing the work of God, following in Jesus footsteps!

**"Crazy Christians" is available through Amazon.com, and if you have an Amazon account and use their "smile" program to allow a percentage of purchase costs to be donated to a charity, you may now designate St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord as your charity of choice!