The Episcopal Diocese of Maine
Annual Spring Training
All Maine Episcopalians are encouraged to attend this year’s “spring training” on Saturday, March 21 in Augusta. This event has been drawing increasing numbers of folk from across the diocese for a day of workshops, learning, fun, and sharing. Registration deadline is March 16. Check out this link for more details.
Ash Wednesday services at 9:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. All are welcome!
On March 14th the Women of St. Margaret’s will host their biannual Knit-a-Thon to raise money for a community cause. The recipient will be Paws Adoption Center in Camden. Though the event is termed a knit-a-thon, any and all handwork is welcome. Lessons on knitting, project support, great company and delicious food will be available. The event will take place at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, in Belfast from 8 am to 8 pm. Participants may stay for an hour or two, or spend the day! For more information and a sponsor form, visit http://www.stmargaretsbelfast.org/knit-the-community/ or contact Jillian at [email protected] or Sara at 978-325-0045.
A little less than three weeks from now, on February 26, we’ll enter the Season of Lent (our Ash Wednesday services are at 9:30 AM and 6:00 PM).
On Shrove Tuesday (February 25), the day before Ash Wednesday, we’ll gather again for pancakes drizzled with Maine maple syrup and for good, relaxed conversation with one another. Supper will start at 6 and Paul Mazur will be asking a few good men to organize this – if you are willing, please speak with Paul.
There will be another opportunity this year at the pancake supper. We will set off the quiet of the library as a space where, if you choose, you can write a letter or note expressing your regrets, your confessions, your forgiveness of one who might have hurt you, or of your need to ask forgiveness of one you might have hurt. No one needs to see what you’ve written. You can place it in an envelope, seal it, and bring it outside where there will be a small fire ready to turn the chatter and wrangle to ashes.
Of course, if someone needs to hear your words of forgiveness, or if you need to ask for someone’s forgiveness, Lent will be a good time for it….
Everyone is welcome!
The biblical Book of Job may have found a place in our consciousness more than the other books of the Bible, except perhaps for the gospels (or parts of them). The character of Job has become the archetype of the righteous sufferer, the one who unjustly is forced to endure an unbearable weight of physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma. Job signals perennial questions: Why does God let bad things happen to good people? If God is all-powerful and all-good, why then does God let Satan have his way with the righteous Job? Neither Job nor we ever get an answer. We are left in “dust and ashes” in the face of the inscrutable God, left simply to ponder the mystery of God and God’s ways. Take him or leave him – God is God.
At least, that’s how we have been led to think of Job’s message.
A new translation of the Book of Job by Edward Greenstein upends our traditional understanding of what Job is all about. Perhaps neither Job nor we are left powerless in the throes of defeat, to be rewarded only when we finally succumb to God’s omniscience and might. Perhaps we are challenged, with Job, to stand up, speak, and protest – protest not against Satan or the injustices of the world or the randomness of events, but against God. Perhaps Job is the archetype not of the righteous sufferer, but of the one who finally has found the full force of own his voice and uses it to speak truth to power – to the ultimate power.
Interested?
Deirdre Good and Julian Sheffield will be our primary guides in a Lenten series focusing on a fresh look at the meaning of Job that emerges in this new and exciting translation. The first session will be on Sunday, March 1, beginning at 10:45 AM. Grab a cup of coffee and some goodies after church and join in. We encourage you to purchase the book. Ten copies have been ordered through Left Bank Books in town and can be purchased there for $23.32 (including tax and a 15% discount). Scholarship funds are available by contacting me at [email protected]. Below is a link to a description of the book.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300162349/job
February is traditionally Black History Month, and since Lent , when Julian Sheffield and Deirdre Good will conduct their series on an important new translation/interpretation of the Book of Job, doesn’t begin until March, we have a full month to explore the rich musical trove of the Black Church.
As you may know, the USPS just issued a commemorative stamp honoring the late Gwen Ifill, television journalist and commentator on PBS. She did a televised interview a few years ago with Aretha Franklin — who had deep roots in gospel music — and not long before the singer’s own death. That interview has been archived, and we should be able to access it during our session this Sunday, followed by selections from Aretha’s ‘Amazing Grace’ album back-to-back recordings from January 1972.
In coming weeks, our ‘text’ will be from the Smithsonian Folkways collection ‘Wade in the Water’ – sacred songs from days of slavery, but sung in concerts since the 1870’s. Choirs in the collection are from ‘HBCs’ (historically black colleges), annotated by Bernice Johnson Reagon (Sweet Honey in the Rock). Some selections were used by WEB DuBois as musical epigraphs to essays in his 1903 sociological study ‘The Souls of Black Folk’.
At month’s end – the ‘Abyssinian Mass’ of Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra – an amazing piece (> 2 hours long) that could take up two Sundays… just like jazz musicians, we can improvise as the month moves along.
Vestry Highlights from January 14 meeting
The celebration of Christmas through music will continue at St. Margaret’s on Sunday, Dec. 29, when the Will O’ the Wind woodwinds ensemble will perform during a 4 p.m. service of Christmas lessons and carols. All are welcome for the special Holiday service, which will be in addition to the two morning services with Holy Eucharist at 8 and 10:15 a.m.
The Will O’ the Wind musicians include Syrena Gatewood and Jean Goldfine on clarinets; Mike Bozonie, bassoon; Shannon Elliott, flute; and vocalist Dean Jorgenson.
As part of a new initiative in Belfast called “From Above” — a coalition of civic and church people to address homelessness in Waldo County — Kristen Burkholder is collecting comforters, warm blankets, thermal socks and any free-standing sources of heat (small space heaters etc) to donate. Please place your items in the great big blue bin in the Parish Hall. She will hand them over to David Smith and Matt Bolduc (who had an article written about him in the Bangor Daily News Nov. 25th), coordinators for From Above, and they will get them to homeless in the area who need them most.
In addition, tHohe December Fifth Sunday Plate will provide funds to respond to homeless crisis situations and related issues in Waldo County through the Priest’s Discretionary Fund.
At last weeks Annual Meeting Part 1 elections of new Vestry members and Convention delegates were voted on by 37 parishioners. Jackie Curtis, Audrey Klein-Leach, and Julian Sheffield will join the Vestry in January. Many thanks to all nominees.
Kristen Burkholder, Linda Dunson, and Julian Sheffield will be delegates to the 2020 Convention with Faye Ward as alternate.
Thanks were given to outgoing Vestry members Cindy Frost, Ellen Kenney, and Peter Walker.
A brief update on the Building Envelope Specialist’s report was given by Buildings Committee Chairperson Julian Sheffield.