The Messenger
September 8, 2014 Volume XXIV, No. 9 Nationalchurch.org
My Sabbatical...A Great Gift
Sunday, October 12 One Worship Service October 12, 10am St.Luke's Mission Center*
Join us as our entire Metropolitan Church (our multi-site congregation) worships together at our St. Luke’s Mission Center. The service will take the place of the 9am and 11:15am services at Metropolitan Memorial and Wesley’s 11am service. This special service will be an opportunity to celebrate the amazing ways we are able to serve the community through our ministries at St. Luke’s, including the St. Luke’s Shelter, Shalom Place Hostel, Campus Kitchen DC, the Hypothermia Shelter, the Community Garden, and our cooperative work with Friendship Place. Following the service there will be opportunities to tour the facility, learn about the ministries and programs, meet leaders and participants, and get involved! Note: There will be no Sunday School classes at Metropolitan or Wesley on this Sunday, and childcare will be available during worship at St Luke's. *3655 Calvert Street NW
What an amazing gift this past summer has been! And I have never had a summer fly by so quickly. There is no way to capture all of the activities and impressions in a short essay, and I know that we will do a great deal of sharing with each other over the coming months. I look forward to sharing some reflections on my Sabbatical with you on September 14 (see below), and I thought that I might start the conversation by sharing a brief overview of the flow of the summer: • Japan: The summer began with a wondrous month in Japan. Half of that month, I was by myself, and the middle two weeks I was part of a group led by my shakuhachi teacher, Ronnie Seldin. The first week I was in Tokyo, and did a wonderful amount of sightseeing, as well as practicing shakuhachi with two local teachers. I also practiced aikido daily in two different dojos. When Ronnie and the other students arrived, we did some day trips out of Tokyo, and then headed to the southern island of Kyushu. Throughout this part of the trip we saw some amazing sights around the country and did a lot of practice with Ronnie and some other teachers. We ended up in Kyoto and after Ronnie and the other students left, I remained for a final week in Kyoto, studying shakuhachi with Kurahashi sensei, and practicing aikido at another dojo, as well as much more sightseeing. • Vancouver: The other major travel part of the sabbatical was an intensive retreat with shakuhachi performer, teacher, and maker Alcvin Ramos, who lives a couple hours north of Vancouver, British Columbia. These eleven days were pretty intense, with two lessons and a couple hours of flute making every day. It was also a very rich experience, because Al is so good at incorporating shakuhachi practice into his spiritual discipline. We began each morning walking out into the frigid Pacific waters playing the flute as a form of a traditional Japanese practice called misogi, which is a ritual cleansing. Every day also began and ended with half an hour to an hour of silent meditation. It was a wonderful and powerful experience. • Camps: In early July, I participated in a week of aikido camp, held here in DC. There were a couple hundred aikido-ka (practitioners) from all over the country and teachers from around the country as well, and about eight hours of mat time every day. It was exhausting! Likewise, in early August, I participated in shakuhachi camp over several days in Philadelphia. This was also an opportunity to learn from a number of different teachers with a series of classes every day. • Family time: I was also blessed over the summer with a great deal of wonderful family time. In June, my sister Beth and I took our daughters backpacking on the Appalachian Trail for a few days. In July, Jeannine, Julia, and Joshua joined me in Vancouver for 10 days of exploring that amazing city. At the end of July, Beth’s family and our family had a week together in a cabin. And in late August, my family had a chance to spend two weeks in the UK. Whew! It was an incredibly rich and full (and exhausting) summer. As I told the staff this week, the sabbatical was one of the great gifts of my life, and could not have happened without this amazing team of ministry colleagues. Words cannot express my gratitude to you all and to the Lilly Foundation for making this time possible. I hope that I am returning to you more prepared than ever to engage in ministry with you. Blessings,
Rev. Charlie Parker
Sabbatical Reflections from Charlie Parker - Sunday, September 14, 10:10am and 12:30pm, Vestry
Join Charlie Parker as he reflects on his sabbatical at 10:10am and 12:30pm (a light lunch will be served). We will end in time for the Larry Boggs concert, "With a Child's Heart" (see pg. 3).