Month: January 2022

Our Annual Meeting is next Sunday, February 6. We will elect some new people to vestry, and thank the ones who are going off. We will talk about last year’s finances, and pass a budget for 2022. We will hear about the health of the parish, and answer questions that people raise. It is that time we conduct the yearly business of the church, and it is important.

I wish we were meeting in person. We can accomplish the things we are canonically obligated to do on zoom. We did it last year. But zoom has its limits, and it concerns me that people won’t be able to talk to one another, share stories and reconnect. Questions people have been wondering about might not get raised in the interest of expediency or technological struggle. It is important that people know the facts, and not have to guess.

So please try your best to meet together next Sunday. Raise the concerns and celebrate the joys. Do your part to deepen relationships and understanding. Ask your questions, even if they are hard or don’t seem to matter. They do matter. Work to build community. We can get through all things together. We are the Body of Christ. 

If you have any tech questions or need help with zoom, please ask!  Thank you for all you do.

Thursday afternoon I had a zoom meeting with my women clergy support group. It’s a fantastic group of priests who listen to and care for one another, especially during the pandemic. We hadn’t met for a while, and it was so good to see everyone. We caught up on life changes, celebrations, frustrations and concerns. It was so wonderful and encouraging to be together again.

The next evening, I heard that one of our group had died. I had seen her happy and doing well one day, and the next day, she had died. I know that is the way life and death go. And we all know it doesn’t make it any easier.

My message today is simple: tell everyone you know how much you love them. Tell them you appreciate them and why. Tell them how they have made your life and the world better. Don’t wait for the right time and don’t be shy. There is never a bad time to tell people they are loved.

Know that you are wonderful and appreciated and that you make a difference in the world as well!  And please pray for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio in our grief at the loss of a wonderful priest. Thank you.

January is the month that I do my “spring cleaning” I go through every room, every closet, every drawer and see what I am not using that I could share with others. This year, I took on my basement, my least favorite space in the house, and am happy to report that it is neatly organized for the first time since I moved in. I might also have noticed the people at GoodWill are not as happy to see me these days. 

I have never been one for New Year’s Resolutions. I know that for me January is my time to start fresh and get things in order, time to be healthier after the excesses of the holidays, time to reconnect with people I care about.  I reinvest in healthy habits that make me feel good about myself, and set the tone for the year. I try not to set myself up for inevitable failure when I am too ambitious about personal change. 

This year, though, I have prayed about investing in the spiritual discipline of kindness. I am feeling called to be careful. There are so many rabbit holes of frustration that we are spending too much time in these days. It is time to acknowledge that we don’t agree about everything, and that probably won’t change. I hope that what I want, what makes sense to me, will eventually happen, but I can’t get us there. 

I also know that people who do not agree with me are good people. I work to see that—generosity, care for others, behind the scenes work for the church. Everyone has good in them. It is my job to find it. And that will be impossible if I am not kind. 

Look, do I always want to be kind? No. Do I think of clever things I should have said and sometimes wish I said, yes I do. Am I good at this, no. But maybe after a year of intensive practice, I will get better. 

It might seem that I say this a lot. It feels that way to me too. However, we aren’t to where we need to be yet. So I will keep practicing and praying for a kinder world. I hope you will join me.

The decision to cancel this year’s Boar’s Head Festival was hard. Very hard. Everyone tried to remain hopeful until the people in the cast started getting sick, and then too many were sick to replace everyone, and it became clear that for reasons of safety and practicality, we had to say no. We also decided to suspend the choir for the month of January, although in person services remain as scheduled.

Church decisions should come down to trying to follow what Jesus would do. In other words, how do we best love one another in this particular time and place. Church decisions are not about fear or money or other worldly concerns. They are about the delicate balance of living your faith in the practical spaces of our daily lives, holding a tension between hope and joy and sacrifice. 

Throughout this pandemic we have asked people to make the best decisions they can to keep themselves safe. The actual process of this, and the outcome, will be different for each person, because we each have an individual set of circumstances. Maybe you have health concerns, maybe you have small children or grandchildren, maybe your job exposes you to risk, maybe you care for an elder or at risk person. These dynamics are not about fearing for yourself or others, they are about loving yourself or others. 

God never wants us to be sick or in pain or to take unnecessary risks. God loves us more than we can ask or imagine, and always desires the best for us. In all circumstances, God is with us, supporting us, comforting us, sharing our pain or confusion or whatever we are suffering. God is always a God of compassion, and we are on the receiving end of love and grace that we can’t imagine.

In light of this, we make the decision to cancel this year’s Boar’s Head from a position of strength, from a charism of hospitality, and with great compassion. We are acting out of love for our neighbors, especially the first responders and health care workers who are suffering for their care of others. We are blessed at St. John’s to have bold and faithful leaders who are courageous in their care and willing to take the risk of offering something we love for people we love.

May God keep us all safe and healthy. We put our trust in our Loving God.