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Parchment
of Ascension from the Rabbula Gospels
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Thursday Memo for
May 14, 2015,
Ascension Day
Lakes Region Ascension Day Service this evening (Thursday) May 14th,
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 24th.
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 21st will we hold
our 3rd 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!
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.
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.
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.
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+
Heidi+
