The View from Bolton Street
The View from Robert Street
Be Kind to One Another
This week we are really starting to feel the changes around the pandemic. The Diocese has opened back up limited in person worship, Vaccines appear to be flowing much more freely and we have some assurances that by early summer most adults that want to will be vaccinated.
The governor has loosened statewide mandates and the mayor of Baltimore is also releasing new guidelines for businesses, restaurants and places of worship.
The weather is also considerably nicer, children are starting to go back to school in larger numbers, and well, it can be an awful lot to take all at once.
Some of you, no doubt are vaccinated and eager for life to return to normal. Some of you, though vaccinations may be a long way off, are still anxious to get back to church, work, and life.
Others, vaccinated or not, are more skittish about returning to normal, my self included!
In spite of this, much of our connecting and relating to each other still happens online and as we share our differing opinions and feelings about the gradual re-opening of our common life -- let us be kind to each other.
When the Israelites were wandering in the desert trying to get to the promised land they frequently turned on each other and God, rather than focusing on their common frustrations.
When you interact with someone who might have a slightly different way of thinking around the pandemic or re-gathering -- first take a breath, and consider what you're are actually frustrated with. Is it the terrible management of this crisis? the lack of clear leadership? the inability to access the vaccine? Or is it really that your friend has had a slightly different experience?
In the readings this week when the Israelites are being bitten by poisonous snakes -- Moses crafts a bronze snake and lifts it up to draw the attention of the Israelites up towards it. They stop fighting with each other and Moses and came together again as a community.
So as you adjust to this new reality -- consider where your frustrations, anxieties, worries and joys are and where those emotions come from. As you continue to process your feelings around re-opening try to do so prayerfully, listening to the Holy Spirit and remembering that everyone else is just like you - a child of God seeking to figure out how to make sense of this complicated, difficult situation.
E-Faith@8, 3/7
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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83309554789?pwd=czZUbWt6Yk1WVmgvNlAwNExQUWc5QT09
Meeting ID: 833 0955 4789
Passcode: 214106
Dial by your location
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Meeting ID: 833 0955 4789
Passcode: 214106
E-Church 10:30am, 3/7
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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Meeting ID: 849 9200 1341
Password: 563025
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The View from Robert Street
Last weekend the 2021 Memorial Vestry met for an all day retreat. On ZOOM things were certainly different - but it was a fruitful and prayerful time. With the help of Listening Hearts we reflected on where God is calling us as a community in 2021, following the announcement of our justice and reparations initiative and beginning to move out of the COVID-19 pandemic. After much prayerful discernment we formulated the following:
“God is calling us as a vestry to build relationships inside and outside our community in order to move our actions toward justice and reparative ministries”
A priority of the vestry was ensuring that everyone who wants to is able to take part in this work in one way or another. They unanimously desire to involve all of you in this work and invite others outside Memorial and outside Bolton Hill to be involved as well.
Another priority was our relationship with Saint Katherine’s. Continuing to worship, fellowship and share life together is a model for how we can repair and restore relationships in all aspects of our life and ministry.
We approved three grants (see below for the full resolution):
$10,000 to the Diocesan Reparations Fund
$15,000 to BLACK WOMEN BUILD – BALTIMORE
$5,000 to BUILDING OUR NATION'S DAUGHTERS
And developed a process for further gift making and programming relying on the advisory committee’s guidance with final vestry approval.
We began to map out a few next steps over the next few months.
Next Steps
February-March
Form an Advisory Committee
Vestry to reach out and engage the Congregation
Deepen Relationship with Saint Katherine’s
Develop A Memorial and Saint Katherine’s Talent Bank
Mapping Justice Led Organizations in Our Zip Code
March-April
Organize a Justice and Reparations Workgroup
Listen and partner with local justice led organizations with their ongoing work
Hire a Justice Organizer to lead the workgroup
Work with Saint Katherine’s on their Urban Oasis project
This week we also brought together our Advisory Committee for the first time. I am grateful to the members for their time and attention to ensuring that this program continues to move in the right direction. Special thanks to:
David Hornbeck, Strong Schools Maryland Memorial Member
Bonnie Legro, Formerly of the Abell Foundation, Memorial Member
Eric Sommerville, Central Y of Maryland
Nabeehah Aziz, The No Boundaries Coalition
Donna Brown, Citizens Policing Project
If you are inspired to become more involved in our justice and reparations initiative contact myself or any member of the vestry. We are looking forward to working with you.
~~~
Preamble: Following the action of the Memorial Episcopal Church vestry in
November 2020, and by the congregation at the Annual Meeting in January, 2021,
Memorial has withdrawn $50,000 from its endowment as an act of reparations.
This comes in response to Memorial’s long-standing history of support for the
institution of slavery and the legacy of slavery, the funds being designated to
support Black-lead justice organizations working in four key areas: housing,
education, voting rights, and environment.
Resolution 1: Memorial Episcopal Church vestry approves a $10,000 contribution to
the Diocese of Maryland Reparations Fund, in acknowledgement of the practice of
enslavement by Memorial’s founding rectors.
Resolution 2: Memorial Episcopal Church vestry approves a $15,000 contribution to
Black Women Build, in response to Memorial’s history of support for segregation in
housing in Baltimore.
Resolution 3: Memorial Episcopal Church vestry approves a $5,000 contribution to
Building our Nation’s Daughters, in response to Memorial’s history of efforts to keep
education and youth programs segregated in Baltimore.
E-Faith@8, 2/28
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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83309554789?pwd=czZUbWt6Yk1WVmgvNlAwNExQUWc5QT09
Meeting ID: 833 0955 4789
Passcode: 214106
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 833 0955 4789
Passcode: 214106
E-Church 10:30am, 2/28
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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84992001341?pwd=QUMvMFYzZU9HQkRLVmxISkVPRGlIQT09
Meeting ID: 849 9200 1341
Password: 563025
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Dial by your location
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Meeting ID: 876 9436 6639
Password: 729226
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdoU8Ii34Q
E-Church 10:30am, 2/21
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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84992001341?pwd=QUMvMFYzZU9HQkRLVmxISkVPRGlIQT09
Meeting ID: 849 9200 1341
Password: 563025
One tap mobile
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+19292056099,,84992001341#,,,,0#,,563025# US (New York)
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Dial by your location
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+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Meeting ID: 876 9436 6639
Password: 729226
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdoU8Ii34Q
E-Church 10:30am, 2/14
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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84992001341?pwd=QUMvMFYzZU9HQkRLVmxISkVPRGlIQT09
Meeting ID: 849 9200 1341
Password: 563025
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,84992001341#,,,,0#,,563025# US (Germantown)
+19292056099,,84992001341#,,,,0#,,563025# US (New York)
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,85296035556#,,1#,141735# US (Germantown)
+13126266799,,85296035556#,,1#,141735# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
Meeting ID: 876 9436 6639
Password: 729226
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdoU8Ii34Q
E-Faith@8, 2/14
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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83309554789?pwd=czZUbWt6Yk1WVmgvNlAwNExQUWc5QT09
Meeting ID: 833 0955 4789
Passcode: 214106
Dial by your location
+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 833 0955 4789
Passcode: 214106
The View from Robert Street
God is Here
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
Isaiah 40:21
Sometimes a thing is so obvious, too obvious, that we don’t notice it. The prophet Isaiah reminds us of the one simple truth that underlies all of our existence.
God made this.
Genesis 1 starts out “In the Beginning, God”
John 1 starts out “In the beginning, the Word”
In the beginning, God was already there. From the foundations of the earth, knitting us together in our mother’s wombs, God has always been there. Through floods and fires, God has been there. Through plagues and wars, God has been there. At the crucifixion, when Christians were fed to the lions and hung on crosses, God was there. Through crusades, and darkness, God was there. Through wars of religion and division, through the spanish flu, all the way up to the present day, God was there.
And God is here now.
As your (and my) frustrations rise over human error around vaccine distribution and disease management and mask adoption — we should heed Isaiah’s reminder that God is here. God hears our cries, shares in our frustration and anxiousness, and wishes for us all to be whole and together soon.
If we are patient, if we are prayerful, If we listen and discern to what God is calling us towards — God will provide.
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
In 2017 when we started talking about racism and the Church, there was no agenda. Though we all had human inclinations to ‘fix it’ — as a body we were patient, prayerful and discerning. We listened to God’s still small voice, we heard the cries of ancestors in the stillness of our own hearts, and we noticed the fissures and cracks in our own hearts.
So when we finally moved towards reparations, we did so understanding God’s place in that work, and our role as well. It doesn’t mean it will be easy! But it does mean we are clear that Jesus is walking with us in this work.
What other parts of our lives could we slow down in? Listen? Pray? Wait? Hope?
Where else do we need God’s clear presence in our lives?
Perhaps as we struggle to find our way in a post-COVID world, a we figure out how to re-open, to prioritize our schedules, and wait for vaccines, we can do some prayerful consideration of where is Jesus in this moment and how do we go about following him.
Because this is God’s world. We just live here.