Farewell to Vaughn Vigil

With a mixture of sadness and gratitude, we note that our deacon, The Rev. Vaughn Vigil, will take his leave from us in July, to be reassigned by the bishop.  His last Sunday with us will be July 1.

Vaughn has been a much-loved presence among us, most visibly at Sunday services and Liturgy and Living, and also in the delivery of pastoral care and the advancement of our justice ministries.  He brought biblical scholarship, a deep and compassionate understanding of the struggles of marginalized persons, and an openness of heart that have enriched us all.  We pray that he will long continue to serve in our diocese, and know that he will continue to advance the Kingdom of God through the use of his many gifts.

Please be sure to join us at a festive coffee hour after the 9:30 service on Sunday, July 1, to thank Vaughn personally for his service.

Walking the Green Talk - June 2018

By Guy Hollyday

The Earth’s human population is now 7.6 billion and still increasing. (How much is a Billion?) This is resulting in an enormous demand for essentials like food, clothing and shelter and for non-essentials like autos and airplanes, TVs, cell phones and I-pods, beer, ice cream and candy. This demand, in turn, is exhausting materials used to make these things possible, economical, or pleasurable—like coal and gas and metals and wood and fabrics. And our consumption produces ever more harmful amounts of refuse and pollutants on land, in the air, and in our waters.

You and I can do little about population growth, but we can do something about consumption and pollution. Water, for instance. To conserve energy (read coal and gas), we can turn down the temperature setting on our water heaters and install individual water heaters in the kitchen and bathroom. We can wash our hands and dishes with cold water—even in winter. With these chores and with brushing our teeth, we must see just how often and quickly we can turn the faucet off. We must take fewer and shorter showers and baths, put a brick in the water jacket of the toilet. Put up rain barrels and make rain gardens so that we don’t need to run the water outside.There are many other places where we can make a difference, but Water is a good place to start.

Guy Hollyday

Look Back: Power52 Foundation presentation at Redeemer

Through Dick Williams’s recent work with MEEP (Maryland Episcopal Environmental Partners), he became introduced to an initiative being considered by some of largest electric users in the Diocese (the “Group”). 

Barbara Cates, Dick and Grey+ attended a presentation to the Group on June 5th by a co-founder and a vice president of Power52 Foundation and Power52 Energy Services (sister companies), and by a Redeemer parishioner on behalf of MEEP.  The related companies organize and pay for workforce development training for solar Photo-Voltaic (PV) systems, and develop solar PV fields for electric power users.  Power52 was founded shortly after the Freddy Gray riots, but a co-founder has  prior experience in the renewable energy business.

Power52’s leaders have proposed that the Group commit to buying up to 90% of typical, annual electricity demand each from a solar PV farm to be built in Howard County.  Due to the purchasing power of the larger among the Group, Memorial would get a lower rate per kilowatt hour than we are currently paying for 100% renewable wind plus BGE charges for transmission and delivery.  A longer-term commitment is necessary for the “economics” of the deal.  Any “overage” in demand, such as a string of hot summer days, not available from the solar PV farm would be met by Memorial’s current renewable (wind) contract with Constellation, or other in the future.

The big bonus is that Power52 is training 3 at-risk employment groups—Veterans, returning citizens and high school dropouts—in solar PV systems design, construction and maintenance.  Graduates of the 13-week training program, with certificates in hand, have been proven to be imminently employable.  The average graduation rate is 87.5% among 82 Baltimore City residents in previous classes taught by Living Classrooms’ Workforce Development Team, accredited by both the NCCER and OSHA programs.  The current class numbers 40.

Each entity of the Group has been asked to sign a Letter of Intent (LOI) so that the solar PV field developer, Power52 Energy Services, can attract financiers/owners with better prospects for a deal.  The process can run four to six months.

At the June 18th Vestry meeting, Grey presented the Power52 program.  A motion to enter into a LOI, the next step, was approved unanimously.  The LOI is not binding, and no contract would be executed until an acceptable deal is worked out according to preliminary terms suggested to the Group, and approved by our Vestry.

Solar PV fields have or are being constructed under this program for Living Classrooms Foundation, the Baltimore City Government, the Baltimore City Public Schools, Christ Church Harbor Apartments and the Columbia Association, among others.

Pride Events - 2018

Pride events:

The Pride parade is on Saturday, June 16 starting at 1pm.  Faith Communities of Baltimore with Pride will be marching again this year and we would love to have some Memorial folks in the group again! The parade will start at Charles and E. 33rd Street and proceed down Charles to E. 23rd Street (a map of the route is at http://baltimorepride.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Parade_1.pdf).  We are still waiting to hear the specific gathering time/place.

Festival:

Faith Communities of Baltimore with Pride will have a combined tent again at the festival in Druid Hill Park (Sunday, June 17 from 11-5) and are looking for help staffing it (there are tables with flyers and other information from the various places of worship).

If you can take part on either Saturday or Sunday, let Dave Hansen (hansendavid743@gmail.com) or Erin Kelly (victorianlibrarian@gmail.com) know and we can get you more details as they are available.

The view from Bolton Street

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” 1 Samuel 8:5

In the Episcopal tradition, we use something called the ‘Revised Common Lectionary’ to guide the readings we use on Sunday mornings.  It is a three-year rotating set of readings. After Trinity Sunday we have the choice of two ‘tracks’ or selections of Old Testament readings. One track follows a particular story, and the other reflects the messages of the New Testament epistles and the Gospel readings.

This summer, we have the entirety of the story of David. From the birth of the prophet Samuel to the calling of the Israelites for a king to rule over them to King David’s death and Solomon’s “eulogy” at his funeral. These are important stories for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and often stories that we misinterpret in our own tradition when we talk about David, about kings in general, and about the failures of David. We like to imagine that we would never want a king like David, or that we would be jealous, covetous, or angry, like David.

In fact, particularly as Americans we have an aversion to kings and lords. So how do we, as 21st-century Christians, make sense of Scripture that proclaims kings, that names Jesus as Lord? Can we still think of Jesus as King of Kings? Or is there too much patriarchy, too much baggage, are those terms too loaded for us to make sense of today. All of us will have our own answers to these questions —  but I do hope we can be together in the questioning. 

This summer we will dig into the story of David and see how it relates to our own story. In this Sunday’s reading the people ask God for something God doesn’t really want to give them, a king, and they demand it anyway. Yet, out of that, God makes a good thing. And a surprising thing.

What good things, surprising things has God done with your own stubbornness? And how can we look at the things we are embarrassed or ashamed of, the things that we perhaps would have done differently — and ask God to make a Good thing out of that, too?

For more on David and “Good Things” —  see you in church! 

Green Team: MREMS Pollinator Garden update

Update on the Pollinator/Garden Classroom project at Mount Royal.

Elementary Art Club students designing garden stepping stones in the MICA Ceramics Department under the supervision of Professor Mat Karas.  The dozen 12”x12” stones are now being kiln-fired slowly due to their thickness—about 1-1/2 in.

Design

Alfredo instructing the MREMS students

It's a Lobster.... a Rock Lobster

Who's that?

That's right- Memorial's very own Mary Anne Wells designed one of the stepping stones!

Stones

MICA professors helped with the design and construction of the stones.

Boundary Block Party - June 14

June 14th — meet at Memorial at between 10:30 and 11:30 am 

The Boundary Block Party is an annual event to connect and celebrate Central West Baltimore across the boundaries of race, class and neighborhoods.  June 16. Pennsylvania Triangle Park, Pennsylvania Ave. & Presstman St.  Free. 410-728-1199. For the past 11 years, Jubilee Arts and local advocacy group No Boundaries Coalition have thrown this annual block party to bring together Central West Baltimore residents across boundaries of race, class, and neighborhood. Celebrate the strength of the West Baltimore community with family-friendly art activities, a resource fair, fresh produce, and live performances by youth dance program Dynamic Force and the Twilighters Marching Band.

Memorial will be walking over from Bolton Hill with friends and neighbors on Saturday Morning -so join us for a ‘pre-party’ on the Church steps at 10:30 am (bring something to share!) or meet us in Triangle Park anytime after noon.

-- 

Lenten Pilgrimage - 2019

Pilgrimage to Montgomery, Alabama – Lent, 2019

Fr. Grey and the wardens, together with Memorial’s Justice Committee, are planning a unique beginning to our season of Lent next year.  Together with our friends at St. Katherine of Alexandria, we will have the opportunity to visit the newly opened Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, Alabama, and to walk the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration opened in April, and is located on a site where enslaved people were once warehoused.  To quote from its website, it “employs unique technology to dramatize the enslavement of African Americans, the evolution of racial terror lynchings, legalized racial segregation and racial hierarchy in America.”

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice “is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence.”  It “was conceived with the hope of creating a sober, meaningful site where people can gather and reflect on America’s history of racial inequality.”  At its opening, The New York Times headline read, “A Lynching Memorial is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/us/lynching-memorial-alabama.html

For more information on The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, please visit:

https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial

In Selma, we will walk the bridge that bears the name of a Confederate general and reputed grand dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.  On March 7, 1965, some 600 peaceful protesters crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on foot, protesting thwarted black voter registration, and planning to take their message to Governor George Wallace in Montgomery.  As they crossed the bridge leading out of Selma, they were violently attacked by helmeted state troopers, in patrol cars and on horseback.  Though tear-gassed and beaten, the protesters remained nonviolent. The day became known as, “Bloody Sunday.”  It was a watershed event leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

We envision a contemplative and educational pilgrimage for the start of a holy and penitential season. Please stay tuned for details in the coming weeks and months.  Please direct any questions to Fr. Grey, or to Bill Roberts, Junior Warden.

Trinity Sunday - getting the kids involved

This past Sunday, if you were in church, you may have noticed a much...younger tone was set. Kids helped out as welcomers outside the church, served as lay readers, and, as the picture below attests, got intimately involved with the Eucharistic Prayer. It was different; it was mostly adorable; it was effective in keeping the kids involved.

As we explore the idea of youth engagement in church and how to make the service accessible for our kids while not exasperating the adults (too much), experiments like this will be more likely to happen. As any parent will tell you - give the kids something to do , because idle hands will find something to do you would prefer didn't happen. If you have suggestions, or would like to help, your thoughts are MORE than welcome. You don't need to have children, or even much experience with kids, to lend valuable insight into this process. What's working, what's not working, and what we haven't even considered that might be great.

Hats off to all of our kids, who read with aplumb, and stayed focused, and got involved. Here's to many more Sundays with many, many kids.

BUILD Accountability Session - June 6 - 125 N. Hilton St. 21229 @ 6:30 pm

BUILD Accountability Session

Wednesday June 6th at 6:30pm

at the Kingdom Life Center

125 N Hilton St, Baltimore, MD 21229

BUILD will be holding the first of its accountability sessions Wednesday June 6th 6:30pm

at the Kingdom Life Center, 125 N Hilton St, Baltimore, MD 21229 with Police Commissioner DeSousa.

The purpose of the meeting is to have the police commissioner report on the implementation of the consent decree to a large number of citizens. Memorial committed to send 12 people, but the more the better. For more information, contact Steve Howard stevehoward.howard@gmail.com

preferred attire: blue T-shirts.