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St. Davids Newsletter March 2012
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MARCH
The Rev. Lisa Mason, Rector [email protected] Ashley Miles, Head of School [email protected] Robert Brewer, Director of Music [email protected] Sarah Kates, Director of Children and Youth Ministries [email protected] Jerry Kirkpatrick, Parish Administrator [email protected] Suzan Reagor, Director of Exceptional Adults Ministry [email protected]
THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF PARISH LIFE AT St. DAVID’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND SCHOOL
The Lenten Walk
I pray that you are having a Holy Lent. What I mean by
that is that you, both individually and as part of a faith
community, have set aside time each day during this
Lent to prepare for the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Lent is a wonderful opportunity to examine the
health of your spiritual life and discover how to lay
down the things that are weighing on your heart at the
foot of the cross. What type of prayer discipline helps
strengthen your relationship with God? If you have not
been able to find a type of prayer or a prayer time that
is helpful to you or a Lenten Devotional to aid your
prayer and study time, please let me know. I am happy
to share my reading materials with you if they may be
of help.
You may remember last year during Holy Week, we
gathered with the community of Church of Reconcilia-
tion for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. This year
we are joining in with several other Episcopal Church-
es located in Northeast San Antonio as well. Traveling
the journey to the cross with our brother and sister
Episcopalians gives us the up close glimpse of remem-
bering that we are part of something much bigger than
our selves. We are part of the larger Church and the
Body of Christ.
The schedule for Holy Week is below. I hope you will
participate in these services, and I pray that they deep-
en your understanding of both what it means to
"deny themselves and take up their cross daily
and follow me” Luke 9:23,
and
The Rev. Lisa Mason
"For God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish but may have eternal life.
John 3:16
The Church of the Resurrection, The Church of
Reconciliation, St. Matthew's and St. David's will be
sharing Holy Week services. Our schedule is as fol-
lows:
♦ Wednesday April 4 Resurrection will be leading
Tenebrae at St. David's at 7 PM
♦ Thursday April 5 St. David's will be leading
Maundy Thursday services at St. Matthew's at
7PM
♦ Friday April 6 all four churches will be leading
The Stations of the Cross on the Museum Reach
of the Riverwalk beginning at 2 PM with stag-
gered start times. We will begin at the Pearl
Brewery just to the left of La Gloria. This service
will feature artistic expressions of each station
presented by parishioners from each of the con-
gregations. In the evening, St. Matthew's will
lead Good Friday services at Resurrection at 7
PM.
♦ Saturday April 7 all four churches will celebrate
the Great Vigil of Easter at Reconciliation.
As a prelude to Holy Week each church is creating a
video and study questions explaining the service they
will be leading. These videos are being used at all
four churches as their Lenten study:
The first week in Lent we will study Tenebrae
The second week in Lent we will study the
Maundy Thursday Liturgy
The third week in Lent we will study
Stations of the Cross
The fourth week in Lent we will study the
Good Friday Liturgy
The fifth week in Lent we will study the
Great Vigil of Easter
May you have a Holy Lent. Peace, Lisa+
Sarah Kates Director of Children & Youth Ministries [email protected]
Clean up your room before you go out to play!! Re-member that? Well, my Mom’s insistence and my childhood reluctance to put things in order have a the-ological parallel. In a wonderful midrash* by a Jewish rabbi, Marc Gellman, God is chastised by the angels for not finish-ing the earth—leaving it “a mess”. God works on it some more and makes it neater, but doesn’t finish it—When asked again by the angels, He turns it over to mankind to finish. (More about that later) This delightful tale suggests that one of the important on-going aspects of our stewardship is cleaning up messy aspects of creation (ours and His) before we go on to the next new project. Perhaps, metaphorically, it is our job to clean up our room (or our church) before we go outside to honor the Church’s great commission to evangelize the world. Certainly, if the messiness is causing partial paralysis or dissention in the Church, it needs to be cleaned up so that the Church can go forward undivided to do the charge of the Great Commission. I know that there has been some level of angst in our Church over the huge cost of air conditioning we incurred and paid for with borrowed money. Some have expressed a level of frustration and irritation about the matter. At least this writer and some of the vestry have spent time fretting about it when that same energy could have been more beneficially spent on growing the Church.
Messy Stewardship WONDER. SELF-DISCOVERY. PASSION Lent is a time to reevaluate, reflect, and regenerate. What are you doing as a family to keep everyone en-gaged in the mission? What is your mission? Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. I went to a conference a few weeks ago and the speaker Reggie Joiner told us about the nature of peo-ple. We have three dials that can turned up or down. The 1st one, which is alive in preschool, is the WON-DER dial. This dial is the intriguing dial; it is what draws us to the supernatural and miracles. It is the dial that the world tells us to turn off once we reach a certain age. Wonder is the dial that turns off when we “know” all the answers. The 2nd dial, which is alive in elementary school, is SELF-DISCOVERY. It is the dial that asks us “who we are and why do we exist”. We are drawn to understand our role in the bigger story and we will find it even without the church’s help. The 3rd dial is PASSION. Passion is alive in middle school, high school and college. It is your de-sire to connect not only to people who are like you but to people who are different than you. It is the in-nate craving to care and rescue those who are hurting or need help. I believe every single person is born with these dials. As an adult and a Christ follower, we have a responsibility to turn each of these dials in our children, youth, and young people. As we commit to turning dials in others, our own dials will automatical-ly turn. God uses broken people, not perfect people in per-
fect pictures. Whatever your family looks like is good
for us. If you aren’t sure about how to love God with
all your heart, mind, and strength or how to get your
family to do that…then LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.
Loving your neighbor is loving God. Having a rela-
tionship with your neighbor is having a relationship
with God. St. David’s community will partner with
you and your family. Let’s foster relationships. Let’s
love our neighbor, the ones on the outside and inside
of the building. Let’s turn those dials and ignite a gen-
eration that this world desperately needs.
Come and be a part of
GIFT
Growing in Faith Together A Family Christian formation hour on Sunday Mornings at 9:15am in McAllister B
Regenerate Faith:
A Woman’s Group starting Wednesday nights
in Lent at 6:30pm. Women of all ages are invited to
discover and regenerate faith by discussing different
topics each week.
Regenerate means to breathe new life into.
2012 Newly E
lected Vestry M
embers
Jacki Bucci ,V
icky Goebel, Jean
Heard
, Brian Kates &
Greer W
right
The efforts of all of us will be needed to clean up this
mess—some individuals have already pitched in in a
big way to help. We all (me included) need to do more
to help. Right now the vestry has its hands full trying
to match the current needs with the current means.
We, as a congregation, need to support them by giving
financially for this purpose. The point is let’s clean up
this mess so we can eliminate the issue and go forward
with the reason for being the Church.
Getting back to Gellman’s story: “Then the angels asked God, “Is the world finished yet? And God an-swered, “I don’t know. Go ask my partners.” If Gellman is right and God has made us partners (stewards) in creation and has left us the job of cleaning up messes, then we should grit our teeth and clean up our room. Then we can devote our individual and cor-porate attention to the other matter God has entrusted to us: going outside ourselves to evangelize our com-munity. *”Does God Have a Big Toe”,
Marc Gellman,
Harper Collins Publishers
John Brooke
John is a Member of St. David’s
Stewardship Committee
Retiring Vestry Members Thank You to the retiring vestry members
Frank Davis, Rena Dubose, Steven Mitchell, Victor Mux
and Pat Patterson.
Thank you for serving, your work is appreciated! Mikel Brightman Sr. Warden [email protected]
There is a trip planned for Senior High
Youth to go to Mustang Island Con-ference Center Monday, March 12th-Wednesday, March 14th. Cost is $55. Talk to Sarah Kates about reserving a spot!
Sign up for Spring Break Family Camp at
Mustang Island on dwtx.org under camps and conferences. Bring your family for a time of fun, fellowship and great food. All ages welcome! March 15th-18th.
Save the Dates
Council 2012: A Celebration of Community
For many years now Frank and I have been part of the delegation that represents St David’s at Diocesan Council. It is a unique experience with lots of voting and lots of celebration, lots of eating, lots of praying. It has its own cultural mores, like calling our friend Gary “Right Reverend Sir”, like being guided in “decency and order” through discussions and presentations, like knowing you might be an Episcopalian if you can laugh at yourself because you swim in the ocean of the mud-dy middle of grace, the “already, not yet” of the Reign of God. This year we particularly enjoyed the Faith and Action Lunch with an excellent presentation on the “Church Outside the Sanctuary.” I was very affirmed in my ministry as homemaker, advocate, and hospital chap-lain. How beautiful is our liturgy and the social con-nections made “inside” the church; they nurture and stretch us for the ever-widening circles of influence that authentic spirituality demands. Many of the presenta-tions are available on the diocesan website www.dwtx.org, if you are interested. We sometimes vote with red and green squares of pa-per, sometimes by standing, and this time all by scantron (with a number 2 pencil, remember?) Through the years St David’s has been well represented in the Diocesan leadership. To name a few: John Jock-ush was Treasurer for many years, as was Tom Carskadden. John and Patty Brooke have been on the Executive Board, served in the diocesan office, and represented us at Provincial and National meetings.
Gerry McAllister was Canon to Bishop Jones before coming to St David’s. Kirk Mason serves as Canon now. Etc, etc. The thick tomes of reports of committees and commis-sions have given way to video “Ministry Moments” where we are inspired by the good work of our sister parishes throughout South Texas. (I know, we are still called “West Texas”). Each year we read the necrology at noonday prayer, a list of Diocesan leaders who have died in the past year, reminding us that the “great cloud of witnesses” is with us as we enjoy the work we have been given to do in our day. And the energy of Youth Ministry calls us forward! Did I mention that we have a lot of fun? The great privilege of Christian community is precious friend-ships based on truth, goodness, and trust. The gift of the cross is ever before us allowing us to dare to be happy, joyous and free. At Council I get to dance and shop, sing with the “Amen Corner” of every church, and be reminded that we belong to a goodly fellowship that goes way beyond parochialism, nationalism, or even denominationalism. Maybe I’ll see you next year in Corpus! Thank you, dear friends, for allowing me to live out my vocation among you, and to know intimate-ly a piece of the church universal. Nancy Schweers February 2012
MAKING A MOCKERY OR MAKING A WONDERFUL LIFE?
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Psalm 139: 13-15
I came across a recipe for Mocamole, which is a ver-sion of guacamole except without the avocados. My curiosity and quest for healthy foods was my motive to substitute Great Northern Beans for avocados but it was not very tasty and it certainly was not a substi-tute for good ol’ Texas Guacamole! I thought I’d serve it to my family and if they asked what it was called, I did not plan to tell them Mocamole, maybe just Bean Dip. It was not good enough to serve so instead of being nutritionally filled, I realized there were other edifying lessons to learn from my experi-ment with mockery. Mock has several meanings. One is to create a sub-stitute for the real thing, as in my experiment ; an-other is to practice for a future event, as in a rehears-al for a play; and lastly, to treat something with scorn or to make it appear silly, as in what goes on in my mind when the caller id on my phone shows it is a salesperson. Sometimes we need to have a practice round at something, taking a few small steps toward the bigger task. Ask any theatre troupe how many hours go into the production of a play that lasts 2 hours. They would never go to opening night with-out a dress rehearsal. Many times I make a mockery of myself by being all talk and no action. As I become aware of being au-thentic in my life, I will live each day aware that this is not a dress rehearsal, but the real thing. I’m not practicing for life; this is my life and each day and year goes by quickly. To be authentic requires courage
because the inspirations that draw us to a particular hobby or vocation may not be what others expect from us. One day I was cross-stitching when a male friend dropped by and he said he was reminded of his grandmother. He made a grandmotherly joke and I peered over my half glasses and said “I don’t have a problem with this.” He laughed and I kept cross-stitching. The authentic things for me are small steps but add up to big growth when I am true to who I am. Finding a balance between practicing and real life authenticity is a challenge. I will continue to seek out healthy food alternatives creating imitations of clas-sic recipes, as I have done for years. I will definitely practice running for an upcoming race. And I will live each day knowing this is the real thing and being authentic and “wonderfully made” is God’s plan for me and for you. Catherine Lillibridge [email protected]
It’s A Jungle Out There! A St. David’s Adventure Thursday, April 12, 2012
Please join St. David’s Episcopal School on April 12th for Spring Fling 2012! Our largest fundraiser, Spring Fling is an adult evening filled with fun, food, silent and live auctions. With a trip to Disneyland up for auction this year’s party, “It’s A Jungle Out There- St. David’s Adventure!,” will be a fantastic event. Proceeds from Spring Fling fund tuition assistance, staff development for our teachers, and repairs to the St. David’s school campus. We hope to see you there!
Ashley Miles [email protected]
March Prayers and Thanksgiving
Perry & Alicia Weiss, Vicki & Gordan Sommers, Blake Asmus, Stella Flores, Elise Uhl, Janine Waller, Joseph Ebbecke, Judith Riddle, the family of Bill Hester, Winnie Giles, Amelia Fales, Wilbur Littleton, Pat Paschal, Anne Jennings, Bob & Liz Hodnett, Will Hodges, Steven Hall, Bruce Hicks, Betsy Rupe, Tucker Stilley, Erin Jenks, Jordan Roberts, Rosanne Hicks, Fran Dunigan, J. Lloyd & Geneva Watkins, Marilyn White, Phyllis Massengale, Tony, Norma Niepke, Richard Riggs, Judy Adams, Eileen Gutierrez, Ana Vasquez, the family of Johnny Jay Pichinson, Chico Mason, Savannah, the family of Mitzi Handley, The family of Jeffery Rose, Cris Cowen Kelly,
Chris Faris, the family of Mary Louise Ford, Helen Keller,Joan Ricci and Barbara Warren
Deaths: Johnny Jay Pichinson, Bill Hester, Harry Fletcher, Mary Louise Ford, Chris, Paul Allen and Mitzi Handley
03/01-Joanne Myler 03/02-Marissa Schaeffer, Jason Ryncarz, Chloe Steele 03/03-Flo Jameson 03/04-Dale Ingram, Kristin Meador 03/05-George Brown, Maria Bates-Gutierrez 03/07-Nancy Heinke, Kenneth Lum, Joshua Stasnet 03/08-Joseph Powell 03/12-Thad Ziegler 03/15-Casey Shaver 03/20-Cody Nelson 03/21-Delila Gutierrez
03/23-Daborah McInerney 03/25-Beryl Cunningham, Beth Crowley, Jacob Bissell 03/26-Kevin King, Frank Wallace 03/27-Richard Perry, David Jameson, Ruth Cade, Jane Bergman 03/28-Lawrence Powell 03/29-Luke Keene 03/30-Angela Pumphrey, Pat Bose, Victoria Bou 03/31-Alicia Weiss, Allen Gibson
Anniversaries:
03/03-Mike &Mary Helen Acosta 03/11-Victor & Murray Mux 03/12-Jay & Katherine Buzzini 03/16-Cecil & Seawillow Jackson
03/16-Ron & Lori Bauml 03/21-Malcolm & Toni Myler 03/29-Emmett & Kathy Matthews
Submissions Send submissions for The Star newsletter, to Suzan Reagor, phone:210.824.2481, fax:210.824.9410 or Email: [email protected] Material is published according to timeliness and rele-vance to the mission of St. David’s Episcopal Church. Deadlines for submissions for The Star are as follows:
Deadline for the April issue: March.15
March Birthdays:
