Sundays
8:30am Worship Service, Rite 1
9:30am Bible Study in Griswold Room and via zoom
10:30am Worship Service, Rite 2
10:30am Godly Play
Ways to Give
Good morning.
As you may have heard, a few minutes after arriving in Madrid, on the first leg of my walk to Santiago de Compostela, my cellphone was stolen.
Here I was, in a foreign country, hardly able to speak Spanish and totally disconnected from the world I knew, with no way communicate with anyone who knew me. I had no phone access, no internet access, no contact files, no way to email or text, or FaceTime or WhatsApp, or Google Translate. I had no Camino or navigational apps like Wise Pilgrim, or Google Maps, or access to the guidebooks I’d downloaded to Kindle.
I had become like “E.T.”, a traveler marooned in an unfamiliar place with no way to “phone home”.
So what happens now, I thought? What are my options? I hadn’t gotten very far with that when a travel poster caught my eye. It was a color photo of the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela, the very end of every Camino. On the bottom of the photo someone had written, “Though you walk by yourself you are never alone.”
Peregrinos learn to quickly accept that somewhere along the way, “stuff” is going to happen. It’s Murphy’s Law. Or a version of the old Yiddish proverb that “the harder man plans, the harder God laughs. When stuff happens, like the loss of something important - a wallet, a passport, a phone – or one shoe – we learn to “trust the Camino” because “the Camino provides”. Since losing my phone I’d been solely focused on what I no longer had. My faulty assumption was that communication and connection are dependent on technology. I was so wrong. Connection and communication are dependent on personal relationship and personal connection. And those things don’t require a smartphone. All one needs to do is be present in community! The Camino would provide that community. All I needed to do was be present.
Walking a Camino is a matter of finding a space in which to be comfortable walking by oneself even as you are walking in community alongside other human beings who attempting to do the same. Important words in establishing this relationship are “openhearted”, “openminded”, and “openhanded”.
Walking the Camino is also a matter of surrendering to the reality that one is perpetually in the presence of the Divine (with God, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. God is love, therefore one is always “walking in Love”. It sounds complicated, and even miraculous. But somehow it happens; somehow it all flows together.
But then everyone here in church this morning is already familiar with how this happens - because this is what we do here at St. Ann’s. It’s what we do by continuing to invite people to join us, to welcome all those who do. Our community has no walls. We strive to build and strengthen our connections with the greater community through our growing number of missions and activities. This is our walk of life, our walk together with God, our walk in Love where every step is a prayer, where, after our worship, the service begins.
You may remember it was because of his connection and interaction within a community of human beings that E.T. found support and love from friends who welcomed and accepted him. Because of this community, E.T found a way to “phone home”. During my 30 days on the Camino, because of the love and generosity of people I had never met before and will probably never see again, I was able to “call home” almost every day.
What a great pleasure it is for Lindy and me to be a part of this community. We are so grateful to all of you for your ongoing participation in our shared missions and our stewardship.
“May the Force be with you”.
~by Charlie Potts, 10/10/24
Walking In Love Stewardship – 10/6/24
Yesterday, two parishioners were married here at Saint Ann’s . . . . . and the beautiful flowers on the altar today are in honor of this Celebration.
They “walked in love” down this aisle and out into the world as man and wife.
They made vows to each other . . . . to love, comfort, honor and keep one another in sickness and in health and forsaking all others to be faithful to one another as long as they both shall live.
Those of you who witnessed this marriage, or another, were asked as a community “to do all that is in your power to uphold these two people in marriage . . . by responding in unison . . . We will!
To be a member of Saint Ann’s is to share life’s joys and sorrows as a family and spiritual community.
We worship together, pass the peace to one another, sing hymns together, witness baptisms, communions, funerals and marriages together ~ ~
We uphold one another and are connected to one another in the most important way ~ because ………..We walk in love together!!
So, now it is time to consider our support for Saint Ann’s by making our Annual Pledge . . . . .
Please consider that you are not making a pledge to a church building or an annual budget . . . .
You are making a pledge to uphold and support our Saint Ann’s family in all that we do for one another, for our community and the world at large.
Please be thoughtful and generous in sharing with everyone in this Sanctuary so that we can continue to walk in love and serve the Lord. . . .for many years to come!
Let’s uphold this promise to Saint Ann’s and to one another . . .
By saying …We will!!
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~by Laura Lee Miller
Altar Flower Memorials
We would love to have dedicated flowers on our Altar every Sunday. If you have a date to honor someone, celebrate something or give thanks for someone or something, please fill out this form and return to the office.
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