Taking God with you. ~Rev. Vicky

Transcription

1 REV. VICKY L. EASTLAND, PASTOR 2 BROOKVILLE ROAD BROOKVILLE, NY Where our doors are always open! July 2016 Taking God with you School s out! It s time to hit the beach or the camp or the open road. Many of us take vacations in the summertime; many live at our camps or summer homes; o t h e r s f l y t o f a r a w a y destinations or road trip to a new place they have yet to discover. Or if you are like me and your family is not nearby, you use your vacation time to visit relatives. Even though we take breaks from the routine life we live the other seasons of the year, I have a well-known fact to tell you. Are you ready? Here it comes God NEVER takes a break from us. My inner eye sees God sitting up in heaven looking down on God s creatures and watching all the crazy stuff we do. I have a friend right now in California who is unemployed and desperately trying to find a job to support his wife and two young daughters. He is mad at God. He blames God for his circumstances and doesn t understand why God is doing this to him. Daily he yells at God and accuses God of not caring about him and his family. God must look down on my friend and think, Boy, I d sure like to take a break from his complaining prayers for awhile. I think I ll go hang out with the angels this week and check in with him later after I ve had a few days to rest from all the insults being hurled at me. Even if God wants to (which I doubt God does) God WILL NEVER leave us. Hebrews 13:5 says God will never leave us or forsake us. God remains by our side 24/7, 365 days a year, through all the ups and downs of our feeble existence. You may be asking at this point, So what s your point, Rev. Vicky? I m glad you asked. My point is that since God never takes a vacation from us, why do we sometimes take a vacation from God? Do you ever find yourself saying; I don t feel like going to church today, or I m not going to waste my time going to some random church while I m on vacation. I ve got better things to do, like sight-seeing or going to the beach. Going to church on my vacation will take up too much of my precious time. This summer, even if you end up having a staycation, you have the opportunity to enjoy a new worship experience either on one of our planned adventures, like a meditative prayer walk at Bailey s Arboretum or a backyard BBQ following an outdoor worship celebration. There are even Sundays that are wide open for you to explore new worship experiences by visiting a church or synagogue or mosque that you have never been to before. For students, summer is all about freedom from the classroom and time to relax, unwind and have fun. Many non-students have the same attitude about the summer months. I say, Good for you! Just don t forget to bring God with you on your adventures. And don t forget that Brookville Church is still here while you are on vacation. One great way to stay up on your giving is to donate online. Go to and click on the Online Giving button. It is as simple as just a few clicks. Now go enjoy your summer and don t forget to bring God with you! Love, ~Rev. Vicky *Please see our Summer Worship Schedule on page 3B*

2 Brookville Church News 2B We re Still Here While You re on Vacation! Set up your Online Giving now for the summer! While you re away, your support for the church continues! Giving online is easy, fast and secure! And you can earn points by using your rewards credit card! Here s how Online Giving makes your life easier: Signing up is quick and uncomplicated You can choose between using your checking account or a credit card Budget your giving weekly, monthly, yearly the choice is yours Select the fund(s) you wish to contribute toward General Operating Expenses, Camp Warwick Scholarship Fund, Rev. Meyers Partnership in Ministry, etc. Your gifts are received and support the work of the church, even if you are not able to get to church as often as you would like. Visit our website and click on the link to sign up! LuDay Provides Superior Education for Children Long Island Lutheran Day School at St. Paul s (LuDay) located in beautiful East Northport offers an outstanding Kindergarten through 5 th grade elementary school. LuDay provides a well-rounded Christ-based program, which nurtures children s mind, body and soul. A high-quality, independent curriculum, free from mandates and highstakes testing ensures smaller classes and individualized attention to students. The result is a dynamic learning community that fosters self-confidence and independence while promoting each child s enthusiasm for learning. To see what LuDay has to offer your child contact us today at: x224 or Lorraine.rocco@ludaynorthport.org. Church Office Hours ~ Summer Schedule: June - August Monday: CLOSED Tuesday: 8:00-1:00 p.m. Wednesday: 8:00-1:00 p.m. Thursday: 8:00-1:00 p.m. Friday: 8:00-1:00 p.m. Thank You! Brookville Church Received a Donation from Amazon Smile! Yes, this really works! Amazon will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases to Brookville Church every time you shop. It s easy, and if you already shop on Amazon, follow the steps below to donate to Brookville Church! Ready? Here s how it works: To shop at amazon.com, go to smile.amazon.com. Simply log in to Amazon as you normally would. In the search box in the lower right, type Brookville Church. From the list that appears, pick our Brookville, NY location. At the top of the Amazon page you will see: Supporting: Brookville Church. Shop as normal, and 0.5% of your eligible purchases will be sent to Brookville Church at the end of every quarter. It s that simple! Thanks to everyone who has already signed up to support our church!

3 Brookville Church News 3B Please see our revised Summer Schedule below. Thank you!

4 Reflections Reflections My parents didn t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that s the law. ~ Jerry Seinfeld The car was seven miles into the trip to Florida s Gulf Coast from Central Florida when it stopped. Switching to Plan B was easy enough by calling my insurance company and requesting roadside assistance. Within thirty minutes a tow truck showed up and delivered me and the car to a garage I was already familiar with: I had just purchased four new tires there the day before. It was too late that day to sort out the car s problems, so I called on my brother, seven miles away, who took me to a Hertz rental car agency. I resumed the trip with a loss of about ninety minutes, but still arrived in a timely manner in Bradenton on the Gulf Coast. We were in Florida while Nancy attended her hand fan collector s annual meeting with a bonus of seeing my brother and sister-inlaw for over two weeks. They have been living in a retirement development which suits them, and they wanted to show us the best of living in such a community. It became clear that Nancy and I were happy to visit, but would not be interested in any long term changes to where we live. The weather was excellent until about noon each day when the oppressive heat drove Nancy inside to the comfort of air conditioning. I was not uncomfortable outdoors, but soon realized the long list of scheduled daily activities would not keep me interested. It seems that what my brother does every day, what the residents all do, is busy work. His is mostly crafting wooden furniture and other objects for family and friends. He is good at it and enjoys working in the fine woodshop, thus he is happy with the location. They moved to Florida for the weather, and when they need a change, will visit in the north each hot summer. It was nice to be together and have enough time to get talked out, but saying goodbye and leaving was not a hard thing to do. I had many revelations about the Florida culture (which is continuing to grow): that is, maintenance of elderly people until they expire and their space is taken up by a new over 55 couple. This is a ghoulish attitude to have, but is a fair reflection of what is going on. I had a chat with the tow truck driver while going to the garage. His plan was to take a course in Harley-Davidson motorcycle repair in Florida then open a shop in Buffalo, NY. His wife and kids had come down to visit, and when they arrived, would not go back to Buffalo, which is not hard to understand. But the motorcycle repair business had to be scratched as Florida has enough of them already. Instead, that driver was, this month, going to open his own old folk s auto and assistance service. He said, When I saw how many people needed the simplest help and would pay for it, I was happy to stay, too. On another occasion I needed a rear window wiper blade for the minivan. At the Auto Barn the young woman clerk asked if she could help me, then took over. She got the new blade from the rack according to the car information I gave her and headed out the door to install it. I d never seen a young woman who felt able and willing to do that. When the blade would not fit, her manager took over, switched to a different brand and then went out to the parking lot and installed it. Later I told this to my brother, marveling at the great service, and he said, Branch, how old are you? They take care of you and me because we are their meal ticket. I don t know if I would like living where everybody is old as much as I like living where we are, at home in a multigenerational community, especially with children around. What I suspect is Florida will someday be saturated with a throng of people living in houses still being built. I have been supplying material to builders for over fifty years and one thing I know for sure is that builders build, it is what they know. Twenty-five years ago I started shipping kitchens to Florida, and it has never slowed down appreciably. Even after the 2008 recession started the builders kept at it, working slower, but still building. It is also easy to see how much construction occurs around Washington, DC where the new houses are large and expensive. But nowhere have I seen more structures going up than in Florida. It is crazy! Would I go back? You bet. They treat us nicely it is their culture. Every day is just like the pictures and TV ads show: smiling elderly folk zipping around in their second car a golf cart. While I am traveling there are always opportunities to visit new churches, and in Florida many are very new. With efficient and inexpensive air conditioners, they are designed to avoid hot sanctuaries, and with seating that gives everyone a view, and accommodations for the elderly (sound systems and ramps), the churches appear to be people magnets requiring multiple services each Sunday. The sermon at one such church indicated we were in a multigenerational congregation that served every family with programs and services for all ages and groups. They welcomed people of any color, and the L, G, B, and T communities the pastor mentioned slowly and specially. I sat up with interest, but alas, that is where the pastor stopped. He did not mention any Interfaith families. Nevertheless they have a vast field to labor in and I give them a high grade because their program is built upon the same kind of love that our multifaith campus is building upon. I am still in awe that we have gone at least one step beyond with our multifaith diversity, working and growing in its own way each day. My brother is named after our grandfather, Allen. As a very young boy I could not say brother it always came out budder and it stuck. In our large family everyone called him Bud; it was his name within the family. Now, seventy years later, there are only about a dozen people still living within a short distance of the old homestead, but when he calls back to Minnesota he has to say, This is Bud. If he said Allen they wouldn t know who he was. My good fortune is that I moved away and outlived my nickname Snooks. Branch Worsham END WORD: When brothers meet no bond is so strong as their common life. Our brothers and Sisters are there from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk. ~ Susan Scarf Merrill WITH ~ A SLEEK CHEEK ~ PRESSED TO HERS ~ JEEPERS! CREEPERS! ~ HOW SHE PURRS

5 Summer, a Good Time for Reflection Summer is once again a good time for reflection. The pace is slower. School is over. We re thinking about vacations, the beach, unwinding, and relaxing. My summer reflections are of my beloved teacher and friend, Rabbi Joseph H. Gelberman. Rabbi Gelberman dedicated his life to furthering the understanding and cooperation among the world s faiths. The New Synagogue of Long Island, The Synagogue for Spiritual Judaism, was founded upon the principals and beliefs of Rabbi Gelberman. Rabbi Gelberman and I shared many an afternoon discussing whatever came to mind. He was a wonderful teacher and could bring insight into the most minute, random thought. I started to keep a journal of our studies and I suggested to Rabbi Gelberman that I put our discussions into print. The result was a booklet called The Full Chair and I d like to share some of Rabbi Gelberman s thoughts with you. On Faith: Faith is the force of Life. Faith changes things because it channels divine energy into personal effectiveness. Faith is freedom. Faith means stepping boldly out of a known groove into a brand new channel, and doing it with eagerness rather than reluctance. Faith moves us first and our mountains second. Faith enhances our awareness, experiences and relationships. Faith can never be lost. On Joy: Today, whatever may annoy, the word for me is joy, just simple joy. Joy, Joy, Joy is the lesson of my life. The greatest threat to joy is jealousy. If we take the j out of joy and put it in jealousy, all we have left is oy, oy, oy. Always take the j out of jealousy and put it back in joy, joy, joy. In addition, know that even when we are totally dedicated to joy, we cannot have it without some oy, oy, oy. Every challenge in life is a lesson and an opportunity to learn what God wants us to learn. On Tradition: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheynu Adonai Echad. Listen O Israel, (Listen O Humankind) the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. If there is only one God and He created man and woman, then what does that make us? We are all brothers and sisters and our job is to love one another as is proper for a family to do regardless of the path we take. On Interfaith: Never instead, always in addition. Discover who you are, where you come from and embrace your own tradition with knowledge and joy. Then embrace the tradition of your beloved, if it is different from your own. Study and learn about your own tradition and then share it with one another and with your children, as you build a new tradition of, Never instead, always in addition. On Love: Love with Love. When we give love, we are re-enacting the primordial act of Creation, for only by love could God fashion humankind. When someone takes the love we offer, it is the greatest act of giving because it gives to the lover his reason for living. To love wisely, we must love with LOVE! Enjoy your summer! Hakol Beseder (All is in divine order). Rabbi Stuart A. Paris, HaKohen

6 Brookville Multifaith Campus News 2M Join the Muslim Reform Movement (MRMO) for Quran Studies in July! ~Sunday, July 3 2:30pm ~Sunday, July 10 2:30pm ~Sunday, July 24 2:30pm Hosted by: Dr. Sultan Abdulhameed, author of The Quran and the Life of Excellence July Birthdays Lisa Denison - 3rd Daniel Mankes - 15th Nuzha Yakoob - 17th Daniel Hart - 27th William Waldorf - 28th Leslie Marentis - 29th John Morse - 30th Lauren Goglia - 30th July, the month of Summer s prime Again resumes his busy time Scythes tinkle in each grassy dell Where solitude was wont to dwell excerpt The Shepherds Calendar - July (2nd Version) by John Clare Get Inspired to Travel! We live on such a beautiful planet and you deserve to see it! I ve had a lifetime passion to discover the world around us; to absorb new cultures, foods, experiences. I also strive to make it possible for my clients to travel the world, to whatever destination they desire. My number one priority is making sure to design a trip suited to your exact needs. Travel can ignite new interests and bring to light our need for adventure, beauty, relaxation or the simple need for quality time with friends and family away from the daily grind. Not only do I love to travel and help design trips for others to enjoy, I also love my church and the multifaith community at Brookville. Because of that love, if you book your next trip or vacation with me, I will gratefully and proudly donate 10% of my earnings to the Brookville Church and Multifaith Campus! To find out more or to book your trip, please call or me. I can t wait to send you to the destination of your dreams and help our faith community at the same time! Valerie Ritacco Power Travel International Cell: (516) valerie@powertravel.net The Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County, Inc. The low income community in our immediate area is constantly in need of assistance. If you would like to help, please contact: Janice Wardlaw, Director Glen Cove EOC 4 Mason Drive, Apt. BB (Lower Level) Glen Cove, NY jwardlaw@eoc-nassau.org Office Phone (516) Office Fax (516)

7 Brookville Multifaith Campus News Music News! 3M June 12th was the culmination of ten weeks of preparations for our spring play, The Prodigal Clown! From rehearsals and planning a set to parents organizing an outdoor picnic, all came together, and it was a huge success! The kids were on their game that morning and presented a fun play with deep meaning. The parents were on their game, too, as they somehow managed to move tables, chairs, a barbecue, and tons of food (which they made) outside. Everyone enjoyed the circus atmosphere, even when they were surprised by a spray of confetti, but especially when they received balloon animals. All were very impressed as the kids displayed all sorts of talents, including gymnastics, singing, dancing, miming and so much more. God gave us a beautiful day to share together. For me, it was perfect! Thank you to all the parents who did sooo much behind the scenes. Thank you to all of my talented actors who worked hard to give this wonderful performance. Thank you Rev. Vicky for giving me the freedom to create and have such a blast with the kids from our campus! The Cast: Jacob Apat, Joseph Apat, Gabe Cirker, Leah Cirker, Maddy Cirker, Cassie Johanson, Georgia Leppard, Grace Leppard, Charlie Mankes, Daniel Mankes, Alaina Pinto, Andrew Pinto, Robert Ross, Cara Schombs, Evan Schombs, Hailey Schombs, Ian Schombs, Jasper Weinberger, Sam Weinberger, J.J. Worsham, Rachel Worsham.

8 Brookville Multifaith Campus News 4M Interfaith Family Prayer Delights in Lighting One of the most important principles of our interfaith community is that we delight in the experience of each faith tradition. Our religious education program is designed to guide us toward opportunities to celebrate the best of both traditions. This year, encouraged by the vision of our co-directors, Amy Schombs and Sarah Cirker, we added to the delight by integrating family prayer experiences into our curriculum. From the First Friday night Shabbat services to the Second Sunday Brookville Reformed Church services, then the Third Sunday regular classes, we had beautiful moments to grow as prayerful families. Witnessing the models of family prayer this year has been inspiring. Rabbi Stuart and Rev. Vicky have gone out of their way to incorporate teaching moments into their services. We have grown in faith as a result. Allow us to use an analogy from the world of science to describe the faith development. Our son, Nathan, had a science project this year focusing on the question, Does the shape of a candle affect how long it burns? Nathan discovered that the wider the base of a candle, the longer its light lasts. As an interfaith community, we have been constantly learning that the wider the base of our learning, the longer the light of our faith burns. As we prepare for more faith experiences in the coming months, we d like to offer a simple prayer you might consider as a family celebrating light and taking delight in all the meaningful experiences life offers you. It s based on the familiar acronym for FAMILY: Father and Mother I Love You! Our prayer describes the process of faith development we have seen this year in the families we have been entrusted to lead. We invite you to use these words as your family lights candles in faith: FAMILY: Faithfully and Mindfully I Light You. Amen. _Rev. Bill McBride In Gratitude I love the beauty of the days, as they glide along peacefully. Filling up the week, with pleasures often lost when there seems like too much going on. Time stands still longer though, when there is a balance in my life. Then I get to relish the breezes, sun and sky, and to appreciate the beauty that is mine to hold. In those moments of true being, I wonder at the magnificence of the world. And I praise God in all His glory, For those peaceful, intimate moments of reality. Poem by Rev. Enid Kessler Advisor to the Interfaith Community The Saturday Night Live Group of Alcoholics Anonymous meets at the Brookville Church every Saturday night at 9pm. (Coffee and cake starting at 8:30!) As one of Nassau County's oldest AA groups, this meeting has been in existence for over 40 years. If you think you have a problem with alcohol, you are welcome to attend this meeting. For more information, feel free to contact Carol B. at (516) Our Together We Serve meal ministry is up and running, ready to meet the needs of individuals and or families in the Brookvile Church and Multifaith Campus. A birth? Illness? Surgery? Let us help make life a little easier by bringing a meal, making a dish that can be frozen/reheated easily in the future, ordering a local food delivery, pizza, etc. Anyone can initiate a meal train" simply by calling the church office ( ) and providing our Administrative Assistant, Janîce, with the name of the recipient(s), along with pertinent information. Let us help make life a little easier for someone in need! Currently, we have one member of the church who is on the receiving list. If you would like to sign up to bring a meal, please call the office and speak to Janîce.

9 Brookville Multifaith Campus News 5M

10 Sixth Annual Reformed Church of Locust Valley Golf Outing! Monday, August 8, 2016 Glen Cove Golf Course $175.00/Player $700.00/Foursome Includes: Golf, Cart, Lunch & Dinner at The View Grill # Scramble Format 11:00 a.m. Registration / 1:15 p.m. Shotgun Dinner Only at 6:00 p.m. $45.00/Person, Seniors $35.00 (65+) Mail this form with your check payable to: Reformed Church of Locust Valley 115 Ryefield Road, Locust Valley, NY11560 Player Cell Phone Home Phone Address 1. (Primary Contact) Dinner Only - Name(s) Cell Phone Home Phone Address For more information call the church at: or admin.lvrc@verizon.net All proceeds to benefit the Reformed Church of Locust Valley