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Block Print by Mike Newman
Projects
Beginning Nov. 12 for 4 Sundays in the Parish House! (no class Nov. 26). Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol and the Bible.
A Christmas Carol has delighted audiences since it publication in 1843 in its book form and through the many movies made from its story. Few people know of Dickens’ connection with religion. A Christmas Carol has many Biblical references, some cleverly hidden within the story. The regeneration of Scrooge mirrors the regeneration of mankind in the Bible. Even with the title, “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens is using the meaning of “carol” familiar to him: a song celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Dickens each chapter of his book a stave, a stanza of a song. We will discuss Chapter 1 of the book on the first Sunday. Where to find it ?
2 The book and audio are available free at Project Gutenberg on the web. It is available in plain text, formatted text, Kindle for book readers (with or with images). It is available in in audio in mp3 format and itunes audiobook
3 If you want a hardcopy, it is available on Amazon. Look for Dover Thrift edition for as little as $3 plus shipping.
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, Sept. 17- Sept. 24
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17
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Hildegard of Bingen, 1170 |
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18
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Edward Bouverie Pusey, Priest, 1882; also [Dag Hammarskjold, Diplomat, 1961] |
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19
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Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, 690 |
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20
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John Coleridge Patteson, Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs, 1871 |
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21
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Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist |
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22
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Philander Chase, Bishop of Ohio, and of Illinois, 1852 |
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23
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[Thecla] |
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24
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[Anna Ellison Butler Alexander, Deaconness, 1947] |
September 17, 2017 – Season of Creation 3
Johnny Appleseed Blessing from the Youth, Sept 17
"Oh, the Lord is good to me, And so I thank the Lord For giving me the things I need The sun, and the rain, and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me."
The Week Ahead…
Sept. 19 – 11:00am – Season of Creation Online Service
Sept. 20 – 10:00am – Ecumenical Bible Study
Sept. 20 – 9:30am – Village Harvest preparation
Help needed: 9:30ish, help needed to unload the truck. Many hands make light work. 1PM, help needed to set up. 3-5PM help needed for the distribution itself. Help the shoppers gather what they need. Thank you for your contributions of both food, school supplies and time. Everyone can share in making this important St Peter’s ministry happen.
Sept. 20 – 3:30pm – 5pm Village Harvest Distribution
Sept. 24 – 9:00am – Holy Eucharist, Rite I
Sept. 24 – 10:00am – Godly Play for Adults
Sept. 24 – 10:00am – Children’s Christian Ed with Becky
Sept. 24 – 11:00am – Holy Eucharist, Rite II
Sunday, Sept. 24, Readings and Servers
Village Harvest, Sept 20, 2017 – another strong showing
Psalm 107:37 "And sow fields and plant vineyards, And gather a fruitful harvest."
We have hit a plateau of 160+ served each month over the last quarter. After 9 months in 2017 we are a 33% higher last year in people served and 25% higher in food. As mentioned in previous months this is like a second congregation that meets once a month served by our Sunday congregation.
The chart shows 3 Septembers 2015-2017 when those served have increased from 86 to 162. Food distributed has risen faster from 480 to 1603 pounds. This month we distributed onions, potatoes, squash, corn, eggplant, limes and lemons. We also had whole chickens.
This ministry involves a larger number of parishioners than any another for the most basic of needs and serving Port Royal, Caroline County, King George, Essex and Westmoreland counties.
Stewardship Sunday
We give back as we are given by God – Make your pledge for 2018.
The Commitment
Sunday, Sept. 17 was the distribution of 2018 pledge cards. They are due back on Oct. 1. A better word is commitment card. We commit so we can give:>
- Commit to help us reduce hunger in this area, through the Village Harvest Distribution
- Commit to us to bring hope to our community,
- Commit to help us bring comfort to those suffering in sickness or loneliness,
- Commit to help us in Christian education and encourage fellowship.
- Commit so we can make a difference.
What should be our commitment to what God has given us ?
God calls us to share in God’s mission of caring for the world, using all the gifts God has given us. Our gifts includes those of treasure. Over 80% of the funds used to support and plan for ministry in a year come from pledges.
The gifts we received through pledges are all about mission. It’s those gifts which help St. Peter’s ministries thrive – food distribution and meals in our community, outreach to those in need, Christian education and fellowship for all.
Online Season of Creation Service, Sept 19, 11am
In honor of the Season of Creation, all are invited to join an online Taize service with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. He will be joined by Christian leaders from around the globe in this special time of prayer and reflection
We will also listen to beautiful music written by the Taizé community in France. This unique ecumenical monastic order is home to more than 100 Protestant and Catholic brothers. The order lives in kindness, simplicity, reconciliation, and its songs are well-known.
Links:
1. Main Page
2. Register for the online link.
Faithful Dissent: Loving Our Way into a Brighter Tomorrow (Sept 11-25) ?
A Free course from ChurchNext.
"We live in increasingly divisive times. From politics to sports, the gif of human difference can quickly become a chasm that can invite serious discord and division. What does it mean for good Christians to disagree? How do we do so faithfully?
"Ed Bacon, author and former rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA, and Stanley Hauerwas, a Duke University ethicist whom TIME Magazine called America’s theologian, will teach a free, online course called Faithful Dissent: Loving Our Way into a Brighter Tomorrow with Ed Bacon and Stanley Hauerwas. Students will be able to sign up for free and take this 45-minute, pre-recorded course with thousands of students around the world, anytime for a two-week period. Ed Bacon and Stanley Hauerwas.
"This free, 45-minute, pre-recorded online class contains video lectures, quizzes, and discussions is offered from Sept 11-25. You don’t have to view it in one setting. Registration is free and open to all. You can register here for 4 video sessions: The Gift of Dissent, The Nature of Dissent Witness and Dissent, How We Dissent.
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.
Lectionary, Sept. 24, 2017, Season of Creation 4
I.Theme – Obey God’s commandments for a time of rest
The lectionary readings are here
Creation Week 4. These scriptures focus on both the commandment and the need for Christians to observe a sabbath for the Lord. This requirement is also part of our “dominion” over the earth. In Leviticus, God has Moses tell the Israelites that every seventh year should be a sabbath of complete rest for the land. In the letter to the Hebrews, the writer encourages the listeners to rest in God, another way of talking about salvation. Fred Craddock points out that “rest” transcends place and history but it is also experienced here and now. Rest is grounded in the ultimate purpose of God, and is a reality that has existed since the foundation of the world. The Sabbath reminds us of a central truth: God rested and invites others into that rest with all the blessings attendant to the presence of God.” In the gospel reading, five thousand people rest on the grass and Jesus feeds and blesses them all, another sign that Jesus is truly the Son of God.
Read more from the lectionary …
Climate Change and and the Seas
Water plays such an immense role in the pages of the Bible that the wonder is how we have managed to overlook it, as if the waters of the earth were a prop in a play, when in fact, those waters are an actor, offering healing, salvation, rescue, safety, and blessing, all in the name of God, whom the waters, in story after story, rise to serve. Noah, and the Ark of creation, are saved by waters, waters which also rise up at God’s command to rid the world of the wicked. Moses and the people of God walk through a sea in which Pharoah’s army drowns.
Jesus walks on the Sea of Galilee in a storm, to calm his frightened friends. At his word, the sea lies still, and on another day, fills fishnets full, and on another day, swallows a herd of demon infested pigs, and on another day, becomes a pulpit, holding Jesus up so that he can preach to a crowd gathered on the shore. Again, he covers the eyes of a man born blind with mud he has made with his own spit for water, and tells the man to go to a nearby pool and wash, and when the man does, sight is born into him. At Jesus’ word, large vats of water become wine for an embarrassed bridegroom, and a cup of well water becomes a chalice of eternal life for a woman whose sins are all too well known.
Water was there at the beginning of Creation, according, as Genesis tells it – the earth was without form and void, and the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters, and God spoke. And it was by walking into the River Jordan that Jesus received his holy name, Beloved, and dripping wet, he was announced to the world as the Anointed One by words of God.
Water, then, has not only power but desire to do God’s will, to be God’s agent in the great work of Creation. And today we read more tales of water, how it heals, no matter who you are or where you are from or what you believe, provided you do not believe your healing is something you can buy, or earn, or own. What Naaman has to learn is his place in the nature of things, in the world he has spent his life striving to conquer.
And then, there is another leper, whom Jesus heals, by touch and by being touched. Jesus, “moved with pity” Mark says, touches this untouchable man. In doing so, he, Jesus becomes unclean, and enters into the outcast reality of this man, moved to grief by this man’s suffering, moved in the place where his own tears are, moved to do what will strike horror in the minds of all who hear of it. Moving past all these restraints, Jesus compassion flows like water to this man. Greek readers and Biblical scholars say the word used for pity here is so strong as to mean that Jesus is angry in this story, and even "snorts" like a horse. His touch flows out of him with a force that sweeps away the laws, the disease, the outcast reality, the fear, and the force of this touch wipes it all clean. But it is not his skin that heals, it is Jesus’ heart, that water pump inside him that keeps the river of his life coursing through his veins, his mind, with Beloved written in every drop of his life, the name that binds him to God, and to us all.
What Causes Sea Levels to Rise ?
The seas are approximately 2/3’s of the earth
There are two primary factors that cause global sea level rise:
1. As the temperature of the ocean warms, the water expands, leading to sea level rise.
2. Melting glaciers and ice sheets, as well as general exchanges between oceans and other reservoirs, can increase the amount of water in the ocean.
Sea levels rose approximately seven inches during the past century, which is more than in the previous century, and approximately ten times faster than the rate of sea level rise during the past 3,000 years .
Sea level rise is anticipated to be much higher during this century (EPA, 2013). Estimates vary, but projections from the International Panel on Climate Change (2007) suggest an additional 7 to 23 inch rise in global mean sea level by 2090-2099 relative to 1980-1999. Current projections based on data from the latest IPCC report runs, indicate 13-34 inches.
Local sea level rise varies by region, and is caused mainly by the combination of global sea level rise and local vertical land movements. In areas where the land is sinking, regional sea level rise will be greater, and in regions where the land is rising, sea level rise will be less severe. A major cause of vertical land movement is shifts in plate tectonics. Other causes include sedimentation and marsh accretion (the gradual build up of sediment over time). Recent models have further attributed local sea level height variations to tensions between gravitational fields, such as those created by undersea mountain ranges