the The Newsletter for Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
November 2016
Feast of All Saints - The Link to Our
North Dallas Shared Ministry Heritage Collection On the first day of November, churches around the Month world celebrate the Feast of All Saints. Over the years, All Saints’ Day has Women of taken on different meanings, Saint Michael but one thread has remained Luncheon the same — we acknowledge and honor the link between those who have passed away Farmers and those of us who remain. Market We know that we live and we die, but we believe that in death, life is changed, not ended. We begin this month by giving thanks for Veterans those who built the world in which we live. We give Day Service thanks for family and friends who built traditions and taught us to be who we are. And we give thanks for our Saint Michael family which built our great Vestry church and gave the church into our care.
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Jubilee Thanksgiving Luncheon
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Church Closed: Thanksgiving Holiday
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Advent Family Night
Volume 28 No. 11
One of my favorite scripture passages is the very last verse in the very last Psalm: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord! (Psalm 150:6). After all the stories and all the poetry, all the ecstatic highs and the dramatic lows, the Psalms end with the simplest sentiments of all: praise and thanksgiving. There is such a profound simplicity in those words. Those words can begin the month as we remember those whom we love and see no longer, and then end the month celebrating the love we share with our family and friends all around us. Being thankful is a natural human response to good experiences, but we run into trouble with thankfulness when we hit hard times. I certainly know how it feels to experience pain and heartbreak, and being thankful for those experiences is just about the last thing I want to be. But being thankful is not about what we want, it’s not even about an action. continued on page 19
Farewell Dear Parish Friends: Within a few months after we joined Saint Michael in 1975, I was leading Children’s Chapel and teaching 3 year old Sunday School. By 1979, Bill Power hired me to join the newly minted Christian Education Department as Director of Adult Education and Parent Involvement. I had no written job description. Here some 37 years later the job has changed, the title has changed, and I have changed. Saint Michael has formed me, nurtured me, challenged me, matured me. The parish has supported me and celebrated with me. In this place I have been privileged to live out my call to Christian Formation – particularly with “grown-ups.” continued on page 3