 St. James' Episcopal Church P O Box 877 510 N. 6th Alpine, Texas 79830 |
 St. Paul's, Marfa P. O. Box 175 101 E Washington Marfa, Texas 79843 |
|
 Sts. Mary and Joseph's Lajitas Chapel, Lajitas |
BISHOP'S COMMITTEE 2010-2011 DEDIE TAYLOR, BISHOP'S WARDEN LAURA BUTLER CHARLOTTE HARRIS PAM MARETT PAT WELLS TOM GRAF, TREASURER |
| Worship
Services — All are Welcome! St. James' in Alpine: Church services 11 a.m. every Sunday with either Holy Eucharist or Service of Morning Prayer . Healing Prayer Fellowship meets every Tuesday evening at 6 PM at the home of Thelma and Al Hoyle. Call 837-2088. Th Big Bend Chapter of The Order of St.Luke,a group dedicated to God's Healing Ministry meets monthly at St. James' Church on the fourth Saturday of every month at 9:30 AM. For more information go to OSL CHAPTER Recently, a History of St. James Episcopal Church was compiled, writtrn and published in pamphlet form by Thelma C. Hoyle. To access the history, open the following link: SAINT_JAMES_HISTORY Sts. Mary &
Joseph's in Lajitas: St. Paul's in Marfa:
Special
Activities and Seasonal Events: The Threshold The Threshold offers to guests a quiet retreat at our retreat house, Casa de la Rosa.The retreat house includes guest rooms with private baths, a chapel, beautiful views of the Davis Mountains, quiet paths and gardens to pray, meditate or just relax. All meals are provided. Guests are invited to join The Threshold associates in praying the hours. For more information visit the website for Threshold at : Threshold ===============================
OTRA VEZ THRIFT SHOP BIG BEND EPISCOPAL MISSION Clothing and Other Useful
Items REGULAR HOURS Proceeds of sales
benefit: Due to its great success,
the Shop is constantly in need of fresh items to sell! Please call
888-244-2363 if you have any items you may wish to donate. |
About
the Big Bend Episcopal Mission The Mission includes the cities of Alpine in Brewster County and Marfa in Presidio County. The towns of Terlingua and Lajitas in south Brewster County are adjacent to the Rio Grande river. About 100 miles separate the south county towns from Alpine and Marfa. The
Mission is supported in part by the Diocese and in part by the
Mission's parishioners. The toll-free Mission phone number 888-244-2363 has been terminated as it was used very seldom. Our new number now is 432-386-5307. NEWS CURRENT ACTIVITIES St. James is beginning a Canterbuty Outreach at Sul Ross State University this fall. This will be a cooperative venture with the Wesleyan Center. Our youth ministers at Sul Ross are Kellie and Drew Powell. Volunteers are needed for St. James Vacation Bible School on August 2-6, 2010 at 9-12 AM. The Bible School wil be held in St. James Parish Hall. Needed are people to do crafts (materials supplied) , story telling and games. Contact Nancy Antrim 837-1389. The Rev. Anne Hoey celebrated the Eucharist with us at St. Paul's and St. James' on Sunday, July 18th, and will continue to do so for most of the Sundays in July and August. Welcome back, Anne! CASA DE LA ROSA For the Alpine Chapter of The Order of Saint Luke 26 June, 2010 Tom Graf The Threshold is a place of healing--scared and holy and filled with love._ I came to try to begin healing from a year of teaching on a reservation where I was nearly a non-person. And from the suicide of one of my students--10 years old, in the fifth grade. And from living in a place of such hopelessness. I did. Beautiful, peaceful, prayerful...space that is liminal--the space between what God has done and what God is going to do. These are a few of the comments from people who have come to The Threshold. It is a sacred space--but as Wendell Berry reminds us, _There are no sacred and un-sacred places. There are only sacred places and desecrated places. To provide on a brief background on The Threshold, a group began discussing a retreat center back in 2004. A year later, we had formed the Threshold and began hosting retreats and our monthly Quiet Day. Then in June 2006, we began hosting retreatants at Casa de la Rosa. The retreat house, located in Mano Prieto Estates, has three guest rooms and a chapel. It is a work built around saying four offices of the Liturgy of the Hours; shared meals; listening to nature-the Word of countless millennia--and listening to scripture as well as modern day prophets such as Thomas Merton and Wendell Berry. Suzanne Stabille, one of our retreat leaders who has now been to the Threshold on three occasions with a fourth planned in August, says, we share the gift of other_s words. That is an important part of our services, as God has been speaking the Word from before this world came to be and continues the Word today and tomorrow. Over the past three years we have had a few dozen retreatants. The largest number seem to come from the Austin and San Antonio area. Word of mouth spreads the word there in interesting ways. This week, for example, we had a priest from Austin who heard of us from someone who has wanted to come hear but hasn_t yet been able to do so. She heard of us through acquaintances of hers that have been here. The priest said, I was told what a peaceful, healing place this was." We have Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, non-denominational, Church of Christ, home church Mennonites, and many who are unconnected to any church. These _unchurched_ come with a desire to see if they can somehow reconnect with institutional religion. We have been blessed with some amazing stories. One older couple stopped in one afternoon just to see the place. We ended up visiting for a few hours. He is a native american from Nebraska and a Presbyterian pastor. He spent many years working with native people, and he saw great richness in blending native spirituality and the Christian faith. He and his brother, both in their seventies, had recently gone on a several day long mountain top prayer fast. After a couple days, his brother had an unquenchable desire for water. He walked all the way back down the mountain to the river. Stopped. Prayed, and walked all the way back up without ever so much as touching the water. When he and his wife drove off with their camper that evening, we felt as though we had had an angel of mercy descend, who through the grace of the holy spirit, was a healing presence to all those they met. People come bearing heavy burdens--memories of past physical, mental and sexual abuse, prostitution, drugs, bad job situations, estrangement from family members and from their church, debilitating illness and tears. I suppose if we have any ministry of healing it is simply that of allowing tears without judgement. Each night at Compline we hear the challenging and life changing words of Jesus from Luke 6. I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back. Give to everyone who begs from you._ Lovely sentiment. We_ve all heard it and we all know its impractical limits. The same goes with, _Do not judge,_ we have managed to glide past that pretty systematically. From conversations, what seems to be heard as though for the first time are the various comparisons to sinners. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? They hear it in a new way. Does this apply to God? When they have lived the Christian faith as a merit system, expressions of loving God buys lots of merit. Yet here, Jesus says, _even sinners love those who love them._ The mercy message is a strong one in this passage, and we are told flatly, _he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked._ We are to show mercy not in any less measure than God. _Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful._ And so in Compline we pray: God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives. We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created. We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf. Forgive, restore, and strengthen us through our Savior Jesus Christ, that we may abide in your love and serve only your will. Amen. In that confession I and others have been most moved by the context of evil--the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf. It is a reminder that we bear responsibility for the either/or us/them culture and for our lifestyle choices--how low cost goods for _us_ too often means exploitation of _them. I confess, in my reflection on confessing that it wasn_t until just a couple weeks ago that I was struck by something I had not really thought about before. It was while watching the Swedish movie, _As it is in Heaven,_ that I was moved to the profound healing that has little to do with ritual confession. Early in the movie the small congregation on Sunday recites, _I confess, oh righteous God that I have sinned in thought, word and deed. I have not loved thee above all else nor my neighbour as myself. Through my sins I am guilty of more than I understand and contribute to the world_s negligence of thee. I beseech thee, help me cease my sins. Forgive me in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. A lovely confession, but as we discover, it offers no true absolution. It is a movie about a man who moved from the small town when he was just a boy. He was a gifted musician but frequently bullied because of his musical gifts. His mother moves him away from the small town and as a teen an agent changes his name. The boy becomes a man and the man, Daniel Darius, becomes a renowned orchestral conductor. At height of his career a heart attack forces him to retire. It is then that he moves back to the small town of his youth--known only by his fame and not his earlier connection as the bullied boy. He takes the job of cantor and choir director for the small church. The Choir itself is an amazing mixture of humanity; the young Lena who carries with her a public humiliation; Inger, the wife of the respected Minister who longs for intimacy; Arne who can_t shut up and sees growing the choir as his controlling mission; and Tore, who is mentally retarded but wants to be a part of the choir. It is in the choir where the confession comes off the page and into the depths of the heart where they find true healing and love. The formulaic, which so long kept everything tidy or more to the point, swept everything under the rug, gives way to fits and furies, embraces and tears. This is what I have seen with those who have happened to our door. We don_t _hear confession._ We can_t offer Church approved absolution. But one need not hold holy orders to listen, and it is in listening to stories that brokenness is revealed and healing begins to take place. Through the wise council of Brother Abraham Newsom, of St. Gregory_s Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan who led a retreat for the Threshold, we are reminded to not consider it something we, in our ego, have accomplished. He said that often it is best that we never know the fruit of our labors lest we think they have made us more worthy somehow. It is the work of Holy Spirit through the gift of our hands and hearts. We are called to remember that the indwelling of the Spirit is gift, indeed, but a gift that is made manifest in unexpected and unpredictable ways. It is the indwelling gift that offers the deepest sense of connectedness to one another. it is a not a merit for the few. It is not the gift only to the Pentecostals. It is not even the gift only to Christians. It is all truth. It is the eternal Christ of all creation. It is the peace which surpasses all understanding even through our sufferings. We must frame our work and our choices within a context of humility. It is, to quote Wendell Berry, the properly humbled mind in its proper place that sees truly, because--to give only one reason--it sees details. It is in seeing the details in life that builds community and offers healing to brokenness. For some at the Threshold, their facing the darkness of their past is only an initial step. They leave wondering--praying--how they will face the darkness and fears. Like the story recounted by retired Anglican Bishop, Michael Marshall, sometimes facing the darkness in our past leads to a long journey to offer healing to those we_ve hurt or been hurt by. He says, When I was living and working in America, there was one particular bishop, who shall be nameless, in the House of Bishops, who set out from day one to destroy me by words and deeds: which _ looking back on it now _ were not only absurd but also beyond belief from a man who was, by any stretch of the imagination, highly intelligent. Some years after I had returned to England my secretary received a phone call from the said bishop, who by this time had retired, inviting me to have dinner with him here in London. Grudgingly _ I must admit _ I accepted the invitation. Halfway through the meal, the bishop said: _Well, I suppose you wonder why I have invited you to dinner? I will tell you. All my adult life I have been an alcoholic _ certainly all the time I was a bishop in a diocese. After I was forced to retire and had reached rock bottom with my alcoholism, I finally admitted, openly, my problem and I have been in Alcoholics Anonymous now for some time _ on the Twelve Step Program. Step 1,_ he continued, _as you know, is that step when I _acknowledge I am powerless over alcohol and in my powerlessness reach out to a higher power._ But,_ the bishop reminded me, _when you come in the program to step 4 or 5 you are asked to sit down and make a list of all the people you have wounded or damaged over the years, and then to seek them out and to ask for their forgiveness _ otherwise you will not be healed of your sickness. Then looking me full in the face he went on, _During those years you were in the USA in the House of Bishops, I wounded and damaged you. I have come to London to ask for your forgiveness, so that I may move on in my Twelve Step Program towards ultimate healing and freedom from the bondage of booze. Bishop Marshall continues, _Words of Peter to Jesus: _How many times should my brother sin against me and I forgive him?_ Well, how many indeed?! Peter _ thinking he was being magnanimous _ suggested seven times. We need to know that Peter really was within the established religious guidelines of his day. It was consistent rabbinic teaching that a man must forgive his brothers three times but no more. So Rabbi Jose ben Hanina said: _He who begs forgiveness from his neighbour must do so no more than three times._ The biblical proof of this was derived from the opening chapter of Amos, which you may care to take a look at. So, three times _ and then you draw the line. So when big-hearted Peter suggested seven times he really did expect to be warmly commended by Jesus but no way. _Seventy times seven,_ replied Jesus, typically teasing and teaching partly by humour and partly by being deadly serious. We hope that those who come to our door leave knowing, as our guest Amy Kitten wrotePeace--Serenity-RawNature--Gratitude--Safe--Breath--Love--Rest--Abundant Blessings._ Able to forgive 70 x 7--both forgive themselves and those who've hurt them. We pray that they leave knowing, as we close Compline each evening, that _God_s blessing, light and glory surrounds them. That they are kept in Christ perfect peace. I close with the words of one of our guests, Earl Mahon. Under the watchful eye of Blue Mountain I have listened for God's voice. I came to The Threshold - A Place of Prayer - with questions on my heart and mind, both personal and communal. Questions about my faith and my humanity - husband, father, priest, son, brother, friend - that I might grow closer to the One who has given me all things and has made me to be all the things I am. Some questions I have found answers that satisfy my longings. Some still sit in my soul and wait for the fullness of God's time and attention, for another string of days, perhaps, under the watchful eye of Blue Mountain. Of course, the rhythm of The Threshold finds its song in harmony with the order of the universe, with prayers that follow the movement of the earth as it journeys _round the sun. Lauds. Noonday. Vespers. Compline. Each preceded, as in any Benedictine community, by the call of bells, bringing the community of the faithful together, each stopping whatever they had been doing, to gather in the chapel for the Opus Dei, the work of God, the real reason we are here on earth, where we _work_ our prayers and psalms before the Lord our God, and the Lord our God _works_ on our frail flesh and even more frail hearts by His grace. FUTURE ACTIVITY BIG BEND CHAPTER OF THE ORDER OF ST. LUKE THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON HEALING The
Big Bend Chapter of the Order of St. Luke the Physician is
pleased to announce that the Rev. Canon Colin P. Kelly III D.
Min., will be the keynote speaker at their third annual Conference on
Healing, to be held on Saturday, August 28, at the First Presbyterian
Church in Alpine.
.
LORNA MEADE 585-355-1503 |
|
