The Message May 2020

May 2020 • Volume 22, Number 3

Why are we here?: 3 Congrats Graduates: 10 News from around the world: 12 Cooking up old favorites: 15

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 Family Ministry ...............................9

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

Youth Ministry ...............................10

The Rev. Justin Lindstrom, Associate Rector for Community Formation

Church Life ....................................11

PATRICK GAHAN

Carol Miller, Pastoral Care Administrator Halleta Heinrich, Director of Family Ministry

Great Commission...........................14

Lily Fenton, Nursery Director

Kitchen News..................................15

Amy Case, Youth Minister

Page Turners...................................16

Susan Lindstrom, Director of College Ministry JOSH BENNINGER

Photo Album...................................19

Jennifer Holloway, Assistant Music Director

Front cover photo: Laura Hodge Back cover photo: Bob Shoaf

Charissa Fenton, Director of Children’s Music & Receptionist

Editor: Gretchen Duggan

Live Stream Services:

www.cecsa.org/live-stream or www.facebook.com/ChristChurchSATX/live

Robert Hanley, Director of Campus Operations Darla Nelson, Office Manager

HALLETA HEINRICH

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

music begins 20 minutes before the service

10:00 a.m. Sundays

Monica Elliott, Executive Assistant to the Rector

6:30 p.m. Wednesdays

Elizabeth Martinez, Kitchen Manager AMY CASE

Sunday Services:

Robert Vallejo, Facilities Manager Rudy Segovia, Hospitality Manager

7:30 a.m.

Holy Eucharist, Rite 1 9:00 a.m.

Family-friendly Communion Service with Music

Joshua Benninger, Music Minister & Organist

Joe Garcia, Sexton

2020 Vestry:

JUSTIN LINDSTROM

10:00 a.m.

Christian Education for Children, Youth, and Adults

Darrell Jones, Senior Warden

11:00 a.m.

Choral Eucharist, Rite 2

Andy Anderson

Sudie Holshouser

Lisa Blonkvist

Andy Kerr

6:00 p.m.

Holy Eucharist, Rite 2 Visit us on-line at www.cecsa.org 2

Barbara Black, Junior Warden

BRIEN KOEHLER

Catherine de Marigny David McArthur Meagan Desbrow

Margaret Pape

Tobin Hays

Robert Rogers

Why Are We Here?

by Patrick Gahan

Driving down a wide, eerily empty San

Antonio boulevard at midday, Kay and I spied two young boys accompanying their dad. The three were peppered with white limestone chalk shed from the sheetrock they were installing in an empty apartment building. The two boys, I’d guess eight and ten, would normally be in school, but gripped by the Coronavirus, our present time is anything but normal. White as apparitions, I admired the boys and said to Kay, “I would have loved to be those two.” She looked across the console at me quizzically, so I went on to rehearse what I had told her on scores of occasions, “When I was a boy, I loved to work with my hands – raking, mowing, clearing, roofing, painting, anything. I know part of it was just wanting to be with men, since I did not have a dad at home – or anywhere really. Frankly, I just loved to work. Raking or painting, which most abhor, I did just for the satisfaction of looking back on the work I had done.”

Kay knew my sentiment because she shares it. All week long, she and nine other senior nurses, who work at the surgery center with her, text each other persistently. Jokes abound. The repeated subject, however, is how much they miss one another and how much they miss working. How well I know, for I live with the lady who still bounces out of bed at 4:20 a.m. as excited about medicine as when she first started practicing forty-five years ago.

Occasionally, our Protestant work ethic flies in the face of our friends. One

The Story of Adam and Eve, about 1413–1415, Paris, France, Boucicaut Master, Ms. 63 (96.MR.17), fol. 3, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

gentleman in our neighborhood told me in no uncertain terms would he allow his two teenage children to work in the yard or do any manual labor. He wants them to concentrate on their schoolwork and get ahead. I shook my head in abject disbelief to wonder “get ahead of what and whom”? The boy and the girl will be underdeveloped and out of touch with their own physical bodies and with the majority of Americans who spend their days in boots, gloves, aprons, uniforms, and jeans – working.

The day after we spied the two boys, Kay opened the newspaper to read that the owner of Jim’s, the most frequented restaurants in San Antonio, had written all of his employees that he was terminating their employment. Jim’s Restaurants are icons situated at many of the busiest intersections in this sprawling city. Returning from a business trip or vacation, you catch sight of the neon “J” that rises to meet the elevated interstate highway, signaling that you are really home. Reading the article aloud to me,

Kay’s voice quivered, and she said, “I think I’m going to cry. Just picture our favorite waiters and waitresses running up and down the tables and booths there at Hildebrand and San Pedro. Some have worked at Jim’s their entire adult lives.”

My insides quaked, too, as I considered what it actually means to be “let go.”

We are “let go” from our livelihoods, “let go” from our friends, “let go” from our routine, “let go” from the parade of customers you cherish, “let go” from life’s meaning. Kay was silent for a moment and then added, “I believe we are waking up to the fact that work is not so bad. We are learning work is actually good.”

We Were Put Here to Work Kay’s words echo the message of Genesis that work is good. A common misconception is that humanity was placed in the garden to do nothing but sit under a palm tree and relax in the lush tropical expanse, as if vacationing in an allinclusive Caribbean resort. Not so, for ‘the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden 3

From Our Rector... to till it and keep it’ (Genesis 2:15). Walter Brueggemann, who at 87 is the dean of Old Testament scholars in America, comments, “Work is good, surely, to enhance the garden. From the beginning of human destiny, God is prepared to entrust the garden to his special creature.

From the beginning, the human creature is called, given a vocation, and expected to share in God’s work.”1 Some of us have long supposed that work was a punishment for our disobedience. True, humanity blatantly disobeyed the “ground rules” set by God and received a swift kick out of their Edenic abode to find they were relegated to scratching out a living on less receptive soil (Genesis 3:17-19).

Nevertheless, determining that work as a whole is bad, maligns the Biblical story. In order to straighten out the storyline, we must take in the big picture.

mystical communion with the Almighty?

To answer that, we must look at the authors themselves and the challenges of their world. All books of the Bible were written at a certain time and in a certain context. Not one of the diverse authors of the Old or New Testaments woke up one morning and decided to write an epochal story that would endure for millennia. Swept up in the Holy Spirit, they wrote to address pressing challenges in their particular communities. To that end, Ruth and Jonah were written as correctives to the emergence of a hypernationalistic, insular Israel. Hosea and Amos denounce the materialistic, unjust elite in prosperous northern Israel. John is alarmed at the creep of a Gnostic, disembodied, self-serving religion creeping into the early Church communities,

“Remember your roots. Remember that only God is king,” the scribes venture to say. The effect of their work seems, at best, negligible, because Solomon’s dead body is not even cold before the kingdom is irreversibly rent north from south, and the errant, extravagant designs of both realms court disaster.

Allow me to make a small diversion here to clarify that I resolutely believe that the Bible – both Testaments – are irreducibly God-inspired and God-spoken, regardless of who He uses to communicate His words. The late Eugene Peterson, who has been my Biblical guide and muse for most of my ordained life, says this better than I ever could: “Scripture is God’s words to us, not human words about God. Reading scripture as if it were the writings of various persons throughout history giving their The writers of Genesis are exceedingly First of all, we must dispel the experiences of God, is perhaps the sophisticated and deeply mindful of creation commonest mistake that is made in biggest misconstruction surrounding the creation story in Genesis: The – especially humankind’s place in it. They reading scripture. And the deadliest... author is not trying to answer the The way (scriptural) inspiration are not posing a scientific worldview but a “How” of creation but the “Why.” takes place – the process by which theological one... Why was humanity set in Reams of writing paper have been various human languages written in spent and rounds of fierce debates sometimes faulty grammar are used creation? ... we were put here to work. have been held pitting the Genesis

by God the Spirit to speak God’s account of creation against an words personally to us – is a mystery while Paul in Galatians and Romans, his evolutionary one set in motion by Charles that defeats complete understanding. What two most pronounced letters, fears the Darwin (1809-1882). The clamorous is indisputable, though, is that persons dilution of Christ’s witness by the selfexchanges are well-worn, if not tired. The of faith believe it to happen and claim to help gurus of his day. Genesis is no worst critique, often extended as an olive experience the effects.”2 For me, the fact different. Undeniably, the stories in the branch from scientific quarters, avers that that God used various authors – whether fifty chapters of Genesis were recited in the Genesis writers were of a primitive, it was the priests toiling away in Babylon tents and around campfires for at least unsophisticated mindset, and therefore writing Genesis to their enslaved people five hundred years before they were first could not grasp the complexities of a or Paul scratching out his letters in a written down. During the forty long modern worldview. Such comments are as Roman prison to his struggling churches – years of the Exodus, I envision Moses blatantly pejorative as insisting aboriginal fortifies the divinely inspired claims of the consoling his wayfarers with the sagas of peoples have no culture. The writers of Bible. God communicates to His people those who walked the same paths before Genesis are exceedingly sophisticated and personally in their times and in concrete them – Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, deeply mindful of creation – especially ways, not impersonally, untethered to the Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and Joseph. In so humankind’s place in it. They are not human predicament, as if some abstract doing, he strengthened the multitude for posing a scientific worldview but a Greek myth. another day. These accounts of creation, theological one. Their interest is in the the fall, the flood, and the patriarchs were “Why” of creation, not the “How.” Why With that said, Israel ignores God’s specific not formally put to paper, or shall I say was humanity set in creation? Genesis word to them from the prophets and from to papyrus or animal skin, until the court answers to “exercise dominion over the the Genesis stories long rehearsed amongst earth” (Genesis 1:28-30). In other words, of Solomon in the tenth century B.C. them, and disaster sweeps through both Even then, the writers were impelled to we were put here to work. the capital of Samaria in the north and write these stories in order to confront the Jerusalem in the south. “Not one stone is left Why does the Bible open with an emphasis increasing arrogance and royal over-reach 2 Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder (New of Israel’s most profligate administration. on work instead of stressing a more York: Harper One: 1988), 18-19.

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From Our Rector... upon another” in either place (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2). While the wealthy and intelligentsia of the north are destroyed by Assyria and forced to disperse across their vast empire and intermarry, the south is conquered by the Babylonians, who take Jerusalem’s leaders in chains to Babylon, where they will make their home for over two generations. Many, in fact most, will never return. At this hinge point, Genesis and most of the Torah is written and fashioned into its final form. Why now?

The religious leaders know Israel is in danger of losing its identity. Without the stories, they do not know who they are, much less Whose they are. The pervasive worldview of the super-power Babylon is adulterating Israel’s faith. Children born in Babylon are seduced by the glittering citadel and its assumed irrepressible power. Recapturing their creation story is fundamental to remembering.

The priests, who recollect the story, do so in a predictable way. They write a liturgy. Reading Genesis 1:1-2:4b, you will note its repeated rhythm, almost like a drumbeat, marching from one stanza to the next – ‘God saw that it was good, and there was evening and morning…’ Imagine disconsolate Israel, long sequestered in Babylon, offering this reading in a call and response fashion. They stand with one another and recite the words in the same way we stand and offer the Gloria or the Nicene Creed. The words we know so well eventually get into our bloodstream and reinforce who we are. Israel was a captive nation, but aren’t we so often captivated by the consumeristic culture so pervasively surrounding us? Liturgy gives us back our identity before it fades from recognition.

The Real Kingdom Good liturgy paints a picture and the creation liturgy does this better than most.

The priestly writers have an insistent need to paint this alternative picture of creation because their people are in danger of losing themselves in the overarching impress of the Babylonian Empire. The reach and power of their terrible army and the invulnerability of their towering capital city appeared to those captives

unassailable. Confronting the behemoth realm, Genesis states that the God of Israel spoke the world into being. The very ground beneath the expansive capital and wondrous Hanging Gardens was spoken into existence by God. Every inch of earth, every forest, mountain range, ocean, river, plant, and creature proceeded from God’s voice. The Babylonian king himself along with every human being is God breathed.

The God of Israel creates and then determines the times and places of all men – big and small.

This is merely preamble, for the crux of the story is that God created the entire earth as His tabernacle, His temple.

Critics of Genesis are quick to undermine the two-tiered universe present in that story, with God up in the heavens and creation below. This anachronistic, post-Copernican perspective is, again, unhelpful, because the priestly writers are not staking a stratospheric claim for their public. Rather, they are making a theological one. The world the writers present is not primarily an ecosystem but God’s sanctuary. God speaks His tabernacle into existence. Yahweh will exist both inside and outside his earthly temple.

“Why does God graciously construct this cosmic temple?” posit New Testament professors G.K. Beale and Benjamin Gladd. “By creating a cosmic temple, God reveals that He intends on dwelling with humanity in all his fullness. Heaven and earth are to be joined together at the very end of history (Revelation 21-22) …

Although God dwells in His fullness in the invisible heavens, he dwells particularly with Adam and Eve in the garden.

The casual mention of God ‘walking’ in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8) highlights His presence in the temple. In Leviticus, the Lord promises that he will ‘walk’ among the Israelites and be their God” (Leviticus 23:12).3 Adam and Eve represent far more than just the first human beings, for they become the first priests in God’s earthly tabernacle. The procession of humanity that follows them 3 G.K. Beale & Benjamin L. Gladd, The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2020), 2.

will also be consecrated for that lofty work.

Consider for a moment what this renewed vision would have meant to those exiles in Babylon and those scattered amongst their subordinate colonies. Many may have already been familiar with the bones of the creation story but recast now in a liturgy extolling God’s generative speech, they would recall the mobile tabernacle Moses and the people carted throughout the wilderness. Furthermore, the older generations in Babylon would remember the magisterial temple set on the highest ground of now decimated Jerusalem. The cadences would have lifted Israel out of their despondency and purposelessness, which is what good liturgy does. Their fearful illusion of an impregnable Babylon would be mollified. Years later, the writers of Daniel and Revelation would write similar lines to unmask the temporality of godless, subordinating superpowers. Reading the first chapters of Genesis in this way offers a more pointed meaning to the Tower of Babel account in chapter 11. If the tower is an allusion to the soaring ziggurats thought to have dominated Babylon’s urban expanse, the writers are having a chuckle at their subjugator’s expense when the edifice careens to the ground. The only enduring kingdom is peopled by those who know the entire world is God’s. He alone is to be worshiped and served, and human beings serve a fundamental role as His priests.

These exilic writers make it clear that one can exercise their priestly work no matter where they are – Babylon, Jerusalem, or points in-between. The prophet, knowing the entire world is God’s sanctuary, addresses the wise scattered about the planet, ‘The Lord is in His holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him’ (Habakkuk 2:20).

If Israel received such an illustrious calling as God’s priests, why do they find themselves enslaved 1,700 miles from home? The Genesis story succinctly answers that humanity betrayed their calling. Residing in paradise – whether the address was Eden or Canaan – the people elect to serve themselves and eschew the Lord’s sovereignty over their 5

From our Rector... lives and reach, instead, for the fruit of self-exaltation (Genesis 3:1-7). Every generation has their own version of Adam and Eve. The saga is not about location; it is about vocation and humanity exchanging their royal priestly station for fear and slavery. Note how the couple, once eating the fruit, avoid communion and desperately attempt to hide from God. To this tragic state of affairs, Brueggemann declares that the couple “now taking life into their own hands, make no more mention of tending and feeding. They have no energy for that.

Their interest is focused completely on self, on their new freedom and the terror that comes with it.”4 We surrender our vocation in God’s glorious kingdom to work at something much, much less.

Sabbath is More than a Day of the Week The crescendo of creation is the biggest surprise of the whole story. Yahweh doesn’t end his six days of creation with fireworks, falling stars, or regal edicts. The week ends with God at rest. Throughout the ages, eager school children upon hearing the creation story for the first time are poised on the edge of their seats only to hear “and God rested” (Genesis 2:1-3). Nothing will prove to be a more pronounced witness of life in God’s earthly tabernacle than the Sabbath. Armies and dominions, which seem invincible in their day, come and go throughout the history of civilization, but the keeping of the Sabbath day endures wherever God’s people have made their home. To our impoverishment, we have marginalized the meaning of Sabbath and therefore minimized the keeping of it. Considering it our “free day,” we have filled it – not with rest – but with all the tasks we could not complete on Saturday. In our repeated ignorance, we have edged God out of the Sabbath and placed ourselves smack in the middle of it, yet another exercise of our short-sighted idolatry.

I say “short-sighted” because keeping Sabbath is one of the most revolutionary, counter-cultural acts we can undertake. At 4 Brueggemann, 48.

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the core of keeping Sabbath is one’s belief keeping of Sabbath, in heaven and earth, that God, who created all that is or will be, is a foretaste and anticipation of how the can be trusted to safeguard His creation, creation will be when God’s way is fully even to make it flourish. To “trust” God established. Sabbath is an unspoken prayer is the bedrock foundation of faith. The for the coming of a new sanity shaped by antithesis of faith, of course, is to imagine the power and graciousness of God.”5 the flourishing of our lives depends on us. Looked at by way of faith, we see that Sabbath is part of our work and plays the Sabbath is a double gift. The most a major part of why we are here, set in obvious benefit is that we are invited, even the creation at this particular time of commanded, to rest, to Considering it our “free day,” we have filled enjoy the world and the people God has given us. it – not with rest – but with all the tasks we Imagine yourself living could not complete on Saturday. In our repeated in the ancient world

before there was any ignorance, we have edged God out of the Sabbath notion of “the weekend.” and placed ourselves smack in the middle of it, yet Seen from that vantage another exercise of our short-sighted idolatry. point, unless you were a member of the one percent elite, one day followed the next in slavish monotony. Into human history. As priests of God serving this wearisome, droning life, God gives in His tabernacle, we keep Sabbath.

Israel the Sabbath. He orders them to We embody the truth that God can be step back from the daily grind and rest. In trusted. Perhaps now you can see the vast fact, he orders them to make meticulous chasm between Babylon and Jerusalem. preparations in advance of the seventh In Babylon there was no Sabbath. In day so that they may, indeed, rest on Egypt there was no Sabbath. “Make these the Sabbath. The rest of the world may bricks without straw,” the taskmasters frantically rush about seven days a week, in Goshen demanded (Exodus 5:7). but not Israel. They, and all those living Once released from Egypt, God delivers amongst them, will enjoy a day of respite. the commandments to Israel, with the The second gift is more far-reaching than most liberating demand being the most the first. Those who keep Sabbath are demonstrative. ‘Six days shall you work, but given a weekly, experiential reminder that the Sabbath day is holy unto the Lord…’ The God can be trusted. We are wrenched fact that Genesis and the rest of the Torah from the fantasy that the well-being of were largely written during the exile, you our lives depends on us. To put down may see now why John in his Revelation the hammer, the saw, the computer, the most often terms Rome as “Babylon.” smartphone and rest with those you love The dark, consuming power seeks to draw is a living protest against a rapacious, believers away from complete dependence consumeristic culture that eats its own. and fealty to God to worship at the feet of Commenting on the radical dimensions the Emperor. Do not imagine, even for a of keeping Sabbath and its effect on God’s second, that the bleak, gluttonous force has people, Brueggemann makes a sweeping evaporated. Its power is just more subtle, statement: “The Sabbath is a sociological sophisticated, and ubiquitous. Neither expression of a new humanity willed the king of Babylon nor the Emperor of

by God. Sabbath is the end of grasping Rome could make use of smartphones! and therefore the end of exploitation.

Thus, our work as priests in this day is the Sabbath is a day of revolutionary equality same as those faithful who have preceded in society. On that day all rest equally, us. Surrounded by the siren calls of a dark, regardless of wealth or power or need consumeristic, impersonal empire, our (Exodus 20:8-11). Of course, the world is actions profess that ‘the light has come into the not now ordered according to the wellworld and the darkness has not overcome it’ (John being and equality of Sabbath rest. But 5 Brueggemann, 35-36.

From our Rector...

1:5).

In that light, recall how the priestly writers consigned to Babylon wrote the opening of Genesis as a liturgy in order to remind Israel that the world is not Babylon’s but God’s. The Babylonians had ornate creation stories, which were no doubt pervasive at that time because we have the texts of those stories even today.

Genesis, on the other hand, begins as a litany the people would recite in order to refute the contrived lies of Babylon and declare the world as God’s alone. In the same way, the Sabbath is a liturgy as well as a day of rest. Part of our work, a fundamental reason we are here, is to worship God who made us, saves us, and sustains us. Most people do not consider worship as work. Actually, it is our most important work. The Holy Scriptures are clear and replete with its commands to praise, thank, and worship God (Exodus 15:2; Deuteronomy 10:21; Ephesians 1:6 to name just a few). The Lord does not need our adoration. God is not vain, but we need to offer Him praise and thanksgiving in order to live with integrity and purpose. To give ourselves over to

the myths of Babylon, the deceptions of a human-centric creation, the fantasy that we are supermen, is to lose our footing, our place, and our rightful vocation.

Sabbath worship, which is Sunday for Christians, is not to give an occasional nod to the Almighty when it fits into our weekend calendar. No, it is to undertake our seminal work as human beings, as if to say once a week in the company of others, “I know who I am, Lord; I know Whose I am, Lord; and I know why I am here, Lord!” One unexpected benefit of this increasingly secular age filled with young adults who identify as “Nones” (no religious affiliation) and Baby Boomers, who entertain themselves endlessly, is that Sunday worship has become the most counter-cultural act of the entire week.

We do not have to wonder how to be a Christian witness, just be bold enough ‘to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness’ (Psalm 96:9). In doing so, we emulate Jesus Christ. The incarnate God on earth, Jesus embodied the primacy of worship – ‘He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom’ (Luke 4:16); ‘He went to a lonely place to pray’ (Mark 1:35); ‘He sent his disciples ahead of him so that he could go up into

the mountains and pray’ (Matthew 14:22); ‘Did you not know I would be in my Father’s house?’ (Luke 2:49); ‘My house shall be a place of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers’ (Mark 11:17). We who are incarnated with the same Spirit that impelled Jesus’s witness, bring his testimony into our small corners of the earth by keeping Sabbath, worshiping God, and standing against the powers that desacralize creation and thereby dehumanize its people. This is our work. This is why we were made. This is why we are here.

Thy Kingdom Come Revisiting the opening of Genesis in this way leads me to consider the Lord’s Prayer with a renewed urgency. Jesus taught us to pray ‘Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:5-15 & Luke 11:1-4). In order to offer this prayer with any hint of veracity, we must pray it with a new understanding, like those displaced Jews exiled in Babylon when they first received the Genesis liturgy. Suddenly, their eyes were reopened to the truth of the creation; it is God’s tabernacle, where He presides over it and within it. You and I are God’s priests, who live out that truth on whatever patch of earth we find ourselves in God’s kingdom.

Not one inch of ground is unconsecrated.

Our work is not heroic. Rather, our priestly tasks are to maintain a faithful rhythm of keeping Sabbath and being vessels inhabited by God to announce His presence. In a world suffused with illness, uncertainty, selfishness, want, and fear, our work could never be more important than it is now.

“God Rested on the Seventh Day,” Anonymous Russian Icon, ca. 1650.

The icon of “God Rested on the Seventh Day” is rare and unusual. The top of this icon features the Lord Sabaoth resting on a bed with the Sign Mother of God above him. Christ is shown here as a winged child. To the right He is on the Crucifix supported by the Lord Sabaoth, to the left He is being blessed. The entire upper scene is encased in blue to represent Heaven.

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The Sound of Silence

by Josh Benninger

The baton swings down sharply to the

right and all music ceases. No strings, no woodwinds, no brass––merely empty silence. In the absence of sound, you hear the audience take a breath. Suddenly, the baton rises up only to come down like a lightning bolt, and with it the orchestra releases their collective energy in the final chord of the symphony. Your hands immediately come together in thunderous admiration of the performance. At least, that’s how it used to be.

Thanks to COVID-19, a cruel reality is unmasked, for no one is sitting in a concert hall, school auditorium, or any venue with live music. Symphonies are silent, bands are mute, and choirs are voiceless. The pandemic wrenched us from our external lives, forcing us to live within the walls of our homes. Silence replaced sound.

Musicians know what silence is in music, it is indispensable in composition. It creates transitions between musical ideas, and it bookends beginnings and endings of songs. Silence can be subtle, dramatic, or deafening. In our daily lives, it can be wonderful for reflection and relaxation.

But it can have negative consequences if left unchecked.

We are living out mini prison terms within our own homes, and parallel to that, in our own heads. On the positive side, this new way of living creates opportunity for self-evaluation, and the extra time can be a blessing for more quality time with family.

However, we can also take the slippery road by sacrificing more hours to social 8

media and our digital screens. Obsessively checking and rechecking the news and our social media timelines for updates on the state of the world makes us anxious.

Worrying and fretting over what will happen next feeds fear. Wondering when life will return to normal breeds doubt.

Anxiety, fear, and doubt replaces certainty, assurance, and belief.

Our jars have been emptied of the many fun and expected activities we used to enjoy, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be refilled. In a recent sermon, Patrick spoke about the process of reorienting our lives after experiencing a traumatic event, such as the one we currently live in. COVID-19 can derail our lives if we are not careful.

When our routines have been uprooted, what’s left is empty spaces, silence. What we choose to replace the emptiness is critical to moving forward in a way that emulates the light of Christ. Things we could do: Pray more, exercise, start a journal, call a friend, write a letter, plant a garden, or begin a new hobby. As for me, I decided to hunt for new music.

Though I can’t take delight in live music, thanks to technology, discovery is only a few clicks away. And now that my jar is filling back up, I want to share a sampling of what I’ve found so far with you. Some selections are brand new to my ears, while others, which I marked with an asterisk, I fondly remember from my childhood days and only recently rediscovered.

The silence we experience now is only temporary, in fact, it might already be over with by the time you read this. Until then, what do you choose to fill the silence with?

Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons: Spring 1 Max Richter

https://music.apple.com/us/album/ recomposed-by-max-richter-vivaldi-the-fourseasons-spring-1/1452271937?i=1452272370

The Spheres Ola Gjeilo (pronounced LAY-lo)

https://music.apple.com/us/album/thespheres/1440725489?i=1440725492

String Quartet No. 16 in F, Op. 135: III. Lento assai* Ludwig van Beethoven

https://music.apple.com/us/album/stringquartet-no-16-in-f-op-135-iii-lento-assai-canta nte/1452151425?i=1452152087

Dirait-on Morten Lauridsen

https://music.apple.com/us/album/diraiton/311880146?i=311880155

Handel in the Strand* Percy Grainger

https://music.apple.com/us/album/handel-inthe-strand/265085277?i=265086615

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 14: II. Andante Samuel Barber

https://music.apple.com/us/album/ concerto-for-violin-and-orchestra-op-14-iiandante/414756254?i=414756259

Piano Concerto in G Major: II. Adagio assai Maurice Ravel

https://music.apple.com/us/album/pianoconcerto-in-g-major-m-83-ii-adagio-assai-rema stered/1363579651?i=1363579659

Mass in B Minor, BWV 232: Sanctus* Johann Sebastian Bach

https://music.apple.com/us/ album/mass-in-b-minor-bwv-232sanctus/1452556367?i=1452557101

Vladimir’s Blues Max Richter

https://music.apple.com/us/album/vladimirsblues/1480784968?i=1480784981

Préludes, Book 1, L. 117: No. 8 Claude Debussy

https://music.apple.com/us/album/ pr%C3%A9ludes-book-1-l-117-8-la-fille-auxcheveux-de-lin/1492313510?i=1492313696

Misere, Opus 44* Henryk Górecki

https://music.apple.com/us/album/misereopus-44/83145832?i=83145537

God Speaks - We Listen, See, and Grow CEC Family Ministry

by Halleta Heinrich “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

Ephesians 1:18-19a

I am growing in faith during this

challenging time that has occurred during Lent and now, Easter. The theme scripture that was chosen by our Diocese of West Texas for this year is perfect for our times.

Paul prays for the Ephesians and for us today that our eyes, ears, and hearts may be opened to God’s steadfast love, power, and hope we have through Christ. These strange times are a real opportunity for growth into becoming the people God intends for us to be.

As I write this today, this was not the Lent and Easter we had planned for. I would have just finished being in charge of our beautiful Liturgy of Light in a packed to overflowing Children’s Chapel and the best and biggest Easter Egg Hunt ever on Easter Saturday. I would have had the joy of leading our children into the church for the Flowering of the Cross on Easter Sunday. I would have been cleaning up from the big hunt and then preparing for our Children’s Communion Class Retreat and Celebration Sunday this weekend.

My plans were foiled! You see, I am an ENFJ according to the Myers Briggs personality test. The test results indicate that I am an E for Extrovert which means I love being around people and am energized by them. I am an N – Intuitive

and F – Feeling, which all together means I am super sensitive to others and my own feelings. I am a J – which stands for Judgement, but what it really means is that I am a planner. I have a need to plan ahead, organize in detail, and see my plan come through.

Our current situation has challenged me in every way! I can’t be around the people I love at church and in my own family.

My sensitivity to others and within myself is in full gear as the stress of our historic situation is blowing my mind. And most of all, my J is being challenged as never before. I can’t really plan ahead and know exactly when and how things are going to happen. I feel like I am walking on water in this unstable time. I have to keep my eyes on Jesus in order not to drown, but I know His hand will reach out to save me even if I look away.

I thought I’d done it all, seen it all, and experienced it all. I was ready to write my book about how God has sustained me through the loss of my oldest son, death of

my husband, my battle with cancer, and through it all, blessed me with the work I love. But now a new one for my book – a worldwide pandemic! We are in totally new territory! We have to depend on God. We are not in control!

While at HEB, when awareness of the pandemic first arose, I caught a glimpse of a little paperback book entitled “Keep Calm and Trust God.” God opened my eyes and really spoke to me with this title.

He was telling me what to do, and I have tried to be obedient. I bought the book and then ordered copies for my Sunday School teachers and mailed them to them for Easter. As Paul has prayed for us in Ephesians, may the eyes of our hearts be opened to the power and hope God provides. We must keep calm and trust!

He’s in charge and He loves each of us more than we can imagine. I pray that we can all grow into being more like Jesus as we are living through this unique time.

Love in Christ, Halleta

9

Good Luck Graduates!

Cooper Lindstrom

Browning Shemwell

Extracurricular activities in high school: Swimming and tennis and was the president of a kindness club called Friends of Rachel Club

Extracurricular activities in high school: Varsity Tennis

High School Attended: Alamo Heights High School

High School Attended: TMI Episcopal

Favorite thing to do on the weekend: Go climbing and/or bouldering at state parks

Favorite thing to do on the weekend: Read, play tennis, and journal Church where confirmed: St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oklahoma City

Church where confirmed: Christ Episcopal Church

What do you remember about confirmation class? I remember hanging out with friends and talking about our faith as a group

What do you remember about confirmation class? It was fun doing confirmation with my friends

College attending in fall: Texas Lutheran University

Possible major: Entrepreneurship & Business

Possible major: Double major in psychology and math

Favorite scripture: John 3:16

Favorite scripture: Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through him who gives me strength.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Donny Duggan

Matthew Markette

High School Attended: Keystone School

High School Attended: Alamo Heights High School

Extracurricular activities in high school: Summer Research Internship, Boy Scouts, Theater, Academic World Quest, Model UN, Tennis

Extracurricular activities in high school: Golf, Outdoors, Boy Scouts

Favorite thing to do on the weekend: Tinkering, making things, and video games Church where confirmed: Christ Episcopal Church What do you remember about confirmation class? The way it made me reflect on my own faith College attending in fall: SMU - Southern Methodist University Possible major: Biology Favorite scripture: Matthew 25:40

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

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College attending in fall: TCU (Texas Christian University)

Favorite thing to do on the weekend: Golf Church where confirmed: Christ Episcopal What do you remember about confirmation class? Taught me how to use the book of common prayer as a guide College attending in fall: Texas A&M Possible major: Business Favorite scripture: Isaiah 40:31

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

New Normal or Better?

by Justin Lindstrom

Coming out of this pandemic many

have said there will be a “new normal.”

Recently I read an article and the author of it interviewed a local politician and community servant. She said, “Maybe we should not focus on a new normal but how to be better than we were before!”

I have heard many people around our church community and around the San Antonio community talk about, comment, and ask: “What are we going to learn from this? What are we going to keep?

What will change?” All great ideas to ponder and very important to discern. I truly believe God is going to use this time to bless us in new and rich ways…we just have to be open to it.

I am ready to be better than I was. I am ready to continue to spend time with family: Maybe not as much as I am now,

but the family meals and game nights have really been fun. I am ready to continue to take a walk every day with Susan.

In our outreach as a church we have learned some things during this time. First, something we knew but it has become even more evident…you are generous.

Thank you for your generosity. I hope and pray it continues as the needs of our community are great. Second, we have discovered that we can serve more people and that our people love gathering for Sidewalk Saturday. We will do some things differently in the future in order to better serve people and continue to build community.

Our Second Annual Palm Sunday Ministry Fair had to be retooled and was moved from being in person to being virtual. I hope you have watched the video and looked through the Ministry Opportunities Booklet. I encourage you to fill out the

survey. Check ministries you would like to try. Get plugged in to something new and serve God and His church in exciting ways. Challenge yourself as this may be a part of your pathway to something better than before.

These are just a few examples of the many things floating around in my heart and mind. The most important is that this time of viral outbreak, isolation, hurt and pain has not caused me to doubt my belief in Jesus’ saving grace and forgiving love, but has solidified and deepened my faith. I hope that is true for you too. My Lenten disciplines changed as the virus did its thing in our area, but nonetheless remaining steadfast in knowing the promises of God to the depths of my soul has sustained me and motivated me to emerge better than I was before. May it be so for all of us, the church, our city, and beyond.

Update on Outreach Through your generosity of gifts of food, masks, gift cards and monetary resources we have been able to meet the high demand of need in our community during this time. Every Saturday we have continued to distribute large bags of groceries. Here is a list of what we have been doing: The Food Bank delivered an extralarge monthly delivery of food to help us meet demand

For four weeks we were able to give a gallon of fresh milk to every household thanks to Dick Tips

We are serving almost 150 households every week which is almost double our normal load

For Easter we gave out large hams to our larger households thanks to Mike Kiolbassa

We have received over $10,000 in donations to purchase food

Every week we have provided over 200 breakfast tacos through the hard work of Elizabeth and Greg Martinez, and Mariel Rogers

We receive food donations every week on Saturdays to help us help others

Christ Church gave a $3,000 donation to the San Antonio Food Bank

We hand out masks every week to help others remain safe and healthy

The Outreach Committee assisted our partners to serve the community: $10,000 to Christian Assistance Ministries, $10,000 to Good Samaritan Center, and $5,000 to Snack Pack 4 Kids

11

World Missions: Preaching

by Brien Koehler

Christ Church is a Great Commission

congregation, with a keen sense of mission and outreach at home and abroad. Of course, we have no choice! It is the word of the Lord to his Apostles in Matthew 28, and the testimony of the New Testament that gives us our plan. Jesus came and “preached peace to those who were far off and to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:17).

In this season of pandemic, I asked each of the long-term overseas missionaries affiliated with Christ Church to share something of their experience so that we can remember and pray for them. Their messages to us are below:

quickly, we started stocking up on supplies, but not toilet paper. As Wuhan was being quarantined, we had a small window to prepare for Beijing’s imminent lock-down.

Soon we found ourselves confined to our small apartment and watched the human tragedy unfold in my wife’s hometown.

But, the Lord is still faithful.

From the beginning of this pandemic until now, He has watched over us and even used this crisis to refocus our lives on to Him. He has revealed idols that had gone unnoticed which has brought us into a deeper relationship with Him. Kurdistan: The Rev. Jerry and Stacy Kramer

China: David and Sophia Browning

region’s last completely unreached People Group, the Shabak. And we are presently partnering with the government to bring relief to Christian IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) in the far-flung northern villages. Every $1,000 provides two-weeks of food for 40 families.

Despite the risk, the local Church continues to witness to the love of Jesus.

It’s been especially heartening to see fellowships of brand-new Believers begin to form “churches.” One of the marks of the Church they learn from Scripture is local outreach and caring for the poor.

And they’re perfectly positioned to share the “hope that is in them” (1 Pet 3:15) – which they are! To learn more and support the relief effort among the refugees, visit our website www.lovefortheleast.org.

Your prayers for all there are appreciated greatly, as ever. Blessings!

Philippines: George and Ginny Olson

For us Corona virus became a reality in January as China was shutting down for Chinese New Year. We had our tickets purchased and were about to head to Wuhan to spend the holiday with family when we started hearing rumors of a new SARS like virus, but at that point accurate information was scarce and official channels were mum. The toughest choice was to decide whether we should cancel out trip or not, so we turned to the Lord in prayer.

As rumors of human to human transmission appeared, we decided to stay in Beijing; this was especially tough for my wife. After that things started moving 12

Kurdistan, home to 1.2 million refugees from ISIS, borders Iran which is a major global Covid-19 hot-spot. The virus is now spreading rapidly in Kurdistan; the region has been on full lock-down for over a month. Among the hardest hit economically are the refugees. Living hand to mouth in miserable conditions in the best of times, they’re now unable to work resulting in no money for food, diapers, meds and other supplies.

Our teams there on the ground are doing heroic work bringing relief to the most vulnerable. Christians, new Believers and the full-time missionaries are delivering food boxes to Yezidi refugees in camp, Syrian refugees in camp and town and the

I am member of our mission’s international crisis management and security team, and we have really had our hands full! We were in a position where we had to make decisions worldwide about who was going to remain in positions ministering to tribal people… who was going to return to their home countries, and how best to coordinate all these events. Now that the world has sort of settled into a lock-down, some days are really busy, and other days become rather quiet, but overall we are still under high alert.

Peace to those Far Away I am able to do my work through the internet, as I have been doing since we returned to the USA in 2018. So, my daily routine has not really changed that much; it is just the volume of work that has increased.

I want to mention also about our friends in the Philippines. Some of them are having a very hard time right now because the relief fund that the government has promised them either hasn’t arrived or they don’t qualify. They are all under strict quarantine rules and nobody is allowed to go out to work so that they can buy food. Only people who already have some money can buy food. So please remember the Philippines in your prayers.

Spain: The Rev. Duane and Sharon Miller

live-cast an English-language service from our home. Every Tuesday evening Sharon and I do the same for our Arabiclanguage church. With Light Madrid, our church plant, we’re working on setting up a seekers’ bible study online. I continue to teach my seminary students using Zoom.

The kids are handling it well. I’m pretty sure that Sharon and I already had COVID19 but to be honest it was (for us) little worse than a cold. We didn’t get tested because there are few test kits here and they are reserved for the very ill and medical workers. During this time of trial and anxiety for so many, we rejoice that we can be a voice of hope and faith in Christ our Lord. May the Lord bless you and keep you all!

Uganda: The Rev. Canon Alison Barfoot

been well-communicated throughout the country. Clearly, however, if the virus gets out of control in Uganda, the healthcare system is not in a position to manage a full-scale epidemic. It would be devastating in crowded slum communities.

For now, the biggest impact is the shutdown of the economy. Daily wageearners are really suffering from not being able to work to earn enough money to buy food for the day. Plus, earlier this week, northern Uganda got a second invasion of locusts. Yes, locusts! They destroy food crops. We have a looming food security crisis in our future.

My role has been to touch base with our partners to make sure they’re ok and thinking through how to recalibrate under the circumstances. I’ve also been a big source of continuity for a new Archbishop (one month old) who has been handed a big leadership task. I’ve been able to support him in writing three Pastoral Letters to the Church and his Easter Message to the nation, all of which have been very well received.

A Prayer for those Far Away from Us

Madrid is usually a busy, bustling city with visitors from all over the world. These days it is as quiet as a tomb. For over four weeks, the kids have not been going to school, and then two days after that we were told that all stores needed to shut down except for “essential services,” and that people who could work from home should do so. And a few days ago, even those people were told to stay home. So, I go to the store to shop every couple of days. If you have a dog you can take it for a walk, but if you have kids, too bad, they must stay inside.

But ministry continues, though in a different format. Every Sunday the Millers

What’s fairly clear is that the [Uganda] Ministry of Health is doing an admirable job with the resources available. What does that mean? Only 10% of healthcare professionals have access to face masks and gloves. Not very many hospitals have oxygen available for patients, let alone ventilators. The Ministry of Health is good at contact tracing, as evidenced from Uganda’s success in controlling previous outbreaks of viruses like Ebola.

The message of hand washing, using hand sanitizers, and social distancing has

O God, whose fatherly care reaches to the uttermost parts of the earth: We humbly implore you graciously to behold and bless those whom we love, now absent from us.

Defend them from all dangers of soul and body; and grant that both they and we, drawing nearer to you, may be bound together by your love in the communion of the Holy Spirit, and in the fellowship of the saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

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Will There Be Enough?

Great Commission Society

by Patrick Gahan

The 10,000 cars lined up in an almost

endless serpentine queue outside a high school football stadium to receive groceries from the San Antonio Food Bank is the most haunting Corona virus photo to date.

Kay and I stared in disbelief at the photo on the front cover of the Express-News.

Most of the 10,000 arrived before dawn in order to secure their place in line so that they could feed their families. Until the Covid-19 pandemic, the average number attending the Food Bank distribution was at most 600. By God’s grace and the people of San Antonio’s generosity, every household received their food that day.

Even so, two troubling questions stalked me during the ensuing days: Would Christ Church receive our order from the Food Bank, because our numbers at Sidewalk Saturdays are up 50%? And will there be 14

enough stock at the Food Bank in weeks to come?

Just today, both questions were answered.

Not one, but two trucks from the Food Bank arrived at our Outreach Campus to deliver the food we’ll need for distribution over the next few weeks. At the same time, I read that the Food Bank is receiving sacrificial financial gifts from many inside and even outside our city. God has put into so many hearts the magnanimity to give at this time. Christ Church, even though we pay for the food delivered to us, will triple our pledge to the Food Bank to punctuate our overwhelming relief and gratitude.

In that tandem spirit of urgency and gratitude, I write you today. For eight years, I have a made an insistent, repeated call on us to make provision for Christ Church in our testamentary giving. I urge you during this Corona virus interlude to name Christ Church in your will, life insurance, trust, IRA, Roth, or whatever instrument best suits you and your legal or investment counsel. I do not hesitate to ask because the future is uncertain. Who knows what challenges and calamities will

greet our historic parish in days to come?

After all, Christ Church has already come through two World Wars, the Depression, the Polio Epidemic, the Spanish Flu, 9/11, and the remnants of Smallpox.

In the midst of all those cataclysms, Christ Church has stood at Belknap and Russell as a strong tower of hope and an unbreachable bulwark against despair.

Specifically, having now raised two million dollars toward our Buildings and Grounds Endowment, we need one million more to take care of our annual capital repairs.

We have added $250,000 to our Outreach Endowment for our food ministries and the care of elementary aged children at risk, but we need a total of two million dollars to stay strong. At present, we have less than $100,000 in our newly formed Music Endowment, and, again, will need two million dollars to fund our special music at Lessons & Carols, Good Friday, All Saints’ Day, and other seminal events throughout the Christian year.

Let’s act on our convictions and there will always be enough!

From the Christ Church Kitchen During this pandemic, many of us have been cooking more, whether by necessity or for fun. Here are a few recipes from “Christ Church Cooks: 1989 Collection of the Women of Christ Church.” Enjoy these until we may gather together again.

Meatloaf

Meat Loaf with Christ Church Special Sauce

Special Sauce

1 egg 1 cup oats 1/3 cup catchup 1/4 cup onion, diced 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 2 teaspoons seasoned salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper 2 lbs ground beef 1/2 cup milk

1 onion, diced 1 green pepper 3 ribs celery 1/2 lb butter 32 oz can of tomatoes 1 small can tomato sauce 1 lb carrots, cut into 1” pieces 2 cans small whole potatoes

Beat egg, stir in remaining ingredients. Add beef, mix, and pat mixture into a pan. Bake at 325 for about 1 hour.

Blessed are you, O Lord God, King of the Universe, for you give us food to sustain our lives and make our hearts glad; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. BCP 835

Tomatoes Parmesan with Spinach 2 packages frozen chopped spinach 2 tablespoons chopped onion 2 tablespoons butter 3/4 - 1 cup sour cream 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind salt and pepper 4 firm ripe tomatoes 1/2 - 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated Heat oven to 400. Cook spinach and drain well. Saute onion in margarine. Add it with sour cream and lemon rind to spinach. Salt and pepper to taste. Arrange spinach mixture in the bottom of a buttered pan. Slice the tomatoes thick, salt and pepper them, and sprinkle both sides with Parmesan. Arrange on top of spinach. Sprinkle with more Parmesan. Bake about 20 minutes until the top is a little brown.

Serves 8.

Brown onion, green pepper, and celery in margarine. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Serve over sliced meatloaf. Serves 10.

Chocolate Sheath Cake 2 cups flour 2 cups sugar 1/4 teaspoons salt 1/2 cup Crisco 1 stick butter 1/4 cup cocoa 1 cup water 1/2 cup buttermilk 2 eggs slightly beaten 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon vanilla Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Put the Crisco, butter, cocoa, and water in a pan. Bring to a boil and pour over the flour and sugar. Add the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, and vanilla. Mix well and pour into a greased and floured pan. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.

1 stick butter 4 tablespoons cocoa 6 tablespoons milk 1 lb powdered sugar 1 tablespoon vanilla 1 cup pecans Melt the butter, cocoa, and milk in a pan. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and pecans. Beat well and spread on the hot cake.

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PAGE TURNERS – From the Rector’s Book Stack Only P.D. James can break out words like “insuperable,” “atavistic,” and “censorious” as if they are routinely bantered about at a booth in a truck stop diner. Taking a break from my recent run of non-fiction, I turned to James’s 1963 Adam Dalgliesh Mystery, A Mind to Murder. Dalgliesh, Scotland Yard’s only published poet, analyzes a homicide case in the same way he crafts a quatrain of dactylic hexameter – one carefully measured step at a time.

This second in the Dalgliesh Mystery series takes place in an upscale psychiatric clinic tucked away in a tony burb bordering London. For her part, P.D. James seems more interested in the tortured psychology of the clinic staff than in the murder itself. Not to mention the staff routinely utilizes LSD therapy to seek emotional breakthroughs with their patients. (Move over Timothy Leary.)

The mélange of this strange setting with characters who are stranger still make this a worthwhile diversion with a vocabulary tutorial as an added incentive.

Malcolm Gladwell, the probing Canadian journalist and social scientist, has again rattled our preconceived notions with his book David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits & the Art of Battling Giants.

As the title suggests, Gladwell opens with his assertion that David held the advantage over Goliath before he ever grabbed a single rock from the creek bed. Gladwell uses the scalpel of his meticulous study to dissect everything from our long-held assumptions about elementary classroom size to college choice 16

to learning disabilities to the American Civil Rights Movement. What looks to be impediments essentially become assets.

The same goes for students supposedly plagued with Dyslexia. A third of our major corporations are headed by those who were once diagnosed with significant learning disabilities but developed other strengths, which turned their liabilities into appreciable advantages. The most fascinating chapters of the book centered on my hometown of Birmingham, AL in the early 1960’s. Martin Luther King’s cadre held the upper hand, and never more so than when the fire hoses and police dogs were let loose. Reading most every page with my mouth agape, Gladwell had me feeling downright uninformed and… Philistine!

David Browning, our missionary in Beijing, gave me a copy of Francis Chan’s, Letters to the Church, and after reading it, I realize American parishes of most every stripe need more than a tuneup. We need a complete overhaul. Chan is a well-known and widely published evangelical pastor, who resigned as Senior Pastor of Simi Valley’s Cornerstone Church in 2008 after the congregation had mushroomed in size and influence.

Escaping with his family to Indonesia, Chan experienced what he considered a more authentic witness of the Church.

He returned to the U.S. determined to demonstrate that the Church can be recast into smaller fellowships where forming disciples is not auxiliary but the primary focus. Furthermore, Chan is adamant that the Church use only the Bible as its blueprint. Key to the emerging Church’s Scriptural design are two elements evident in the more Catholic traditions: Holy Eucharist should be the central act of worship, and suffering in solidarity with our Savior should be expected. Chan eschews his earlier fascination with hypedup, cross-over music, 45-minute ornately

choreographed sermons, and mesmerizing light shows in favor of the simpler witness of the Five Pillar Church of China that must clandestinely worship in homes. This Chinese Church, as gathered by its name, has five guiding principles, which should garner the attention of our parish: 1. Deep Commitment to Prayer 2. Studying the Word of God 3. Sharing of the Gospel (Everyone) 4. Regular Expectation of Miracles 5. Embrace Suffering for the Glory of Jesus You’d best keep an eye on me if I wander through your home. My friend, Chip Prehn, did not, and I left with one of his books, Law and Gospel: A Theology of Sinners (and saints), by William McDavid, Ethan Richardson & David Zahl. The result is one less book in the Prehn’s impressive library and momentous change in course for me. I returned home with my prize and “literally” devoured the book. These three young Christian authors hail from Mockingbird Ministries out of Richmond, Virginia. Since 2007, this ministry has tried to connect with Millennials in downto-earth, yet substantive ways. The result is clear renderings of the Gospel that will also awaken Boomers and those older.

Along with Paul: A Biography, by N.T. Wright; Romans, by Paul Achtemeier (which I reread), and The Crucifixion,

by Fleming Rutledge, this small volume, weighing in at only 87 pages, is one of the most important books I’ve read in the past ten years. I say that because even the most vintage Christians get Law and Gospel tangled up in such a morass that we lose our way and we start spouting off Law principles dressed up as grace. Paul would have none of this aberrant Gospel, nor will these three exceptional young authors.

I’ve bought five copies and given them to friends, and with each delivery I declare, “Read this. It will change your life.”

Book Stack Cont’d....

Because it will.

What would you do if you lost everything in one fell swoop (thank you, Macbeth) – home, income, health? That’s what happened to Moth and Raynor Winn in August of 2013.

Their home, farm, and occupations were unceremoniously wrenched from them by the English courts. For the previous two decades, they had rebuilt a decaying home – stone by stone, restored the farmland, constructed barns and bought tractors, and raised their two children on that rugged land, only to be evicted from it. At the same time, Moth, the husband, was diagnosed with terminal Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), a degenerative disease of the cerebral cortex. With only 48 pounds of income per month, the two set off on a 630-mile journey along the entire Southwest Coastal Path, England’s longest, marked, walking trail, with inclines totaling over 115,000 feet. Using substandard hiking and camping gear, eating endless Ramen noodles, sharing a single tea bag each morning, and sleeping in a sagging tent with poorly insulated sleeping bags, they walk the entirety of the coastal path. The Salt Path is Raynor Winn’s account of how that walk saved their lives and their love. “If we hadn’t walked this path, we’d have waited for a (subsidized) council house, hidden ourselves away and given in. Who knows how far Moth would have deteriorated? We’d be bitter, angry, and muttering ‘what if ’ into our milky tea.”

I must confess that I read Educated by Tara Westover for the wrong reasons. Generously loaned to me by Frances Harrison, an avid reader, I believed the

book to be about a young, Mormon, homeschooled girl from rural Idaho, who leapt onto the world stage by matriculating at BYU, Harvard, and eventually earning her doctorate from Cambridge. After only one chapter, I learned that I was several oceans away from the actual contents of the book. The truth of the memoir is much harsher, and her story is far more miraculous. Westover was one of seven children born to a survivalist family at the base of the Rocky Mountains. While the family stockpiled thousands of gallons of fuel, tunnels full of canned food, and secreted military grade armaments all over their expansive property, the children were never treated by a physician, never attended school, or been issued birth certificates. She was a sophomore in college before she ever took a single Ibuprofen (She only did so when suffering from a raging combination of strep throat and mononucleosis). Furthermore, Westover was not home schooled. She was forced to work long hours roofing homes, driving heavy equipment, and scrapping metal from an early age.

Ultimately, she taught herself to read, and prepared herself to take the ACT at age 16. She earned a 30 composite score and was admitted to Brigham Young University at 17 to begin her foray into intellectual stardom. But the book is not about her formal education. Rather, it is about surviving and eventually breaking the bonds of an oppressive, and oft times, abusive family. Her father, surely as charismatic as David Koresh of the Branch Davidians, holds an almost demonic power over his wife and children. Because Westover never wanes in her love for her parents, siblings, and home, this is one of the best books I have ever read on the hidden intricacies of family systems. Every parent should read this book, and every adult child should consider doing so, as well. Educated has remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 100 weeks. It should stay there for 100 more.

My dear friend John Boyce gave me the bestselling book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos, by Jordan Peterson, the lightening rod Canadian

psychotherapist and academic.

Peterson began his ascent into media stardom when he posted these “12 Rules for Life” on the questions and answers website Quora. From that moment, his classes at the University of Toronto have become wildly praised on YouTube by some and determinedly vilified by others. To study Peterson is to develop anything but a neutral opinion of him. What draws me to his wisdom is its practical content and application. For instance, take the chapter headings in the book, which are his rules: 3. Make friends with people who want the best for you. 5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. 7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient) 9.

Assume the person you are listening to might know something you don’t. From that partial list, you can see why some in the burgeoning victim culture are lining up to discredit him. Furthermore, he laces his work with allusions to the Old and New Testaments, but with a twist. He reads the Bible like a practicing psychologist, and that gives the Scripture an immediacy we often overlook.

Seeking sanity in the second week of our Covid-19 confinement, I spied it sitting there, the Holy Grail of reading distraction – an Alan Furst spy novel. Given to me at Christmas, I had hidden away Under Occupation like you would a secret cache of medical supplies (or, in my case, jellybeans). In the long nights to come, I found myself sneaking an extra hour’s reading at 3 a.m.

Because I had previously read some four or five of Furst’s novels, I knew them to be historically accurate and compelling, especially in regard to Europe in the continued on page

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Book Stack Cont’d.... early years of Nazi threat and eventual occupation. Secondly, Furst’s heroes are always ordinary rank and file individuals who unexpectedly rise to do extraordinary tasks on behalf of their nation and fellow man. Under Occupation follows that same modus operandi, when Paul Ricard, a reclusive novelist is forced from his writing garret to take on ever more desperate clandestine actions against the Reich and their collaborators.

I wrestled with myself while reading The Churchgoer,

by Patrick Coleman. While I was drawn into the story, a modern crime noir, I was repelled

by the protagonist, former pastor Mark Haines. Having left his family and his faith, Haines spends his mornings surfing and his evenings as a security guard at an industrial complex – an existence as solitary as a monk. Yet Haines is anything but monastic, for his life is devoid of meaning, such that he has become toxic, angry, and filled with anti-Christian vitriol.

His daughter, whom he has not seen in years, now refuses to let him meet his grandchild. In his rootless meanderings, Haines meets twenty-something Cindy, befriends her, but then she ominously disappears. The mystery that unfolds is told like a twenty-first century rendition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler – old, trusted American storytellers. That’s why I could not put the book down. However, on almost every page, Haines lampoons his former evangelical Christian faith in coarsest language and descriptions imaginable.

I did not know until the last fifty pages, that author Coleman had been working me for the previous three hundred, for its then that Haines falls “down a ladder” and is trapped in the terrifying, suffocating darkness of a hidden basement with no hope of escape. There in the absolute darkness, Haines is granted a glimmer of revelation, an avenue to restoration.

Coleman had, indeed, cast his wretched hero as a monk – St. John of the Cross, in fact, of “the dark night of the soul” fame: In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, — ah, the sheer grace! — in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled.

St. John of the Cross, Stanzas of the Soul, v.2

Outreach - 6 Ways to Help from Home #1. Homeless Hygiene Kits for CAM (please pack with travel-sized items in a ziploc bag) • Deodorant • Comb/Brush • Soap • Shampoo • Razor • Toothpaste • Toothbrush • A note of encouragement and/or prayer #2. Homeless Food Kits for CAM (please pack in a ziploc bag) • Granola Bar • Pop Top Food Item, such as Beanie Weenies, Stew, Ravioli, etc.

• Apple Sauce cup • Juice Box • Cheez Its/Chips (individual size) • A note of encouragement and/or prayer

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#3. Boxes for Respite Care The Respite Daycare Center is looking to provide the children an outdoor building experience. As families are sheltering at home and are ordering on line, it would be great to turn those empty boxes into building blocks for the children. Boxes can range from the smallest, about the size of a tissue box, to the largest, about the size of a file drawer 3’x1.5’x1.5’. Each box should be sealed shut with tape and then covered in contact paper to make it waterproof. For extra fun, children could add their own art work to the plain brown boxes. #4. Food for our Food Pantry When you are out grocery shopping or placing an order, we are in need of the following for our Food Pantry at the church: • Canned Vegetables: Corn and Green Beans • Canned Soup • Toilet Paper

• Cereal: Raisin Bran, Cheerios, and Corn Flakes #5. Notes and Cards We would love everyone to make cards and write notes of encouragement and hope that we can hand out with groceries every week. #6. Masks As you know, everyone over the age of 10 must now wear masks in public. The community we serve at Sidewalk Saturday are in urgent need of masks. If you can make and donate masks it would be greatly appreciated.

All of the above donations need to be dropped off Saturday mornings between 8:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. at the Outreach Pavilion.

Photo Album

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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 22, Number 3.

Quarantine cannot keep Jesus in the tomb! Alleluia!