The View from Bolton Street
Through Their Eyes
A Reflection by the Senior Warden
Some children see him Lily white
The baby Jesus born this night
Some children see him lily white
With tresses soft and fair
Some children see him bronzed and brown
The Lord of heaven to Earth come down
Some children see him bronzed and brown
With dark and heavy hair
These are the first 2 verses of one of my favorite Christmas song composed by Alfred Burt and recorded by the late Al Jarreau, the version I like most. The lyrics reflect how little children of different backgrounds and skin hue, see God through their own eyes. I love this song! It reminds me of so many things, but mostly reminds me how pure are the hearts of children and how we see things through our eyes.
Months ago, well before COVID-19 and all things pandemic, I started attending the weekly Centering Prayer at the Cathedral (big shout out to Mary Clawsey who regularly attended too!) with my friend and colleague Karen. Karen, so you know, is a “cradle” Episcopalian who has spent the last 20 years distancing herself from her traditional Episcopalian upbringing to a more fluid spiritual awareness. I invited Karen, not my idea, but I believe the Spirit of God, to join me for that afternoons centering prayer. To my surprise, Karen said yes and off we went.
At our first time attending, Bishop Sutton was leading and he began by talking about a super hero Marvel movie, which had just come out. Little did he know Karen was an avid Marvel fan and his words had her hooked. She later said, it was the Bishop’s sharing about the movie and how it represented so much of what we see in the world, which drew Karen to come back, week after week. Sharing that short introduction about the movie showed her that someone was able to see through her eyes, and understand her perspective about life. The one small movie mention opened her heart to more.
As Memorial continues to move forward with dismantling symbols of its past, and America moves to find racial justice, I challenge us to use this week to see through the eyes of someone that doesn’t look like you. Let’s continue to open our hearts to more.
The children in each different place
Will see the baby Jesus' face
Like theirs but bright
With heavenly grace
And filled with holy light
Oh lay aside each earthly thing
And with thy heart as offering
Come worship now the infant king
'Tis love that's born tonight
Amen
School Supply Sign-up Genius
" Christ has no hands but our hands..."
- Annie Johnson Flint
As students and teachers return to school in the next few weeks, the pandemic makes the work of education harder than ever.
Memorial Episcopal and St. Katherine's are partnering with four local schools:
Eutaw-Marshburn Elementary,
Mount Royal Elementary/Middle,
Dorothy Height Elementary, and
Furman L. Templeton Elementary
to support learning at home. Our goal is to gather 100 school supply bags for the four institutions by August 28th!
E-Faith@8, 8/30
The Faith@8 group is continuing to meet during this time of social distancing. Join us for an informal, community led service with more questions than answers and an open spot for whoever appears. Just follow the Zoom link below!
Memorial Faith@8
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E-Church 9:30am, 8/30
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Pastoral Care in the Time of COVID
A reflection by the Junior Warden
COVID changed just about everything, and yet the exigencies of life go on just the same as before.
As most of you know, in addition to being your Junior Warden, I lead our Partners in Care ministry, a pastoral outreach that helps people in the Memorial community understand and manage their health, especially in the event of serious illness. So when I think about what COVID has changed, I think about how it has changed our access to and use of the health care system.
To be sure, our health care providers have responded heroically to the emergence of COVID-19. We have a number of them in our congregation, and I hope you’ve noticed their names on our parish prayer list, a link to which is included in each week’s email announcement of on-line worship services. Please join us in praying for their safety, and for God’s grace to guide their healing work.
It often feels like COVID has taken over the entire health universe. Yet, we still need health care for other reasons. People still get other illnesses. People still get older, and parts of our bodies wear out. Chronic illnesses still need to be managed. Accidents happen. Vaccines come due. The list of reasons to seek medical attention during this time of isolation is as long as it ever was. Yet some people are reluctant to go to a health care provider’s office or a clinic, fearing that doing so could bring exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19.
I hope no one reading this is delaying needed medical care out of concern that health care settings are unsafe, because doing so could have serious consequences. Delayed care often makes conditions harder to treat. If you have a concern about your health for which you would ordinarily seek care, it is best to reach out to your provider and discuss your options. Doctor’s offices and clinics are taking many precautions, including spacing appointments further apart to limit the number of people simultaneously in the clinic, requiring masks and social distancing, meticulous surface disinfection, and, often, telemedicine as an option. Rather than deciding on your own to delay care, please let the decision about whether and when to seek care be a joint one between you and your provider.
Even though Partners in Care cannot, in the age of COVID, be as hands-on as it used to be, we are still available to address concerns, and help think things through. We can still find ways to support you in communicating with your provider, and in carrying out your mutually agreed upon plan of care. We can still help keep you connected to care. We can still help you understand what providers tell you. A phone call, text or email to me, Fr. Grey, or the church office is all it takes to start a conversation with a member of the Partners in Care team.
Memorial has always been a place where people look out for one another. Partners in Care emerged from that tradition. But Partners in Care nurses are hardly the only ones in our congregation who provide support to help keep us all well. I hear about it all the time. A family is moving, and parishioners step up to provide meals, childcare, and sweat equity to help get the job done. Someone returns from the hospital, and folks run errands, take meals, or provide transportation. An older parishioner is showing signs of strain while trying to remain at home, and a team of folks emerges to keep a watchful eye and lend a hand. Often, there’s no formal committee at the root of these actions, just loving hearts with action on their minds.
The bedrock upon which these actions are laid is the fact that God has called us into a community of faith.
Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Out of our shared love and devotion of God, we come together to worship. Out of worshipping together in love and devotion, we come to love one another. Out of our love for one another, we respond when there is need. The economy of God’s love is limitless. It transcends the worldly – even a pandemic. It leads us to be God’s instruments in providing for one another’s needs.
I am so grateful to be part of a community of faith that lives the Word as this one does. Especially now.
As Fr. Grey says: Stay safe. Stay church.
E-Faith@8, 8/23
The Faith@8 group is continuing to meet during this time of social distancing. Join us for an informal, community led service with more questions than answers and an open spot for whoever appears. Just follow the Zoom link below!
Memorial Faith@8
Time: Sundays at 8:00AM Eastern
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E-Church 9:30am, 8/23
To join us, all you need to do is click on the link below. We will have the order of service up on the screen to follow along. We recognize that all of us have different levels of comfort with technology - we will do our best to help everyone do what they need to feel comfortable and participate!
Two tips for Zoom worship:
1) Let us see your face! If at all possible, please start a video feed so we can see each other face to face, even across distance.
2) Please mute yourself unless you have a speaking role in the service. And if you find you are muted, please don’t unmute yourself unless asked. However - even when you are muted, please do respond to the prayers and readings, as we are all worshipping together.
Join Zoom Meeting
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On Transfiguration
My favorite sermon I ever preached was on the Transfiguration and Elijah. I've preached similar versions of it over time, and it has gotten more poignant with the loss of first my Dad and then my Mom, but the basic idea is this.
Mt Tabor in the middle of a hot dry plain in the Galilee, Bethel in the middle of the Judean Desert and Yuma in the middle of the Arizona desert are not dissimilar places. Most importantly they are not a place you want to leave someone behind on their own.
When my dad met my mom he was 'taking a break' from college, bumming around the country, playing songs in redneck bars and trying to get as far away from his family as possible. He was best friends with my mom's then boyfriend (my "Uncle Jeff") and needed a place to crash for awhile. The timeline, of course, is a bit fuzzy, but my Dad was the third person to propose to my mom and the first she said yes to and part of that is because of a song he wrote called 'Yuma'.
The chorus of the song goes "I'll never leave you in Yuma, I wouldn't do that to my friend, but listen up honey, if you've got some money, I'll marry you in Gila Bend." Now if you've ever been to Yuma this song makes perfect sense. And if you've ever spent time at the Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend, al the more.
Jesus refused to leave Peter on Mt. Tabor. Elisha refused to leave Elijah at Bethel. My Dad refused to leave my Mom in Yuma.
Now I don't quite know how it happened. But somehow my Dad went from a homeless broke hippie with a guitar to a national recognized teacher of the year with two Master's Degrees and an almost finished PhD, a 40+ year teaching career and a big caring loving extended family. He was Transfigured. Became something else entirely - to me and to thousands of other people.
Jesus became someone else entirely on that Mountain. Elijah became someone else entirely when he was raised up out beyond the Jordan and carried up in the whirlwind to Heaven.
But that perhaps is not the surprising part. What is surprising is what happens to the rest of us. Because just as Jesus was transfigured so where Peter and James and John forever changed. Just as Elijah was transfigured so was Elisha forever changed in receiving a double portion of his spirit. Just as my dad was transfigured so were the rest of us, myself included, forever changed.
And the hardest part about being forever changed...is that you want to stay there. Peter wanted to stay on that mountain! to build three houses! When we experience a transfiguration moment, when we find ourselves close to someone or something special or cataclysmic we never want to let it go. We want to celebrate it forever.
Friends, you've got to let it go.
You've got to be willing to go From Mt. Tabor to Jerusalem, From Across the Jordan back to the land of promise, to go from Yuma to Gila Bend . We've got to go tell the story. It is a joy to spend my life and ministry amongst you all. I hope it is a joy for you all to be here with us (even remotely as we are forced to be today). But we've got to go out and tell the story. Invite others to see what is transpiring or transfiguring at Memorial.
To let people know that the Church really does look different in the 21st century, and Memorial Episcopal Church is on the forefront of it. Christ is the same, yesterday today and forever, but we are forever changed by our encounters with Him and with each other.
See you in September, rest well this August. Stay safe, Stay Church.
Rev Grey
E-Faith@8, 8/9
The Faith@8 group is continuing to meet during this time of social distancing. Join us for an informal, community led service with more questions than answers and an open spot for whoever appears. Just follow the Zoom link below!
Memorial Faith@8
Time: Sundays at 8:00AM Eastern
Join Zoom Meeting here: https://zoom.us/j/6394994372
Meeting ID: 639 499 4372
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Feast of the Transfiguration
August 6th marks the Feast of the Transfiguration, a Principal Feast of the church where we commemorate Christ’s transfiguration before Peter, James and John on his way to Jerusalem. It is also the subject of Memorial’s Altar Tryptich - currently veiled as it is a memorial to a long time priest who was active in keeping Memorial and Baltimore segregated.
Please join us for this important service. The Rev. Grey Maggiano is presiding and the Rev. Natalie Conway is preaching.
Time: Thursday August 6th at 6:00PM Eastern
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