The gift of joy and wonder in all your work by Trinity Wall Street

winter 2012 vol. 59 | no. 3

TrinityNews the magazine of trinity wall street

The gift of joy and wonder in all your work

winter 2012

TrinityNews vol. 59 | no. 3

the magazine of trinity wall street

DEPARTMENTS FEATURES

Letter from the Rector

The Year in Numbers

For the Record

After the Storm

9 Angles on the Square 10

The Visitor File

Archivist’s Mailbag

PsalmTube

32 2012 Year In Grants

Parish Perspectives

Pew and Partner Notes

Letter from Lower Manhattan

16 Telling Our Story Emory Edwards and Trinity Parishioners 22 What a Year Makes of Us Daniel Simons 23 The Properties of Trinity Church James H. Cooper 26 A New Season for the Trinity Conference Center Jeremy Sierra 28 A Harbinger of Judgment? Leah Reddy 30

Trinity Tweets

On the Cover: In five years, more than 150 people have participated in Trinity Mission and Service Trips to Burundi, Panama, New Orleans, and New York. In October, nearly one hundred parishioners and staff gathered with partners for a reunion in St. Paul’s Chapel.

All photos by Leah Reddy unless otherwise noted.

Trinity News

For free subscriptions 74 Trinity Place | New York, NY 10006 | 24th floor | New York, NY 10006 news@trinitywallstreet.org | 212.602.9686 Permission to Reprint: Every article in this issue of Trinity News is available for use, free of charge, in your diocesan paper, parish newsletter, or on your church website. Please credit Trinity News: The Magazine of Trinity Wall Street. Let us know how you’ve used Trinity News material by emailing news@trinitywallstreet.org or calling 212.602.9686.

letter from the Rector

Looking Back and Looking Ahead Trinity Wall Street in 2012 was a healthy, open, safe, and vibrant community. Together, we worshiped, learned, and served. We made strides in deepening our faith. We learned from our mistakes and celebrated our successes. We welcomed millions to our iconic sacred spaces. We learned more, and perhaps became more comfortable, with the tension at the heart of who we are: a church and corporate body that engages in ministry near and far; that is outspoken and quietly patient, and that is focused on an array of ministries. At this year’s end, we look back and anticipate great things to come. I wanted to share the highlights of Trinity’s work this past year for me. (I would love to hear yours.) • Preparing for and responding to Superstorm Sandy • An engaged and engaging congregation at the heart of the parish • Being an active, good neighbor in Lower Manhattan, supporting the Mayor’s Fund, the Downtown Alliance, and the Bowery Residents’ Committee • A graceful closing of the Trinity Conference Center • Maintaining and restoring our historic buildings • Garnering critical acclaim for the Music and Arts program • Generating energetic Trinity Institute participation, particularly among partner sites • Positioning Real Estate leasing well • Certification of Hudson Square rezoning • Starting a fund development office • Making steps forward in financial transparency Looking ahead to 2013, I am pleased that our grants capacity will increase to $3.2 million—the highest it has been since 1991. We will also set aside $1 million for program related investments focused on homeless issues. For more than three hundred years, Trinity has been a beacon of faith, hope, and charity to New York City, the region, and the Anglican Communion. As we celebrate our past, we embrace our current programs and dream and plan on how we might carry out God’s work in the future. We are all, at Trinity and in the wider Church, people for whom the reality of the cross is ultimate. Thus we seek wholeness rather than division, and value love over rancor. We are people in whose nature it is to forgive and reconcile, and we look optimistically to next year bearing that sweeter fruit in abundance.

Faithfully,

The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper jcooper@trinitywallstreet.org

Nicole Seiferth

PAGE 2 Trinity Expands Grant Program PAGE 3 Choir Performs with Rolling Stones Grammy Nomination Handel’s Messiah PAGE 4 Duane Reade Helps Interfaith Yom Kippur Service PAGE 5 Trinity Institute PAGE 6 Music That Makes Community Yoga and Politics Mix Page 7 Mission and Service Trip Reunion Trinity Partners Share Their Stories Page 8 Supporting Education A Stone Tour of Trinity

The Most Rev. Albert Chama, Archbishop of the Province of Central Africa at Trinity in 2011.

Trinity Expands Its Grant Program The vestry of Trinity Wall Street has increased Trinity’s 2013 grant-giving capacity to $3.2 million, the highest it has been since 1991. “Our grants join together tradition and innovation,” explained the Rev. Matthew Heyd, Director of Faith in Action. “We have been partners in Africa for more than thirty years and with public schools for our entire history. We’re engaged with leaders in these areas today.” More than $200,000 of the increase will go to support public schools, and a quarter million to support efforts of the Anglican Church in Africa to become self-sustaining. 2012 marked the fortieth year of the Trinity Grants Program. In December, the vestry announced the final awards for the year. These grants include $225,000 to the Zambia Anglican Council (ZAC) for sustainability of the Church that will build a twelve-unit apartment block, as part of a ten-block complex, with the help of other funding sources. Trinity also funded the feasibility study that led to the project. “We are not trying to change the leadership of the church into business people,” said the Most Rev. Albert Chama, Archbishop of the Province of Central Africa. “But we need to have a resource to sustain the mission of the Gospel.” Archbishop Chama is part of the team of bishops who have developed the project. Trinity’s commitment to private support of public education will expand through a $150,000 grant fostering a partnership to develop community learning centers. The vestry voted to set aside $1 million for Program-Related Investments in 2013. These investments are low-interest loans to organizations that are doing work that aligns with Trinity’s mission. “Because of our commitment to serve homeless people in our neighborhood, our first step will be to identify investments in housing for those coming out of homelessness,” said Heyd. “Trinity is committed to effecting change,” said the Rev. Dr. James Cooper, Rector of Trinity. “These expansions of our grants program are another way of spreading the Gospel.”

Deputy Emeritus The vestry of Trinity Wall Street honored the Rev. Canon Jamie Callaway with the title Deputy Emeritus for his thirty-two years of service to the parish. He is the longest serving clergyperson at Trinity in more than a century.

Math Camp Summer school students from Leadership and Public High School participated in a successful Math Camp over the summer at Charlotte’s Place, Trinity’s neighborhood center.

A Grammy Nomination for Trinity

The Choir of Trinity Wall Street Sings with the Rolling Stones The Choir of Trinity Wall Street spent some significant time with rock n’ roll royalty in December, singing the choral part to the Rolling Stones’ iconic secular hymn, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at the band’s first 50th anniversary show in the United States. The 18,000 fans at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn embraced the choir’s effort—as did Mick Jagger, the Stones’ lead singer. Onstage, he called the singing “very beautiful,” and noted that the choir had been nominated for a 2013 Grammy award.

The choir also included three singers from the Trinity Youth Chorus, Trinity’s free music education program for city children. The choir performed again with the Stones at their Prudential Center shows in Newark, New Jersey. “The Rolling Stones chose us to help them celebrate their fiftieth anniversary,” said Julian Wachner, principal conductor of the Trinity Choir. “We couldn’t be more honored.”

The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra’s recording of Handel’s Israel in Egypt has been nominated for a 2013 Grammy Award. The performance of the oratorio, which tells the story of Exodus, was conducted by Julian Wachner, Director of Music and the Arts, and the recording was released by the Musica Omnia label in October. It is one of five nominated in the category of Best Choral Performance. The winners will be announced at the Grammy Award ceremony on February 10.

Trinity Dazzles at Lincoln Center On December 12, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra performed Handel’s Messiah at Lincoln Center’s Tully Hall to rave reviews. “Led with both fearsome energy and delicate grace by Julian Wachner, the Trinity performance was, like last year’s outing, a model of what is musically and emotionally possible with this venerable score,” wrote Zachary Woolfe in a review in The New York Times. The choir also performed in Trinity Church to a sold out crowd on December 9. This is the second year Trinity has performed at Lincoln Center. “To experience the full, formidable range of Messiah,” concluded Woolfe, “from the furious flames of the ‘refiner’s fire’ to the delirious party of the finale, next year let Trinity be your guide.”

Homeless Ministries With the Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC), Trinity staff have helped place ninety-seven people in homeless shelters, and served Brown Bag lunches to hundreds every week in the churchyard. In addition, staff member Bryan Parsons and BRC staff have conducted Homeless Outreach Trainings, teaching parishioners to reach out to those in need in Lower Manhattan.

Trinity News

Preschool Turns Thirty The Trinity preschool celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2012. The number of teachers and children has grown over the years, as has its place in the community. “I grew with Trinity Preschool as a person, a mother, and a teacher,” said a teacher who has taught at the school for more than twenty years.

Jeremy Sierra

Finding Common Ground on Yom Kippur

Trinity News

“We’re all neighbors,” said Rabbi Darren Levine at the Interfaith Yom Kippur in October, “and there’s such common ground between our faiths.” Members of the congregation of Tamid: The Downtown Synagogue were gathered with Trinity staff and parishioners for a Yom Kippur service at St. Paul’s Chapel. Tamid began meeting regularly in St. Paul’s for Shabbat services and High Holy Days in September. The Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, Vicar for Trinity Wall Street, welcomed everyone to the service. “This is God’s space, and we are stewards of this space,” she said. Rabbi Levine led the congregation through the service, offering explanations and talking about the themes of Yom Kippur: repentance and return. Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the most sacred day in the Jewish tradition, he explained. A quartet led by Basya Schechter, the artist in residence at Tamid, sang prayers throughout the service, creating a prayerful and meditative atmosphere. Though the prayers were from the Jewish tradition, “they are universal to the human experience,” said Rabbi Levine. “It’s about relationship with God, relationship with self, relationship with others.” There is no individual confession in Judaism, said Rabbi Levine. “In Judaism we confess communally.” He called repentance and return a process, in which one says to God, “Please, accept who I am on this day and my failings. We will walk together into a new light.” The service also included a shortened version of the Yizkor (the Hebrew word for memory) or memorial service. Both the Rev. Daniel Simons, Priest and Director of Liturgy, Hospitality, and Pilgrimage for Trinity, and Rabbi Levine spoke about the meaning of repentance, love, and forgiveness

in the two religious traditions. Marilyn Haskel, Program Manager of Liturgical Arts and New Initiatives for Trinity, also led the congregation in a song she wrote for Lent, the season in the Christian calendar similar to Yom Kippur. Afterward, Rabbi Levine invited everyone to stay for the conclusion of the Yom Kippur services, which continued after the interfaith portion. “We hope this is the beginning of a very long relationship,” said Levine. “These are roots that always existed and we are uncovering them,” said Fr. Simons. Trinity parishioner Leah Kozak said she has many Jewish friends but had never been to a Yom Kippur service. “It was spirit filled and educational,” she said.

Marielle Solan

Fifteen people received free flu shots at Trinity’s Brown Bag lunch on October 23, thanks to a partnership between Trinity and Duane Reade. “The opportunity to lend support to Trinity Church for a day in the Brown Bag program fits well into our mission of being a destination where health and happiness come together to help people get well, stay well, and live well,” said Dan Gralton, District Manager of Duane Reade. Trinity offers a free lunch every Tuesday and Thursday after the 12:05pm Eucharist. Staff members from the Duane Reade located across from Trinity set up a booth next to the lunch table and offered the flu shots to the uninsured and underinsured free of charge. The partnership emerged after a conversation between Gralton, store manager Edwin Rivera, and Linda Hanick, Chief Communications Officer for Trinity. During the meeting Gralton mentioned that Duane Reade was interested in participating in local community events. “We are grateful to be a part of the program,” said Gralton. “It was very successful,” said Bryan Parsons, Brown Bag and Homeless Services Coordinator for Trinity. Parsons hopes that Trinity will be able to offer similar health services and resources one day each month.

Marielle Solan

Duane Reade Helps Those in Need Stay Healthy

Co-creation and Partnership at Trinity Institute “This is the moment that everything that is taught about God must shift,” said Joan Chittister, OSB, in her keynote address at the Forty-Second Annual Trinity Institute. Chittister began the conference, entitled Radical Christian Life: Equipping Ourselves for Social Change, with an examination of how the theory of evolution changes the way we understand God and ourselves. “Life itself, yours and mine, is a work in progress,” she said. “We are not passive participants in this world.” Instead, we are partners with God in creation, which gives each of us great responsibility. “The purpose of life is co-creation of the world around us,” she said. Participants listened to the keynote address in person or via webcast. Though the conference had been rescheduled due to Superstorm Sandy, it was full, and partners participated from churches around the country and several locations in Canada. They sent questions by email and Skype after the keynote address and during the Q&A session with Chittister on Saturday. Many asked how to take her message of responsibility and change out into the world. “This is a crossover point in time,” said Chittister. “Things have changed. Everybody doesn’t get to

Rabbi Darren Levine preaches on the Sunday of Trinity Institute.

Trinity and Haiti Two former Trinity staff members are now working in Haiti. On May 22, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori consecrated the Rt. Rev. Oge Beauvoir, a native of Haiti, as its first suffragan bishop. Beauvoir served as Program Associate in Trinity Grants from 1999 to 2004, and the parish supported him in the intervening years when he was dean of the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Haiti’s capital. The Rev. Ali Lutz, former Manager for Congregational Development, is now working for Partners In Health in Central Haiti.

Joan Chittister delivers the keynote address.

that crossroad at the same time, and everybody doesn’t cross over at the same time.” “She really brought it down to the floorboards,” said Bob Scott, Director of Trinity Institute. “But she did it lovingly. She asked, ‘What’s precious here? What do we have to build on?’ She laid the groundwork for future conferences for years to come.” On Saturday, small groups examined the role of contemplation and action in spiritual life in light of Chittister’s talk. Participants especially appreciated the videos produced to spur discussion. “The videos clarified what people said, sometimes challenged what people said,” said the Rev. Joe Constantino, SJ, a group facilitator. Constantino and other facilitators carefully designed the curriculum while on a retreat together. “We committed to trust the wisdom in the room,” said Kathy Bozzuti-Jones, a facilitator and Trinity staff member. “Our facilitation was hands off.” “It was very easy for us to exchange ideas, to engage with each other” said Wendy Boyce, a Trinity parishioner and participant. In addition to Episcopalians from near and far, many Roman Catholics participated.

“It gave me a lot of joy to hear that people are working together, searching together,” said Sister Joan Ewing, a Roman Catholic nun who lives in Manhattan. On Sunday morning, Rabbi Darren Levine concluded the conference with a sermon on Tikkun Olam, or repairing the world. Levine is the rabbi of Tamid: The Downtown Synagogue, a new synagogue that holds services in St. Paul’s Chapel. During the sermon he broke a glass as the groom does during a Jewish wedding. “We are in partnership with the Holy One,” he said, “and it is our responsibility to gather up these holy shards and bring them back together.” This idea of personal responsibility and partnership ran throughout the conference. “We’re charged to go out and commit ourselves to make social change,” said Anita Catron Minor, a deacon in the Diocese of Utah. The service ended with a commissioning and blessing that included the words of Chittister: “We can ignore and accept things as they are, or we can choose to grapple with them. We can surrender to them, or we can struggle to change them. We can run away from the call to contemplation, or we can embrace it with both wisdom and action.”

PS 140 Trinity’s All Our Children initiative is bolstering the music program at PS 140, funding a weekly music class for children in grades six through eight.

Trinity News

Movement Choir Connects The Movement Choir performed at the Sacred Dance Guild Festival in August. “It’s all from a deep spiritual place,” said Toni Foy, a member of the choir. “When you tap into that, folks respond. There were lots of tears. It was just amazing.”

Yoga and Politics Mix Making Paperless Music Without sheet music to guide them, the voices of about thirty singers filled St. Paul’s Chapel and made tourists stop and listen. They were gathered for Music That Makes Community, a three-day conference in which participants learn to lead paperless music. Paperless music is simply singing without sheet music, often making use of repetition, rounds, and call and response. Song leaders typically sing a simple melody and invite others to echo them, using intuitive hand gestures. “We want to explore together what it means to sing together,” said Paul Vasille, Minister of Music at Park Avenue Christian Church, to start off one of the morning sessions. The conference consists of workshops and worship, including lots of time for practice and improvisation. Music That Makes Community is a program of All Saints Company, which has many connections to Trinity. It was started by Donald Schell and Rick Fabian in 1974 as a resource for renewal of church liturgy. The Rev. Daniel Simons, Director of Liturgy, Hospitality, and Pilgrimage for Trinity, is on the board and was executive director, and parishioner Jacob Schlicter also helps teach the conferences. Marilyn Haskel, Program Manager of Liturgical Arts and New Ministries, has been teaching at the conferences since they began.

Thirty-One Baptisms Thirty-one people were baptized at Trinity in 2012, including Aaron Chien, who recently moved to the United States from China. He joined Trinity in 2012 after finishing college and was baptized in November.

Trinity News

Haskel also leads paperless music at St. Paul’s Chapel every Sunday morning. There are many international visitors on Sunday mornings who have never been to a service like the one at St. Paul’s and never will again, so she is always teaching. Though she’s never sure if they’ll be able to learn the music, they always do. “Gestures help people know what to do,” said Haskel. She demonstrated some of the gestures she uses to lead music, moving her hand up and down to indicate a change in pitch or pointing to her ear to instruct everyone to listen while she teaches the melody. This was the twentieth Music That Makes Community Conference. “There’s something cumulative about it, a continuity to the work,” said Schell. More than five hundred people have participated over the years. “Each one is a little different. This is a really good group.” Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers, Episcoplians, and Unitarians attended from as close as New York and as far as California. The group included many church musicians and song leaders, as well as some who had no musical training. “I went outside my comfort zone, and I felt supported,” said Stephanie Gannin, who had had no musical training. “It’s been really incredible.” Human beings sang without paper long before sheet music existed and may have even sung before formal language developed, said Schell. “It’s deeply natural. Our ability to sing together makes human community possible. We’re inviting [people] into the freedom of what is already there.”

While others were settling into sofas to watch the presidential debate on October 16, a group seated themselves on yoga mats in Charlotte’s Place to practice mindfulness. Few would associate yoga and meditation with debate, but YogaVotes is trying to change that. YogaVotes is a nonpartisan campaign of Off the Mat Into the World that aims to bring the practices of awareness, connection, and participation into civic and political life. “We’re bringing together mindful people to contemplate [their] voting choices,” said Leslie Booker, a Trinity employee and member of Off the Mat Into the World. To begin the evening, Booker led participants through forty-five minutes or so of yoga. Those who had never practiced yoga were gently introduced to “downward dog” and a few other relatively easy exercises, and they were thoroughly relaxed by the end of the session. Afterward, participants took some time to reflect on what they felt were their biggest challenges and hopes and what issues were most important to them during the election season. Everyone was invited to share, and the atmosphere was open and nonjudgmental. Erin Oglesby, a participant in Off the Mat Into the World, encouraged those gathered to listen to the whispered voice within, the signals their bodies were sending them as they watched the debate. Then people sat quietly and listened to the town hall debate projected on the wall.

Bringing Back Memories From Mission Trips

Leo Sorel

“It was life changing,” said parishioner Colleen O’Leary of the Mission and Service Trip to New Orleans. She recalled planting seedlings near the bayou, working in the library at All Souls Episcopal Church, praying together, and the lasting relationships she formed. “You make connections with people. You get to know them on a new level,” said parishioner Carmen Vasquez. She and O’Leary became friends while on the New Orleans trip. At their own expense, more than 150 people have traveled to Panama, Burundi, Long Island City, and New Orleans on Trinity’s Mission and Service Trips in the past five years. On October 12, nearly one hundred of them gathered to celebrate the memories and relationships they made, and the work they have accomplished. “The mission trips are about building and nurturing relationships,” said Maggy Charles, Program Manager for Mission and Service Engagement Programs. Trinity staff and parishioners mingled before sitting down to share a meal. They were joined by ministers from the partner sites as well. The Mission and Service Trip radically changed Jackie Yang’s life. She moved to New Orleans to work at Trinity’s partner site, All Souls. “What I do at All Souls fills my soul and enriches me,” she said. “We went through a careful discernment process, but we couldn’t have anticipated the richness of the experiences,” said parishioner Regina Jacobs, who has been to all four locations. “They all struggle with similar problems,” she added, “and they share the same love and hope and faith.” Everyone had memories and lessons they’d taken away with them. Carla Richards remembers painting walls, only to have to repaint them the next day because they forgot to strip the old paint off first. She tells this story with a smile. “We had a great time,” she said. Anne Flanagan, who has participated in New York Mission and Service Trips with Hour Children, said that some people seem to simply need reassurance that they are important and that others care. “You share yourself and your spirit,” she said. “Long after we’ve returned,” said the Rev. Matt Heyd to conclude the evening, “long after we’ve unpacked, we carry these things with us.”

Trinity Partners Share Their Stories “This week has begun a new chapter in our relationship, because for the first time we’ve gathered all our partners together,” said the Rev. Matt Heyd to begin the panel discussion that capped a weekend of conversation and collaboration in October. Trinity began its Mission and Service Trips five years ago. This was the first time leaders have come together from all four partner sites in Panama, Burundi, New Orleans, and New York. They found they had much in common. “They shared their experiences,” said Maggy Charles, Program Manager for Mission and Service Engagement Programs, who coordinated the weekend. We realized they were dealing with the same social and economic issues in their own communities.” The gathering included worship and lots of time for conversation. Each of the partners had a chance to talk about what they were doing in their organizations, what was working, and what could use improvement. “I think it’s important to share the experience,” said the Rt. Rev Julio Murray, Bishop of Panama. “Others will also benefit from what we have learned from each other in the partnership.” The Rt. Rev. Morris Thompson, Bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana, attended, along with the new Vicar of All Souls, Edward Thompson, and the former vicar Lonell Wright. Sister Tesa, founder of Hour Children, also participated, as well as the Most Rev. Bernard Ntahoturi, Bishop of the Diocese of Matana, Burundi. After Superstorm Sandy, staff considered cancelling the gathering, but the partners wanted to be in New York. Archbishop Ntahoturi, Bishop Murray, and others went to Staten Island on Saturday to help with relief efforts. “We have been fortunate that when we have been in need, Trinity has been there,” said Bishop Murray. “It’s time to also walk with those who are in need along with Trinity.” One morning, they gathered for a panel discussion on reconciliation moderated by staff member Jim Melchiorre. The panelists talked about the difficulties and trauma they had faced and the steps taken to reconcile. “For more than three hundred years, Trinity has been in relationship with partners,” said the Rev. Dr. Jim Cooper, Rector. “What’s occurring now is not just the one-to-one with Trinity but the multiplication of ministries by partners speaking with each other.”

Celebration of Love Mark Spreitzer and Roy Parks became the first same-sex couple to have their marriage blessed in Trinity Church. They met with Fr. Mark Bozzuti-Jones to prepare for their wedding. “I felt like it was a brand new relationship,” said Spreitzer.

Origami at Charlotte’s Place Interfaith minister Lisa Bellan-Boyer taught origami to visitors, members of Occupy Wall Street, and community members every Tuesday at Charlotte’s Place.

Trinity Convenes Episcopal Educators Ariella Louie

In October, Trinity convened more than forty educators and church leaders working to support public education from across the country in Richmond, Virginia. “Right away, the connections started to happen. People got together, started to share their program, saw connections, linkages, possibilities.” said Anita Chan, Associate Director of Faith In Action. All around the country, Episcopalians are working to support children and improve education, but they rarely get the chance to speak to each other. “When you get to see your peers from elsewhere doing this work, you feel reenergized,” said Ariella Louie, Program Assistant for Faith In Action. It’s not easy working in public education, she said, but it’s events like this that help people keep focused. The program included a school visit, worship, breakout groups, and lots of time to talk and connect. “I thought it was very powerful that so many people from so many cities around the country came together to talk about what they were doing,” said Suellyn Preston Scull, a Trinity vestry member with over forty years of experience in education. “It got me really energized and excited,” she said. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel; we just have to realize this is happening.” The weekend was a way for organizations to connect and learn from each other. Churches in Houston and Dallas that had never connected are now thinking of ways to collaborate, as are programs in Boston.

“Not every child is the same, not every school system is the same,” said Louie. “What are the basic elements to provide all these different kids with all these different backgrounds with a good education? I think it really starts with the passionate people we got to meet at the conference.” Faith In Action staff are in the process of looking at the many ideas that came out of the conference and prioritizing what they will do next, including future conferences. Trinity’s ability to coordinate and bring people together may be an important part of its ministry going forward. Both Chan and Louie were impressed with the Episcopal Service Corps members who attended. Trinity funds this program, and many of the participants are coordinating partnerships between public schools and churches. “When we did our closing [ceremony], the energy in the room about what’s next was just unbelievable,” said Chan. “It brought home how natural it is within the Anglican faith to do this work. Education is part of who we are as a church.”

A Stone Tour of Trinity One morning in October, chemists, geologists, and conservationists looked very closely at Trinity Church. They weren’t looking at the names on the grave markers or at the flowers. They were examining the stone. Led by Norman Weiss, a chemist, conservationist, and professor at Columbia, they were on a “Stone Tour,” talking about everything from architectural history to the various chemicals used to restore the stone, and even examining the pockmarks in the walls of the church. They were a few of the more than three hundred conservationists and consultants who had come to Columbia for the Twelfth International Congress on the Deterioration and Conservation of Stone, many from around the world. “This was New York’s first skyscraper,” said Dr. Weiss to begin the tour. “There was a major shift in the way the city looked that started with Trinity.” Trinity was one of the first buildings built with brownstone. Before that lighter stone was used, such as marble, which suggested growth and newness, while brownstone suggested age. From 1840 to 1846, while Trinity was being built, other, smaller churches 8

Trinity News

imitated it, using similar dark stone. By the time the Astor Cross was built in the early twentieth century, light stone was again in vogue. Weiss and his team have been involved in conservation efforts at Trinity for almost thirty years. When Trinity staff decided to restore the stone in the 1980s, they went to conservationists who worked on European churches, only to be sent back to Columbia. “We’d been working with brownstone for years,” said Weiss. In fact, his team had been working on restoring the slate gravestones at the time. The team removed the paraffin covering the church, which was a hot wax that was intended to protect the stone but only collected dirt and turned the church black. Removing the paraffin revealed the brownstone we see today. Conservation requires a mix of education and particular talents. “It’s a triumvirate of architectural history, chemistry, and skill,” explained Brooke Young, one of Weiss’s Ph. D. students. “Conservation science is being applied to what we’re doing,” said Glenn Boormazian, part of the team that works on Trinity. They continue to study and repair the stone, ensuring that Trinity’s historic building safely stands the test of weather and time. Shakespeare and Charlotte The Public Theater performed a world-class production of Shakespeare’s Richard III in Charlotte’s Place for a group of community members and parishioners. The performance thrilled a diverse audience of actors, neighborhood artists, parishioners, and people who get their lunches at the Brown Bag Lunch ministry.

A ng l e s o n t h e

square Trinity Real Estate Trinity’s real-estate holdings fund much of the parish’s mission and service work, and Trinity takes the stewardship of this portfolio seriously. In 2012, Trinity’s application for rezoning of Hudson Square was certified, which began a seven-month public review process. This rezoning will make Hudson Square a vibrant mixed-use residential

18 buildings owned by Trinity Real Estate

770,000 600,000 3,000

square feet

leased through October 2012, including

square feet

in new leases, bringing in

new workers

neighborhood. In addition, renovations are nearly complete at 200 Hudson for Havas and 205 Hudson for Hunter College’s prestigious graduate school of art. Dual fuel conversion has also been completed for 350 Hudson, allowing for gas or oil heating, and continuing the upgrade to cleaner and more economically efficient heating systems for the entire portfolio.

New leases include:

260,000 square feet: Havas, one of the ten 78,000 square feet: Tory Burch, fashion largest advertising brand companies in the world

90,000 square feet: Medidata Solutions, provider of cloudbased medical data

15,000 97%

employees work in buildings owned by Trinity

occupancy, the highest rate in recent memory

Trinity News

Mission and Service Partners In October, Trinityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s four Mission and Service Trip partners visited for a weekend to meet, discuss their partnerships with Trinity, and connect with each other. Interview by Jeremy Sierra

Leo Sorel

Bishop Julio Murray is the bishop of the Diocese of Panama, a diverse, multicultural and multilingual diocese that includes thirty-three congregations, most of which are missions. Sister Tesa is the director of Hour Children, an organization that helps currently and recently incarcerated women and their children. It provides housing and job training through its Working Women program, operates thrift stores, and works in prison as well. Bishop Morris Thompson is the bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana, which covers the southeast part of Lousiana, including New Orleans. It is made up of fifty-two parishes, missions, and college campus ministries with more than twenty thousand parishioners. Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi (not pictured) is the bishop of the Diocese of Matana, one of Burundiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s six dioceses and the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Burundi. It is a mostly rural and agricultural diocese of over a million people. 10

Trinity News

Can you tell me about your partnership with Trinity? Bishop Murray: When we started the relationship, what was very clear to us was that we all have something that we can bring to the table. Our partnership is discovering how we do mission and ministry together. How are we empowering the leadership of our churches to embrace the mission mandate? How are we responding to the social issues and the social needs of the people? And in this relationship we both have benefited. The Diocese of Panama has benefited by the way Trinity has worked alongside with us with the home for young women at risk. Trinity has helped provide an environment of safety and education for them. Trinity Institute has [also] been key in helping us bring the voice from a Latin American church to the table.

Sister Tesa: Thank God the year was a good year. I was thinking, with a prayer of gratitude looking back, people did respond to our needs. And also the challenges always are one woman at a time: that one woman comes out, that she doesn’t lose focus, that she doesn’t lose the hope that her life can be rebuilt, and that she gives herself the gift of time because that’s the thing that’s the hardest. Some things just take time—you take time to learn, you take time to grow, you take time to build a relationship back with your kids, so, for me, it’s always about each individual family. The music camp has been amazing. My proudest moment was when I was sitting at Charlotte’s Place watching and listening to the children singing an amazing array of songs, from all over the world and in different languages. When they did kyrie eleison I really started to cry.

Bishop Ntahoturi: Burundi has undergone a civil war for almost fifteen years and that has created refugees, displaced people that need a lot of help and reconciliation. So we have been working with Trinity on reconciliation work. We have been working with Trinity on capacity building for the diocese and also for the province. We appreciate not only the programs that we have with Trinity but also the relationships we have built over these years with the staff, with the rector, and now with the congregation of Trinity.

What do you think the Diocese of Burundi and Trinity can teach each other? Ntahoturi: The resources and the gifts are given by God for his mission. We are stewards. So that’s a lesson we are learning together. The second thing that I have come to understand is that the purpose of being here on earth is not only consuming but also sharing. So in Burundi I hope we shall give you the opportunity of sharing the resources that God has given you. And thirdly, the spirituality Africans still have, that Burundi has, I feel we are also sharing.

Bishop Thompson: All Souls Mission began after Katrina, about four years ago. It’s in the Lower Ninth Ward, and that area was hit especially hard. People were coming from Trinity to work. A relationship was forged, and it continued to build prayerfully, financially, and physically. They have been a tremendous support, giving advice and encouragement to All Souls, which is in the poorest part of the city, one of the poorest and the most devastated by Katrina. Sister Tesa: The partnership is invaluable—supplementing, enriching, being a real caring presence to the working women program [which supports women released from prison]. And volunteers come to help in our thrift shops. It’s fertile ground for common threads of support and help and guidance. What has the year been like for you? Murray: This has been a very challenging year. We have moved from crisis to crisis. But within the crisis we have also been blessed with tremendous opportunities. We have been able to struggle through the economic crisis. We have been able to ordain five new deacons, and we have received other clergy into the communion. Churches have already identified self-sustaining projects, and they’re working in a very creative way, using the resources that they have. With a team effort from the clergy and laity, they are going to be able to be responsible for their clergy, and we are going to be able to do more projects within the community around education and children. It has been a good year in the midst of all because we have been able, as a Church, to use our voice of prophecy, to be a sign and symbol of hope, even though we were making difficult decisions. Ntahoturi: Recently I’ve been visiting parishes and doing confirmations. And in one of the parishes I was confirming more than four hundred and fifty candidates. So far in one year we have confirmed more than two thousand people within thirty-three parishes that make up our diocese. We work with other churches in Burundi like the Roman Catholic church where we’ve been working together to fight HIV/Aids, and the second is for peace and reconciliation within the congregations. Thompson: I had not even been ordained [as bishop] when the oil spill hit here, and I learned over the next year how different this crisis was compared to Katrina. Oil seeps into the sand, and I think that’s going to be around to haunt us a long time, and Katrina will be around to haunt us a long time as well. So responding to that, I said, I’m going to spend the first year or so just listening and from that build trust and relationships.

Does New Orleans have anything to teach New York in light of Superstorm Sandy? Thompson: Louisianans understand the generosity of people, and they also understand they need to give back when someone hurts. That’s because of the generosity of people like Trinity. And now it’s our time. You have been generous to us, and we will be generous to you, and I think that’s what relationships are, they’re give and take. Now it is a mutual awareness. How has spending time together at Trinity impacted you? Murray: Personally I have grown. As partners we are friends, and as friends we speak the truth. We share whatever joys and whatever sorrows are happening to us. And we’re supportive of one another in prayer as well. We always hear and share the experience of gratitude when people from Trinity come to Panama. What they always say is, “We go back to Trinity learning and receiving so much more than we have brought because lives have been transformed.” We are blessed and honored, and again we’re humbled that we can be an instrument of transformation in the lives of God’s people. Thompson: Coming into Trinity last week helped me understand that relationship a little better because I was not in New Orleans during Katrina. So hearing stories of other partners and their connections and how we’d like to see our connection go forward was very helpful. Relationships were established, and I hope they deepen as we move forward and see how we can be supportive of one another. Sister Tesa: I learned so much about the world of Burundi, Panama, and New Orleans, so that in itself stretched my comfort level and my understanding and my empathy. And sitting there was a way to bring the world of incarceration into their worlds and into the worlds of the folks of Trinity, little seeds that you plant of understanding or knowledge. I felt by the end we were really in sync with each other in terms of understanding and appreciating and praying and supporting the work that is God given.

Trinity News

Here’s Looking at You, KID Contained within over one hundred thick books in the Trinity Archives are handwritten registers of Trinity Parish’s “official acts” dating back to the early eighteenth century. While not every record survives (many were lost in the Great Fire of 1776), Trinity Archives has data on marriages, baptisms, and burials recorded over hundreds of years at Trinity Church and the eleven chapels that were once part of the parish.

Trinity News

In 2006, the Trinity Archives began digitizing these records, creating a searchable online database. A rotating cast of part-time employees and interns have transcribed 139,596 official acts so far, including almost all burials, baptisms up through 1918, and marriages through 1908. Now, it’s possible for genealogists to research their family history remotely. The work will continue until all registers are digitized, though recent records will not be made available to the public. Archives employees have made some surprising discoveries in the registers. Buried deep in the 1913 baptismal register for St. Agnes Chapel is a line recording the baptism of one Humphrey DeForrest Bogart, who would grow up to be the “Greatest Male Star of All Time” according to the American Film Institute. Bogart was baptized with his younger sisters on January 27, 1910. He was ten at the time of baptism, which has prompted unanswered questions about why his parents chose that moment to baptize their children. At the time, Bogart was a student at Trinity School, located on the same block as St. Agnes on West 91st Street. While Bogart’s son later described his father as a “lapsed Episcopalian,” it’s worth noting that both of his children were baptized in the Episcopal Church and that his funeral was held in All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, California. Another fascinating discovery in the registers was the name “Joel Roberts Poinsett” in the list of baptismal sponsors of Ann Elliott Huger Cottonet on August 18, 1825. Poinsett was born in South Carolina in 1779 and studied medicine and law, though his first love was botany. Poinsett had an illustrious career as a statesman, serving in South Carolina’s House of Representatives and the U.S. House of Representatives, as Martin Van Buren’s Secretary of War, and founding the institution that became the Smithsonian. But Poinsett is remembered best for popularizing and lending his name to the poinsettia, a plant synonymous with Christmas. In 1825, Poinsett was appointed the first United States Minister to Mexico. While in southern Mexico, Poinsett became enchanted by the Cuetlaxochitl plant, a small tree that develops

bright red leaves in the dark winter months. He sent samples home and began propagating and sharing the plant with collectors and botanical gardens. Soon, a friend of a friend was selling the plants, and by 1836 the popular Christmas decoration was known as the poinsettia. His namesake flowers are grown in the Smithsonian gardens and used as decorations throughout the capitol buildings. For every recognizable name in the registers, there are thousands you’ve never heard: Helen Ruth Bausch, baptized in St. Luke’s Chapel in 1913; Lucia Paddock and William Walter Cobb, both of Kamkaskee, Illinois, married in Trinity Church in 1882; Hannah Beckett, 32, of New Jersey, who died from “insanity” in 1834 and was buried at St. John’s. Whitey Flynn, archival technician, began work on the registers project in 2006. He estimates he spent four thousand hours digitizing records before moving on to other projects in the Archives. “I always preferred doing the burials,” Flynn explained. “I guess I like knowing the end of the story.” Causes of death—smallpox, pthisis, ague, dropsy, “accidentally falling off the roof of 31 Courtlandt,” decay, water on the brain, fever— give a glimpse into how the world has changed since Trinity’s founding. “Certainly, when I read cause of death I start to extrapolate how old they are, what were the circumstances of their death,” Flynn continued. “Part of the reason burials are fascinating is you get to see how long people got here [on Earth].” Each chapel’s records tell their own story. One nineteenth-century sexton of St. John’s Chapel has become notorious for his spelling errors: he recorded a woman as having died of “purple fever” instead of “puerperal fever.” George K. Liscomb and Paul Kast appear as witnesses at many marriages conducted in St. Chrysostom’s Chapel. Assistant Archivist Anne Petrimoulx did a little research and discovered that the men were the chapel janitors, presumably called from their work to witness the nuptials of those who arrived without friends or family. Interested in exploring the registers yourself? Go to http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/files/ history/registers/registry.php to get started.

numbers The Year in

24,544 cups of coffee consumed at coffee hour

300,000* webcast streams

1,000

weddings

paper cranes hung in Charlotte’s Place

800

funerals

stones moved while repairing retaining wall

31,030

communion wafers consumed

3,197 Facebook friends

280 feet to the top of the spire of Trinity Church

40,000 dollars raised for Sandy relief at Concert for New York

15,000*

1,300,000* visitors to Trinity Church

children supported by All Our Children programs

110

confirmations

12,000

volunteers helping after Superstorm Sandy

square feet of stone cleaned on the Trinity spire

Grammy nomination

1,800,000*

feet of water that flooded the basement of 68 Trinity Place during Sandy

page views of Trinity website

176,741

423

candles burned in St. Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church

totes of supplies collected for public school teachers

11,400

Brown Bag lunches served to those in need

1,500,000* visitors to St. Paul’s Chapel

8 countries visited by Trinity Anglican Partnership staff

40 years of Trinity’s Grants Program

10,452 visitors to Charlotte’s Place *estimated

After the Storm On October 29, Superstorm Sandy hit the northeast United States and devastated neighborhoods, took lives, and left millions without light and heat. In the following days, Trinity responded with direct outreach to neighbors and community members. The immediate outreach to those without electricity in Manhattan has since given way to work in Staten Island and long-term relief efforts. Trinity continues to collect donations as needs arise, and the Brown Bag lunch program has expanded, offering free meals in neighborhoods most affected by the storm. In an effort to better prepare and prevent disasters in the future, Trinity will offer First Responder Trainings through New York Disaster Interfaith Services. The community will also discuss climate change and the stewardship of our environment as a spiritual practice. These relief efforts will adapt as needs change and Trinity continues to listen, connect, and offer help where it is most effective.

Trinity Worships in a “Season of Water” This is “a season of water,” said the Rector, the Rev. Dr. James Cooper, on the Sunday after the storm, “the dangerous waters of Sandy and the waters of baptism.” The pews of Trinity Church were full for the first time since Superstorm Sandy flooded homes and disrupted millions of lives. More than three hundred people gathered for All Saints Sunday, the first worship service after the storm. The Eucharist was a combination of somber remembrance and joyful celebration, including three baptisms. Congregants greeted each other, clearly happy to be able to worship together after a difficult

Trinity News

week. No staff or parishioners were harmed in the storm, though some experienced property damage. The church was closed for six days. “It’s so good to see everyone,” said the Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, Vicar, before the service began—a sentiment echoed by others, including Dr. Cooper, in his sermon. “All things will be made new,” Dr. Cooper said. “It has occurred over and over and over again, and so it will here.” The service began with procession to the All Souls Altar, where parishioners and visitors had written reflections, lit candles, and left other tokens of their loved ones. The lights illuminated incense as it rose through the church. Afterward, two infants and one adult were baptized. “Joyful expectation does not minimize suffering and death and loss,” said Dr. Cooper. “But it’s here that we know that death does not have the last word, nor does destruction, nor despair.” After the service the congregation processed outside to offer prayers for the souls of loved ones. “Remember those who have died,” said Dr. Cooper, standing near the foot of the Astor Cross, “especially recently in the storm.” Parishioners and staff came from every borough. Parishioner Craig Curley had come from Staten Island with his daughter Jolie. They lost power for twenty-six hours and had a little trouble getting to church, but not too much. “We were lucky,” he said. Canon Mallonee had to evacuate but was unable to return within a few days. “We’ve discovered what we take for granted,” she said. Lorna Buce had come from Brooklyn. “As long as I could get here I thought, here’s where I should be,” she said.

A Concert for New York

A Human Connection in Manhattan

was appropriate for the occasion. “It has incredible moments of penitence and incredible moments of joy,” he said. “This piece speaks to the wide variety of human emotion.” The concert was broadcast by WWFM and WQXR. More than 450 people attended, including many classical music fans. During the performance plates were passed around, filling quickly with people’s generous donations. iPads were also stationed at the back of the church for online donations. All contributions went directly to help those affected by the storm. The Trinity vestry covered the expenses of the concert, and many of the musicians donated their fees to the Mayor’s Fund.

Jim Melchiorre

Beginning on the Thursday after Superstorm Sandy hit, dozens of volunteers and hundreds of Brown Bag meals went out into the city from Trinity to help those affected by Sandy. “The purpose was finding the places in our neighborhood that had the most need, going there, delivering resources to them, and being present to them as people,” said Bryan Parsons, Brown Bag and Homeless Services Coordinator for Trinity. Volunteers met at Trinity every morning at 10am. They included Trinity parishioners and staff, congregants from Tamid: The Downtown Synagogue and other Episcopal churches, students from Pace University, and community members who had contacted the church to find out how they could help. The first day they took meals, water, and batteries to Southbridge Towers, where they knocked on every door in the twenty-sevenstory high-rise. Later in the week they handed out wipes for washing, then blankets as the weather got colder, visiting other buildings, such as Knickerbocker Village. Trinity also donated Brown Bag lunches that were distributed from St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. The governor’s office donated food to feed another two hundred people in Manhattan. “Every day the needs changed,” said Trinity staff member Jim Melchiorre. “The main thing that everyone really wanted was human contact.” Volunteers spent much of their time listening and talking to people, especially the elderly who were stranded in their apartments for days. Many needed a friendly ear just as much as bottled water. “Part of spiritual practice is listening,” said the Rev. Matt Heyd, Director of Faith In Action. “We’re going to listen carefully to our community to see what the needs are.”

Music lovers raised more than $40,000 for Sandy relief at Trinity’s Concert for New York. With just days to practice and prepare, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra performed Bach’s Mass in B Minor on November 10 to support the Mayor’s Fund for the Advancement of New York, which is providing essential living supplies to New Yorkers in need after Superstorm Sandy. “It went off without a hitch,” said Melissa Attebury, Music Coordinator and Trinity choir member. “It made me so proud to be working here.” Putting together the concert in a matter of days was no small feat. Julian Wachner, Director of Music and the Arts, was confident in the abilities of the musicians, however, and felt that the Mass

Offering Hearts and Hands in Staten Island “It was very, very clear that there [were] plenty of opportunities for people to help,” said staff member Ellen Prior after her trip to Staten Island. Prior was in one of several groups that traveled to Staten Island to volunteer. They sorted clothing, delivered supplies, and cleared out mud and debris. Trinity worked with Christ Church and St. John’s Anglican Episcopal Church on Staten Island to coordinate volunteers and contributions. St. John’s was especially hard hit, and many members needed help cleaning out their homes. Staff members Jenn Chinn and James Melchiorre, as well as Congregational Council President James Gomez, coordinated the trips. “Staten Island is where I live, so it meant a lot to go and help out,” said Dean Wiltshire, a Trinity staff member. Wiltshire’s home was not affected

by the storm, but he spent a Saturday helping clear muddy water, drywall, and ruined furniture from a house. There were signs of tragedy in parts of Staten Island. Some streets were clogged with military vehicles, trucks, garbage, and mud, but that didn’t prevent people from helping. “What they really [needed was] hearts and hands,” said Trinity parishioner Scott Townell. Townell, along with Mildred Chandler, Nola Meyer, Dolores Osborne, and other parishioners sorted clothes, food, and personal care items at Christ Church, which was overwhelmed with donations. They then drove supplies to other churches that had requested particular items. “We made a significant dent in the problem they had asked us to help with,” said Townell. “It was a good day, a hardworking day.”

Trinity News

“ W hen all good advice fails and the rudder is useless and the

Emory Edwards Lamentations 3:22-23 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Working in a homeless shelter and serving in a variety of ministries at Trinity, life can be pretty hectic. This scripture is a reassurance of God’s constancy and the boundlessness of God’s love; it gives me strength to persevere. No matter how stressful a day may become, I know that there will be new mercies each tomorrow.

hen all good advice fails and the rudder is useless and the spread of the sails presents more of a danger than an advantage ,

Telling Our Story by Emory Edwards

As part of my confirmation class, Fr. Holmes Irving took several of us to

opportunities for expression and participation, along with a nationally

the middle of the church and told us to look around. “The church is a boat,

recognized Movement Choir. We are strengthened in community, with

and we are all on our Christian voyage together. The church aisle

opportunities to anchor ourselves in small vitality groups while coming

runs directly from the door to the altar, and nothing stands between us

together as a whole to celebrate our diversity and love for one another.

and God. On this aisle we are carried up in baptism, and on it we will be carried out in death. The church is a boat.” During this past year at Trinity, that particular memory has rattled around in my head. We have had a full year here. We have not always agreed. We have not always pulled in the same direction. We have not always sailed in placid

We remain confident in evangelism, taking our faith beyond these walls, into our neighborhoods and out in the world. Charlotte’s Place anchors our local outreach, including expanded ministries to people who are homeless and hungry. We are expanding our work in prisons and in neighborhoods affected by poverty and lack of opportunity. We continue to expand our national and global partnerships, including

waters. We have been protested, occupied, studied, characterized, and

our newest relationships in Staten Island. For as we began our year in a storm

written about. We have all at one point or another cried out to God. In

of one sort, we end in it with an altogether different storm named Sandy.

the end, however, we are all in the same boat. We remain one, we remain church, and we continue to tell our story.

United in Christ, parishioners climbed long, dark stairways in high-rise buildings in Lower Manhattan places without power, to bring food, water

I knew that we would all be OK at a particular funeral when we gathered

and a ministry of presence to our elderly, disabled, and less fortunate

together to celebrate the life of a beloved parishioner. In the quiet of the

brothers and sisters. Groups made the long, sad journey to the island just

moment, sitting shoulder to shoulder, I felt God’s transcendent peace.

south of us that suffered such loss of life and destruction. We will partner

Receiving Holy Communion that morning, I knew that our unity was

to help recover and rebuild, and we will be in Staten Island for the long

greater than our division.

haul.

“See, everything has become new!” St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians.

Through it all, the story of this year is one of love and gratitude, of hope

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to God’s self through Christ

and expectation. Nothing stands between us and God, and we continue to

and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

sail on our common journey. We are church. We are Trinity.

It is a positively exciting time in our life together. Ministries are flourishing, and God continues to bless us. We welcome all in our midst as neighbors and family. We continue to grow as baptisms, confirmations, and receptions into our community of faith abound.

The congregation of Trinity is united in its diversity by a common faith and mission. Read some of the verses that guide and anchor the lives of Trinity parishioners on the following pages.

We have an updated and expanded space for children and youth, because we are growing. Adult education and faith formation is attracting more and more people. Music and the arts are thriving with expanded

Emory Edwards is past president of the Trinity Church Congregational Council, Chair of the 2013 stewardship campaign, and a congregational representative to the Faith in Action vestry committee. He is Executive Director at PERC, a homeless shelter in Hudson County, New Jersey. He can be contacted at eedwards2@gmail.com.

Trinity News

when all human help and strength have been abandoned , the only recourse left for the sailors is to cry out to

Lina Lowry John 14: 1-3 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Genara Necos This is one of the texts appointed for the Burial of the Dead and was used most effectively by the pastor who preached at the funeral of my brother-in-law. He recalled how Dick had always been willing to accompany the parish Boy Scouts on camping trips where they slept in tents or lean-tos, cooked over campfires, roughing it in all kinds of weather. He compared these adventures to our regular workaday lives— planned but unpredictable, sometimes comfortable, sometimes makeshift. Then he waxed eloquent about the mansions (I am sure he used the King James Version) that Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare for the faithful.

Luke 6:18 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, Because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

I believe that this scripture speaks of faith in action. What we do as emissaries of Christ is “preach” the good news when we help those who are suffering from social injustice.

the only recourse left for the sailors is to cry out to G od .

Gomez Family Joshua 24:15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.

A small brass plaque with the words “Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” always hung in a prominent place in our home. When we moved, it moved with us only to appear in a new, most prominent place. As a parent of young children, I only realize now why the plaque was so important to my father and mother. For them, the words displayed were both an opportunity and a responsibility. I am hopeful and grateful to continue that example.

Therefore will God, who helps those who are sailing to reach port safely, abandon

Wendy Boyce

Mildred Chandler

Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Psalm 103:1-2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.

This sentence from Psalm 19 is a part of my daily morning prayer; it helps to center me and prepare me for lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daily challenges. When I repeat this phrase, it has a profound effect on my thinking and my actions, and it allows me to be guided by Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grace.

I find myself repeating these verses many times during the day. Sometimes I add a short prayer for the homeless and unemployed after saying them, and sometimes I just reflect on Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goodness and love and all the benefits he has bestowed on me. For he knows how we were made, and we are but dust.

abandon God’s church and prevent it from arriving in peace and tranquility ?” St. August ine

Mutsa Tunduwani Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Jacob Schlicter If I live according to God’s highest purpose for me, He will take care of my needs and those of my family and neighbors.

Matthew 23:4 They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger.

I grew up in a house that was half Episcopalian, half atheist. So I always felt protective of my atheist family members whenever religious zealots knocked on our door, warning us about the damnation of unbelievers. And I cringed at every instance of religious pigheadedness out in the world. (I did a lot of cringing and, alas, still do.) So I was excited the first time I encountered this passage, in which Jesus turns the light of criticism back in the right direction, towards the moralizing excess of religion itself.

What a Year Makes of Us By daniel Simons

As I run into clergy friends around the Church, they often open the conversation with “What a year you’ve had!” – referring I guess to the amount of unsolicited publicity visited upon Trinity by the press over the changing face and expression of Occupy Wall Street in our midst, and over our internal conversations about vision and strategic direction. I often let the remark go, not knowing how to engage the comment without more context, but someone phrased it to me last week in a way that made me stop and take notice: “What a year you’ve had! – What do you make of it?” What do I make of it? If the question is: “How do you analyze and synthesize all the components of the year together to make sense out of it?”, I’m not sure I have that answer yet. But I like a secondary way of hearing the question: What do you MAKE out of it? What do you DO with this basket of tumultuous and varied experience? What can we create with it? So I think the better question is: “What has all this made of us?” How have we let ourselves be truly affected so that we are truly changed? A favorite author, Frederick Buechner, speaks about “listening to one’s life “– that the seeming happenstance, the random and circuitous path that we walk, when we pay attention to it, reveals a thread and starts to show a deeper purpose and identity in our lives. At the end of this year, I find myself paying a lot of attention to the present – looking for the subtle signs of what the past year’s events have made of us. We have just come out of an unforgettable and epic flood, where in an instant our secure structures were made very fragile. In that moment, suddenly a whole framework of strong relationships revealed itself: people taking care of other people – friends and strangers. We all took notice in our Congregational Council meeting following the storm how catastrophe changed the nature of our conversation and focus, uncovered what mattered, and showed us where our hidden strengths lay.

Trinity News

This past year feels almost like an era in itself and perhaps a subtle watershed. I see a lot of renewed hope and enthusiasm – and I see subtle differences in my own energy and perhaps in others’ as well. There is more interest and attention to process where before we were more focused on result and accomplishment. What we are doing in the world is important, but HOW we are doing it is more important still. We are now talking more freely about what it means to become a community of practice, to create a culture of love, to behave what we believe. When there is inevitable misunderstanding, even misrepresentation and conflict, the integrity of our practice will eventually win out, if we are investing in it and cultivating it with our whole heart. All of this could be boiled down, I suppose, to a renewed focus on following Jesus. Not a trite “What would Jesus do?” but rather “What is Jesus doing?” Where is Jesus leading us more deeply into our own conversion and out into the world of great need and hunger? Trinity will always have pretty ambitious plans and projects to influence the world for good and for God, which is a wonderful goal; but in the stillness of the hinge of the year, reflecting on where we have been and where we are going means listening deeply to who we are becoming now and how Jesus is calling us closer together to follow where we haven’t yet been, which will change us all, again and again. The Rev. Daniel Simons is Priest and Director of Liturgy, Hospitality, and Pilgrimage for Trinity Wall Street. He can be contacted at dsimons@trinitywallstreet.org.

THE PROPERTIES OF TRINITY CHURCH By James H. Cooper

Photography by Leo Sorel

The Rector of Trinity Wall Street discusses the principles that guide decisions involving parish real estate.

Once Christians decide to move past the living room and storefront into buildings, they’re always going to be faced with a commitment to keep up their property in a safe way and in excellent condition. If that can’t be done, then they can’t do ministry in that property in good conscience. That’s the harsh reality. A given congregation is faced with the choice to sell its property or to find creative ways to keep it in a condition that promotes the safety and vitality of all those who gather in it, and all those nearby.

Trinity News

Real Estate as Mission Trinity’s land ownership was the result of a gift by England’s Queen Anne in 1705. Over the years, the land has had many evolving uses. It has been a farm, a residential area, and a railroad hub. It went on to house light industry and then commercial office space and is now moving toward its next use. The constant is that the land has always supported the mission of Trinity Church and by extension the Episcopal Church, the City of New York, and the Anglican Communion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries alone, Trinity financially supported as many as three hundred Episcopal churches in New York State. Over the years, the parish gave away or sold 96 percent of its land holdings to churches, chapels, hospitals, schools, and missions. One land grant was used to found King’s College, which later became Columbia University. Historians estimate that the parish had a role in founding more than twelve hundred institutions before the formal establishment of programmatic grants in 1972. From that date on, Trinity Grants went on to support the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the Anglican Church in Africa, migrant ministries in New York, acclaimed low-income housing initiatives inthe South Bronx and Brooklyn, and the development of widely used Godly Play Christian education curriculum, and to reward the grassroots leadership of dozens of priests and lay leaders with funds for sabbaticals and continuing education, among other opportunities. Currently, the six million square feet of rentable space owned by Trinity properties in the neighborhood known as Hudson Square contain commercial office space with retail locations on the first floor. Tenants include architects, advertising firms, fashion designers, media companies, and not-for-profits such as the Jackie Robinson Foundation and the Children’s Museum of the Arts. Total revenue from the commercial real estate portfolio runs from $150 to $175 million per year. After taxes, 1 operating expenses, and capital projects, which fluctuate, the net proceeds going directly to fund Trinity’s program budget range from $30 to $40 million per year. The Trinity program budget includes the operational expenses of all the ministries and activities of the parish, including liturgy, music and arts, education programs, community outreach, social services, and the upkeep and 1

Trinity News

maintenance of two of Lower Manhattan’s historic landmarked buildings, Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel, which receive more than three million visitors annually. The program budget also includes $2.7 million in grants, additional rector and vestry-directed giving, which fluctuates between $500,000 and $1 million annually, and $2.3 million to the Diocese of New York. Importantly, the way Trinity currently sees its ownership of property is that real estate not only funds mission, but is mission. The parish sees tenants not as monthly bank account digits, but as people with goals, aspirations, creative drives, passions, and hopes. The environment in which you work has an important impact on your quality of life. After all, roughly a third of every day is spent at work. For Trinity, when Hudson Square is developed in a way that is attractive and energizing, people are engaged with the neighborhood, proud of where they work, and eager to spend time in that neighborhood. In Hudson Square, we are hoping to go a step further. Trinity is supporting a rezoning initiative that will allow residential building in Hudson Square. The goal is to create a 24/7 neighborhood in which people are clamoring to work and live, a place that gives energy and health and vitality to its workers and residents, enhancing the city as safe and productive. Roughly three hundred people live in Hudson Square at the moment, and there is potential for thousands more. More retail will come, more restaurants, and other amenities. We are providing a 440-seat public elementary school at Duarte Square, and as everyone knows, this is a city that badly needs more good schools. People often ask why we are engaging in such an effort, which does take a lot of time and energy. One reason is that creating a neighborhood in which people are living and working will help the parish to generate more income to further its mission. But it’s more than that: the primary reason is that we want the neighborhood to offer something positive and uniquely vibrant to the city and to people’s lives. Characteristics of Trinity Real Estate Trinity has a professional staff that works on the real estate portfolio. They and I work directly with the Trinity real estate committee, which has oversight for the portfolio, does normal committee review, and presents the appropriate resolutions to the vestry as a whole to vote on.

Trinity pays about $24 million in real estate taxes to the City of New York annually.

At a typical meeting, committee members look at new leases, potential lessees’ level of financial security, and at the cost to capitalize the work that would need to be done in the building and in their space before they could move in. Trinity has a wonderful vestry of 22 people, with expertise in a range of specialized areas. Since real estate has extensive capital needs, both the resource committee and the budget finance committee examine ways to finance those needs and, when appropriate, consider whether to borrow money against a given lease to cover any necessary capital outlays on a longer-term basis. Borrowing is always an issue on which people hold strong opinions. On the one hand, without it we may be unable to do a lease, which would ultimately be detrimental to program funding; on the other hand, if we take the money away from program to meet real estate-related capital needs, we no longer have the program. So program and leases are actually tied together, and borrowing to finance real estate projects creates the income for the program to continue to function. The resource is, in the final analysis, being applied to program. Decisions – 1. Trinity Conference Center Recently, a decision was made to close the Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, Connecticut. The vestry and parish leadership really wrestled with the decision and all its implications. The first part was to have conversation centered on a key question: is operating a conference center a core ministry for Trinity Church? The answer we came to was no—conferences, such as those offered by Trinity Institute, are a core aspect of Trinity’s ministry, but running a conference center is not. The second question was whether or not the Conference Center was a financial asset. The center had for years been losing significant amounts of money. The net support for it had become substantial. Rather than continuing to subsidize that, we chose to save the operational money, with the exception of what it would cost to determine what future use for that property there would be. We may keep the property for generations, or sell it to a not-for-profit that has a wholesome purpose, or sell it at market rate at some point. But by suspending operations, we now have additional funds that could be used in grants, homeless services, or other mission purpose.

These decisions are very slow and painful to make. I heard from a vestryman who had been on the vestry ten years ago, and he said they were working on the conference center question back then and should have closed it then, but didn’t. In my time we had roughly two years of really looking at the issue. Decisions – 2. Duarte Square Some decisions take a long time, but others come very quickly. Such was the case when the parish was pressured to provide Duarte Square as a second encampment space for the Occupy movement. Trinity had witnessed what occurred in the encampment at Zuccotti Park. It started out in a nice, pleasant sort of way and then went downhill, not only becoming less sanitary, but involving considerable emotional and physical abuse. It reminded me, in fact, of some of the desperate places that I have visited over the years—Haiti, and New Orleans, and parts of South Africa and Kenya—places where there were desperate encampments and those same kind of things were occurring. So to say, “Okay, let’s take that somewhat predictable outcome and put it into a piece of property in a business district” would have been healthy neither for those who would be in the encampment, nor for those who would be coming and going to work in the surrounding buildings. Senior staff and vestry were unanimous on the matter. These—the Conference Center and Duarte Square—are, admittedly, two extreme examples of decision making regarding property. I think that the universal touch point, though, for all churches regardless of size, is how the decisions made will either enhance or diminish our roles as pastor, community leader, and steward. When determining priorities or a major point of action, a good exercise is to ask whether the church in question is best suited to run whatever it is they are running or are considering running. Whether it’s a soup kitchen, a music program, a daycare center, a preschool, an elementary school, or an organic garden, is this community best suited to focus on that and be successful? Where churches can get trapped is by trying to do all things rather than a focused, intense ministry of excellence.

Illustrations by Susan Hunt Yule

The Rev. Dr. James H. Cooper is XVII Rector of Trinity Wall Street. This article originally appeared on page 7 of the Episcopal New Yorker, Fall 2012, Vol. 88, No. 3.

Trinity News

A New Season for the

Trinity Conference Center by Jeremy Sierra

Trinity News

All photos by Jeremy Sierra

Amidst the reds and oranges of the fall season, Trinity staff and parishioners commemorated the close of the Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, Conneticut, on October 20. Parishioners recounted their memories of the Conference Center while they watched hills covered in hickory, maple, and evergreen pass by the bus windows. Trinity chartered a bus from New York for the occasion, while others watched the ceremony via Skype. “I love the place,” said the Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee, who had been going to the Conference Center as a chaplain for the Clergy Leadership Project long before she became Vicar. David Jette described his first trip shortly after he was hired. “It was just so wonderful to come to the Conference Center and have this taste of New England.” He recited a bit of the history of the center, which was for many years a boys’ and girls’camp. Once everyone had arrived, the Rev. Dr. James Cooper, Rector, started the ceremony with opening prayers. “Give praise to the One who has blessed us with this camp and Conference Center and has given us these many years of ministry,” he prayed. Everyone walked quietly to the rag-stone chapel, where they gathered under a warm October sun to sing hymns and read scripture. The chapel was built by boys who attended the camp under the supervision of the Rev. Edward H. Schlueter, who started the boys’ camp in 1915 before giving it to Trinity in 1945. It became a retreat center for nonprofit organizations and churches in the 1990. The scripture included Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” “There will be a winter of rest for the Conference Center,” said Dr. Cooper in his homily. “What the spring will be I don’t know, but collectively we’ll be prayerfully listening.” Four members of the choir also sang a lovely version of Psalm 23 by Bobby McFerrin, and parishioners were invited to speak words and phrases that represented their memories of the Conference Center. “Great food,” someone said, “Bald eagles.” “Sledding down God’s white earth,” added another parishioner, and “Mom, who would have loved to be here.” “The joy of God’s earth,” said Dr. Cooper.

“The friendship and ministry of Jon and Wendy Denn [Center Directors] and all of the staff who have led retreats and provided hospitality.” The Rev. Daniel Simons invited participants to go to a favorite spot and pray, and to write their prayers on rice paper or bring back a pine cone or leaf to represent their memories. The rice paper and stones and fern leaves that parishioners brought back were then gathered in a basket. Before making their way to the rectory near the river for cider and refreshments, participants sang “Shall We Gather at the River,” and each person took smooth stones from the altar. The stones had previously formed a labyrinth on the Conference Center grounds. “One for me, for my mother, for my sister,” said a parishioner as she gathered several stones. Fr. Simons released the contents of the basket—the rice paper and stones and leaves and the memories they represented—into the river, while some sat and gazed at the afternoon light moving on the water. Finally, everyone piled back into the bus. Canon Mallonee led everyone in the prayers for Commissioning before Departing: “God is with us always, though we let go of this, our cherished place,” she prayed, and the parishioners replied, “God will remain with us.” “From the first time I came here I just fell in love with the place,” said Rosalyn Williams as the bus pulled away. Jeremy Sierra is Managing Editor for Trinity Wall Street. He can be contacted at jsierra@trinitywallstreet.org.

The bus ride back was a quiet one. Many parishioners wrote their experiences in a Memory Book during the trip home. Some of their entries are below:

I remember especially crisp, cool mornings, contemplative prayer in the little stone chapel, birdsong in the background. Anne Mallonee West Cornwall—its beauty, peace, and fellowship—helped me reconnect, helped me realize that to be spiritual is to be amazed, to be surprised! Trudi Shulz I mentioned to a fellow retreater that I had heard that there was a chapel in the woods. She offered to be my guide. It was a balmy, beautiful October day. The trees sported leaves in varying shades of color—red, yellow, orange. As we entered the space, the first thing I noticed was an exquisite colored glass cross mounted on a pole. Not far away a large wooden cross surveyed the scene. We sat on a bench and gazed upwards admiring the majestic trees topped by an azure sky. I marveled at the serenity of the space. We lingered and spontaneously held hands, thanking God for the beauty of nature and all his blessings, including the sharing of this experience. Rosalyn Williams I have a picture in my mind when we were doing a “walking meditation” as the snow gently fell and we slowly moved through the silence. Vincent Norman

My first time at West Cornwall was in 1996 for the New Members Retreat. Favorite memories include: the fireplace (no red wine in the parlor!), the labyrinth, the great quality time with my Trinity family. Maribel Ruiz I remember as a young sister working at Trinity Mountain Camp during the summer. Each month the girls’ camp [in Sharon, Conneticut] would spend a day at the boys’ camp, West Cornwall. I remember it as a very “rustic” place. That was probably in 1969 or 1970. Sister Ann Whittaker I have specific fond memories of playing ping-pong in the basement with Avery Griffin, and walking along the railroad tracks— very peaceful. Thomas McCargar I remember Bill Slade’s laughter and the fireplace and the snacks. Also much love for the yellow cottage which we rented for a week in the summer of 1995 when my son, Robert Alejandro Sanchez, resided in my belly. Cornwall will be with me forever in my mind, forever in my heart, forever in my history. Beverly Shelton-Sanchez

The welcoming staff, great food, enjoying God. Deborah Hope The discussions were always exciting and revelatory, but I remember especially, in quiet settings, the stone church—its intimacy and inspiration. Chester Johnson I have been to West Cornwall on many occasions. I have beautiful memories of time spent with the youth group in earlier years, also with the council and family retreats. West Cornwall will always be a memory of Trinity’s earlier days. Carla Richards We, my sister Shirley and I, have been coming to Trinity Conference Center for seven or eight years. Each time genuine hospitality and warmth were experienced…My favorite place is the chapel. Being there alone or with others I can meditate and later share my experiences with others. Lorraine D. Westcarr

My fondest memories are sitting by the river, lounging by the fireplace, sipping coffee and writing, the walks into town, the beautiful wintery landscape, and of course the wonderful sense of community. Juliana Hoover

Trinity News

A Harbinger of Judgment?

In a video sermon recently posted on the web page of the Christian Family Church of Owatonna, Minnesota, pastor Timothy Peterson preaches from a bench in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Behind him, you can see the construction at the World Trade Center site. He leans forward. “The World by Leah Reddy Trade Center was attacked,” he says, “because it was across the street from St. Paul’s Chapel.” Peterson didn’t come up with this theory all on his own. He was taking his cues from The Harbinger, a best-selling novel by a Messianic rabbi named Jonathan Cahn, leader of a congregation in Wayne, New Jersey. The Harbinger is presented as fiction, but the title page states, “What you are about to read is presented in the form of a story, but what is contained within the story is real.” The book is a phenomenon in some Christian circles: it’s been on The New York Times paperback trade fiction bestseller list since its release, and spent time on Amazon.com’s bestseller list. As a member of Trinity’s communications staff, I read emails every week from folks who want more information on elements of the book connected to Trinity (more on that later) or who feel compelled to warn us of God’s impending judgment. We’re growing accustomed to tourists, like Peterson, who need to see all the harbingers of America’s judgment at —The Harbinger Trinity and St. Paul’s for themselves. Most of The Harbinger is structured as a conversation between two characters: Nouriel Kaplan, a journalist, and a mysterious man called “the prophet.” This “prophet” reveals to Nouriel that the Book of Isaiah fortells major events in America since 9/11/01, starting with the attack on the World Trade Center, and including the recession and housing market collapse. In The Harbinger, Cahn postulates that Isaiah 9:10 refers to an attack on Israel by the Assyrians in 732 B.C. Instead of returning to God, Israel became defiant and vowed to rebuild. The same thing happened to America on 9/11, and 9/11 was our call to repent. But, like the ancient Israelites, America defiantly turned away from God when it pledged to rebuild. The Harbinger connects several of the phrases in Isaiah 9:10 to events that took place at Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel. According to Cahn, these “harbingers” are meant to warn America of God’s impending judgment and cause us to change our ways (see upper right graphic). There are a hundred ways to disagree with The Harbinger, and I started sharing my own insights

James Wheeldon

“A tree of hope, but not a good hope.” “No,” he replied, “a prideful, self-centered, and godless hope. What they saw as a tree of hope was, in reality, a harbinger of judgment.”

Trinity News

with folks when I give tours. I told a group the story of the Ground Zero “Tree of Hope,” a Norway spruce, a Christmas tree, planted in St. Paul’s Churchyard in 2003. Those who were present on that day recall a wounded community coming together in a spirit of reconciliation and faithfulness. The tree was donated by a local business, moved into place by the electric company’s crane, and decorated with lights. Prayers were said and the choir sang. But all the tour group could see was “the Erez tree,” some vague relative of a cedar, planted in defiance of God. I was annoyed. And curious: what is so appealing about this novel? Can I develop a set of facts, or a logical explanation, to help visitors see the events described in the book as I do? My first call was to biblical archeologist Gordon Franz, who has taught classes here at Trinity. Franz has spent the past thirty-two years working on archeological excavations in Israel and teaches at the New York School of the Bible. “He completely misunderstands Isaiah!” Franz told me, pointing out that Cahn has the context of Isaiah 9:10 wrong. Isaiah is writing not about an attack by terrorists, but about an earthquake that struck Israel several decades before. All the imagery of the “Day of the Lord” used by the prophets—mountains shaking and valleys filling—that’s all a result of the Israelites experiencing this terrible earthquake, he explains. It was in their cultural memory for centuries. The story of this massive earthquake is riveting, but I knew that explaining the historical context of this particular passage wasn’t going to change anyone’s mind. Franz points me to The Harbinger: Fact or Fiction, a book by David James, co-founder and Executive Director of the Alliance for Biblical Integrity. James writes from a conservative, literalist Christian perspective and provides a point-by-point analysis and refutation of Cahn’s interpretation and a call for critical discernment. I’m relieved to find a theologically conservative source echoing my sense that this book doesn’t add up. Cahn takes liberties with translation and biblical hermeneutics and uses facts and quotes out of context. James astutely points out that Cahn has to merge two very different translations of Isaiah—the Septuagint and the Hebrew text— to connect the passage to rebuilding the World Trade Center site. There’s one Trinity-specific claim in The Harbinger that needs clarification. Cahn makes

The bricks represent the World Trade Center Buildings on 9/11/01. On 9/11/01 a large sycamore tree in St. Paul’s Churchyard was knocked over by the force of the towers falling, an event Cahn links to the “sycomores” that “have been cut down.” Cahn is playing fast and loose with facts about trees here. The Israeli sycomore is a fig tree, while St. Paul’s sycamore is an entirely different species.

the assertion that Trinity parish once owned the land on which the World Trade Center stands. He cites “the ancient principle—the ground of consecration becomes the ground of judgment” as the reason this matters. Queen Anne’s land grant to Trinity, made in 1705, gave the parish the land “bounded… on the West by Hudson’s River.” Trinity owned the land up to the riverbank—but the river used to run up to the edge of Church Street. The World Trade Center was built on landfill, a process that began in colonial times. It’s possible that Trinity owned a few feet of the site, at most, and equally possible that the parish never owned any of the land. So, after all this, why are we, as a society, so keen to believe in prophesies and signs, in harbingers? Everyone has their own take. Terry Hart, who describes himself as a

8 T he and Lord se n it fe ll on t a wor 9 an d ag Isra d ains el; Ep all the t Jac hrai peo ob, m p le kn but a n d i said n pride the inh ew it – : a and arro bitants 10 ‘ of S gan The c e b rick of h amaria but – sh eart w they the e will b ave fall s e but ycomor uild wit n, we w h es ill p have b dressed ut c edar een cut stones ; d s in thei own, r pla ce.’ On November 22, 2003, a Norway spruce—dubbed the Tree of Hope—was planted in the northwest corner of the churchyard at St. Paul’s Chapel, replacing the fallen sycamore. Cahn explains that the Hebrew word Isaiah uses, “erez,” can refer to a coniferous tree, specifically a pine tree. Gordon Franz, biblical archeologist, disagrees. In this context, Isaiah is talking specifically about the cedars of Lebanon—definitely not a blue Norway spruce. common person, a family man, and a Bible-believing Christian, contacted us with questions about the planting of the sycamore tree. For him, the correlations between what is happening now and his understanding of the “end times” are too strong to ignore. “If we are where I think we are in history, we’ll have a chance for [Revelation] to be very literal in and around Israel,” he told me. “There’s a tremendous amount on the verge of fulfillment.” The details that Cahn gets wrong don’t worry him. “Even if there are some mistakes, in general I agree with him that there seems to be a divine warning being given.” One woman felt it was a call to return to the values of the past. “I was raised in the ’50s and ’60s and on Sunday everybody went to church,” she told me. “I think we were a kinder, more compassionate people. We helped the less fortunate because it was the right thing to do,

Cahn equates America and Israel. According to Cahn, America was consecrated to God in a prayer service at St. Paul’s Chapel following George Washington’s inauguration.

not because the government said they were increasing our taxes to give to those that were just too stinking lazy to work anything but the system. People looked out for their neighbors and their children. We knew that God was in control, and we were thankful and told Him so.” What does The Harbinger’s success tell us about America? Those who believe in the book’s premise look eagerly for the day when God will right society’s wrongs, when we’ll be judged, when Jesus will wipe tears from every eye. Maybe they long for personal spiritual fulfillment; maybe they long for the days when they just felt better. And I can’t argue with that. Leah Reddy is Multimedia Producer for Trinity Wall Street. She can be reached at lreddy@trinitywallstreet.org.

Trinity News

TrinityTweets

Walter Rauschenbusch observed that “Jesus was sociable….always falling into conversation.” Trinity uses these words to guide and inspire its social media activity, seeing the array of social media platforms as opportunities to fall into conversation with people near and far. Below is one of the many quirky and surprising Twitter conversations from this fall. @shrinkthinks Just saw a turkey wandering around Lower Manhattan on a walking session...not joking. @TrinityWallSt What? You saw a wild turkey walking around Lower Manhattan? @shrinkthinks @shrinkthinks @TrinityWallSt yes! Perhaps connected to the Battery Park community garden - but loose. A BIG turkey. @TrinityWallSt @shrinkthinks Sources tell us it was Zelda! She’s on Wikipedia! @shrinkthinks I met Zelda today while on a walking session in downtown Manhattan Who knew? #ecotherapy http://t.co/5Dd4Fon9 Thanks to @TrinityWallSt @jaypsyd @shrinkthinks We have parallel lives, you know. The Cambridge turkeys showed up on my office building front steps! @TrinityWallSt @shrinkthinks @jaypsyd @TrinityWallSt Ha! Perhaps there are turkeys stalking psychotherapists all over the planet! @jaypsyd @shrinkthinks Or they are seeking comfort proactively prior to Thanksgiving. @TrinityWallSt @shrinkthinks @jaypsyd LOL!!

Trinity News

psalmtube

David Becker/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Snoop’s Rasta Transformation By Mark Bozzuti-Jones

What’s in a name? Many have long believed that our names define us and shape our destiny. We are what we are named, because names have us more than we have names. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, many of the people we revere had their names changed. A new name can signify a new beginning and a new reality. With the changing of a name one can become a new person, in truth, a new personality. Abraham, Jacob, Esther, Sarah, Paul, and Peter had their names changed after a profound religious experience. With the changing of the name comes a new mission, a new assignment, a new vocation, and a new page. Today, many in religious communities still change their names as a way of showing their consecration to God. However, quite frequently it is the name change by the rich and famous that captures our attention and imagination. Recently, Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr., the American rapper, singer, writer, record producer, and actor changed his name (again). You see, our friend Calvin had long ago changed his name to Snoop Doggy Dogg or Snoop Dogg. Remember that many of our saints were wild and sinful in

their day before they had a come-to-Jesus moment—Augustine and Paul just to name two. On a recent visit to Jamaica Snoop Dogg went to a Rastafarian temple and met a Rastafarian priest who asked him his name. “You don’t know me? I am Snoop Dogg!” “Dog?” replied the Rastafarian priest. “You need to stop being a dog, you are made for better things, made for the light. From now on your name shall be Snoop Lion.” Snoop Lion said that after he heard his new name, his life took on new meaning and he discovered a connection and love for the Rastafarian faith. “Now I feel like I am Bob Marley reincarnated,” Snoop Lion said. You have heard of Bob Marley, the famed Jamaican reggae musician. He was a Rastafarian, a believer in the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. Many associate the use of marijuana with Rastas. The religion is more than that, however, and many Rastas do not use marijuana. Rastas usually abstain from alcohol and the eating of pork. Many do not eat any kind of meat and tend to be pacifists. Haile Selassie means “Power of the Trinity.” Ethiopian Emperors trace their origin to the Queen of Sheba and Solomon, and on November 2, 1930, when he ascended the throne in Ethiopia, he took as his title His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia, Elect of God.

Before the coronation date of Haile Selassie, many Jamaicans paid close attention to the events on the continent of Africa. As descendants of slaves, many in Jamaica held to the hope of returning to Africa one day. One of the leaders of the Black Movement in Jamaica had encouraged Jamaicans in 1924 to look to Africa for the crowning of the Black King and to worship the Black God of Africa; so with Haile Selassie’s coronation, a movement was born. Those who believed that the Emperor was the fulfillment of a long-awaited prophecy called themselves “Rastafarians” or “Rastas” for short. So now we get to wait, we get to wait and see what this name change does for Snoop Lion. Time will tell whether we get to watch him roar. The Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones is Priest for Pastoral Care and Nurture for Trinity Wall Street.

Trinity News

2012 Year in Grants In its fortieth year, the Trinity Grants Program gave over $2.8 million to more than forty-five organizations. The aim

Advocating for Children ($758,000) Alliance for Quality Education

of the grants program is voiced in its

To support students, teachers, and public schools, especially in Lower Manhattan, through systemic policy reform and equitable funding.

mission statement: “To love God and

BBMG

neighbor for a world of good.” Trinity

To develop a strategy for advocating private support of a public education roundtable in NYC.

philanthropy is about transformation, supporting new leaders, and seeding new institutions. Trinity primarily

Common Cents

Manhattan, particularly helping

Exploratory grant to an organization specializing in creating and managing service-learning programs for young people. Its most well-known program is Penny Harvest, the largest child philanthropy program in the United States.

homeless persons find housing;

Donor’s Education Collaborative

advocating for children in communities

Support advocacy for research-based policies in NYC public education with an emphasis on students of color, low-income students, and English Language Learners.

awards grants in four areas: Supporting a vital presence in Lower

and public schools; supporting communities emerging from conflict; and strengthening the Anglican Communion in Africa. This year the

Episcopal Charities A renewal grant to support nearly twenty All Our Children public school–Episcopal volunteering partnerships.

grants program focused on reforming

Lutheran Family Health Center

New York public schools and supporting

Fund job-readiness coaching for disconnected youth in Brooklyn. Grantee will work in tandem with Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation.

financial sustainability in Africa. In addition, Trinity helped fund the Episcopal Service Corps, which has

Philanthropy New York

grown significantly in recent years, and

To support Philanthropy New York’s Education Working Group’s 2013 Education Reform Review Initiative.

made a large grant to the Robin Hood

Rural and Migrant Ministry

Foundation to increase their veterans’

Support for the Youth Economic Group, a business collaborative of youth from Sullivan County who, with Trinity support, have started and are now sustaining a business cooperative that creates and sells shoulder bags.

services. Trinity also gave grants from the Rector’s Office to The Mayor’s Fund and the Downtown Alliance to support recovery from Superstorm Sandy.

Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation Create new jobs for disconnected youth by contracting with local Brooklyn businesses.

Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston To develop the All Our Children strategy nationally and act as a consultant for a gathering of similar faith institutions–public school partnership programs in Richmond, Virginia.

Trinity Grants Program To seed and convene a national network of All Our Children church-school partnerships.

Trinity News

United Federation of Teachers To pilot a community school model in New York City public schools.

Urban Youth Collaborative To support youth organizing for public school reform.

Anglican Communion in Africa ($991,600) The Anglican Church of Canada To support African bishops’ participation in the Bishops’ Dialogue meeting held outside Toronto in June 2012.

Diocese of Boga, Democratic Republic of Congo To support the construction of a commercial center to generate income to support the church’s ministry.

Diocese of Harare, Zimbabwe To conduct a feasibility study of potential income-generation opportunities for a plot of diocesan land outside Harare.

Diocese of Matana, Burundi Support for the construction of a diocesan community center to generate income for a program that teaches vocational skills to women. Many hope that economically empowering women will provide stability in conflicted African regions.

Diocese of Northern Malawi, Central Africa To commission a feasibility study of potential income-generating projects for a piece of diocesan land in the local hub of Mzuzu.

Diocese of Rift Valley,Tanzania To support the completion of a girls’ hostel in Manyoni.

Diocese of Shyira, Rwanda Over one year, to support the construction of a diocesan commercial complex of fifteen retail/ office spaces.

Diocese of Yei, Sudan To commission a feasibility study of plans to expand and improve the current guesthouse and to develop other land held by the diocese.

Episcopal Church of Sudan Fund the operation of an office in Kampala, Uganda, to provide logistical support to war-ravaged dioceses in South Sudan that lack the infrastructure to operate independently.

Gombe Savings and Credit Cooperative Society (GSACCO) To empower economically disadvantaged women by providing them with business and management skills and access to low interest credit.

Luweero Holding Company

Province of the Congo

Emmaus House

Over one year, to add seventeen self-contained rooms to the diocesan guesthouse at Rondavel Village.

Two grants to install equipment in eight dioceses across the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been experiencing violent conflict for decades.

To support further development of a young adult service program in partnership with Emmaus House in the Diocese of Atlanta.

Province of Central Africa To support community transformation efforts through a leadership workshop for clergy and laity across the province.

Province of Congo

Trinity Grants Program To perform due diligence of program-related investments in areas that are emerging from conflict.

To provide general operating support for the Archbishop’s office in Kinshasa.

Metropolitan New York ($35,000)

Province of Congo

Criterion Ventures

To provide financial assistance for a Provincial Assembly held in Kinshasa in May–June 2012.

Province of Tanzania Over one year, to undertake a feasibility study for development on church land in Tanzania’s new capital city of Dodoma.

Trinity Grants Program To train a core group of bishops to lead regional financial sustainability mentoring and mutual support groups.

Trinity Grants Program Modify a previous grant for the September Financial Sustainability & Stewardship Workshop on Governance & Financial Management in Nairobi, Kenya. The workshop concentrated on good financial management practices.

Trinity Grants Program Financial audit of select grants.

Trinity Grants Program Over one year, to support a Financial Sustainability & Stewardship Workshop on Governance & Financial Management.

Communities Emerging from Conflict ($597,500) Diocese of New York To help Staten Island in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

Episcopal Church of Sudan Fund travel of the Archbishop of Sudan to dioceses that have again erupted in violence as Sudan and South Sudan fight over territory and oil revenue. Archbishop Deng is a recognized peacemaker and well-respected in both countries.

To create a model for a fund, part loan and part philanthropic, that will invest in job creation and invite others to participate.

Special Opportunity ($413,500) Gathering 2013 Over one year, to gather 130 clergy for five days in Estes Park, Colorado, at the YMCA of the Rockies.

Mayor’s Fund for the Advancement of New York

Episcopal Charities and Community Services Over one year, as a renewal, to sustain the young adult service program, The Julian Year, through a staff transition and the last phase of expansion before attaining sustainability.

Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana Over one year, to support the further development of a young adult service program.

Episcopal Evangelism Network To host a conference with the long-term goal of creating a missional development organization that meets the needs of the Episcopal Church.

Episcopal Service Corps

To provide essential living supplies to New Yorkers in need after Superstorm Sandy (from the Rector’s Office).

Over the 2011–2012 program, as a final internal grant to ensure the Episcopal Service Corp’s long-term sustainability.

Trinity Transformational Fellows Program

Episcopal Service Corps Maryland

Over one year, to support sabbaticals for Global Trinity Transformational Fellows, experienced leaders engaged in social transformation in the dioceses of Madagascar.

Robin Hood Foundation To fund three caseworkers at “Single Stop” veterans’ services locations in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.

raising up leaders for the church ($242,000) Abundant Table Farming Project To further the development of a new young adult internship program in California where the interns work on a farm.

Christ Church Cathedral To further the development of a new young adult internship program, New Seeds, in Lexington, Kentucky.

Christ Church, New Haven, CT Over one year, as a final renewal, to support development of a young adult service program, St. Hilda’s House.

Diocese of Newark Over one year, to support continued development of a young adult service program.

To support further development of a young adult service program in partnership with the Diocese of Maryland.

Grace Church To launch Grace House in August 2012, thereby providing an one-year experience of vocational discernment, service, spiritual reflection, and intentional communal living for four young adults in Syracuse, New York.

Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland, OH Over one year, to support the continued development of Trinity Cathedral’s young adult service program.

Vital Presence in Lower Manhattan ($300,000) Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC) Sponsoring two outreach teams who, daily, proactively search for and engage with chronically homeless people in hope of getting them to work with the current systems that can provide shelter.

Downtown Alliance Support for “Lower Manhattan: Back to Business,” a program that makes grants to retailers, restaurants, and service providers affected by Superstorm Sandy (a grant from the Rector’s Office).

Trinity News

pa r is h

perspectives

Trinity Choristers and the Family Choir sing in the churchyard on All Saints Sunday as parishioners offer prayers for the souls of loved ones. Trinity staff and Mission and Service Trip partners participate in a panel discussion on reconciliation.

Members of the Trinity Youth Chorus perform songs by Aaron Copland. The Choir of Trinity Wall Street performs in the River to River Festival in Lower Manhattan.

Trinity News

Oliver Agostino Leat just before his baptism on All Saints Sunday. The Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee reads a greeting from Mayor Bloomberg at the Concert for New York, which benefited Sandy relief efforts. The Choir of Trinity Wall Street performed Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

Jim Melchiorre

Craig Curley and Rosalyn Williams, members of the Movement Choir, perform at Womb of Advent, a multimedia event featuring theatrical readings, dance, and music, based on the Rev. Mark Bozzuti-Jones’s book of meditations.

Trinity staff member Mark Stephens helps remove drywall in a house on Staten Island that was flooded by Superstorm Sandy.

Interfaith minister Lisa Bellan-Boyer teaches origami as a spiritual practice in Charlotte’s Place.

Trinity News

News from Trinity’s partners and friends, near and far. Daniel Albanese and Jason Drews Parishioners Daniel Albanese and Jason Drews’ marriage was blessed by Fr. Daniel Simons on December 1 at Trinity. “The ceremony was really amazing and overwhelming,” said Albanese. “We’ve had so many friends and family raving about Trinity and how moving they found the service. Jason and I are so lucky to call Trinity home!” Dashon Burton Dashon Burton, a member of the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, was awarded prizes in two international music competitions in September. Burton won first prize in Oratorium in the world renowned International Voice Competition ‘s Hertogenbosch, which took place in the town of ‘s Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, and second prize at the prestigious ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Germany. David Ward Trinity parishioner David Ward ran the five-mile Turkey Trot in Prospect Park along with 2,200 other runners. Ward was one of about twenty entrants over sixty-five, and yet he finished ahead of about eleven hundred other runners. Jonathan Woody On October 6, Trinity choir and staff member Jonathan Woody were recognized by Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center. The museum honored Woody with the Cultural Horizons Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in Our Culture. Woody is a native of Prince George’s County in Maryland, which borders Washington, D.C. Jon Meacham Pulitzer Prize–winning author and former Trinity vestry member Jon Meacham’s newly published book, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, is a New York Times bestseller. “Where other historians have found hypocrisy in Jefferson’s use of executive power to complete the Louisiana Purchase, Meacham is nuanced and persuasive,” writes Jill Abramson in the Times.

Trinity News

Making Strides Against Cancer Forty-seven Trinity staff, parishioners, and friends, led by parishioner Ferina Moses, participated in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk. Among those participating with Trinity were students from the New Explorations into Science, Technology, and Math High School. Thousands of people participated in the Central Park Making Strides walk, which raised $2,936,507. Staff members also walked for Making Strides in upstate New York and New Jersey, and in the Avon Cancer Walk. Recalculating After being closed nearly a month, Charlotte’s Place reopened with a reading of the one-act play, Recalculating. Superstorm Sandy flooded the basement of 68 Trinity Place, where Charlotte’s Place is located, causing damage to the electrical wiring. Charlotte’s Place was able to turn on the lights again on December 2 and welcomed parishioners, community members, and actors. Written by Laura Grabowski-Cotton, Recalculating won Trinity’s 2011 Playwrights Competition. The reading was directed by Lauren Keating, a freelance director and teacher who works with organizations such as Lincoln Center and the Public Theater. Trinity parishioner Toni Foy contacted Keating and helped coordinate the performance. Sharon Hardy Sharon Hardy, with fellow Trinity parishioners Catherina Oerlemans and Michael Cornelison, trained for five months to participate in her first triathlon. She completed the New York City Triathlon in July with flying colors. Over the past year, when not running, biking, or swimming, Sharon also successfully completed her first year as a doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Stephen Sands Stephen Sands was one of the Choir of Trinity Wall Street members who performed with the Rolling Stones in December. Sands’ father, Larry, loves the Rolling Stones, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is his favorite song. Larry and his friends had been planning a party to watch the Stones’ concert on Pay-Per-View. Sands and his mother managed to keep the fact that he was performing a secret, so when the choir stepped onto the stage it was a complete surprise. “I called him on my way home, and he was over the moon with excitement,” said Sands. “I don’t think he slept that night.” Students Tour the Churchyard On a morning in October, about one hundred twenty-five ninth graders from Leadership and Public Service High School took historical tours of the Trinity Churchyard. The faculty wanted to give the students something fun and educational to do while other students took the PSAT. Trinity staff members Leah Reddy, Jim Melchiorre, Lynnda Lockhart, Gwynedd Cannan, and Lynn Goswick led groups of students through the gravestones that span three hundred years and taught them a bit of their city’s history. This is one of the many ways that Trinity partners with Leadership and Public Service High School through the All Our Children initiative. Washington Ferruzola Washington Ferruzola, an employee of Trinity partner First Quality Management, just cut his hair for the first time in two and a half years. Afterward, he mailed eleven inches of hair to Locks of Love, an organization that makes hairpieces for disadvantaged children suffering from hair loss due to an illness. This is the second time he has cut off his hair and donated it to charity. The last time was nineteen years ago. Then, he said, it was all black. Spread the Word Do you have news to share with the rest of the Trinity community? Email your news, milestones, and updates to news@trinitywallstreet.org or call 212.602.9686.

Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (Luke 21:25) If Superstorm Sandy had not visited Lower Manhattan just four weeks before the start of Advent, this verse from the Gospel for the first Sunday of the new liturgical year might not have resonated quite as much when Deacon Bob Zito read it from the center aisle of Trinity Church on December 1. Although most of the parishioners who had been affected by the storm had reclaimed some semblance of “normal,” several people in the pews on that Sunday had spent the previous day mucking out houses in Staten Island. They knew first-hand that “normal” was just a dream—and a faraway dream at that—for many, many New Yorkers. And indeed, there were in the pews that day a few parishioners who were still housed in hotels and others who had spent the previous week working from home because their offices remained a flooded, moldy mess. The Trinity Preschool had reopened only a few days before, welcoming back families who had coped without this mainstay of their existence for an entire month. Some had found alternative childcare in shared babysitters, or they brought in grandparents from faraway countries or sent children off for extended stays. After church on the first Sunday of Advent, in the parish hall where coffee hour could now be held for the first time since October 28, a typical greeting was, “It’s so good to see you. How did you fare in the storm?” People exchanged colorful stories—such as how close a call it had been when that the forty-year old oak tree landed perfectly between their house and garage (missing both structures), or how eerie the wind had sounded that fateful night as it blew through Tower One of the World Trade Center site. But interestingly, although there had been plenty of fear and foreboding in the face of nature’s show of force, these conversations inevitably went somewhere else: to expressions of deep gratitude and a sense of wonder. Trinity had survived yet another calamity in Lower Manhattan. St. Paul’s Chapel had withstood yet another disaster. “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28) When we raise our heads and look, we get a better perspective, a more complete picture. The shocking presence of our redemption is made most clear when the light of precious relationship guides us through the dark night of the storm—literally or figuratively. We realize that Christ himself is present in the selfless act of the neighbor who reaches out amidst the worst of it. We discover, humbly, that in sorting clothes and canned goods, tearing down soggy drywall, or offering the balm of Bach’s B-Minor Mass to weary souls, divine love has drawn near. Blessings,

The Rev. Canon Anne Mallonee Vicar, Trinity Wall Street amallonee@trinitywallstreet.org Leo Sorel

TrinityNews

NON PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 151 cheshire, CT

Trinity Wall Street 74 Trinity Place New York, NY 10006-2088

The Choir of Trinity Wall Street & Trinity Baroque Orchestra’s ...newly-released recording Israel in Egypt has been nominated for a GRAMMY® award for Best Choral Performance! Julian Wachner, Conductor

Israel in Egypt, Handel’s colossal biblical oratorio comprises thirty-five massive double choruses, linked together by a few bars of recitative, with eight arias and two duets interspersed among them. This recording is a performance of the rarely heard or recorded 1756 version of the composition. The recording is available for purchase on iTunes or visit trinitywallstreet.org.