From the Rector: Loud & quiet healing

Dear friends,

This week, like all of you I have been horrified as I have learned more about the disasters that have been taking place in the southeast regions of our country; in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and indeed in Florida in more recent days. And again, like many of you, I have friends and family being immediately impacted by these events. As is often the case when disaster on such a scale manifests itself in our lives, nothing can prepare you for it, even with all of the best science, knowledge, work, and preparation. Of course, there are feelings of relief as the storms begins to settle. Yet, there is then the inevitable reality of the aftermath and the beginning of making repairs and making sense of everything that has happened.

Amidst all that has passed in recent weeks, however, feelings of relief have often become a substantial warmth as stories of profound generosity and healing have manifested themselves. For me, this became particularly apparent within our own community at our vestry meeting on Tuesday. Kenzie Blackwell, our Outreach Committee Chair, informed our gathering of the great yet behind the scenes work, generosity, and service taking place within our parish to meet the needs of those whose lives have been literally turned around. Friends donating money, reaching out to friends and family, and networking to connect people with resources so desperately needed. Aside from the obvious, these acts of kindness reminded me of the necessary and genuine goodness possible even in the midst of fear and uncertainty. Furthermore, they reminded me of an important aspect of faith.

A friend of mine once said that there are two types of healing in the Bible: loud healing and quiet healing. Loud healing is where we see something obvious, healing comes quickly, and it amazes and inspires us. The miracles of Jesus might be an example of this. Although it is interesting that, often, following a healing miracle in particular, Jesus tells those around him to keep quiet about it, and simply live their lives in the new way that has been granted to them. This brings us to the second type of healing: quiet healing. In this case, healing may come slowly, over time, and not manifest in obvious or explicit ways; yet, it is still there, gradually become more tangible and more truly a reality, until one day it fully makes sense. This may be the case when even a grand gesture is kept quiet and communicated through further acts of giving and healing, or indeed when we pray for something and it doesn’t seem to come, though maybe it’s already there.

In weeks like those of recent, it is important and good, indeed vital, to not only look for those acts of loud and desperately needed healing, but also those which are of a quieter nature. Perhaps it might even be helpful for us to remember that those moments of quiet healing are equally present, and equally impactful. They bring comfort especially when our problems seem to be beyond our capacity for change, and they are working even when we are unaware of them. Perhaps that is yet another way of discerning God’s Spirit working among us.

With every prayer and blessing for the week ahead,

Ed.

From the Rector: The calling of St. Francis

Dear friends,

This Sunday, we will be celebrating The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis is one of the most well-known and beloved saints in the Church. Living in the twelfth century, he is venerated for his compassion and service to the poor and the natural world, as well as his rich prayer life. His example and teaching formed the basis of a Rule of Life which continues in communities across the world to this day. When churches celebrate Francis, congregations often bring animals to be prayed over in honor of Francis’ love for all of God’s creation. On Sunday, there will be two opportunities to celebrate: at the 10 a.m. Eucharist, where Sunday School children may bring stuffed animals for a blessing during the service; and at 5 p.m., where there will be a special service outside in the Memorial Garden, for you to bring your living animal friends for a blessing.

Indeed, it is appropriate that on the day we celebrate St. Francis we also begin our Stewardship season. On this Stewardship Sunday, I and Chris Accettella, who serves on our finance committee, will be preaching together on the importance of stewardship from our respective points of view. Aside from the obvious connections between love, service, care for creation, and building community, St. Francis and stewardship go well together also because Francis’ own calling centered around a particular church building. Legend has it that his calling from God came while sitting in a derelict church, and hearing the voice of another saint, St. Damian, saying “Go and repair my church, which you see is falling down.” At this point, Francis devoted his life to God’s service.

Now, while St. John’s is not exactly sinking into the earth right now, it is certainly true that our church, like all churches, face their own challenges. As we will learn together over the coming months, while St. John’s is a parish which has made tremendous strides, and always has in its life and ministry, we know the pitfalls. We all know how the financial situation of this parish, like many, in a both post-covid and rector transition period has played out. We’ve all seen the parts of the building that need work. We all know that our current budget cannot sustain the ministries and programs that have been the hallmark of St. John’s for decades. It’s hard. But, as we learn from all the saints of the Church, it is often when we perceive the need to address something which initially seems insurmountable that the calling becomes real. And what begins with uncertainty soon becomes compelling, a duty becomes a joy, and a desire becomes an act of generosity.

There will be more about this on Sunday and in the weeks to come. But for the time being, I give thanks for the gifts that all of you already share with this community, and I will look forward to worshipping you this Sunday!

With every blessing,

Ed.

From the Rector: Buffy Gray to retire

Dear friends,

This week, I write to you to announce that our magnificent and profoundly gifted organist and choirmaster, Elisabeth “Buffy” Gray, has announced her retirement. Buffy will be serving among us until the new year, and her final Sunday in the parish will be The Feast of The Epiphany on January 5th 2025.

Buffy has served our community faithfully since 2015. As organist and choirmaster, she has brought not only a wealth of expertise and skill, but a joy, spirituality and pastoral attentiveness which has made her work here a true ministry. Buffy is a consummate musician, who has developed our choral program for adults and young choristers with exceptional care. She has taught, guided, and performed with meticulous attention to detail and with an authentic adoration for liturgical music and for God. This has indeed made St. John’s a place where congregations can truly worship God in the beauty of holiness. Our adult choir leads weekly worship gloriously, and our choristers are blessed with such a beautiful introduction to the world of church music. Buffy has also, in the process, maintained and cherished our instruments with precision and the highest regard, which will enable our parish to continue sharing in such wonderful, worshipful music for years to come.

At this time, we therefore also find ourselves at the beginning of another period of discernment and prayerful reflection. In conversation and collaboration with Buffy, Jody Jones Turner, our Senior Warden, and Perrie O’Tierney-Ginn, our Junior Warden, I have begun to contemplate and research the pathways we might take as we begin to consider who Buffy’s worthy successor might be. It is my intention to form a search committee, so that we may begin to research all the possible eventualities and soon begin the process which will lead to calling our new organist and choirmaster. I will certainly keep you all posted as this journey develops.

In the meantime, on behalf of the Wardens, Vestry, and our entire congregation and community, let us congratulate Buffy on her upcoming retirement, and give thanks for all her many gifts, with which she will continue to bless us in the coming months. Indeed, plans for more formal thanksgivings and celebrations will be shared in due course.

With every prayer, blessing, and incredible gratitude,

Father Ed.

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A note from Buffy

Dear Friends in Christ,

After much consideration over the past year, I have decided that the time has come for me to retire from my position as Organist-Choirmaster at St. John’s. It will be very hard to leave after nearly ten years of fulfilling ministry and deep connections with so many of you. I have learned, however, that life is short. I am so ready to spend more time with my family and friends. I look forward to devoting more of my days to my non-musical passions of birding, hiking, and wildlife conservation.

I plan to continue working through Christmas and take my leave in early January. During this time, I will enjoy every minute of working with Fr. Ed (who is a gem) and St. John’s wonderful staff and choirs. No need for goodbyes yet, just many thanks for our time together thus far.

Gratefully,

Buffy

From the Rector: Becoming like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven

Dear friends,

This week, I have been thinking a great deal about our ministries to children, youth, and their families. Our Sunday School has begun in full force, and our Open House was well attended last Sunday particularly by some of our newer families. Our Youth Group Open House event takes place this coming Sunday as our program year gets underway. And I find myself beginning to organize my Confirmation Class curriculum for the new year. Our work with younger generations and the intergenerational dimension of our parish’s life has, then, been very much on my mind over the last few days. Indeed, our Gospel reading this Sunday features one of the moments when Jesus draws his disciples’ attention to the children in their community. He says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9.37)

In relation to this, one person who has also been very much in my prayers is a man named Jerome Berryman. For those who are not familiar, The Rev. Dr. Jerome Berryman was an Episcopal priest who created the pedagogy and indeed church movement that we now call Godly Play. Berryman created Godly Play in the early nineties, following many years of research in theology, education theory, child psychology, and the Montessori teaching method which focuses intently on creative play and experiential learning. As Berryman and his wife Thea developed their own method, it quickly grew into an international foundation and is now one of the most widely used childhood spirituality curricula in the world. It is also used with adults, and, following recent research, with persons experiencing mental health and special educational needs.

In a typical Godly Play lesson, children enter a small, often custom designed chapel, where they sit in a circle, and a teacher uses sensory objects to tell a Biblical story. Instead of simply reading from the Bible or preaching to the children, the teacher “unpacks” the story in front of the group and asks “wondering questions” about the characters and elements of the narrative. “I wonder who these people are?” “I wonder what they thought they were looking for.” “I wonder where you are in this story.” Following the story and reflection, there are then activities, and a feast (as the lesson is reminiscent of the Eucharist), after which the children receive a blessing before departing. The next time you find yourself walking around our Sunday School classrooms, you will notice many such stories placed on the shelves lining each room. Many churches adapt the lessons and the method to cater to the needs of their own community. And Godly Play is one part of our curriculum at St. John’s, too.

Jerome Berryman passed away this summer, on August 6, at the age of 87. He was a wonderful human being. Over the last few years, I got to know him a little when I was serving as a school chaplain and conducting research in the theology and spirituality of childhood. One of the things Berryman would often say was that childhood was not simply an early stage of life, but a way of looking at reality at any stage of our life. Even as an adult, Berryman was someone who had a “child-like” quality about him: he would always talk to you, somewhat disarmingly, on equal terms (even if you were newer to researching the field, like me); he was curious, enthusiastic, and thoughtful; he asked probing questions, and if he discovered something he didn’t understand he wouldn’t let go of it. In many ways, his life, research, teaching, and ministry were all of a piece. He both taught and embodied a way of life where childhood was not understood simply as a specific period of time, but a way of being in the world, a form of perception, a kind of logic or sense of the world that is, in many ways, timeless.

Essentially, then, “becoming like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus teaches elsewhere (Matthew 18.3-5), is not about going back in time or becoming nostalgic but learning to look at reality as it is right now and engaging with it authentically and openly. This, I think, is something we can all learn from, wherever we may be on our own spiritual journey. And as we move further into this new year together and find ourselves reorienting ourselves to life as a Christian community, how we tell our own stories, engage in wonder, and understand the way we look at the world is essential. It is vital for living into our relationships with one another and with God. I wonder what this looks like for you?

With every prayer and blessing,

Ed.

From the Rector: Rediscovering Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear friends,

This week, I found myself rediscovering the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As many of you will know, Bonhoeffer was one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. He was a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who came to prominence during the Second World War and was a key member of the Confessing Church: a movement within Protestant Germany to oppose Nazism. A widely known activist and teacher, Bonhoeffer was eventually imprisoned for his involvement in a plot against Hitler. He was sent to Tegal Prison, and then Flossenbürg concentration camp where he was executed on 9th April 1945, days before the camp’s liberation.

Bonhoeffer’s writing came up at our Wednesday Group this past week. During our discussion, Fr. Robert, our Rector Emeritus, cited one of Bonhoeffer’s most famous books, The Cost of Discipleship, and in particular the difference between cheap and costly grace. Cheap grace, for example, makes no demands on us, and so prevents us from fully engaging with complexity and truth. It is a way of thinking about grace as something which comes easily and doesn’t require us to change anything about our lives or habits. Costly grace, on the other hand, makes demands on us; it is a form of grace which requires us to reckon with those things which prevent us living more fully into our relationship with God. This means being okay with making mistakes, making sacrifices, and accepting our calling even when it's tough.

While this may seem an intense way to start a weekly email, I find that there is also something very subtle, familiar, and reassuring to note in these ideas. Indeed, the difference between cheap and costly grace can also be found in Bonhoeffer’s less intense though equally profound book, Life Together. I first read this book as a student in theological college, and it has guided much of my thinking about faith ever since. In this book, Bonhoeffer considers what it means for everyday Christian communities, such as parishes and religious houses, to be places of true spiritual transformation. He argues that it is the Church, globally but also locally, which is the focal point of Christian ethics and the heart of the Body of Christ. Thus, it is in the very fabric of our lives, as we live together, and then interweave our experience with scripture and worship, that we encounter God in our midst. In academic circles, theologians often refer to this kind of thinking as “narrative theology,” where the very threading of stories and scripture in the context of community shapes our Christian life.

This may, in the end, seem like a simple thing to note at the start of a new week, and it is something which, in my mere two months here, I have spoken about quite a lot already. But I find myself repeatedly coming back to this idea in these early days with you. For I think that what makes a parish church community one of the most profound places to be is that, as Bonhoeffer notes, it is a place where we are constantly reminded to avoid that all-too-easy option to “pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”

When I said last week that I want you to share whatever is important to you, I meant it. It’s the only way we learn and build trust, and the only way we learn what it means to experience grace.

Thank you for reading!

Yours in Christ,

Father Ed.