The Newsletter for the Episcopal Church Women Diocese of Chicago May/June 2017 Altar Guild Conference Saturday - June 3, 2017 St. John s Episcopal Church 750 Aurora Avenue Naperville This year s conference will feature a silver working demonstration by Rose Jarecki, gallery owner and artist from Downers Grove. Her presentation will include a variety of decorative techniques as well as the basics of raising up a piece of hollowware from a flat piece of silver. There also will be a special display of silver from several churches and the cathedral including the Jenny Lind Chalice and the chalice and alms basin from St. Andrew s Chapel at the Cathedral. Workshops will include: Introduction to the Altar Guild Gillean Wilsak, Altar Guild Director, St. John s, Naperville; Knotted Anglican Prayer Beads Maryfran Christ, Christ, Ottawa; The Stone Carvers (a video documentary of the stone carvers at Washington national Cathedral) and Repairing Vestments Bettina Daszczuk, St. John s, Chicago Anyone who is interested in altar guild service or the history of our Church are welcome to attend this half day conference. Additional information is available online: www.ecwchicago.org. The registration form is on page 7 of this edition of The Mirror. Printable forms are also on the ECW website and online registration is available through www.eventbrite.com. Registration at the door opens at 8:30am and the program begins at 9:30am. Our day together will conclude with fellowship and lunch. The registration fee for this conference is $15 prior to May 25; After the 25th and at the door, the fee will be $20. Guests are welcome! Directions to St. John s: 750 Aurora Avenue St. John s is located south and west of downtown Naperville. From I-88, exit at Naperville Blvd. towards Naperville. Follow the road south to Ogden Ave. and turn right. Turn left at Washington Street and continue south. Cross the river and turn right on Aurora Ave. The church is on the left past Central High School. Listen to understand and not to respond. - Former President Barack Obama
The Diocesan Mirror May/June 2017 Page 2 All written correspondence to the ECW should be sent to the address below: Episcopal Church Women Diocese of Chicago St. James Commons 65 East Huron Street Chicago IL 60611 www.ecwchicago.org ECW President Beth C. Petti president@ecwchicago.org The Mirror is available online: www.ecwchicago.org Please send articles to: editor@ecwchicago.org Find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ecwchicago Like us and share! Help spread the news about ECW! Submission deadlines are the 25th of the month. If you would like to receive a print or electronic copy of The MIRROR: membership@ecwchicago.org Helen Mensing President s Message What a wonderful time we had! One of the very best parts of being an officer of the ECW is the opportunity to attend events around the diocese and the province. I have also attended the national meeting, Triennial. So far, this year, I have met the wonderful women of St. Paul s by the Lake, Chicago who minister to the Burmese families in Roger s Park. We shared a Burmese breakfast and I had a chance to meet many of the young people who are part of their very active youth ministry. Our own annual meeting was held at St. Thomas, Chicago on the 22nd of April and photos and details are on the center spread of this newsletter. The Province V Annual Meeting was held last weekend. Women from our Midwest region met in Lansing to elect new officers and hear Lelanda Lee speak as a keynote presenter as well as workshop leader on the topic of My Sister s Keeper. There is a brief article in this edition, but there will be more published on our website: www,ecwchicago.org. This meeting is open to all ECW members of the Province V, so watch for details of next year s event, Apri 13-15 at DeKoven. Each time I attend a program, I think of all the women who could have been there, who would have enjoyed the sisterhood, the sharing of our faith, the fun! June 3 is the Altar Guild Conference which is open to anyone who is interested. Will I see you there? Congratulations to the new bishop of Indianapolis, The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows. United Thank Offering Diocesan Coordinator uto@ecwchicago.org Church Periodical Club cpc@ecwchicago.org
The Diocesan Mirror May/June 2017 Page 3 Province V Annual Meeting April 28-29 Four representatives from the Diocese of Chicago attended the Annual Meeting of Province V at St. David s Episcopal Church, Lansing MI. Keynote presenter and meeting leader, Lelanda Lee from Colorado, has been a representative at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. See more about the meeting on our website: www.ecwchicago.org. From left: Jan Goossens (Diocese of Springfield), newly elected Province V Representative to the National ECW Board; Karen Birr (Diocese of Missouri), Province V President; Gail Donovan (Diocese of Western Michigan), newly elected Province V United Thank Offering Representative. Repair & Replace 60 years ago, needlepoint cushions were placed in the Great Choir honoring each of the domestic and overseas dioceses in the Episcopal Church. They are worn and will be re-stitched and finished so they may continue to provide a beautiful accent to the Cathedral. The ECW is helping raise the $1500 needed to recreate our beautiful cushion. Donations to this project can be made out to ECW Chicago with cushion in the memo section. All contributions $15 and over will be acknowledged with a letter, and the list of donors will be published at next year s annual meeting. Contributions will be collected through September 30, 2017. The Women Who Knew Jesus 2017 Lenten Retreat Diocese of Springfield The women of the Diocese of Springfield held their annual retreat at the beautiful Todd Hall Retreat Center. Springfield ECW President, Jan Goossens is on the left in front, and Province V President, Karen Birr, is in the front on the right. The Diocese of Chicago was represented by president Beth Petti and Linda Toberman, second row far right. We walked in April, now join us on May 13 at Independence Grove in Libertyville! Help the Northern Illinois Food Bank provide food for our neighbors. See the NIFB website: solvehungertoday.org to register to walk or make a donation to team ECW Chicago! Each dollar donated buys $8 of food.
The Diocesan Mirror May/June 2017 Page 4 2017 Annual Meeting Review Women of Faith, Women of Legacy St. Thomas, Chicago April 22, 2017 What a wonderful day! The women of the diocese gathered to share their faith and enjoy the company of other Episcopal Church women at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Chicago. The women of St. Thomas, under the leadership of their president Carolyn Levystein, provided welcoming hospitality during the registration and again at lunch. 60 women attended the full day conference. Johnnie Newton, former ECW Diocesan Board member, was honored with a resolution written by Jane McCarron, former ECW president. The resolution highlighted Johnnie s service to the ECW at the parish and diocesan levels as well as her volunteer service at three General Conventions. Johnnie is a member of St. Edmund s, Chicago. Following the business meeting, everyone gathered in the church for the featured program. Four lovely young ladies from Burnett s School of Performance Arts danced to Andra Day s song Rise Up as the opening presentation. Selections from the book Crowns were read next. These selections were reminiscences of women about wearing hats to church. The women of the ECW were invited to wear hats or crowns of their own in reference to the book. The eight profiles which were read set the stage for our keynote speaker, Ms Moss. Ms Moss presented a delightful and challenging address. Weaving together the themes of women in the church, the historical references to wearing crowns and the responsibility of women leaders in the church and in the community. She shared her experiences as a mother and daughter, curious about life, challenging and questioning the women who went before her to help her understand her role in life. One of the many anecdotes she shared was how she realized that she had joined the grown woman club. And I don t know the magical moment when it happens, but Now is the time to struggle with the question because sisters, I must tell you, there is a generation of younger women awaiting your answer and they are hungry for your answers. They are curious to know if they matter enough to us to garner our attention, our space and our time. Their delivery and style may be different as they interact with us, but the desire to hear from the elders remains.
The Diocesan Mirror May/June 2017 Page 5 Do not be silent; there is no limit to the power that may be released through you! Monica Moss Where are the women who are willing to plant the seeds and then to have the patience and the stamina to ensure that the seeds issue forth tender sprouts that turn to blossom and eventually bear fruit. It takes the women to nurture the dreams. somehow we all suddenly find ourselves members of the grown woman club. It s a club we all join, but none of us seek out membership. One day we just suddenly look up and find ourselves a member when the young man bagging our groceries calls you mam" We are all eventually a member of this unnamed organization and it s actually kind of nice because there are no meetings, no national conferences to attend and no dues to pay- but there is one requirement and that is to give back to the younger generations of women who will follow. We are called to show them the way. A delicious luncheon followed the morning presentations. The day concluded with a Eucharist service celebrated by St. Thomas s rector, the Rev. Dr. Fulton Porter, III assisted by ECW chaplain, the Rev. Trilby Murray. As part of the service, the names of the women of the ECW who have died during the previous year are read as a memorial to their service. The ECW officers of the board rededicated themselves to the service of the women ofchicago and the spring United Thank offering gifts were blessed.
The Diocesan Mirror May/June 2017 Page 6 This article is excerpted from the Chicago Tribune Will you pray for Donald Trump? Bill Daley Chicago Tribune..after such a contentious election, are we willing to pray for Trump as his administration takes power? Whatever the answer, and whether it is voiced silently in private or publicly as a faith community, the question speaks to a larger issue: Should we, as Jesus famously instructed in the Gospel of Matthew, love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? Should we pray for colleagues we resent at work, the neighbors we clash with over local politics, the so-called friends who continually snub us and the family members who wound us so with their words? "The most radical commandment is to love our enemies," said Robert Trawick, a professor of religious studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkhill, N.Y. "It's very easy to love the people we like. That doesn't cut it." Whether "good" people can and should pray for "bad" people (who's who so often depends on the beholder) is an ages-old conundrum. I posed the question to clerics, professors, writers and faithbased activists. Stephen T. Asma, a Columbia College Chicago philosophy professor and the author of, among other works, "Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey," wrote in an email that ancient Greek and Roman pagans would have prayed for those they love. Mainstream Christianity's call to pray for strangers and enemies means, he wrote, "your religious piety is more profound, if you can muster the strength to (pray) for people you don't even like. That's the kind of piety that tilts toward sainthood." "Me? I pray for peace, and leave the ways in which it can be effected open," wrote Vasudha Narayanan, director of the University of Florida's Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions in Gainesville, Fla., in an email. "If that means praying for the wicked souls, yes, why not, after all, who is to say I am better or worse than them in so many ways?" The Rev. Peggy Clarke, minister at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester in Hastings-on- Hudson, N.Y., wrote in an email that, as a Unitarian Universalist, she doesn't "divide" people into "good" and "bad." In praying for one "who has done bad things, I am shifting my own way of understanding them, knowing them to be human and vulnerable and in need of a new way. I am recognizing our interdependence." Prayer "is a practice that changes me, changes my heart," said the Rev. Canon Michael Hunn, the presiding bishop's canon for ministry within the Episcopal Church, who is based in New York City and Raleigh, N.C. Pray for someone, and "it's hard to see them as an enemy for very long." Hunn (views) prayer as a call for action. Hunn talks of it as a "lament," a "crying out against injustice. And Trawick points out that one can pray for another "without being a patsy." "Praying for an enemy doesn't mean you have to accept everything they do,'' explained Trawick, who is Presbyterian, circling back to the recent election. Sahar Alsahlani, who comes from the Shiite tradition of Islam and is an interfaith peace activist, said the incoming administration stands for almost everything liberal faith-based activists are against. Yet, she hopes Trump finds "some sort of internal peace" to govern wisely. "Do I want him to fail? No. I wish him the best," said Alsahlani. "All we can do is organize, mobilize, show faith through community service." And pray. Praying for our leaders is a tradition, Hunn noted. United Thank Offering Spring Ingathering United Thank Offering gifts are always welcome! Please forward your thank offerings to the address below. UTO Diocesan Coordinator ECW St. James Commons 65 East Huron St. Chicago, IL 60611 Please combine all offerings and draft one check for your gift to UTO, made payable to: United Thank Offering
ALTAR GUILD ADVENTURE! Washington D.C. September, 2017 Join us for a five day trip to Washington D.C. The approximate cost is $1800 -- adult double occupancy. Includes all transportation, most meals and lodging. The adventure has a limit of 50. Micki Hoffmann 53 E. Rogers Street Hartford, WI 530027 or email: mphoffman70@gmail.com Sponsored by the Milwaukee Episcopal Diocesan Altar Guild Episcopal Church Women Diocese of Chicago St. James Commons 65 East Huron Street Chicago IL 60611 Return Service Requested