As I look back, (and writing this has made that necessary) on the past 11 months I realize that this time has been a deeply happy and satisfying time in my life. I have learned to slow down, to be intentional, to appreciate.
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
The state of our society today, however, seems to thrust this familiar verse into our everyday lives in a new and more immediate way. The patterns of our lives have been disrupted and short term concerns and worries crowd out seemingly all else. We perceive novel challenges at every turn. We have hopes for positive outcomes, but assurance seems very hard to come by. Do we have faith? Can we have faith?
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
"How do you stand it ?"a close friend asked me not long ago. It is not always easy. Some days my tears flow freely, especially during the holiday season. I know I am not alone So many, maybe most of us, have suffered great losses of one type or the other during this time of the COVID-19 and in our lives. Through all our sufferings, God is with us. I have experienced this reality many times in my life. This I, with
certainty, know.
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
The psychologists who work with resiliency point to a range of other resources that contribute to resiliency, many of which involve ways and degrees of connection and community, apart from the attributes of the individual. When those can be strengthened and enlarged, both the individual and the community are more resilient. I pause at this – doesn't this echo strongly a message we hear so often at St John's, that the work of the church is community?
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
At the age of 89, she was carried out of the fire at her retirement home on the shoulder of a firefighter and declared ‘My, my, I will never forget that if I live to be a hundred!’ Nannie didn’t quite make it to one hundred, nearly though, and I was so blessed to have known her into my young adulthood.
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
The passage is central to my understanding of God and to my call as a beloved child of God, a unique work of God’s hands, molded in divine love. It tells me that as a created, thinking being, I am not yet fully formed. It helps me to understand that NOT knowing all of the answers to my big questions Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? That it is more than fine, it fact it’s may be my destiny to not fully understand the nature of God. To continue to play and wrestle with that understanding throughout my lifetime is a mission in itself.
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ (Copy)
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
The Rev. Anne Williamson
Christmas Traditions—12th Day of Christmas
Christmas is season and today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas – probably the highest profile day of the Christmas Season other than Christmas Day itself. At one time, the festivities of the Eve of the Epiphany rivaled those of Mardi Gras which might have been a reason for Shakespeare naming his play of romantic mayhem and disorder ‘Twelfth Night’.
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, as the song goes, a gift of twelve drummers drumming was given.I have been collecting Christmas ornaments depicting ‘a partridge in a pear tree’ and all the other Twelve Days giftsover the years.One of my favorite sets of ornaments comes from Louisville Stoneware.
My very favorite set of Twelve Days ornaments came from the old Strawberry Banke shop which some years ago stood on the site of the restaurant Mombo. I love these needlepoint ornaments and have great joy in bringing them out each year.
The celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and the Feast of Epiphany are not as much a focus in the US as in some other countries and I am always a bit sad to see a Christmas tree out on the street on December 26. But however you approach this season, it is what comes next that matters most. In his book ‘The Mood of Christmas’, Howard Thurman offers a prayer that reminds us not to forget the reason for the season as we pack away our beloved Christmas treasures. As this Christmas season draws to a close, I offer you The Work of Christmas and encourage you to wonder with me how we might respond to this invitation.
The Work of Christmas
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Monday, January 4, 2021
Cathy Stevens Gustafson
11th Day of Christmas
Merry Christmas, St. John’s! I am connected to your wonderful community because my little brother is Fr. Rob Stevens. Living in Evanston, IL, I am a member of Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago and work as the Village Forester in a neighboring community. It has been one of the silver linings of the pandemic to be able to witness Rob’s work and thus feel more connected to him and your community. Thank you for being a shining light!
It is still Christmas! Even after the “big” day, after New Year’s, it is still Christmas and all the Christmas merchandise is on sale in the stores. Rick & I used to go every New Years day to Marshall Field’s in downtown Chicago and be first in line to eat at the Walnut Room under the big Christmas tree. It was a great time to go because everything was still decorated & we had no problems getting a table. We would meet his Aunt for brunch/lunch and then afterwards we would shop. That was my favorite part! All of the Christmas stuff would be marked down to 75% off! I love getting a good deal. I often bought gifts for people for NEXT Christmas! It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but I still enjoy those memories and I still love getting a good deal!
Of course this year the Walnut Room is closed & I don't even know if they put up a tree. It has been a sad year and so hard for so many, but today it is still Christmas! God has become one of us and there is hope. See below a wonderful adaptation of Psalm 110 by Nan C. Merrill from Psalms for Praying, An Invitation to Wholeness. As you read and pray these words, please remember those whose reality is so different from yours and whose 2020 may have been so much worse.
You, O Divine Breath, dwell within
our hears; with
unconditional Love, You assuage
our fears.
You call us to holiness, to justice,
and integrity,
to free those bound by oppression,
to bring light where ignorance
and darkness dwell.
Come! Drink from the streams of
Living Water.
Come! Feast on the Bread of Life.
I love you all! It is still Christmas!
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Saturday, January 2, 2021
The Rev. Dick Siener
Faith
In this time of our lives when there is no "normal life", I have been enormously inspired by Henry Nouwen, a spiritual writer and mentor to many. I share some of his insights from his book, Here and Now, Living in the Spirit. One of our "faithless fears and worldly anxieties" is to be overwhelmed by a fatalistic response to severe problems in our earthly lives. Nouwen offers us this response, "Fatalism is the attitude that makes us live as passive victims of exterior circumstance beyond our control. The opposite of fatalism is faith. Faith is the deep trust that God's love is stronger than all the anonymous powers of the world and can transform us from victims of darkness into servants of light. It is important to identify the many ways in which we think, speak, or act with fatalism and, step by step, to convert them into moments of faith. This movement from fatalism to faith is the movement that will remove the cold darkness from our hearts and transform us into people whose trust in the power of love can, indeed, make mountains move.
I invite us all to focus in our spiritual journey on our actions of love which reveal God's light amidst the darkness of our world. I pray that "God is light and in God there is no darkness at all". May we walk in the light as God is the light and together, may we minister supported by God's love to this broken world.
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Friday, December 31, 2020
Olin Johannessen
Christmas Traditions
There are so many wonderful Christmas traditions out there; as many families and individuals, so are the many traditions. I wish to share with you a couple of ours.
One: Christmas, as Rob likes to say, is a season! Let it be celebrated all 12 days! We typically get our tree in the 20’s of December, and you better believe we keep it up all twelve days (and admittedly, usually far longer)! This includes enjoying the myriad festive movies, our seemingly endless collection of Christmas-themed CD’s, and with our big blended family, the gift giving and receiving stretches on, too. The greatest gift of Christmas for us is indeed the basking in it and enjoying everything it has to offer us.
Two: The other tradition I wish to share with you is one you can make, and perhaps adopt yourselves: Sausage rolls! Not fancy, but certainly decadent! Here are the instructions:
Purchase one or two canisters of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, and a roll of Jimmy Dean (the sausage guy, not the parish choir guy!) pre-ground breakfast sausage. Make sure you have some real maple syrup on hand.
When you’re ready to make them, be sure you’ve thawed the sausage, as it usually comes frozen.
Preheat oven to 350°.
On a baking sheet, unroll the crescent roll dough and lay flat. Using your fingers, scoop out some of the ground sausage and spread into a thin even layer atop the dough. Cover almost all of it (I leave a little thin patch at one end so that the end of the rolling-up process has only dough) and check for a nice even layer so it will cook evenly at the same rate.
Roll up the whole thing, slice into rounds, place them on their sides (You can leave the whole thing in a roll to bake, but it takes longer, and doesn’t allow each serving to have nice crispy edges), and pop those babies into the oven, center rack, for about 20 minutes or so. I never time it, but you can tell they’re done when the aroma is permeating your kitchen, the dough is golden brown, and the sausage is cooked and browned as well.
While the sausage rolls are baking, warm some real maple syrup - you will want it for dipping!
When the rolls appear browned and crisped, double check to make sure all sausage appears browned as well, and remove from the heat. (If you choose to bake the whole thing as one long roll and slice after, be sure to test with a meat thermometer, ground pork is done at 160°).
Rest for a few minutes, then enjoy!
We make these simple delicious treats every Christmas morning, and have been for as long as I can remember - it started with my mom and me. Now Ashley and I hope you’ll enjoy them, and perhaps adopt them into your family tradition, too. Merry Christmas to all!
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Dick Rozek
Christmas Traditions
“The theme is Christmas traditions,” Rob told me when he asked if I would write a brief personal reflection about it. “Yes, I can do that,” I told myself, and what follows is a glimpse into our family’s personal Christmases past. Rita, my wife and our family’s loving mom, was born into a French Canadian family in Barre, Vermont. My parents were Orthodox immigrants to America from a small Syrian village (pop. a few hundred). They settled in New Hampshire’s northernmost city, Berlin, back then a paper manufacturing colossus and the state’s fourth largest city.
Rita’s parents’ education, perhaps the equivalent of the 3 lowest grades, was in Canadian orphanages taught by Roman Catholic nuns. My dad’s father, whom I never knew, was the one village teacher back in Syria. My mother, born in America, was the eldest child and that automatically designated her as eligible to drop out of school to help raise her siblings.
Now that you know that much, I can reminisce a little about Christmas traditions for our own family and how that connects to what you’ve just learned. Christmas in our household was crammed with excitement and expectation and energy. Some years Christmas was spent here in the seacoast, in Portsmouth. Those years were filled with anticipation, hope, and joy, and of course, the beautiful St. John’s Christmas pageants with their wondrous story and the Christmas Eve mass. They began with the short trip to find and buy a tree for our living room. Then, the fun of decorating the tree with many lights, ribbons, ornaments, and silver tinsel, followed by the not-so-slow gathering of beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree. But, nothing compared to when the children were small and one of our sons awoke at 2am certain he heard Santa and the reindeer on our roof (it was me in the overhead crawl space trying disastrously to be discreetly quiet while Rita and I brought down pre-wrapped gifts to place under the tree)
Other years our family drove to Barre, VT or north to Berlin to enjoy the holiday with Rita’s or my family. Those, too, were filled with delightful excitement and glorious memories. Her parents were affectionately called Pepere and Memere). In Vermont we opened their gifts on Christmas morning and shared in delicious French-Canadian pork pies and mouth- watering home-baked raspberry pies. Always there was much singing, story-telling, Christmas meals, and visitations from Rita’s brothers and their families. Joyous is the expressive word.
Alternate years our family travelled north to Berlin where we enjoyed Christmas with my parents (Jido and Sito) and my brothers’ families. Christmas morn was filled with excitement, anticipation and laughter followed by delightfully delicious Syrian Christmas meals and pastries. Then, visits to cousins’ homes nearby and more reconnecting. Here again, there always was much singing and Syrian circle and line dancing (the DUP-kee) to music played on an old, but still working, Victrola (there’s a name out of the past!).
Yet, one thing more: in July we lost Rita to Parkinson’s Disease. We miss her daily and dearly and reflect often on her love for our family and our love for her. We see double rainbows and know that’s her telling us, “I’m here. I see you all and watch over you from here and I love you.” We love her back.
Who could have guessed: a French-Canadian woman and a Syrian-American man produced a blended American Episcopal family in which everyone loves each other dearly. But. that’s what Christ – mas is about, isn’t it?
Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Veronique Doherty
Christmas Traditions
Christmas Stockings come in all different styles, some are for babies some are for dogs some are for cats. They come in all different colors red, green, camo and themes; Disney, snoopy, super hero’s and star wars. Inside these stockings you can find all kinds of surprises some costing more than many of the gifts under the tree. But when I was a little girl we didn’t have stockings. We had plain old brown paper bags the kind the give you at the grocery store when they say “paper or plastic”. They were rolled down at the top so they would stay open. They were always filled with the same thing, fruits, nuts and lots of candy. Hard candy, soft candy, chocolate, yummy! So on Christmas morning we would have lots of gifts some wrap some not. But it was the plain old brown paper bag that I would go to first to make sure I had enough nourishment to open my gifts. This memory warms my heart. It was a simpler time.