An invitation to be the reconcillor

My friend Lynell Walker, who is Canon Pastor at Trinity Cathedral Sacramento where Lori and I spent 18 wonderful years, just returned from her summer vacation. She wrote this for the Trinity e-newsletter, and so I pass it along to you for a summer's day reflection:

A Summer's Reflection

Pat and I have just returned from a wonderful trip touring parts of the Oregon coast. The change in climate, pace and exposure to the stunning cliffs and seacoast provided a wonderful time of rest and refreshment. It doesn't take much to reset my life. While away, I reread Henri Nouwen's bookThe Return of the Prodigal Son.  It's based on his meditations of Rembrandt's depiction of the familiar gospel parable found in Luke 15:11-32. Nouwen had been invited by friends to join them on a trip to the Soviet Union to see the original portrait located at a Hermitage in St. Petersburg and he seized the opportunity with great joy. He had encountered the image in a poster some time before and it had haunted his heart and imagination. Now he would get a chance to experience the painting as the artist had expressed it.

While camping, I downloaded the Rembrandt sketches and final portrait to my phone and went back and forth between Nouwen's interpretation of the story and the paintings that had so moved his heart. I have read this book twice before and never caught, until this read, that imbedded in the parable resides the invitation to become the father - generous with all that he had, and ever checking the horizon for a glimpse of the son he loved and missed so deeply. I had always seen it as a story of reconciliation but never as an invitation to become the reconciler. I'm grateful for vacant times that give the heart time to ponder.

I hope this summer gives you time to pursue something that once captivated your heart. Take time to remember. Was it a piece of music, a work of art, a place forgotten, an old friend? May you find joy in discovering the many ways that God's Spirit naturally reveals itself during this summer season of re-creation.

Blessings,

Lynell+

The Rev. Lynell Walker

Canon Pastor

Why pray?

This Lent, quite a number of churches are offering daily reflections written by members of their congregations (and I hope you've seen the daily reflections written by members of St. Paul's; you can reach it by clicking the purple cross to the left).

Among those that have touched me the most is by my dear friend Carolyn Foland, at Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento. Her reflection is based on my favorite psalm.

Here is her reflection:

Psalm 139 

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Then why pray? God knows everything anyway.

I don’t pray for God to understand what I need. I pray to understand what I need. Okay, what’s the problem I need help with? Well, it’s this . . . . no, wait, the more I think about it, it’s more this. What did I do to get here? Why did this happen again? What help do I need to get out of here? What action do I need to take?

This inner dialog, I believe, is the process of being in relationship with God. It’s rather like guided meditation. I’m trusting the process to lead me to understand what I need from God and to be open to receiving it. It is a process of learning what to let go of and what I should be doing for myself. I can learn, if I am honest, what there is in the situation in which I find myself that I can affect and what is beyond my control.

There are times, of course, when there is no time for inner dialog. Times for instant surrender. These prayers are spontaneous utterances, usually in the form of four letter expletives. They are also likely to be the most heartfelt requests for deliverance from what’s happening that I am capable of articulating. The one I remember most is when I rolled my MG after encountering black ice in Wyoming. God and I knew exactly what I meant.

Intercessory prayer is a reminder that I need to think of others. I need to remember that there are others with problems. I ask God to help those of my friends in trouble, to heal those who are ill. I could say “this is Your will, God, not mine,” but because I believe that God knows what I want – those I love to be well and free from hardships or danger – it’s less than honest to pretend that I’m cool with whatever happens. I care. I may later pray to understand why something happened or to accept the final outcome, but as long as the future is uncertain, God and I are both clear with what I want. Because whether I say it or not, he knows.

Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Carolyn Foland

Marking my ten years as a priest today

He brought me out into an open place;

he rescued me because he delighted in me.

-- Psalm 18:20

Today I am taking a moment of personal privilege. Today is the tenth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood in God's One Holy and Apostolic Church. I am writing this the night before because today I want to sleep in a little. I am going to take the day off, and I might not read any email.

Today I want to pause and take stock a little. Maybe that's because I am still a journalist at heart, and we journalists like round anniversaries, and this is one.

Ten years ago today, I was ordained at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Sacramento, my home parish, the faith community that sparked and nurtured my adult spiritual formation.

Lori and I came to Trinity because we were working in Sacramento, and we found in Trinity a community of faith that was open and inviting and welcomed exploring the hard questions of faith.

For two decades I was a newspaper reporter, working everything from the crime beat to covering the inside of the California Legislature. I went off to seminary in 1997 at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, commuting from Sacramento while Lori continued to work at The Sacramento Bee where we had met as colleagues. When I finished, I went back to work at The Sacramento Bee for awhile. And then, to my amazement, I was called to return to Trinity Cathedral to serve as an assistant and eventually as Associate Dean. I also got to return to the Legislature for four years as the Chaplain to the California Senate and reconnect with many friends there.

All told, Lori and I spent 18 years at Trinity, including the six incredible years I served on the staff with many friends. I was especially privileged to serve with The Very Rev. Donald Brown, the dean of the Cathedral. His friendship, guidance, mentoring, wisdom, irreverence and humor means more to me than anyone can imagine and still does. He and his wife Carol Anne, and their children Kevin and Meredith are our second family (and Meredith will be joining us Friday for a little celebration).

In 2006, Lori and I were invited to leave Trinity when a new dean took over after Don's retirement. Leaving was hard, and we are very grateful for the many friends from Trinity who have stuck with us in our low points. We did not want to leave Trinity, or Sacramento, but leave we did.

We've been on the road ever since, serving brief stints at St. Luke's Auburn, St. John's, Marysville, and then a wonderful year at All Souls Parish in Berkeley (my home town). I will be forever indebted to the people of All Souls for their confidence in me. God has kept us in open places.

We've been at St. Paul's Memorial Church since July 2008. It's been delightful at times, difficult at other times. We've had many joys and many heartbreaks. We are still in transition. I am continually amazed at the depth, the smarts, the dedication to mission, and the energy of the people of St. Paul's. I am ever growing with you.

Throughout Lori has been at my side. She married a journalist and ended up with an Episcopal priest. She has rolled with every wave on the high seas. She's been unfailingly supportive, ever willing to try the next adventure. I love her more than life itself.

Finally, truth be told, I don't remember much about my ordination ten years ago. I remember we had a great party, and my dad was there. Bishop Jerry Lamb laid hands upon me along with an assemblage of priests and that was an emotional moment for me. Jerry was and still is a great friend and a wise counselor. But I felt more relief than anything for having reached this major milestone. I do remember one thing: Don Brown's sermon. I've tried to live up to it every day of these ten years, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so successfully.

Thank you for the privilege of allowing me to be your priest and your friend, for your patience and forgiveness, and for hanging in there with me and supporting Lori. May all of you have many blessings in the years to come.

Here below is Don's sermon from January 13, 2001. We were very mindful that it was the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the feast day of Hillary of Poitier. The lessons we used that day were Isaiah 6:1-8, Ephesians 4:7,11-16, and John 15:9-17.

Sermon at the ordination of James Richardson

By The Very Rev. Donald Brown
Dean, Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento

We are gathered here this morning as a community of Christ's people to participate in making James David Richardson as a priest in Christ's holy catholic Church.

Now for those of you who are Jim's friends and supporters who may not be from this congregation, the Episcopal Church or any other Christian Church, let me assure you that your presence and support for Jim today and in the years ahead are very important. God's Holy Spirit works through those who are baptized and those who are not. God's Holy Spirit works through Churches but also through other institutions, like the Sacramento Bee and the California State Legislature, neither of which would officially claim any special divine blessing even though certain individuals in each of these organizations consider themselves more knowledgeable and enlightened than God.

When I first met Jim 12 or so years ago he was deeply immersed in the life of both of the Bee and State government. Jim was, and still is, very good at political reporting and at maneuvering through the machinations and the good, the bad, and the ugly of the public façade, as well as the smoke filled back rooms, of the political and journalistic world.

As Jim's relationship with the Lord of all life deepened, he became aware, perhaps precisely because of the Bee and the Legislature, of God's calling him into another avenue of ministry.

In fact, Jim much like a modern day Isaiah, as his sense of calling to ordained ministry became more intense, may very well have said to God as Isaiah did so long ago in a smoke filled religious setting: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips."

This comment of Isaiah's is a simple recognition that he was unworthy of a holy calling. The same is true of Jim….who probably is thinking right now, "Why did I ask this guy to preach?" But the truth is that Jim and all the rest of us, ordained or not, are flawed human beings and are in need of God's grace, God's love, and God's Spirit if we are to know healing and hope in our lives. For Isaiah the assurance of that healing came in the form of a seraph, a winged creature of some sort, who carried a live coal from the altar and touched Isaiah's mouth with it.

The point is that Isaiah experienced a sense of holy cleansing that prepared him for ministry. Fortunately for all of us this painful sounding coal routine for cleansing was ultimately replaced by the act of baptism. By virtue of our baptism all of us who are baptized are called to ministry. We are not made worthy by our own efforts. We do not earn God's forgiveness and love. No, God gives these to us as gift…pure gift.

During the first century when St. Paul was busy planting churches in cities that bordered the Mediterranean Sea, he constantly emphasized that in Christ’s Church, each follower of Jesus has been gifted to play an important role in the building up of the Realm of God.

In the powerful and poetic language we heard this morning from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds us that grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. We who are part of the Church are members of a living body "joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, [and] as each part is working properly [we] promote the body's growth in building itself up in love.”

What we are about here, in this service, is asking that God’s grace be given in special measure to Jim, not so that he can become markedly different in rank or importance in the Church, but in order for Jim to be especially gifted so that he can do the work and mission God has given him to do within the body of Christ.

Like Isaiah in this morning’s first reading, Jim has heard a call from God and he has responded, “Here am I, send me.” Bishop Lamb and the priests who will soon lay their hands upon Jim’s head and shoulders, do so as an outward and visible sign of God's gift of grace which will empower Jim to live out his call to be a priest in this branch of Christ’s Church.

Bishop Lamb will give specific instructions to Jim which affirm that he is to work within the Body of Christ as a pastor, priest, and teacher, and to share with other clergy in the councils of the Church. In other words, Jim is being ordained to a position of leadership within the Church.

But as the Gospel reading from John makes abundantly clear, this is to be a ministry of love as modeled for us by Jesus, Jesus who says to us, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Jesus calls all of us to a radical love and respect of others even as we are to love and respect ourselves. Jesus is even so radical as to call us to love our enemies and do good to people who are evil to us.
This is a particularly fitting reminder to one who is called to be a priest. It is also very appropriate on this weekend when our nation remembers the life and witness of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His commitment to non-violence was rooted in Jesus' Gospel of love.

Worldly wisdom teaches and practices the conviction that force and power will change people and societies. Press, politicians, priests, people of all sorts and conditions easily slip into thinking that coercion will change behavior and it can, at least for a while. But unless the heart is changed, the old and usually destructive patterns of human behavior will reassert themselves.

Jesus' way, which Dr. King emulated, demonstrates that only radical love of even the worst and most reprehensible of neighbors can change hearts and lives, and in time even societies. This is a lesson all the baptized, including those of us who are clergy or elsewhere in the public arena, can never be reminded of too many times…. only radical love of even the worst and most reprehensible of neighbors can change hearts and lives, and in time even societies.

Perhaps more than any other attribute, the love that Jesus lived must be at the heart of Christian ministry. This is true for all the baptized and especially it is what we seek in our priests. And there are other qualities that are needed such as integrity, trustworthiness, courage, a passion for knowing God more fully, intellectual inquisitiveness, a love of people, a heart for service, and a vision for living life that is anchored in trusting the goodness and mercy of God. Furthermore, in the sometimes rough and tumble of congregational life, a thick skin and a sense of humor are also very helpful. These are the qualities that enable one to be a faithful pastor, priest, and teacher so that each member of a congregation can respond to the call of Jesus can be engaged in ministry to a world which is full of broken, hurting, needy people.

Jim, my brother in Christ, please stand.

All of your life experiences have led you here to this Cathedral and this holy time. Your baptism, the congregations you have been a part of from childhood until now, your experiences with your friends and co-workers in the field of journalism and politics, the love of your family and especially of Lori, your years of questioning and wondering how you were to respond to God's call to you, the intellectual and spiritual challenges you encountered in seminary, your ministry as a transitional deacon in this congregation, all have been gift and grace filled, each playing a part in forming you into what you are about to become: a priest in the Church of God.
May you always be a priest of vision and have the faith and courage to live that vision. Do not settle for mediocrity. Remember that the Lord of Life always deserves the best you can give. Pray hard, trust God, work collegially, don't ever take yourself too seriously and laugh a lot.

And to paraphrase a line from the prayer of St. Hilary which you included on the back cover of today's program: May the sails you have hoisted for God always be filled with God's Holy Spirit and carry you forward on the journey which lies ahead. AMEN.

Doused in the water of baptism

I came across this item below the other day and it really smacked me. This is from the blog of The Very Rev. Dr. Brian Baker, who is the Dean of Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, our home parish. It is about the radicalness of baptism. Please read this all the way through...

Doused with the waters of baptism

By Brian Baker

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon on Baptism. It is one of my favorite sermons. Since I preach extemporaneously, I can be surprised by what happens when preaching. In this sermon I included part of a poem I had heard 12 years ago. I loved these words but I had never connected them to baptism before.

It was written by a classmate of mine. We were in our first week of classes of a three-year program we had just started. Our assignment was to re-contextualize an ancient text. We were to take the text and write something that would express the sentiment of the text so it made sense in our modern context. We were given several passages from which to choose. Martha Due (now Robertson) and I chose the same passage, Amos 5:18-24.

Here’s the second part of that passage:

²¹I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. ²²Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. ²³Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. ²⁴But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos is writing against the Israelites who are looking for the “Day of the Lord” to deliver them from their enemies who are about to attack them. He says, Why are you looking for the Day of the Lord when it is you who will be judged. God is angry because the Israelites have not been caring for the poor and needy. He then launches into the passage quoted above.

The last verse became a popular refrain in the civil rights movement.

I don’t remember what I wrote. It wasn’t memorable. I do remember what Martha wrote. Or to be more precise, I remember the last few verses of what she wrote. Keep in mind the connection between “justice flowing down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” and the civil rights movement.

Here’s my memory of how Martha’s ended her poem:

“Douse me with those waters forced through a fire hose to Birmingham pressure and give me companions with whom to rise from the pavement and build”

I remember when I heard those words read in class. We were all moved. It was a holy moment. We just sat in silence. I wish I had the entire poem.

My new realization is that in Baptism we are doused with those waters. We are knocked over by, and drenched with, the waters of God’s justice and compassion and we are given companions with whom to rise from the pavement and build God’s Kingdom.

Every few years I come to a new appreciation of baptism; I discover a new way this ritual shapes the spiritual life. Thank you Martha for this new understanding of baptism.

Photo of St. Paul's Memorial Church baptismal font by Bonny Bronson

Nine years a priest today

Nine years ago today I stood before Bishop Jerry Lamb and took my vows to be a priest in Christ's Church. Many of you were there, and some of you "laid hands" upon me. In that moment I felt a moment of peace; the realization of what this was really about came much later.

This ninth anniversary of my priestly ordination has been much on my mind the past few days, partly because of the wonderful ordination on Saturday of Ann Willms, our associate rector at St. Paul's. During her ordination, I could not help but reflect upon my own journey these past nine years, and give my thanks for the support from so many of you in so many places.

So if you will indulge me, I'd like to take a few moments of looking back at this improbable journey. I am going mention names, which runs the risk of leaving someone out. Forgive me.

I was born into the Episcopal Church; my mother and her mother were Episcopalians. My father's family was Methodist, but my mother set the tone for many things including where we would worship. My earliest church memory is my baby sister's baptism in 1959. I went to Sunday school as a child, rarely missed a Sunday, and I was confirmed by Bishop James Pike of the Diocese of California. I fell away from church life in the 1970s while in college, but came back when I met Lori.

Lori and I are newspaper people. Ink is in our blood and always will be. Lori was an editor at The Sacramento Bee when I met her, and I was a reporter in the state Capitol Bureau. Together we put in more than a half-century of toil in the newspaper biz, and many of our best friends are journalists. We love them for their skepticism, their warped humor, and especially their deep sense of what is right and wrong in the world.

Yet I left that world for this one. It is a long story, too long for today.

I've had many mentors along the way, and no one looms larger than Don Brown, the Dean of Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, the church we joined in 1988. His openness, his permission to ask hard questions, his willingness to admit that he did not have all the answers, his irreverent sense of humor (there's an understatement), and the brilliance of his preaching struck a huge chord with me. He mentored me in the ways not just of the church, but more deeply in the ways of Jesus in the world. And he proved to be a great friend, then as now. His wife Carol Anne took us under her wing, truly giving us her unconditional love and showing us grace in moments of great adversity.

I was much formed by the Education for Ministry program, first as a student, and then leading groups; Lori also went through EfM. Nearly all that I have learned about how to lead groups and how groups behave I learned from the enormously talented Michael Cunningham.

At Trinity, Lori and I shared many ministries. We accompanied our teen youth group on mission trips to Indian reservations with our wonderful friend Karen Harris Boone. We served on the vestry and as wardens (at different times) and Lori became an extraordinary cook for huge gatherings, including cooking for 2,000 people at the ordination of Barry Beisner as our bishop. Barry, I might add, was my shepherd through the ordination process when he was the rector at St. Martin's, Davis.

I went off to seminary in 1997, sponsored by the good people of Trinity Cathedral. I left Trinity, and served for two years at Faith Church in Cameron Park, in the Sierra foothills. At the time, Faith Church was a start-up Episcopal Church in a shopping center. The priest and founder, Kent McNair, gave me his friendship, showed me priestcraft and was patient with my stumbles and bumbles. Charlie Karoly, now deceased, and his wife Marilyn were caring in big ways and small to Lori and myself as we entered the ranks of the ordained. The people of Faith Church, many still my friends, showed us tremendous support and the meaning of a loving nurturing community.

I was also supported along the way by my parents' church, St. Timothy's, Danville (Calif.), where Lori and I were married. The rector, Steven Strane, has a good ear, and is a wise counselor. And Carl Gracely, now 100 years old, presided at our wedding, pastored my parents, stood with Bishop Lamb at my ordination as his chaplain, and has been my role model since I was 14-years-old.

To my amazement, I was called back to Trinity Cathedral after my seminary graduation to serve as the associate dean. It was my dream job, the chance to work with Don, to minister with long-time friends, to learn the craft of being a priest with the people who knew me best. It was my privilege to be on the staff for six years.

I learned the deepest meaning of being a priest at Trinity from Grant Carey, Winnie Gaines, Don White and Lynell Walker, and I learned what it means to be a deacon from Tina Campbell. I learned about gentleness and music from a giant, David Link.

We had many joys, many sorrows at Trinity. We traveled with the choir on its English cathedral tour in 2003. We welcomed new people, buried friends. We shared great moments of joy, and terrible moments of anguish. We showed the Sacramento community what it means to be the Church the week of Sept. 11, 2001. We stepped into the community with two Habitat houses, Loaves & Fishes and Francis House, River City Community Services, and many more projects for the poor I have now forgotten.

I was also invited back to my old haunts in the Legislature, and served for four years as the Chaplain to the California State Senate (the photo above is me in the Senate). I enjoyed every minute in the Senate, especially because I didn't have to write any newspaper stories about it.

Don retired in 2005, and so began the odyssey that brought us to Virginia. When a new dean came to Trinity, he cut me loose. I went through a difficult period of unemployment, and doubting whether I had much of a future as a priest.

That is when the Holy Spirit, or an angel, or the Great Force of the Universe, found me and lifted me out of the mire. The good people of All Souls Episcopal Church in Berkeley (my hometown) called me to be their interim rector in 2007, and the year we spent together was the best year of my life. The people of All Souls were smart, courageous, honest with each other and with me, and willing to take risks big and small. They loved to sing and they loved to share a meal. Every Sunday was wonderful, and it was my privilege to work with associate rector Kristin Krantz, music director Christopher Putnam and parish administrator Joy Shih Ng.

That is where the good people of St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville, found me. Lori and I came to this community in July 2008, and we are discovering anew what it means to be a caring, loving parish that looks beyond the walls of the church and constantly asks what role we are to play in the community. We are amazed at the life and vibrancy of this faith community, and are so very touched by so many people who have welcomed us and taken us into their hearts and homes. I am very grateful to so many of you, and especially to our rector emeritus David Poist and his wife Betsy for building such a great parish, and for taking us into their hearts; and I am grateful for the continued wisdom, humor, and support of Paula Kettlewell, our retired associate rector.

Along the way these nine years I have felt so very blessed by all of you. You have given me so many more blessings than you can imagine, many more than I have given you. Thank you for your patience, your good humor and for taking a risk or two with me.

Shrines and records of our prayers

Last week, I wrote here about roadside shrines marking Holy moments in our lives. As a friend in Southern California pointed out, we are surrounded by roadside shrines in our daily life: markers of the sacred that tell us of God's presence.

Sometimes these shrines are so obvious we don't notice them. In her book, An Altar in the World, author and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor notes "the reason so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it."

And that got me to thinking about the roadside shrines in my life. There are many, and some of them we share together as a community of people though you may not know it. Some of these shrines are quite simple. One of these shrines is in the sacristy of our parish, the room where the clergy vest before worship services. The shrine I speak of you might miss, but you will find it in the sacristy of every Episcopal Church: The Register of Church Services. I hope you will find this shrine in every house of worship, most churches keep a register of some sort.

We record in the Register every worship service we conduct at St. Paul's. Every single Sunday service, every baptism, every wedding, every funeral, every weekday service no matter how large or small. We record every prayer service whether in the church, the chapel, on the lawn outside, in a hospital or someone's home. Every one goes in the record book.

I learned how to record services in the Register from a living saint, the Rev. Canon Dr. Grant Carey, who has lovingly and faithfully tended to the record book at Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, for at least three decades. I learned from him not just how to put numbers in columns, but how recording the prayers in the book is a prayer itself.

The staff at St. Paul's thinks me somewhat obsessive about the Register. The reason I am is not out of accounting compulsion (I have none), but because the Register is to me a roadside shrine. It is a way of honoring the sacredness of our prayers. We are sacramental people, we do things physically -- incarnationally -- and that includes writing things down.

To me, each entry in the Register is a sign of eternity. Our prayers continue to live in the ink on the page. Older Registers are locked in a vault at St. Paul's. I must admit I enjoy looking through the yellowing old books, touching the pages, examining the handwriting, imagining the worship that each entry represents, and the people who prayed these prayers. Our record books are shrines of the Holy and shrines made by the hands of holy people.

My friend Anthony Ramirez took this photo of the Register in the sacristy at St. Paul's, and I would be happy to show you the book next time you are at St. Paul's.

Wednesday in Holy Week: Strengthen me

Last night I was called to visit two members of our parish who were in the emergency room at a local hospital. Neither was in a life-threatening situation, though both certainly wished they were somewhere else. 

A priest friend of mine who has specialized in hospital visitation for years told me once that every time she goes into a hospital room she says to herself "Lord, I am in over my head. Give me strength." And so I do that each time I visit someone in the hospital. 

Wednesday in Holy Week is about having strength. Tomorrow night the Great Three Days of the Easter Triduum begin, and we remember the events of the Last Supper and betrayal. Today, Wednesday in Holy Week, we remember that Jesus prayed for strength.

This morning's Daily Office readings go to that theme. The epistle for the day is the wonderful love letter of Paul to the persecuted Christians in Philippi (Philippians 4:1-13). Somehow they survived for they were able to preserve Paul's letter. In the letter, Paul tells them "the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." And epistle ends with Paul saying "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." It is another way of saying, "Lord, I am in over my head. Give me strength."

Today at St. Paul's will be busy. At noon I will be offering an instructed Eucharist (meet me in the Library). At 5:30 pm is Evening Prayer, and Pastor Janet Legro will be offering a message for children. Our community night dinner is at 6 pm, and I will offer another instructed Eucharist at 7 pm in the chapel. Join us for as much as you can. And may the Lord give you strength!

The artwork today shows the East Transept window at Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, where I was ordained and served as associate dean for six years, and where Lori and I worshipped for 18 years. The window depicts Paul. In his right hand is a scroll, signifying his letters. In his left hand is a sword, signifying the "sword of the Spirit" and the sword that legend has it was used to behead him. To read more about the windows of Trinity Cathedral, read the highly informative narrative by my friend The Rev. Canon Dr. Grant Carey by clicking HERE.