May 31, (and every Tuesday) from noon to one, Lectionary Lectio. We gather in the parish hall to listen to the Scripture text(s) appointed for Sunday. Lectio Divina is a contemplative way of reading the Bible. It dates back to the early centuries of the Christian Church and was established as a monastic practice by Benedict in the 6th century. It is a way of praying the scriptures that leads us deeper into God’s word. We slow down. We read a short passage more than once. We chew it over slowly and carefully.

Howard Thurman, educator, civil rights leader, and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. provided some of the key spiritual insights and theological underpinnings that ultimately shaped the civil rights movement.  His short book, Jesus and the Disinherited, first published in 1949, reveals much of the compassion and prophetic power of an interpretation of Jesus for those whose “backs are against the wall.”  It continues to speak powerfully to us today.
 
John Nieman will lead three consecutive Wednesday one-hour sessions on zoom at 4:00 pm: January 27, February 3, and February 10.  You don’t need to sign up for this group, just join us using the link in News from the Pews and Moving Forward Together.  Please read the Forward and Chapter One for the first session next Wednesday.  You still can purchase the book with a 15% discount from Left Bank Books in Belfast.  Tell them you’re with the St. Margaret’s book group. 

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.

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.
 

Registration is required to participate in this online, two-part discussion of how the Bible came into being, ways to read it, and how Episcopalians read it. Register here.  Click link to be connected to Jane Hartwell and Deirdre Good.  After registering, you will receive all the information you need to be part of the program, whether you are connecting by internet or by phone.  These programs will also be recorded and available for downloading.

You can join this from the comfort of your home. We will meet online on Thursday February 21 & 28 using the link provided by Jane Hartwell, Diocesan Education Director. Join that link at 6:00 for orientation and introductions. The seminar is from 6:15-7:15 pm. If you are new to using Zoom on your computer, we will help you to get oriented before the first session, and if that fails you can participate by phone. 
 
Our leader, Deirdre Good ThD, is an experienced teacher of the New Testament and Christian origins. She is a licensed lay preacher in the Diocese of Maine, a parishioner at St. Margaret’s Belfast, and on the faculty at the Stevenson School for Ministry in the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania.

 
This seminar is free. Questions about the seminar? Please email Deirdre Good or Jane Hartwell. 

At our first session on January 27, participants indicated that for the next session we could consider our relationship to the planet itself as our neighbor, and what this world could be like – without us. The attached readings are on that topic: 1) “Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?”, and 2) “Varied Views Earth’s Anthropocene Age”. This second reading is long, but considers what it would take collectively, as neighbors on this planet, to keep us here, on this island Earth.
           And what is “here” anyway?, and what if we were not the only ones “here”? Loeb’s article is from the January Scientific American – “Advanced Extraterrestrials as an Approximation to God”. But just to be sure this issue is taken seriously, here is a piece from the Washington Post – “The religious questions raised by aliens”, as it is being considered in the Vatican. Yes, that Vatican.

Theme: Your Neighbor as Yourself

An introduction to my thoughts outlining this year’s theme, and open a space for comments/suggestions.

 “Your neighbor as yourself” can be – and is – broad and inclusive, and indeed it is the real business of the Church: relationships among and between people and nations; work; commerce; governance; conflicts; wars… all are “on the table”. We pray for and about these each week in our Prayers of the People.

I’ve included two PDF’s, reading material as set-up pieces, kind of keynote introductions on ways to think about who/what is a neighbor. These are long, and daunting, but hopefully not intimidating, intended as a reference frame for thought and discussion. And questions.

The Nagel article (What is it like to be a bat?) introduces the concept of “qualia”, or subjective aspects of experience: what is it like to be something. There is a lot of philosophical jargon in the article, perhaps off-putting, but worth the slog, and food for thought in coming weeks.

 The Kendler article is about the “mind-body problem”, which has occupied philosophers and scientists for millennia. Contemporary psychology/psychiatry/neuroscience has refined and redefined much of interest: how do we know, and can we trust what we (think we) know?

 In coming weeks: our relationship with nature – the planet itself as our neighbor; February, Black History Month – racism, inequality; indigenous peoples of Maine; conflict and conflict resolution – game theory; wars – refugees and warriors; the list goes on…

Anyway, these are my thoughts for this series. I am a facilitator, more than instructor, and welcome suggestions, criticisms, questions. Contact [email protected]

What is it like to be a bat?
A Psychiatric Dialogue on the Mind-Body Problem