News from the Congregation May 14, 2021
‘A Mid-Year Reflection;’ ‘An Ode to Nurses’ | Diocesan Lecture Series on Reparations, Volunteer at CCC’s Sunday Soup Kitchen, EfM Open Meetings | Sunday Programs (9:30 am Vicar’s Open Space, 10 am Genesis Bible Study, 11 am Worship Service, 12 pm Coffee Half-Hour - Open Vestry Meeting) |Weekday Programs (M-S Morning and Evening Prayer; Wednesday: 6:30 pm YESS Bible Study, 7:30 pm Bible Study - Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 8:30 pm Compline; Thursday: 6:30 pm EfM Class, Friday: Midday Prayer and Meditation, 12:15 pm Vicar’s Open Space).
Canon Lee
Mid-Year Review
The May Vestry meeting will take place at this Sunday’s coffee hour. With the announcement of plans for public in-person worship at the Cathedral, it is a good time to assess where we have been and where we are going.
Current Context
At the February 2020 Annual Meeting, I warned against the dangers of self-deception. It was important for us to understand that the growth in our first two years together—in new members, giving, and ministries—was primarily due to our place on the congregation life cycle, as opposed to the success of our own efforts. As I wrote in the 2020 Annual Report, “like a biological organism, a church congregation has a natural life cycle: the early stages of birth and growth; middle stages of maturity and stability; and later stages of decline and death.” The pandemic accelerated this timeline. The ideas and ministries that developed in the Year of YES would typically have taken 3-to-5 years to mature before we would have adopted a new vision. However, due to the pandemic, the Year of YES came to an abrupt close in March 2020.
Making Space for Discernment
Ministry during COVID has, out of necessity, been tactical and reactive, as opposed to strategic and deliberative. There were many immediate decisions that had to be made in a vacuum, since we had no clarity about the course of the pandemic. Ministry in this time has been similar to the Year of YES, in that we tried new things, very little went as planned, and we accepted imperfect results. This fall, not only will public in-person worship begin, but so will the public phase of Asian ministry at the Cathedral with Mother Kyrie. In the New Year, the next phase of the intentional community project led by Canon Malloy will begin. Thus, in a changing Cathedral and a changing New York City, the Congregation needs to enter into a season of greater discernment to understand our new ministry context.
The Body of Christ
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins describes the importance of finding the right leaders: First Who ... Then What. We expected that good-to-great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. We found instead that they first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats—and then they figured out where to drive it. The old adage “People are your most important asset” turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are. One of the most important tasks for your Vicar (with input from the Wardens and Vestry) will be to identify these leaders.
I close with the words of St. Paul to the church community in Rome:
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. (Romans 12:3-8).
EASTER SEASON: COFFEE HOUR CONVERSATIONS WITH THE VICAR
Conversations begin approximately 12:00 PM - 12:15 PM
Sunday, May 16 - Vestry Meeting
Sunday, May 23 - The Rev. Canon Dr. Titus Presler, vicar of St. Matthew’s Church in Enosburg Falls, Vermont; convener of Green Mountain Witness, the evangelism initiative of the Diocese of Vermont; and president of the Global Episcopal Mission Network.
Sunday, May 30 - Join the clergy and staff from the music and liturgy departments for a conversation about the Cathedral's re-gathering plans.
Marsha and Bob
Our Senior Warden: Thanksgiving for Nurses and other health care workers
Last week Arthur Gianelli, President of Mount Sinai Morningside, was the guest speaker at the monthly Cathedral Community Update that the Dean has been offering on ZOOM. Dr. Gianelli spoke about the struggles of those medical professionals on the front lines combating the pandemic for over a year. He shared that notes of gratitude would be deeply appreciated by the front line team as they come to grips with the past year. The Cathedral is collecting and compiling such “thank you” letters and will deliver them to the Morningside front team to show the Cathedral community’s support. If you wish to participate, please email or paper mail to Priscilla Bayley (pbayley@stjohndivine.org) by May 24.
I had been thinking all week about writing something about medical professionals and nurses in particular when I heard about Dr. Gianelli’s request. I am grateful for the great medical care I am personally receiving both at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) and at Mount Sinai. It is the nurses with whom I inter-act the most and who provide the day to day, week to week care. I am convinced that they are saints among us. I’ve begun asking them as they draw blood, set up infusions, take vital signs, how long they have been nurses and why they decided to become nurses. Most seem to love what they do. It is the nurses that I find it easiest to confide in when I am dealing with problems I run into as a cancer patient. It is the nurses who give great advice and take time to confer with the doctors when that is necessary.
Two recent experiences make it clear that nurses give the best of care no matter the setting or the circumstances. I can only imagine how they coped with the onslaught of COVID19 patients, especially at the height of the pandemic when they had little time to spend with each patient and sometimes little they could do to help. It must have been devastating.
The Breast Center of MSK is quite lovely. A lot of money was obviously donated to build and furnish it and it couldn’t be more attractive. Everything from the furniture to the hospital gowns is color coordinated—pink or green. There are comfortable chairs, live plants, pleasant lighting, and free coffee and snacks for the patients in the waiting area. The twenty treatment rooms are all private and comfortable with a TV to watch while you wait for infusions to complete (it can take hours). Blankets are provided and you are checked on frequently. Conversation if you want to talk, but quiet when you just want to doze until you can go home. I feel completely safe and cared for when I go for treatment. I don’t know what the workload is like from their point of view, but the nurses never seem rushed or anxious, just careful, professional and friendly. I assumed that the care was partially so gracious because of the comfortable atmosphere. But I was wrong.
About two weeks ago I was summoned to the Mt Sinai emergency room on the East Side because some blood work I had the day before showed that I was at risk of a sudden heart attack. My potassium level was dangerously high. It was early on a Saturday morning when I walked into an atmosphere that was the absolute opposite of the MSK Breast Center. The walls were lined with people on stretchers separated from each other by thin curtains. The lighting was dreary—no pretty plants, no color coordination (except for the scrubs which identified a person’s function). Medical staff were rushing around. There was no privacy. Yet in this difficult atmosphere the medical staff maintained an atmosphere of energetic competence and good cheer. Next to me on a stretcher was a man who was extremely upset. He may have been a street person. He was having an emotional monologue that went like this: “How could they leave me here alone? I am alone! Sh..t! Sh..t! Why am I alone here.” I couldn’t judge his age: a rough life makes a person appear a lot older than the privileged life many of us have been leading. He was obviously scared, angry, and probably mentally ill. I wanted to move the curtain between us aside and tell him he wasn’t alone, but I was afraid to do that. What if I made the situation worse? I found myself praying for him—something I’ve kept up for the past two weeks. At some point a nurse and a physician’s assistant came to attend to him and they treated him as though he were a prince. They were calming and very respectful. His anxiety was totally allayed. He told them he knew he was in good hands.
As for me, I was given an electro-cardiogram, some blood was drawn and several doctors came by. At some point a smiling nurse gave me some weird chalk-like stuff to drink that would lower my potassium level and sent me on my way after a three and a half hour stay. (I have to drink this stuff every day, but it works and potassium levels are now normal.)
If I were a poet I would write an ode to nurses. Instead I pray.
I thank God for the work of nurses, doctors, technicians, security guards and housekeeping staff that together provide wonderful health care. I pray for an improvement in the system so that everyone can receive such care they need. And I pray for strength for all on the front lines that they may know and understand what wonderful work they accomplish and how much they are appreciated. Let us also pray for the end to this pandemic and a lessening of stress on these blessed health care workers. Amen.
LEARN
Education for Ministry (EfM) Open Meetings 2021
Here’s a chance to do EfM and never have to go out in the rain or snow or even dressed—come Zoom with us! There are three open sessions coming up—Thursday, May 20, Thursday, May 27, Thursday, June 3. These will be an opportunity to see what a typical EfM meeting is like. We’ll open at 6:30 and be ready to say goodnight around 8:30. There is no obligation, no strings, just visit with us—maybe you’ll like us enough to join next term in September. For more information, email Donna Devlin.
NEWS FROM THE DIOCESE
Voices Heard: A Diocese Explores Pathways Toward Reparations
A webinar series sponsored by the Reparations Committee of the Diocese of New York
The legacy of the transatlantic slave trade is deeply entrenched in the structural systems and legislative actions that govern communities today. This series of panel discussions organized by the Reparations Committee for the Diocese intends to broaden awareness and deepen our understanding of the pressing topics of an intractable nature of systemic racism on education, health, economics, gender, policing and the criminal justice system, the church and more that negatively impact people of African heritage.
Bringing experts, community organizers, civic leaders, clergy and laity into dialogue will help to inform us and make commitments for engagement in our own communities as we prepare our cause for action in making recommendations for the task brought forth through Resolution regarding the Reparations Fund.
All webinars are on Tuesdays, 7:00-8:30 p.m.
Educational Opportunity Denied: The Legacy of Segregated Housing
Tuesday, May 25
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_goRIk0xDTW-9VLBLZQ44wQ
Medical Apartheid and Systemic Racism
Tuesday, June 8
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nFHMDwq8Tb-n1eP7l9VIrw
Reaching For a Better Tomorrow: The Work and Mission of Hudson Link Working For Higher Education in Prison
Tuesday, June 22
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j5SokWcXRq-2Aj_VW1m-Ng
The Awakening of Unwoke People: Church, Religion and State
Tuesday, July 6
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_O7p4u1B2RT6JOI8VH4F7lQ
Rectors of Color: Examining the Missed Opportunities of Deployment
Tuesday, July 20
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_We8dfFOxSrmEbPHnK1WZmA
GIVE/SERVE
Questions about Realm
Christopher Clowdus and Neil Reilly invite your questions about Realm, the Congregation's giving database, at this email address: stewardship@saintsaviour.org.
CCC - Volunteer Opportunity at Sunday Soup Kitchen
Join us at CCC's Sunday Soup Kitchen (8:30 am - 11:00 am) to help prepare and distribute food and to staff Saint Saviour's Table. Please CLICK HERE to sign up! Shifts are open through the first week in June. Thank you so much for volunteering!
THIS SUNDAY, April May 16, 2021
9:30 AM - Open Space with the Vicar
Join Vicar Lee and others for 30 minutes of conversation, community, and pastoral support. Come and go as you please!
10:00 AM - In the Beginning: A Study of Genesis
Join the Vicar for a study of the first book of the Bible. Discover Genesis, not as a collection of ancient mythological stories, but as the Word of God addressing our fundamental and deepest needs.
11:00 AM - Watch the Cathedral worship service on Zoom with other members of the Congregation. As a way to maintain a prayerful atmosphere, we will be turning off Zoom chat for the duration of the service.
You can also watch the Cathedral Worship Service
On Facebook: http://facebook.com/StJohnDivineNYC
On the Cathedral website: http://www.stjohndivine.org
12:00 PM - Digital Coffee Half-Hour
Join us at this week’s Digital Coffee Hour to meet members of the congregation or hear guest speakers, This week features your very own Vestry making budget choices. See your Vestry hard at work!
WEEKLY CATHEDRAL CONGREGATION PROGRAMS
Monday-Saturday | 8:30 AM Morning Prayer | 5:30 PM Evening Prayer
Wednesdays | 6:30 PM - YESS Bible Study
Join the Young Episcopalians of Saint Saviour as they read through the book of Exodus. No preparation needed.
Wednesdays | 7:30 PM - Wednesday Bible Study
Join the Vicar for a study of Paul's Letter to the Romans. The source of so many changed lives and pivotal moments throughout Christian history, Paul's greatest epistle invites us to transformation in our own lives and time.
Wednesdays | 8:30 PM - Compline
Thursdays | 6:30 PM - Education for Ministry
Education for Ministry is designed for lay people who want to delve more deeply but are not necessarily interested in ordination; EfM classes provide a more formal study of scriptures and the history of the faith. Current Topic: “Living into the Journey with God”
Fridays | 12:00 PM - Midday Prayer and Meditation
The Angelus and 10 minutes of silent meditation.
Fridays | 12:15 PM - Open Space with the Vicar
Join Vicar Lee and others for 30 minutes of conversation, community, and pastoral support. Come and go as you please!