Advent: From Darkness into Light by Coralie Hambleton

Transcription

1 Published regularly by the parishioners of St. Paul s Episcopal Church 201 E. Ridge Street * Marquette * Michigan * (906) Advent: From Darkness into Light by Coralie Hambleton Advent is a time of wonder, of anticipation, of believing that from the darkness of the coming winter nights, will come also, the Light of the world. The Christ, the Messiah. As we journey together toward Bethlehem we watch in awe for the Light of hope to shine into our hearts. From the darkness of anxiety, brokenness, and loss, we open ourselves to the redeeming Light of our Savior And He comes. This year in preparation for Christmas, our youth are focusing on the theme From Darkness into Light. In keeping with this theme, as we wait and watch together for that Holy Night, a new Advent banner will be present in the sanctuary. The first Sunday in Advent, a dark, incomplete quilt will have only the darkest colors in the midnight sky. Each Sunday during Advent, lighter blues will be added until Advent s last Sunday, when the banner will be completed. The radiance from darkness to Light will shine. May this theme speak quietly to your hearts as we wait together for His Light to shine. St Paul s Caroling Sunday, December 18th 5:30pm ~ 7:30pm. Meet in the Great Room Warm up at the Cole s from 7:30 ~ 9pm. Bring cookies to share. News from Scrip Corner by Barb Carpenter December is upon us and it's time for Christmas shopping. Please consider giving a gift card to a favorite store or purchasing cards so you can shop for a loved one or friend at a local merchant. We offer cards to Downwind Sports, Getz s, Hotplate, Snowbound Books or Book World, as well as to favorite restaurants like Coco's, Doncker s, Border Grill or Jeffrey's. Or how about Babycakes, Huron Mountain Bread, Third Street Bagel or Togo's for a stocking stuffer? And don't forget that you will be buying more food for the holidays, so pick up some extra cards to Econo, Jack's, Valle's Village Market, or the Marquette Food Coop. If you're looking for something beautiful and elegant for someone special, Wood Jewelers is a good choice. Or make your holidays more festive with merchandise and services from Bountiful Balloons and Events. If you will be driving more over the holidays, remember to pick up some extra Holiday Gas cards. It's a convenient way to pay for your gas as well as a great gift for someone on your Christmas list. Sunday, December 4 is the last order date with a guarantee of delivery before Christmas. We will also be placing an order on December 18 with delivery available on Saturday, December 24/ Sunday, December 25. A great big THANK YOU to all who have participated this year and to the Vestry who have supported the program in many ways! In just one year, the scrip program has earned more than $3, to support the many programs at St. Paul's. Please consider making a New Year's resolution to participate and join in the fun!

2 From Bob Railey s Pen [Next meeting: Friday, December 16, 10:30 a.m.] Winter quarter schedule December 4 will be the last day to sign up for specific dates/roles and/or provide information regarding when not to assign you. The sign-up display for January through March is posted on the bulletin board outside Kevin s office (due to the Craft Fair in the chapel hallway). Completed schedules will be distributed beginning December 11. If you have any questions, see Bob Railey. Seasonal Planning December 11 will be the last day to sign up for a seasonal planning team for Easter Easter is the most celebratory season of the liturgical year. You are invited to consider how that sense might be expressed in all areas of our life together. The sign-up display is in the chapel hallway and will remain posted through January for the last, long season of the liturgical year after Pentecost. If you have any questions, see Bob Railey. Liturgical trial periods Our period for the current silence/singing bowl practice (one long silence immediately following the Gospel reading begun and ended with a strike of the bowl) has been extended through December 4. Immediately after church that day, we will have an evaluation forum at which we invite your feedback. If you cannot attend, but have thoughts on our current practice and/or the four short silences version, please get your comments to Kevin or Bob beforehand. An apology When I prepared the list of departed (those who have died since the previous All Saints Day) that was read at our 2011 All Saints liturgy, I did not include Fred Loehde s name. I apologize to you, Bertha (and to the several others who noticed the omission and properly called it to my attention). I know why the error occurred, but that does not excuse it. Bertha, I am so very sorry. - Bob Railey Hunger Walk Summary The annual Marquette County Hunger Walk (sponsored by our ELCA friends) was held on October 2. St. Paul s had six walking units (individuals, couples, etc.) who raised a total of $372. The total raised by this ecumenical venture was close to $10,000 this year. All donated funds are distributed 75% for worldwide hunger relief (through CROP, an agency of Church World Service) and 25% to the Ishpeming Food Bank (which provides low cost food to all of Marquette County s food pantries). Christmas Altar Flowers Specially marked envelopes are available in the pew card racks and at the usher stations through December 18. Please be sure to indicate clearly if your contribution is a memorial or a thanksgiving. Saving Paradise The Healing Arts Center is hosting an exploration of Saving Paradise: How Christianity traded love of this world for Crucifixion and Empire. Come together to explore through conversation, reading, and art, how Christianity in its first millennium filled sanctuaries with images of Christ as a living presence in a vibrant world and how this vision of beauty evolved into one of torture. In Saving Paradise, authors Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker, expose the imperial strategies embedded in theologies of redemptive violence and shed new light on Christianity s turn to holy war. Given this history, how do we rediscover our beauty? How might we learn to love this world again? First and third Tuesdays, beginning December 6 from 3:30 5 p.m. You may purchase the book through Snowbound or Amazon.com. Please sign-up for the class through the office.

3 Liturgical leadership Sundays: Date Sunday Preside Preach Deacon December 4 Advent 2 Kevin Kevin Pat December 11 Advent 3 Marcia Marcia Coralie December 18 Advent 4 Kevin Bryan Pat December 25 Christmas Day Bob Bob Christmas Eve December 24 5:30 p.m. Rïse Rïse Pat December 24 11:00 p.m. Kevin Kevin Coralie Remember Goodsearch.com Please remember to use Goodsearch.com when you are ordering merchandise online. If you designate St. Paul's Episcopal Church Marquette as your charity or cause, St. Paul's will get a percentage from your purchase. This is a great way to earn money for our church without costing you any money! Happy shopping! (Just in: we received a check for $ for our involvement, at the time of going to press. Well done!) St. Paul s Website by Kathy Lenten Thanks to the additional computer savvy of Chris Franz, St. Paul s new website is up and running. You can visit it at Information is added as time allows but one anticipated addition that s up and running are audio files of Kevin s sermons. A Google calendar lists activities happening at the church and another easy option that s available to us but hasn t been put to use yet is uploading photos. If there is information you would like to see included on the website, drop a note off at the office or send me an and we ll see what we can do. October in Haiti: Building for the Future by Burt Purrington Haiti is a land of paradoxes. At no time has this been more evident than today, when much of the debris from the devastating earthquake of two years ago remains undisturbed, more than half a million displaced people still live in tent cities and a cholera epidemic has taken more than 6,000 lives. Nevertheless, the Haitian people and many of the organizations who work in partnership with them recognize that in the midst of the rubble they must go beyond recovery to build a stable and sustainable future for themselves and their children. Our three-week October mission focused on both relief and development. We assisted our colleagues at Friends of Haiti in Green Bay with a four-day medical clinic at the village of Plaisance, Crochu, St. Paul's partner community in Haiti. Our three doctors, one American and two Haitian, saw nearly 900 patients, some badly in need of medical attention, and delivered a healthy baby girl to a young, first-time mother who walked back to her home an hour after delivery. The nearest hospitals and clinics are three to five hours from Crochu, much of it requiring hiking over rough terrain, and there had been no medical clinic here since last spring. We are also helping our friends in Crochu build for the future with jobs and education. After an intensive search, Karan Hendricks located bobbins and spools for the ancient treadle sewing machines in the support women's sewing cooperative we help. Everything deteriorates rapidly in Haiti's tropical climate, and these items as well as needles, scissors and fabric were received with much happiness. Many children in Crochu cannot go to school because their parents lack the money to send them. However, through your donations to Laurie's Fund for Haiti's Children, we are now helping pay the expenses for eight such children. The father of three of them has lost much of his vision and can no longer work in the fields. His wife, Marilor Salomon, wrote, "I am very happy that you sent this money with Burt to help my children, Fedner, Dieunel and Schnaider, go to school. Their father cannot work very much and we could not send them to school without your help. I pray to God that he will richly bless you." We received thank-you notes from the other parents, as well as Tazia, the head of the women's sewing co-op, and her husband, Louis-Jacques, lay leader and teacher at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Crochu. They all send their greetings, thanks and best wishes for a holy Christmas and a safe and healthy New Year 2012.

4 Women s Winter Respite Retreat on January 27, 28 and 29 The Women s Ministries Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan invites all sisters in Christ, to the fourth annual retreat at Marygrove Retreat Center, Garden, Michigan. Please join us for a weekend to refresh your body, your mind, and your spirit. It s time to pull away from the busyness of our lives, of being the caretakers of our families and communities with so many responsibilities we forget to allow ourselves time to rejuvenate, and restore our energies. Jesus, went to a quiet place to pray and withdrew to a place where the crowds wouldn t find him. Jesus knew the importance of solitude with his Father to restore himself. He told us to Love one another as yourself. Sisters, we get the love one another part real well, but the taking care of ourselves part not so well at all. The Women s Winter Respite is designed to allow you to withdraw for a short 42-hours, to love yourselves, do the quiet things you haven t had time to do, and to worship and have fellowship with your sisters in Christ. At this retreat there is no agenda, no guilt! We encourage you to bring to the retreat items which you ve been meaning to get to, something which allows you to relax; reading materials, knitting, beading, quilting or whatever restores you. For some this will be walking in the woods, or cross-country skiing, sitting in the chapel and meditating, or just watching movies with us. Time will be built in for worship, including Taize. We have shared opportunities to try handwork such as beading, quilting, coloring Mandelas, and knitting prayer shawls. There are no requirements. The Retreat is yours to design to meet your own needs. Sleep, eat, nap, eat, walk, eat, laugh, play, worship, and eat. The comforts of self-care. (Marygrove feeds us well.) The Marygrove Retreat Center is located in the Village of Garden on M-183, 9 miles south of the US-2 intersection, 17 miles west of Manistique, and 25 miles east of Escanaba. Saturday and Sunday meals are included. The retreat begins Friday evening with gathering at 7:00 p.m. You may arrive anytime after 4:30 p.m. Bring a friend! For more information contact Judy at or Coralie at Cost is $ Mail $20.00 registration fee by January 20, 2012 to Judy Andersen, 8605 Schaawe Lane, Rapid River, Michigan Please make out your check to Marygrove. Name Address Phone Special needs, including dietary December Ladies Luncheon by Barb Carpenter Our traditional holiday ladies luncheon will be held in Capers Restaurant in the Landmark Inn on Friday, December 16, at 11:30 a.m. We will be collecting mittens, gloves, scarves, and hats for St. Paul's mitten tree again this year. Reservations can be made by ing bandcarpenter@charter.net or calling by noon on Thursday. Come and enjoy good food and good conversation in this beautifully decorated historic landmark. All are welcome.

5 At-One-Ment Book Series Kevin Thew-Forrester has published two books in a series titled At-One-Ment. In the first book, Holding Beauty in My Soul's Arms; Faith Explorations: being transformed in Christ," Fredrica Harris Thompsett writes in her forward: Kevin Thew Forrester s Holding Beauty in My Soul s Arms is a book for many, if not most of us on the journey toward deeper spiritual formation. It offers a resting place, a reflective learning place where we may pause and savor at our own pace the riches of scripture, tradition, and reason as well as postmodern psychology, ethics, cultural studies, and systems theory. Familiar stories, presented in informative and provocative ways, take on greater vibrancy. Narratives of saints, ancient and modern, hold up reflections of human transformation. As we move into an unknown future, foundational theological questions about how we perceive ourselves and God are candidly and plainly opened up. It is in the doing of theology reflecting upon our experience and that of wider communities that we find nurture, insight and guidance toward Christian transformation. Those exploring new, emergent, and fresh expressions of church, and those with thirsting souls will find in these pages a spiritual audacity that embraces the whole of reality. Curious Christians, seekers, and newcomers to spiritual adventures will also find tools to aid their discoveries. One of the best suppor- tive aids to the spiritual journey, the Enneagram, is explored in this volume. This tool, with its holistic embrace of nature and nurture, can in time and with practiced awareness help us be the leaders God would have us become. If this is your first exposure to the spirituality and psychology of the Enneagram, I invite you to continue to explore this resource as a companion in spiritual awareness. The second volume is titled My Heart is a Raging Volcano of Love for You: Liturgical Explorations: Blessings, Litanies, Prayers and Eucharist Prayers. The publisher notes: it provides liturgical texts to enrich our common worship. These resources bring the liturgy alive in exciting ways. Unlike our current collects, these collects are drawn from the day s Scripture readings, giving them a connection to the day s lessons and sermon. Kevin uses refreshing, contemporary language that makes ancient texts meaningful to today s ears while embodying the church s baptismal theology and the Anglican-Episcopal tradition. Kevin's poetic gifts enable him to use beautiful and evocative language to express our deepest love for God. His theological insights and ability to draw from early Christian writers, mystics and revolutionary teachers makes this a rare book of worship for the post -modern church. Many of these texts grew out of the life and worship of St. Paul s, Marquette, Michigan where Kevin currently serves as Rector; he previously served as the Diocesan Ministry Development Coordinator in the Diocese of Northern Michigan. Elder Law and Estate Planning Workshop A workshop on Elder Law and Estate Planning will be given by Elder Law Attorney Susan Wideman on Sunday, December 11, at 11:30 a.m. in the Sanctuary. This will be an opportunity to have your questions answered concerning wills, trusts, long term care, and Social Security. Make a point to attend; Susan is a dynamic, interesting, and knowledgeable speaker. (This is a reschedule.) The Messenger Team Editor Meg Goodrich Copy Editor Jane Ryan Lay-out Jim Edwards Reporter Bob Railey Copier Kathy Lenten Mailers Bertha Loehde & Geoff Smith December Birthdays Frank Farwell 3 Liz Lancour 6 Jennifer Baldwin 9 Jo DeYoung 10 Coralie Hambleton 10 Kevin Thew Forrester 12 Iva Arnett 14 Howard Harding 16 Burt Purrington 17 Jim Edwards 20 Bryan Spencer 21 Nellie Magoon 22 Liam Thew Forrester 25 Jean Contois 26 Dick Contois 29 Lindsey Baldwin 31

6 2011 ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL FAIR TRADE CRAFT AND GIFT MARKET The International Craft Fair is our Church s largest global outreach event each year. This year s International Craft Fair will be held on Friday, December 2 from 5-9 p.m. Saturday, December 3 from 10 a.m. - 3p.m. Bake Sale and White Elephant Alternative Gift Fair Men of St. Paul s Soup Kitchen Stewardship and Vestry Updates by Dennis West Through November 20, we have received thirty-four commitments for Forty-one percent of those that have been received have increased their pledge, 29% have stayed the same as the prior year, 12% decreased, and seven or 21% of the commitments received are new to pledging at St. Paul s. Overall, among those that have been received to date, we are seeing a 4% increase in our average gifts. That is great to see and speaks volumes to our collective belief in the mission and vitality of our worshipping community. If we receive commitments from all of those who pledged last year and who are still worshipping with us, and add just two more new commitments, we would reach 70 pledges! (We have had 54 in 2010 and 64 in 2011). I believe that reaching seventy pledges is possible and would be a major step forward in the sustainability of St. Paul s. It would be cake-worthy and more (for Tom Ray s delight, perhaps lamb pasties) for the next Annual Meeting. I urge you to submit a commitment card if you have yet to do so. We need to set a budget for 2012 and we need your help to finish that critical task. Among the issues that were discussed at the last Vestry meeting was to consider how we might expand our Columbarium. A task force was appointed to look at our options. It includes: Dan, Kevin, Elmer and Dennis. Preparation for the new budget was discussed and the Annual Meeting for January was discussed too. It was noted that the North Central Region is now called the Lake District and includes: St. Paul s, St. John s (Negaunee) and Trinity (Houghton). Finally, the Vestry voted to purchase a second speaker to be placed in the rear of the sanctuary. The next Vestry meeting will be December 15; please talk to a Vestry member about any items that you would like to have placed on our agenda.

7 December Calendar Thursday 1 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Yoga, Great Room 10:00 am Friday 2 Interfaith Forum, Peter White Library 11:30 am International Craft Fair, Bake Sale, White Elephant Sale 5:00 pm-9:00 pm Saturday 3 International Craft Fair, Bake Sale, White Elephant Sale 10:00 am-3: 00 pm Sunday 4 Ministry Support Team meeting 9:00 am Choir 9:45 am Holy Eucharist and Youth Ministry: 2 Advent 10:30 am Monday 5 Altar Guild 7:00 pm Yoga, Great Room 7:00 pm Tuesday 6 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Staff meeting 9:00 am Faith Explorations 3:30 pm-5:00 pm Wednesday 7 Lake District (formerly North Central Region) meeting 6:30 pm (Baraga) Choir 7:00pm Thursday 8 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Yoga, Great Room 10:00 am St. Paul s Trust Committee 12:00 pm Friday 9 Hospitality Committee 11:00 am Sunday 11 Choir 9:45 am Holy Eucharist and Youth Ministry: 3 Advent 10:30 am Susan Wideman Elder Law and Estate Planning Workshop 11:30 am Tuesday 13 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Staff meeting 9:00 am LifeCycle s Daytimers II 10:00 am LifeCycle s Sojourner s group, Marcia s house 6:30 pm Wednesday 14 LifeCycle s Pilgrim s group 10:00 am Finance Committee meeting 12:00 pm Choir 7:00 pm Thursday 15 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Vestry meeting, West s house 5:00 pm Vestry dinner, West s house 6:30 pm Friday 16 Liturgy meeting 10:30 am Ladies Luncheon at Caper s, Landmark Inn 11:30 am Sunday 18 Third Sunday Forum 9:00 am Choir 9:45 am Holy Eucharist and Youth Ministry: 4 Advent 10:30 am Caroling 5:30-7:30 Tuesday 20 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Staff meeting 9:00 am Faith Explorations 3:30 pm 5:00 pm Wednesday 21 Choir 7:00 pm Thursday 22 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Saturday 24 Christmas Eve Family Service 5:30 pm Prelude 10:30 pm Late Service 11:00 pm Sunday 25 Merry Christmas! Holy Eucharist: Christmas 10:30 am Monday 26 Office Closed Tuesday 27 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Staff meeting 9:00 am Wednesday 28 Soup Supper, no host 6:00 pm Choir 7:00 pm Thursday 29 Mindfulheart Meditation 8:00 am Scottish Folk Dancing 7:00 pm

8 Published regularly by the parishioners of St. Paul s Episcopal Church 201 E Ridge Street * Marquette * Michigan * (906) Return Service Requested Non-profit U.S. Postage Paid Permit #32 Marquette Michigan The deadline for the January Messenger is Friday, December 23. A Merry Christmas and a Cool Yule to all our readers!

9

10