by the Rev. Susan Moss
Back in mid-May, the Sabbatical Season of Renewal was about to begin for our rector Jered, his family, the staff, and congregation. We were all preparing to head out into unknown territory. (Wagons Ho!) I asked, in a homily, one of my favorite questions: “What’s in the room?”
As I write today, we are heading into the final month of the Sabbatical Season.
In the midst of another glorious, always too short summer, there have been new faces at the altar and new voices in the pulpit, a pilgrimage, two weddings and an ordination. We gathered as a community of faith to mourn the deaths and support the families of Dick Lyman, Jeanne Gilbertson, and Cooper Olson.
An ice cream social, sabbatical dinners, a rousing Thursday Book group, young adult and young family gatherings and the picnic with Holy Apostles are deepening relationships among us. We will bid farewell and thanks to Monte Mason as Interim Music Director though he will continue as Compline Coordinator.
What’s “in the room?” these days?
In September a mix of familiar and new faces will literally be in the room on Sundays. Margaret Thor is back in the deacon’s post. Associate Rector Craig Lemming will join Julie, Barbara, and me at the altar and in the pulpit. Music Director Richard Gray will be on the organist bench, and with the choir’s return, we will resume the use of the high altar.
As we prepare now to welcome and celebrate Jered and his family’s return, I urge you to take time to reflect on these Sabbatical months. One of the ways to do this is by practicing The Examen. For centuries prayerful people have found direction by setting aside time to ask two questions: For what am I most grateful? For what am I least grateful? One of the aims of the St. John’s Sabbatical is to increase connection with one another. So you might also ask: When today did I have the greatest sense of belonging to myself, to others, to God and the universe? When did I have the least sense of belonging?* Your reflections can lead to insights and direction on what to maintain and what to leave behind when the Sabbatical Season ends.
Father Greg Boyle is founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles: one of the world’s largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry programs. Boyle’s call to practice “kinship across lines of difference” inspired and gave shape to the founding of ECMN’s chapter of The Episcopal Service Corps, now beginning it’s third year. Craig Lemming, founding Program Director, named ECMN’s service corps Circle of the Beloved, reflecting MLK, Jr.’s vision of a society based on justice, love, equal opportunity and love of one’s fellow human being.
Boyle’s new book Barking to the Choir: Power of Radical Kinship was on my summer reading list. His stories of kinship with gang members have bearing on those who seek to increase deeper human connections that matter.
It is true enough, Boyle writes, that we could make the world more just, equal, and peaceful, but something holds us back, in all our complicated fear and human hesitation. It’s sometimes just plain hard to locate the will to be in kinship—even though, at the same time, it’s our deepest longing. So no matter how singularly focused we may be on our worthy goals of peace, justice, and equality, they actually can’t happen without an undergirding sense that we belong to each other. Seek first the kinship of God, then watch what happens.
In gratitude for the kinship you have shared with me,
Susan Moss
Sabbatical Priest in Charge
*Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life. Denis, Sheila, Matthew Linn Paulist Press
Originally published in the September-October 2018 Evangelist.
