The Message July 2021

July 2021 • Volume 23, Number 4

Climbing Mountains: 3 Opening a Treasure Chest: 8 Are You Ready to Go?: 11 Summer Reading: 13

The Message this month: Contents:

Contributors:

Christ Church Staff: The Rev. Patrick Gahan, Rector

From Our Rector ..............................3

The Rev. Scott Kitayama, Associate Rector

Music Ministry ................................8

The Rev. Brien Koehler, Associate Rector for Mission and Formation

Our Church Life .............................10

The Rev. Justin Lindstrom, Associate Rector for Community Formation

Great Commission ..........................11 Family Ministry .............................12

Karen Von Der Bruegge, Director of Vocational Discernment and Pastoral Care

PATRICK GAHAN

Page Turners...................................13

Halleta Heinrich, Director of Family Ministry

Photo Album...................................15

Lily Fenton, Nursery Director Amy Case, Youth Minister Susan Lindstrom, Director of College Ministry JENNIFER HOLLOWAY

Front Cover photo: Amy Case

Joshua Benninger, Music Minister & Organist

Youth volunteer lunch after VBS

Back Cover photo: Susanna Kitayama

Jennifer Holloway, Assistant Music Director, Director of Children’s Music & Social Media Manager

Running at VBS

Charissa Fenton, Receptionist

Editor: Gretchen Duggan

Robert Hanley, Director of Campus Operations

Live Stream Services: www.cecsa.org/live-stream

Darla Nelson, Office Manager

HENRY FRANCO

Donna Franco, Financial Manager Gretchen Comuzzi Duggan, Director of Communications

9:00 & 11:00 a.m. Sundays 11:00 a.m. Wednesdays

Monica Elliott, Executive Assistant to the Rector

In Person Services: Sundays 7:30 a.m. - Rite I 9 & 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. - Rite II Sunday School 10:00 a.m.

Christian Education for Children, Youth, and Adults Wednesdays 11 a.m. - Morning Prayer with Communion

Visit us on-line at www.cecsa.org Follow us:

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facebook.com/ChristChurchSATX @christchurchsatx @cecSATX

FERNE BURNEY

Elizabeth Martinez, Kitchen Manager Robert Vallejo, Facilities Manager Rudy Segovia, Hospitality Manager Joe Garcia, Sexton

HALLETA HEINRICH

2021 Vestry: Andy Anderson, Senior Warden Margaret Pape, Junior Warden Lisa Blonkvist

Andy Kerr

Catherine de Marigny David McArthur Meagan Desbrow

Lisa Miller

Rick Foster

Garry Schnelzer

Tobin Hays

Garnett Wietbrock

Climbing Mountains: Revelation, Covenant, Righteousness & Kingdom of God

by Patrick Gahan

My place is in the rear. This may

surprise some, but when Kay and I hike, I walk behind her. I took up the position for practical reasons. The most obvious is that at 5’4”, Kay’s stride is shorter than mine at 6’2”. She should not have to run after me. A second reason is that Kay suffers with mild asthma and may need to stop occasionally. My more compelling reason to walk behind her is that I like to catch her reaction when she encounters an unexpected vista, hidden lake, or forest critter. I particularly enjoy walking behind her in the mountains because her childlike surprise erupts around every turn. To this day, Kay swears that she is part Cherokee, and I dare not push for a DNA test to refute the fact. Our spring trip to the North Georgia mountains is proof enough. Alice Carson and Darrell and Holly Jones invited us to stay in their cabin situated less than ten yards from a crystalline trout stream. Not content to repose around the gurgling brook, Kay planned a hike for us each day that took us up one side of a mountain and down the other. She particularly relished tackling

the Gahuti Trail at Fort Mountain State Park. The park rangers were impressed when Kay led us to finish the steep trail in three hours instead of the expected five.

Her love of the Appalachians draws her upward as if the mountains reconnect her to something deep within herself.

A mountain rises up in my mind, too, one that connects me with my redemptive past. A sweatshirt, of all things, had me dreaming of that mountain years before I saw it. My Uncle Bill, whom I idolized, gave me the off-white sweatshirt for my eighth birthday. The shirt swallowed me, draping halfway down to my knees and the sleeves covering my hands completely. Oblivious, I refused to take it off. Across the front of the shirt was printed “St. Andrew’s School” with its coat of arms appearing beneath the bold black lettering. Stories about St. Andrew’s were shared amongst my family in tones of reverence approaching Olympic myth.

My Great Uncle Hobson began there in 1934 and Bill followed him in 1959.

Bill, my mother’s only brother amongst her four sisters, would return home from Sewanee, where St. Andrew’s is located.

Better known as “the Mountain,” Bill

would regale us with masculine sagas of football games, dorm fights, eccentric monks, Latin class, smoke-filled Eucharists, romantic escapades with St. Mary’s girls, and weekend work crew. The entire family would crowd into my grandmother’s tiny dining room entranced for hours at Bill’s accounts. I sat on the black and white linoleum floor devouring every crumb falling from the table, which fed my determination to go to “the Mountain” when my time came. Long after the shirt barely covered my midriff and the sleeves had to be cut off, I wore it as a symbol of my resolve to get there.

Christmas of 1964, when Bill came home from his first semester at Washington University in St. Louis, he loaded me into a buddy’s car to make the threehour drive to “the Mountain.” We took the narrow, two-lane road leading from Huntsville to New Market and then onto Elora and Belvedere, TN at the base of the Appalachian Plateau. We climbed “the Mountain” from Cowan, and when we arrived, discovered six inches of snow carpeted the quad, weighing down the long, lower branches of the white pines until they rested on the ground and 3

From Our Rector... covering the stucco chapel like frosting on a cupcake. Silence settled on the campus.

A solitary monk, habited in white with a black scapular and a cowl covering his head, walked from the gray academic building toward the green and white monastery. He did not look up, and Bill did not try to stop him, nor seek any of his former teachers. Instead, we just sat there in the silence, with the snow falling, and the heat of our breath fogging the windshield. Even at ten years of age, I could tell that Bill, home from a big Midwestern city, was grieving the loss of the stillness, peace, and certitude of that place.

I ceaselessly imagined walking across that snowy quad, especially as my family’s desperation became clearer to me. We had moved out of my grandparents’ apartment and into our own weathered, two-bedroom white and brick unit on Central Avenue, sandwiched between the Homewood Church of Christ and Our Lady of Sorrows. The four Gahan children, looking like ragged waifs from Belfast, were handed Gospel tracts and crucifixes most every week. On one occasion, the Mother Superior approached my youngest brother Gene, bent down and held out her large crucifix. Looking him in the eyes, she asked, “Young man, do you know who this is?” Gene, literally stumped, shrugged and answered, “Batman?” Acute attention from the nuns ensued. On the other hand, all the young priests pulled from Ireland to serve Our Lady of Sorrows made their way to our apartment. They adored my mother. She was young, raven haired, and beautiful. Mostly, however, our apartment, with its beige slipcovers hiding our unmatched mélange of Salvation Army furniture, reminded them of home. They would sit with mother for hours as they heaped spoons of sugar into their tea.

Our situation was laughable at times but hardly romantic. Mother’s sixty-fivedollar weekly wage could not pay the rent, utilities, and keep five people fed and dressed. Medical and dental care were impractical luxuries. Most nights I heard my mother crying herself to sleep in the room she shared with my sister Julia. Then 4

in June of my 6th grade year, my father was paroled from federal prison. He had been convicted of racketeering and distribution of counterfeit currency. His early release had less to do with his rehabilitation than it did with the insufferable beatings he received from federal agents. (The photos of him released to the court are comparable to the ones from Abu Ghraib.)

Dad made promises to mother that he was a new man, which, in her desperation, she feigned belief. At twelve, I was excited about having a dad again. We moved back to Atlanta only to have the mad cycle of terror begin all over – but worse. By midSeptember, my 7th grade teacher phoned my mother to report that I was suffering from debilitating headaches. Neighbors noticed that I would play along the streets

until dark to put off going home. The small apartment off of Oglethorpe Avenue was an incendiary nightmare fueled by my father’s alcoholic rage. He would drink a quart of whiskey each night while eating an entire watermelon. Each morning erupted with his thunderous retching, and I left for school with the stench of his vomit on my clothes. To say a word or even stumble into his path was to be kicked across a room, thrown against a wall, or tossed atop the dining room table set for supper.

When alone with mother, I would beg her to send me to “the Mountain.” She would nod, offer me a sad smile of regret, but say nothing. What could she say? Soon it was early December, when other families

were preparing for Christmas. Our home was bereft of any vestige of Yuletide spirit. Mother, always creative, was certain she had a remedy for our melancholy.

Remembering Bing Crosby’s reminiscence of “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” she placed six dozen chestnuts on a cookie sheet and placed them in the oven on low heat. We then left the house and headed out for a quick shopping trip at Sears.

Two hours later when we approached the apartment, we heard erratic gunfire discharging from inside. Mother whispered, “Oh my Lord, your dad is at it early.” She held us back and slipped through the front door, expecting the worst, perhaps even death. Mother found instead that the “gunfire” was actually the chestnuts exploding in the oven. Funny as it was, the incident was prophetic, for two nights later my dad awakened me to insist that I watch him as he severed my mother’s head with a serrated knife. At only thirteen, I reached into some latent wisdom and convinced him to release her.

Mother never mentioned the incident but bided her time. A week later, when dad left for the liquor store, she quickly phoned a cab, grabbed four grocery bags of our clothing from under her bed, pulled $200 in small bills from beneath the sofa cushions, and we raced to the Atlanta Airport hoping to stay one step ahead of my father.

Mother had carefully planned our escape.

Squirreling away a few dollars each week from her wages in order to prevent discovery, she had saved enough for the five of us to fly to Birmingham. She suspected our dad would look for us at the Greyhound Bus station, never imagining we would flee by air. At the same time, she had selected three outfits for each of us and tightly folded them into paper grocery sacks. Any appearance of suitcases would have alerted my father, who by this time was actively jailing us. Finally, Mother had to choose her time. A week had passed since Dad had pressed the knife to her throat, giving her time to allay his anger and assuage his suspicions that we would escape as we had done three years before.

Mother was betting that Dad’s confidence had returned and he would head to a fruit

From Our Rector... stand or two after the liquor store. This, after all, was a man who chased his early AM whiskey shot with cherry Kool-Aid! This was our exodus, and Mother strategically planned our escape as carefully as Moses planned Israel’s.1 During the next 25 years, I would see my father less than ten times. He never paid child support, he never visited, and I was set free. Fear is far worse than poverty.

Nevertheless, it was at this time that “the Mountain” loomed larger for me. I loved being free, and I wanted a future. Given a “level playing field,” I knew I could compete with anyone, but the economic stratification of Birmingham society put me in another kind of prison. I begged mother to let me go to St. Andrew’s. To her credit, she did not want to constrain my future. One less mouth to feed would be a boon to the household. But she did not want me to be devastated by rejection from a school we could not afford. Still, I persisted until she borrowed her friend Sadie Messer’s brown and white Studebaker and drove me up “the Mountain” to ask the headmaster to offer me a place.

Mother stopped at the foot of the plateau in South Pittsburg, TN, ostensibly to eat lunch. Actually, she wanted to plead with me one last time to not get my hopes up.

Mother was only 32-years-old, but she was far wiser than her days.

We made the slow, winding, drive up the east side of “the Mountain,” and passing through Monteagle, TN, we finally reached the gates of the school. Juanita Barry, the Headmaster’s secretary, sat us on a bench outside Fr. Franklin Martin’s office. Once invited in, Fr. Martin looked more annoyed than hospitable. Mother, I could tell, was terribly nervous, so that she rattled on, “Father, Pat keeps asking me to attend St. Andrew’s. I tell him repeatedly that we have no money, and…” Fr. Martin held his hand up, and ignoring my mother, he looked at me with his bulging dragonfly eyes. “Son, do you want to come to this school?” “Yes, Father, with all my heart.”

He then looked from me to Mother and Exodus 12:11 – the LORD had put Moses and Israel on high alert. After 430 years of captivity, they were ordered to have their clothes on, shoes laced, supper eaten, and traveling staff in hand.

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in order that it may transform the lives of individuals or groups.

ordered, “Send him.” With that, we were ushered out the door. Nothing more was said. We both climbed back into the borrowed Studebaker, whose driver’s side door was smashed in from my dad’s boot, a remembrance of the final time my mother picked me up from visiting him.

St. Andrew’s opened every door for me.

I often tell others I would have never attended college, served as a military officer, become a priest, or risked being a husband and a father if not for that little Episcopal school sitting on 450 acres of the Appalachian Plateau. Reaching that higher altitude, God came down and saved me, revealed Himself to me, and showed me what I was to become. I never would have been truly free if I had not climbed that mountain.

Mountains punctuate the Biblical landscape as much as they garner the imagination of men and women. In the great saving act of the Old Testament, the LORD2 addresses Moses from the burning bush on Mt. Sinai: ‘Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt… I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you; when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God upon this mountain.’3 After 430 years of slavery, the LORD knows Israel will not truly be free until they know and are in relationship with the One who saved them. Once delivered from Pharaoh’s clutches, Israel is not to make a beeline to the Promised Land but detour to the mountain where God revealed Himself and His plans for them to Moses. On that mountain, God will make His intentions known to those he has saved.

rev·e·la·tion – disclosure of the divine reality and purpose to humanity LORD – LORD, when spelled in all capital letters, denotes the divine Name Yahweh or YHWH. Jews do not state nor write the divine Name out of reverence; therefore, the Old Testament most often uses LORD. 3 Exodus 3:10, 12 2

Discussing this Biblical encounter with Kay, she was quick to say the LORD’s revelation of His will at Sinai is a sort of marriage ceremony. Israel is not to be a company of free agents traipsing toward Canaan, but rather the bride of God walking “down the aisle” of life with Him. Consider the first of the Ten Commandments the LORD delivers from the mountain: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.’4 Israel will be free once they return love to the One who freed them. Looked at that way, the Ten Commandments are a wedding proposal.

Once at the border of the Promised Land, Moses urgently recasts the commandments in a way that intensifies the betrothal: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.5 Kay is right, of course, we do not enter into an agreement or legal contract with the LORD. No, He is freely bound to us and we to Him in a covenant of love. In a series of unconstrained acts of love, the LORD delivers Israel from bondage in Egypt, which is later mirrored in every step Christ makes toward the cross to free us from the captivity of our sins. Therefore, we choose to obey His commandments for much the same reason we “honor” our spouse. From them, we have received unmerited, unconditional, unrestrained love, and we return their love.

Likewise, honoring this covenant of love with the LORD is a theme that cements together the entire Biblical story – both the Old and the New. As the Bible hits its crescendo in the General Epistles of James, Peter, and John, keeping covenant with God is feverishly reiterated: ‘By this we know we are children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome’6 They are 4 5 6

Exodus 20:2-3 Deuteronomy 6:5 1 John 5:2-3

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From Our Rector... “not burdensome” for the same reason that loving our wife or husband is not a chore but a delight. ‘We love because He first loved us’7 Covenant is the generator of love and the fulfillment of a life lived on a different plane of existence than the world.8

cov·e·nant – a chosen relationship in which two devoted parties make binding promises to each other.

Salvation is not a simple transaction. Jesus Christ did not perfunctorily step in at Calvary to retrieve our one-time voucher for heaven, for the Bible’s consistent demand is that we live in faithful, lifetime covenant with God. Considered in that larger way, to “be saved” can be compared to a visit to the chiropractor, where the doctor puts us back into right alignment.

Jesus Christ’s saving act on Calvary puts us back in right alignment with God’s designs and purposes. This is the way we experience heaven on earth. Who, after all, would want to spend eternity with God if he insistently lived his life on earth at cross-purposes with God? Our covenant with God is, again, like a married couple who promise to walk with one another through the lush valleys and over the harsh crags of life. For example, I am writing these lines one week after Prince Philip of Great Britain died and one day after Queen Elizabeth’s 95th birthday. The two were married for 73 years. Attending to their romance and caring for their sprawling family, they were equals in their private life. However, in public Philip always walked a step behind Elizabeth, not out of weakness, but as a sign he supported the kingdom which she represented. Their marriage covenant had implications far exceeding their solitary family.

of devoted obedience to one another and to the United Kingdom, transcends their long marriage and brings another Biblical mountain to mind. When Jesus climbs up that grassy knoll in Galilee, sits down, and delivers his Sermon on the Mount, he reveals how our covenant relationship with God not only changes us but changes the world. Those of us who walk behind Christ make up an alternative community. We become citizens of what Jesus repeatedly describes as the Kingdom of God. With the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, God’s reign on earth is revealed.9 The unseen Father of the universe is made known in the Son Jesus Christ; thus, the consummate will of the Father is embodied in the Son. Be aware that the eternal Kingdom of God bears no resemblance to the passing kingdoms of man. After all, what king would willingly sacrifice himself to the enemy? While Christ’s sacrifice looks utterly foolish when compared to the world’s militancy, it’s the only kind of power that will ultimately change the hearts of individuals, heal families, and change the world.10 The cross staked atop Calvary Hill is God graphically planting the standard of His Kingdom. God claims every square inch of ground as His dominion and every person as His subject. The establishment of the kingdom is foretold by Christ in his brief declaration, ‘When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.’ 11 Jesus no sooner sits down upon that grassy hillside than he insists that we imitate him. To that end, he assures us that our imitative actions will be maligned, ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’12 The courage to live in this countercultural way and endure denouncements comes from the realization that we really ‘do not have a righteousness of our own’ to defend.13 We are in good standing with God due solely to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Therefore, the only way to serve Christ is to march behind him, for he is the vanguard of our righteous strength.14 It 9 10

Philip’s and Elizabeth’s seven decades 7 8

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1 John 4:19 John 14:27

11 12 13 14

Mark 1:15 1 Corinthians 1:18, 4:10 John 12:32 Matthew 5:10 Philippians 3:9 Matthew 16:23

follows that we wield the cross of humility rather than the sword of might as we step out to extend Christ’s rule on earth.15

right·eous·ness – God graciously imputes His quality to humanity through the sacrifice of the Son. Just as Moses climbed up Mt. Sinai to receive Israel’s “marching orders” from God, Jesus ascends a hillside in Galilee in order to direct our walk as emissaries of the kingdom of God. The orders from “the top” are as confounding as they are unexpected. Briefly enumerated, kingdom bearers are to resist the rampant materialism pressed upon us and, instead, depend upon the One who makes every molecule that surrounds us and fills us.

God, in fact, has become the material of this world in Christ, and his life points to the way of fulfillment, which is to share our life as a reflection of his. Secondly, we should not waste our time sizing up others. We no longer drain our lives in the sewer of hate or pour it down the black hole of control now that we realize Christ has loved us when we were most unlovable. ‘Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all else will be added unto you,’ Jesus breaks out in the middle of his hillside sermon.

Paradoxically, the way to experience the kingdom on both sides of paradise is a mixture of grace and grit. Christ strides up that verdant knoll as God’s valentine to all humanity. The message reads: “God loves us too much to let our day-to-day lives slip through our fingers like sand.”

Another mountain arises on the Biblical landscape, Mt. Tabor, eleven miles west of the Sea of Galilee, which is considered by many to be the site of Jesus’ Transfiguration.16 Jesus hikes up Mt. Tabor with Peter, James, and John, the leaders of his nascent Church, in Matthew 16:24 Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36 & 2 Peter 1:16-18 15 16

From Our Rector... order to show them what the future holds for him and for them. At the summit, Jesus metamorphoses into a luminescent heavenly form and is accompanied by the spectral figures of two Old Testament heroes, Elijah and Moses. The disciples do not yet realize it, but this electrifying theophany signals the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry and the inauguration of the age to come. Accordingly, the three disciples hear a voice rumbling from the cloud surrounding the mountain, ‘This is my beloved Son, listen to him.’17 Walking down from the heights of revelation, Jesus leads these three and the other nine disciples to Jerusalem, where Jesus discloses that he will be arrested, tortured, executed, and rise from the dead.18 They do not listen to his words, as the voice instructed, and their escalating fear moves them to be competitive and fractious. Jesus addresses rancor, and, at the same time, delivers his strategy for the growth of the kingdom of God: ‘If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.’19 Hard as it is, this is what the Father wants the twelve to hear.

The kingdom of God will be experienced as the reversal, an antidote to the world’s struggle for wealth, power, and control.

king·dom of God – is God’s loving reign through His people exercised over His place.

Citizens of God’s kingdom will serve, share, and – at times – suffer terribly. This is what Paul meant when he pleaded with the Roman Christians, ‘I appeal to you by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’20 The Greek for “world” in this passage is aiōni, which is better translated – “age.” Christians, then as now, are being outfitted for the new age of Christ’s reign; therefore, we must refuse 17 18 19 20

Mark 9:7 Mark 9:31 Mark 9:33-35 Romans 12:1-2

Kay and Patrick visiting St. Andrews in 2018

to be fashioned by the rapacious era in which we live. In response, people will surrender to Christ’s upside-down rule in numbers far greater than any mighty army of any size could compel them. To wit, three hundred years after our Lord’s resurrection and ascension, ten percent of the population, 8 million people, were practicing Christians.21 From a cadre of twelve servants to 8 million. That’s a miracle approaching the Transfiguration itself. The fact that there are over 50 million Christians in China today, where persecution of believers is brutal and rife, is evidence that the miracle continues.

continent. Schools are failing, families are fraying, and, when we have needed each other the most, the Church seems emptier than before. However, we need not fear if we take our rightful place in the Kingdom parade. What Jesus said to Peter, he meant as much for us – ‘Get behind me…’22 We march behind Christ. Our place is not out in front but in the rear.

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Matthew 16:23; Mark 8:33

Kay and I find climbing down the mountain much harder than climbing up.

Gravity is no friend to knees, hips, and toenails. Add to that, atop the mountain we are elevated above the daily grind and the concerns threatening to keep American Christians in a headlock: the remnants of an international pandemic that terrified us, the vestiges of a national election that divided us, and months of race riots that shamed us. The StarSpangled Banner seems to be fading as China’s red star ascends, shadowy hackers hold great nations hostage, and tyrannical leaders rise unopposed to power on every Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 65-66.

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Hiking Mt. Champlain

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The Hymnal 1982: A Treasure Chest

Music Ministry

by Jennifer Holloway

We have so many things to celebrate

right now at Christ Episcopal. One of the recent things I am celebrating is the return of the Bibles, Books of Common Prayer, and Hymnals to our pews. Especially the Hymnals. I’m sure this will come as no surprise to most of you, but I feel closest to God when I’m singing. Especially when I am singing with the congregation.

I could go on and on about the many proven health benefits of group singing,1 but I will stick to personal experience here. In the moments I am joined with the congregation in singing a beautiful hymn, it is as if we could look up into the rafters of the sanctuary and see our words reaching up to the heavens. We are truly living and breathing the words of the Venite (Psalm 95), which Christians have sung congregationally during Morning Prayer for centuries.

“Come, let us sing to the Lord; Let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving And raise a loud shout to him with psalms.”

Psalm 95:1-7 The tradition of congregational singing is as old as the church itself and is an integral part of the worship experience.

We are called to be active participants 1 Launay, Jacques. Pearce, Eiluned. “Choir singing improves health, happiness – and is the perfect icebreaker.” https://theconversation.com/choir-singing-improveshealth-happiness-and-is-the-perfect-icebreaker-47619.

Accessed 10 June 2021.

Stanborough, Rebecca Joy. “10 Ways That Singing Benefits Your Health.” https://www.healthline.com/health/ benefits-of-singing. Accessed 10 June 2021.

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in worship. I do hope that you will ALL sing with us during worship, even if you don’t like your voice (or the hymn for that matter!) Psalm 71:23 says “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you.” It does not say only those with nice voices should be heard. God wants to hear everyone! If you really can’t bring yourself to sing, try reading the words to yourself as the hymns are sung.

I invite you all to open the hymnal the next time you are in our beautiful sanctuary and explore all the many pearls it has to offer. There are many useful indexes in the back of the hymnal. (The dark red hymnbook is more comprehensive than the blue hymnal, as the red includes more accompaniments, four-part harmonies, and more indexes than the blue hymnal.

The dark red hymnbook does, however, leave out the service music included in the front of the blue hymnal. We have a mix of dark red hymnbooks and blue hymnals in our sanctuary.)

Now, open to any hymn and take a look below it. There you will find, in very small print (this is where I take out my readers), a gold mine of information. For example, to the right you see hymn 470, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.”

The Hymnal 1982 is far from being just a collection of songs. In addition to being a companion to the Book of Common Prayer, it is a cultural and historical melting pot, as well as a collection of beautiful poems written by some of the greatest theologians to have ever lived.

Our hymnal includes service music and 720 hymns that come from a huge variety of cultures and historical time periods. The texts and tunes come from all around the world, ancient to modern, reflecting the diversity of the Episcopal Church itself. The hymnal is stuffed full of fascinating histories that can lead you down a rabbit hole, should you be so inclined.

First, we see that this hymn text is also found on the previous page set to a different tune, ST. HELENA. At Christ Episcopal we are definitely more familiar with the tune for hymn 470, BEECHER. (Although many of us who were raised in the Methodist Church are more familiar with the tune BEECHER as the tune for Charles Wesley’s “Love divine, all loves excelling,”2 which is set to the tune HYFRYDOL in the Hymnal 1982. The composer John Zundel, whose birth and death dates are given here in the hymnal, named the tune BEECHER after his pastor at Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, Henry Ward Beecher.3 I could write many an article just about tune names and their origins. This is a fascinating corner of hymnody! Tunes 2 The United Methodist Hymnal : Book of United Methodist Worship. Nashville, Tenn. :United Methodist Pub. House, 1989.

3 Hymnary.org “Beecher.” https://hymnary.org/tune/ beecher_zundel#tuneinfo. Accessed 10 June 2021.

original forms. Sometimes a translator (abbreviated tr.), harmonizer (abbreviated harm.), or adaptor (abbreviated adapt.) are also included. Over on the right-hand side we find =52, which is the suggested tempo for this hymn, indicating we should sing it at a tempo that equals 52 beats per minute, with the half note receiving the beat.

Below the tempo marking we see 87. 87.

D. This refers to the meter of the hymn text. Remember, the hymnal is a book of poetry! In this hymn, phrase one has eight syllables, phrase two has seven syllables, phrase three has eight, and phrase four has seven. The D indicates that this pattern is then repeated or doubled. And now comes the fun part! You can turn to the metrical index of tunes, found on page 1053 of the dark red hymnbook (this index is not in the blue hymnals) and see what other tunes have the same meter. There are twentytwo other tunes in the hymnal that could accompany this text, although not all will work perfectly since syllabic stress may not be the same. One of the tunes is HYMN TO JOY, which works quite nicely with “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy.” Try to sing it and see how it goes!

The indexes at the back of the hymnal contain more hidden gems to explore.

There is a list of composers and all the tunes in our hymnal they have composed.

So, if you find yourself really enjoying a particular tune you can see if that composer has written any more hymns you may enjoy. There is also an index of authors, translators, and sources, as well as an index of scriptural references. are often named by the composer after a person, place, or something important to them, as Zundel did with BEECHER. (Are we to see a GAHAN soon in Josh’s growing library of beautiful compositions?) Many of the stories behind these tune names are quite fun. The tune RATHBUN for instance, hymn 441 “In the cross of Christ I glory,” was composed

by Ithamer Conkey and named after Mrs. Beriah S. Rathbun. Mr. Conkey named the tune after Mrs. Rathbun after she was the only soprano from his choir at Central Baptist Church in Norwich, Connecticut,

to bother to show up for church one Sunday morning!4 (Perhaps a tune named GAIL may be a more appropriate addition to Josh’s repertoire. Or dare I say HOLLOWAY?) But back to decoding the hymnal. We can also see here that the text was written by Frederick William Faber and his birth and death dates. The “alt.” that is included here indicates that the original text and music have both been altered from their 4 Hymnary.org “Rathbun.” https://hymnary.org/tune/ rathbun_conkey. Accessed 10 June 2021.

Not all the hymns we sing during our worship services can be found in the hymnal, as we use several other hymnals, such as the LEVAS II and Worship, Praise, and Rejoice, as well as including more contemporary praise hymns in our repertoire. This is why we print all texts in the bulletin. We just don’t have room in our pews for so many different hymnals!

But when you see a hymn with “Hymn” and a number printed to the right, that is from our wonderful Hymnal 1982. Why not look it up and find out what mysteries it may hold?

9

Good Ole Days:

Fellowship Through Shared Memories

by Henry Franco

The last year and the COVID-19 virus

have altered our lives in so many ways.

Perhaps the most evident would be the loss of the interaction we share when we gather in public together.

Technology with the advent of services like the Zoom call has its advantages in these times. However, it is just not the same as a face-to-face interaction. Getting back to in-person church gatherings, as well as the pleasure of being with family and friends socially, now more than ever, is appreciated as we return to normalcy in our lives little by little. Enjoying an opportunity to share in our common interests has been sorely missed as well. As we reconvene through worship and community activity, an inner peace and joy has returned to fill our hearts. We now appreciate what we’ve missed and what we have taken for granted.

After months of anticipation, the program formally known as Talking Baseball has returned to Christ Church. Now renamed the Good Ole Days, the program was restructured and refocused to include a wider range of topics to appeal to a wider audience. Good Ole Days is a pastoral effort under the guidance of Karen Von Der Brugge, to bring the world of “Reminisce Cafe” to Christ Church. Talking Baseball from Memories International, represented

by Jim Kenton, was introduced to Christ Church by the efforts of David McArthur and was initiated at Christ Church in 2019. Memories International is a world-wide leader in offering memory programs to groups of all types all over the world. It focuses on seniors either with memory or cognitive issues, as well as folks looking to have a good time recollecting the past.

The revamped program includes history, 10

current events, fashion, food, television, movies, music and, of course sports, baseball and football primarily. We focus on a particular year and cover as many of these topics as possible. Complimentary lunch is also provided.

With the Good Ole Days, that spirit of fellowship and interaction has been greatly received with rave reviews. One commenter summed it up best. Bernard Boeselt expressed having the same feeling he had the first day of Little League baseball. On approaching the gathering a few meetings ago, he described how on first joining our group, he recalled the day he met his teammates, coaches, and parents. Bernard expressed a feeling of familiarity after just a few minutes, and how he felt as if he belonged just like he had felt those many years ago as a young boy.

Peter Turnbull has shared many interesting memories from his days in Houston as a young man, delivering products to NASA in the days of the Gemini astronauts. His recollection was sparked by our presenting and remembering the Moon landing in 1969. He shared how the astronauts were such down-to-earth characters with a dare devil streak that made them exciting to be around. Peter also shared a great

story of a now extinct music club, “The Eastwood Country Club” in San Antonio in the 1960’s. The “Eastwood Country Club” was an African American night club that featured many of the classic Motown groups of the day - Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Chubby Checker, and the Temptations to name a few. It was especially heart warming to understand that both Black and White high school and college kids could interact in harmony and enjoy great music. Richard Albanese brought in and shared the uniform he wore as a Minor Leaguer. Richard played for the Nutley New Jersey farm team of the New York Yankees. Who knew we had a star in our midst?

Recollections, laughter, stimulating conversation, and most of all fun are what the Good Ole Days and its parent organization Memories International are all about. We would all like to encourage you to come out as we begin a new Summer and Fall schedule and give it a try. I know you will enjoy it and we would love to have you. And yes, lunch will be included.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to Contact Henry Franco at 210-8872980 or texastrojan73@gmail.com. Come out and join us!! You’ll have a Nostalgic Great Time!!

The Good Ole Days

SUMMER - FALL 2021 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. in the Parish Hall Meeting take place the first and third Thursday of the month in the Parish Hall, lunch provided: JULY 1ST, 15TH AUGUST 5TH , 19TH SEPTEMBER 2ND, 16TH OCTOBER 7TH, 21st NOVEMBER 4TH, 18TH

Are You Ready to Go? Great Commission Society

by Ferne Burney

James A. Osman, age 5

As I finish up this writing, it comes to

mind that today would have been my father’s 100th birthday. It is Flag Day, and he would tell me that he was the reason for all the flags on display. Yes, he was a soldier, and he did his part. In fact, he owed the military a great deal for the good things in his life as well as all the ravages of war.

Daddy grew up at the very northern part of Appalachia. We are Scots Irish and just about as redneck as can be imagined. He even had that over-baked, permanently red skin on his neck and chest. His upbringing was difficult: not just the Depression era rigors that most his age felt; his was more personal in nature.

When I read the book Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, I realized very quickly that my father could have easily written the

book. The only difference was law school in Vance’s future, while Daddy’s was high school administration. Otherwise, they were from the same area of rivers and bluegrass, salt-of-the-earth folks, and highly dysfunctional folks. The photo of my father at age five hangs in my hallway.

I love to see those pale blue eyes that could strike fear in an instant with “the look,” but also convey the love and solid support he was always ready to give. They could be truly “laughing” eyes. But the haunted look that I see also makes me sad for the little boy. He again had been transferred to the care of his grandparents and longed to be home with his siblings even if it was not the best. One remnant of that childhood was that although my father proclaimed his Christianity, he was through with church.

Still, like Vance, he rose up past his upbringing. 1941 found him in line with so many other young men, only this one was squeezing his toes tightly so that no one would notice his very flat feet. He wanted to go. The Army would bring him to Camp Shelby, Mississippi where he would meet my mother; and his life was never the same again. She was from a nurturing family, and it was already chock-full of well-educated people, including her. They married the next year and began the adventure that would take them to many interesting places, but never to either one’s home of origin again.

When I discovered letters my parents had exchanged during the war, I could not help but notice that my father’s English improved through the years. He slowly mastered the art of standard English through his experience in the military and by learning it from my mother. He would later actually major in English in college under the GI Bill. I will also note that during that time, this 34-year-old man who had a wife and three children, joined a fraternity and became its president. Did I mention that he was a character? When Arizona State University insisted that he wear a freshman beanie and join ROTC, the veteran Army Captain who came to

France through Utah Beach on D-Day and who had also fought in the Korean War basically told them what they could do with both the hat and the program.

And they let him get by with it.

Daddy was determined to carve out a happy and prosperous life for his family.

Life could and would be different for him.

When he arrived in Arizona in 1951, he knew that a land investment might be good since “God was not making any more of it.” The first purchase was two acres at the part of Phoenix that Dick Van Dyke would later build his studio. My father sold that land only after he knew that he would be dead within the year.

After my father’s death, the CPA who was preparing his estate return asked what he had purchased the land for, trying to establish the basis for tax purposes. When I replied, “200,” he said, “$200,000?”

“No,” I replied, “$200!” I thought he would faint. But Daddy had set aside that cash so that the taxes could easily be paid. He placed survivors benefits on each of his accounts, his retirement from the military, and retirement from the State of Arizona as an educator. He ensured that his beloved southern belle would never be without. As I cared for my mother and sister after his passing, I was so grateful to him for all he had done for them, for me and my siblings, and for his grandchildren.

His legacy will long be remembered. My first three grandchildren are each named for him: James (his actual name), Jonah (he was nicknamed Joe), and Jameson. He lives on through them and us. His legacy even reached past our family. His school family was filled with teenagers who were rescued from destruction and put back on a path that would lead them to graduate high school and to go on to successful adulthood. One particularly bad actor is now one of the most successful mechanics in the valley where Phoenix is. He wrote a full-page article for the newspaper after Daddy’s passing that spelled out how my father had used his particular brand of rough justice but had given him the second chance that made all the difference. One 11

Planned Giving.... woman I encountered in Salina, Kansas during our travels saw my ASU tee-shirt and asked if I was from Tempe. When we established that we were both from that area, I asked her if she knew my father.

She burst into tears. We heard another story of how his no-nonsense attitude had changed her life.

He had a caring and well-planned life. As I end the tribute to him, I must also let you know that, if he had a will, I never found it. We were fortunate that Arizona was not as strict as Texas in how estates are handled, or we would have been in deep trouble. When I found an envelope marked “For When the Time Comes” in his enormous pile of papers, I thought that we were saved. It contained a poem.

A poem! If you have any curiosity about why I have developed the “Are You Ready

to Go?” program at Christ Church, there is your answer.

Each of us needs to spare our family the struggle of discovering where plans are, where legal documents are, and how our end-of-life wishes are to be carried out.

With my father’s estate, we did finally get things discovered and organized, but there has to be an easier way! We hope to offer the program that will take you through your end of life wishes in the fall. In the meantime, the church office can provide you with the workbook that can help you organize your thoughts on the topic.

Happy Birthday, Daddy.

James and Maggie Dean Osman

Joy Reigns!

CEC Family Ministry

by Halleta Heinrich

Debbi Chesney as Gathering Leader, starting each morning in such a positive way. Thanks, Ladies!

What a joy filled experience our

‘Wilderness Escape” Vacation Bible School was from June 21 – 24 here at Christ Church! We had been waiting to hold this VBS for more than a year.

The waiting made it that much more appreciated by all the children, teens and adults involved. Thanks go to so many who made VBS possible. Lauren Vielock and Margaret Pape directed the week.

This was Lauren’s sixth year to co-direct!

Thanks for both of your willingness to lead. Serving as indispensable Teaching/ Tribe Leaders were Jenny Larkin, Carla Solis, and Julianne Reeves. These ladies guided their groups through Bible Study and all the fun rotations. As Snack Leader, Louis Thurmond provided us with healthy and delicious snacks all week. Jennifer Holloway served as Song Leader and 12

great community. A special thanks goes to AO Sports Camp staff who led recreation.

The children were surrounded with so much love and attention from teens and adults. No wonder they were so happy!

Thanks to our Teen Helpers: Luz Peche, Lucia Mc Clane, Ella Larkin, Faith Sideman, Avery Larkin, Alex Alvarez, Jesus Peche, Graham Shannon, Joey Satel, Michael Sideman, Benjamen Crawford, Natalie Markette, Lucy Yun, Lexi Cardenas, Audrey Hanzel, Kate Smelko, Molly Duggan, Lenna Culp, Elijah Yun, Clarice Alvarez, Hannah Shannon, Theodore Yun, Emily Kitayama, Noah Kitayama, Hannah Valenzuela and Vincent Valenzuela.

The Teen Helpers were the best I’ve ever seen – so mature and loving. Our Shop Keeper/Marketplace Arts and Crafts ladies were patient and skilled, and had

Thanks to our Marketplace Volunteers: Sarah Persyn, Mary Reynolds, Neel Scott, Hilarie Blanco, Jeannie Hickey, Paula Griffith, Jo Ann Weston, Jeannie Mc Arthur, Jeanne Tatum, Lisa Miller, Sudie Holshouser and Garnett Wietbrock.

PAGE TURNERS – From the Rector’s Book Stack About 250,000

years ago, our kind of people started showing up – that is Homo Sapiens first appeared in Africa and began migrating into Europe and Asia. For the first 200,000 years, Homo Sapiens contended with Neanderthals, with the latter going extinct 40,000 years ago after walking the earth for 400,000 years.

Homo Sapiens’ development of language, organization skills, and ability to adapt to a radically changing environment propelled them beyond their elder relatives. Kay reminded me that Jean Auel’s bestselling six-book Clan of the Cave Bear series recounts the juncture between these two latest human species. I say latest because Homo Sapiens may not be God’s final edition of mankind. Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, muses how the end of our species will occur and what great advances will be inherent in the new and improved species.

Clarke’s novel opens in the mid 21st century with the arrival of a highly sophisticated alien race. No one is allowed to interact with them except the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Remaining in their silver, translucent spaceships, the visitors, aptly named the Overlords by the masses, are content to observe human beings from crafts hovering above the earth’s major cities.

While they do not interfere in the lives of families or governments, they have suppressed all warfare, advanced science and technology, and brought about worldwide economic prosperity. The visitors bide their time for 100 years, as four generations of humans come and go. Pockets of unrest and suspicion arise amongst humanity, mainly because they believe the lack of strife and economic comfort has stifled independent thinking and artistic creativity. Humanity’s suspicions are wrong. The problem is not from above but amongst themselves. They

are a dying species. The Overlords were sent from across the galaxy to insure their transition into a new humanity. What’s doubly fascinating is that Clarke wrote the book in 1952! (Previously, in 1945, Clarke proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. Perhaps science fiction is not the correct term.)

P.S. If you are interested in the fascinating development of Homo Sapiens, consider Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, by Yuval Noah Harati.

Paul’s enormous imprint on our Christian faith is undeniable.

Augustine, Luther, and Calvin are largely responsible for Paul’s farreaching influence.

Those three insisted that the Gospel of Jesus Christ be seen primarily through the lens of Paul.

John Calvin, in fact, will interpret the panorama of salvation history through Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Luther will define the crux of salvation through Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. And Augustine will repeat ad nauseum 1 Corinthians 4:7 – ‘What do you have that you did not receive?’ insisting that the grace of God is sheer gift. 20th Century theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) found in Paul “an antidote to the false European pride” that asserted its religion and way of life marked the high tide of civilization only to sanction the horrors of WWI. In our own day, Alain Badiou (1937), in spite of the fact that he is a secular philosopher, declares that Paul’s letters retain the power to liberate humanity from the long-imposed bonds of class, racial, and cultural constraints.

Because the figure of Paul is titanic and his influence exhaustive, most Christians resist the prospect of studying his life and contributions to the Christian faith. John M.G. Barclay of Durham University has given us a very manageable and highly understandable primer on the apostle in his book Paul: A Very Brief History. Only 87 pages in

length, Barclay does not waste a single sentence in bringing Paul of Tarsus to life. Some may disagree with his questions of Paul’s authorship of a few of the canonical letters, but his comprehensive understanding of Paul’s theology, his place in history, his understanding of the relationship of Church and state, and his impact on the development of Christianity is exceptional. Furthermore, Barclay’s work is enormously entertaining.

Reading the book, you feel as if you are in a conversation with a man who has pondered Paul as deeply as Einstein contemplated energy, motion, and mass.

When I read The Great Santini (1976) in the summer of 1983, I realized that author Pat Conroy had expressed my pain at the hands of an abusive father, who was, himself, an emotionally wounded war veteran. He and I were, in our own way, casualties of war. I next read Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline (1980), whose opening lines describing the arresting beauty of Charleston are some of the most stirring poetry in all of American literature. The Water is Wide (1972), is Conroy’s memoir of teaching the isolated Gullah children on Daufuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina. He was fired from that position because he advocated for Black children too avidly for southern sensibilities. If The Lords of Discipline is Conroy’s most lyrical novel, The Prince of Tides (1986) is his most psychological. Based on Conroy’s constant devotion to his immensely gifted, yet terribly troubled sister, he examines the complexities of becoming an adult while constrained by the nightmares of childhood.

How did Pat Conroy become the voice for individuals like me and for others in the South as we emerged from our provincialism into modernity? Part of it, surely, is his recollection of the past.

Equally important are the words he 13

PAGE TURNERS – Continued read. In 2010, he left us another gift, My Reading Life. Conroy died in 2016, having read and collected books since his early adolescence. The book, in fact, opens with his mother’s insistence that he fall in love with Gone with the Wind, as she had.

Repeatedly, they read Margaret Mitchell’s epic aloud to one another, rehearsing the more memorable lines offered by Ashley, Melanie, Rhett, and Scarlett. Conroy’s mother, like my own, considered reading books her fulfillment of a formal education she lacked. Gene Norris, Conroy’s English teacher at Beaufort High School, gave him a copy of Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel, which delivered him into the company of writers. Wolfe, for his part, became Conroy’s literary model.

Conroy’s gratitude to his teacher for leading him through Shakespeare, Eliot, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and others never declined. As Norris lay dying from cancer, Conroy refused to leave his side.

On a lighter note, my favorite chapter in the book describes Conroy’s haunting the stacks of the Old New York Bookshop in Atlanta, GA. He spends money he does not have to purchase first editions of European masters, especially poets. Their words eventually came to life in him. In turn, Conroy’s writing gives expression – both the beautiful and the terrible – to all of us who grew up in the South.

Kay was shopping for groceries, when I slipped away to op. cit. Books, which, to my surprise, was tucked away in the middle of the De Vargas Center in Santa Fe, NM. The strange name of the bookstore, a Latin abbreviation for “opus citatum,” meaning “works cited” may conjure up 2 a.m. nightmares associated with history term papers.

Putting bad dreams aside, op. cit. Books is a must see in New Mexico’s capital city. With books stacked halfway to the ceiling along every aisle, the professorial proprietor admitted, “I can’t computerize all these titles; you’ll just have to look for what you want.” In fact, I was looking 14

for Willa Cather’s Death Comes to the Archbishop, my all-time favorite book about Santa Fe and its surroundings, which I wanted to add to Jennifer and Scott Rose’s impressive library. Looking up and down the pillars of books, I was unsuccessful. However, I did find two of Cather’s novellas, A Lost Lady and My Mortal Enemy, plus a near-perfect copy of O Pioneers!, which upon returning to the Rose’s comfortable and quite beautiful home, I sat down and read 50 pages. Two days later I finished it, confessing to Kay that O Pioneers! is added to my list of favorite novels.

This is not altogether surprising, because I love Cather’s stories and her writing style. A child of the Nebraska prairie and a seasoned journalist, Cather brings our North American ancestors to life in their colorful, multi-ethnic, hard-scrabble array. Previously, I read her My Antonia, Shadows on the Rock, and have read Death Comes to the Archbishop twice.

A theme that runs through all of Cather’s writing is stability in the midst of great change. Shadows on the Rock and Death Comes to the Archbishop portray the Roman Catholic Church’s unassailable grounding in Quebec and New Mexico as the old world is swept up in the new.

My Antonia and O Pioneers! are centered on the resolute, noble character of immigrant settlers on the western plains, even as railroads, speculators, and cities threaten the new world they have built. In Alexandra Bergson, Cather introduces one of the most substantial heroines in all of American literature. Left to raise her three brothers, care for her suddenly widowed mother, and carve out a farm from the resistant Nebraska tableland, Alexandra never relents. She rises to become one of the most esteemed Nebraska landowners, providing significant wealth for her three brothers, two of whom resent her to the point of hate. Adding to her pain is her growing loneliness. Her only hope for love moved to Chicago years before. Untimely deaths, betrayals, and the volatile weather of the plains cannot pollute the mettle of this Swedish American lady, nor can those things dilute her devotion to others.

Packing up for Santa Fe, our final sabbatical foray before returning to the parish, I grabbed The Contemplative Pastor, by Eugene Peterson. To be absolutely honest, I pulled the volume from my bookcase and set it back three times before I was convicted the Spirit wanted me to read it. Why I fought with God on this matter, I cannot ascertain, because every one of Peterson’s books I’ve read has impacted my life and ministry. Run with the Horses, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, The Jesus Way, and, most recently, Eat This Book have all pushed me into the deeper waters of our faith and moved me to deepen my commitment to Christ and to his Church.

I settled into my seat on the Boeing 737, opened Peterson’s book, and reading the first lines I knew the Lord was rousing me, yet again, through his literary apostle.

He does not humor the reader with a soft start. Instead, Peterson immediately redefines the pastor’s work by insisting it must become “unbusy, subversive, and apocalyptic.” So much for Mitford and Fr. Tim! First citing C.S. Lewis’s contention that “only lazy people work hard,” Peterson insists the “unbusy pastor” prays. He does so to awaken his people to the centrality of prayer in their lives. Also, the “unbusy pastor” prays instead of frenetically attacking lesser tasks, so that he does not “exist as a parasite,” a pastor who lives off the spiritual lives of others. Preaching and listening proceed from the unbusy pastor’s prayerful life.

Second, Peterson’s healthy pastor “subverts the heavily defended kingdom of self for the kingdom of God.” Peterson says that pastors should be nearly undone that people do not get anxious in the least when we mention the kingdom of God, because the kingdom to which we have apprenticed ourselves is a “dangerous

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intrusion impacting the Old Boy’s Club of thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers.”

Third, the healthy pastor is “apocalyptic,” meaning that he unveils what God is doing right now, right here. Pastors are to be like John of the Revelation, helping the congregation see the ways that God is invading our territory under our very noses. Again, as C.S. Lewis claims, “There is not a square inch of neutral ground between here and heaven.” The healthy, unbusy pastor is committed to God, the people he has been called to serve, and the place where he has been set. God does not make theoretical, abstract assignments.

We are called to serve in the nitty-gritty present until we are drawn into eternity.

15

E P I S C O PA L Christ Episcopal Church 510 Belknap Place San Antonio, TX 78212 www.cecsa.org

The Message (USPS 471-710) is published bi-monthly by Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Periodical postage paid in San Antonio, TX. Postmaster: Please send address changes to Christ Episcopal Church, 510 Belknap Place, San Antonio, TX 78212. Volume 23, Number 4.

VBS fun