Being With at Christ Church

By Zeina Daoud, Christ Church Parishioner

“What if our real human problem is isolation?” wonders Rev. Dr. Sam Wells, creator of the Being With program. If we think the problem is isolation, what we need is all around us: it’s all about relationships. And how we connect with God is through our connection with others. 

A group of about 10 of us joined the Christ Church inaugural session of Being With this past fall and met once a week for 10 weeks to share our own stories, thoughts, and feelings, in response to structured “Wondering” prompts and chosen Readings from a variety of texts. We grew closer in our knowledge of each other, and ultimately our knowledge of ourselves and of our relationship with God. Our group was co-led by Rev. Claire and Alice Kochunov, minister for Adult Formation, who both trained to lead Being With programs. The rest of us were welcome as we are, with no need for prior knowledge, no homework assignments, just a simple willingness to be present with and listen to others' stories and reflections, and if so moved, to share what we know, think, or feel. The program structure calls for listening to each other intently with no response during the “Wondering” and Reading reflections time. Then we ended the session with open time for responses, exchange, support. It resulted in a very inclusive and safe group, with no judgement, all opinions/reactions, agreements/disagreements being welcome, and a strong sense of acceptance.

We appreciated the opportunity to get to know each other in new and meaningful ways, and to think more deeply about our own experiences through questions we may not have wondered about before (“Tell of a time when you were truly free”).

Future sessions of Being With are planned at Christ Church, so if you are interested, please contact Rev. Claire at claire@ccla.us.

Letting our light shine: we affirm our LGBTQ+ kindred

By Rev. Cal Payne-Taylor

In his letter to the ancient Christian community in Rome, Saint Paul wrote: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). As a queer Episcopal priest, I interpret these verses as a sign of hope that nothing can keep us from God’s unconditional love, a love that affirms the unique identity, inherent dignity, and sacred belovedness of every person. I believe that each of us has been created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), an image deep and wide enough to embrace the diversity of the whole human family. I am convinced that our God delights in our diversity, for we are “wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by a God whose creativity surprasses even our wildest imaginings. 

These theological ideas and Scriptural interpretations are representative of the conversations that I have had with members of the Christ Church community in my first few months of ordained ministry. I am what is known as a Curate, which means a newly ordained priest who is mentored by a seasoned Rector while serving alongside her in ministry. Since I arrived in June 2024—the very next day after my ordination to the priesthood—the Christ Church community as a whole has also become a collective mentor to me, blessing me with the wisdom and insights of many lifetimes, while also trusting me as a preacher, pastor, and teacher in their midst. This community has helped me live into my identity as a freshly ordained priest, and has embraced me as an openly queer minister. And together, we have been exploring and deepening what it means to be an LGBTQ+ affirming community.  

As a member congregation of the Episcopal Church in the United States, our parish community is committed to following Jesus into loving, liberating, and life-giving relationships with God, with each other, and with all creation, including its living and nonliving members. Integral to the vows we make at our baptisms is the commitment to strive to love our neighbors as ourselves and to respect the dignity of every person. We continually renew these commitments throughout our lives, and we seek to faithfully embody them in many expressions as the years unfold. Together, we ask questions with open minds and hearts, and we listen for God’s wisdom as we learn from one another. Along the way we make mistakes, seek reconciliation, and find forgiveness—ultimately deepening our relationships with one another and our loving God.  

Our mutual listening and learning as a community recently led us into a new ministry. This August, the Christ Church and Ventana School communities came together to show our love and support for our local LGBTQ+ kindred at Silicon Valley PRIDE. We partnered with several other local Episcopal congregations in the Diocese of California, San Francisco Bay Area and the Diocese of El Camino Real in hosting a booth at the PRIDE festival in downtown San Jose. A contingent of Christ Church and Ventana families, staff, and clergy also marched in the PRIDE parade that Sunday morning. 

At our PRIDE festival booth, volunteers from our combined parish and school communities offered a welcoming presence, compassionate listening, and friendly conversation to festival attendees. We gave out a rainbow array of candles with stickers that read “Let your light shine!” Additionally, brightly colored kazoos proved to be a big hit—over a hundred and twenty were taken home by delighted festival-goers. One memorable moment from our time at PRIDE was the formation of an impromptu kazoo ensemble, led by two young children of the parish. A group of us formed a circle around them, clapping and chanting, “Good News! Kazoos! Good News! Kazoos!” Our laughter, joy, and open-ended Christian witness came as a surprise to some PRIDE attendees over the course of the two festival days. One person who stopped by our booth told us, with a radiant smile, “I never knew a church could be accepting like this!” Another person broke down in tears when they saw what our booth represented. I offered them a hug, and then simply stood with them as their holy tears soaked into my shoulder. They shared that they were grieving the lack of acceptance they had experienced from churches in the past, while also shedding tears of joy for encountering an affirming Christian community now. I felt so grateful to be able to come together with Christ Church community members to share God’s unconditional love with our LGBTQ+ kindred here in the South Bay—and to be an openly queer priest in the midst of this congregation. 

As a queer priest and follower of Christ, I trust with my whole heart that we are each beloved by God in our creaturely goodness, just as we are. Members of the LGBTQ+ community offer a unique reflection of the divine face—of Love itself. The sacred light of our queerness shines out into a world whose awareness of our radiance continues to dawn. Yet I believe that the fullness of that bright morning of acceptance and liberation is coming. Until it does, I have hope for us in radical solidarity with one another and with the communities—like Christ Church—that affirm and uplift us. We are resilient, as our LGBTQ+ forebears have been throughout the centuries. We know the sacred arts of joy, play, celebration, deep listening and witnessing one another’s truths as means of resistance and liberation. These sacred arts lie at the heart of my ministry, and I gladly offer them to you. And so, if you would like to meet for coffee and conversation with a local queer priest who is always available to listen, witness, and celebrate you for who you are, please be in touch anytime at cal@ccla.us or 650-948-2151 x212.

Welcoming our New Curate: The Rev. Cal Payne-Taylor

Dear friends in Christ,

It is with great joy and profound hope that I share the news of the call of our new Curate, the Reverend Cal Payne-Taylor. Rev. Cal is currently a transitional deacon completing his final semester of seminary at Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) in Berkeley. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, he also holds an M.A. in Medieval and Early Modern European History from UC Berkeley. Rev. Cal has extensive experience in chaplaincy, youth ministry, creation care, and teaching. His passions include hiking and kayaking throughout the Bay Area, immersing himself in medieval mysticism and spiritual poetry, and building community through gardening and restoring native species. He serves as seminary intern to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Walnut Creek, where he preaches regularly, develops creative adult formation programs, and offers pastoral care, with a focus on helping new members find connection and belonging in the life of the parish. He is being sponsored for ordination by All Souls Parish in Berkeley. Rev. Cal’s first Sunday with us will be June 9th, 2024.

This curacy represents a new and creative collaboration between our congregation, the Diocese of California, and CDSP. In the Episcopal tradition, a curate is a newly ordained member of the clergy who serves under a more experienced priest exercising a pastoral call while also being formed for ordained ministry. Both I, as Rector, and we, as a congregation, will share in responsibilities for Rev. Cal’s formation, even as he serves among us as a fully active priest. The curacy agreement is for two years of full-time service and will conclude on May 31st, 2026. 

The vestry and I have been in discernment for over a year around our evolving pastoral needs and they approved our participation in the curacy program in January. Many thanks to parishioners Sara Boadwee, Corrie Conrad, Grant Audet, and Adam McAfee, as well as staff members Rev. Julie Nelson, Head of Ventana School Amanda Stewart, and Director of Music Eric Tuan, who met with Rev. Cal as part of the mutual discernment that led to this call. I’m also tremendously grateful to the Diocesan Transition Minister Denise Obando for her support in making this possible.  

We at Christ Church have benefited from outstanding clergy over the years, but we have not enjoyed the gift of having multiple full-time priests on staff since the departure of the Rev. Jim McKnight in late 2010. It is with great excitement and gratitude that we prepare to welcome Rev. Cal to our community. More information on his priestly ordination and welcoming him to our congregation will be forthcoming in the months to come. In the meantime, I invite you to join me in praying for Rev. Cal as completes his degree and prepares to move to the Peninsula to begin his life anew among us. 

Christ’s peace,

The Rev. Claire Dietrich Ranna + 
Rector, Christ Episcopal Church 

From Country Club Church to Something New

The following is adapted from the Rector’s Verbal Report given at the 2023 Annual meeting of Christ Episcopal Church on Sunday, January 28th, 2024.

When I first came to Christ Church seven years ago, I heard again and again from longtime members that this “used to be a country club church.” I admit that I was both confused and fascinated by this comparison, as country clubs and churches have always seemed to me rather different organizations, so I tried to listen deeply, to stay curious about what people were trying to tell me in this comparison.

Now, three qualifiers to everything that follows. First, not everyone said this. There are many longtime members of Christ Church who would probably disagree with this assessment, so I by no means want to say that this was fundamentally true. But enough people said it that I found it worth pondering, and find it worth naming for us to explore together. Second, this was always said in the past tense: “this used to be a country club church.” Interestingly, when I asked in response, “And what kind of church is it now?” the responses varied greatly, and mostly people weren’t sure how to respond at all. Finally, I want to be clear that I’m not fundamentally opposed to country clubs. Many of you are members of country clubs, many of you have generously invited me and my family to spend time with you at your country clubs, and I’ve enjoyed them immensely. Had people said to me again and again that Christ Church was like a restaurant, or like a yoga studio, or like the Rotary, it would be just as fruitful for us to ponder how this might be so, and also how a parish is not like these organizations at all. 

I want to explore four ways in which the church and a country club differ, in the hopes of clarifying what the church uniquely is, and supporting our ongoing discernment around who God is calling Christ Church to be here and now. But first, let’s think about ways that a church and a country club are similar. They are both places where like-minded people gather around events and activities of mutual interest. They have a physical site that facilitates these enjoyable interactions. They’re places people usually go to in a state of need or longing – in the case of a country club, looking for rest, food, connection, exercise, leisure, fun, and in the case of the church looking for spiritual refreshment, community, prayer, music, connection with God, formation – and leave feeling uplifted. That is to say, we go to both church and a country club, in some sense, hoping to feel better afterward. And finally, both have a lamentable history in failing to affirm the full humanity of women, queer folk, and people of color, which they have dealt with, and failed to deal with, in a number of ways.  

Now, onto the ways that country clubs and churches are different. First, there’s how these organizations define membership. To join a country club, one has to pay dues and fees. In our area, these can be in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Membership is defined by money. Membership in a parish, by contrast, is defined by showing up and being part of the community. Usually, being part of the community also includes participating in the practices of our faith: baptism, service, worship, prayer, ministry – but there are many people who identify as part of our community who don’t do all or even any of those things. The point is: it costs nothing to belong to a church. Everyone who considers this congregation their spiritual home is invited and encouraged to give financially to support the life of the parish, but this is a gift freely given, not a requirement for entry.

This matters. It means a country club is an essentially exclusive organization, whereas the church is, ideally, an inclusive one. The first followers of Jesus were not bound together by class, profession, or affinity – theirs was a wildly diverse community. Some of Jesus’ friends probably could have afforded to belong to the ancient equivalent of a country club, and maybe did (think of all those wealthy women mentioned in scripture who opened their homes to the disciples) while others were enslaved, outcasts, prostitutes, tax collectors, folks of varying physical and mental abilities, bearers of impurity and contagion. It was a real mixed bag, the early church, but they all belonged with Jesus, because everyone belongs with Jesus. We, like most Episcopal churches, are fond of saying, “Whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey of faith, you are welcome here.” If this were a country club, that statement could not be true, but it can be true for a parish. So, the first part of this comparison begs the question: who belongs at Christ Church? 

The second way country clubs and churches differ relates to their mission. Country clubs exist to serve their members, to make their members comfortable, to provide recreation, relaxation, and social interactions for the select few who can afford to join. Churches exist to nourish members and non-members alike so that we, together, may be of God’s service in the world. In the Lutheran church, after the dismissal the pastor often says, “Our liturgy is over, our service begins.” Or, as one longtime parishioner is fond of saying, the church is the only organization that exists solely for the good of those who are not members. 

Finding safe, comforting and comfortable places in our life is important. We all need rest, refreshment, and relaxation. God gave us the Sabbath specifically because our lives are for more than work and productivity: pleasure, ease, stillness, delight, and awe are blessings we were meant to enjoy. We all come to church in need of comfort. But if we are not at least open to being discomforted here, to having our assumptions about the world and our place in it destabilized from time to time, then something is probably wrong. So, this second part of this comparison begs the question: who is Christ Church serving? 

The third way the comparison falls short relates to labor. Who does the real work of an organization? People often go to country clubs not simply to relax but also to have fun that feels like work: one might play a game of golf or attend an exercise class or swim a few thousand meters. But someone else is doing the labor of making the club hospitable and keeping it functioning: cutting the grass and trimming back the hedge; preparing the food and fishing the leaves out of the pool. The staff do the work of keeping the place going. 

This is fundamentally different from a church. The work of the church is the ministry of its members. If we want to have a vibrant outreach committee, an active ministry for children and families, a more pronounced presence in our wider community, or a mutually enriching relationship with Ventana School, the parish staff – amazing as they are – cannot make that happen. The staff exist to support the ministries of the members of the parish and to facilitate those aspects of the life of the congregation that are unique to our faith: worship, prayer, the administration of the sacraments, and pastoral care being good examples. (And though staff or contractors certainly do blow the leaves and move the tables and sweep the floors to allow for all this to happen, members do a lot of this, too). Members of the parish may have ministries that intersect with the fundamentally religious aspects of our life together, but most ministries are lived out most fully and most truly outside of Sunday morning. 

So many of our ministries are full and vibrant. The finance and investment committees have parents and parishioners on them with invaluable knowledge and experience. The choir is, well, it’s the choir – it’s incredible! People are bringing treats to coffee hour and signing up to read and coming to Wednesday dinners. But, while our congregation has been steadily growing over the last few years, we frequently struggle to call people into active ministry. The pandemic exacerbated this, and I realize a lot of things go into one’s willingness and ability to be fully engaged in the life a parish, including work and commitments and stage of life considerations. Still, I want to highlight a few places where I see this really impacting our ability to move in the directions I think we, collectively, want to go. 

First, we no longer have anyone on the outreach committee, or in the parish as far as I know, who is willing to lead hands-on service projects. Perhaps we’re no longer called to these kinds of programs, but if not, how are we called to draw nearer to those most in need, those most beloved by Jesus, in Los Altos and beyond? Similarly, we have some young families who would love to have a more robust children’s ministry, but no volunteers who have stepped forward to help plan and lead this, despite several invitations. It would be wonderful to have a volunteer youth minister again, more members running the AV system on Sundays, more people on the Master Planning or Buildings and Grounds committees, more engagement in Vital + Thriving, more folks coming to school events and willing to serve on the Ventana School Board. Maybe you are hearing this and thinking, “I’m willing to do some of those things! I didn’t even know we had these needs!” If so, goodness, the members of the vestry and I would be thrilled to hear from you. But a fundamental question for all members of a church must be, “Where is God calling me, personally, to be of service?” So, this third part of this comparison begs the question: what is our unique vocation in this community of faith?

At this point, you might be thinking, “Okay, well, the church might not be much like a country club, but it sounds a lot like other service groups and non-profits.” Fair! But this fourth and final point of comparison is the kicker – the thing that makes church unlike any other organization: God. The heart, soul, and center of our life together is not me (thank goodness!), not this building, not our bylaws nor our liturgy nor our mission statement nor our best laid plans. It’s God: our source, strength, and sustainer. Absolutely everything we do is oriented around cultivating, nourishing, and deepening our relationship with God, both directly and through more wholesome relationships with ourselves, each other, and creation. Taking God seriously in Western culture often requires taking ourselves less seriously, or at least taking our ideas and plans and goals less seriously, because God is not a box to check or a thing to acquire or a product to use. Being in relationship with God means that we acknowledge we are not in charge, are not the center of the universe, are not the authors of our own stories nor the authors of salvation. God is. 

Being in relationship with God is the great gift of this life, and … it’s hard. There is much we can experience about God directly and there are things we really do have to take on faith. And like every relationship, there’s no end – no specific place we are trying to get to, no point at which we are finished, no moment when we’ve mastered it. We’re just in it. Imagine saying of your marriage or a close friendship, “I’ve figured it out! I made it! I’ve got this! I guess I’m done now!” There might be moments of transcendent connection and joy in an intimate partnership, but it’s never over until it’s over, and, ideally, we’re not exactly wanting that. We’re simply in it, and being in it changes us again and again. But being in relationship with God also confronts us with our dependence, our vulnerability, our need to trust, even in the absence of understanding – virtues that are radically counter cultural, especially here in high-performing, high stakes Silicon Valley.

There’s an old joke from the Church of England that gets at this tension. One day, a shepherd is out toiling in a field perched perilously on the edge of a cliff. Distracted by a rogue four-legged animal, he accidentally wanders too close to the drop off and begins to tumble over the sheer rock face, barely managing to grab at the thick root of a tree a few feet down, from which he suddenly finds himself dangling. Terrified, he screams, “Help! Is anyone up there!” After a few moments, he hears a voice saying, “Do not be afraid, my child. Let go, and I will be here to catch you.” He takes this in, takes a deep breath, and then calls out, “Is anyone else up there?” Sometimes God’s invitation is not the invitation we want: it’s scary, it’s absurd, it’s inefficient, it asks too much of us, we know it won’t be welcome in the world. I don’t particularly like this either – it’s just true. Of course, the wonderful, terrible thing is that, if it was the voice of God responding to the man dangling on the cliff side, then God really would be there to catch him, but there’s no knowing – no knowing for sure – until he lets go. 

In my seven years here, I’ve become convinced that everyone at Christ Church actually wants to follow God – which, truly, is saying something. I am so deeply moved by the faithfulness I encounter here, and I feel tremendously lucky to be the priest of a community where this is true. In my estimation, it’s not an unwillingness to draw nearer to God that most frequently gets in the way of a deeper, richer and more profound relationship. It’s our inability or unwillingness to let go of the things that get in the way, the things that look at first glance like they are saving our life but are, all too often, crushing our souls: our obsession with achievement, our frenetic schedules and over-commitments, our greed, our attachment to power, our need to be right, our fear of what others will think. I can’t help but wonder … what if we let go? What if we let go of how we think this thing called church is supposed to look? What if we let go of how we think a successful life is supposed to look? What if we let go of anxiety or overachieving? What if we let go of our beliefs about all we can’t do, and listened to what God has in mind? 

Most organizations have plans, goals, timelines. Sometimes we do, too, and they can be helpful and necessary. But mostly, we have a relationship with a being so far beyond our comprehension that it is almost funny … and if God calls us to pivot, to reconsider, to switch it up, well, I hope and pray we will say yes. So the fourth point of comparison is a question of risk, and of faith: what do we need to let go of before we can say yes to God? 

I never did get clarity on what exactly people were saying when they called this “a country club church.” I suspect they were saying lots of different things. But whether or not this was accurate, the questions this comparison has surfaced are questions at the heart of our faith: matters of belonging, vocation, and identity. Whatever this church was, it is up to us to define what it is, because we are Christ Church now, and I am so glad to be a part of becoming the congregation God would have us be. It takes real faith and courage to stay in the not-knowing place – the place of transition and growth and discovery – long enough to hear the Holy Spirit speak, but it is here that we have the opportunity to say “Yes, if,” to God’s wild and wonderful invitations. As we turn our attention from the year that has passed to the year ahead, I want to highlight a few things on the horizon that give me hope and, I believe, will help us live into our truest identity as the body of Christ here and now

·      Vital+Thriving. I’m so excited to see how this initiative continues to bear fruit as we discover where God is at work in the world around us and how we might partner more fully with the Spirit. I have a sense that God is going to keep surprising us in 2024, and engaging the Vital+Thriving experiments will be a great adventure.

·      Master Planning. Last year we approved a five, ten and twenty-year vision for the maintenance and renovation of our buildings and grounds. We’ve made much progress on that this year. Both the kitchen remodel and new classroom construction will begin done this year. We’ve approved the installation of solar panels on the rectory and the new classroom buildings and will replace the roofs on the classroom wings this summer. The parish portions of this work will cost about $160,000. We’ll soon be reaching out to ask for your support in moving these initiatives forward, and I want to thank you in advance for prayerfully considering how you might be called to give of your time, talent, and treasure to help see this vision come to life.  

·      Ventana School. The growth of our school means the growth of our community. The vestry and I are working closely with Amanda and the school board to rewrite the school’s mission and vision. In fact, she and I are spending about ten hours in meetings this coming week to kick off this effort. As she mentioned in her report, Amanda and I will present at a National Association of Episcopal Schools conference in March about the intersection of our Reggio pedagogy and Episcopal identity. As Ventana grows, the parish sees financial benefit from increased tuition, so the vibrancy of this, our largest ministry, continues to be a great blessing to us. 

·      Staffing shifts. The 2024 budget we just approved includes two very part-time ministry positions. I’m thrilled to announce that parishioner Alice Landis Kochunov will be joining our staff as Minister for Adult Formation, charged with supporting programs, preaching regularly, and working closely with me to support education and spiritual formation. She’ll do this from her home in Houston, but will also be here in person several times this year, including for a weekend in February when she will preach and lead a Spiritual Rave. I could not be happier with Alice’s acceptance of this call and know she is going to be a great gift to us. I’m also delighted to share that Jenny Bishop, a lifelong parishioner and the art teacher at Ventana School, will be our Minister for Children and Families, continuing to gather the community on Wednesday evenings and working closely with me to support the youngest members of our congregation and their families. Jenny brings people together in creative and joyful ways and I can’t wait to see what she’ll bring to us in this role. More information on Alice and Jenny’s responsibilities will be shared soon. For now, I hope you’ll join me in celebrating their yes to God’s invitation to be of service here and now.   

·      Welcoming another priest. I’m delighted to share that we are likely to welcome another full-time priest to our congregation this summer. While we have been richly blessed by the gifts of Rev. Julie and Rev. Sheldon, having another full-time clergy person on staff will open up many possibilities for us, and being a part of a new priest’s formation is a sacred trust that I know you all will engage wholeheartedly. This is very much in progress but I believe I will have good news and more details to share soon. 

2024 is shaping up to be an incredible year for Christ Church. We’re going to welcome a new Bishop to the Diocese of California, and have two-full time priests in our congregation for the first time in over a decade. We’re going to see our campus begin to change. We’re going to see our school enrollment grow, and our wider community through fellowship, worship, and formation. When I came to Christ Church seven years ago, I was excited to be joining a congregation willing to rediscover its own identity in Christ. I trust that the year ahead will be illuminating in this regard. May the God who has brought us to this moment, and blessed us so richly on the way, watch over and shelter us as we move forward in faith, hope and love. Amen. 

Re-humanization

Since Christ Church began the Vital+Thriving Congregations initiative almost a year and a half ago, members of our teams and those we’ve encountered in the wider community have talked a great deal about our unique context here in Silicon Valley. We’ve heard again and again that so much of our contemporary culture is dehumanizing: many people feel they are expected to work, or at least be available to work, constantly; parents feel pinched between responsibilities to their jobs and responsibilities to their children, while others are care-giving for partners or elders whose needs can become quickly overwhelming; there’s a constant sense that we should be more impressive, more successful, or simply more than we know we actually are. If nothing else, the pace of our lives, the complexity of our world, and the divisions in our society are a source of near-constant anxiety. COVID both exacerbated and intensified many preexisting sites of stress and suffering. In a popular 2021 piece for The New York Times, organizational psychologist Adam Grant describe the “joyless and aimless” feeling that plagued many during the pandemic as a chronic state of “languishing.”

In response to all we heard in that first year of deep listening, our Vital+Thriving teams came together in the spring of 2023 to identify the following Missional Challenge facing our congregation: “God has opened our eyes to a profound spiritual longing in Silicon Valley: many people are disconnected and exhausted, living without family support and struggling to find meaningful relationships. As an open-minded, intellectually curious community, how can we join our neighbors seeking authentic connection, asking real questions, exploring together what practices deepen their flourishing and that of their families?” Our Director of Music, Eric Tuan, explored both the challenges of our particular culture and the hope of our faith in this brilliant and beautiful sermon from last September.

Since articulating this challenge, both the Steering Team and Missional Innovation Team (MIT) have been praying, dreaming, and discerning together how we might be called by God to manifest the love and light of Christ in our particular time and place. The MIT has now identified four areas for experimentation, which we’ll be exploring with various events and programs in the year ahead: 1) interfaith collaboration, building on the Building Bridges Program and partnerships developed over the last two years; 2) Wednesday community dinners, open to all, and particularly inclusive of young families; 3) sacred hiking; and, 4) gatherings and support for people who have been harmed by religion. While the Vital+Thriving teams have begun planning some events related to these areas, we are eager for other parishioners and friends of the community to get involved. If one or more of these resonates for you, please let a V+T team member know, or contact me (claire@ccla.us). If you’re aware of others already doing similar work here in Los Altos or beyond that might intersect with or further these experiments, we would also love to hear about it.

If we live in a context that dehumanizes God’s children and disconnects us from the love that is our birthright, then the work of the Gospel here and now must be a kind of re-humanization. What are the practices, disciplines, and rituals that reconnect us to God, creation, neighbor and self? Where is the Spirit already at work in our communities, and how are we called to partner with God in reconciliation, joy, and the creation of more just and gentle world? We don’t yet have answers to these urgent and enlivening questions, but I’m excited for us to be exploring them together.

How do we move toward the edge faithfully?

Earlier this summer, I heard from a member of the board of one of the organizations to whom the Christ Church Outreach Committee has consistently awarded grants in recent years. Cristosal works to promote justice, human rights, and democratic societies in Central America through strategic litigation, research, education, human rights monitoring, and assistance for victims of human rights violations. They were organizing a learning and solidarity trip to Guatemala in early September with a special focus on LGBTQI rights and protections in the area. Participants would be immersed in communities actively working to both augment legal protections in the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador), as well as promoting the cultural changes needed to destigmatize those identifying as LGBTQI, many of whom have been victims of descrimination and violence. The trip is oriented around education and relationship building, focusing especially "on the trauma/psychosocial impacts of hate-motivated violence and discrimination" and "the role of religion in protecting or perpetrating rights violations." The board member encouraged me to consider going and to share the details of the trip with others at Christ Church. 

I happen to have known this board member for the last sixteen years, when we sang together in the choir that eventually sponsored me for ordination. I thanked her for being in touch and said I would forward the details to members of the parish who might be interested and ready to travel internationally in this way, which I did, but I added that I was not quite ready to leave my kids for a full five days. And then we celebrated the last day of school, and had a big BBQ on the lower lawn with the Ventana community, and I went on vacation for a couple weeks, and I didn't think much about it again until a friend mentioned that his wife had just come back from a two week long trip with her friends. While out for a run the next morning I thought, "My kids are five and seven now. My husband has travelled for weeks at a time since they were born. Is it really true that I can't leave them for a few days?" I've been so in the habit of staying near home since my children were born that I have to admit I didn't really even consider the invitation from Cristosal. But once I got past the hurdle of simply being away from my family, I found myself really curious about this program. I sent an email requesting more details. I prayed about it during my morning quiet time with God. I ruminated on going during my runs and hikes. And then I talked to a couple good friends and my husband, who encouraged me to go if I felt called. I sensed that the Spirit was stirring in this, as the thought of it simply wouldn’t let me go. I joined a planning call with others who had already committed to the program, and finally decided that I was in.

I’ve never been to Guatemala, but I have spent some time in both Honduras and El Salvador. Both of these trips were arranged in conjunction with the Church and were profoundly impactful. I went to Honduras while a Sophomore in college through a Duke Chapel partnership with Heifer International. As part of that experience, all of the students in our group took a semester-long class on the history of Central America and Honduras, liberation theology, and the role of the Church in addressing systemic inequality and promoting change. We reflected a great deal on the “why” of this trip. If we really wanted to support the people of the small village we would be staying with for a little over a week, was our visiting there really the most effective way to do that? Would the $25,000 or so that the trip would cost be better spent investing directly in the community? We were a motley group of undergraduates with no real construction skill, so who were we to go lay rebar and pour cement? We acknowledged to ourselves that our motives were not entirely pure: we hoped to be transformed by the trip, to build relationships, and prayed that these things justified in some small way our rather privileged involvement.

The trip was transformative. Truly. While I had grown up living close to the poverty line, I had never really seen the kind of lack that attended life in the villages of Honduras. It was one thing to read about exploitative economic policies and another to have dinner with the family of a sugar cane farmer whose wife explained how hard he worked, earning less than a dollar a day, and realize that the sweets I’d eaten all my life were so cheap because my society considered the worth of this person and his labor to be cheap: somehow less valuable than that of those living in the U.S. My faith was also deepened as I saw how the Church was instrumental in providing direct services - housing, medical and dental care, counseling, education - to those most on the margins.

I went to El Salvador in my second year of seminary as part of a relationship-building trip between the Divinity School and the Episcopal Diocese of El Salvador (which, while not in the U.S., is still a part of The Episcopal Church). After the civil war that tore the country apart from the late 70s through the early 90s, the Diocese was instrumental in relocating people whose entire livelihoods had been lost. With support from the wider Church, they built intentional communities, providing housing, schools, a clinic, and a Church all in a safe community, and partnered these places with non-profits working to provide greater opportunity to those who lived there.

Both trips expanded my sense of the work of the Church. They also reminded me, viscerally, of the profound interconnection of all our lives - not only mine and yours, but ours and those of the people of this wide and wild world. One of the things I most appreciated about those trips is that I had no real relationship to those I met outside of our common heritage as children of God. If not for the Church, I’m not sure how I ever would have met clergy who also worked full time as teachers or dentists in small villages in El Salvador, or laborers in pineapple farms, or learned from hardworking women how to clap tortillas between my hands while immersed in a cloud of smoke from the wood fire. It’s so easy here in the U.S. to associate “Church” with the liturgy, or the building, or the parish community, but every once in a while I’ve found it restorative - and perhaps necessary - to experience the Church as so much bigger and more varied in the ways that it exists around the world.

We talk a lot at Christ Church about “moving toward the edge” or the margins as a faithful response to Jesus’ call on our lives. There are ways to do this that only reinforce the systems of the world that perpetually divide us, but there are others that help us see through those illusory walls. It can be difficult to discern between the two, and even as I’ve made decisions in my life seeking to faithfully follow God’s voice, it’s possible I’ve missed invitations, or misunderstood them along the way. But I am grateful for the ways these trips changed me. I’m sure they both shaped the priest and the person I am today. How do we move toward the edge faithfully? Well, first, we have to be curious - genuinely - about what God wants for us and for the world, not assuming we already know or are already furthering God’s dream, always willing to reconsider and see things anew. And then we pray, we listen, we trust, we gather information. In short, we engage in discernment, humbly asking for God to make the way clear, and then when God does, we say yes. Sometimes we will get it wrong - that’s just how this being human thing goes - but even when we do, God will work with us to purpose something good.

I’m not sure what I’ll learn in Guatemala, or how I’ll be changed this time, but I am tremendously grateful for the opportunity to go and listen and pray. The group traveling with Cristosal includes several psychiatrists from the SF General Hospital, professors from UCSF, other professionals, and clergy. I trust I’ll learn as much from them as I do from those we meet in Central America. I’ll be eager to reflect on this experience with you all when I return! If you would be interested in participating in a trip like this in the future, please let me know.

Between Belonging and Beginning Again

I had the honor of being a keynote speaker at "Inspiring Stories: Interfaith Family Life Across Three Generations" on July 20th, a program of The Guibord Center / Religion Inside-Out and IslamiCity. The invitation was to speak out of my experience as an Episcopal Priest married to a Muslim man. The event was so beautiful - what incredible organizations doing such inspiring work! Here's what I shared.

***

My now husband and I met almost fourteen years ago while we were both living in California. Neither of us was native to this place: Haamid is a Muslim immigrant from Pakistan who had come to the U.S. as a student over a decade earlier, whereas I was a Christian woman from the faraway land of Ohio - Cleveland, to be more precise. When we met, he worked in IT and I was beginning the process that would lead to my ordination as an Episcopal priest. We both had vibrant lives in San Francisco, a supremely secular city, and our friends were of many faiths or no faith at all. 

Because my Church was and is extremely inclusive, once we started dating, our relationship was celebrated by my priests, my congregation, my Bishop, and the many, many, many committees - so many committees - that had to approve my ordination. Haamid was welcome and beloved (he’s a pretty lovable guy, if I do say so myself). That said, I knew from the beginning that my faith was something he celebrated but didn’t exactly share. The first time he came to Church with me was the first time he had ever set foot in a Church. The music, the rituals, the community - which were so familiar to me that they felt like a kind of refuge - were foreign to him. All of which is to say, he was welcome, but it wasn’t his home. We knew that our common faith in God - a creating God, a god of mercy and compassion - was something to treasure and cherish, but we also knew that we spoke of this God in different languages, approached this God in different ways, and so would have to learn to encounter this most familiar God together anew, if we were to encounter God together at all.

It wasn’t until we moved to New Haven, Connecticut so that I could get my Masters of Divinity from Yale, that he was occasionally asked if he planned to convert to Christianity. The question always came from well-meaning, friendly Christians-in-training. He did not, nor would I have ever asked, expected, or even wanted this of him. I built a religion minor as an undergraduate out of courses that focused on Islam and Islamic history, and had even studied Arabic for several years. I had read the Quran, had stayed with Palestinians when I visited Jerusalem, had studied abroad in Turkey in order to visit the beautiful mosques and learn more of the ancient history of the faith. I loved (and I still love) that my husband is Muslim. It is a beautiful faith, and it is a part of him. 

The Episcopal Church had never taught me that people who aren’t Christian are “damned” or “wrong” or “going to hell,” so, thankfully, I didn’t carry any of these beliefs into our relationship. I also had a Jewish step-father and Jewish step-siblings, and my siblings had married a Buddhist, a Roman Catholic, and an atheist, so I guess I come to the inter-faith family thing pretty naturally. I’ve always believed that there are many good and life-giving ways to experience our connection to that which is most sacred, most true, which I call the divine but not everyone does, and was delighted to share my life with someone who shared my values, practiced his faith, and was infinitely curious and deeply kind. 

Just days after I finished seminary in 2014, by then married and pregnant with our first child, I boarded a plane bound for Pakistan where I would meet Haamid, who had gone a few days earlier, and finally meet his family. (I mean unless you count WhatsApp video chats, which I usually do.) A few days into the trip, one of his relatives asked me if I planned to convert to Islam. Her English wasn’t very strong and I don’t speak Urdu, so I simply said no, and the conversation moved along. Haamid spent much of that day with his brothers and friends at the mosque, slipping effortlessly back in the routines of prayer and meals. We laughed about this question later that night. I was literally just weeks away from being ordained a priest! He had explained to his family that I was Christian and even studying to be a minister, but it hadn’t totally clicked. A lot had been lost in translation - across languages, across cultures. It didn’t bother me, but it did make me think. 

What I realized even then is that this question - “Do you plan to convert?” - came from a genuinely good place. What I think both my classmates and Haamid’s family member were really trying to say is, “We like you, and we want to welcome you, but we’re not sure how to do that if you aren’t one of us.” I understood. I do not, and cannot, fully inhabit my husband’s experience of Islam, just as he does not, and cannot, fully inhabit my experience of Christianity, even as we celebrate and support each other’s faiths. I think it is important to name both what is beautiful about being in an inter-faith marriage - the learning, the wonder, the growth, the mystery - while at the same time acknowledging that this can live right alongside a kind of spiritual loneliness. Both Islam and Christianity emphasize individual piety and communal observance, and that communal piece is something we cannot fully share. We, too, do not always know how to welcome one another into our traditions. We name this, because naming a thing helps us accept and hold it. We acknowledge the limits of our understanding. 

And … and … there is beauty. While I was in seminary, I became keenly aware of the ways that we were already praying together. We pause before dinner, giving thanks to God, naming the blessings of the day that has passed, expressing our gratitude for each other and the life that we share. We spend time outside and we celebrate creation. During Ramadan, Haamid gently shakes me awake in the darkness before dawn, and I sit with him drinking coffee while he hurriedly eats - full fat yogurt and chickpeas, or some other food that lasts - and then he prays, and I pray, each in our own way. At Christmas he folds himself into the celebrations of my family, giving gifts, helping to cook. 

Now we have kids - two beautiful, brilliant little humans, ages five and seven. We tell them stories from each of our faiths. We tell them about God and God’s goodness. They attend the school founded by my parish, a Reggio-Emilia inspired spiritual-but-not-religious kind of place, and I teach them and their friends mindfulness exercises, and read them books about compassion and working together and respecting nature, and we do yoga, and we ring the singing bell and breathe. We whisper into their ears as they are falling asleep that they are the greatest blessing of all. 

They come to Church, sometimes. They learn about Muslim prayers and practices from their dad, sometimes. I’m not honestly sure if they think of themselves as Christian, or Muslim, or both, or neither. We don’t talk with them much about labels. We talk to them, instead, about love and courage and empathy and respect. We welcome their questions. We wonder with them. We laugh a lot. And we are both quick to say, “what do you think?” and “I don’t know,” when we don’t know, which is much of the time. I’m sure there will be more detailed conversations to come. We’ll welcome them. We will teach them that they belong to both of our traditions, and that we belong to one another. But mostly, we will teach them that they belong to God, as do we all, and somehow, I believe this will be enough.

What is Church for?

While I don’t think a utilitarian view of religion is always helpful, I do think it is a good idea to occasionally ask ourselves - both individually and collectively - what we think Church is for. What comes to mind when we ask such a question? Do we come to Church to be fed and sustained, or transformed and made new? What is the work of the Church throughout the week, not only on Sunday morning?

One way of understanding the Church emphasizes our individual faith. We come to Church to be filled and formed, but our spirituality is primarily a matter of personal piety and how we live it out in the world is up to us. This way of understanding Church lends itself to a specific understanding of salvation that emphasizes a personal relationship with God above all else and frames redemption as an individual affair, while also pointing to “heaven” as a reward for those who live faithfully here on earth.

This understanding of Church, while popular today, is largely absent in scripture and in the two thousand years of Christian history. It is an innovation that emerged not out of our religious history but out of our national story, the beating heart of a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” “city on a hill” Protestant puritanism that is peculiarly American, though it has now spread around the world. The teachings of scripture very rarely address us as individuals. They seem to assume that readers are receiving the teachings of God in community and that they will live out these teachings in webs of relationships that are as oriented toward the transformation of the world as the transformation of our souls. The Hebrew Scriptures mostly address the whole of Israel - a people, not a person. The New Testament is largely made up of letters addressed not to individual people but to nascent communities of Christians who have covenanted together to follow “the way” of Jesus (these groups did not understand themselves as Churches, per se, but as “people of the way,” or followers of the example of Jesus).

Saint Paul gives us the image of the “body of Christ” as a metaphor for the Church:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.

(1 Corinthians 12:12-14)

How differently do we understand Church when we think of ourselves as members of a body, to whom billions of others and even the saints who have gone before us belong? When our response to the very question of what the Church is for begins not with me but with we? One thing this centers is that the love and liberation we receive from God are never meant to be enjoyed apart from others, and indeed inherent in them is an obligation to share such love and liberation with others. Notice how this description of the body of Christ also point us to the breaking down of worldly divisions such as the ethnic divide between Jews and Greeks or, in our time, those of different faiths and races, or the economic and political distinction between those considered slaves and free. Whenever and wherever we see these distinctions breaking down in the world, we know that this is God working in our midst. The Church, then, is called not only to form faithful individual disciples of Jesus but also to knit each of us into the very life of God, who is always remaking and redeeming the world.

Think also of how we hear scripture differently when we hear it addressed to us as individuals or to us as a people. The Ten Commandments offer a wonderful text for this exercise. If we hear these as addressed to us as individuals, they sound quite accessible: do not murder; do not worship idols; do not steal; do not covet. But if we hear them as collective moral guidance, they take on a different weight. If God says to us as a people, “do not kill,” then this has serious implications on our collective understanding of criminal justice, the death penalty, and our societies’ justifications for war. If God says to us as a people, “do not worship idols,” then we have to think seriously about everything that comes before God in our lives. Is it possible that our jobs have become idols? Our savings accounts? Our families? Even our religious institutions? If God says to us as a people, “do not steal,” then we need to think seriously about international trade agreements, the distribution of wealth in our society, and the histories of genocide and systemic racism that involved the pillaging of wealth and the destruction of lives for the profit of a few. If God says to us as a people, “do not covet,” then we must reevaluate our entire economy, and especially marketing and advertising, which are in fact based on coveting, i.e. cultivating a longing for things and experiences we need less than we think we need them.

As Episcopalians, we often seek a “middle way” in matters both of theology and spiritual practice. The Protestant threads of our heritage can land too firmly on a personal faith devoid of obligations to service on behalf of others, whereas the Catholic ones can so envelope us in a collective that we lose sight of our particular gifts and calling. I recently heard a Jewish teacher share a reminder handed down to her from her tradition, which is that we humans must learn to hold two very different truths at the same time. On the one hand, we hold fast to the reality that we are beloved of God, utterly unique, created in the image of the divine and precious in God’s sight. In the other, we hold the reality that we are stardust, just like everyone else. We need these different reminders in different seasons of our lives to center and reorient us, and the Church reminds us of both.

I wrote in my last blog about the distinction between Churches that emphasizes common prayer and those that emphasize common belief. Because we do not ascribe to the idea that there is always a single right way to think or act in the world, and because we recognize that context and relationships influence what might be the most faithful response to any given situation, I believe a large part of what the Church “is for” is to support us - each of us, and all together - in staying in active discernment, day by day. To be in discernment is to be always listening for God’s voice and God’s guidance, to assume that God does not call us once and for all but over and over again, and that a life lived in God is a life attuned to God’s voice and responsive to God’s invitations. What is Church for? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that, too.

On the Unity of the Church: Common Prayer, Not Common Belief

We talk a lot these days about how divided the country has become, but when I look back on other periods of American and European history, I often find myself marveling at how infrequently peace and justice have been the norm. I’ve particularly been thinking lately of the bitter divisions that were the backdrop for the early years of the Anglican Church.

Because King Henry VIII’s split with Rome in 1549 was an act of political defiance rather than theological objection (he wanted to be able to divorce, and to have oversight of the wealth owned by the Church in his realm), the English Reformation took on a very different character than those unfolding on the continent. The religious “innovations” under Henry were rather tame: The Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549, but other than being in English rather than Latin it contained relatively few changes from the existing Roman Missal. It wasn’t until his son, Edward, assumed the throne that a more distinctly Protestant English Church emerged. Under both kings, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer worked tirelessly to articulate the principles of a “true and lively faith” independent of Roman oversight, and his poetic language still rings through our liturgy today, as do the statements of belief he articulated in the 39 Articles.

After Edward, though, came Mary, who - Catholic herself - pivoted the country sharply back to Catholicism. In the span of a few short years, clergy and churchgoers found themselves ping-ponging quite dramatically between affiliations and allegiances, divergent modes of prayer and various practices of piety. This was profoundly disorienting and destabilizing, and costly in every sense imaginable for local communities trying to keep up with the demands of the crown. Both clergy and lay people, of course, had their own preferences and beliefs, and when the Church and state leaned more Catholic or more Protestant, it didn’t only impact what services looked like on Sunday mornings - it affected all the ministries of the Church; who was allowed to participate in what; which beliefs and perspectives could be said publicly without rebuke or even arrest; how clergy were paid, and whether or not their marriages were authorized. People on both sides of the divide were fighting, and dying, for their cause. It was madness.

When Queen Elizabeth I assumed the throne in 1558, her people had been exhausted by the prior nine years of turmoil. She famously announced the Elizabethan Settlement, declaring that people could choose to be either Catholic or Protestant as they liked, but whatever they believed, they were to come to Church and pray alongside one another. “I have no desire to make windows into men's souls,” she said, giving individuals permission to disagree on many matters of piety, doctrine, and dogma, while continuing to worship together. Many historians contend that, without a compromise of this sort, the country would have torn itself apart.

As a result, in the Episcopal Church, which emerged out of the Church of England following the American revolution, we often say that we are united not by common belief but by common prayer. That is, unlike  “covenantal churches” - such as many Evangelical, Nondenominational, and Fundamentalist ones - we do not require members joining our Church to sign a statement of beliefs containing countless bullet points summarizing specific theological assertions. While the Catholic Church is not a “covenantal” one but “creedal,” like us, they take a more top-down approach to doctrine and dogma, with a general expectation that members will conform themselves in matters of theology and piety to those authorized by the Church. By contrast, we Episcopalians actually expect, and even celebrate, that those worshiping in our parishes hold many and varied beliefs, even about matters essential to Christian faith and practice, such as what happens to the bread and wine during communion or the meaning of the cross.

We also expect and celebrate that members hold many and varied social, cultural, and political values. Because it is not common belief but common prayer that binds us together, a Church like our own can be a fruitful place for us to learn, serve, and grow alongside others of different opinions. In this sense, belonging in the Episcopal Church is more akin to belonging to a family: we don’t expect that we’ll agree with everyone in our family all the time about every issue, but whether or not we agree, we still belong. What makes us a Church, then, is not simply what we think but how we live, what we practice, how we pray, and our commitment to uphold one another as we move through this life.

There are limits, of course, to the umbrella of beliefs that one would likely find in an Episcopal Church. Someone who doesn’t actually believe in God or Jesus, or compassion and justice as virtues, might still want to attend worship and would be most welcome to do so, but they would not be surprised to hear a lot about God, Jesus, compassion and justice in our prayers and sermons, and if they were - or were even distressed by such talk - they would need to make a decision for themselves about whether or not this was the right worship space for them. Similarly, though the Church is a religious body, we do and always have taken stances on social issues that intersect and even overlap with local, state, and political issues. Because our lives are not lived in neat and tidy silos, the issues cannot always be easily untangled. There are numerous examples of this. Our General Convention passed a resolution in 1952 saying Episcopalians should “consistently oppose and combat discrimination based on color or race in every form, both within the church and without,” and has in the decades since passed many other resolutions related to racial justice, voting rights, and even the topic of reparations. Because we believe all human life to be sacred, we have been opposed to the death penalty since 1958. We have, in recent years, affirmed and reaffirmed our commitment to the full inclusion of our LGBTQ+ siblings, including their right to ordination if so called and to the blessing of the Church in marriage. Our Church has also, since 1967, maintained it’s “unequivocal opposition to any legislation on the part of the national or state governments which would abridge or deny the right of individuals to reach informed decisions [about the termination of pregnancy] and to act upon them.” A summary of the Church’s resolutions on abortion can be found here. It is for this reason that our Presiding Bishop, and many other Bishops and leaders across the country, issued statements of lament in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade last Friday.

I’m keenly aware that the political discourses in our wider culture and communities have only become more and more divided and divisive in recent years, and that finding ways to talk about many social issues - particularly issues about which we do not agree - has only become more challenging. The overturning of Roe v. Wade has highlighted the diversity of perspectives that people in our communities, church, and workspaces hold, both theological and ideological, that inform their perspective on women’s rights to comprehensive reproductive health care on the one hand, and on the other our society’s moral obligations to a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus, all the way through it’s potential development into a child.

Access to abortion is a complex issue and Christian perspectives on it, even within our tradition, do not generally fit neatly into the categories of “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” The last time members of our parish had an open conversation about abortion was three years ago when it was topic in a series of “Living Room Conversations” held during the 9:00 a.m. Adult Formation hour between services. At that gathering, a number of perspectives on both the rights of women and the ethics of abortion were voiced, respectfully and constructively, the vast majority of which fell within the national Churches stated position on the matter. Given the historic nature of the case, its longevity, and the fact that many people have now lived all or most of their lives with this as settled law, many members at Christ Church and in our wider community are experiencing profound disorientation and grief in the wake of the ruling.

Irrespective of the details of the case, it is important to note that, while the Supreme Court has overturned precedent before, the nature of this decision is unique and remarkable. A notable example of another reconsidered precedent would be Plessy v. Ferguson, the historical 1896 case that justified “separate but equal” access to education for children of different races, which was overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of education, which made racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Every time the Supreme Court has overturned precedent before in matters where constitutional rights for American citizens were being considered, it was always in order to expand those rights. Dobbs marks the first time the court has acted to actually take away what had been considered fundamental rights for a significant proportion of our population (half, in this case).

In light of all of this, I find myself thinking once again about how it is that we belong to one another as a church. It seems that, while a diversity of perspectives can certainly be honored, at question for many in this conversation is the full humanity of those who can become pregnant, echoed in the language of our faith by the baptismal promise to “respect the dignity of every human being.” When such a foundational matter is on the table, we find ourselves bumping up against the edges of our comfort zones and our sense of unity. And so, when such a foundational matter is on the table, we are also reminded of our profound need for God’s guidance and presence, not only in each of our lives but in the life of our Church.

I am actively reflecting on what, in light of this historic and complex moment, our most appropriate responses as a parish might be, and very much welcome your prayers and perspectives in the time. Currently, I am planning to hold a few forums in August to discuss how it is that we, as Episcopalians, take ethical positions on questions of personal morality and social justice. What sources do we turn to? What voices do we trust? What considerations do we weigh? I think it might be specifically fruitful in one of those sessions to look at the content of the Church’s resolutions related to abortion, but the broader conversation would not need to be limited to this one issue. We may also host a space for those who are really struggling in the wake of the ruling to gather in prayer and lament. I would very much welcome the thoughts and suggestions of our members, and invite you to share any thoughts or questions with me. Feel free to call the office or email me, either to schedule an appointment or share your perspectives.

My life has been so richly blessed by the people of this parish, and I know that yours have as well. My life has also been richly blessed by the voice and wisdom of people in my life, both here at Christ Church and beyond, with whom I do not see eye to eye on even really foundational matters (I suppose, as an Episcopal priest, I couldn’t be happily married to a Muslim if that were not the case). I trust the Holy Spirit entirely to guide our parish through the time ahead; I trust us to care for one another with fierce kindness and courageous honesty; and I trust us all to be willing to listen, to learn, and to grow, in this as in all things. I look forward to learning from each of you as we walk into God’s preferred and promised future for our parish family.

with love, Claire +