Dear Friends,

I recently returned from the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, which is currently meeting in Austin, Texas. This triennial gathering, made up of clergy and lay deputies and bishops, meets to discuss and pass legislation for the larger church. Amidst all the legislative hearings and debate, there is also time for worship and witnessing. On Sunday July 8, many of us gathered outside the convention hall for a vigil against gun violence. After that gathering, over 900 of us traveled in buses to the Huto Residential Center, outside of Austin, a federal detention center housing women immigrants – some of whom are still separated from their children.

We read about and discuss terms like “gun violence” and “immigration polices,” and such terms can have an abstract quality to them.  But all issues that are political have profound personal implications. At the vigil against gun violence, we listened to moving testimony from the family of Carmen Schentrup, one of the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School shootings in Parkland, Florida. Camen was an active member of her youth group at  St. Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church in Coral Springs, Florida. Her father spoke eloquently about God’s weeping over the violence that took his daughter’s life, and about our call to end such violence.You can read more about the Schentrups and their witness here.

Then, at the detention center, though we were somewhat far off from the facility, we could make out the hands of women in the center, waving to us with hands and cloths, expressing gratitude for our solidarity with them You can read more about the public witness at the detention center here

We know that when any issue or policy is given a human face, we are forced to move beyond the abstract, and to consider the personal consequences of policy decisions. I was humbled by the witness of the Schentrup family, who though still in the midst of profound grief, are calling Christians  to hear the words of the prophets and of Jesus, and to lay down our swords and spears. And I was moved by the silent witness of women waving their hands, reminding me of my call to see beyond policy debates to the persons who are directly affected by the decisions we make and the votes we cast. All political decisions have profound personal implications. Our civic responsibility as citizens should aways be informed by the ethics of our faith. Perhaps the words of Carmen’s father, Philip Schentrup, are the best way to end this letter:

“God gave us free will, the ability to do good, to be complacent, to inflict harm. God gave us the prophets, his son and the Holy Spirit to show us the way. God wants us all to live into his path of love and kindness. I realized that God’s plan was simple. He gave us the ability to choose to love and to care for one another, and he taught us how to do it. Evil and violence happen in this world because we allow it, not because God allows it. We suffer violence because we collectively allow it. God is waiting for us to choose to make the world he wants.”

Faithfully,

Tom

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”       Mark: 1:35

Dear Friends,

More than once in the gospels, we are told that Jesus went away to a quiet  and deserted place to pray.

This week, I was fortunate enough to spend two days on retreat at Emery House, a retreat center of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in West Newbury.  It is certainly not a deserted place.  I had the opportunity to meet with one of the monks there for conversation, and other monks and guests were in residence. But it was a quiet place, as it was a silent retreat. This meant not only refraining from conversation with other guests and monks (all the meals are taken in silence) but also stepping back from the many other conversations that occupy much of my mind during the day. To step back from the 24 hour newsfeeds, the emails, and all that the internet has to offer was, I admit, a challenge but also a great blessing.

To choose to step away from all of that is not a process of putting one’s head in the sand, but rather an opportunity to listen more closely to the most important conversation of any one of our lives -the conversation that God is having with us. Two days seemed hardly enough to remind me of the vital importance of that conversation, as I seek to address the challenges that confront our communities, our nation in this time, and the world. But oh, it was a start!

The theologian Karl Barth once wrote that we should read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. That is good advice. But every once in awhile, it is ok to put down the newspaper, and engage more deeply in the conversation that God is having with us those quiet places. In the silence, we discover that such places are anything but deserted. They are filled with the presence of God.

Faithfully,

Tom

PS – Retreats such as the one I was on are by no means limited to clergy. If you would like to learn more about retreat opportunities, either at Emery House or at the brothers’ monastery in Cambridge, please speak to me.

The Westtown, NY, Presbyterian Church, my grandparents’ church

Dear Friends,

Back in the day when Sunday Schools presented awards for perfect attendance, and my family was on vacation, my mother would encourage me to approach  the minister of a church we were visiting. I would  then ask him – and it was always a “him” back then – to sign a worship bulletin, which I would then bring back to my home church as “proof” that I had indeed gone to church that Sunday.

As you go about your summer sojourns, I encourage you to bring back a bulletin from places where you worship. No, I will not be checking up on you for any perfect attendance award. But it can be fun and informative  to see how other communities worship. We’ll have a bulletin board set up so you can post your bulletins there – and add any comments you wish.

Perfect attendance – implicit in those words is a goal to achieve, and perhaps even a bit of judgment if one fails. But what if we describe our attendance at church in another way – as faithful attending.  Attending to what is important and vital in our lives is not about winning awards but rather about paying attention to what is essential, to what nourishes us, and to what God desires. Consistent participation in the liturgy of God’s people,  wherever those people are gathered, is a way of paying attention.

So let us know where you have worshiped this summer. And if you cannot join us at St. John’s on a summer Sunday, there are still ways to participate. For most services, sermons will now be posted on the website in the week following (click on the Sermons link on the menu on the left hand side of the homepage). You can see the readings for each upcoming Sunday in News and Notes, and now you also can see a copy of the upcoming bulletin in that same section of News and Notes.

Thank you for all the ways in which you attend to the liturgy of our lives.

Faithfully,

Tom