The View from Bolton Street
Wednesday Ecumenical Lenten Series kicks off
Last Wednesday, February 14th, Ash Wednesday, Valentine's Day, the 2018 West Baltimore Ecumenical Lenten Series began at Memorial. A vibrant crowd of around 100 people braved the slightly less than lovely weather to listen to Rev. Dr. Bill Calhoun of Trinity Baptist preach. Dr. William Sydnor of Florida Avenue Baptist Church, in Washington D.C. made our new organ sound magnificent and Ms. Sarah Edwards of New Shiloh and Enon Baptist Churches sang the Rendition.
Dr. Calhoun invited us all to Wonder and Wander in the Way - a reminder that we are not on this journey alone. A topical, occasionally humorous, and much needed sermon set the tone for the series and there were many cries of "Amen!" from the congregation.
This week Rev. Dr. Douglas E. Summers of Providence Baptist Church was our preacher. His message was "Pathways to Pursue". Working as a follow up to last week's wondering and wandering, Dr. Summers suggested some worthwhile pathways to help us on the way, and encouraged all to be at peace with getting lost now and then. Sometimes you have to lose yourself, to find the way.
Dr. Sydnor again was our Organist and Music Director, and Rodney Merrick of Florida Avenue Baptist made the trek from Washington to share some truly beautiful music at the Rendition.
After the services the assembled throngs enjoyed a wonderful meal arranged by Marjorie Forster. There were many volunteers there to make these events work and we thank all of them. It was so successful we increased our numbers by more than 50% in the second week. So if you have any inclination to help out with the luncheon, please do contact Marjorie!
The photos below will hopefully give a good idea of the day, and should encourage all who can to join us for a much needed spiritual break in the middle of the week.
Sunday Night Live!
Sunday, February 25 at 5:30 pm in Upper Farnham Hall
Festivities should end around 8 pm
Sunday Night Live! is a fun, lively gathering of teenagers and tweens that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. SNL usually happens at Brown Memorial, but due to the renovations in progress there, Memorial will be hosting in February and March.
This Sunday, the 25th, is the February meeting. All 5th to 12th graders are invited to join us for dinner and games and some good discussion about the world and our places in it. The group generally divides to discuss age appropriate topics, so all should truly feel welcome.
We hope you, or your children, will join us this Sunday in Upper Farnham Hall at 5:30 pm - the more the merrier.
Youth Education Leadership Training
Youth Education Leadership Training Workshop at Govans Presbyterian Church on York Road
Wednesdsay, February 21 6:30 - 8:30 pm
The program teaches:.
- A faith based program for youth on caring for Creation
- An emphasis on watershed literacy
- What faith tradition teaches about the sacredness of water
- How to be good caretakers of our environment
Participants will receive:
- Customized training of adult volunteers from the congregation on how to lead a Vacation Bible School or Sunday School progra or other youth education program relating to watershed stewardshi
- A materials list and training packet so that congregations can continue to train future adult volunteers as they need
Guest Preacher The Rev. Shivaun Wilkinson this Sunday
This Sunday Memorial is proud to welcome The Rev. Shivaun Wilkinson to our pulpit. Shivaun+ is an expert within the Episcopal Church at helping churches craft a culture that welcomes and engages all ages. She will be here specifically to help us figure out our Children's and Youth programming. We encourage all with kids, grand-kids, god-kids, friends who are children or who just know a kid, to come on Sunday and engage the conversation. We've made a start but there is still much work to be done, and it will take much focus and dedication from many hearts and hands to make it a success. Come be part of the start of that success this Sunday.
Black History Party with a Purpose
Join MRIA's Social Action Task Force for an afternoon of
conversation and profundity related to Black History topics
at 2018's first Party with a Purpose
Sunday, February 25, 2-5 pm at 1308 Bolton Street.
In celebration of this year's Black History Month, donations will go to two neighborhood groups: Brown Memorial Tutoring Program and Fresh at the Avenue (part of the No Boundaries Coalition).
Everyone is asked to please bring 1) wine or other beverage to share, 2) a donation ($10 suggested) that will go to the featured organizations, and 3) a reading, poem, or quote from a black author. There will be food provided and you are welcome to being your own tasty contribution to the table.
Cultural historian, music critic, and neighbor, Don Palmer, will kick off the event with a short talk. Attendees will then read their selection and ask listeners to guess who the author is. Reading selections will be available for those who don't bring one, but still want to participate.
To set the tone for the party, Don will curate a music playlist, and the featured organizations will be on hand to make short presentations.
The View from Bolton Street
“I invite you to a Holy Lent”
These words, from the invitation on Ash Wednesday, invite all of us into this peculiar season of the church year. Some of you are thinking “Lent already?” Others “Should I give up coffee or chocolate?” and others are thinking “What even IS Lent?” All good questions to be sure — but Lent is much more than giving something up or taking something on or a time to "be sad." Lent is a season of preparation, a season to prepare us to celebrate the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. And for our eventual resurrection in the last days.
For some that may mean a season of fasting and repentance for our individual and collective sins and trespasses. For others it may mean a slow walk back to church and to faith after a time away. And for some it may mean a time of celebration and rejoicing because the Kingdom of God is finally coming near. Lent is expressed very differently in different communities — depending on their own history, collective experience, and future path.
I invite you to reflect a bit on your own ,journey of faith. If Jesus were to come back tomorrow what would change in your life? Would you be called to repentance? To deeper prayer? To celebrate? To exercise more? This is a deeply personal question — and one that you may want to spend some time with. Perhaps your journey begins at a simpler place. What does it mean to be "resurrected"? What do I believe about Jesus?
These are good and faithful questions, worth exploring this Lent. Deacon Vaughn and our intern Bruno will be working through many of these issues during Liturgy and Living, and we will shortly be announcing an adult "seekers" class for those who would like to spend a little more time discovering (or rediscovering) their faith this season.
However you chose to mark this Lent, I hope you will find some time to move beyond physical acts of self-sacrifice, and move a little deeper into the spiritual and theological realm of "What do I believe?" and "What does that mean?"
Welcome to Lent.
Environmental Epiphany Wrap-up
Environmental Epiphanies live on in Lent
The arrival of Ash Wednesday and Lent mean that our Environmental Epiphany film series has come to a close. Different movies spoke to different people in ways that are difficult to predict. We shared a lot of great conversations over supper after each movie, and in families and at church and around the neighborhood. Sharon Krieger was “blown away” by Before the Flood, and wants to show all the movies at Breakfast Club. The Fisher-Griffith family is reevaluating its relationship with plastic. My husband Matthew, never motivated by the health benefits of organic food, sees the moral imperative of buying local and organic to protect and nourish the soil.
Some other epiphanies for us from watching the films:
The evidence in Chasing Ice of climate change causing glaciers to melt is incontrovertible – and the film is spectacularly beautiful. This is probably the best film to watch with your climate-skeptic relatives.
Before the Flood alerted us to harm caused by a ubiquitous ingredient in processed foods and household products: palm oil, the demand for which is driving deforestation in Indonesia. A growing list of companies has committed to using only sustainably sourced palm oil. We are glad to note that Ferrero, which makes the Nutella we serve at coffee hour, is one of them. So read the ingredients before you buy, and then consult the list.
Another epiphany from Before the Flood: eating lower on the food chain, especially avoiding beef, is one of the best ways to reduce our carbon footprint. Maybe that old Lenten custom of abstaining from meat can also help us save the planet.
A Plastic Ocean is devastating. Plastic never breaks down; it only breaks up into a million pieces that foul our oceans and kill wildlife. How about giving up single use plastic for Lent? That’s a pretty huge challenge: plastic bags, take-out dishes, plastic utensils, water bottles, plastic wrap, even straws at what we thought were classy restaurants. So maybe we pick one item, or one week or one day. Some alternatives: bring your own carryout containers; carry a reusable water bottle or mug; use wax paper or wax paper bags from snack or cereal boxes; invest in etee reusable waxed cloth as an alternative to plastic wrap.
Styrofoam (more accurately expanded polystyrene foam) is particularly pernicious. It’s a magnet for toxins, breaks up easily and quickly, and is ingested by wildlife, and the toxins bioaccumulate. We have opportunities now to ban Styrofoam both in Baltimore City and in Maryland. Call or write your legislators and City Council representative to support the ban.
An Inconvenient Sequel gave us renewed hope that we can be like Al Gore, inconvenient prophetic voices picking ourselves up from defeat and bringing the message that we need to do everything we can to save this one planet that God created. And we can be part of the renewable energy revolution: by signing on for 100% windpower through Groundswell, (giving Memorial a modest referral fee); or by installing solar panels, as Pam and Guy have; or by investing in community solar. And join Bishop Sutton in supporting Maryland legislation to increase the percentage of renewables in our electricity supply.
Dirt! The Movie has particular resonance for us on Ash Wednesday, when we are reminded that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Dust, dirt, soil, all full of living organisms , too often trapped under asphalt, choked with pesticides, overloaded with fertilizers that run off and choke the Chesapeake. We need to liberate and replenish our soil by tearing up pavement, opening up more tree pits, composting, and growing and eating real food.
Our suppers after the movies gave us a laboratory for trying out a mostly reusable approach to hospitality at Memorial. We used real silverware, real ceramic bowls for soup, and mugs and glasses for tea and water. A bussing station with a large tub of hot water for bowls and a small bin for silverware made cleanup relatively easy. Yes, we did use paper plates and napkins, and a few paper cups where we didn’t have enough glasses, but we created a lot less waste than usual. Now the question is: can Memorial give up plasticware for Lent?
Thank you to everyone who made this series possible: Vaughn Vigil, our projectioner; Olivia Lewis and Martha Donovan for contributing delicious soups; Brinley Fisher and Nampoina Randrianavelo, our standby childcare providers; Pam Fleming and Guy Hollyday, who stayed to help clean up every week; my husband Matthew Stremba, who composted our food waste; and especially Dick Williams, my co-conspirator in planning, setting up and cleaning up.
If you missed out on seeing the films in the comfort of Upper Farnham Hall, no worries. We own all five movies on DVD, so they can be borrowed from the Church Office. And they are all available at the Enoch Pratt Library’s central branch (once it reopens next week!) Borrow a DVD, and invite friends or neighbors over to watch a movie and start a conversation. You might also want to consider some of the movies we didn’t choose to show, but can still recommend:
Chasing Coral, 2017, 93 min, vanishing coral and ocean ecosystems
From the Ashes, 2017, 81 min, coal industry
The Last Mountain, 2011, 1:35; found at Pratt, Mountaintop removal
Gasland, 2010, 1:45 (fracking)
Gasland Part II, 2013, 2:05 (more fracking)
Beautiful Swimmers Revisited, MPT, 2016, 57 min, Chesapeake
City of Trees, 2015, 76 min, tree planting in DC
Finally, a look ahead to next year. We think we’ve found a good format (movie in UFH, followed by supper discussion) at the right time (Saturdays at 5 pm) in the right season for a film series. Maybe next year we could have an Education Epiphany? Or a Racial Epiphany? Or more broadly a Justice Epiphany series? It’s a great way to spark conversation and community and change.
Liturgy & Living for Lent 2018
Sundays at 12:00 noon in Upper Farnham Hall
Lent is a time to deepen our connection with God.
Just as Jesus had 40 days of initiation in the desert Christians use the 40 days of Lent to practice the Spiritual Disciplines.
Liturgy and Living at Memorial will explore the “How To” of those disciplines for the first 3 Sundays of Lent
During the Second 3 Sundays we will explore the ultimate questions of Christianity.
2/18/2018 THE INWARD DISCIPLINES
- Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, Study
2/25/2018 THE OUTWARD DISCIPLINES
- Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, Service
3/4/2018 THE CORPORATE DISCIPLINES
- Confession, Worship, Guidance, Celebration
3/11/2018 WHY DID JESUS HAVE TO DIE ON THE CROSS?
3/18/2018IF JESUS PAID THE RANSOM FOR OUR SINS DOES THAT MEAN WE ALL GET
OFF SCOTT FREE?
3/25/2018 IS THERE REALLY A RESURRECTION?
A Thank You from The Maggianos
From the Rector:
As Monica, Isabella, Nicolas, and I return from our hiatus, I want to offer an expression of gratitude to our senior warden, Beth Casey, our departing and incoming junior wardens, Monty Howard and Bill Roberts, the clergy who have stepped in while I was out — Vaughn, Ted, Ken, and Bradley, Edward and Erin and the worship committee, and to Amy, and Nampoina and to all the parents that have made Sunday school happen in my absence. As well as Bruno for his work in keeping our Bible study and Liturgy and Living programs going.
I can’t possibly thank everyone here — but thanks also to all who brought food, sent cards, came to the service, or prayed for us over the last month. We still covet your prayers, but are very happy to be back in your midst as we enter into Lent.
Thanks to all of you. You continue to prove what Memorial is all about and why this is a special community that truly can do anything it puts it mind and heart to.
James Blue at Roland Park Country School
Join James Blue, Senior Content and Special Projects Producer for PBS NewsHour and late of Memorial Episcopal, as he shares his insight and experience during a lecture entitled, "The Character is the the Details: Over 25 Years of Telling Stories Around the World."
The Anne Healy Chair of English Language and Literature Lecture is a free event, March 22, 2018 at 7 pm at Roland Park Country School. You must RSVP, however, to attend.
RSVP by calling 410 323 5501