Seeking Authentic Voice

I am busy. Oh my, really busy. All in good ways. I helped organize and send off our delegation to Liberia. I arranged, also, for the church to do a wire transfer of some money to help the church in Liberia build their school. I have never done an international wire transfer before - but trust me it is not like what one sees on television. It's a little more complicated...but very cool! Then I spent a week following the delegation's posts on Facebook of their travels while they were there.  I wrote newsletter articles and a bunch of other documentation trying to help the congregation understand what we are doing. It is amazing how complex it can be to people who are not part of the day to day conversation. I know that leadership is always several steps ahead of the congregation, and this has really made that point clear. Despite very intentional efforts to communicate well! In addition to all of this, along with a lengthy Vestry meeting to finalize the budget (with a pr

A number of people in the congregation wonder why we are considering an outreach project in Liberia instead of doing something in the Detroit area. Another good question! No doubt there is plenty of work that could be done in the metro Detroit area. The answer is simple – no one has proposed an idea to the Undesignated Gifts Fund for a project in Detroit or this area. The Undesignated Gifts Fund is governed by a Vestry constructed policy put in place in 2008. This policy states that monies received from a parishioners estate and allocated to the Undesignated Gifts Fund can only be accessed through a proposal for the use of funds. The proposal can be submitted by any parishioner using the proposal form and guidelines. Proposal forms are in your bulletin this morning and in the parish office. The guidelines state that project needs to help us live into our Mission and fit two criteria – the proposal needs to be an outreach project or a new project never considered by the parish. The

Deb, over at RevGals offers this Friday Five: You may have read  David Foster Wallace's essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" where he notes his lack of enthusiasm for going on a cruise. (That's putting it in a nutshell. It's hilarious. Do read it! ) However, I think it (perhaps) is just a wee bit  of a hyperbole. ;)  Some of our awesome RevGals are heading out on the next BE 6.0 (Big Event) for a cruise. They absolutely will have an amazing time..... All this is the inspiration for this week's Friday Five!  Perhaps you have tried something that everyone assured you was SO MUCH FUN!!!  and you swore on a stack of Bibles that you would never ever be dragged to said activity ever again. Was it horseback riding? Rappelling? Ballet class when you were 7? So share with us 5 Supposedly Fun Things You'll Never EVER Do Again. You may find some commiserating souls among us. A bonus if you share pictures. Surely I can think o

My children were young, one in fifth grade and the other in first grade. It was a school holiday, a Monday off and we decided to go to a nearby shopping mall. We probably had to buy something like a white blouse for my daughter's upcoming school concert. Or maybe we were just going there to kill time on a cold winter day. NPR was on the radio and they were rebroadcasting Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. Listening to the speech I was transported back to when I was in fifth or sixth grade and the speech was first delivered, an impassioned face and voice pouring through our small black and white television. My kids and I sat in the car, me mesmerized again by the power and potency of hope. I have to give my kids credit, they listened too, and didn't bug me to get out of the car until the speech was over. We just sat in the car in the parking garage and listened to the entire speech. Then, wiping away tears, I helped them out of the car and holding t

 A reflection on the Gospel for Epiphany 2C: John 2:1-11 The other day someone asked me why the Vestry decided to spend the money to send the delegation to Liberia instead of just giving that money to the church in Liberia for the school. I thought it was an excellent question. The Vestry struggled through long discussions for many months regarding how to develop this project. It came to the Vestry from the Undesignated Gifts Fund Committee. For more on the Undesignated Gifts Fund and process see the insert in your bulletin. The information was also emailed to those on our email list and will be included in the annual Parish Report for 2012.   In the end the answer was simple; the Vestry wanted this project to be about more than just money, they wanted it to be about building a relationship between that community and us. We just didn’t know how to do this. The Vestry was uncertain how to manage the money aspect because it can be complicated to send money into Africa. Certa

 A reflection on the readings for "The Baptism of Jesus" from the Gospel of Luke ( 3:15-17, 21-22) Our reading this morning conveys a key theme in the Gospel of Luke – prayer. Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets, helps us understand how to pray It doesn't have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don't try to make them elaborate, this isn't a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.    (Mary Oliver ~ Thirst) Oliver reminds us to keep it simple, patch a few words together, don’t try to be too elaborate, give thanks and let there be some silence so God can speak too. Jesus, after his baptism went off to pray, something Jesus does a lot of in the Gospel of Luke. Prayer is central to who Jesus is and how he lives out his ministry. Prayer is central to our faith life too and how we a

  A reflection on the Gospel of Matthew (2:1-12) for the Feast of Epiphany... A friend of a friend had a groupon for a party bus that expired the end of last year. She decided to use it for field trip for her school kids.   So she loaded the bus up with 1st and 2nd graders and took off around the city to do random acts of kindness. The kids sang Christmas carols at the nursing home. They took cookies to firefighters at the local firehouse. They passed out quarters at the laundromat and left more quarters on top of the bubble gum machines at the grocery store. They bought someone's food at McDonald's.   The bus driver refused a tip at the end of the afternoon, saying "you've reminded me that there's kindness in the world. This is the best drive I've ever done." No doubt this was a transformational experience for everyone involved, most of all the children. Three wise ones called the Magi took off one night to follow a star. They believed th