(Yes, we still have snow!!!)

Saint Andrew's-in-the-Valley
Thursday MEMO
March 24, 2011

Services for this coming Sunday, March 27th and the third Sunday of Lent, will be at 8 and 10 AM, with Coffee Hour following both services and Child Care available at 10:00. We hope you will join us.

Our Lenten series, Holy Dying: Preparing for a "Good" Death, continues this week with session 3 on Wednesday, March 30, at 10:30 in the Prince Room. Joanne Rainville, Tamworth's community nurse, will be with us as guest and resource person as we explore Advanced Directions (living wills and health care proxies). We will close with a simple eucharist at noon, followed by brown bag lunch for anyone who would like to stay. All are welcome, regardless of whether you attended the previous sessions.

Update from the Treasurer: Thank you to all parishioners who have pledged to support St. Andrew's-in-the-Valley for 2011. We depend on your pledges to pay our bills on a weekly basis. Although money has been coming in each week, pledge income is currently about $3,800 less than where our budget needs it to be and our checking account is dangerously low on funds. If you have fallen behind with your pledge payments, please catch up now so that we can continue to pay our bills.
Pledges as of March 20
Budgeted Received Difference
$27,930 $24,145 ($3,785)
When we established the budget for 2011, we agreed to a projected $6,000+ deficit, believing that, through our combined generosity, gradually we would be able to retire that deficit over the course of the year through special gifts to the operating budget. Now would be a good time to step up to the plate. No matter the size, every gift is important and helps our church operate financially, which in turn supports our mission and work as Christ's heart and hands in the world. Thank you!

We continue to be profoundly mindful of the situation in Japan. Episcopal Relief and Development has opened the "Japan Earthquake Response Fund" to collect donations for emergency relief to be provided through local partners in Japan. If you would like to contribute to the response efforts through ERD, checks may be made payable to Saint Andrew’s with Japan in the memo line. There are special envelopes available where you pick up your bulletin.

And this Sunday afternoon (March 27th)...an opportunity for a delicious meal in support of the Bearcamp Valley School and Children’s Center: The 19th Annual Taste of the Valley Food festival, at which the area’s most popular restaurants donate items from their menus. The first sitting is at 4.30-6pm, second sitting 6-7.30pm, at the Whittier House Restaurant. Cost: adults: $12.00 in advance; $13.50 at the door; children $5.00 in advance, $6.00 at the door. Families $30.00 in advance ; $35.00 at the door. Tickets are available at The Bearcamp Valley School and Children’s Center, or the Whittier House Restaurant, or call 323- 8300.

Looking ahead to next weekend...

On Saturday, April 2nd from 9 to 1, join us for a Lenten Quiet Day, Becoming Bread, a morning of prayer and reflection focused around the baking of bread. Please sign up on the sheet on the Parish Hall table or call or email the church office. Questions? Talk to Heidi or Gretchen. We do need to know how many will be attending so that we can be able to provide sufficient supplies.

Next Sunday, April 3rd, at 3PM plan to come and enjoy Music for an April Afternoon. This concert of instrumental and vocal music offered by gifted musicians from the local community will help support our organ maintenance fund. Invite your friends and celebrate spring!

Readings for Sunday: Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42


The Woman at the Well (John 4: 5-42)
Altar window, Church of the Messiah, Woods Hole, Mass.


Food for Thought from Jeremy Taylor, one of the Anglican divines of the 17th century. This passage is from The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying. Material from this book was the focus of this past Wednesday's session led by the Rev. Ellie McLaughlin. (Thank you, Ellie+, for introducing us to this "friend of God" and for contributing to this series!)

"In taking the accounts of your life, do not reckon by great distances, and by the periods of pleasure, or the satisfaction of your hopes, or by the stating of your desires; but let every intermedial day and hour pass with observation. He that recons he hath lived but so many harvests, thinks they come not often enough, and that they will go away too soon: some lose the day with longing for night, and night in waiting for day. Hope and fantastic expectations spend much of our lives: and while with passion we look for a coronation, or the death of an enemy, or a day of joy, passing from fancy to possession without any intermedial notices, we throw away a precious year, and use it but as the burden of our time, fit to be pared off and thrown away, that we may come at those little pleasures which first steal our hearts, and then steal our life.

"But I shall describe a living man [or woman], one that hath that life that distinguishes him from a fool or a bird, that which gives him a capacity next to angels, we shall find that even a good man lives not long, because it is long before he is born to this life, and longer yet before he hath a man's growth. 'He that can look upon death, and see its face with the same countenance with which he hears its story; that can endure all the labours of his life with his soul supporting his body; that can equally despise riches when he hath them and when he hath them not; that is not sadder if they lie in his neighbor's trunks, nor more brag if they shine around about his own walls; he that is neither moved with good fortune coming to him nor going from him; that can look upon another man's land evenly and pleasedly as if they were his own, and yet look upon his own, and use them too, just as if they were another man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and like a fool, nor yet keeps them avariciously and like a wretch; that weighs not benefits by weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him that gives them; that never thinks his charity expensive if a worthy person be the receiver; he that does nothing for opinions sake, but every thing for conscience, being as curious of his thoughts as of his actings in the markets and theatres, and is as much in awe of himself as of a whole assembly; he that knows God looks on, and contrives his secret affairs as in the presence of God and His holy angels; that eats and drinks because he needs it, not that he may serve a lust or load his belly; he that is bountiful and cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to forgive his enemies; that loves his country, and endeavors nothing more that that he may do honour to God; this person may reckon his life to be the life of a man, and compute his months, not by the course of the sun, but the circle of his virtues; because these are such things which fools and children and birds an beasts cannot have; these are therefore the actions of life, because they are the seeds of immortality."

See you in church!
Blessings,
Heidi+