Resources
With God’s help, St. Mary’s Anti-Racism Committee will lead the parish in anti-racist education and awareness-raising. We will work on transforming knowledge gained into concrete action and strengthening of relationships.
Please click “Read More'“ to read the Vestry’s entire write up on our new Anti Racism Committee.
The Vestry has been reflecting on quotes from John Phillip Newell’s text, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul at each meeting this year. It has been a joy to start our meetings reflecting on his words. The quotes that were shared with us for the September and October meetings invite us to search and see the holy in each other as well as in nature. These reminders have been helpful as we continue to live in the liminal space that is this season of “next normal.” There is a bit of trepidation as we wonder what is around the corner and how to best love our neighbors, but as Newell so gently reminds us, “There is hope. And it is a hope based on our deepest knowing, that every human being is sacred, body and soul.” It’s that hope the Vestry carries as we keep working to identify and meet the needs of our church community.
Read the Vestry’s entire report by clicking “Read More.”
This spring has felt like a season of hybridity, or like a continual lesson in how to occupy the both-and situations that characterize much of our reality right now. Our reflection that began our May Vestry meeting focused on the dual nature of our existence as people of joy and resurrection enmeshed in a world of sorrow. In a passage from Sacred Earth Sacred Soul, John Phillip Newell encourages us to embrace tears not as a sign of emotional weakness but as a way of cleansing our inner sight. He writes that we should not hide or be ashamed of tears but should instead recognize their power to reveal the “glistening of heaven in earth” and to help us feel “more deeply within us the current of life’s sorrows.”
The month of March is already a transitional time since it ushers in the first day of spring and leads to longer, lighter days. This year, March has been even more full of transitions for our church community, in addition to our local, national, and global societies. So much is happening so fast, and we are trying our best to keep up. It is a time of mixed emotions, and perhaps even conflicting or confusing feelings. We want to embrace the positive changes with enthusiasm and hope, all while we continue to keep ourselves as informed and educated as possible. We recognize that this time requires a great deal of emotional adjustment from each of us.
Our last Vestry report, which was posted on the St. Mary’s website in January, reflected back on the Christmas and Advent seasons, along with the rise of the Omicron variant back in November. We were—admittedly—a little disheartened by the extreme weather disasters and pivots back to remote activities that ushered in the new year. The joke about 2022 as 2020 too felt more cruel than funny, and we wondered how we would endure yet another “unprecedented” stage of the pandemic. So far throughout the months of 2022, our Vestry meetings have continued to be illuminating moments of community, shared hope, and excitement for this year. We remember that it is a rare and wonderful privilege to be a part of such a caring and gracious group.
To read the entire report for February 2022, click “Read More.”
When the Vestry met in mid-December, the Omicron variant had just appeared in the US. As it was still new, we were in that unfortunately familiar “watch and wait” situation. We began our meeting as usual with a reflection from Thomas Merton about how (at Christmas specifically) Christ comes uninvited into a world that has no room for him at all. Merton calls this world “a demented inn,” and we were struck by the intensity and seeming cynicism of that label. What Merton calls attention to though with his harsh language are
Read the full Vestry report for December and January by clicking “Read More".”
Just as Advent is a season of hopeful expectation, so we in the Vestry eagerly watch and wait for the completion of the many projects currently happening at St. Mary’s. In the midst of the growing darkness and the freezing nights, we find light and warmth in the promise of our eventual re-gathering together in our improved building space. In addition to the completion of the ventilation system upgrade and new lighting in the sanctuary, we are looking forward to the removal and relocation of bats that have been living within certain areas of our walls for many years. Their presence has mostly been peaceful, but the work on the ventilation system has revealed the extent to which they have made themselves a little too comfortable inside our walls. They will be gently but sternly pushed to take up residence elsewhere, and there will be some new alternative dwellings nearby so they won’t be forced to travel far to find shelter.
Read the full Vestry report for November by clicking “Read More.”
The Vestry is St. Mary’s elected governing body. They meet monthly throughout the year and post updates for us here in the articles section of our website. The October Report includes an update on their meetings, the Pledge Drive, and St. Mary’s building. Please click “Read More” to read their entire update for October.
Our September meeting started with a reflection from Thomas Merton about our need for relationships. Due to the myriad ways the pandemic has led us to acknowledge and treasure our interconnectedness, this reflection resonates with us deeply. Merton understands that we do not and cannot exist in isolation and that it is precisely our relationships that give our lives meaning. He writes: “we do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another.” This statement speaks to us of how fellowship with other people brings us closer to God and helps us to know God better.
The Vestry is St. Mary’s elected governing body. They meet monthly throughout the year. Please click “Read More” to read their entire update for September.
Our reflection from Thomas Merton that began our August meeting focused on uncertainty. Merton states bluntly: “I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.” His words feel uncannily appropriate to our current moment as we transition from the end of summer to the beginning of fall. We have no idea what is going to happen with the pandemic. We are fatigued and frustrated, and we cannot see the road ahead. Merton continues, writing that he wants to follow God’s will even as he doubts his ability to discern what that is. He concludes by saying that he believes the desire to please God does in fact please God, and so he strives to cultivate that desire. This is the glimmer of hope that Merton offers us—even when we can’t see the way forward, we must still seek to find and follow God’s will. It is the desire that matters. We don’t know what God will ask of us in this coming season, but if we continue to desire to desire to follow him, he will lead us in the right direction, as he has always done. We can cling to that confidence as we forge ahead.
The Vestry is St. Mary’s elected governing body. They meet monthly throughout the year. Please click “Read More” to read their entire update that was included in the Fall 2021 Bellringer.
It finally feels like summer has arrived! The school year is done and the solstice has passed, so bring on the long days and vaccinated in-person gatherings that were once only the stuff of dreams. At our June Vestry meeting on the threshold of this summer season, we tempered our excitement with a reflection on “rest” from Thomas Merton. The passage we read was from a work aptly titled “No Man is an Island,” which certainly strikes a chord after this pandemic year.
“In this season of anticipation and waiting, we have decided to begin each Vestry meeting with a discussion of a short passage by Thomas Merton. We see this as a way of focusing on our spiritual growth. In March, we reflected on how we cannot explain everything, and how we shouldn’t always try to find answers. Sometimes we must sit with the unknown and with “the abyss of darkness” at our core. In light of the pandemic, Merton’s words reverberate loudly, especially his exhortation to let go of our desire to understand why and to embrace the ways we encounter God in our vast interior selves.”
Click “read more” to read the entire Vestry report.
Dear Friends in Christ,
Throughout the pandemic, the Vestry has been constantly considering how we adapt right now and to what is coming up next, one eye on the present and one eye on the future. One aspect we have regularly been examining is personnel. During this time, in conjunction with the Personnel Committee, the Vestry has been looking at what staffing has needed to look like and what it needs to look like over the coming months and even years. The future is full of uncertainties, but as we look to this past year and look toward the possibilities moving forward, we know that there are many challenges on the path. It has become clear to the Personnel Committee and the Vestry that additional staffing will be necessary to navigate this next leg in the journey.
Click “Read More” to read the Vestry’s entire announcement.
Can you believe it’s already February? Since January flew by somehow, the Vestry wanted to send a quick update about where we are as we start this new year and what we are planning to do in 2021. We hope that 2021 will bring the eventual end to our pandemic way of life, but we also know that the year will have its own unexpected challenges. It might even be more difficult in certain ways as we experience the ripple-effect of last year’s financial strain, and we come to understand more fully the toll the pandemic has taken on our social, emotional, and spiritual well-being. While we move forward with a mixture of faith and caution, there truly is much to be thankful for. In that spirit, we want to acknowledge both how much we accomplished in 2020 and how well-equipped we are to confront 2021.
But the pandemic goes on.
In 1961, one year before the end of the Algerian War for Independence, Frantz Fanon began an essay describing the effects of the war with the phrase, “But the war goes on.” Although his situation was very different from our present one, this strange beginning seems appropriate given that we too are still in the midst of a crisis that seemingly will not end.
Click “Read More” for the entire Vestry update that was included in the November/December Bellringer.
By the time you receive this report, St. Mary’s will have had two-plus weeks of in-person outdoor services in addition to our “bring-your-own-everything” Annual Picnic. These mark the gradual steps we’re taking to see each other in person again, as we near the end of summer and the start of fall. We hope that the summer has been a peaceful time for you, as it has for many of us, and we have been grateful for the small things, like the growing of our gardens and house plants, the warm weather and sun-filled days, the hikes and time spent in Oregon’s outdoor bounty. These past two months have been an opportunity to assess our response to the pandemic during the spring and to reevaluate as we look to the coming year and to more sustainable solutions. We’ve been shifting from a reactionary, temporary mindset into familiarity, routine, and real acceptance that this is how we live now.
Our dear St. Mary’s community,
Thinking back on the last two months feels like waking from a dream where the images fade but the impression remains. While this lingering impression is complex and individual, it is most likely some combination of continued grief for the loss of normal life mixed with the ever-growing uncertainty for the future. It is further complicated by the way our concept of time has become nebulous and unreliable, along with our fatigue. We are Just. So. Tired of continued catastrophes and of mustering the strength to make it through each day. Out of our mental, emotional, and/or physical exhaustion, haven’t we all prayed (or maybe yelled, wept, or whispered)– When? When will it be over? When will life return to normal? Please God let it be soon!
