About and Around St Stephen's

The Working Poor

2012-01-31T16:33:00.003-05:00

A recent article on Huffington Post (full Article here; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/working-poor-liquid-asset-poverty_n_1243152.html) reports that more Americans are liquid-asset poor, meaning that they have nothing to fall back on, no savings, no back-up funds. Only one paycheck away from being in middle class, to poor.
A major car repair needed, a medical emergency, a sudden house repair. Think of it: a transmission replacement, a needed water heater, or an emergency appendectomy and you need to apply for SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program) but with new guidelines, having a car can eliminate you from receiving that assistance - but you need it for work. Having a 401K no matter the amount and you are to "rich" for help.

At the Food Pantry I see both. People that never expected to have to get free food. Husbands that lost their jobs, or received a major pay cut or layoff. A mom who was once a second income that is now the only income. Those that are desperately trying to make ends meet, just getting food in their homes and for their children. I listened to a 3rd grader tell me that her father had been in the hospital and could not work for several months, that there was no food in the house. A third grader - 8 years old and she knew her families needs, and what they did not have.

The 'Self declaration of Need Form' that our clients fill out has them state what their income level is. (the form is supplied by CEO and is required by the Dept of Agriculture for Food Pantry service) If you are single than your income base is $314.00/week, six in the family the amount is $865.00/week $3,749.00/month. Many that I have had assisted in the pantry wish they could make/receive that much per week.

Where am I going with this - I can't say. What are we to do about this- still no true clue. It can be overwhelming, and easy to give up because it is so much to do for so many. But than again:

“If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one.”
- Mother Teresa

December hauntings

2011-12-24T09:41:00.003-05:00

by the middle of December - I had so many things looming at me. Toys for Tots (how was I going to manage the distribution???) CEO food order, cleaning out a space for the homeless shelter, Clothing Closet donations, food storage, freezers needing to be repaired, wanting to be in NC to help my mom put back the living room and move out the furniture from the dining room for contractors to repair floor and paint.

A song kept haunting me - just the first few words, but I could not grasp what it was. I couldn't find it on my CD's, when I finally got a chance (or remembered) to look. I knew the version I wanted was by Mannheim Steamrollers: Veni Veni, I finally found it on itunes, downloaded the entire album (my copy I realized was a cassette) Listened to the song I had been looking for, but it wasn't quite right. Beautiful song, but not what had been haunting me.

So many families signed up for toys, 250 children, needed two cars to pick up food at CEO warehouse, including produce (tangerines, onions, carrots, broccoli, cut/packaged fruit) cleared out minor items from the space for shelter, luncheon with the ladies, Lessons and Carols service, updating Facebook, Youtube.....

That's the song!! Listening to the whole album I heard the song, grabbing my cell I checked out the name... Of course. I hadn't needed Veni, Veni (O Come, O Come) I needed to hear:

Still, Still, Still
one can hear the falling snow.
for all is hushed, the world is sleeping
Holy Star it's vigil keeping.
still, still, still
one can hear the falling star
Sleep, sleep, sleep
'tis the eve of our Savior's birth
the night is peaceful all around you
close your eyes, let sleep surround you.
sleep, sleep, sleep
'tis the eve of our Savior's birth
Dream, Dream, Dream
of the joyous day to come
while guardian angels without number
watch you as you sweetly slumber
dream, dream, dream
of the joyous day to come.

Advent Meditations - Anne Kitch

2011-12-11T12:16:00.001-05:00

Expectant in Bethlehem
Advent Meditations 2011

by Anne E. Kitch
First Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2011

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come . Mark 13:33

I’m not ready.

The morning rain carries with it the edge of cold to come. The air sighs with sadness at this turn toward winter. Advent is upon us and neither my house nor my spiritual life is prepared. Earlier this week I was looking forward to a lovely meditative day of clearing away the detritus of fall, unwrapping the family crèche, making our Advent wreath. I have had the candles for the wreath for months. My friend and I bought them on a golden summer afternoon as we strolled through small town shops and artist studios. She led me to the hand-dipped candles that she buys every summer for her own Advent wreath. I bought some too, choosing with care, enjoying the exquisite colors. I remember this moment now, when my wreath is not ready and the quiet meditative day to reflect and prepare is long since beyond my reach. Life happens.

I’m not ready.

I remember another morning when I stood by the front door, my suitcase already in the car and a large plastic bin on the floor in front of me. I was sure I could fit one more item into it. I was about to leave to lead a retreat and I was overwhelmed by the certainty that I was not prepared. Despite all the work I had put into it, doubt lingered. More candles? Another book of prayers? A change of shoes? My husband gently held me in his arms. “Perhaps you are not ready. Or perhaps you could look at it as if you have been preparing for this moment for your entire life.”

I’m not ready. I have been preparing for this moment my entire life.

The testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you-- so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:6-7

Advent Meditions from Anne Kitch

2011-12-10T14:30:00.000-05:00

Expectant in Bethlehem
Advent Meditations 2011

by Anne E. Kitch
Saturday of the First Week of Advent
December 3, 2011

Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Amos 5:23-24

“I want to get the clean water.”

“What about food for school children or mosquito nets?”

“Let’s help the kids in school.”

My oldest and I are pouring over the “Gifts for Life” catalog from Episcopal Relief and Development. This has become an Advent tradition for us. The donations we make to ERD will become Christmas gifts for the teachers and coaches who have mentored my children.

My daughter is the instigator of this particular practice of giving in our house. Several years ago, when I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she looked me straight in the face and said, “All I really want is world peace.” I decided to take her seriously. The Gifts for Life catalog had just arrived in our mailbox that day. Some coincidences seem rather well timed. I suggested she could act for justice and peace in the world by choosing to provide water or food or mosquito nets to children who really needed them. She responded with enthusiasm.

Yet it was not I, but rather an entire community that taught my daughter to be a giver. A parish that held an annual Living Gifts Fair. A church school teacher who introduced a lesson on wants versus needs. Her own generosity.

Her generosity continues to refresh me, like a mountain stream.

Find the Gifts for Life catalog online at the Episcopal Relief and Development website.

Christmas trees given away in West Pittston

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Bakery Friends,

On Saturday evening, Trinity West Pittston's grounds turned into a Christmas tree lot as we invited our neighbors affected by the September flooding to choose a Christmas tree or wreath to brighten their holiday.

About 60 families came by to choose from an assortment of trees and wreaths delivered fresh that day from a nearby tree lot. With the sounds of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" filling the air and ample supplies of hot chocolate and cookies baked by parishioners from Trinity and the Episcopal Church Women's group from Prince of Peace in Dallas, we tried to make our guests feel welcome as they chose a tree.

For some, getting a tree freed up money to use on other things. For others, it replaced an artificial tree that was lost to the flooding. Many of those who stopped by told tales of losing not only their trees but all their Christmas decorations which were stored in basements or garages that took on water during the flood.

One woman shared how she thought her tree and ornaments were okay because they were stored on high shelves in the garage and well above the flood water, but when she went out to get her decorations she discovered that the flood water had toppled the plastic storage tubs containing the decorations from the shelves into the water. Someone who probably thought they were being helpful hosed off the boxes and put them back on the shelves but didn't open them or clean what was inside, and all her decorations were ruined. "I was so upset. We had so many nice things and they were all caked with mud and mold," she said. This woman was able to choose from some Christmas ornaments and lights donated for those affected by the flood and took home not only a tree but some things to decorate it with. "It might be a Charlie Brown tree without enough ornaments, " she said, "but it will still feel like Christmas."

We were initially surprised by how many residents chose wreaths instead of trees, and saddened to learn that the reason was that many of them were living in circumstances that just don't leave room for a Christmas tree. Some are living in cramped trailers, and many are still living in one room in a hotel or with relatives or friends. One woman said she couldn't take a tree because her house doesn't have any floors -- the entire first level had to be stripped to the support beams to eradicate mold. "I don't have any place to stand a tree, but I can still remember Christmas when I look at my front door," this woman said.

Our neighbors also had the opportunity to browse a selection of new and gently used clothing and salon beauty products provided by Covers of Love, a local non-profit that heard about our efforts and asked to join us, as well as some of the clothing and bedding donated by St. John's Hamlin during our furniture distribution. We also had more than 80 cases of water and a dozen cases of bleach sent to us by Churches of Christ Disaster Relief and a selection of Christmas ornaments, toys and new household items donated by Trinity parishioners, as well as some of the gift cards collected at the Diocesan Convention and sent to us afterwards by other churches. Our neighbors were pleasantly surprised and very grateful to receive so much help when they thought they were only getting a tree.

Over and over, we were thanked for still being there when others have moved on. But the thanks didn't warm our hearts as much as knowing that about sixty families will have a merrier Christmas right when they most need to take a moment to step away from stress and loss and feel the spirit of Christmas around them. "If you weren't giving these away, I wouldn't have stopped working on the house tonight to run out for a tree. I don't know if I would have ever stopped," one man accompanied by two grade school aged children told us. "We're going to decorate this and have cookies and milk under the tree before bed. Tonight, we can just forget about the flood and think about Christmas."

Our thanks to Ciampi's Greenhouses for assisting us with a good price on the trees and for donating the wreaths; to Father Earl Trygar, his wife Helen and the parishioners of St. Mark's Moscow for the generous cash contributions towards the purchase of trees; to the ECW at Prince of Peace for the beautiful trays of homemade cookies, as well as the candy canes and small gifts we were able to hand out to the children who visited; to the Churches of Christ for the water and bleach; and to all of you who contributed gift cards that we were able to share. Our neighbors are grateful for the help you are all providing, and we are grateful for your support as we continue to try to ease their burdens. Our parish Community Resiliency Team will meet soon to discuss the projects we've just completed, assess the needs we've learned about and plan new ways to help. We'll keep you posted -- please keep our neighbors and our efforts in your prayers.

Janine Ungvarsky
FLOODCare Coordinator
Trinity West Pittston

P.S. We were also fortunate enough to have a video journalist from local television stations FOX56 and WBRE stop by during the evening to film a report that ran on the 10 and 11 p.m. newscasts. The text of that report can be found below. The attitude expressed by Ms. Edwards is very typical of what we hear from our neighbors: they are doing without so much but are very grateful for what they do have and for any help they receive.

Letter from Father Daniel - from December newsletter

2011-12-08T14:07:00.002-05:00

As I have for several newsletters now. I find it hard to focus my attention on one topic. I want to rant about the Penn State scandal; I want to rant about the encroachment of popular culture on our Advent Season; I want to tell you of the wonderful opportunity you have with Ten Thousand Villages; and finally I want to tell you about my renewed desire to return to Kajo Keji. Let me see if I can briefly talk about them all.

I am appalled by how much the Penn State scandal has lost its focus. The issue is not that Coach Joe Paterno was fired, but that he, and all the others, did not call the attention of the authorities to the fact that a child had been molested. As one who is not an avid sports fan, I can't understand hero worship in this sense (Even Gore Vidal doesn't deserve such deference(He said tongue in cheek.).) As a priest I find it even harder to understand. I am under an obligation to report such abuse if I even hear a notion or it, which by the way, makes hearing Confessions even harder for both me and the penitent. We need to keep the "main thing the main thing." I do not apologize for offending anyone. "JoePa" is not a victim, but he did facilitate the activities of a potential predator. Now that this is out of the way, let me move on.

The Advent Season approaches. W will hold my usual rant against the commercialization of Christmas, as most you you know already. I will remind you that this is the season to prepare our hearts to receive Christ again. I especially emphasize that it is the time to receive Christ, not the baby Jesus. Jesus could only come once: Christ can come to us again, and again. Think about that.

The next reminder that I want to give you is that this year we are again hosting Ten Thousand Villages. This is a unique opportunity to purchase fairly traded merchandise from around the world. Since we know that most people purchase Christmas gifts, we thought that Advent would be the obvious time to host the fair. You can shop with us knowing that at least 90% of your money will go directly to the person who made your item. The other 10% will go to a local charity. You can't say that with any commercial store.

Finally, I want you to know that i have a desire to return to our brothers and sisters in Kajo Keji. I have talked with Bishop Paul about this and he encouraged me to contact Bishop Anthony. Bishop Anthony said that he could use me in the College and elsewhere. I will continue to pray about this, and I ask you to join me. Short-term missionary work can be useless or productive depending on it's focus. When I was 15 years old I helped clear a mountain-side which began as a playground and became the foundation for a school in Ecuador. But I have known other instances where short-term mission work was little more than sightseeing. If I return, I want to make something worthwhile out of it.

In these thoughts may we find truth. Amen

Bishop Paul's Diocesan Convention Address

2011-10-09T18:29:00.001-04:00

Convention Address, Oct. 7, 2011
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocese of Bethlehem
Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

To enjoy each other and grow together in the Lord
I greet you with joy and affection as we gather again for convention. It is good to see new faces and to welcome back those who have moved back into the Diocese.

Those of you who are new or who are coming to our convention for the first time will notice something a bit unusual about this gathering. The time we spend debating and discussing resolutions is not particularly long. We put our energy into being together, in praying together, in eating together, and into learning together. The gathering is one piece, so there is no discount, so to speak, for skipping the eucharist or not having dinner.

So if you are here for the first time, please do not think of this as a two-day vestry meeting, but rather like a small and discrete camp meeting. Our goal is to enjoy each other in the Lord and to grow together. Every group has only so much energy, and by long tradition we spend ours in this communal way.

The King James Version of 1611
You will also notice that our scripture readings at all services are from the King James Version of 1611. It is the foundation of the modern translations we use in all our parishes; it served our ancestors very well. We gratefully remember at this Convention that “God’s word written” can only reach us if someone translates it. We remember how the 1611 translation gave shape to the thinking and language of every English-speaking person, usually without their knowing it. We remember that it was, as all memorable English Bible translations must be, an effort at Christian unity. All of that said, it is also just fine to sit back and enjoy its language.

Scanning a few headlines of the past year
A lot has happened since we last met, much of it joyful, some of it challenging. Let me just scan the headlines of Diocesan Life for you.

We have entered full Communion with the Moravian Church in a wonderful service, and have had ongoing work sessions together with the Moravians and Lutherans.

We were able to celebrate full Communion with Lutherans and Moravians in this very room last spring at our Chrism Mass, a first for the United States.

In the coming months there will be a chance for our three churches to get together for a hymn festival. I hope you will be there.

On November 6, we will have our first-ever joint Eucharist with the Methodists as we move toward healing the most unnecessary division in Protestantism. It will be here in our Cathedral at four o’clock.

This year we have also celebrated the consecration of a new St. Peter’s church in Tunkhannock, high above the waters that have done their structure so much damage in the past.

With assistance from New Hope, St. Luke’s in Lebanon has opened “My Father’s House,” recycling old space to serve those who need shelter.

Just a year ago Trinity Easton opened a new kitchen to assist them in serving their community, a renovation done with the support of the United Thank Offerings. These are your sacrificial dollars at work.

Just a month ago there were in several places in the diocese carefully planned and well-attended interfaith services on the anniversary of 9/11. I hope that in some way we can continue the rich contacts with local Muslim and Jewish groups represented in those services.

All the news has not been welcome, however. As you know, there have been devastating floods in our northern tier very recently, and sadly there are weather people who say that major floods may be coming more than once a decade in the near future.

Diocesan House responded to the flooding in our northern tier before the waters crested, both with immediate help and calls for your support. I am grateful for the other responses that came from so many parishes and individuals throughout the diocese, but I am, and hope you are, particularly grateful for the leadership the clergy in the north have generally taken in getting aid and comfort to those whose lives have been seriously disrupted. Perhaps the area hardest hit was West Pittston, and both Trinity Church and Fr. John Major have displayed deep Christian compassion to their neighbors in an outstanding way. I am also grateful on your behalf to the Rev. Maureen Hipple and Canon Charles Cesaretti, who are coordinating our relief efforts in the north, and to Father Daniel Gunn and others who brokered a hotel full of furniture for those restarting their homes. The names I mentioned are those I recall, and I know there are many others.

You have the opportunity further to support our relief efforts through the collection tomorrow, and also by responding to the spontaneous call that arose among convention delegates to bring gift cards that can aid people buying home supplies or just having a little time away from the sludge and mold. Either act of kindness can be done in the future too, as this will be a long process.

The threat of annual flooding, as I said, now exists. Our corporate effort to be prepared is being led by Canon Andrew Gerns. We are going to have coordinated disaster response plans in place and ready to go before the end of the year.

Additionally, I have asked for and received a $25,000 grant from New Hope to be in place for immediate response to traumatic need; that will be a front-money fund we can draw from at the very moment it is needed and then replace as donations arrive.

Finally, two representatives of the Diocese are in conversation with Episcopal Relief and Development seeking funds to aid those whose lives need to be rebuilt. The response from New York has been positive so far.

A high number of our clergy are ill, and I ask you to keep them in your prayers. Sometimes both they and their spouses are simultaneously ill. Please remember especially Cal and Pam Adams, Craig and Robin Sweeney, Jim Stevenson, Charles Kapps, Ralph and Jean Roth, and Judith Krieger. There may well be others.

Similarly, I know I speak for all of you in expressing condolences to Marlene Hartshorne at the death last week of her husband Robert. Marlene has given many years and countless hours to the work of the Episcopal Church Women and to our partnership with Kajo-Keji.

A final note in the debit column. Trinity and St. Philip in Lansford chose to close rather than to merge with one of the near-by parishes. I don’t agree with this choice, but together with the Standing Committee I must accept it, and with the Trustees will see that Trinity’s resources continue to work for the mission of the church. Bishop Jack did a superb job in helping the parish tie up emotional ends in their closing service on Labor Day weekend.

The Share Save Spend approach
What can we give our culture in times of economic distress? Twice now the diocese has had the opportunity to work with the Financial Sanity program offered by Nathan Dungan, an inspiring speaker and truly good human being. I am happy to report that the Church of the Mediator made his material part of their confirmation instruction. The “Share Save Spend” approach he teaches to all generations gives people practical ways both to manage their money and to develop realistic values for their family. If your rector hasn’t told your vestry about this opportunity, you might remind him or her that they have the book. It is a sign of hope to do offer courses like this.

Parish administrators and secretaries
Speaking of reminders to vestries. Once again this summer we had a luncheon for parish administrators and parish secretaries. We do this each year primarily so that these workers, who do so much to keep each parish running and so often represent it to the community, know that they are valued. Some few, however, couldn’t attend the lunch because they could not get support to be there. I think that planning for this no-cost event for 2012 would be a simple way to let these essential co-workers know that they are valued—and to give them that message “on the clock.”

Our Renewal Assemblies
The best part of the year for me has been working on and attending our Renewal Assemblies, which began at this convention last year. Watching the enthusiasm with which lay people in particular got together to be with other Christians and to discuss their faith was a great encouragement. I am grateful to all who made those events possible. We will have time tomorrow for some small-group discussion to get ourselves in gear for the November assembly.

Tightening our diocesan budget
As we deal with economic realities, we have again tightened the budget, and are trying to do so without dropping our level of service to parishes. Even on the volunteer level, we are doubling up. The Finance Committee, for instance, also functions as the Personnel Committee, with a few additions. Similarly, I must express my gratitude to the Archdeacon for taking on the ordination process and the deployment system in addition to his many obligations. Also, our new youth missioner, Ellyn Siftar, is simultaneously missioner for youth and young adult ministries. Canon Charles Cesaretti is serving as interim Congregational Development missioner until we have resources to make a permanent appointment. Both Ellyn and Charles bring us shots of creativity and energy that have already borne fruit.

Bishop’s Day with Kids … and the Beatles
In Ellyn’s note to me reminding me to announce the change in her responsibilities, she added: “Don’t forget to say something about the Beatles.” That something is that we are making a shift. Next summer, the Bishop’s Day with Kids will be held in two locations and it will be a day for children and their families—and for anybody else who enjoys being with children. There will be a theme from a Beatles song you all know and love, but I am going to let you wait for it. Will it be Yellow Submarine? Magical Mystery Tour? Stay tuned.

Parishes trying something new
Speaking of fun, last year we adopted a resolution that each parish try something new, whether big or small, to support the spiritual formation of its members and the surrounding communities. Canon Kitch and the Commission on Lifelong Christian Formation received reports of 65 new things that were tried in our parishes. They ranged from new ways to study, to after-school events, to new organizations, pilgrimages, and experience in directly feeding the hungry. Thank you to the commission for prompting us in this direction and thank you to all the people who responded creatively.

Our youth’s commitment to New Hope
In a time when very large institutions may or may not be keeping their promises and commitments, it is refreshing and inspiring to see that the Youth of our diocese have kept their pledge to the New Hope campaign, and in fact paid it a year early. They raised a bit over their commitment of $7,000, and have designated it to provide desks and chairs in one of the schools we have built in Sudan. While you will hear more about New Hope tonight, I want to emphasize the character that our young people have displayed in keeping promises in a time when not just the economy, but enthusiasm is contracting.

Contracting of the economy and our enthusiasm
And that is where I want to spend the remainder of this address. Everybody has a personal theory on what has gone wrong in this country and in the global economy, and as we enter an election year that discussion will only intensify. As a culture we seem to find relief is redistributing blame, as though that settled anything. I have another concern.

My job means that I meet and talk with people daily, mostly but not entirely in the church. I also get to watch how parishes and vestries, and a least two educational institutions behave.

I have concern about the extent to which some people seem to feel overall discouragement, a lack of energy or enthusiasm for even free gifts, a disinclination to joy. Even more troubling, I regularly see fear. Fear of being an unemployable elderly person living and dying in poverty. Fear of having nothing left to pass on to descendants. Fear of letting go when it is time for others to be in charge. Fear that one’s life has been or may be ruined, or far worse, that one’s life has been meaningless. That kind of fear leads to moral and personal paralysis or unattractive behavior. If it is all meaningless, we might feel why bother, why behave?

Our church ignores those fears at our peril. Our pastoral duty to our members and to those whom our message reaches is to acknowledge that some people are feeling very bad right now, and that many if not most people feel uncertainty and may have low expectations for life. One of the most important things preachers and all those who bear Christ into the world can do is listen to the distress around them, and give a clear signal that it has been heard. This is especially hard to do when fearful people act out, individually or corporately, but it is essential that we try.

Making a difference in time of fear
We also have something to say to each other as Christians believers that makes a difference in a time of fear.

On Sunday we shall again hear that very familiar portion of Philippians where St. Paul simply tells them to stop worrying and start praying and then reminds his hearers of two things. The first is that he knows how to be rich and how to be poor; he knows how to be full and how to be empty. Like the Christians in Southern Sudan, he knows how to be the same person regardless of his circumstances. Like most people, I will go to my grave believing that rich or poor, it is good to have money. But St. Paul’s more important belief is that each of us is much more flexible than we might think, and that happiness is not and cannot be a function of income. Happiness is a function of personal integrity. Again, there is nothing at all wrong with aiming for success, but our present circumstances do us the favor of reminding us that the goals of our life need to be a little more substantial than relative wealth.

Personal Integrity: not since John Lennon and Princess Diana can I remember a death bringing forth as much reaction as we have seen to the passing of Steve Jobs. There was a man who has seen failure and success. How many of his speeches do not say that the important thing in life is to do something that you love, something that gives meaning, something that expresses your integrity?

My favorite is from his 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford: “Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

There is no reason not to follow your heart. I believe that is when the joy comes. Joy comes when individuals follow their hearts rather than dimly remembered parental voices about what they should have achieved. Joy comes when churches follow their mission rather than their fears. Joy comes when we make sure to live each day.

These thoughts are not bromides in my opinion. Steve Jobs lived for some years under a death sentence, and spoke from that reality. St. Paul wrote some of his most inspirational lines about attitude from the grim reality of a damp and dark dungeon. You know, the lines in Philippians 4 about staying focused on whatever is good, honorable, and so on. We will hear them on Sunday. His advice to the Philippians is also advice to individuals and churches in our time who may feel fear, discouragement, crippling ennui, or the temptation to become a curmudgeon.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me
The apostle’s punch line is what I would want you to take home. If you remember anything from this convention, anything at all, remember that St. Paul ended his words of encouragement to very anxious people with this: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

It makes a difference when we are working at a task to know that somebody will appreciate our work, that somebody values our efforts, that somebody knows that the hard parts are really hard. It makes a difference to be able to recall somebody’s face smiling as we take our first steps or play our first piano recital, or get ready for our first heart surgery. It makes all the difference as we think about our approaching death that there is someone who has passed from death to life and waits for us on the other side of death to welcome us, someone who encourages us every step of life’s way. That Someone is Jesus Christ, in whom we live and shall live.

My message to the convention this year is quite simple:

(1) These are demanding times and we must continue to care for each other in every way we can, patiently, letting our gentleness show.

(2) The times also give us the opportunity to clarify or perhaps discover our deepest values and then be sure those values are what we pursue.

(3) The times give us the ultimate gift of reminding us that we can do all things, all things, through Christ who strengthens us.

St Francis of Assisi

2011-10-04T11:21:00.003-04:00

How did the son of a wealthy cloth merchant, with a taste for a high-spirited lifestyle and a solider end up a Saint?
The path that St Francis had originally been on led to an extravagant lifestyle and than to a military career, but even than his heart was beginning to change and to look at everything with a new set of eyes. Giving all he had to a poor man, is part oh his story and than praying in a church, hearing a voice saying "....repair my house...." choosing than to forgo all wealth and his family, Francis wondered the hills worked in a monastery for a time. After many trials he and his followers known as the Friars Minor, were given the little chapel of St Mary's by the Benedictine Order in Assisi. With his example and the example of his fellow monks, women also denounced wealth and embraced poverty Clare, and than her sister Agnes were the first to be accepted into the order of the Second Franciscan Order of Poor Ladies. Eventually with the order growing and expanding the simple rules of the order needed to be revised. This transition of simple, familiar, and unceremonious ways to a 12 Rule edict which stressed obedience, chastity and especially poverty. This new rule was not an easy change nor one that appeared overnight, Francis stuck with it to see that his order was not swallowed up or dissolved.
Christmastide was a favorite feast for Francis and toward the end of his life he encouraged the emperor to make a special law that men would provide for the birds of the air and the beasts as well as the poor, so that all may rejoice in the Lord's birth.
Francis died in his beloved Porziuncola,the chapel where his vocation was revealed to him.
To all St Francis showed humility and an all-embracing sympathy.

From playboy to solider to Saint, from a frivolous life to one that embraced all of creation.

the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Moods n Tudes

2011-09-10T20:05:00.002-04:00

I have to admit, when I found out that the Fair had not canceled last night's activities I was annoyed. I had been watching the 24/7 coverage for little over an hour (I had been watching it earlier but due to remote batteries dying -I shut the TV off, stuck on the shopping channel, it was a sanity move). Watching for even that short a time, my anxiety level was high, and anything that seemed frivolous was an intrusion, and not welcomed. During the news shut-off I was working on a power point presentation of all the events at St Stephens, than I watched more news. When it came time to pack up and head over to Dallas for the Fair my frame of mind was not pleasant to say the least. Crossing over the Susquehanna on the Cross Valley the view of the river swollen, expanded beyond the regular outlines was sobering. The levees were by and large holding, flooding existed but not to the level and devastation of Agnes, Floyd -or even Katrina. For that we can give Thanks, and in giving thanks - helping those that are facing extensive flooding in what ever way we can.
Once set up at the fair (internally quietly grumbling) people came by, seeming blithely unaware of the close brush and uncertainty of the flooding. And maybe they were but that wasn't the point of my being there. The point of being at the fair was to be a presence to the people that came to the fair. Just as we are a presence at 35 S Franklin Street, or at the grocery store, bookstore, work and wherever we are in our daily lives. To be where we are to where people are - physically, emotionally, spirituality.
When we are allowed back to 35 S Franklin Street (current predictions are late this afternoon to tonight) I will be there for the first service, and I will be there Monday morning to check out the food pantry and clothes closet, for any water damage in the basement - than our doors will be open, to serve those in need. Until than - I will be at the fair handing out balloons. Has my mood improved?
Yes, considerably, because to quote that great philosopher "Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon"

blessings
Debra Kellerman

Rachel's Last Fund Raiser

2011-08-11T16:38:00.002-04:00

ok - So I'm being lazy ...... but it is a wonderful article and lesson we can all use.

Op-Ed Columnist
Rachel’s Last Fund-Raiser
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published August 10, 2011

Perhaps every generation of geezers since Adam and Eve has whined about young people, and today is no different. Isn’t it clear that in contrast to our glorious selves, kids these days are self-absorbed Facebook junkies just a pixel deep?

No, actually that’s wrong at every level. This has been a depressing time to watch today’s “adults,” whose talent for self-absorption and political paralysis makes it difficult to solve big problems. But many young people haven’t yet learned to be cynical. They believe, in a wonderfully earnest way, in creating a better world.

In the midst of this grim summer, my faith in humanity has been restored by the saga of Rachel Beckwith. She could teach my generation a great deal about maturity and unselfishness — even though she’s just 9 years old, or was when she died on July 23.

Rachel lived outside Seattle and early on showed a desire to give back. At age 5, she learned at school about an organization called Locks of Love, which uses hair donations to make wigs for children who have lost their own hair because of cancer or other diseases. Rachel then asked to have her long hair shorn off and sent to Locks of Love.

“She said she wanted to help the cancer kids,” her mother, Samantha Paul, told me. After the haircut, Rachel announced that she would grow her hair long again and donate it again after a few years to Locks of Love. And that’s what she did.

Then when she was 8 years old, her church began raising money to build wells in Africa through an organization called charity:water. Rachel was aghast when she learned that other children had no clean water, so she asked to skip having a ninth birthday party. In lieu of presents, she asked her friends to donate $9 each to charity:water for water projects in Africa.

Rachel’s ninth birthday was on June 12, and she had set up a birthday page on the charity:water Web site with a target of $300. Alas, Rachel was able to raise only $220 — which had left her just a bit disappointed.

Then, on July 20, as Rachel was riding with her family on the highway, two trucks collided and created a 13-car pileup. Rachel’s car was hit by one of the trucks, and although the rest of her family was unhurt, Rachel was left critically injured.

Church members and friends, seeking some way of showing support, began donating on Rachel’s birthday page — charitywater.org/Rachel — and donations surged past her $300 goal, and kept mounting. As family and friends gathered around Rachel’s bedside, they were able to tell her — even not knowing whether she couldn’t hear them — that she had exceeded the $47,544 that the singer Justin Bieber had raised for charity:water on his 17th birthday.

“I think she secretly had a crush on him, but she would never admit it,” her mom said. “I think she would have been ecstatic.”

When it was clear that Rachel would never regain consciousness, the family decided to remove life support. Her parents donated her hair a final time to Locks of Love, and her organs to other children. Word spread about Rachel’s last fund-raiser.

Contributions poured in, often in $9 increments, although one 5-year-old girl sent in the savings in her piggy bank of $2.27. The total donations soon topped $100,000, then $300,000. Like others, I was moved and donated. As I write this, more than $850,000 has been raised from all over the world, including donations from Africans awed by a little American girl who cared about their continent.

“What has been so inspiring about Rachel is that she has taught the adults,” said Scott Harrison, the founder of charity:water. “Adults are humbled by the unselfishness of this little girl.”

Yet this is a story not just of one girl, but of a generation of young people working creatively to make this a better world. Mr. Harrison is emblematic of these young people. Now 35, he established charity:water when he was 30, and it has taken off partly because of his mastery at social media. (He’s not as experienced in well-drilling, so the wells are actually dug by expert groups like International Rescue Committee.)

Youth activism has a long history, but this ethos of public service is on the ascendant today — and today’s kids don’t just protest against injustices, as my contemporaries did, but many are also remarkable problem-solvers.

As for Ms. Paul, she’s planning a trip on the anniversary of her daughter’s death next year to see some of the wells being drilled in Africa in her daughter’s name. “It’ll be overwhelming to see Rachel’s wells,” she said, “to see what my 9-year-old daughter has done for people all over the world, to meet the people she has touched.”

Rachel Beckwith, R.I.P., and may our generation learn from yours.

RSCM schedule

2011-07-25T09:09:00.007-04:00

The Royal School of Church Music, 200 plus choristers from the ages of Nine to Seventy Nine and from all over the United Kingdom and United States will be at St Stephens this week.

"Psallam spiritu et mente
I will sing with the spirit and with the understanding also"

Monday July 25:
6:45pm Instructed Evensong
(at King's if there's bad weather)
Tuesday July 26:
5:00pm Choral Evensong
9:00pm Sung Compline
Wednesday July 27th
5:00pm Choral Evensong
9:00pm Sung Compline
Thursday July 28th
7:30pm Faculty Recital
8:30pm Sung Compline
Friday July 29th
5:30pm Choral Evensong
Saturday July 30th
9:00pm Sung Compline
Sunday July 31
10:30am Pontifical Choral Eucharist
Bishop Paul Marshall, Celebrant & Preacher
3:30pm Festal Choral Evensong

Mary Magdalene

2011-07-22T15:42:00.002-04:00

Today is the day set aside for Mary Magdalene, the first to see the resurrected Christ. The woman who was healed of seven (7!!) demons. What kind of demons they were we are left to speculate - mental illnesses maybe? Depression, psychosis, autism, dementia certainly are demons even today. Those demons are real enough, so are fear, pride, stubbornness and many more. Mary Magdalene went from battling demons to being the first to bear witness to the resurrection. We don't know how she was healed, but we do know her response: she traveled with him and the disciples and provided for them from their own means. She lived what she experienced and heard:

Matthew 25:35- "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’"

Her final act of caring for her savior was to anoint his body after his death. She was where her savior was (or where she believed him to be) at the tomb, to do the last act of caring that she could - regardless of the association being there would mean, regardless of soldiers, temple guards, or a large stone. She knew where she needed to be and what needed to be done.

May we all live what we have heard and do what we know needs to be done.

Everybody knows your name.......

2011-07-06T07:06:00.004-04:00

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.
You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows
your name."

Remember those lyrics? Cheers was about a bar where people hung out, talked about nothing and knew they were welcomed.

Not much different than REACH drop-in center was. Was because as of July 5th it was closed as the drop-in center for homeless, and those that had no place to go during the day. A place where they were known, by name. Where their troubles were not unusual. A place they were welcomed and looked for.

Isn't that what we all long for, what we as human's need. We join gyms, clubs, the Y. We attend churches, meetings, stop at favorite bars and restaurants. We look for places that we are welcomed, known and are known by our name.

The only thing that separates us from a group of people that may include the newly separated from abusive partners, recently released from prison, former foster children who have “aged out” of the foster care system, returning veterans, the unemployed, the addicted, the disillusioned, the lost, the delusional and the desperate is a safe place to stay during the day.

There by the grace of God...............

Some thoughts on Plans and Interruptions

2011-04-24T20:28:00.003-04:00

God never ceases to surprise me reminding me of the old saying "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans." The first event I mentioned during a recent homily. During the Stations of the Cross I was thrice denied the opportunity to carry the cross. This wasn't a malicious denial, rather an act of encouragement and support. I was so moved be this that my only response was to find a a way to literally lie before the Lord and take in God's goodness and love. The second humbling event happened while I was taking Communion to a parishioner who had been admitted to an assisted living facility. I was told by a staff member that she was still at lunch and that I could find her in the dining room. Upon walking in immediately two hands went up motioning for me to come over to their table. I went over introducing myself and clarifying that I was an Episcopal priest, not Roman Catholic. I explained that I would be happy to offer Communion, but I did not want to misrepresent myself. One woman replied, "Communion is Communion isn't it?" I was humbled. I prayed with them and gave them Communion. In the end two others also joined in.
These two simple, yet humbling happenings reminded me that God wants to surprise us if we are open to it. A senior priest once told me "The work of the Holy Spirit is most discernable in the interruptions."
Are you willing to have your plans interrupted?

Daniel

Holy Week Services

2011-04-13T13:40:00.003-04:00

Holy Week Services

April 17 Palm/Passion Sunday
8:00am
10:30am Start in the Parish Hall for Palms and Procession

April 18 Monday in Holy Week 6:00pm Eucharist

April 19 Tuesday in Holy Week 6:00pm Eucharist

April 20 Wendesday in Holy Week
noon Ecumenical Service
6:00pm Tenebrae

April 21 Maundy Thursday 6:00pm Eucharist/Agape
9:00pm Minor Vigil begins

April 22 Good Friday noon Ecumenical

6:00pm Eucharist - The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Mrshall, Bishop of the Diocese of Bethlehem, presiding

April 23 6:30pm Eucharist Great Vigil (Baptisms)

April 24 Easter Sunday 8:00am Eucharist
10:30am Eucharist

Re-membering

2011-04-08T12:55:00.002-04:00

Returning to my Episcopal roots several years ago has had a profound effect on my spiritual journey. For instance I can no longer imagine going from the exaultation of Palm Sunday to the joy of Easter Sunday with out traveling thru the Valley of Death. From Hossanna to Alleluia without hearing Crucify Him. From triumph to awe and wonder without the despair of loss and confusion. That is Holy Week 7 days. Not 2 in 7

Pottery Auction article

2011-04-03T20:50:00.003-04:00

Pottery for poverty Published: April 3,2011
Hoping to throw a curve at poverty, potters and parishioners of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre have crafted and painted approximately 50 clay bowls for the upcoming Bowl Auction on April 10. The event is a live auction that will feature a variety of hand crafted wares from numerous contributors.)

Now marking its fourth year, the auction has grown into a labor of love for those involved. Using pottery to fight poverty, congregation and community members unite to raise money for REACH, a ministry of hope and a last resort for those in need. To date, proceeds raised have been $700 to $1,000 each year.

The Bowl Auction is the brainchild of Debra Kellerman, a Bear Creek Township resident, and member of St. Stephen's congregation.

Her commitment to the cause, which is housed at St. Stephen's, is evident.

"REACH helps people at the margin," she said. "The organization is the last hope for those who have very little hope."

Kellerman is also a potter. She has been studying pottery for the last 10 years. In a recent conversation, Kellerman told how her interest in pottery led to the annual community project.

Always intrigued by the John Denver song, "Potter's Wheel," Kellerman's curiosity was further peaked by an advertisement for pottery classes displayed on a music store wall. She signed up for the classes and has been throwing, firing, glazing and painting clay ever since.

The idea to hold a bowl auction was the result of a chance meeting and an abundance of bowls.

Five years ago while at the Luzerne County Fair, Kellerman met a potter from the Dallas area. She was impressed to learn that he donates proceeds from certain bowls sold in his shop to the Back Mountain Food Pantry.

Inspired by the potter's actions, and thinking of the extra bowls she had on hand, Kellerman decided she wanted to do something similar in Wilkes-Barre to help the community. She approached the Parish Life Committee and was happy to receive a great deal of their help.

Preparations for the project take about six weeks. Several weeks prior to the auction, after Sunday service, a bowl painting event takes place at the church. As one of the finishing touches in preparation, children and adults paint donated clay bowls.

Kellerman said the painting event has become so popular that by the third year, more adults participated than children.

In past years, organizers purchased commercially made bisque bowls ready to paint. This year however, the bowls were handcrafted from raw clay by Kellerman, her instructor, Jean Adams, of the Wilkes University Ceramics Studio, and fellow potter, Christine Pocono.

When Kellerman decided to craft the bowls herself, she consulted with Adams, who offered to help. Forty bowls were needed. Pocono heard about the endeavor and offered her help, along with 75 pounds of white earthenware clay.

On a chilly Saturday morning, the three friends got together and produced 52 thrown bowls ready to be bisque fired. Glazes used on the bowls were donated by Susan Barry, a recent addition to St. Stephen's congregation. Barry also offered to help the children paint bowls.

Kellerman said donations for the upcoming auction will come from varied sources. Stoneware bowls will be donated by the Wilkes Pottery Continuing Education Class. Adams will donate a functional pottery piece and Kathy Redmond has added sculpted pieces to two of the earthenware bowls.

To add diversity to the selection, potter Lyn Carey, owner of the earth and wears shop in Dallas, will donate a few pieces of stoneware jewelry. Mary Lou Steinburg, a local artist will contribute a fused glass piece and parishioner Wayne Harley will donate a few hand turned wooden bowls.

The Bowl Auction will be held at 12:30 p.m. April 10 in St. Stephen's Parish Hall, 35 S. Main St., Wilkes-Barre. Registration which costs $2 or the donation of a dry/canned good begins at noon.

Kellerman said she hopes this year's auction has 60 or more people bidding. She would like the proceeds to beat those from previous years.

Speaking about all the large number of services REACH provides for those struggling with poverty, Kellerman voiced her concern about the possibility of the organization losing state funding if the current budget passes as is.

Passionate about the importance of REACH to the community, Kellerman said: "It's not just handing out money and saying, have a nice day, it's also saying, what else do you need?"

Passionate for her craft and happy her talent and skill can benefit others, Kellerman said fondly: "My mother always said I liked playing in the mud."Rebecca Brandreth, 4, of Kingston, paints pottery for the REACH auction.

To view all photos and read more:
http://citizensvoice.com/arts-living/pottery-for-poverty-1.1126769#ixzz1IVlTxS00

The woman at the Well

2011-03-21T14:42:00.002-04:00

This is one of my favorite stories, has been for a long time. Not only did Jesus sit and wait for her to come to him, she went back to her village and brought others to meet Him. The first woman "preacher"?? As a baptized Christians we are called to show Christ to others. We don't have to have extensive programs, a huge stage, or fancy lighting. We only have to say: Come, see the man who knows me. Not the man who knows about me, many people can know alot ABOUT someone, but that doesn't me they KNOW you. Jesus KNEW the woman and told her, he answered her need: Fresh, Living, Eternal, water long before she asked, or maybe even really knew herself. Christ waited for her, than let her bring others to Him.
I found the questions and observations below on a Lenten resource page, the link is below and I invite you to check it out and see for yourself

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/Lent/siteindex.html

The Woman at the Well
The Third Sunday of Lent - The First Scrutiny - John 4:3-42
Why did the Samaritan woman come to draw
water at noon, the hottest time of the day?

Did she want to avoid the times the other women
in town came to the well?

What are the places in my life where I am
embarrassed, where I avoid interaction with
others?

What are the noon day wells of my life?
Can I imagine Jesus approaching me there?

Jesus tries to reveal his thirst to her - perhaps
his thirst for intimacy with her - but she puts
him off. She's not worthy. It won't work. When
he offers to satisfy her thirst, she puts him
off. He can't satisfy what she needs, at least
with this well, and without a bucket.

From the Online Ministries, CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY
Visit the Online Ministries site: Praying Lent.
In addition to this resource for Lent, there are many
others to support our journey through Lent.
And, there is a Lenten Daily Prayer for each day of
Lent.
www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/online.html

How do I put Jesus off, with excuses, with
problems, with barriers? I don't have time; I
haven't done this before; my stuff's too
complicated; I don't know how to find you in this
mess.

When he shows her that he knows her, she knows
she's in the presence of someone special - perhaps
the one she has thirsted for all her life.
Do I let Jesus show me that he knows and
understands me?

Can I find the words to say he is the one I have
thirsted for all my life?

The grace will come when I see that I have been at
the well a long time and have long been
thirsty. When I can name the new thirst, the
Water that now satisfies that thirst, I can
overcome my remaining resistance to trust. When
I see that Jesus reveals himself to me by revealing
me to me, thereby showing me my need for him as
Savior, I will rejoice and tell the whole world, too.

When Grace Strikes

2011-03-05T20:01:00.004-05:00

"Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It happens; or it does not happen. Grace happens."
This quote from a sermon by Paul Tillich, the theologian is something I am taking to heart this week. Those of you with pets know of the great pain I speak of. We had to put our dear Wellington to sleep after a valiant battle with cancer. While he may have lost his battle with cancer in the end he truly won because of how he spent his last year. We were able to provide him with a loving home in his last year. A loving home full of dog treats, adventures in the woods, long walks and a nice big queen size bed to sleep on.
I'll repeat the quote. "Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness." It is now that I realize the grace I need is already within me sent from God above. All I need to do is tap into that grace. It's that simple. While I still have moments of profound sadness, the grace I have been given helps me to realize what a gift Wellington was for our family. And what a gift we were to him.
A sermon given at St. Stephen's a few months ago had to do with the subject of faith. I quite regularly ask for faith in my daily prayers as I'm sure many of us do. And I truly believe that when we ask for faith, God most willingly gives it to us. But how are we to know that we have faith unless we are tested? That was the whole point of the sermon and it's something that has been at the front of my mind whenever I ask God for anything.
A dear friend sent me an e-mail this week with her interpretation of faith. It's remembering that no matter what, God is in control of the situation. He loves us more than at times we can comprehend. Accepting the situation is called faith. Faith that God knows the desires of our heart and wants the very best for us. When you have nothing left, you have to trust God. While at times I may not fully understand why Wellington is no longer with us, God does. It's letting that grace in that allows God to take control and heal my broken heart. It is in my humble opinion that this faith and grace work hand in hand.
I will close with this final quote for you readers to think about: "Faith is like stepping off a cliff and expecting one of two outcomes - you will either land on solid ground or your will be taught to fly."*Barbara J Winter
Matthew C. Thomas-Malani
March 4, 2011
In memory of Wellington Brooks, beloved dog
May 2004 - March 2011

"What if outreach was welcoming in?"

2011-01-27T12:33:00.003-05:00

This comment by Rev. Susan Richardson of Christ Church, Philadelphia stopped me in my tracks, my mental tracks anyway, think about it?
If instead of seeing someone as an outreach opportunity, we merely welcomed them in. In to a building, In to a relationship, In to a service, In to a conversation, In to _________fill in the blank. How than would we see them, how than would we talk to them, inter-act with them?
Does Wal-Mart have an idea how to do it right and have we missed the point, or have we just gone off track a little.

"Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." Romans 15:7

If for a week a month or just a day, Welcome, you belong here.

For the full video on the ministry of Christ Church; watch this video

Transforming Churches - Christ Church, Philadelphia from The Episcopal Church on Vimeo.

It's Bowl Painting time - well soon anyway

2011-01-27T12:22:00.002-05:00

Bowl Painting 4th Annual on March 27
We are doing something slightly different - myself (Debra) and two friends(Jean Adams and Christine Pocono) will be hand throwing ALL the bowls to be painted by the kids and the adults - there will be 40 bowls done this way - come early to paint your bowl.
The auction will be held on April 10th,along with the painted bowls there will be other pottery pieces done by these and other talented ladies bring your family and friends to share in the fun and excitement of this event which will benefit REACH

Congratulations Brian

2010-12-28T20:04:00.000-05:00

Fr. Pavlac's day job is that of the Heerve A. LeBlanc Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the History department at King's College. I have just received a copy of his A Concise Survey of Western Civilization. I have read it in manuscript form, as have a number of our ordination track people, who would join me in saying that it is indeed concise, but also enlightening, well-organized, and not given to the pretense of relativism. That is, the author knows that perception is motivated by many things, and gives us not just data, but an account of human relating. The glossary is extremely useful and is a kind of mini-course in itself.

Now that this book is in printed form, we have a textbook for the pre-ordination process that not only meets the canonical requirements but is also a joy to read for everyone! You can find it on Amazon.

I think you will enjoy reading it.

Best,
+Paul

Keeping the Homeless in Memory

2010-12-22T19:59:00.003-05:00

Posted: December 22
Times Leader
Keeping the homeless in memory
STEVE MOCARSKY smocarsky@timesleader.com

WILKES-BARRE – Losing his birth certificate in a house fire early in life and a paperwork mix-up when he was getting ready to retire led to Bob “Pinky” Shovlin becoming homeless at age 62.

Recalling the four years of his life that he had no home, while eating a cup full of chili in the hall of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Tuesday night, was easier for Shovlin than thinking about the other local homeless people who have died recently, people who were his friends and family.

Just last week, his friend Peter passed away. His friend, Christian, died recently of sclerosis of the liver. And about a year ago, his son, Wayne, was killed when he was run over by a train in Huntington, W. Va.

Shovlin, 69 and a Wilkes-Barre native, was among a few dozen people who either are or were homeless or who work to help the homeless who gathered for a memorial service in the church and, afterward, a candlelight vigil outside.

Bill Jones, of Volunteers of America, welcomed everyone to the fifth Luzerne County Homeless Memorial Service, noting it was intentionally held on the first day of winter, the longest night of the year.

“As children of God, we all have a divine nature. And because of this, we all deserve respect, love and compassion,” Jones said.

“Today, we remember the growing number of homeless individuals from our community who have died. Sadly, 13 more individuals have been added to the roll call of (56) names we celebrated last year. So we begin our service today knowing that all of us, those who have homes and those who don’t and those who have died because of the darkness of homelessness, are indeed children of God,” he said.

Psalms, scripture passages and prayers were recited and led by Rabbi Larry Kaplan of Temple Israel, Kristen Topolski of Ruth’s Place, Sister Mary Fellin of Catholic Social Services, Tony Brooks of St. Stephen’s Vestry and the Rev. Brian Pavlac of King’s College and St. Stephen’s.

Stefanie Wolownik of REACH and Mary Zack led a procession outside to a candlelight vigil. As they left the church, each participant picked up pieces of paper with names of the area homeless who died and formed a circle outside. As each person read one or more names, they blew out their candle.

When all the candles were extinguished, they filed into the church hall to share food and fellowship, thankful for warmth and the company of others on a cold winter’s night.

Subverting the Secular World - by Tony Clavier

2010-11-28T21:35:00.000-05:00

Advent
Subverting the secular world;
beginning a new year.

We have to tackle a number of years.
There’s the school year, the secular year,
the shopping year, and the poor neglected
church year. In a sense we live in all of them, and
keeping our feet planted in each reality is no easy thing. All too often we only remember that the church
has a year when we look at the bulletin on Sunday and try to figure which Sunday after what we are in.
Of all these years, the Christian year presents the greatest challenge. It reminds us that we are citizens
of another place and owe our allegiance to another ruler. The early Christians were persecuted and killed
because they claimed that “Jesus is Lord.” Perhaps today we are regarded as rather eccentric when we
whisper the same words. They remind us that our faith is no private, personal thing, but that we are citizens
of the kingdom of God.
We are subversive. We seek to bring the love of Christ into the secular
world because we believe that ultimately the world will be restored
to God. In the meantime, we work and pray to transform what is into
what shall be.
Advent Sunday begins yet another year. It sets our sights on the miracle
of Christ’s birth, that God invaded this planet in the form of a helpless
child. This vulnerable God walks with us, takes our flesh, re-creates the
human race, suffers, dies and so is in all our sufferings and in our deaths.
He rises again giving us the hope of resurrected life in a new heaven and a
new earth.
We perhaps moan about a secularized Christmas that begins before
Thanksgiving and ends abruptly on the day after Christmas. Rather
than moaning, we can meet the challenge it presents. We can be subversive
by keeping Advent in holy preparation. We can keep Christmas by
observing the twelve days in joy, gratitude and compassion for God’s poor
and needy, rather than throwing out the tree on December 26!
Above all we can humble ourselves before the baby who is King, and
offer him our lives in obedience and hope.
The Rev. Tony Clavier is rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, La Porte, in the
Diocese of Northern Indiana.

Top Ten reasons to be an Episcopalian - Robin Williams

2010-11-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

Top 10 Reasons to be an Episcopalian
(from the comedian Robin Williams, who is an Episcopalian, on a recent HBO special)

10. No snake handling.

9. You can believe in dinosaurs.

8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.

7. You don't have to check your brains at the door.

6. Pew aerobics.

5. Church year is color-coded.

4. Free wine on Sunday.

3. All of the pageantry - none of the guilt.

2. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:

1. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

From the Archives of St Stephens - by Tom Jones

2010-10-22T11:49:00.007-04:00

“TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN LOVING MEMORY”

St. Stephen’s has a rich history since its founding in 1814 and its incorporation in October, 1817. During that time thousands of parishioners, wealthy and not, from all walks of life have passed through the doors of the parish, and many of them have been memorialized in various ways. The chancel of the present church built in 1897 contains several prominent memorials presented to the parish by families to commemorate loved ones.

THE BAPTISMAL FONT

This particular memorial is the second memorial font presented to the parish. The original was destroyed in the Christmas Eve fire of 1896. The inscription at the base of the font reads:

RUTH ANN
INFANT DAUGHTER
WILLIAM L. & OLIVIA H. CONYNGHAM
BORN OCT 12TH 1873 + DIED MAY 2ND 1875
FOR OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

Ruth Butler Conyngham was the third child of William Lord and Olivia Burr (Hillard) Conyngham. She was the granddaughter of John Nesbitt and Ruth Ann (Butler) Conyngham and Oliver Burr and Harriet Ann (Butler) Hillard. She was baptized on Thursday, February 24th, 1874 at the family residence by Rev’d Chauncey Colton, Rector. The sponsors/witnesses to the baptism were Charles Miner Conyngham, her uncle, and Mary Conyngham Parrish, her aunt. Ruth Butler Conyngham died from Scarlet Fever on Sunday, May 2nd, 1875 at the age on 19 months and was buried on Tuesday, May 4th, 1875 with services conducted by the Rev’d Dr. Henry L. Jones, Rector. Besides her parents, she was also survived by her two brothers John Nesbitt Conyngham, named for his grandfather, and William Hillard Conyngham. Interestingly, Oliver Burr Hillard, Mrs. Conyngham’s father, was also a long-time Vestryman and was a member of the committee charged with building the third church edifice in 1853.

THE LECTERN

This reading desk, as it was referred to in an 1888 newspaper account of the reopening of the church after extensive renovation, is also a second memorial given after the Christmas 1896 fire. The inscription on the front of the lectern reads:

TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
LEWIS COMPTON PAINE
MARCH 26, 1827 + MAY 16, 1890

Lewis Compton Paine was born in Perth Amboy, NJ the son of Jedadiah and Phoebe Ann (Compton) Paine. His lineage dates back to Thomas Paine one of the original organizers of a company of Pilgrims who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1621. Jedadiah Paine was a sea captain, and Lewis from an early age accompanied his father on voyages to the West Indies and the Caribbean, eventually becoming 2nd officer on his father’s vessel at the age of 14. In 1893 he came to Wilkes-Barre to work for Col. H. B. Hillman who was engaged in mining in Nanticoke. While here he met Mary Campbell Lee, the youngest daughter of James Stewart and Martha Campbell Lee. He contracted an illness that forced to leave the area and return to the coast.

During his convalescence he and Miss Lee married on September 19th, 1848 and took up residence in Perth Amboy. In succeeding years he became a purser on steamers traveling to Savannah and then for over three years on a new line which traveled to Chagres, Panama through the Isthmus. It was on one of these voyages that he heroically rescued more than a thousand persons stranded by a flooding river by running the first passenger train on the Panama Railroad, which was under construction.

When his illness returned, in 1853 he accepted an offer from his brothers-in-law Washington and Andrew Lee to form Lee, Paine & Co. to operate the old Lee mines. (Eventually, this operation became the Susquehanna Coal Company.) After they moved to Nanticoke from Brooklyn with their son William Lee Paine, Mary Lee died in childbirth. After her death he moved to Wilkes-Barre.

On October 15th, 1857, Lewis married Annie E. Lee, no relation to his first wife, the daughter of David Lee of Sycamore Grove, Tredyfferin Township, Chester County, PA. Serving as one of the executors of the will of Isaac Smith Osterhout, Lewis Compton Paine helped establish the free library, purchase the old Presbyterian Church to serve as temporary quarters, provide for the building of the Historical Society museum, and sit as one of the library’s first trustees. He and Annie had three children.

Lewis Compton Paine was confirmed on June 27th, 1863 by Rt. Rev’d William Bacon Stevens. He served on the Vestry in 1865, 1866, and then continuously from 1870 until his death in 1890. Upon the death of Judge Conyngham he became Senior Warden in 1874 and held that position until his death. He also chaired the committee charged with refurbishing, redesigning, and enlarging the church from 1883 to 1887. During his tenure as Senior Warden, the Rectory at 181 S. Franklin St. was twice enlarged and redecorated, a detached Parish House was built, the Log Chapel was erected, St. Andrew’s Alden and its Rectory were built, St. George’s Nanticoke was constructed, and St. Peter’s Plymouth received a new Rectory. In addition to the lectern, the Ascension stained glass window is a memorial to Lewis Compton Paine and Annie E. Lee Paine.

THE ALTAR

The present altar replaced a wooden table which served as the altar of the church when the first services were conducted on Christmas Day 1898. After the flood of 1972, the altar was moved from its place in the apse to its current location in the chancel. The inscription at the base of the back of the marble altar at the center of the chancel reads:

PRESENTED BY THE CHILDREN OF ST. STEPHEN’S PARISH IN MEMORY OF CHARLES MINER CONYNGHAM + JULY 7, 1840 + SPETEMBER 6, 1894

Charles Miner Conyngham was the seventh and youngest child of John Nesbitt and Ruth Ann (Butler) Conyngham. He was baptized on November 5th, 1840 by the Rev’d Robert Bethell Claxton and confirmed at St. Stephen’s on May 8th, 1866 by the Rt. Rev’d. Thomas Hubbard Vail. He was educated at the Protestant Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia and received an A. B. in 1859 and an A. M. in 1862 from Trinity College, Hartford CT. He studied law with G. Byron Nicholson and was admitted to the bar in August 1862, but he never practiced. He entered the army during the Civil War as a Captain under the charge of E. L. Dana, another St. Stephen’s parishioner, and held the rank of Major on his discharge. While in service, he fought in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. He was severely wounded on May 12th, 1864 and was honorably discharged on July, 26th, 1864.

On February 9th, 1864 in Hartford CT, he married Helen Hunter Turner, the daughter of Congregational Minister Rev’d William Wolcott Turner. He and his wife had four children: Helen Maria who married Charles Alling Gifford; Alice who married J. Frank Turner; Charles Turner who died at age 6 months; and Herbert who never married.

When he returned home from the army, he engaged in many mercantile businesses under the names of Conyngham and Paine, Charles M. Conyngham, and Conyngham, Schrage & Company among others. He was also active in coal operations with Conyngham and Teasdale in Shickshinny. Mr. Conyngham also served as President of the West End Coal Company and as a director of Parrish Coal Company and Hazard Manufacturing. Under the administration of Gov. Henry Hoyt he held the office of Inspector General of the National Guard. Notable among his community activities is his membership on the Executive Committee of the Luzerne County Bible Society.

Mr. Conyngham served as Vestryman from 1876 until his death in 1894 and as Junior Warden from 1879 until his death.

St Francis' Day everyday

2010-10-10T12:10:00.004-04:00

"If we could talk to the animals, learn their languages
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the animals, talk with the animals,
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals,
And they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk to us."

This is the last verse of the song “If I Could Talk to the Animals” (Music / Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) from the movie / musical Dr. Doolittle.

At St. Stephen’s we had our very own “Dr. Doolittle”, Father Daniel Gunn. Celebrating the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi we were given the opportunity to bring our pets to church for their annual blessing. This is a great opportunity for us to give thanks for the beautiful creatures God has entrusted to our care. Father Daniel has a special gift of talking to each animal in much the same way Dr. Doolittle did. Each pet was brought to the front one at a time for their individual blessing. Father Daniel placed his hands on their head, blessed them and thanked God for the happiness they bring to their owners. Father Daniel was able to infuse something personal into each blessing at times funny and at other times poignant. We celebrated new life in the form of a 3 month old St. Bernard puppy and gave thanks for a life slowly coming to an end in the form our Jack Russell, dear Abigail at 15 years and 3 months. Father Daniel had the foresight to save Abigail’s blessing for the very end. This St. Francis Day will always hold a special meaning for me as I think of Father Daniel’s kind words while he held Abigail on his lap. I am fully aware this will probably be her last blessing. While it makes me sad to think about this I am also grateful for the happiness, intelligence and courage she has brought to our family. Things won’t be the same once she is gone but she will always be in our hearts. It makes me realize that we need to love and care for these beautiful creatures more dearly since they are with us for such a short time. They are always there to comfort us and keep us company when we are feeling lonely or have had a rough day at work. Rather than yelling at them to stop barking, whining or scratching we should sit down with them and find out what is on THEIR mind. Maybe by doing this we can learn to “talk to the animals” in much the same way that Father Daniel / Dr. Doolittle are able to.

In closing I fully admit that I copied and pasted the following paragraph from the internet. It’s the last sentence I want to bring to your attention.

"St. Francis's attitude towards the natural world and animals, while poetically expressed, was conventionally Christian. He believed that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of the primordial sin of man. He preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God and the duty of men to protect and enjoy nature and animals as both the stewards of God's creation and as creatures ourselves."

We are stewards of this earth and everything in it. It is our duty to take care of what God has given us and not to take anything for granted. Why not make St. Francis day everyday and give thanks for these creatures He has entrusted to our care.

-submitted by Matthew Malini October 4, 2010

a Whippet, several cats, and a puppy

2010-10-03T21:37:00.002-04:00

What does a Whippet, a West Highland Terrier, a few cats, a St Bernard puppy and a Gecko have in common?

They all attended the St Francis day Blessing of the Animals at St Stephens today.
Along with a German Shepherd, Italian Greyhound, a couple of miniature Dachshunds and several other dogs of various breeds. All blessed today by Father Daniel, and although they were blessed today they are a blessing everyday to each and every one of their families bringing joy and relaxation to the humans that they care for and keep in line. No I did not say that wrong - I have a cat, she keeps us in line, making sure we tend to her needs and making sure our priories are in line;

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Days at the Fair

2010-09-12T13:45:00.003-04:00

This is the last day of the Luzerne County Fair. Today I got here before the Fair opened at 11:00 (I've done this the past two days) and walked around for a few minutes, to stretch my legs and look for cinnamon rolls (not ready yet) the morning at Fairs is my favorite time - I've done this at Bloomsburg Fair too, the vendors are busy setting up, no one is really in a major hurry, they'll look up and say good morning, there are no stresses yet. The smells of the bar-b-que is just starting, the morning is fresh -even if it is cold. Than the day starts, things get busy, orders come in, people ask questions and the those that love what they are doing will tell you everything...just stop by and talk to the man who has the hit and miss engines,or the gentleman in the tractor display, sometimes even if you don't ask questions.

The most fun was being at our booth and giving out balloons....the smiles on the smallest kids-seeing a great big balloon in red or blue all for them was special. Asking an older child... 7 or 8 "do you want a balloon?" and getting an enthusiastic "YES" (imagine them bouncing up and down too) or letting them pick out their favorite candy. Something you might miss if your not looking ..... mom or dad looking up at the display to see who is giving out balloons to their kids and telling them to hold on tight. Reading the banner that says "The Episcopal Church Welcomes You" and than they might glance around some more, look at the information on the tables and maybe ask a few questions. If they don't - that's fine, we made a good impression... we were friendly, not pushy. Open, not aggressive. Inquiring but not accusatory. Visitors to our booth were treated as guests.

The other neat thing was to be available to our neighboring vendors ... teasing one that his zebra was distracting the children we were trying to give balloons to, or helping out one by watching their space for a little while, lending a chair to another. Than hearing their stories, and listening...just listening. To their pains, concerns, their questions, their heart.

Someone asked me - was this worth it? Or just a waste of time.

The answer is "Yes, it was worth it." For the smiles, the laughter, the questions, the stories. Time is only wasted if you learn nothing. This was not a waste of time."

2010-08-30T10:25:00.000-04:00

It’s my last full day of vacation. Tomorrow we have to pack up, go home and get resettled in. Then on Tuesday it’s back to the ‘grind’. Aside from watching the Emmys tonight I’m feeling rather down and depressed.

I often wonder if Jesus ever took a vacation. In my humble opinion he certainly deserved one. This after starving for forty days and nights in the desert, being tempted by the devil, preaching the Beatitudes, feeding five thousand people (and later four thousand people), raising Lazarus from the dead, healing a bunch of people of whatever maladies they were inflicted with and giving us a new commandment to love one another (This is by far the most important commandment He ever gave us. One we so often forget). Whew! If Jesus were walking on Earth today where would he vacation, South of the Border, SC or the Hamptons? Or better yet a little cabin called Wac-Zip in Stoddartsville. This is a place I think he would have found a true refuge from His daily challenges. It’s a place where you can sit on the front porch with a glass of wine (remember His first miracle was changing water into wine) watch the Lehigh River down below, listen to the water falls in the distance all the while a humming bird is hovering just five feet from your face. This vacation more than anything has given me a chance to STOP everything around me. It’s been a vacation where I’ve not remembered what day of the week it is, what time it is or if the dry-cleaning has been picked up. Whether you identify yourself as an environmentalist as I myself do or just enjoy nature, when was the last time any of us just stopped everything we were doing to enjoy what God has given us. Aside from His greatest gift of dying for our sins and giving us a new commandment to love one another I think His next greatest gift is nature. I know we are all busy with our careers, families and kids. But the next time you get the chance, take a drive out into nature, shut your cell phone off and just be still. If you wish, have a bottle of wine or whatever beverage you prefer and just watch and listen to what God has given us in nature. I am sure Jesus this did many times when he needed a break.

Matthew C. Thomas-Malani

August 29, 2010

Three Signs of a House of Prayer --- by Matthew Thomas-Malani

2010-07-26T10:31:00.000-04:00

I try and make of point of reading the daily entries in the Forward Day by Day devotional pamphlet each morning at 4:45 before heading off to work. You know the pamphlet I’m talking about, the ones in the back of St. Stephen’s. AND you can also view online. So if you happen to be at work and you’re bored, instead of playing Solitaire or surfing the web, check this one out - http://forwardmovement.org/Today-s-Meditation/

The reading for June 28th has made a big impression of me and I have kept the words close to my heart. It begins with Jesus clearing out the Temple of all those who were selling and buying. The people who were selling and buying were creating a huge distraction for what the temple was really there for – to worship God and find peace. What impressed me the most about this is that we can apply this not only to our homes but to ourselves.

Three signs of a house of prayer:

There is thoughtfulness each for the other.

There is temper control because God is in control.

There is infinite patience.

Am I practicing these three things on a daily basis? Before reading this passage I admit that I did not. Usually when I got home I would be more stressed out about making sure everything is perfect – the dishes are done, the bed is made, the laundry is folded, the dogs are walked and cleaned up after and dinner is made (all this on top of having already worked a 10 to 12 hour day). I hate to admit that my infinite patience collapsed which created a domino effect….

But since reading this passage from June 28th I have gotten into the habit of inviting God into my heart to give me peace and that I can be a house for his spirit to dwell within me. Everything else – dishes, bed, laundry, dogs and dinner will fall into place once I let Him be in control and clear everything else out.

Matthew C. Thomas-Malani

July 23, 2010

Brian Pavlac ordained to sacred order of priests

2010-07-03T15:48:00.002-04:00

Brian Alexander Pavlac was ordained to the sacred order of priests in the Episcopal Church at St. Stephen Pro-Cathedral, Wilkes-Barre, on June 29. He was born and raised in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. While attending Bowling Green State University, he studied abroad in Salzburg, Austria, establishing a deep contact with that country and with Europe, which he renews by visiting as often as possible. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and directed its study-abroad program in Innsbruck, Austria, for four years. At Notre Dame he met and married his spouse, Elizabeth S. Lott, Ph.D. Together they raised two daughters, who currently attend graduate schools. In 1993, they moved to the Wyoming Valley and joined Grace Church, Kingston, where he later served as senior warden.

Since 1993 Dr. Pavlac has been a member of the History Department of King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA, where he teaches courses ranging from the Greeks and Romans, through Knights and Castles, to Nazi Germany. King’s College recently awarded him with the Herve LeBlanc Distinguished Service Professorship. In the past three years Dr. Pavlac has published two books: A Warrior Bishop of the 12th Century: The Deeds of Albero of Trier and Witch Hunts in the Western World: Persecution and Punishment from the Inquisition through the Salem Trials. His third book, A Concise Survey of Western Civilization: Supremacies and Diversities throughout History, will be released in Fall 2010. In his ministry as a priest, Dr. Pavlac hopes to support his fellow clergy through supply work.

"You stand here tonight," Bishop Paul said in his ordination sermon, "in line with thousands and thousands of scholar-priests who have through the centuries fed the minds, hearts and spirits of God’s people, keeping the simple truths of faith in tension with age-old challenges to human understanding." Read the sermon here.

If you missed breakfast.......

2010-05-27T18:11:00.002-04:00

you missed quite a few treats, at least two different egg dishes, sweet rolls, fruit and other sweets.
The video which profiled three separate churches in an inner city setting could have been the story of St Stephens, churches that provided much needed services to the community at large and to the congregation on a limited budget.
I remember a funny work saying "We the few, working instead of the unwilling, have become so accustomed to doing so much with so little we are now qualified to do anything with nothing"
We have done anything for everyone for so long on nothing that our building is in danger. Not only the beautiful windows (I have seen a major crack in one of the windows over the choir loft), but some of the hallways and stairways (the stairway at the end of the main hallway past the restrooms is closed off due to crumbling and falling plaster), to say nothing of the bell tower and roof, electrical system, the lights, the kitchen, parish hall carpeting, the _____________(fill in the blank with what you have noticed).
Lois is a wonder, she has found the funding for the dental clinic, reorganized the health clinic, and is now pursuing renovating the old (read ancient) downstairs kitchen to a pharmacy (no, not for controlled substances)but she is only one person.
We are not asking the congregation to do more financially (remember "we are doing so much with so little") what we are asking for is support. Tell St Stephens story - to your friends, neighbors, your doctors, family members - take the basket off the candle and let it shine for all to see.
There are three groups that formed last Sunday:
1. History - those that know something ( you don't need to know all of it) of St Stephens history, where we came from, what we did. If you're interested see Tony Brooks and join that team.
2. What we do - the stuff we do now on a daily basis, the events, the services, the impact we have on the community around us (I have no hard data but I honestly think that the least busiest day at St Stephens is Sunday, don't think that what goes on on Sunday is unimportant or un-needed but that joint is BUSY Monday thru Friday) If you're interested in being a part of this team see Mary Clemm
How much it is worth - the nuts and bolts, and how much it costs to replace it. Our size, the heat, the insurance, the real value of what is contained in our walls or or property lines. If you have knowledge and experience in this field talk to Frank Conyngham.

If you think you have nothing to contribute, I ask you to think of one thing...
Turning off of Northampton Street onto North Franklin Street, seeing First Presbyterian Church, Osterhout Free Library, Westmoreland Club, the Historical Society ..............than nothing, an empty lot, covered in dirt and weeds- a large parking lot for a law firm or bank, or city parking lot. If you don't like that mental image, if it hurts to much to contemplate... than you have something to contribute.

What does a Rector do?? (more like what doesn't he do??)

2010-05-23T14:06:00.000-04:00

Prayer and Devotional time. Study time, 8 a.m. Sunday Holy Eucharist, 10 a.m. Sunday Holy Eucharist, Feast Days including Christmas,Holy Week, Easter,etc. Wednesday Noon Holy Eucharist, Evensongs as scheduled, Staff meetings, Staff support and supervision, Vestry meetings, Warden’s meetings, Parish Finance, Parish Building and Grounds, Parish Worship, Parish Stewardship, Altar Guild consultation, other Parish Committees, Parish Archive cooperation, Church School preparations, Women of St. Stephen’s meetings, Reach Board meetings including Executive Committee, Clothing Closet cooperation, Health and Dental Clinic cooperation, Property and buildings oversight, Oversee renovation projects, Sermon preparation, Rector’s Sunday Bible Study, Communications (email, mail, telephone), Parish Guest articles, Review Sunday Bulletins, Baptismal preparation, Confirmation preparation, Wedding preparation, Weddings, Funeral preparations, Funerals (even outside the parish), Coffee Hours, Hospital visits, Nursing Home visits, Home visits, Liturgical scheduling and planning
Preaching Rotation schedule, Supervising three ministry candidates, Spiritual direction(self), Spiritual direction (others), Coordinate Diocesan events at St. Stephen’s, Coordinate Community events at St. Stephen’s, Coordinate concert schedule, Sexton duties as needed, Security duties as needed, Pastoral counseling: Walk-ins and interruptions, Supporting new parishioners, Supporting old parishioners, Speaking to local colleges and other groups, Parish Lenten program, WB Ministerium meetings, Regional Episcopal Clergy meetings, County Homelessness Task force, United Way meetings, Kirby Episcopal House Board meetings, Osterhout Library Board meetings, Osterhout Library Personnel Committee, Wyoming Valley Interfaith Council, Diamond City Partnership, Parish events such as picnic, retreats, etc.Annual Parish meeting and report, Annual Parochial Report, Community Lenten Program including worship and lunch, Diocesan Convention, Diocesan Council,Diocesan Commission on Ministry (past)Diocesan Ecumenical Commission, Diocesan New Hope Executive Committee, Diocesan Social Ministries Committee, TEC NEPA adhoc Advertising Committee, Diocesan Clergy Days, Teaching Bishop’s School, Consult with attorney when necessary, Other things as necessary

Sacred Spaces Pancake Breakfast

2010-05-21T12:21:00.004-04:00

This Sunday at 9:00am the Vestry will be hosting a Breakfast of Pancakes, sausage, juice and coffee plus some other goodies donated by a few other members of the congregation.
The purpose of this breakfast (other than to see how early we can get you to the church for breakfast) is to show a 28 minute video on The Partnership for Sacred Places. An organization that assists churches in organizing their resources for maintaining their buildings and community services.
Following is an excerpt from a recent e-mail from the organization, along with their website address

http://www.sacredplaces.org/

Proven Strategies and Experienced Advocates
Today, more than ever, a congregation needs proven strategies and experienced advocates to help care for and sustain its sacred place. Since 1989, Partners for Sacred Places has recognized the realities that community-serving congregations face and designed programs to fit your needs. Partners changes the way congregations view their role so that their sacred place remains a rich and vital part of the social fabric of a community.
Partners leverages the generous support of members to provide a comprehensive array of services and programs to congregations nationwide. With members' support, Partners continues to offer regional activities, technical workshops, training programs and informational resources. When you join Partners today, you enable congregations to receive the vital tools needed to care for their religious properties.
Join other dedicated individuals who care about preserving and sustaining our country's sacred places. With your tax-deductible membership fee, you'll receive:

The Professional Alliance Directory, a listing of firms that are experts in the field of restoration and care of historic religious buildings.
Monthly Sacred Places e-zine, filled with articles, tools and tips to help you care for your sacred place.
Sacred Places magazine, chock-full of informative features and case studies.
Invitations to regional workshops featuring speakers on energy efficiency, stained glass, major donor programs, and more.

Instructional Eucharist -- May 16, 2010

2010-04-26T02:00:00.000-04:00

Have your ever wondered why we do what we do during the worship service, and when?
Have you followed along during the service and thought, "What is that for?" ? Than this service is for you.
It is a regular choral Eucharist, but at appropriate times Father Daniel will pause the service and explain what is about to happen, or what just happened and why or where it originates from.

ROAD TRIP to First Presbyterian

2010-04-19T05:26:00.000-04:00

It's not far, just down the corner on May 2nd we are joining the congregation of First Presbyterian, 97 South Franklin Street, for the worship service at 10:00 am. Did you read that right TEN am so if you come at 10:30, like usual, you'll be late. If you come at 8:00 am, you'll be way early.
This is a chance to see their church, meet with the congregation and find out how, where and why the GREAT THEOLOGICAL rift that caused St Stephens to move and to relocate to where we are now. That information will be presented by Tony Brooks after the service. So come join us, show that the rift is healed (sorta) and that we can worship together, occasionally...

Susan Jane Matthews recital

2010-04-14T17:36:00.002-04:00

Renowned concert organist Susan Jane Matthews will perform an organ recital at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, her hometown of Wilkes-Barre this coming Sunday, April 18, 2010 at 3:00 p.m.. Dr. Matthews has performed throughout the United States and in Europe, including solo organ recitals at the Washington National Cathedral; St.-Sulpice, Paris; and the Himmerod Abbey, Germany. The Wilkes-Barre recital is among several performances scheduled during this summer: San Francisco and Oakland, California; Trier, Maria Laach, and Großlittgen, Germany; and London, England. She has been featured on the radio programs Pipedreams, Organ Loft, With Heart and Voice and Music from St. Stephen's

She is currently Director of Music at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Burlingame, California where she serves as organist, director of the Chancel Choir, and founding director of the St. Paul’s Choir School for boys and girls, the latter affiliated with the Royal School of Church Music. She has served as Director of Music at St. Michael’s Episcopal Cathedral, Boise, Idaho and as Principal Organist of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. During her four-year tenure at Grace Cathedral, she recorded frequently with the Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys and in September 2004, Gothic Recordings released her first solo organ CD, Chosen Tunes from Grace Cathedral.

A free-will offering will be received at the recital.

The Drama of Holy Week

2010-03-16T21:17:00.011-04:00

During Lent we live into a liturgical drama. We veil the cross to live as though there had been no cross, and we symbolically journey with Jesus to Jerusalem. During Lent we live intentionally naive of the victory over sin and death that Jesus accomplished for us upon the cross. This liturgical drama and journey to Jerusalem is intensified during Holy Week.

In Holy Week we stand as pilgrims and witnesses of Jesus in Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday we join in the drama as we wave palms in our procession into the nave of the church crying "Hosanna!" But as the day is intended to reflect, we soon learn of Jesus' fate. We hear the passion of Jesus read. This is why we leave church in silence on Palm Sunday- we know Jesus will die.

Our liturgical drama is than acted out during the following days leading up to Easter. It is tradition in most parishes to offer communion on the first days of Holy Week, as we do on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday we mark the day with Tenebrae. Though we do a shortened version of the service, it is intended to foreshadow the days to come. After each Psalm a candle is extinguished until only a single candle remains burning. That candle is then hidden to symbolize the death and burial of Jesus. The single candle is returned to its place. The entire church is dark, and everyone leaves in silence to contemplate the mystery of the evening's liturgy.

On Thursday we begin what is called Triduum (TRIDD-oo-um; Latin triduumsacrum,sacred three days). These three days re-enact the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Thurdsay in Holy week is called Maundy Thursday, which is derived from the Latin term mandatum whic means "commandment." On this day we re-enact the evening when Jesus instituted the Last Supper, which we called the Eucharist or Holy Communion, but we also follow his commandment to be servants of one another by washing each others feet. This humbling act recreates the evening when Jesus laid aside his pride and proved himself to be the servent of us all. When we wash one another's feet we are following his command.

Maundy Thursday continues with the Agape meal. Agape is the Greek word for love. Literally an Agape meal is a re-enactment of a "love feast." The earliest Christians were Jews. The Agape was intended to resemble a Jewish Seder. We eat soup, bread and other foods and drink wine. We say prayers over specific items of the dinner. The meal is intended to be festive, yet somber at the same time. The feast ends as we process back into the church where we witness the stripping of the alter.

We strip the alter and we remove all items of comfort. This stripping is intended to remind us of the evening when Jesus was apprehended as a common criminal. The kneeler cousins are removed, as are the seat cushions at the alter. The holy vessels are purged, and the Holy Oils used for anointing the sick and the newly baptized are poured out onto the ground. Even the cotton used in the oil stock is burned. The alter is washed as one would wash a body after death. Finally, the remaining bread and wine, the body and blood, are carried to the Alter of Repose where we begin the Minor Vigil. It is called the Minor Vigil to distinguish it from the Great Vigil. The Minor Vigil is intended to put us in mind of sitting in vigil with the deceased. The reserve Sacrament is placed on the Alter of Repose and hourly we light candles until the point when the sacrament is removed form the alter for Communion on Good Friday.

Good Friday is the only day of the year when we are forbidden from celebrating the Eucharist. On this day we receive Communion from the "Pre-sanctified" or Reserve Sacrament, meaning that which was consecrated the evening before. On Good Friday we also "Venerate the Cross." That is the act whereby we pay respect to the work Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. Everyone is invited to come forward to the cross to offer a brief prayer or thanksgiving. Most people will kiss the cross or at least touch it. In so doing we acknowledge that the cross that was veiled for the Lenten Season has been reveiled, and with it we learn of the fulfillment of Jesus' mission. After Communion we leave in silence.

By the time we reach Saturday we are into the third day of the Triduum. Most people think that Easter Sunday is the principal celebration of the Christian year, but that is not historically the case. The Great Vigil historically developed as the chief celebration of the Christian Year. Originally intended to be a vigil from sundown to sunrise, we now celebrate it in a shortened fashion realizing that few people could tolerate such a lengthy service.

The Great Vigil begins with the kindling of a new fire, meaning that we build a fire outside the church with everyone gathered around. We light our lanterns from the new fire as we process into the church. During the first part of the liturgy we hear readings from the Old Testament and the Psalms. If there are converts to be baptized, Confirmed or Received it is done during this time. Bear in mind Confirmation and Reception must take place before the bishop. All of this takes place in the darkness to symbolize our time before Christ when we lived in darkness. Then with a loud noise to recreate the rolling away of the stone from Jesus' tomb we sing "Alleluia!" The light is restored to the entire church. {By the way, everyone is invited to bring their own noise maker for the time of the "great noise.") From this point the celebration proceeds as any typical Sunday Eucharist. Thus ends the Triduum.

Many who attend these Holy week liturgies are very moved by the symbolism and drama. Over the years I have known more than a few who have left these services in tears. What is most fascinating to me is that Christians all over the world participate in these liturgies, and we have for hundreds of years. Through the numbers are growing, few churches celebrate the liturgies of Holy Week. It truly is a liturgical drama to witness, and as a witness you become a participant in these liturgies. You become the spectator in the crowd witnessing the trial, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Please join us this Holy Week (March 28- April 4) as we journey with Jesus.

Rev'd Daniel C. Gunn
Rector
St Stephen's Episcopal Church

An Open Letter

2010-03-14T11:11:00.001-04:00

Rector's Message
Written by The Rev'd Daniel C. Gunn - March 2010

An Open Letter: Below is the response I sent to many parishioners and community members on Ash Wednesday.
Dear All, A Blessed Ash Wednesday to you. I hope you have seen the stories in the local papers the past three days. (They are attached below.) I think this is good news for us. The reporters have been balanced and reasonably accurate. For the record, I went down to Reach this morning and was greeted with a chorus of “Good morning, Father!” and even inquiries of when the Ash Wednesday Services were scheduled. (Jokingly, I asked them to go out to the street and assault someone so we could be in the paper again on Thursday. They all declined.) I have spent a great deal of my time in the past few years trying to make certain that Reach is operated in an appropriate manner. If you read the articles in recent days you will hear a great deal of innuendo and speculations. In four years I have only found one needle, 3 drug packets (I have them in my desk), and a couple dozen beer cans. I would love to say that there had been none of these items, but I live in reality. Downtown Wilkes-Barre is an inner-city, and that comes with all the problems of such a place. For those of you who read the local papers on-line as I do, please scroll to the end of the articles and read the posted comments. The overwhelming majority of the feedback is POSITIVE toward St. Stephen’s and Reach. One person even said that we are the one church that “practices what we preach.” Another said that we are the only church open and active during the week while others are locked and guarded except on Sundays. One of my mentors tells me that this sort of press is good press, and better than any advertisement we could buy. I tend to agree. Please if you or any of your neighbors have questions direct them to me. I will be happy to respond as I am able. It is times like these when I think about our brothers and sisters in Kajo-Keji (maybe because I was there this time last year) and wonder where would our critics want to send them? They’re uneducated, poorly clothed, poor and black, suffering from years of mistreatment. Our mission, though at times needing critique, is true and good and right, whether in Downtown Wilkes-Barre or in Africa. We are truly an International Parish: we need to tell others about our good works. Just as we welcome Bishop Anthony in a few days, we welcome Kevin whom I met in the basement of Boscov’s today who asked me to bless the cross he was wearing around his neck and say a prayer for him, too. We are known by our deeds, whether they be acts of charity or music or liturgy. We are a dynamic church and God bless those who think and say otherwise. Finally, Rabbi Ed Friedman, whom you have heard me speak of often, said that “You know you have reached a new level of maturity when you can hear criticism as affirmation.” He went on to say that “criticism is an act of pursuit.” This is true for individuals and parishes. In the past few days I have heard an abundance of affirmation. I have also felt pursued. Can you feel it? Can you hear it with me?

In peace, Dg

www.timesleader.com/news/Neighbor_wants_homeless_shelter_to_move_02-17-2010.html
http://citizensvoice.com/news/pastor-defends-reach-program-against-criticism-1.621006
http://citizensvoice.com/news/residents-want-day-shelter-to-leave-downtown-1.618870

Addendum: As most of you know, I am on the Board of Directors for the Osterhout Library. I have heard no concerns from the Library, and I have met with the Executive Director who also has no concerns.

Lent's Terrible Gift - by Kay Lynn Northcutt

2010-03-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

Features - christiancentury.org
March 09, 2010
Lent's terrible gift
Lessons in dying
by Kay Lynn Northcutt
At the end of every yoga class we practice dying. Our teacher cautions us that the corpse pose, or shavasana, is the most difficult of all yoga postures to master, but for those of us whose legs and arms are trembling from an hour's exertion in warrior pose, downward-facing dog and cobra, the prospect of relaxing horizontally on one's yoga mat brings both relief and the impertinent question, "How hard can it be?"

Fascinated, I report to my husband, "Every day at the conclusion of yoga class we practice dying." "That's interesting," he says, trying to share my enthusiasm. "It's kind of like Lent," I venture, "except it's a physical practice, not so much a spiritual one. Lent is when we're supposed to practice dying, right?"

When I was a young woman and my best friend died of lung cancer, my minister told me, "You've been given a terrible gift at so young an age, Kay. A terrible gift." That two-word phrase, "terrible gift," functions as a parable for me. New Testament scholar Brandon Scott re minds us that the Greek word parabole can mean to "throw beside." Most typically a parable throws something beside something else—unexpectedly.

Take the kingdom of God being like a woman, for example. That must have been a real howler to first-century listeners of Jesus. The kingdom of heaven is like a woman? No way. Women are property. Women are chattel. Women are impure. The kingdom of God is like a woman? Impossible. Ridiculous. Insulting.

But this is what a parable does. Like a belly flop into a lake, a parable leaves one feeling emotionally and theologically stinging, breathless, disoriented—like "terrible" and "gift." They aren't ordinarily thrown down beside each other. But that's what Lent does. It throws life down with death, and death with life. We practice dying. We learn living.

With the advent of hospice, many of us have been given the terrible gift of walking alongside those we love who are dying. When my mother's dying began in earnest she'd call from her bed, "Girls!" My sister and I would come running. "What, Momma?" "You've got to do something about all these children playing under my bed." My sister Amy stood at one side of the bed, I on the other. Our eyes met. This wasn't the first time those children had been caught playing under Mom's bed. We had a plan.

"Mom, you're having another hallucination." She lay quietly. Several minutes passed as she absorbed the information. "Right. It's a hallucination. I'm dying," Mom said slowly and patiently to us (as if my sister and I were a couple of slow-witted children). "But could you please take all these children out from underneath my bed and outside to play? They need sunlight and fresh air. Give them a good lunch. I'm going to rest while you and your sister take care of them. I just love having them, but I'm too tired."

Amy bent down on the far side of the bed, I on the other. Together we gently shooed imaginary children out from under the bed. As we opened the door to the backyard, Mom expended the last drop of energy she had for that day, calling out, "Thank you, girls!" Then, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, Amy and I sat down outside in the Oklahoma sun and did both.

Lent, if we accept its terrible gift, gives us 40 days to practice dying. Para doxically, Lent's terrible, life-giving wisdom is painfully simple: each of us dies the way we have lived. I don't mean that the easiness or difficulty of our dying is determined by our living. Physically speaking, my mother's death was a difficult, traumatic one. But in her death, my mother, who spent her life caring for children as an early childhood educator, was herself cared for—and kept company by—children. In the last 21 days of her life, Mom whispered to us about "the most darling little boy" who was holding her hand.

As I watched my mom with those imaginary children, I was reminded of another dying time, when, as a graduate student at the Univer sity of Chicago, I was a reader for theologian Joseph Sittler at the end of his life. He spent his last days precisely as he had lived his best ones: with a relentless hunger for God, poetry, wisdom. He wanted to hear Emily Dickinson's poems read aloud. He was restless for a note-by-note harmonic explanation of the most exquisite moment of Bach's Saint John Passion so that he might, as he said, "know exactly what Bach is doing right here."

Those rambunctious children under Mom's bed and Sittler's unquenchable thirst for wisdom during the final heartbeats of his life make Lent's typical claim on us seem abstemious. Bittersweet, that during the church season in which we anticipate our dying we preoccupy ourselves with small things, inessential things "given up" for 40 days.

Thomas Merton noted the uncanny way North American culture focuses our attention on the inessential. Spiritual teachers for centuries call such misplaced focus "distraction." Merton excoriated our North American preoccupation with the question, "Am I happy?" as exemplifying the diversion of our lives to banality, superficiality and achingly empty living:

When we live superficially . . . we are always outside ourselves, never quite "with" ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions . . . we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives. (Thomas Merton: Love and Living)

Although Merton did not live to see the Columbine massacre or the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, he anticipated their possibility, warning that lives adapted to the American pursuit of happiness create an uncontrollable monster called self-alienation that seeks release in "dramas of violence." In an unpublished lecture to novices, Merton insisted that the right question, the true question, is not "Am I happy?" but "Am I free?"

The question "Am I free?" is the terrible gift Lent comes bearing in its arms for us this and every year. Lent asks us how we are living our lives, and reminds us that we die the way we live. Lent is the time not for giving up something of little consequence, but for identifying what is most essential in our lives, what it is that we are living for. As Merton put it, "Ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for" (My Argument with the Gestapo). That is Lent's terrible gift: an examination of our living.

Recently, in a conversation with a woman whose faith was great, I couldn't help asking, "What do you think happens when we die?" Without a pause she said, "I think Jesus sends someone to comfort us. Someone particularly special to us that only Jesus would know about. Not a saint. Jesus would never send a saint or anyone 'big' in the pantheon of the church."

Wishing desperately to believe such a thing but unable to get my theological worldview wrapped around it, my mind's eye went to the final weeks of Mom's dying and to that darling little boy who held her hand—the one we never saw, but whom we suspect of being the source of her smile every once in a while, even long after she'd lost consciousness.

We die the way we lived. Of course Mom died with a little boy's hand holding hers and Joseph Sittler with Bach's Saint John's Passion in his strong hands. Lent is a perfect time to spend 40 days becoming crashingly clear about the lives we are living, and a great time to practice dying so we that can live.
Kay Lynn Northcutt teaches preaching and worship at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is the author of Kindling Desire for God: Preaching as Spiritual Direction (Fortress).

David Briggs and Cecil B DeMille's silent movie "The King of Kings

2010-02-26T16:08:00.003-05:00

The King of Kings movie with David Briggs

March 14th at 7:30pm

THE KING OF KINGS

A rare showing of Cecil B DeMille’s epic silent film (1927) of the final years of the life of Jesus
…with live organ improvisation by international artist

DAVID BRIGGS at

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

7:30pm tickets $10/15

From Briggs’ reviews:

'King of Kings' was a stroke of genius; the feedback has been great. One lady today, (first saying she had no idea what to expect) called it a 'life changing experience'... having NO spoken words made it all the more powerful.”

Right at the beginning of the concert Briggs made it clear that this evening would not be boring ….

Here was a technician at work who knew how to thrill his audience, but also had the musicality and humor that one frequently misses with great virtuosos.

For more information contact the Music Office by e-mail to mlaubach@ststephenswb.org or calling 570-704-7055.

Church Recital Nets $2,300 for Earthquake Relief

2010-02-03T20:41:00.000-05:00

Church Recital Nets $2,300 for Earthquake Relief

Organ Recital for Haiti

2010-01-15T17:54:00.001-05:00

On behalf of all the people of St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral, 35 South Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre PA 18701, I’d like to invite you to St. Stephen’s on Sunday, January 31st at 3:00 p.m., when I will present an organ recital to raise money to send to Episcopal Relief and Development in support of the victims of the horrific earthquake damage in Haiti. All are welcome and encouraged to bring friends in support of a most worthy and urgent cause.

If you cannot attend the recital, we encourage you to support the victims with your prayers and monetary support through some worthy charitable organization. You may, if you wish, send a tax-deductible contribution to us at St. Stephen’s, and we will see that your gift is added to those we receive on January 31st. While this is not an immediate response, the need for support will undoubtedly continue through the coming weeks and months, so we’re hopeful that our efforts will be useful.

Many thanks for your help in this time of need for so many thousands upon thousands of our sisters and brothers.

A donation through Episcopal Relief and Development can also be done independently. They are one of the highest rated charities and have very low overhead expense. You can visit ER-D at http://www.er-d.org/ .

Peace on Earth this New Year

2009-12-26T07:20:00.000-05:00

Peace on Earth this New Year

As I complete this article on the first Sunday of Advent, I just read the headline that our nation is about to commit another 30,000 or more troops to Afghanistan. Personally, I think this is a bad idea based on what I learned during my study in Southeast Asia, but I am not going to spend this column trying to convince you of my opinion. Rather, I view this as just one more example of how every Advent begins the same--with an apocalyptic tale of destruction.

We hear it every Advent with messages from the Gospels like: "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." These are Jesus’ words according to the evangelist Luke. One might almost think Jesus is telling his disciples to be afraid—be very afraid. But if that’s all you hear in Jesus’ message this Advent then you are missing the point.

Advent does begin every year with a message of chaos, a message of trouble at hand. Yet if you pay close attention over the next few Sundays of Advent (for that you’ll have to attend the services) you will hear that the messages get more and more positive. I have said it time after time; Advent is a time of pregnancy. It is not intended to be a mini-Lent. Advent is that time of anticipation and expectation. We are intended to think in terms of, "Yes, things are bad now, but they are going to get better. Our Messiah will come!"

As Christians our faith amounts to nothing if it is not lived in hope. When we hear of wars and rumors of wars, trouble and strife, look up. Your redemption draws nigh. Lift up your eyes to the hills from where your help will come. This is the meaning of our journey through Advent, and when lived in faith it brings all the more meaning to Christmas.

Finally, though unconnected from the above message, let me remind you of the words of Gandhi, "If we all care enough, and we all share enough, then everyone will have enough."

Happy New (Liturgical) Year, and have a blessed Advent as you prepare your heart and home for the coming of the Christ-child.

Daniel

Peace On Earth This New Year
Rector's Message
Written by The Rev'd Daniel C. Gunn
Monday, 07 December 2009

Deacon Ordinations

2009-12-23T19:21:00.007-05:00

God was willing and the creeks didn't rise, so on Monday night December 21st
Brian Pavloc was ordained into the order of Deacons.

Advent Lessons and Carols

2009-12-09T21:00:00.001-05:00

Wednesday December 16 at 6:00 pm

On behalf of all the people of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Pro-Cathedral, We are pleased to invite you to our annual Festival Service of Lessons and Carols for Advent.

Fr. Daniel Gunn, Rector of St. Stephen’s, will officiate at this service. The Choir of St. Stephen’s will sing choral music by Palestrina, Mendelssohn, Herbert Howells, Paul Manz, Edgar Pettman, and Paul Edwards. Organ voluntaries will feature works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Marcel Dupré, and David Briggs. All present will join in the singing of stirring hymns for the season of Advent. Nine lessons from the Old and New Testaments will be read by parishioners, staff, and clergy of St. Stephen’s.

A festive reception hosted by parishioners will be held in the Auditorium immediately following the conclusion of the service.

I Am Episcopalian Because.......

2009-12-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Can you say why you are an Episcopalian in less than 140 characters?

On the micro-blogging/social media site Twitter, there is an interesting series of posts this week in which all sorts of people are answering the question "I am Episcopalian Because..."

Here are a few excerpts:

"When my church says that everyone is welcome and has a home here, they mean it."

"I'm Episcopalian because you can have the beauty of ritual and the freedom of an open mind in one place"

"Advent I Collect: "give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light""

"I became Episcopalian because I liked the music, I stayed because the Jesus of the Gospel readings sang quietly to me of peace and justice."

"you aren't expected to park your brain at the door. Debate with your neighbor, then receive communion together."

"I am Episcopalian Because we're serious about the longing for God-incarnate that's embodied in Advent."

"I am Episcopalian Because that's where God lead me."

"I am Episcopalian Because Leaders such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu"

"I am Episcopalian Because Incarnational Theology, Liturgical Tradition and a willingness to be in the mystery without being compelled to solve it"

Also check out #LaughedInChurch for some good laughs.

Tip of the hat to Cafe news editor Torey Lightcap who started the #LaughedInChurch hashtag on Twitter!
Posted by Peter Carey on December 3, 2009 2:30 PM

Readings for Advent Two

2009-12-06T10:10:00.004-05:00

http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearC/Advent/CAdv2.html

The Saturday after Advent Sunday
December 5, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Anne E. Kitch
My soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
Psalm 130:6

“Where does the term ‘discipline of yearning’ come from, is it yours?” I text my friend. He used it in his sermon, and the phrase has been intriguing me all week.

“Wow, you are scary. Discipline of yearning, did I say that?” There is a pause in our texting as he looks up his sermon notes to see if this phrase is perhaps something he quoted from another source.

“It seems that particular quote is mine though I don’t remember saying it. You can have it if you like.”

“You still get credit for saying it.”

“Must be Holy Spirit credit.”

Sermons are always like that. There is the one that is preached, and the several other versions that are heard. I definitely heard “discipline of yearning.” What would such a discipline look like? This is what I have been pondering all week. I think of yearning as something that enters into my psyche without invitation or intentionality. If I take on yearning as a discipline, I must choose to scrutinize what it is I wait for anxiously. An examination of yearning leads me into those spaces unfulfilled hopes and dreams inhabit. Such a discipline would have me engage with the ache of longing rather than dancing around it. Yep. Exactly.

Last Sunday I was struck by my friend’s caution that we do not so immerse ourselves in the familiar and comfortable spirituality of our Advent rituals that we forget that this season calls us into a discipline of yearning. It is still on my mind. “Vocation of yearning, was that the quote?” I text.

Anne E. Kitch, Canon for Formation in the Christian Faith
Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem
333 Wyandotte St., Bethlehem PA 18015
www.diobeth.org

First Sunday of Advent; wreaths and readings

2009-11-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

Readings for the First Sunday of Advent
http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearC/Advent/CAdv1.html

How To Make Your Own Wreath (if you couldn't make it to the church's Advent Wreath making event)

The Advent wreath, or circle, of evergreens, made in various sizes, placed on a table. The devotion is usually incorporated during the family meal, or during family evening prayers. Fastened to the wreath are four candles standing upright, at equal distances. These candles represent the four weeks of Advent. Three of the candles are purple, reminding us of the penitential nature of the season. A rose or pink candle is lit for the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete (rejoice) Sunday. The name is taken from the entrance antiphon or Introit "Rejoice (gaudete) in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice." It is reminding us that the end of Advent is almost here, and we can hardly contain our joy.

The wreath should be in a circle, a symbol of eternity, and a reminder that God has no beginning nor end. The evergreen is a symbol of eternal life.

The appearance of the actual Advent wreath is varied—everyone has their own interpretation of the Advent wreath. The look of your family's wreath depends on how much time and creativity you have to devote. Your family can create their own special wreath, or add personal touches to a store-bought wreath. With this devotion being so popular, one can go into any craft or garden store and buy a wreath. Any religious goods store carries several varieties, and the prices range from inexpensive to very costly.

Times Leader opinion - Mark Guydish

2009-11-18T18:02:00.001-05:00

A church message with universal appeal MARK GUYDISH OPINION
Tuesday November 17, 2009 | 12:00 AM
Mark Guydish

Maybe it was the brick walls and modest marble columns, or the wood floor crafted from thousands of slats not much bigger than Popsicle sticks.

Maybe it was the half dome above the altar, sporting a semi-circle of petite stained glass windows backlit just enough to give a glimmer of the detail they contained.

Maybe it was the flamed copper “fa�ade pipes” of the organ that can still be deemed recently restored. True, the refurbishing happened seven years ago, but since parts of the instrument are more than a century old, seven years sounds recent.

Or perhaps it was the open-armed angels that emerge from the ornate wooden trusses in the ceiling at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. With elbows gently bent and hands curved inward, the carved heavenly hosts looked like they could be guiding the sound into just the right location for listening pleasure.

Something made the acoustics sing during a special “Evensong” last week that marked what was believed to be the first visit by the Episcopal Presiding Bishop in 190 years.

I know choral church music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – heck, it’s torture for some -- but when done right, I find it spiritually uplifting in a way few other human endeavors match. And, frankly, the Catholic churches I’ve been attending have shrunk so much they rarely have the people power to pull off a full-throated songfest. That’s no reflection on their music ministries; it’s just a reality of our time.

Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori didn’t have much to do other than sit and listen. This wasn’t a Mass, or an elaborate ritual. It was mostly a concert with the crowd occasionally joining in, punctuated by a few readings, highlighted by Jefferts Schori’s sermon.
Faith is a lifelong learning process

She opened by rattling off some of the nations the Episcopal Church calls home. “Greetings from our diocese in Colombia, The Dominican Republic, Ecuador … Austria, Belgium, France, Germany … and the other 99 Episcopal Dioceses in the U.S.”

The last comment drew chuckles during a pause, after which she added “They pray for you; I would ask that you pray for them.”

Jefferts Schori acknowledged shortcomings not only of her faith, but of religion in general. The number of Americans who are essentially not connected to any church keeps climbing rapidly, even as the vast majority of us claim to be spiritual.

She stressed that faith is a lifelong learning process. “We don’t learn what we need to know by the time we are confirmed at the age of 12 or 13.”

The presiding bishop did not touch on any of the issues threatening to divide the Episcopal Church, such as appointing an openly gay bishop, allowing priests to bless same-sex unions, or the ordination of women as priests that, while not new, rankles traditionalists. Jefferts Schori is the first female presiding bishop in the 220 years the position has existed.

I confess, after a lifetime of male-only sermons in Catholic churches, there was something refreshing about hearing a woman’s voice at the podium, but it may have simply been the novelty. It was the universal tidbits in her message that struck me.

When she summed up the Episcopalian mission in a single sentence, I thought the message transcended the moment. Though spoken in a church, it should hold true in any setting; a worthwhile goal for everyone:

“We participate in trying to heal this world. That’s what we’re here for.”

The Presiding Bishop - by Bishop Paul Marshall

2009-11-18T17:54:00.002-05:00

This blog originally appeared on the DioBeth blog site -newSpin on November 18, 2009 and will appear in the December issue of Diocesan Life

November 18, 2009

The Presiding Bishop –– An Appreciation and Reminders for Parish Leaders

By Bishop Paul Marshall

[During her visit to the Diocese of Bethlehem, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was attentive, appreciative, and evocative. She gave feedback. She was encouraging. She could, when necessary change. She maintained a non-anxious presence and she stayed connected. –– The Bishop's column below will appear in the December issue of Diocesan Life.]

November was a banner month for our diocese. For the first time in more than two decades we were honored by a visit from the chief pastor of The Episcopal Church, the Presiding Bishop.

I designed the visit as carefully as I could to insure that she saw our best efforts, our most innovative efforts, along with our challenges and deficits. Bishop Jack and I also individually spent private car time with her so that she would know what the episcopate is like in this diocese.

I need to thank, in order of occurrence, the Standing Committee, New Hope, the Stewardship and Evangelism commissions, the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Grace Church and School in Allentown, New Bethany Ministries in Bethlehem, Trinity Soup Kitchen in Bethlehem, the gathered staff, St. Luke’s in Lebanon, Project REACH and St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral in Wilkes-Barre, the youth of our Diocese, the assembled clergy, and Good Shepherd in Scranton, all of whom helped give the Presiding Bishop an accurate picture of our life together.

Additionally, so many hands and voices provided hospitality, music, and general assistance (including parking!) with this project. Mother Hillary Dowling Raining and Ely Valentin did the heavy lifting for the visit.

I am also grateful for those who engaged the Presiding Bishop in conversation at the three churches where Evensong, receptions and open forums took place and at clergy day.

There are some aspects of leadership that Bishop Katharine demonstrated that all who lead might think about.

In the first place she was attentive. Every place we visited, she noticed things that were unique about the place and took the time to really look at them. This was even more true with people and programs: she gave whomever she engaged her complete attention.

Then, she was appreciative. She worked to understand what was being said or shown, and to see its value. She was verbal in her appreciation and respectful of her interlocutors, whether they were homeless persons or elected officials of the diocese.

She was evocative. We have a little saying in our office that Bill Lewellis developed from an old Wall Street ad. Our version is, “When we listen, people speak.” People tended to hesitate to ask the first question, but Bishop Katharine’s way of listening carefully and respectfully when that question got asked, had other people in the room bubbling away.

She gave feedback. Particularly with the youth group, she took what they said seriously enough to pursue conversation with them. That in turn brought forward more conversation and genuine growth in thought. She taught gently by making sure lights were turned out when groups left a room.

She was encouraging. Every church and ministry she visited heard from her that they were appreciated for what they were doing, and encouraged to keep it up. She offered suggestions as appropriate.

She could, when necessary, change. As it became apparent to her in each evening’s discussions that certain remarks at General Convention had perplexed some people and alienated others, in her closing sermon to the clergy she finally just said she was sorry to have not been clearer, and recast the remarks in a way that would make sense to all.

Most important, I think, is that she maintained a non-anxious presence. She never made the mistake of taking oppositional words personally. In the face of some tough questioning, she kept the focus on her vision for the church’s participation in the work of God. This is the hardest skill leaders have to master, and she is one of the best models I have seen of the non-anxious style of leadership. It has none of the excitement of demagoguery, and for that very reason invites sane people to follow.

Finally, her mission is to stay connected. The Presiding Bishop is required by canons to visit dioceses once in a nine-year term. That averages out to about twelve a year. Ours is the eighty-ninth visit she has made in only three and a half years. She leads the church by being present in it.

I think, then, along with all the fun we had during the week, we also had the opportunity to see an expert leader in action and we all felt a desire to rededicate ourselves to our ministry and mission.

05:40 AM in Bishop, Column, Presiding Bishop

12 Day of Christmas

2009-11-12T16:36:00.002-05:00

12 Days of Christmas for Kajo Keji
The World Mission Committee is again sponsoring the 12 Days of Christmas for Kajo Keji. Instead of giving Aunt Mildred a sweater she doesn't want, why not give a gift in her honor to those really in need? Items range in price from $5 for a net ball to $250 for a scholarship. Deadline is December 15th.

Forms can be found in the back of our church and in the side entrance vestibule for your convenience.

Just Grace; for today

2009-11-10T18:54:00.005-05:00

Our church is struggling with the need to help those that are homeless, thru the REACH program (google it and you won't find supportive articles in the local newspapers), helping them to find housing, providing counseling for the families, a single case worker helps to navigate the the local and state forms for assistance along with parental counseling -to keep children (not at physical risk) with the family. Or simply with food for the day, "give us this day our daily bread" (How many of us have food enough JUST for today ? ) We host this program in our church, because of the Pa state budget fiasco they are struggling both with finances for operation and to meet those needs ( only 2 workers verses over 20 families served this year and countless day to day visitors in need). Our struggle is not with; Should we help them?" the answer is - We do it because it is the right thing to do. there is no other church in our city that provides the services that we have. Our struggle is with those that prey upon those seeking help or those that know of the church and its program and exploit it for their own purposes, using the address to elude consequences of their actions, the location for illegal transactions- believing they are "invisible" to city workers, residents and authorities. They are not.
How do we still maintain our mission of living, and serving Christ's love in our community while discouraging or removing the elements that, by their mere presence, conflict with city and legal authority, putting at risk those who need the services and those that worship at St Stephens. Splitting mauls are wonderful tools - if you are working with wood-
but not with sentient beings. Perhaps there is no clear cut absolute answer - just grace, for today.

2009-11-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral on Sunday, November 1^st at 5:00 p.m. presented a truly uplifting musical and liturgical experience. St. Stephen’s Choir, combined with the Choir of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, sang the Requiem, Op. 9 by French composer Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986), within the context of an authentic Requiem Mass for All Souls’ Day (November 2^nd, transferred to November 1^st). On this day, we remember in prayer all those who have died and pray for God’s comfort for all who mourn the passing of loved ones.

We are truly privileged that the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, the Right Reverend Paul Marshall, was with us as Celebrant and Preacher for this extraordinary event. Also participating was the Reverend Canon George Loeffler, Deacon and Chaplain to Bishop Marshall, and the Reverend Daniel Cube Gunn, Rector of St. Stephen’s.

The combined choirs from Nativity Cathedral and St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral were conducted by Canon Russell Jackson, Organist and Choirmaster at Nativity. Canon Mark Laubach accompanying the choirs at the organ. Soloists were Carol Tome, mezzo-soprano, and Charles Unice, baritone. Also joined by Christiane Appenheimer-Vaida, violoncello.

Maurice Duruflé’s exquisite setting of the Requiem utilizes the traditional plainsong melodies, set amid lush harmonies and sonorities. It takes a well earned place of honor with other fabled musical settings of the Requiem mass by Verdi, Mozart, Berlioz, and Fauré.

Canon Mark Laubach, Organist & Choirmaster

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church

Missa Luba

2009-10-18T13:02:00.000-04:00

Missa Luba [From Mark Laubach]
Dear friends,

Many of you have commented to me since diocesan convention with your enthusiastic reaction to the Missa Luba which
St. Stephen’s Choir sang at the Eucharist on Saturday morning. A number of you asked for more details,
so I thought I would post something here about what we sang, how we came to do it, and who were our wonderful guest
musicians (conductor, tenor soloist, percussionists) that morning.

What we sang was the Missa Luba (I believe Luba refers to the language of that part of Africa), which was arranged
and composed by Fr. Guido Haazen (d. 2004), a Franciscan Friar from Belgium, who arrived in the Congo in 1953 as a missionary.
The Missa was first performed and recorded in 1958, and uses traditional Congolese music. Bishop Paul has been eager to have
this sung at a diocesan liturgy for as many years as he’s been our bishop, and finally this seemed to be the right time
and opportunity to do it. I’m sure we’ll do it again in the future, and I hope to have more of my singers here for it
(too many of my choir members had unanticipated conflicts with this weekend, unfortunately) and fix the spots that didn’t
quite go 100% well! This music is not exceedingly demanding of the choir, though it goes better with more singers, and it’s
so very different from what a group like ours is accustomed to singing. So it was a bit of a stretch for us, both in terms of
numbers and stylistic awareness. But I think we felt as though it went quite well, and that the hours of preparation were all
very much worth the experience.

In Missa Luba, the greatest musical demands fall on the shoulders of the tenor soloist and the percussionists, all of whom
need to have some sensitivity to stylistic idiosyncrasies in performing traditional African music. We were supremely blessed
with a tremendous tenor and talented and knowledgeable percussionists. Our tenor soloist was Lazaro Calderon, a native
Puerto Rican who is now based in Manhattan and studies at Juilliard. (BTW, Lazaro will be making his Carnegie Hall debut
in a month, singing the lead role in Cavalleria Rusticana, I believe!) Lazaro came on the recommendation
of Andrew Krystopolski (a former organ and church music student of mine at Marywood University, class of 2005 – now
full-time organist & choirmaster at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Essex Fells NJ), who ended up conducting the mass
at my invitation. I thought Andrew would enjoy doing it and would “get” that style far better than I ever could, and I was
absolutely right. He was thrilled to be asked, and I was relieved to have one less job to do in a very busy weekend.
Lazaro was a joy to work with, as were the drummers, Monica Spishock, Robert Burns, and James Curtis. Although the choir
and I had been preparing the Missa Luba since late August, we put it all together with Andrew, Lazaro, and the drums after
Evensong on Friday night.

I am truly proud of the St. Stephen’s Choir members who worked so hard in putting together both Friday’s Evensong
and the Saturday morning Eucharist, all the while preparing the Duruflé Requiem for November 1st here at St. Stephen’s (5 p.m.)
and again on November 8th (4 p.m.) at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and while preparing for the
Presiding Bishop’s visit for Evensong on November 11th! In this past week alone, our singers were here for 2½ hours on Thursday
evening, about 3½ hours Friday evening, about 2½ hours Saturday morning, and then again for about 2 hours on Sunday morning!
Their dedication and enthusiasm inspire me – they truly do model discipleship in action!

I would also like to thank all those from throughout the diocese who were here for the convention. Speaking for Fr. Daniel Gunn,
our wardens, vestry, staff, and parishioners, it’s a great privilege and honor for us to host convention and other diocesan events
here at St. Stephen’s. For me personally, it’s a particular joy to reconnect with so many “old” friends and make “new” friends,
and to accompany such enthusiastic congregational singing. (This means I can let the organ “wail” just a little louder
(perhaps a “guilty pleasure”?), and together we can create some uplifting moments in our corporate worship. As Bishop Paul often
says, “Church can and should be fun!”)

And finally, my deep thanks to Bishop Marshall, Archdeacon Stringfellow, and all the members of the Liturgy and Music
Commission who worked so hard on so many fronts to make the convention liturgies so well planned, smoothly executed, meaningful,
spirited, elegant, and reverent.

Peace –

Mark Laubach

Canon Mark Laubach, Organist & Choirmaster
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church
Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Bethlehem
35 South Franklin Street
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701
Telephone: (570)825-6653
Fax: (570)825-0430
www.ststephenswb.org

If not a Democratic God, at least a Democratic Church

2009-10-07T12:54:00.000-04:00

If not a Democratic God, at least a Democratic Church

Rector's Message
Written by Daniel C. Gunn
Wednesday, 07 October 2009
If not a Democratic God, at least a Democratic Church A few years ago I wrote an academic philosophy paper in which I argued that “God” is a democratic ideal. To attempt to summarize a twenty-plus page paper in a few lines would be futile, but in short I argued that the way we think about God is the triumph of a majority vote. Those who are in the minority with their views on God are the ones we label “heretics.” Orthodoxy, then, is whatever a majority of people believe. When I presented the paper to a scholastic theology society I was very nearly branded a heretic myself. I still think there’s merit to my idea. Recently while preparing to give a talk to a college class on the Episcopal Church I found myself making a similar argument. I told them emphatically that we are a democratic church even as we are also a hierarchical church. Certainly we have bishops, but our bishops are elected by the clergy and laity of the diocese. And yes we have a Primate, but that person is also elected. Even as rector, though the bishop appoints me, the Vestry first elected me. It is amazing to see how God can take the independent opinions of individuals and shape them into something to be used for good. This fall you have the opportunity to see our democratic church at work from every level and angle. Beginning with Diocesan Convention you can witness God at work through individuals. Even if you’re not a delegate you can volunteer to help make us a successful host. Then later in the month of October we will gather as a parish family for our Annual Meeting. At that meeting we will elect new Vestry members and delegates to the 2010 Diocesan Convention. You will also have the opportunity to hear about the state of your parish from the leadership and committee chairs. Finally, in November our Presiding Bishop, the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, Ph. D., D. D. (I have been advised to just call her Bishop Katharine) will be with us for an Evensong, reception, and question and answer session. She will preach at the Evensong and following the reception she will make herself available to answer any questions you might have, time permitting. I think I’ll dig out that old paper of mine on the “Democratic God,” and give some thought again about how God works mysteriously through flawed, broken people. This fall will be a good time to think on this, even if it makes me a heretic. - Fr. Daniel

Giants and Tempests

2009-10-06T16:16:00.000-04:00

We all have giants in our lives, those situations and times in where all we can see is the size and the seemingly impossibility of the task at hand. Cleaning out a closet, quitting a habit, getting the kids dressed in the morning, readjusting the household budget, doing the taxes, finding your glasses.... from big to small these things can stop us in our tracks and leave us motionless.Tempests- when everything seems to be swirling around you and completely out of your control.A tempest day happened me not long ago. A day that started out normal and once it went out of control it went spiraling quickly, leaving me to move from one moment to the other and responding to each situation not leaving time to think or relax, until everything had resolved themselves and I sat down, sincerely thanking God for giving me the patience and strength to respond to each of the needs of those around me without losing my temper, or getting emotionally embattled.David faced a Goliath, literally. But not with sword and armor, but with stones and a slingshot and more importantly "in the name of the Lord" trusting in the God of Israel to deliver the giant into his hand. The disciples were in the middle of a tempest, their boat being swamped by the waves caused by the windstorm, waking Jesus to ask him, Don't you care that we are about to perish ?Rebuking the waves and calming the sea, he than turned to them and asked "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"Faith and Trust, at once easy and difficult to do. Give me a computer, and a question - I can find the answer. Hand me a trowel and plants - I can get it planted.That GetterDone attitude is easier to do than to Trust and have Faith