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Block Print by Mike Newman
Projects
Link to the reports from Jan 15 Annual Meeting
3-Minute Retreats invite you to take a short prayer break right at your computer. Spend some quiet time reflecting on a Scripture passage.
Knowing that not everyone prays at the same pace, you have control over the pace of the retreat. After each screen, a Continue button will appear. Click it when you are ready to move on. If you are new to online prayer, the basic timing of the screens will guide you through the experience.
Daily meditations in words and music.
Your daily prayer online, since 1999
"We invite you to make a ‘Sacred Space’ in your day, praying here and now, as you visit our website, with the help of scripture chosen every day and on-screen guidance."
Saints of the Week, Aug. 27- Sept. 3
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27
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Thomas Gallaudet, 1902, and Henry Winter Syle, 1890 |
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28
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Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and Theologian, 430; also [Moses the Black, Desert Father and Martyr, c. 400] |
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29
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[John Bunyan, Writer, 1688] |
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30
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[Charles Chapman Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac, and Ecumenist, 1912] |
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31
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Aidan, 651, and Cuthbert, 687, Bishops of Lindisfarne (new date for Cuthbert) |
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1
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David Pendleton Oakerhater, Deacon and Missionary, 1931 |
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2
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The Martyrs of New Guinea, 1942 |
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3
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August 27, 2017 – Identity
Sunrise on Eclipse Monday, Aug 21. The sign that led to a sermon. The leaf pattern on the brick walkway. Catherine preaching on Aug. 27.
The Week Ahead…
Aug. 30 – 10:00am – Ecumenical Bible Study
Sept. 3 – 10:00am – Godly Play for Adults
Sept. 3 – 10:00am – Children’s Christian Ed with Becky
Sept. 3 – 11:00am – Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Sept. 3 – 12:00pm – First Sunday Social
We need these items:
1. For the Village Harvest Sept 20. Kleenex, toilet paper, and paper towels. 
2. For the "Buzzing Bees", ongoing 
a. Granulated sugar, in any amount, so that Andrew Huffman, the beekeeper, can prepare it for the bees for food.
b. Mason jars, preferably pint size 16oz, for the bumper crop of honey that the bees will provide for harvesting next year
Hurricane Harvey Relief
Help the relief effort in response to Hurricane Harvey – Donate to Episcopal Relief and Development’s response. Your donations are tax deductible.
LINKS
Online giving for Episcopal Relief
Bishop Michael Curry’s statement
For over 75 years, Episcopal Relief & Development has been the international relief and development agency of The Episcopal Church. It has 3 main goals – To feed the hungry, care for the sick and welcome the stranger creating economic opportunities as well as responding to disasters .
In 2016 in regards to the latter it was relief after the earthquake in Ecuador, flooding in Texas and Louisiana, Hurricane Matthew in the Caribbean and southeastern United States and our ongoing support of relief programs for people fleeing conflict in Syria. And now Harvey….
Christian Ed expands -Godly Play for Adults
Meet in the front room of the Parish House. In writing about Godly Play for adults, Rebecca McClain says that “Godly Play is an integrated and holistic model of Christian living for every age and stage of life. Godly Play is not for children only—the method builds a spiritual framework for an integrated life—a life of action and contemplation, a life of communion and reflection. Godly Play is a spiritual practice for all who are seeking a more graceful way of living.”
Godly Play, when experienced in its fullness, reminds us of the simple, yet complex nature of creation, making this curriculum a good one for The Season of Creation.
What is the Season of Creation ?
This is a new church season for us. Usually Pentecost is the longest season from Pentecost Sunday until Advent. Now the Season of Creation, five Sundays, helps to break up the period we spend in Pentecost. Where did this come from ?
Since the 1980’s, the Eastern Orthodox Church has designated this time each year to delve more deeply into our relationships with God and with one another in the context of the magnificent creation in which we live. The Catholic Church also recognizes this season. The Church of England, as well as the Anglicans in Australia and New Zealand observe this season as well. Various churches across the United States also celebrate the Season of Creation. Bishop Shannon has blessed our observance, so that we at St Peter’s can join with Christians all over the world in this celebration.
The central focus of the month is on God–God as Creator. In his letter to the Romans, right up front, Paul makes this statement. “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that God has made.” We know a lot about God simply by paying attention to God’s creation. And Jesus, who came that we might have life, and might have it more abundantly, used his own attention to and love of the natural world in his teachings and parables, to help the people around him find the abundant life that can become ours through him. To be with Jesus through scripture and through the bread and wine is also to see and to know God the Creator of heaven and earth.
When we Christians consider all the “works thy hands hath made,” as the old hymn “How Great Thou Art” puts it, how do our relationships with God, with creation, and with one another grow richer and deeper? This question is also a focus of this five week Season of Creation.
The goal in worship then is to deepen our understanding of God as Creator, to celebrate God’s role as Creator, and to examine and deepen and widen our own relationships with God, creation, and with one another. With Bishop Shannon’s permission, we will be using scripture readings in this five week period that have been designed to help us to accomplish these goals. You can find out more about the readings in the article later in this newsletter, “The Readings for The Season of Creation.” At the Eucharist, we will be using the Eucharistic Prayer “We Give Thanks” which highlights the role of God as Creator and Jesus dwelling in nature as one of us to bring us abundant life.
My hope for this Season is that we can grow in our love of God as Creator, and also in our love of creation itself, and to consider why, as Christians, the natural world and our relationship with it matters deeply in the working out of our lives as the beloved children of God on this earth.
Sunday, Sept. 3, Readings and Servers
Lectionary, Sept. 3, 2017, Season of Creation 1
I.Theme – The Creator God
The lectionary readings are here
In these readings, God, holy and transcendent, has power over all of creation. God is “worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for God created all things, by God’s will they existed and were created” (Rev 4:11). In the gospel, Jesus stills the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples are amazed and say, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” In Psalm 130, the psalmist, who is in the depths, waits on the Lord and hopes in the Lord
Climate Change -Spiritual Reflections on Nature and Humankind
The issue of Climate Change that has enveloped over the last generation has involved both religion and science.
Science and religion are tools to investigate reality from two different angles. Each discipline asks a fundamentally different question.
Science asks: how does the universe work?
Religion asks: why is there a universe and what is its purpose, and what is our purpose of existence as human beings? How should we treat the environment as we realize our connection to the creator God ?
Now, as the Earth is affected by climate change and other environmental problems we need science to learn more about the causes, effects, and solutions to these problems.
So what’s the role of religion? While scientists can tell us what needs to be done, they are usually not able to motivate society to implement these solutions. That’s where we need religion. Religion provides us with the spiritual understanding of our responsibility towards the Earth and towards other human beings including future generations. In other words, religion provides an ethical or moral framework. And it motivates us to act!
The concern of the environment is an interfaith issue and not just Christian. All faiths have talked about it.
The issue in the Bible goes right back to the early Israelites
A major theme of Deuteronomy is that God’s covenantal gift of the land came with a warning: the Israelites were not to forget God’s commandments; if they did, they would lose the land. Here is Deuteronomy 8 “… the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with/lowing streams, ‘with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing. Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes”
As with any gift, the need to preserve it was crucial. They couldn’t do well unless they maintained the land. The soil was thin and easily eroded. The rain was sparse and came in the winter, the wrong time of year. They were a partner with the Lord
More specifics came from Exodus and Leviticus the land was to be allowed to rest, to lie fallow one year in seven; second, crops growing at the edges of the field were not to be harvested, but left for the poor, those who had no land. The covenant was not only between Jew and God but Jew, God and Land.
In Jeremiah, every family was allocated a farm in the promised land Over time the Israelites abused God’s hospitality by living in ways that were unjust, ways contrary to Torah, ways that desecrated the land. Time and again God offered to forgive the people if they would only repent and live faithfully. But they refused, and so God’s commitment to the land required that the Israelites be exiled. But exile was not the end of the covenant. It was intended to be a sabbatical to reconsecrate the land and people, a time of fallowing for land and people. The birth of Jesus was an end to the era of exile which began with the takeover of the temple 500 years earlier.
The Israelites and us all live in fragile land. Our collective impact on the global environmental system has increased since the Industrial Revolution, and we now find ourselves in a situation much like that of the Israelites. To continue to flourish, we need a sabbatical to understand as impact and judge what we can do to reconstitute our relationship to the environment. We are bringing back the kingdom by understanding how everything is connected with everything else. There is a balance which is getting out of balance.
The sun is the source of all life and of all energy. It provides the temperature necessary for the existence of life. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen with the help of sunlight. That’s called photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, plants transform atmospheric carbon into organic compounds, especially glucose (sugars). That glucose is used in various forms by every creature on the planet for energy and growth.
Also important is keeping trapping some of this energy warming the planet and enabling man to survive. Atmospheric gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide are called greenhouse gases because they act similar to the glass in a greenhouse by trapping heat.
Since the industrial revolution, greenhouse gases have sharply increased upsetting the previously long-lasting balance. The increase comes mainly from emissions from power plants, cars, airplanes, from deforestation and industrial activities. In a very short period of time, human beings have used huge quantities of stored solar energy (fossil fuels) thereby releasing unprecedented amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The more greenhouse gases there are in the atmosphere the warmer our planet becomes. This has warmer climates particular in southern areas and has eliminated a percentage of glacial coverage. The balance is upset and we are likely to pay the price.
We will look at more of these impacts next week.