We feasted St. John the Evangelist first with Morning Prayer that Robin led and then with a well-attended breakfast. A few of the guys were waiting in and around the parish hall even before I got over there.
Tony has been joining us just about every morning, and he’s very much at ease in this environment. A former Roman Catholic (can you ever really be “former” Catholic?) he spent years in Washington and Baltimore working with the poor, living in a monastic community and discerning a call to become a Franciscan. He’s got a great spirit and it's fun having him around.
We went through a pot and a half of coffee right away (which always makes me happy for some reason). As we all settled into our raisin bran, grits-chicken-cheese-egg casserole thing or regular scrambled eggs, Glenn, who lives in a tent nearby and begs at the freeway exit ramp, asked me if I watched any good football yesterday. “Nope, did anything interesting happen?” “I dunno,” he replied, “my TV in the woods doesn’t work so well.”
Skeet proceeded as usual to construct his scrambled egg sandwich. I’ve seen him eat two of those things plus cereal. We have this brand new toaster that actually beeps when the toast is done like a washing machine or something. It’s a good idea except that nobody ever realizes what the noise is until the toast is cold. Toasters popping are supposed to sound like “ching ching”, someone commented, not like a truck backing up. When Skeet realized that Sammie’s chin wasn’t perched on his lap looking cute in the hopes of a handout he looked around asking “Where’s my girl? You aren’t mad at me is you?”
--Colin
Note to readers who may wonder: Sammie is a Golden Retriever.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Lessons, Carols, and Fellowship
Last evening Gail and I attended the annual Advent Festival of Lessons and Carols at The Episcopal Center at Duke University. A bit early for carols? Of course, but this regular event is held early as it's the last chance the students get to sing carols and enjoy Christmas fellowship before the festive break.
We have attended this event for the past three years and enjoy it immensely. After the service, we tucked in to wonderful food, hot cider, mulled wine. Sharing food is a crucial part of hospitality and hospitality is a crucial part of Christianity.
After dinner, we settled down, with the huge log fire roaring, to sing carols by request. I'm pleased to say that members from St. Joseph's were there in force, probably sang the loudest, and, as usual, were the last to leave. St. Joe's also provided three of the four musicians, with Lyn seemingly never tiring on the organ, Alison contributed with her wonderful flute playing (and voice) whilst David was our great guitarist.
Thank you Karen (interim Chaplain), the vestry and board at ECD for continuing this wonderful tradition.
--Mick
We have attended this event for the past three years and enjoy it immensely. After the service, we tucked in to wonderful food, hot cider, mulled wine. Sharing food is a crucial part of hospitality and hospitality is a crucial part of Christianity.
After dinner, we settled down, with the huge log fire roaring, to sing carols by request. I'm pleased to say that members from St. Joseph's were there in force, probably sang the loudest, and, as usual, were the last to leave. St. Joe's also provided three of the four musicians, with Lyn seemingly never tiring on the organ, Alison contributed with her wonderful flute playing (and voice) whilst David was our great guitarist.
Thank you Karen (interim Chaplain), the vestry and board at ECD for continuing this wonderful tradition.
--Mick
Journeying home: right here, right now
The following is a sermon preached by Fr. Chris Tessone at St. Joseph's on the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2009. The texts are Baruch 5:1-9, Philippians 1:3-11, and Luke 3:1-6.
I grew up in a part of Illinois called “Little Egypt” that is famous for growing one thing very well: corn. Our region in Southern Illinois got the name in the 1830s, when there were several years of bad harvests in a row in other parts of the state. People traveled to Southern Illinois to buy corn, just as Joseph’s family traveled to Egypt in the Hebrew Bible during the years of famine in Canaan. Growing up, there was corn everywhere—corn out back behind the church I went to as a child, corn along the interstates leading up to Chicago and St. Louis when we traveled, even fields of corn next to the Wal-Mart we shopped at. I think you’re getting the theme—if there’s corn there, I feel at home!
When I first went away to high school, I worried about how much I would miss home. School was hours away in the suburbs of Chicago, far away from my friends and family. I wasn’t sure whether I would feel comfortable in a big city. But as we drove through the city limits into Aurora, I saw a sign that read “population 140,000,” and then…fields of corn leading up to the school. Despite being hundreds of miles away from Little Egypt, right away this new place did feel a little like home.
Although the homecoming Baruch writes about involves far more pomp and circumstance, the home God welcomes the people of Israel back to is no less foreign to them than Aurora, Illinois was to me nearly fifteen years ago. Baruch, who was the prophet Jeremiah’s secretary, is writing during the exile of the Israelites to Babylon. From where they sit in exile, the land God promises to them is not just someplace where the work is a little easier, someplace warmer and a little sunnier. It is the home every one of God’s children dreams about. It’s a universal hope. It’s the “salvation of God” proclaimed by John the Baptist in today’s Gospel.
The problem for us is that this promised land has no concrete existence. It seems to us, just as it must have seemed to the Israelites hearing Baruch’s vision, that in the world we live in, there is no place where, in the prophet’s words, “the woods and every fragrant tree have shaded” us, where the very mountains and hills are made flat so we have level ground to walk on. This fantastical destination may seem to have no concrete existence in our experience—so how can we have faith that when we arrive at our destination, it will indeed be home?
The lectionary forces us to confront these questions now because we are in Advent again, at the symbolic beginning of our journey to the Kingdom we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday. We need to ask ourselves about the path that connects the life we lead right now, on the Second Sunday of Advent in 2009, to the universal homecoming that Baruch describes in today’s reading.
In the Epistle reading, Paul gives us an answer. The concrete path to the universal home of all of humanity is the local Church. He writes to the Philippians that the bonds of love and fellowship he has with them give him confidence that God will bring the work of the Gospel to completion in them and their community. He points to concrete practices of care for neighbor—in both good times and in bad—as a path to knowledge of God and blamelessness before God. This is the charge we receive from Paul and all the early Mothers and Fathers of the Church—incarnate the universal Church precisely where you are by practicing the Christian faith as you’ve received it. As St. Luke tells us in Acts, we do this through teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
What this means is that the Catholic Church we confess each Sunday in the Nicene Creed springs up out of local dioceses—out of gatherings of Christians around the world, advancing the work of the Gospel and loving their neighbors whether they are friends or enemies. The universal Church appears out of thin air in the church buildings of those dioceses—and in hospitals, prisons, and schools—first and foremost because God makes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ present in them in the Eucharist, but also because that Body and Blood make other miracles happen. The Eucharist and the proclamation of the Gospel lead us to feed and clothe each other. They help us pray for each other when we are sick and wounded. They teach us to rejoice with one another when we are happy, as we do countless times each year in celebrating marriages, anniversaries, and births, and they make us console one another when we hit life’s low points.
Every such encounter with the living God in these concrete little places lights the path to the home we are all looking for. In doing these practices, we take away each other’s doubt about what lies at the end of the road. Just as importantly, if we do the work of the Gospel here in our own time and place, when someone else stumbles across the way of Jesus Christ, they can see what lies at the end of the road more clearly, too. That is why the Church is not merely a collection of sinners looking for their own individual salvation—the Church helps us receive the saving power of Jesus Christ because in the Church we strive to minister God’s grace to one another in everything we do. Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, but many hearts working together are absolutely crucial for the Church to do its mission in the world.
So the Church year is beginning again, and in our readings at the Eucharist and in the Daily Office we are meditating on what the coming Messiah promises. But while it may be tempting to meditate too long on just where the path we’re taking may lead, today’s Gospel reading reminds us of the urgency of our journey. “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,”…but not after all of us have passed on from the earth, or in ten years, or even just after Christmas. Now. The vision of a new world that connects Isaiah to Baruch to John the Baptist is an urgent one. It’s the vision of a world that is coming to life right this very moment. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to see that new world and to journey home to the new life we’ll find there…and the first step begins here, now, in this Church of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God.
I grew up in a part of Illinois called “Little Egypt” that is famous for growing one thing very well: corn. Our region in Southern Illinois got the name in the 1830s, when there were several years of bad harvests in a row in other parts of the state. People traveled to Southern Illinois to buy corn, just as Joseph’s family traveled to Egypt in the Hebrew Bible during the years of famine in Canaan. Growing up, there was corn everywhere—corn out back behind the church I went to as a child, corn along the interstates leading up to Chicago and St. Louis when we traveled, even fields of corn next to the Wal-Mart we shopped at. I think you’re getting the theme—if there’s corn there, I feel at home!
When I first went away to high school, I worried about how much I would miss home. School was hours away in the suburbs of Chicago, far away from my friends and family. I wasn’t sure whether I would feel comfortable in a big city. But as we drove through the city limits into Aurora, I saw a sign that read “population 140,000,” and then…fields of corn leading up to the school. Despite being hundreds of miles away from Little Egypt, right away this new place did feel a little like home.
Although the homecoming Baruch writes about involves far more pomp and circumstance, the home God welcomes the people of Israel back to is no less foreign to them than Aurora, Illinois was to me nearly fifteen years ago. Baruch, who was the prophet Jeremiah’s secretary, is writing during the exile of the Israelites to Babylon. From where they sit in exile, the land God promises to them is not just someplace where the work is a little easier, someplace warmer and a little sunnier. It is the home every one of God’s children dreams about. It’s a universal hope. It’s the “salvation of God” proclaimed by John the Baptist in today’s Gospel.
The problem for us is that this promised land has no concrete existence. It seems to us, just as it must have seemed to the Israelites hearing Baruch’s vision, that in the world we live in, there is no place where, in the prophet’s words, “the woods and every fragrant tree have shaded” us, where the very mountains and hills are made flat so we have level ground to walk on. This fantastical destination may seem to have no concrete existence in our experience—so how can we have faith that when we arrive at our destination, it will indeed be home?
The lectionary forces us to confront these questions now because we are in Advent again, at the symbolic beginning of our journey to the Kingdom we celebrate on Christ the King Sunday. We need to ask ourselves about the path that connects the life we lead right now, on the Second Sunday of Advent in 2009, to the universal homecoming that Baruch describes in today’s reading.
In the Epistle reading, Paul gives us an answer. The concrete path to the universal home of all of humanity is the local Church. He writes to the Philippians that the bonds of love and fellowship he has with them give him confidence that God will bring the work of the Gospel to completion in them and their community. He points to concrete practices of care for neighbor—in both good times and in bad—as a path to knowledge of God and blamelessness before God. This is the charge we receive from Paul and all the early Mothers and Fathers of the Church—incarnate the universal Church precisely where you are by practicing the Christian faith as you’ve received it. As St. Luke tells us in Acts, we do this through teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
What this means is that the Catholic Church we confess each Sunday in the Nicene Creed springs up out of local dioceses—out of gatherings of Christians around the world, advancing the work of the Gospel and loving their neighbors whether they are friends or enemies. The universal Church appears out of thin air in the church buildings of those dioceses—and in hospitals, prisons, and schools—first and foremost because God makes the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ present in them in the Eucharist, but also because that Body and Blood make other miracles happen. The Eucharist and the proclamation of the Gospel lead us to feed and clothe each other. They help us pray for each other when we are sick and wounded. They teach us to rejoice with one another when we are happy, as we do countless times each year in celebrating marriages, anniversaries, and births, and they make us console one another when we hit life’s low points.
Every such encounter with the living God in these concrete little places lights the path to the home we are all looking for. In doing these practices, we take away each other’s doubt about what lies at the end of the road. Just as importantly, if we do the work of the Gospel here in our own time and place, when someone else stumbles across the way of Jesus Christ, they can see what lies at the end of the road more clearly, too. That is why the Church is not merely a collection of sinners looking for their own individual salvation—the Church helps us receive the saving power of Jesus Christ because in the Church we strive to minister God’s grace to one another in everything we do. Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, but many hearts working together are absolutely crucial for the Church to do its mission in the world.
So the Church year is beginning again, and in our readings at the Eucharist and in the Daily Office we are meditating on what the coming Messiah promises. But while it may be tempting to meditate too long on just where the path we’re taking may lead, today’s Gospel reading reminds us of the urgency of our journey. “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,”…but not after all of us have passed on from the earth, or in ten years, or even just after Christmas. Now. The vision of a new world that connects Isaiah to Baruch to John the Baptist is an urgent one. It’s the vision of a world that is coming to life right this very moment. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to see that new world and to journey home to the new life we’ll find there…and the first step begins here, now, in this Church of Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Breakfast Club
“Oh, John-boy, you’d be running! You’d run so fast! You’d be chasing Emily in her car!” A friend of mine was telling me how to get John-boy off the couch and out to exercise. The secret is to drop him off in Walltown around dusk.
Only a few blocks off East Campus, Walltown, as my friend describes it, is not somewhere my fellow female first-year should ever run—she just moved to Trinity Park—and somewhere that “John-boy” should only venture if he has a car full of friends he’s chasing.
Durham can be a scary place. It’s a place that can really use our help, though. We can tutor kids for an hour a week at the community center and we can volunteer once a month at the soup kitchen. In my time here, I’ve even helped clean up a not-for-profit consignment shop. Durham is really lucky that it has a major research university that provides lots of jobs and lots of money—we really sustain the local economy. We have a lot of gifts to offer Durham.
Pop quiz: Do you have any idea where Walltown is? Did you know there is a name for the neighborhoods beyond the walls of East Campus and the Gothic spires of West? Of course you know, but that doesn’t mean you have to go there. The Duke administration has sanctioned your isolation, requiring on-campus residence three out of four years. Not that you become more part of the Durham community when you move to Duke 2.0—The Belmont or Partners Place—for your senior year (your humble columnist points the finger at herself too, former resident of A22 that she is).
A few seniors boldly branch out to the neighborhoods off East Campus where there is a long tradition of uneasy relations with neighbors. In these cases, at least there is enough interaction to prove that students venture outside the Duke bubble and try to live life alongside our fellow Durhamites. These sometimes strife-filled relationships have more potential for the rewards of community than do meager attempts to “cure” or “improve” Durham by quick spurts of volunteerism.
I’ve never lived near East Campus, nor have I ever been particularly friendly with those who live in the myriad apartment buildings I’ve inhabited during my tenure in Durham. The convenience of the Trinity Park and Walltown communities, among others close to East, is not lost on me, though. Walking to class, walking to the grocery store, walking to restaurants—one can save gas and root yourself in a not-quite-so-transient neighborhood community.
About a year ago, I started to stumble around what community meant and looked like in Durham. The church I was preparing to join required “service to the poor” once a week. I had visions of driving to the soup kitchen every Saturday for the months it would take to finish my training. Instead, I joined fellow church members in eating breakfast with the homeless guys who live on the church property and anyone else who showed up. There was very little “service” involved—no lining up as the givers and the needy, assuming the positions of the server and the served. Because we all need to feed our bodies breakfast, whoever shows up first starts coffee and we sit around one table and eat the same scrambled eggs. I’ve found that I am just as needy as anyone else around that table.
Just because I have a degree from Duke (and in a few years, two) doesn’t mean that I have no needs to be fulfilled by others. We’re trained to be self-reliant, but we really aren’t. By thinking that we are all independent beings, we’re robbing ourselves of the rich experience of learning how to sit with others in awkward breakfast circles, or laughing around that same table about the best way for John-boy to jump start his fitness training. The way to build community—the way to reap the rewards of investing in others and them in you—is not to put yourself in a place of strength, but to allow yourself to be served and taught by those you think need your help.
It doesn’t take living near East Campus to experience life with our fellow Durhamites, but it does make it easier. Students spend all day together in classes—wouldn’t it be instructive, even invaluable, to experience the rest of our time outside the Duke bubble, in the real Durham community? Many graduate students have the opportunity to do just that.
Since when do the graduate students have all the fun?
Your present abundance and their need
The following is a message from Mick Capon, our senior warden, to St. Joseph's on the First Sunday of Advent.
At a recent Vestry meeting, Rhonda mentioned that we needed to plan our 2010 Stewardship campaign. She asked members if they wanted to volunteer to make presentations at our Sunday morning Eucharists during Advent.
The following day, Gail and I were reading the Scriptures as part of our “Bible reading plan”. As often occurs we felt the Holy Spirit was guiding us. Our New Testament reading for the day just happened to be 2 Corinthians 8. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, wanting them to know that the grace of God had been granted to the churches of Macedonia, and told them that their “abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part”.
Like most Episcopal churches we spend most of our money on salaries, property and outreach. Okay, we do get help from the Diocese on the first of these, but an increasing cost is our property upkeep, and our outreach ministries are expanding, more than ever in the current economic climate. St. Joseph’s buildings are old and need constant care. Even with our small band of volunteers we still occasionally need to call in the professionals. For example this summer we installed a new heating unit in the parish hall – insuring no more cold meetings during the winter. We are extremely fortunate that our housekeeping and administration is staffed entirely by volunteers. However, the more important reason for talking openly and extensively about money is theological, not practical. Jesus talked about money. In fact, next to the Kingdom of God, money was Jesus’ most frequent sermon topic.
The Biblical tithe (10% of one’s pre-tax earnings) is traditionally the starting point for giving. This is not a requirement for membership or to get a front seat at Sunday Eucharist (nearer to God perhaps?), but is meant to help us be who we, and God, want us to be: generous people who are known for our charity and desire to give.
To return to Paul: “For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there be a fair balance.”
Amen.
At a recent Vestry meeting, Rhonda mentioned that we needed to plan our 2010 Stewardship campaign. She asked members if they wanted to volunteer to make presentations at our Sunday morning Eucharists during Advent.
The following day, Gail and I were reading the Scriptures as part of our “Bible reading plan”. As often occurs we felt the Holy Spirit was guiding us. Our New Testament reading for the day just happened to be 2 Corinthians 8. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, wanting them to know that the grace of God had been granted to the churches of Macedonia, and told them that their “abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part”.
Like most Episcopal churches we spend most of our money on salaries, property and outreach. Okay, we do get help from the Diocese on the first of these, but an increasing cost is our property upkeep, and our outreach ministries are expanding, more than ever in the current economic climate. St. Joseph’s buildings are old and need constant care. Even with our small band of volunteers we still occasionally need to call in the professionals. For example this summer we installed a new heating unit in the parish hall – insuring no more cold meetings during the winter. We are extremely fortunate that our housekeeping and administration is staffed entirely by volunteers. However, the more important reason for talking openly and extensively about money is theological, not practical. Jesus talked about money. In fact, next to the Kingdom of God, money was Jesus’ most frequent sermon topic.
The Biblical tithe (10% of one’s pre-tax earnings) is traditionally the starting point for giving. This is not a requirement for membership or to get a front seat at Sunday Eucharist (nearer to God perhaps?), but is meant to help us be who we, and God, want us to be: generous people who are known for our charity and desire to give.
To return to Paul: “For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there be a fair balance.”
Amen.
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