Spending Sundays Together

This summer, it has been a tremendous joy to come here every Sunday and witness the return of our present and embodied community. After a year of worshipping by myself or with a handful of folks under a tight capacity limit, being with so many of you every week has been a balm for my soul. You may not know this, but we are one of the few ELCA congregations to have had multiple in-person services on Sundays, and I am grateful to everyone who has made it possible for so many of us to be together both in the sanctuary and on the lawn.

When we added a second service, the timing we chose gave all our leaders and volunteers ample time to set up our outdoor worship space. Every Sunday, the band had the hard work of carting all their equipment and instruments across the parking lot, leading worship, and then carting it all back. That full hour between services was a necessity, and it went by fast. That need was one reason we began our first service at 9:00am

Having one traditional service at 9:00am was also an attempt to find some middle ground between our original 8:00am and 9:30am folks, so that no one felt as if their favored service was cancelled. If you were used to worship in the sanctuary before and you have returned to it this summer, I imagine you have encountered other St. Mark folks you rarely or never saw before the pandemic. It has been so wonderful to see the unity that has come from this combined traditional service. In the past, except for a few folks who bounced between our three service times, we were a congregation divided into three. 

During the school year, in a sense we were divided into four. Since Sunday School was at the same time as worship, our youngest members worshipped downstairs, hearing a children’s sermon from one of the pastors and celebrating a brief communion service with their teachers. For most of the year, our children did not have the opportunity to experience the wonder and welcome of worship.

You may have figured out where I am going with all of this. The two-service Sunday is here to stay. Beginning on September 19th we will have Traditional Worship at 9:00am, a Learning Hour at 10:10am, and a Praise Service at 11:00am. During that learning hour we will have Sunday School downstairs, Fellowship over coffee and donuts in both the café and Fellowship Hall, and a brand new Adult Forum in the Adult Ministry Room. This fall, the content of the Adult Forum will change from week to week, and you can expect to see opportunities for Bible studies, book studies, presentations from local agencies, and group discussions.

This new schedule will give everyone, children and adults alike, the opportunity to both worship and learn every Sunday of the school year. It is my dearest hope that this new schedule will bring us together after so many months apart. We have the opportunity to spend our Sunday mornings praising God together as individuals, families, and community. We have more time to reconnect and grow in faith. And we will be able to welcome people of all ages to come and find comfort in a community of worship. 

Peace,

Pastor Chad McKenna

Ordinary Mystic

One of my favorite mystics is a woman named Caryll Houselander, she was born in 1901 and died in 1954.  Her parents separated when she was nine years old, and Caryll was sent to a convent for her education.  She left the church when she was a teen and did not return to church until she was twenty.  She loved Sydney Reilly, who was the model for Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel.  She had a biting sense of humor.     

Caryll was gifted with an insight for beauty and suffering.  She wrote a book titled, This War is the Passion, that spoke about the horrors of war and great suffering.  “She had great empathy for the wounded humans and such a talent for helping to rebuild their broken worlds that during the war some doctors sent patients to her for healing.  One eminent psychiatrist said; ‘She loved them back to life…she was a divine eccentric.’” (Mystics The Beauty of Prayer by Craig Larkin SM) 

What I like about her is she is an ordinary person, who lived a rather ordinary but eccentric life.  She is being re-discovered for her spiritual experiences that gave her insight to Christ’s suffering and how human suffering plays a part in redemption.  One of her writings that I really like is called The Reed…

            Emptiness is the beginning of contemplation.

It is not a fruitless emptiness, a void without a meaning; on the contrary, it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended.

It is the emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper’s breath and utter the song that is in his heart.

It is the emptiness like the hollow in the cup, shaped to receive water or wine.

It is the emptiness like that of the bird’s nest built in a round warm ring to receive the little bird.

Caryll Houselander, Emptiness

Thinking about emptiness as a purposeful void is a wonderful concept, one I often don’t think about.  When I read Caryll Houselander’s The Reed, I am reminded of the purpose of hollow spaces.  I tend to grab my Mystics books and read her writing several times a month.  I find it grounds me and centers me, exactly when I need it.     

Peace, Pastor Katrina Steingraeber