Watch. Repent. Prepare. Behold!

A few years ago, Scott Fisher, an Episcopal priest in Alaska, used these words (in a story using the image of sled dogs flashing through the woods) to describe the waiting period that is Advent.  They help me separate out the different parts of what this season is, and remind me that each has its own place, preferably in this order, though as with everything, it’s a circle, a cycle I go through again and again, this time of year and throughout the year. 

Watch: to me, this means paying attention, being alert, expectant, vigilant.  It means not rushing while I pack the girls’ lunches, but imagining them opening the bags and reaching in for what’s inside, wondering what they’ll be doing then, how they’ll be feeling.  It means consciously blowing my breath out when I feel my chest tighten at the frenzy of commercials, the constant email alerts, the overheard chatter about who’s buying what and how much.  It means letting Advent be Advent, its own thing, its own time, letting myself feel peaceful anticipation.

Repent: this word is pretty loaded, unfortunately, in a culture where some interpretations of Christianity get drowned out by others that scream loudly and with a lot of negativity.  I think it means reflection, consideration of things we would have done differently, more thoughtfully, if we had given ourselves the time to act with more intention than perhaps we did.  It means accepting responsibility for things we did or said that we regret, and committing ourselves to careful choices going forward.

Prepare:  I like to clean.  I like knowing that there aren’t any unattended-dark corners. I like seeing order around me because it feels hopeful, like the chaos in my head doesn’t have to be real.  You would think, then, that my house is spotless, but no; far from it.  That’s why I like Advent, because I feel like I have an excuse to clean things that desperately need it, clearing out drawers or shelves or boxes that have been ignored.  But “getting your house in order” is a metaphor, too; first, actually.  It’s connected to watching and repenting.  Observe what has been, how things are, acknowledge what needs to change, and then prepare a place for God to do good work.

Behold: When I think of this word, I think of silence.  When we are in the presence of something worth “beholding” we are often moved beyond words.  I think of light, of being in darkness but seeing great light, of being warmed and thrilled and held by it.  Watching, repenting, preparing – all well and good, but not if we miss the most important part: “Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

 

Bess

 

The Gift of Belonging

 

Last night as we were sitting around the table at dinner, my husband, Stew, explained to the girls (Maggie, 10, and Sally, 8) that they had a couple of options for the weekend.  They could go with him up to Moosehead Lake to take Tanka, the dog we’ve been taking care of for the last six weeks, back to his owner, and spend the night, or they could stay at home with me, because I had to be at St. Mark’s Sunday morning.  Sally promptly announced, “I don’t want to miss Hearing the Story!”

“Hearing the Story” is one of the rotations we have in our new Sunday School program, along with “Arts and Friends” and “Movie Morning.”  The children move through the different rotations over the course of the month; for example, last Sunday, the 5^th graders and any children older than that watched a movie about the First Thanksgiving; the 3^rd and 4^th graders rolled their own beeswax candles, and the 1^st and 2^nd graders had a lesson about the prophet Ezekiel in Hearing the Story.  Apparently Sally had heard it was “cool” and is looking forward to it; the 3^rd and 4^th graders go there next. 

You can imagine that learning that my children look forward to going to church made me very, very happy.  It hasn’t always been that way.  And when I first told them that they would be staying in the service now, that Sunday School was happening first, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Now, however, they cram themselves into a front pew with a whole bunch of other kids, and have a really good time.  How much they are getting out of the service depends on the day, but I know they are contributing to it.  And they are learning that they belong.

Looking forward to going to a place where you belong.  I think if this is a gift we at St. Mark’s can give to our children, we’re doing pretty well.  We are each one of us a child of God; let’s give ourselves and each other that gift as well.

Bess

We All Have Special Needs

               An older man experiences chest pains in the middle of a church service; EMTs are called.  A baby screeches.  A mother feels faint, and is guided out of the sanctuary.  A young man taps his feet to the music.  An older woman knocks her cup of coffee over in a pew but doesn’t notice; the people around her frantically try to clean it up before she does.  A cell phone rings.  A little girl doesn’t respond when you ask her a question, but looks at you with a shy smile.

               These are all things that have happened in real life services at a church near you.  Some of them were considered disruptive or weird by some of the people there; other events were chalked up to normal things that “just happen” sometimes.

               The difference, unfortunately, is that in some of these cases, the people involved have special needs. Too often in those situations, the perceived “disruption” was not tolerated the way it was, when, for example, the lightheaded mother (me) had to be led out of the service because she didn’t eat enough breakfast.  Surely the sight of me stumbling down the side aisle assisted by two kind souls distracted people from whatever was going on.  I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I was glad people didn’t make a big deal of it, or tell me I wasn’t welcome at church until I could get my blood sugar issues under control.  Sadly, some of the other people in these scenarios were told that they weren’t welcome, or they were invited to listen to the service outside the sanctuary doors, or they were subjected to rude glares or “sh-shing” noises and gestures.  In his All Saints sermon last Sunday, Father John observed that our culture tries to “sanitize death.”  All too often, we try to sanitize life, as well.

               A lot of the time at St. Mark’s, we get it right.  And sometimes, we have really screwed it up.  The standard is high, though, as high as it can be.  As a church, we have to get it right 100% of the time.  There is no room to be unwelcoming, to not be compassionate, to not accept people for who they are, where they are, whenever they come to church, because they come to church for exactly the same reasons we do: to feel loved, safe, accepted, at home.  When we encounter people that we perceive as “different,” we don’t always know how to act.  Staring isn’t polite or helpful, but neither is pretending that they aren’t there.  So what is the right thing to do?

               I asked some parents of children with special needs, and here’s what they said: “My biggest thing is letting people know that respectful questions are always welcome.”  “ I think the important part is to simply be present and kind toward anyone who is a little different.”   “A person with challenges loves to be valued for who they are and feel like they are being recognized - even if they can't participate fully.”  “Meeting (people with special needs) where they are and recognizing that they are a human being just like everyone else is a great first step and will usually be rewarded with a big smile, a big open heart, and the good feeling of knowing that you reached out to someone who often doesn't feel connected in this big crazy complicated world.”

               We can do this.  Church services are not concert performances, yet it is important to honor the service time, the holy and the sanctified.  What is more holy, though, than the very act of gathering together for worship?  Jesus said, “When two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).  What binds us together is our humanity and our love (“they will know we are Christians by our love”), in all the ways that is manifested in us.  We can recognize ourselves in each other if we really look.  We all have special needs, and we are all capable of helping each other meet them.  Let us not turn away, but let God open our eyes, our arms, and our hearts.

 

Bess

Counter-Culture

Last week, I got to have tea with a friend who used to come to St. Mark’s, but she and her family moved down the highway a bit, and it had actually been a couple of years since we’d been able to sit and talk.  They attend the Episcopal church in the town they live in now, and we started talking about how there aren’t as many young families coming to church as regularly as there used to be. 

 

“It’s weird, but it’s just become something we plan around now…we don’t do sleepovers on Saturday nights, and we’re just…there, every Sunday, unless we’re out of town.  The kids expect it, and like it, and it’s just become what we do now.  But it feels almost counter-cultural!  People just don’t seem to go to church anymore, not even at Christmas and Easter!”  Their church is also, like St. Mark’s, going through a rebuilding, after losing a number of families over a stretch of years.  They, too, are exploring ways to expand their offerings for children and youth, to make church a place where families want to be.

This idea of church now being counter-cultural is really interesting; I suspect that many people have negative connotations about what church is, based on politics and media and the entertainment industry.  It certainly feels at times that extreme interpretations of certain religions dominate our thinking about them.  That makes it hard to invite people to church, because we’re not sure what they’ll think.  We know we are not judgmental, irrational, and after their money, but what if that’s the only message they’ve ever gotten about people who are in any way “religious”?  How many times have you heard people say “I’m not religious, but…”?   Church definitely seems to be out of fashion at the moment…but what was that Bible passage?  The geeks shall inherit the earth?  On my Facebook page, under Religious Views, I have a quote attributed to St. Francis:  “Preach the Gospel.  Use words if necessary.” 

 

Who cares what people think?  If church makes sense for you, if it helps you live a more meaningful, focused, fulfilled life, come.  If it slows things down, if the music soothes and inspires you, if church helps you remember we’re all in this together, come. And invite a friend.  Because we want to share with our friends what’s good in our lives…that makes it even better.

 

Bess

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

I grew up in Alaska, and when I came East for college, to the Northeast to be more precise, I noticed some distinctly Roman Catholic influences in the general culture, things like how the dining rooms (we had dining rooms then, rather than dining halls) served fish on Fridays, all the yards decorated with statues of Mary (or the Blessed Mother, in Catholic-speak), and of course the Catholic churches themselves.  In my college town there were three right in a row: the Italians, the Poles, and the French-Canadians each had their own (I’m not sure where the Irish went).  I became aware at some point of the importance of the song “Ave Maria” to people of that faith; I had never heard it, but I learned that apparently it is sung at many Catholic funerals, and could bring Catholics to tears within the first few notes.

The other Sunday at St. Mark’s, it occurred to me that “Amazing Grace” might be the Ave Maria for Protestants.  We sang it that day as the sequence hymn.  As is the custom, we sang the fourth verse (“Through many dangers, toils, and snares…”) a capella, and then Doug came in again, the organ triumphant, for “When we’ve been there ten thousand years…” It was powerful, and I choked up.  I looked around; I wasn’t the only one fighting tears.  A few people were wiping their eyes, some chins were quivering as people sang, one or two that I saw had stopped singing altogether and had bowed their heads, letting the music wash over them. 

We all probably have a connection to that song.  I think of Arlo Guthrie singing it on the album Precious Friend, with Pete Seeger, of the elderly, developmentally disabled man who used to stand outside my dorm with his hand on his heart, serenading us with it, of hearing it on a steel drum in a subway station in New York City, and haunting renditions played by lone bagpipers. 

It was a special moment in a place conducive to special moments, and I won’t forget it.  The children, who have taken to packing themselves together in one of the front pews, aren’t likely to forget it either, even if they weren’t completely aware of what was going on; we, as a church, planted a seed that day.  We gave them a glimpse of the power of church, of love, of grace.  It was amazing.

 

Bess

 

HallowThankMas 

I shuddered the first time I heard someone refer to the impending trifecta of holidays as HallowThankMas, because it implied that it’s just one overindulgent, chaotic, sugar-fueled blur, which sadly, it can be, if we let the “dominant cultural narrative” take over.  And it’s hard not to.  I know I’m not the only one who panics when Halloween candy appears right after the 4^th of July, when Thanksgiving decorations are already on sale (in September) at Jo-Ann Fabric, and when the Muzak in Rite-Aid sounds suspiciously holiday-like in October.  A friend of mine is blogging this month about planning for Christmas.  My first reaction was “oy!”, but facing the blur head-on is actually a really good way to slow down and let each part be its own thing.

A few years ago, Stew, Maggie, Sally, and I were on our own for Christmas.  My sister, Hannah, her husband, Steven, and their girls were going it alone as well.   We both fled to my parents’ house in Massachusetts the next day, however, a four-hour drive for us, eight hours for Hannah and Steve.  We arrived wringing our hands and asking our parents “How did you do it? How did you make it so special and entertaining and awesome year after year, just you guys?”  My brother-in-law had the best things-you-can’t-believe-you’re-saying-to-your-kids line from their morning: “Get upstairs and don’t come down until you’ve found some Christmas spirit!” All I remember is our girls opening their gifts and being happy and excited and then looking at us like, “now what?”  I was exhausted from months of trying to make sure they had the HallowThankMas experiences all the media and advertising suggests they should.  It was an instructive moment; all that “stuff” didn’t matter as much as other things did, the deeper magic the girls could sense in the day.

I don’t think there was much parental reassurance beyond some back-patting, knowing laughter, and “you’ll be fine.”  But I realized that I had fallen prey to the “dominant cultural narrative” that says that I have to “make” Christmas (and Halloween and Thanksgiving) happen with gifts and food and decorations, the more the better, even though I have seen “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” more times than I can count.

So as HallowThankMas approaches, a little planning might help, and a little perspective might, too, so that when these holidays come, they can be enjoyed for themselves, and not as part of one big simultaneous sugar high and food coma.  We’ll try to slow things down for the kids at St. Mark’s, with the Turkey Supper October 20^th to raise money for the Homeless Shelter (and to maybe take the edge off of turkey cravings?), special crafts and lessons in the coming months, and yes, they’ll be watching the Grinch in December.  Maybe it’ll take.

Bess

WalterandLouise

WalterandLouise

My Godfather, Walter Hannum, died yesterday morning in California.  He lived a long and full life and was ready, I’m sure, to meet his Creator and rest, finally, in that heavenly peace.  Walter and his wife, Louise, were not present at my baptism, which took place in Shageluk, Alaska, a small Athabascan Indian village on the Innoko River.  My father baptized me in September, 1971, and perhaps only a handful of villagers were in attendance.  But Walter and Louise, who had no children of their own, were faithful Godparents, and I know I was only one of countless children whose spiritual care had been entrusted to them.  They have written to and prayed for me all my life, and they made the trip East when I married Stew, in 2000.  It was one of the small handful of visits I had with them in person, yet they were ever-present, always “WalterandLouise.”
 

I’ve needed a lot of praying for sometimes.  Walter and Louise were like parents to my parents, rocks from which they drew strength.  Together, and with many others, they formed a circle of love around me, a warm, golden, flowing love that sustains me – that’s what baptism brings us into.  We open our arms and say “Come in – we are here waiting for you. We love you – come in!”  Whether we know it or not, whether we go to church regularly or not, that love is always there.  In my life there have been times I’ve gone to church and times I haven’t.  There have been times when I was too anxious to stay through a whole service, and times I sat in a back pew and couldn’t stop crying.  But wherever I went and wherever I go now, I know it’s true.  My parents gave me that, Walter and Louise gave me that, the people in the churches I grew up in gave me that, the knowledge that I am truly and deeply loved, by them, and more importantly, by God.

We are doing that at St. Mark’s for our children and each other, welcoming each other in, welcoming each other back, welcoming each other if we haven’t had a church home for a while, or ever, until now.  The children sense it, feel it, depend on it, BRING it in ways we may have forgotten we know.  Walter’s death into new life has reminded me of that.  Who is your WalterandLouise?  Whose WalterandLouise are you?

Bess

A New Season

Last Tuesday when I was headed out the door to take the girls to swim, I grabbed a fleece jacket from the closet, the first time I’d done such a thing since early May.  It would be early evening before we were home, and the Maine nighttimes had become deliciously cool.

As we came out of the Boys&Girls club after the girls had showered and were glowing from the exercise and warm water, I pulled the jacket on and stuck my hands in the pockets, to find a handful of…something.  I jerked my hand out and then smiled.  Beans.  Pole bean seeds to be exact.  I hadn’t worn this jacket since I’d been planting last spring, and here it was dusky at 5:30, the light fading earlier each day as we head toward the winter solstice.

Once school starts and we settle into new schedules and new routines, it’s inevitable in our house that conversation occasionally turns to Christmas.  Sally wants company; she likes a houseful at the holidays.  Maggie is already making lists of what she wants to get people.  And of course, they are ruminating over what they want from Santa (they are still full-on believers).  The bean seed in my pocket reminded me of what got planted and what didn’t, things done and things left undone.  The garden is a riotous mess; my neat rows and best intentions of last spring are just memories.  As we come into fall and winter, everything around is an ambiguous mix of old and new: leaves are changing, plants are withering, the light is fading and the chill in the air encourages us to curl up, withdraw, settle in.  Yet there is newness: new school years, new friends, new projects and adventures.  Harvest time is a time of preparation, of processing food and setting in stores of wood (pellets, in our house) and the things we need for winter.  It’s no wonder that the Jewish New Year is now, that Advent approaches, that we prepare to begin again in the middle of what seems bleak and dark and cold, our hearts gazing hopefully for what’s next. 

And that’s the challenge: being here now while the world is always turning.  I hope that another new thing in our lives, our Sunday School program at St. Mark’s, can be a source of strength for all of us.  Our children have an amazing gift of being able to savor the present and behold what’s coming with a delight and freedom that we can both encourage and learn from.  We are all each other’s teachers and guides.  I hope that as we settle into winter and prepare to begin again, we can do so together.  If you’ve been away, come home, see what’s happening at St. Mark’s on Sunday mornings, and be a part of it.

 

Bess Stokes, Coordinator for Children and Youth

Welcome to St. Mark's Waterville Blog for Children and Youth

Today we begin our first post to a new blog for parents, children and youth at St. Mark's Church in Waterville, Maine.

We welcome you!

Check this Blog often for news from our Coordinator for Children and Youth, Bess Stokes.

 

Some of the children of our church planting our flower garden in the spring.

 

Exciting new programs began in the fall of 2012.  We hope you and your family will be part of the parish, and participate in the worship and family activities of our church.

St.Mark's is located at 60 Eustis Parkway, Waterville Maine. The office phone is 207-872-7869, and the website is www.stmarkswaterville.org.  Our Rector, John Balicki, can be reached at jbalicki17@gmail.com.