Cow Hollow Church News The Episcopal Church of Saint Mary the Virgin Fall 2014 At Home in This Place The Rev. Scott E. Richardson, Rector Two friends took their grandson to a deserted town in Montana, now a state park. They entered an old church to take a peek. Five‐year old Sean immediately stepped toward the front and stood at the lectern. He then asked those present to sit down. When those present did not immediately comply, he came out from behind the lectern to repeat his request, moving his hands out and down. Sean went back behind the lectern and said, “Welcome to our church.” He spoke a few words and then stated that it was time for some music. He softly sang a few bars of a tune he made up on the spot and finally said, “Thank you for coming to our church. You can go now.” On September 7 we will celebrate “Homecoming Sunday” – that moment when we shift back into the program year schedule, reboot the 5:30 service, kick off the Sunday School, and welcome back all those who have been away. We also remind ourselves of what it means to be a member of this parish, to be “at home” in this place. Sean might serve as our role model in that regard. He knows he belongs, he has a message to share, and he has a tune in his heart. In like manner, you belong. That holds true whether you have been here for fifty years or for fifteen minutes. You have been invited by God to express your message and sing your song. This church is here to help you do that; in fact, that is our primary purpose. So what might your message and your song sound like? Good news, a joyful noise, life overcoming death, light overwhelming darkness, health emerging from malady, grace trumping tragedy. That (to get fancy for just a second) is your teleological destiny, your promised end. But why wait to the end to discover and express that word? Why not live out your good news even now? Because, one might respond, life isn’t always that rosy. We stand in the midst of a storm, on the edge of great change in our culture and in the Episcopal Church. These changes also touch our homes and our bodies from time to time. In the face of that undeniable truth, Holy Scripture calls us to surrender to the One who brought nature into being, who redeems the whole creation, and who blows through the cosmos and our own souls every day. We are brave enough to accept life on life’s terms because we hold to the resurrection vision of life restored and, ultimately, perfected. And we return to our true home every time we repeat that affirmation. That is the message we will celebrate together on Homecoming Sunday and every Sunday this fall. We are delighted to share that word and sing that song with you.
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Transcript
Cow
Hollow Church News
T h e E p i s c o p a l C h u r c h o f S a i n t M a r y t h e V i r g i n F a l l 2 0 1 4
At Home in This Place The Rev. Scott E. Richardson, Rector
Two friends took their grandson to a deserted town in Montana, now a state park. They entered an old church
to take a peek. Five‐year old Sean immediately stepped toward the front and stood at the lectern. He then
asked those present to sit down. When those present did not immediately comply, he
came out from behind the lectern to repeat his request, moving his hands out and
down. Sean went back behind the lectern and said, “Welcome to our church.” He
spoke a few words and then stated that it was time for some music. He softly sang a
few bars of a tune he made up on the spot and finally said, “Thank you for coming to
our church. You can go now.”
On September 7 we will celebrate “Homecoming Sunday” – that moment when we
shift back into the program year schedule, reboot the 5:30 service, kick off the Sunday
School, and welcome back all those who have been away. We also remind ourselves of what it means to be a
member of this parish, to be “at home” in this place. Sean might serve as our role model in that regard. He
knows he belongs, he has a message to share, and he has a tune in his heart. In like manner, you belong. That
holds true whether you have been here for fifty years or for fifteen minutes. You have been invited by God to
express your message and sing your song. This church is here to help you do that; in fact, that is our primary
purpose.
So what might your message and your song sound like? Good news, a joyful noise, life overcoming death,
light overwhelming darkness, health emerging from malady, grace trumping tragedy. That (to get fancy for
just a second) is your teleological destiny, your promised end. But why wait to the end to discover and
express that word? Why not live out your good news even now?
Because, one might respond, life isn’t always that rosy. We stand in the midst of a storm, on the edge of great
change in our culture and in the Episcopal Church. These changes also touch our homes and our bodies from
time to time. In the face of that undeniable truth, Holy Scripture calls us to surrender to the One who brought
nature into being, who redeems the whole creation, and who blows through the cosmos and our own souls
every day. We are brave enough to accept life on life’s terms because we hold to the resurrection vision of life
restored and, ultimately, perfected.
And we return to our true home every time we repeat that affirmation. That is the message we will celebrate
together on Homecoming Sunday and every Sunday this fall. We are delighted to share that word and sing
that song with you.
Page 2 Fall 2014 The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin
News of Note from the Sr. Warden
Betty Hood‐Gibson
A Hero – Someone You Want To Be Like
“A celebrity is someone you want to meet. A hero
is someone you want to be like.” Former Secretary
of Defense and current chancellor of William and
Mary, Robert M. Gates, shared this quote as he
introduced Sgt. First Class Leroy A. Petry as the
commencement speaker at this year’s William and
Mary Commencement, which my husband and I
attended for the graduation of our grandniece. Sgt.
Petry was the recipient in 2011 of the nation’s
highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, for
actions in 2008 in Afghanistan. Petry is only the
second recipient for Afghanistan and Iraq to be
living when the award was granted.
Petry is truly a hero. He saved two fellow soldiers
in combat in Afghanistan. Petry was serving as the
senior noncommissioned officer on an unusual
daytime mission and things quickly got dangerous.
He and one of his fellow Rangers were hit by
enemy fire, Petry in both thighs, but they found
cover. After Petry reported their situation, another
Ranger joined them, with Petry throwing a grenade
toward the enemy to divert attention from his
comrade. Then an enemy grenade exploded about
10 meters from the three of them, injuring the other
two soldiers. Suddenly, another enemy grenade
landed just a few feet from the three Rangers.
Acting on instinct, Petry saved his two fellow
soldiers, as well as himself, by picking up the
grenade and hurling it away. The grenade
exploded as he threw, destroying his throwing
hand. But he and his fellow soldiers survived.
After 10 months of surgeries and physical and
occupational therapy, he returned home to his wife
and four children. With the use of an amazing
prosthetic hand, he is still able to do most things on
his own and he is still in the Army.
In his Commencement address, Petry recalled his
Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. In
honoring Petry, the President said, “Our heroes are
all around us.” Petry explained, “What he meant by
that statement is that you do not need to be
nationally recognized, rewarded or even
acknowledged to be a hero to somebody. Nor do
you need to wear a uniform. It could be something
as simple as listening to someone’s problem or
acknowledging them, working to make your
community and country a better place. The fact is
you have the ability to significantly impact others
around you every day.”
How true that is. Here at St. Mary’s we have the
ability to significantly impact others around us
every day. In fact, we have many heroes at St.
Mary’s. I was talking with some St. Mary’s friends
about heroes within our own community and here
are a few of the St. Mary’s heroes we identified:
1. Those who tirelessly teach our children on
Sunday mornings in ways that inspire and
encourage.
2. Those who greet everyone coming in to
worship with a smile, a program, and a
helping hand.
3. Those who quietly prepare the altar for the
Feast of the Holy Eucharist.
4. Those who inspire us in the worship
services with thoughtful words and with
music prepared through hours of practice
and preparation.
5. Those who quickly volunteer to set up
chairs and tables for worship and special
meetings.
6. Those who volunteer to serve on various
committees so that the work of St. Mary’s
can continue.
7. Those who come faithfully to participate in
the worship services and to join in offering
prayers for those in need and prayers of
thanksgiving and praise.
8. Those who give their time and energy, often
in ways none of us can know, to help St.
Mary’s be a place of love, peace, welcoming
and thanksgiving in our world.
Just look at the community here at St. Mary’s!
“Our heroes are all around us.”
Cow Hollow Church News Fall 2014 Page 3
Sunday School News Nancy Clark, Sunday School Co‐Director
By way of announcing the beginning of another
Sunday School year we present this photo of St.
Mary’s 2014 Confirmation Class whose
Confirmation at Grace Cathedral was in June.
Now it’s September, summer activities are winding
down, and another Sunday School year is about to
begin. As always we welcome pre‐school through
Confirmation aged children to our Sunday School
program which this year will begin with
registration and classes on September 7. No
worries if your family can’t be there on opening
day; registration is on‐going; newcomers are
always welcome; and activities will be light‐touch.
Our aim from Sunday to Sunday, all through the
year, and in varying ways as children move
through the grade levels, is to bring our Sunday
School children to full participation in the
community life of St. Mary’s. Feeling at ease in the
Sunday School classrooms, meeting children from
other schools, learning a new prayer or two,
hearing Bible stories, learning about saints and
heroes, and figuring out what we do in church and
why we do it, are all components of our Sunday
School “curriculum.”
In the weeks to come we will post the Sunday
School schedule for the first semester as well as
updates about fall activities and themes such as
Old Testament stories, St. Francis celebrations, Dia
de los Muertos and All Saints Day, and of course
Advent and Christmas.
Phil Woodworth guided another large group to Confirmation at Grace Cathedral in June. Outside the cathedral,
standing, left to right: Phil Woodworth, Melanie Pitzer, Sam Parkinson, Gage Tuller, Johnny Dahlem, Isabel Glen, Emma
Hauswirth, Haley Hockin, and Annabel Mack; seated, left to right: Sadie Ray Smith, Zachary Ynzunza, Peter Coholan,
George Sutton, Camilla Sigmund, and Sophie Mack; not shown: Elle Boyden, Grant Curry, Robbie Ferguson, Charlie
Perkins, Kate Tunnell, Sam Reynolds, and Katherine Urdan.
Youth Group Mission Trip to Puerto Rico Izzy Paxton and Jessi Hagelshaw, Youth Group
Missioners
The Youth Group mission trip this year was a lot of
fun and definitely a great success! After an all night
flight, we landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico and were
met by our loving guide for the week, Hector.
Exhausted, we drove to our home for the week: a
beautiful home in the city of Luquillo, in the
northeast corner of PR. We spent our down time
here bonding over card games and playing pool.
After we had a short time to settle in, we left for a
tour of the area. Hector and our driver Nick
showed us around Luquillo and showed us some
highlights. We ended up on a beach nearby and
indulged in water that was delightfully warm, naps
on the beach, and some ice cream from a passing
vendor. After our time on the beach we came back
to our house to a wonderful meal prepared by
Hector’s son and wife who lovingly cooked
delicious dinners for us all week.
The next day we went to Las Cabezas de San Juan,
a nature preserve on the island. Las Cabezas
protects several different ecological areas, and we
were given a tour of the amazingly diverse beauty,
which included a mangrove forest, cliffs
overlooking the ocean, beaches, and the oldest
lighthouse in Puerto Rico. After our tour, we
started our service with the group doing
archeological work in Las Cabezas. We were given
As Mike Stafford wrote in this thank you note to donors, “The people we encountered through our service were loving
and generous, and it was a joy to see God so abundantly present everywhere we went. This trip would not have been
possible if not for your generosity, and for that we are deeply appreciative. Please enjoy the included picture of the
group, taken in the Plaza Colón in Old San Juan. Your picture was signed by each of the participants, who are so
grateful for your love and support.” Signers as pictured, left to right; back row: James Sutton, Liam McSpadden,
Skylar Morgan, Diana Silvestri, Ginny Woodworth, Joey Moore, Catherine Silvestri, Christina Gallagher, Ben
Dierkhising; front row: Jackie Schroeder, Mike Stafford, Izzy Paxton, Maddie Vestal, Colleen Smith, Jessi Hagelshaw.
Page 4 Fall 2014 The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin
Cow Hollow Church News Fall 2014 Page 5
huge bags full of rocks, shells, and fragments of
bone and pottery from an excavation site on the
beach we had visited. We sifted through, cleaned
and sorted the material while getting to know one
another better. After our work for the day was
done, we got to go to the beach next to the nature
preserve and take a much‐needed swim to cool off.
We were lucky to be able to go back to Las Cabezas
and this time we got to work directly in the
excavation site. We split into two groups and
tackled two different projects. One group stayed in
the archaeological site and dug up various shells
and pieces of pottery dating all the way back to 300
AD. The other group took buckets full of dirt from
the site and sifted it out in the ocean to find the
shells, pottery and pieces of bone. Halfway through
the day we switched, so everyone was able to
experience both jobs. After our work for the day
was done, we took a more extensive tour of the
area around Luquillo. We learned more about the
various communities and were told about some of
the hardships that they face.
After our time at Las Cabezas, we reflected on how
we viewed service, and how this experience
challenged that. Many of us said that we felt that
service was doing things that directly benefitted
someone who was less fortunate than ourselves,
such as helping with kids, or building things.
Honestly, many of us felt that we hadn’t been
engaged in service, especially after the first day at
Las Cabezas. But during one of our nighttime
debriefing sessions, we really explored what
service really is, and how many forms it can take.
We realized that during our time at the nature
preserve we had been of service in many ways. We
had served the people working with the
archeological team because they rely entirely on
volunteers, and since we were helping preserve
history that could be washed away by rising
oceans, we were serving those whom this historical
information would benefit. This was a turning
point for many of us as we realized just how many
different forms service can take.
On the fourth day of the trip, we went to the Boys
and Girls Club of Loíza. Loíza is a city in Puerto
Rico with some of the greatest poverty and largest
gang membership. When we arrived, we were led
into the Club’s rec room where we introduced
ourselves to a group of at least 100 kids, and then
they all swept us away to play. For the rest of the
day we got to wander around with the kids,
playing dominoes and Just Dance 2 inside, or
braving the heat to join them outside in basketball
and jump rope. When it was finally time for us to
leave, it was a sad occasion. The older kids parted
with us gracefully, with simple goodbyes and a few
hugs, while a group of younger girls followed us to
the vans, jumping on us and refusing to let us go.
The next day, we got to meet Rebekah and Brendan
Yoder at the Evangelical School for the Deaf in
Luquillo. They are an American couple who had
moved to Puerto Rico from Virginia because
Brendan was a pilot who needed to be on call in the
event of oil spills. They had heard about the School
for the Deaf before moving, and when they got to
Puerto Rico, Rebekah decided that she wanted to
work there. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend
any time with the kids that the school serves
because school was out for the summer, but that
just meant that we could focus all of our energy
into fixing up the school itself. We were given a
tour, and then quickly broken up into three groups:
digging a drainage ditch, and scraping and
painting two different parts of the school facility. It
was hot, dirty work but we all really got to feel the
effects of the work we had done that day; especially
while trying to scrub paint off of our hands using
paint thinner and rags. The projects we did were
difficult and extensive enough that Brendan and
Rebekah could not have done all of it alone and it
felt good to be able to be of service to them and the
school.
We left the School for the Deaf shortly after lunch,
and headed to El Yunque National Forest. El
Yunque is protected by the National Forest Service,
and is actually the first forest ever to be nationally
protected. Nick, one of our guides for the week, has
Page 6 Fall 2014 The Episcopal Church of St. Mary the Virgin
spent countless hours in El Yunque, and shared his
passion for the forest as our tour guide. As he led
us up the mountain toward the top of a set of
waterfalls, he showed us how to make natural bug
repellent from tree sap and told us how to catch
giant crawfish from the streams at night. When we
finally reached the top, we got a chance to really
feel the difference in temperature between the rain
forest and the beaches, by swimming in the
waterfall. Where the beaches were so hot that the
water felt like a bath, the rivers in the rain forest
were so well protected from the sun that the
waterfall was freezing cold. We splashed around in
it for a bit and then quickly dried off and headed
back down the mountain.
On the Saturday before we left to come home, we
got to spend an entire day in the beautiful city of
Old San Juan. Colorful and full of life, Old San Juan
was definitely a highlight of the trip. The first thing
we did was hop on one of the
city’s free public buses, and ride to
our first stop, El Castillo San Felipe
del Morro. Originally built by the
Spanish to protect Puerto Rico
from invasions, the fortress was
now a huge tourist draw, with
beautiful views and interesting
architecture. After that, we split
into three groups to wander the
city. We stopped by the Catedral
de San Juan Bautista, a cathedral dating back to the
16th century where (more recently) American pop
singer Jennifer Lopez was married to celebrity
singer‐producer Marc Anthony. We ate delicious
Puerto Rican food for lunch, accompanied by our
staple Piña Coladas (virgin, of course), and stopped
into a ridiculous number of souvenir shops to find
that perfect thing to bring home for our friends and
families. The small groups rendezvoused for a
quick group picture in the Plaza Colón, and with
that the day ended and we were shuttled back into
the vans to go home.
We finished out our time in Puerto Rico with an
amazing day on a catamaran. We visited two
different reefs where we got to snorkel and absorb
the absolute beauty of the biodiversity of the ocean.
We saw more species of fish than we could count—
including two barracudas. It was a truly unique
experience for everyone. Unfortunately, a day
spent on a boat and floating in the water came with
a few bad sunburns, but even with those it was a
successful last day. Our flight home left San Juan at
2:45 a.m., and you can bet we slept soundly.
Trips like these are transformative for those who
participate in them. On Sunday, September 28, the
Mission Trippers will be preaching at all services
about the impact of their work, so we look forward
to sharing more with you then. We had such a
great time during this week of service and bonding,
and would like to extend our sincerest thanks to
those who made it possible.
Mission Fundraising A Complete Success Mike Stafford, Director of Youth
Programs
A parishioner approached me in
the courtyard one Sunday after
appeal for Mission Trip donations,
and asked if I thought we would
actually achieve our fundraising
goal. At that point we still had to
raise $8,000 of the $15,000 we needed, and we were
running out of time with only about three weeks
left to go. I responded that St. Mary’s was always
incredibly generous when it came to funding the
trip, and that we had always reached our goal, and
there was no reason to believe that this year would
be any different. Sure enough, donors came out of
the woodwork, from folks who bought goods at the
bake sales to some individuals and families who
donated over $1,000 each. Thank you to the whole
parish who helped get us to (and back from) Puerto
Rico. Trips like this can be expensive, but they are
SAVE THESE DATES First Sunday Feast Day – Sunday, September 7, following the
11 am service, in the Great Room
Ministries Fair – Sunday, September 14, following the 8 am, 9 am & 11 am services, in the courtyard
Registration for Sunday School – Sunday, September 14, after the 9 am service, in the courtyard
Open Cathedral – Sunday, September 21. For details on attending, contact Nancy Bryan at [email protected].
First Sunday Feast Day – Sunday, October 5, following the 11 am service, in the Great Room
Halloween Monster Fest – Saturday, October 25, 6 pm, in the church. For more information or to help, contact Steve Repasky [email protected]
First Sunday Feast Day – Sunday, November 2, following the 11 am service, in the Great Room
Requiem by John Rutter – Saturday, November 1, 7 pm at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, and Sunday, November 2, during the 11 am service at St. Mary the Virgin
Night Ministry 50th Anniversary – Sunday, November 16, 3 pm, at Grace Cathedral and 7 pm at Delancey Street restaurant
Visitation of Bp. Marc Andrus – Sunday, November 23