revarmy — Tue, 01 May 2012 04:21:53 +0000

I have been thinking alot lately about collaboration. There are probably several reasons why. First, was the hugely successful East of the River Lenten Series collaboration. As 9 priests representing 10 parishes came together to eat fabulous soup and crusty bread, pray sing, talk, dance, explore, discuss, worship and celebrate together, the Holy Spirit was alive and our baptismal covenant with Our Lord and with each other was illuminated and renewed. About 16 members of St. John’s participated, traveling from Vernon to Broadbrook, East Windsor, Stafford Springs, Manchester and Glastonbury. It was an excellent Lent!

Second, I attended a PMC cluster meeting this week. It was good to see members of our three year group and to talk about the ongoing journey of missional outreach and partnership that is winding and wending its way through our churches towards the Kingdom of God. All the parishes in the original cluster continue to use the structure and process of PMC to discuss mission initiatives and to try on and implement new ideas and relationships. The key to success in these endeavors is collaboration, with other faith communities and with community partners. Our own PMC group is working on the Relay for Life Team effort, the expansion of our organic garden, and the growth of our relationship with St. Vincent’s in Port au Prince. All GOOD!!

Finally, I see the ways inside our parish that different groups, fellowships and commissions are finding common ground and working together on worthy projects and initiatives. For example, the Youth Group and the Mission and Outreach Commission are collaborating on May 6th on the spaghetti supper and Haiti night. The Knitting Fellowship, the Environmental Committee, the ECW and the Mission and Outreach Commission are working on an evening program (June 10) devoted to exploring the stubborn and extreme poverty and the extent of the environmental disaster on the Lakota Indian Reservation in So. Dakota. The Youth Group, the Environmental Comm., and members of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew will be gardening together on May 12th. Again, all GOOD!!

We are invited to ground our faith in Prayer, Scripture, Sacrament and Service. The good people of St. John’s are both grounded and taking off!! As we journey together, asking what God is doing in our personal lives and what God is up to in the life of our community of faith, we are venturing out of our comfort zones and further out on the limb. Which is terrific, because new life begins where our comfort zone ends, and all the fruit is out on the limb!

The Lord is Risen Indeed!!!

Love,

Virginia

revarmy — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:02:21 +0000

As we head together into the holy week of our Lord’s passion, we are reminded that God became incarnate precisely to enter into human life and death. We are challenged to remember that it is God’s intention to be among us, with us, so as to fully enter into the struggle and suffering and the joy and hopefulness of all that we experience as human beings. We know, sometimes all too acutely, that we are at once Good Friday people and Easter people, people of the cross on the hill and people of the empty tomb. We are invited to walk with our Lord through the conflict, betrayal, doubt, injustice, loneliness, fear, and suffering of the events of His passion. We are also invited to affirm again together in our Easter song and celebration, that God’s love trumps every expression of human sin and misery, that God wills us to choose the light, and that while death may seem to us to be the final word, God has accomplished salvation and eternal life for those who love Him. I look forward to sharing with you the passion stories of redemption and the Easter narratives of resurrection as we worship together in the weeks to come.

Blessings to you and yours.

Virginia

I PRAISE YOU FOR THIS RESURRECTION MADNESS

by Ted Loder

Lord of such amazing surprises

as put a catch in my breath

and wings on my heart,

I praise you for this joy,

too great for words,

but not for tears and songs and sharing;

for this mercy

that blots out my betrayals

and bids me begin again,

to limp on,

to hop-skip-and-jump on,

to mend what is broken

in and around me,

to forgive the breakers;

for this YES

to life and laughter, to love and lovers,

and to my unwinding self;

for this kingdom

unleashed in me and I in it forever,

and no dead ends to growing,

to choices,

to chances,

to calls to be just;

no dead ends to living,

to making peace,

to dreaming dreams,

to being glad of heart;

for this resurrection madness

which is wiser than I

and in which I see

how great you are,

how full of grace. Alleluia

From The Rector