May 28, 2015

This coming Sunday – May 31^st and Trinity Sunday – we will have services at 8 and 10 AM, each followed by coffee hour. We hope you will join us for worship and fellowship. The Rev. Susan Ackley will preach and preside, while Heidi and Duane spend four days with family and friends in Massachusetts. Susan is a long-time friend of the parish and a former member who was raised up for ordination in the 1990s from Saint Andrew’s.

Readings for this coming Sunday:  Isiah 6:1-8, Psalm 29, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-17.

Don’t miss the gallery with more Pentecost pictures from last Sunday’s worship. They’re at the end of this MEMO! Special thanks to our Gospel readers; we heard the Gospel in King James English, Spanish, German, Italian, French and Latin!

Taste of the Valley, a Fundraiser for the Bearcamp Valley School and Children’s Center is next Sunday, June 7^th, at the Hobbs Tavern. We can reserve a table for ten for $8 a person, and we already have about 16 people signed up, so we’re on our way to TWO tables!!! A group of us from Saint Andrew’s went to this event last year and had a great time enjoying mealtime companionship in a public space as “the church.” St. Andrew’s contributions support the Bearcamp School as a parish outreach project.
       Call the office or sign up on the Parish Hall Sign-up sheet by the kitchen door. Enjoy a delightful dinner featuring menu samples from area restaurants at a very reasonable meal price, and support this valuable nursery school, day /afterschool care center. $8 covers the cost of the meal! Respond by this Sunday so that we can be assured of a second table together! 

 Do you have any extra rhubarb growing in your garden? Carol Tubman would be grateful for contributions of rhubarb, which she will freeze and use for jams to sell at the Sandwich Fair.

Lorna in motion talking with spirit about how flowers work together

 Special thanks to Lorna McMurray for leading a group of nine of us for a flower-arranging workshop yesterday! Participants brought in flowers and greens and engaged in the “Holy Play” of experimenting and creating. Lorna offered a thoughtful list of principles take with us to guide us and encourage us in working with blossoms and greens. Her hope was that more people will gain the confidence to arrange flowers for the altar during our lush growing season. To that I would add the invitation to bring in other arrangements appropriate to locations in our sanctuary and Parish Hall. If you would like to provide altar flowers and/or arrange them, please sign up on the flower chart posted on the Food Pantry closet door.

Food for thought from Mokichi Okada, a 20^th century Japanese religious leader founder of a school of flower arranging as a spiritual practice:

A person who loves and appreciates flowers and their beauty has a heart that is equally beautiful and is open to God.

May all of us take the time and prayerful attention to the richness and variety of natural beauty springing forth, new every day, from our gardens, woods, and fields.

Blessings, Heidi+

Picture Gallery:

Pentecost:

Flower workshop

May 21, 2015

Wear RED this coming Sunday!!! It’s the Day of Pentecost on Sunday, May 24^th and we will have services at both 8 and 10 as we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit in rushing winds (a trumpet!) and tongues of fire (our colorful selves, enflamed by the Spirit)! Join us for spirit-filled worship and coffee hour following. 

Readings for this Sunday: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35; 37, Romans 8:22-27, John 20:19-23.

Taste of the Valley Fundraiser for the Bearcamp Valley School and Children’s Center on Sunday, June 7^th, 6:00 seating, at the Hobbs Tavern. A group of us from Saint Andrew’s went to this event last year and had a great time enjoying mealtime companionship in a public space as “the church.” St. Andrew’s contributions support the Bearcamp School as a parish outreach project. We can reserve a table for ten for $8 a person. Call the office or sign up on the Parish Hall Sign-up sheet by the kitchen door. Enjoy a delightful dinner featuring menu samples from area restaurants at a very reasonable meal price, and support this valuable nursery school, day /afterschool care center. Respond promptly so that we can be assured of a table together! 

 

Calling all “wanna-be” flower arrangers!!! Join us for a Flower-Arranging Workshop from 10:30 to 12:30 this coming Wednesday, May 27. Gretchen’s good friend Lorna McMurray, a certified instructor in flower arranging has agreed to share her gifts with us. Knowing that often members of the congregation are happy to provide garden flowers but feel ill-equipped to arrange them, she will provide us with some basic tips and coaching as we engage in this “holy play,” using the different vases we have available. So call or email the office or signup this Sunday and bring along some flowers and greens.  Feel free to think creatively as to what you might bring. We are surrounded by a world of natural beauty!

On May 9^th this group attended the 2015 Diocesan Lay Leadership Institute, attending different “courses” all designed to better equip us for the work of various aspects of ministry within the church.  

A hearty thank you to the individuals and teams that participated in our official Spring Work-Day last Sunday, especially David, who got it all organized. Interior church windows have been cleaned! Much of the lawn has been raked! Garden weeding has begun! And numerous other important tasks were quietly accomplished! But there is more to do. If you were unable to put in time then, think about coming in sometime soon and pitching in on a remaining core. The list is posted on the easel in the Parish Hall. 

 

DINNER BELL is in need of 3-4 more cook teams for the upcoming year.  Over the last couple years we have lost 3 teams and are losing team members again this year. This program serves an average 25-30+ dinners each Sunday evening at 5pm and dinners do not have to be complicated.  If you are interested in finding out about helping with this very important outreach program, please contact Carol Tubman and/or join us at our Annual meeting/brunch on Saturday, June 13th at 9am at St. Andrew's (please rsvp to office@standrewsinthevalley.org).

Father's Day Sunday, June 21^st will we hold our 3^rd Annual All-Parish Liturgy and Picnic at White Lake State Park. What a great way to celebrate. We have reserved the pavilion, so the will be protected from sun and rain! Mark your calendars now to you can plan ahead and bring your family, or invite your friends.
 

Sammie and Eleanore's Project: We've been holding Sammie, her colleagues, and the children and families of Eleanore's Project in our Sunday prayers, but you may not have noticed that she is sending emails to us on a regular basis. They're posted on the parish bulletin board but they are also available on the EP blog:

http://www.eleanoresproject.org/blog/

Food for thought (from Daily Prayer for All Seasons) … 

Rejoice, people of God!
Celebrate the life within you,
and Christ’s presence in your midst!

Our eyes shall be opened!
The presence will have new meaning,
and the future will be bright with hope. 

Rejoice, people of God!
Bow your heads before the One
who is our wisdom and our strength. 

We place ourselves before our God,

That we may be touched and cleansed
by the power of God’s Spirit! 

Come, Holy Spirit! Come! 

Blessings,

Heidi+

May 14, 2015



Parchment of Ascension from the Rabbula Gospels

Thursday Memo for May 14, 2015,

Ascension Day

Lakes Region Ascension Day Service this evening (Thursday) May 14^th, at 6 pm at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Ashland. If you would like to carpool, we will gather at Saint Andrew’s parking lot and depart promptly at 5 pm.

Services for this coming Sunday, May 17th, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Sunday after Ascension Day, services will be at 8 and 10 a.m. You are invited to consider it a “dress-down” day, since the later service will be followed by our Annual Spring Parish Work Day. Coffee hour refreshments will be a bit heartier than usual to fuel our raking, gardening, and cleaning efforts.

Readings for this Sunday: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26, Psalm 1, 1 John 17:6-19, John 15:9-17.

Keep in mind that Pentecost Sunday is May 24^th. This is the last day of the Easter season, when we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit – a joyful feast day on which everyone is encouraged to WEAR RED! This is the day that the Gospel gets proclaimed in a variety of languages. If you have reasonably comfortable reading fluency in some tongue other than English, please let Lisa know.

Thank you to all who have contributed so generously to date through Episcopal Relief and Development providing assistance in Nepal following the recent earthquakes. A check for $1,285.00 is going out this week. The needs continue to be pressing and there are envelopes available on the bulletin stands. Checks should be made payable to Saint Andrew’s with “Nepal Earthquake Relief” in the memo line.

 Last Sunday was both Rogation Sunday and Mothers’ Day. Our team of young acolytes distributed pansies to all the women in the congregation. (Thank you, Albert, Connor, Preston, and Melissa.) And we were surrounded in our worship and fellowship by blossoms and greens from a variety of local gardens, thanks to Kitty Lou Booty, Cecile Hopkins, Gretchen Behr-Svendsen, Elizabeth Wiesner and quite likely others as well!

DINNER BELL is in need of 3-4 more cook teams for the upcoming year.  Over the last couple years we have lost 3 teams and are losing team members again this year. This program serves on average 25-30+ dinners each Sunday evening at 5pm and dinners do not have to be complicated.  If you are interested in finding out about helping with this very important outreach program, please contact Carol Tubman and/or join us at our Annual meeting/brunch on Saturday, June 13th at 9am at St. Andrew's (please rsvp to office@standrewsinthevalley.org).

Sunday, June 21^st will we hold our 3^rd Annual All-Parish Liturgy and Picnic at White Lake State Park. Yes, it’s Fathers’ Day. What a great way to celebrate. We have reserved the pavilion, so the will be protected from sun and rain! Mark your calendars now to you can plan ahead and bring your family, or invite your friends.

 Food for thought and prayer…
As part of our celebration of Rogation Day last week (Rogation comes from the Latin rogare, to ask, in this case asking God’s blessing on the crops and fields as the growing season begins), we prayers a Litany of Thanksgiving for the Earth.  Since quite a number of you commented on it and inquired about it’s source, here’s a partial answer: In a slightly different form, but with much the same imagery, Jennifer Glaws and Marcos Kroupa wanted to use it as part of their marriage blessing a year ago. I was quite taken by the images and asked their permission to rework it into its present form. Clearly, it is wonderfully appropriate to Rogation Day. But it needn’t be saved for special occasions. If it speaks strongly to you, I encourage you to pray it and make it your own…and feel free to share any verbal, visual, musical, or other  extensions that the creative spirit might call forth from you!

Holy One, we know you in the infinity of ways in which you reveal yourself to us. On this Rogation Sunday, as we lift up the richness and beauty of the world around us, and with gratitude we give you thanks.

We know you in this fragile earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring heights, its vitality and abundance of life, and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in the mountains, the green mountains and the white, in the high valleys and meadows filled with wild flowers, the snows that never melt, and the summits of intense silence, and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields, that fill our ponds and pools,
and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil, the fertile fields, the abundant gardens and orchards, and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in the forests, the great trees reaching to the sky with earth in their roots and heaven in their branches, the fir and the pine, the cedar and the maple, and the flowering fruit trees, and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in the moon and the stars and the sun, that govern the rhythms and seasons of our lives and remind us that we are part of a great and wondrous universe,
and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in all those who have lived on this earth – our ancestors, our families, and our friends – all who have dreamed the best for future generations, and upon whose lives our lives are built, and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

We know you in this sacred place, through prayer and song, word and sacrament, and through this community of faith that loves, cherishes and sustains us,
and with gratitude, we give you thanks.

Above all, we know you in the Holy Spirit who awakens us to you, and in the Word made flesh, Christ Jesus our Lord, who shares our humanity and reconciles us to you, the God and Father of all. For this and all our many blessings, we give you abundant thanks and praise.

Eastertide blessings,
Heidi+

May 7, 2015



Full Beltane moon over St. Andrew's

Services for this coming Sunday, May 10th, the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Rogation Sunday and Mothers’ Day, will be at 8 and 10 a.m. with coffee hour following both services. We’re now back in the church for both services.

Don’t miss the Gallery of pictures at the end.

Readings for this Sunday: Acts 10:44-48, Psalm 98, 1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17.

CALENDAR UPDATES for the coming weeks:

Thursday, May 14^th is Ascension Day. This year the Episcopal churches of the Lakes Region Convocation will have a combined Ascension Day Service to be held at 6 pm St. Mark’s Church in Ashland. It’s about a 40 minutes drive over. If you’d like to carpool, please meet at St. Andrew’s promptly at 5 pm and we can drive over together.

Next Sunday, May 17^th will be a “dress-down” Sunday and the 10 o’clock service will be followed by All Parish Spring Clean-up Day. The sanctuary is pristine, but the grounds need raking, gardens need to be prepped, windows washed, and other clean-up chores attended to. And there’s some inside work to be done as well.

Sunday, May 24^th is Pentecost! Remember to wear RED in celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is the day that the Gospel gets proclaimed in a variety of languages. If you have reasonably comfortable reading fluency in some tongue other than English, please let Lisa Thompson or Rev. Heidi know. The Bible is available on-line in dozens of languages.

Sunday, June 21^st will we hold our 3^rd Annual All-Parish Liturgy and Picnic at White Lake State Park. Yes, it’s Fathers’ Day. What a great way to celebrate. We have reserved the pavilion, so the will be protected from sun and rain! Mark your calendars now to you can plan ahead and bring your family, or invite your friends.

Looking back to last weekend… What a time was had at the Murder Mystery Dinner! Special thanks go out to many people who made the event such a success. To Chris Mills (playwright) who created the amazing and wonderfully ridiculous script for May Day at the Stone Cottage Pub; to the Stone Church Players for their bold, lighthearted creativity, talent, and commitment to pull a show together in record time; to Carolyn Boldt (chief set designer) and her team of Sally, Lisa, and Chris; to “Larkspur” (alias Chris & Carolyn Boldt) for their fabulous singing and pub-worthy joke telling; to Carol Tubman (“chief cheftan”) and her wonderful team of bakers and cooks for a fabulous meal; to our incredibly faithful and generous servers (Dale Appleton, Michelle Mills, Gretchen Behr-Svendsen, David Manley, and Tim Huckman), who don’t really get to see the play because they are so busy prepping the next course the whole time to our prio clean-up team (Jen & Tom Huckman, Elizabeth Wiesner, Ann Albrecht, and many others); to Duane for his photography; to Deb and David for reservations and ticketing; and to our eager, good-humored, responsive, appreciative audience! And…we brought in about $1200, half of which will go to support local outreach.

And, as if the Friday night event were not enough to make for an active weekend at Saint Andrew’s, we had the great joy of returning to our renovated sanctuary to worship and give thanks to God, the giver of all gifts! Ladies came in hats, gentlemen sported jackets and ties, we were surrounded by daffodils from many a garden, once again the organ and singing reverberated in praise, and the choir and organ graced us with a fitting choral postlude! Thank you again to all who made our return to the church possible.

We also commissioned Sammie Wakefield for her work with Eleanore’s Project, sending her off to Peru with our love and prayers, as she and the EP team provide custom-fitted wheelchairs to mobility-impaired children. Please keep in your prayers Sammie, her team-mates, and the children and families with whom they will be working.

Food for thought as Eastertide continues ….
from Daily Prayers for All Season, Church Publishing Co., 2014

 Have you noticed and wondered? During the joyful season of Easter, the Confession of Sin is traditionally omitted in order for worship to emphasize the celebration of redemption and new life that are characteristics of this season.

As the apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome [Rom 6:6, 11] “We know that our old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin … So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus, in your life we receive life: Raise us to the new life of grace.
You look with compassion on our human failings: Raise us to the new life of grace.
You make us bearers of hope in a world of suffering and despair: Raise us to the new life of grace.

Eastertide blessings,
Heidi+

PHOTO GALLERY: The Murder Mystery Dinner

Villain moustache - Duane Dale wishes to remind folks that "Villain Brand Moustache Wax, the official moustache wax of the The Stone Church Players, is a REAL product, for which the discount code MayDay will save you 5 cents on every dollar spent!

Casting votes for "who done it"!

Don McGarrity wins the drawing

And from "Dress-Up Sunday" (May 3): The ladies in hats . . .