In our online Wednesday night evening prayer service, we now share a short song as part of our worship from Music that Makes Community. This month, it is the simple lovely song “In this circle.” Listen to it below and carry it with you through your day and week as we face fear and seek safety, happiness and peace for all.
Throwback Thursday - A Video Telling of the Story of Creation from Holy Saturday 2020
We heard this past Sunday the beautiful story of God’s Creation of the world in seven days. Today we throw it back to the amazing video telling of the Creation story offered for our Holy Saturday video by Tempest. Take the time to watch and feel the wonder and joy of creation anew!
Ted's Sermon: Focusing on the Essential -Love and Community
Food for Your Soul Friday - “Lean on Me”
We have music in our souls, and we cannot but sing in times of struggle and times of joy.
Throwback Thursday - Bayard Rustin, Unsung Hero for Civil Rights and Gay Rights
Bayard Rustin on left
As we enter Pride month in the midst of unprecedented peaceful protests across the country and around the world for racial justice in response to the horrific murder or George Floyd at the hands by police officers, here is a someone from our past whose example and wisdom can give us courage and hope to meet the moment: Bayard Rustin. Read about him at the blog of the Family Equality website where you can also find links to more resources to learn about this extraordinary champion of justice. For his life’s work, President Obama awarded Bayard Rustin the Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2013.
Sharing "New England bishops respond with one voice to President's "cynical" photo op"
The bishops of the seven New England Episcopal dioceses on June 2 issued the following joint statement in response to President Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., charactizing it as “cynical” and calling out “the abomination of continued oppression of and violence against people of color in this nation,”
Read the letter with an introduction from Ted+.
Bishop Gates's sermon - Pentecost 2020
Ted's Sermon: God's Love, Our Hope and Grieving in the Car with Boys
Taking Faith Home Tuesday - Getting Ready for Pentecost (May 31) with Pentecost in a Box!
Click the photo to see what the wonderful folks over at the Building Faith website have set out for us: fun creative activities for you in your home getting ready for this Sunday May 31, the Feast of Pentecost! Pentecost is the joyful day when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in a new way, filling them with faith and power to preach the gospel to the whole world. Explore four key images from the day (wind, flame, the color red and the dove) and be inspired to share your faith with others in this difficult time when so many need help moving from fear to faith, like those first Christians!
Pastoral Letter on Public Worship from Ted+
My dear St. John’s community,
In this extraordinary time, we come to a shared marker on our calendars, Memorial Day Weekend. In past years Memorial Day was a time for respite, for travel, for outdoors relaxation on the seasonal cusp of summer. This year, it is full of uncertainty and angst as we enter our third month of social distancing and economic shutdown to contain the outbreak of COVID-19. I cannot say if I have by now adjusted to life during a pandemic or not. Like many other parents of young children during this time, my experience of balancing parenting, home schooling, work and marriage has been stressful and demanding. I am often struggling to move gracefully from one hour to the next hour let alone from one month or from one season to the next. But here I am, here we are on Memorial Day Weekend, and our way of life during a pandemic is shifting.
Food for Your Soul Friday - Poems from Marly Youmans
The Living Church website shares three poems from Marly Youmans written in the midst of life in pandemic. Read the first here, and follow the link to read more.
Plague-spell
The village streets abandoned, save for deer
That, brazen, dare to nibble at our trees…
At sunset’s hour, a mild, uncanny light
Beckons us to west windows, curious.
Rain pelts the house, as sudden as a strike,
And just as swiftly drains and dies away.
Will we dismiss the strangeness of this year,
When breath or brush of hand might yield disease?
When customary pleasures took their flight,
And modern ways looked thin or spurious?
Calling, a sidewalk child straddles his bike:
Lazarus, Lazarus, come out to play!
Like seeds tucked into earth, we dream rebirth
Beyond all mortal dread of death and dearth.
Throwback Thursday - Forgotten Origins of Memorial Day
This coming Monday is Memorial Day, and in our commercialized and work-centric pre-COVID-19 culture, it was a day for sales and shopping and big start of summer parties and BBQs. Its roots lie back in the American Civil War, and one of the lost first celebrations involves liberated African-Americans in Charleston, South Carolina and the famed 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, honored with a plaque on Boston Common and depicted in the movie Glory. Read the story of this forgotten celebration on History.com and this Memorial Day recall with gratitude sacrifices so many made for our country, as we in this time make different sacrifices of our own for the common good.
Ted's Sermon: Frances Perkins Tragedy & Faithful Action
Easter Drawings
Did you take part in our Easter Week drawing activities? If so, we invite you to share your drawings! You can email them to us and we’ll share them on this post or you can post them to our Facebook page.
We’ll kick it off with this drawing from our Parishioner, Terry.
Taking Faith Home Tuesdays - Sacredness of Mealtime
The Bible from Genesis to Revelation recounts over and over again how our food can be and perhaps even should be a place where we experience God’s love for us. We are encouraged to give thanks for our food and to remember and care for the hungry in our communities. So in this time of lockdown and isolation, we invite you to consider your practices around food and how you can make them more sacred, as well as more healthy. Here are some suggestions around awareness and good nutritional practices from the Simple Minded website:
Eat at set times
Think about your eating pattern over a twenty-hour daily cycle
Follow nutritional advice to balance different kinds of food at each meal
Read the whole article, and share ways you have made mealtime a more sacred time in the comments below.
Ted's Sermon: Jesus is the Way We Need to Live
Louis D. Brown Institute Mothers Day Walk for Peace Update
Thank you to all who supported the good work of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute during their annual Mothers Day Walk for Peace fundraiser and awareness raiser! St. John’s exceeded our goal of $1,000 and have raised $1,440 to date! It is not too late to donate!
Learn more about their mission on their website.
Want to stay up to date with our events like this? Visit The Red Door often and sign up for our weekly email.
Food for Your Soul Friday - How are you getting your art these days?
We all need to connect with the creative side of life, even animals! Click the photo to enjoy an adorable short video from the Kansas City Zoo and Nelson Atkins Museum of Art on Facebook, and then share how you are getting your need for connection with creative artistic things met these days in the comments below.
Throwback Thursday - Inspiration from Frances Perkins, First Woman Cabinet Secretary
Frances Perkins on the cover of Time Magazine in 1933
On Thursdays, we look back to our past for wisdom and inspiration and yesterday was the Feast Day in the Episcopal Church for Frances Perkins, the Boston-native Episcopalian who was the first woman ever to serve as a Cabinet Secretary. She was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor and oversaw the nation’s climb out of the Great Depression. Informed by her faith, she helped make sure the people most struggling with hardship were met with dignity, compassion and opportunity. The lessons of her time can be of great value in ours. Read more about Frances below, and consider how your faith will shape your politics and your economic activity in the challenging days ahead.
Taking Faith Home Tuesday - A Psalm for These Times
This past Sunday, we read from Psalm 31. Our Taking Faith Home flyer for this week offers this reflection to bring Psalm 31 home and into our lives. Read the Psalm and then enter into the reflection. Share in the comments those whom see in need of deliverance.
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16
1 In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame; *
deliver me in your righteousness.2 Incline your ear to me; *
make haste to deliver me.3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,
for you are my crag and my stronghold; *
for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me.4 Take me out of the net that they have secretly set for me, *
for you are my tower of strength.5 Into your hands I commend my spirit, *
for you have redeemed me,
O Lord, O God of truth.15 My times are in your hand; *
rescue me from the hand of my enemies,
and from those who persecute me.16 Make your face to shine upon your servant, *
and in your loving-kindness save me."
From Taking Faith Home for the Week of May 10:
SERVICE
Psalm 31 is a prayer of deliverance from enemies. Even though there is suffering and pain, the psalmist writes of trust in the Lord and of God’s goodness. Watch or read today’s news. Who in the world needs prayer for deliverance from enemies? Pray for their deliverance.
For more ways to bring your faith home, check out the full flyer for this week: