HNC Nuggets July August 2019 Final
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ULY/AUGUST 2019 THE NUGGETS Hickory Neck Episcopal Church Toano, VA Rector's Letter One of the things I love about summer at Hickory Neck is the playfulness. As the This issue: sound of giggles, laughter, and sueals waft through my oice window as the The Rector's Letter children of the Kensington School play, I am reminded about how much we need PAGE 01 play in our lives to balance the hard work, household management, and duties of Our "Ordinary" Journey the day. I cannot count the number of times laughter has been the much-needed relief in a tense conversation or while waiting for surgery or chemo to begin. All PAGE 02 you need is a hula hoop challenge from a younger parishioner to help you Chaplain's Corner remember why play is such a gift. PAGE 03 This summer, Hickory Neck invites you to play. Whether you come on July 14, Flip Flop Mass Photos and play in the baptismal waters, whether you come on Sunday nights in July to PAGE 04 watch movies and share a fun meal with parishioners and friends, or whether you Blast from the Past join the kids at Vacation Bible School in August, I hope you will take advantage of what Hickory Neck has to offer as a chance to renew your spirit and connect PAGE 05 with the joy that is life-giving. Sarabande Summer is certainly a time to play outside the church as well. I know many of PAGE 06 you are making beach trips, camping trips, or simple day trips nearby or farther On the Road Again... to away. I hope you will use those opportunities to see and play with God’s Norwich Cathedral creation. Just marveling at the vastness of the sea or breathing in the humid, PAGE 07 scented summer air, or watching the lightening bugs light up the night can Treasurer's Report remind you of the awesomeness of our God. Of course, when you are not on the road, I encourage you to rally yourself and PAGE 08 come to church this summer. Our two service schedule creates a playful vibe, Who is My Neighbor? VBS bringing together people who normally attend different services, lingering at PAGE 09 coffee hour or inding friends for brunch after church, and carving out an hour of Meet the Bishop your week that is different that the rest of the week will help you to breathe in Candidates the gift of this place, remembering why you love Hickory Neck so much. PAGE 10 So come, play with us at church this summer! I promise the play will revitalize High Fives your spirit, and remind you of the same Spirit that is always breathing new life into us! PAGE 11 Christ’s Peace, Fall Festival Flyer The Rev. Jennifer Andrews-Weckerly PAGE 12 THE NUGGETS - JULY/AUGUST 2019 PAGE 01 Our "Ordinary" Journey THE REV. CHARLIE BAUER One of the notable aspects to worship in the Episcopal Church We’ll also hear readings from letters to the tradition is the scripture readings we hear each Sunday: like our Colossians and Hebrews, including that fellow Romans, along with several other denominations, we wonderful reminder that “we are surrounded adhere to what’s called a lectionary: a set series of readings from by so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews the Bible. Our lectionary – the Revised Common Lectionary, 12:1a). which we share with many of those denominations – is a three- year calendar. Though we don’t cover the whole Bible even in So while we don’t celebrate this summer uite three years of Sundays hearing four passages each week, we come the way we do during much of the year, we are close: your Biblical literacy is enhanced by simply hearing God’s invited on an important journey through our word each Sunday in church. scriptures. I hope you’ll ind this journey The lectionary usually follows a common theme for both the day meaningful as we enrich our faith lives and the season: we hear stories about Jesus’ birth and the together. And if you miss any Sundays, you can prophets that foretold his coming around Christmas; we hear always keep up with the stories online: You can stories about repentance and Jesus’ march to the cross throughout ind a calendar of our scripture readings at Lent. lectionarypage.org. Come, be a part of this wonderful, ordinary journey! In the summer however we’re outside of those big seasons in the church year. Other traditions call this “Ordinary Time;” we simply mark the Sundays following Pentecost, this year celebrated on June 9. You can also note these as the “green” Sundays – the altar and vestments are green in these Sundays. Because these Sundays do not fall into a true season with a proper theme, our lectionary does something special: rather than choosing four lessons based upon the seasonal theme, we hear seuential lessons. The downside to this is that our scripture, which throughout the year usually shares a common theme for a Sunday, becomes rather disjointed: we move through one book of the Bible at a time, and as we move through the Old Testament and the New Testament (both the Gospels and the Epistles), trying to make sense of what they mean in relation to one another can be a challenge indeed! Yet these Sundays after Pentecost, this Ordinary Time, serves an important purpose. Even though in these seuential readings we won’t hear complete books, we are given an opportunity to hear passages we would otherwise need to seek out. This summer, we will hear from the Old Testament prophets Amos and Hosea and their iery responses to God’s people as they turn away from their faith. Later, we will hear from Isaiah and Jeremiah, including Jeremiah’s wonderful call narrative: “The word of the Lord came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations’” (Jeremiah 1:4-5 NRSV). In the New Testament, we’ll hear passages from the Gospel of Luke, which is our focus in this year of our lectionary. In these passages, we hear stories of Jesus’ earthly ministry, traveling from village to village and teaching about God. THE NUGGETS: JULY/AUGUST 2019 PAGE 02 Chaplain's Corner: Following the Pain CHAPLAIN DON SEETERLIN “Follow the pain.” This is one of the guiding principles of pastoral counseling and hospital chaplaincy. By following the pain, we are better able to understand motivating factors that may not be consciously acknowledged but are all the same deeply involved in a decision or action. Helping someone to follow their pain is not intended to be a cure-all for what ails them, or even an excuse that grants them free absolution without conseuences for their actions. What it does do is to help shed light on something that may have been covered over on the surface yet continues to fester unseen and untended. We all receive bruises and wounds in this life. Some are surface wounds, and once they are tended to, they basically heal over. Many times, there is some form of a scar which reminds us of the occasion and helps us to avoid repeating the same mistake. Other times the wound is deeper, and the pain is so raw that we may not be comfortable dealing with it, and so we create a cover for it, in hopes that it if we ignore it, it will just go away. Unfortunately, these deeper wounds don’t just go away by themselves. We assign them to a place of darkness and solitude where there is no light and nourishment. The only thing this does is to cause the wound to go deeper, and it grows bigger, and becomes in our mind an even His domain is in the everlasting light. By allowing the hidden pain to experience the light, it larger issue. Our mind still remembers at some level that it has automatically diminishes the darkness, and allows not dealt with this, and so it strives to bring it back to our some healing to begin. consciousness in whatever way it can. This is many times what may cause us to “act out”, or “overreact” to an otherwise minor We each have the choice: Do we continue to react situation. By asking someone what they were feeling at the heart on a surface level to the world around us? Basically, level, not just thinking on the conscious level, we may be able to an eye for an eye attitude. Or do we allow others, help them, or even ourselves uncover some deeper unresolved and even ourselves a helping of grace, and offer issue. compassion and restraint, even when we may feel justiiably wronged? Might we follow Jesus’ This is not intended to suggest that anyone should feel safe and example, and offer love and forgiveness to those conident to practice psychological counseling or therapy without who hurt us? On the cross, as He was dying, Luke the beneit of proper training and accreditation. What it means is tells us Jesus uttered these immortal words, “Father that we can help ourselves and others to better understand what forgive them for they do not know what they are we do, or why we do it by asking the simple uestion, “What doing”. Jesus offered forgiveness to those who had are/were you feeling?” so brutally cruciied Him, because He knew that at a deep level they may not have been aware of what By asking this simple uestion, we may be helping to open the motivated them.