Linden Park Holiday Party

Linden Park Holiday Party

At 3 pm on Sunday, December 16, we'll be celebrating our annual Holiday Party over at Linden Park.

The last two years, we've done a light luncheon with mostly appetizers and desserts, but this year we are returning to more of a meal. Have a favorite holiday meal recipe? Do you make a mean turkey, or ham, or duck!? Are your mashed potatoes decadent? We need volunteers to donate any and all holiday treats for the party.

On the day of we will need volunteers to help transport and set up over at Linden Park, and to stay and party with the residents. Carols and stories will make up the bulk of the day’s entertainment, so if you like to sing, or tell a story, please sign up!

We have a Signup Genius page now going: click here to visit it and sign up to make a treat for the party.

If you are interested in volunteering, either making something, attending the party, or both, please contact Hannah Hutchens by December 9, which will allow us to plan out how to fill any gaps which might exist in the menu.

The Music Hall - November 2018

Advent stresses me out. 

You’re laughing and thinking, yeah, me too: shopping, cleaning the house, decorating, and all of the other pre-celebration hassle.  Advent stresses me out musically, but not because of the holiday concerts and extra services (on the contrary, special services are quite a delight.)  The reason is this: the vast majority of “holiday repertoire” is actually “Christmas repertoire.”  The choral canon is over-eager to skip the waiting and get right to the manger, the festivities, and the presents.  It makes searching out enough quality music for the four Sundays of Advent a bit frustrating.

Advent has many layers.  For me, waiting for the arrival of December 25th is a combination of patience, reflection, questioning, doubt, and more.  It is a small number of composers that seem to know how to tackle the uncertainty and the pensiveness of the Advent season.  Yet there is joy in the wait.

After months of searching, my Advent list of repertoire is nearly complete for this year, and I am looking forward to a broad set of offerings.  The composers’ voices are German, English or American; medieval through contemporary; male and female; and even Christian and Jewish.  I hope it will be an Advent representative of our diversity at Memorial.

The View from Bolton Street

Giving Thanks

Last night I, along with a good number of BUILD clergy, the Western District commander, the Mayor and a large group of community members gathered at the corner of Lanvale and McKean, the location where five year old Amy Hayes was shot in front of her grandmothers house walking back from the corner store.  We gathered as a united community to grieve, lament and commit ourselves to finding a better way forward. 

It was a sobering reminder of the vast disparities in this city we call home. Amy will likely recover physically, but the conditions that led to this incident remain unchanged on that corner and in neighborhood around the city. And Amy Hayes’ family and friends were not going to let any of us off the hook. The consistent refrains were: “where were you all last week?” “We haven’t seen this many police since Freddie Gray” and of course “we don’t need walks we need jobs, Mayor!” 

And they weren’t wrong. In fact there was another murder around the corner earlier in the day that no one was spilling many tears or ink over. We arrived to pray but we left having been preached to, and perhaps having our own hearts turned by some unlikely voices.

So this Thanksgiving I am thankful to live on a safe street where my kids can walk to the park by themselves without me worrying about them being shot. And I am thankful that this city still has a strong moral core, and that people from all walks of life will still show up to say “no more.” 

And I am also thankful to have a community here at Memorial and in the neighborhood around us that always rises to the challenge. And I have no doubt that we will be able to turn the abundance we enjoy into hope and opportunity for our broader community. 

Family Movie Night - The Polar Express

At 7 pm on Friday, November 30, on the eve of December, and Advent, we will gather in cozy Farnham Hall to watch The Polar Express.

A super fun holiday film, starring the voices of Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari (those old Bosom Buddies) this story of a Lonely Boy who embarks on a train to the North Pole is sure to enchant all ages.

Fresh popped popcorn and beverages will be provided. We hope to see you there!

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A call for Acolytes

Hello,

During this stewardship season, I am asking for you to consider the Memorial Acolyte program as a way to give of your time and talent. I have attached the Acolyte manual in order to give you an idea of what it means to be an Acolyte at Memorial. Some of you are already involved and have asked for training opportunities. Some have asked to become involved, and some I am inviting to consider for the first time. If you know of others that might be interested, please do forward this email.  As a way to get us started, I have created a poll to find out when might be a good time for us to gather to begin the training.

Please provide your and/or your child's availability to begin or renew your commitment to learn more about the Acolyte Corps by going to this link no later than Tuesday, November 27. Acolyte Training Scheduling 

Please click ALL times you are available and hold those times until you receive my update email on Wednesday. I will not conduct training on all dates but will select the top 2 or 3 based on your responses.

Questions? Please email me or find me in church! (I'll likely be one of the ones at the altar 😉)

Time is of the essence as we have had some of our Acolytes moving out of the program recently. 

Fr. Grey and I appreciate your prayerful consideration!

In Christ,

Alice Peake

BUILD Action with Delegate Maggie McIntosh, December 4

We are having an action on Tuesday night Dec 4th 6pm (please arrive and be seated by 5) 
at Academy for College and Career Exploration (ACCE) High School 1300 west 36th street.  
Maggie McIntosh is confirmed.  We are inviting the rest of the legislators that represent Baltimore City.  

This is a power meeting and reception - with approximately 50 BUILD leaders.  
Purpose of action is to have BUILD and the legislators publicly commit to Kirwan as our top legislative priority in 2019 and that we will fight together to win. 

The core of the meeting is a teach-in where Maggie Mcintosh will teach us how she anticipates things rolling out  - when will the report drop? When will legislation be introduced? Will funding and policy be in the same bill or separate? etc.

After she teaches, we will make our commitments to each other

Then we will have a reception - food/drink - where build leaders mix and mingle with legislators where they can introduce themselves, put a face with a name, and ask about other legislative priorities besides kirwan.

Please RSVP to elizabeth@buildiaf.orgrjburgin@gmail.comjufrye@yahoo.comrahcrew@gmail.com

Thank You!

The View from Bolton Street

The View from the outskirts of BWI Airport: A Report from the Interim Bodies Meeting of The Episcopal Church

The last few days your Rector has been dutifully taking his part in the councils of the church, by serving as a member of the Standing Commission for World Mission, one of many ‘interim bodies’ that continue on the work of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church during the ‘triennium’ - the three year period between General Convention meetings. The President of the House of Deputies, the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, jokingly referred to this meeting as the culmination of thousands and thousands of spread sheets.  And while the joke was well received, it was true!  The bureaucracy of the Church had worked very hard with names and dates and backgrounds, data points in a never ending stream of excel spreadsheets to produce this meeting; a gathering of close to 200 Episcopalians, lay and religious, priests and deacons, and even a few bishops, to do the work of the Church for the next three years. But it was an amazing gathering of Christians!  The full diversity of the Church was on display, and the fervor and excitement of the gathered body was palpable by all in attendance.

I won’t go into too many details, as there is much work to be done, but I can say that we all recognize we are part of a two million person denomination in the Episcopal Church and part of an even larger 165M Anglican Communion and the work we do gathered together informs and connects with all of that. 

As Secretary for the Standing Commission on World Mission, it is my duty to keep records of the work of the group, keep us on task, and report out to the broader church about where we see Jesus calling the Episcopal Church in our work in the wider world going forward.  It is inspiring and taxing work, but also an important reminder that we don’t do this work alone.  We may be 100 or so on Sunday morning, but we are one small part of the Body of Christ working in the world - and we trust that the other parts are doing the same Godly inspired work we are, even if it looks and sounds different than what we do.

This is, perhaps, the most important takeaway for me personally from these last few days.  Part of being a Christian is recognizing that we are part of something much greater than the sum of what the Church is doing. We are, as the Blues Brothers said ‘on a Mission from God’ - and we don’t understand even a little bit what that mission is. We can only trust that the work we do is part of that broader plan and will somehow make sense in the end.

This means we also have to have the humility and patience to trust that other Christians, other Episcopalians, other Anglicans are also part of that broader plan and even if we don’t agree with them on everything, or even most things, we are able to see that Jesus may be working through them just as much as Jesus is working through us.  Further, that as Christians we can find unlikely partners in the work of the Gospel - ecumenical and interreligious partners - who may not share our politics but do share our desire to make the world better.   

It is my hope that that small bit of inspiration can filter out from this rather bureacratic gathering  not only to Memorial,but to the whole Episcopal Church - and together we can begin to make the Kingdom of God a little more real.

Green Team - Sequestering Carbon Dioxide

Sequestering CO2 – Plant Trees!

Last Saturday afternoon, a beautiful Fall day, 5 climate stewards gathered for a tree planting event in the southerly end of Wyman Park.

Organized by Memorial Episcopal and initiated by its Creation Care team members Guy Hollyday and Dick Williams, a Red Maple, an American Beech and a Dogwood were planted, mulched, staked against high winds, then watered.

As the planting was sponsored by a church on public lands, we qualified for all-in funding by the MD/DE Lutheran Synod’s “Reformation 500 Tree Project”.  The opportunity was made known to Dick by Bernadette Roche, MEEP (Maryland Episcopal Environmental Partners) co-lead.

The 3 trees and supplies were donated by the Synod under its challenge to plant 500 trees, enabled by grant funding.  Over a two-year stretch, the program has afforded the planting of nearly 600 trees in the two states.

Other planting party members were Kristen McDaniel, Graham Eschbacher and Tom McGilloway, a landscape architect with Mahan Rykiel Associates.

Wonder how much carbon a single tree might sequester?  The U.S. Energy Administration offers this: “Plant, say, one silver maple today, and in 25 years—assuming it survives—it will have sequestered about 400 pounds of carbon dioxide.”  Driving a small car that gets 40 mpg 1,400 miles/mo. will emit about 5 pounds of CO2 per year .  Do the math!  Then plant a tree.

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Memorial Book Club - November 27

First notes, the January meeting has been confirmed for January 15.  Alex contacted the author who is local to Baltimore and she is able to and delighted to attend our discussion on January 15.  

A reminder that the November meeting is on 11/27.  If you are planning on attending dinner, please let me know by 11/16.   Dinner will be at the Dizz at 5:45.  

The November meeting date is 11/27 at 7:30 in the Church Library 

For November meeting the selection is  Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, by Liza Mundy (Recommended by Tiz)

Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.  

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