News from the Congregation November 19, 2021

Nov 19

Written By Steven Lee; Marsha Ra & Bob Deming

‘Staffing Hellos and Goodbyes’; ‘The Holy Mitochondrion?’ | Volunteer at CCC’s Sunday Soup Kitchen, CCC Thanksgiving Sunday Food Donations Needed, CCC Holiday Toy-Drive, Bishop Dietsche Calls for Coadjutor | Sunday Programs: 8:30 am Genesis Bible Study (Zoom), 10:30 am Worship Service - In-Person and Online, Virtual Coffee Hour |Weekday Programs: M-S Morning and Evening Prayer (Zoom), Wednesday: 7:30 pm Romans Bible Study (Zoom), Thursday: 7:30 YESS Bible Study (Zoom)

Canon Lee

I have some news to share about staff transitions. After three-and-a-half years of dedicated service, Hope Chang will be leaving the Cathedral. Her last day is December 3. She and I have been talking about this moment since the spring, and you can read below about transition plans.

I am grateful for all that Hope has done to improve the administration of the Congregation and the Office of Pastoral Care. She managed the successful transition of the Congregation's financial and administrative database to Realm in 2019. This allowed the Congregation to establish online giving before the pandemic began, which enabled the Congregation to survive financially when we could not meet in person.

Hope has also improved the administration of the Columbarium. She managed the process of hiring a Columbarium archivist, who has digitized all 2,200 Columbarium files (each file contains 4 to 20 pages). She managed the process of identifying and hiring an outside technology company, which built a searchable database application for these files. We now have the technological infrastructure to process the additional 1,000 files that will be generated by the new limestone section of the Columbarium.

Hope has been a pastoral presence for countless weddings, funerals and committal services. Her professional photography can be seen on Cathedral and Congregation brochures and websites.

Most importantly, Hope is a deeply committed disciple of Jesus Christ. She has enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outside of Chicago and will use the following several years to discern her next ministry call. Please join me in wishing Hope blessings on this new stage of her life's journey.

***

Hope's departure has created the opportunity to re-imagine her position going forward. I have three announcements related to the transition.

First, I am pleased to announce that Samantha Hall has been hired to the new position of Administrative Assistant to the Canon Pastor and to the Sub Dean. Many of the liturgical and pastoral functions at the Cathedral are so closely intertwined that it makes sense to have a single administrator support me and Canon Malloy. Samantha's first day was this past Wednesday, November 17, and she will be spending the next two weeks training with Hope to ensure a seamless transition. Her photo is below. Samantha is a New York native raised in Brooklyn, where her father was minister of music and her mother the parish administrator of her local church. She graduated from York College with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in education, and she now lives in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood. She has worked as an administrative assistant and executive in various capacities, most notable as the executive assistant for the Vice Presidents of Research and National Partnerships and Events at the Girl Scouts of America. Samantha is also the owner of Highly and Humbly NYC, Inc. a Christian lifestyle brand that connects faith and function by highlighting the practical applications of Christian beliefs. Samantha is a blogger, poet, teacher, life coach, entrepreneur and thrilled to be joining the Cathedral community.

Second, about 2 months ago, Bob Deming and Laura Freseman formed the Congregation's new Administration Committee. They have met weekly with Hope to learn all the tasks that she used to do for the Congregation. Going forward, this committee will handle administration for the Congregation.

Finally, I will soon be interviewing candidates for a new part-time administrative assistant position for the Columbarium. I hope to announce the conclusion of the search in the coming weeks.

A Message from the Wardens

Our Senior Warden, Marsha Ra, on "Musing on the oneness of God":

An article in the November 8th issue of the New Yorker (What a feeling—Energy and how to get it, by Nick Paumgarten) deals in part with the mystery of energy and, by implication, of life itself. What is energy—the energy we experience and the energy we give off? Where does it come from? From a scientific point of view, he tells us, energy is all about our mitochondria. Mitochondria arose one and a half billion years ago and are passed from generation to generation. They fuel the cells of all living creatures. They are the reason our cells know what to do with the food we eat and the air we breathe in. Mitochondria are behind how we experience energy and so how we experience life itself. In our Judeo-Christian tradition the prevailing metaphor for life is breath. God breathed into Adam and he became alive. Scientifically it is the mitochondria that enable our cells to actually use the breath that we breathe in. Perhaps the Holy Spirit should be renamed the Holy Mitochondrion. And since in living creatures it is the mother that passes the mitochondria on to the next generation, I can see us making new metaphorical stories about the birth of Jesus. The Virgin Mary not only gave Him her DNA, she also passed on her mitochondria so His cells knew what to do with that DNA!

I find this scientific view of the mechanics of life quite moving. The fact that the mitochondria in us goes back 1.5 billion years; the fact that the mitochondria is passed on generation to generation through our mothers, back to the East African Eve we hear about. One could imagine that the painting of God giving Adam the spark of life on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a representation of God giving Adam mitochondria.

Science has a way of challenging some elements of our faith. However there is one really basic characteristic of Creation that both science and religion reveal over and over again: it all coheres. God is one!

Hear oh Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord-- the Lord our God is One!

I have been running into this theme of God’s oneness over the past several weeks. It has struck me for many years (and this is not exactly original) that our ancestors had a profound and revolutionary insight when they declared that there is just One God. That God is ONE. That God is the God of being, all being. We worship the great I AM. Our ancestors didn’t need knowledge of mitochondria to realize this. In a recent sermon Canon Malloy drew on this remarkable new understanding to note the unspoken implication: since our God is not a tribal God, but the only God and since He is the God of everything that is (seen and unseen), there is no tribe at all. Humanity is in fact one. But since God is one, the one-ness--the interconnectedness-- goes beyond the human family. In a recent Bible study, Canon Lee shared a video of the biologist turned theologian, Alister McGrath, a professor of science and religion at the University of Oxford. His conversion from atheism to faith occurred when science revealed to him the coherence of reality—everything is interconnected.

When we go into the Cathedral to worship Jesus, who is the great I Am incarnate, died and risen, we share one breath as we pray and sing. Through the Eucharist we enter into the profound mystery of the wholeness of life, the connection between God and His people, and between His people and all of Creation.

NEWS FROM THE CATHEDRAL - Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (stjohndivine.org)

Thanksgiving Sunday Meal
Sunday, November 21
Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Cathedral Community Cares (CCC) will hold their annual Thanksgiving meal on Sunday, November 21. Donations of cooked foods (chicken, turkeys, pies, etc.) are always greatly appreciated! If you’d like to make a contribution, it can be dropped off on the 21st between 7:30 AM – 8:45 AM at a table next to the guard booth on the Upper Drive (or in the Undercroft in case of inclement weather). For more info, email Vanessa Greco at vgreco@stjohndivine.org.

CCC - Holiday Toy Drive
Even before the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of hard-working, low-income New Yorkers were teetering on the verge of homelessness and hunger. The economic devastation of the past 18 months has made things even a bit more dire, and the holiday season will be no exception. Cathedral Community Cares knows the best way to help these families is to put a smile on their faces and, most importantly, a smile on the faces of their children. Last year your generosity helped us support over 55 families and 113 children!
What is Needed: Unwrapped toys (children); $20-25 gift cards (teenagers)
Details: Monday - Thursday, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM: drop off toys or cards at CCC in the Town Building (south side of Cathedral) and Sunday, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM: drop off toys in box at the front of the Cathedral interior entrance
Deadline: November 30

NEWS FROM THE DIOCESE Home - Episcopal Diocese of New York (dioceseny.org)

Bishop Dietsche Calls for Election of Coadjutor
Planned Schedule (All at the Cathedral)
Election of Bishop Coadjutor: December 3, 2022
Consecration of Bishop Coadjutor: May 20, 2023
Installation of XVII Bishop of New York: March 16, 2024

In his address on November 13, 2021 to the 245th Convention of the Diocese of New York, the Right Reverend Andrew ML Dietsche, XVI Bishop of New York, called for the election of a Bishop Coadjutor to replace him, ultimately, as the XVII Bishop of New York.

"Four days ago," he said, "I turned 68 (which was kind of shocking: 67 felt like my “mid-sixties; 68 feels like my “late-sixties”). And last month I passed the twentieth anniversary of my coming to 1047 Amsterdam Avenue to serve the Diocese of New York, initially as Canon Pastor. And six days from today will mark ten years since you elected me bishop. These are significant milestones for me, and they necessarily invite reflection and introspection. The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes wrote, 'I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds.' Past and Future have come to me at midnight and awakened with me in the morning, and I have learned from those nighttime meditations how to pay attention to the times and the changes, and to be at peace."

Assuring listeners that his retirement has noting to do with COVID, he continued that at the time of the installation of the XVII Bishop, "...I will be 70 years old, and I will have been Bishop in this diocese for twelve years. This timing seems right. It will be a blessing for Margaret and me, and also I believe honors the trust which you put in me when you called me to this ministry. But be sure that I have no intention of becoming a lame duck. I will continue to be the Bishop of New York as long as I am the Bishop of New York, and I very much hope to hand over as healthy a diocese as I can to my successor. "

"I am not saying goodbye now. But please know that shepherding the two hundred (or so) churches in this diocese has been a privilege which I did not know how much I needed until you called me to it. I could never have imagined - I didn’t know - how deeply I would fall in love with these our churches, and the clergy and laypersons who lead them, and the people who fill their pews. I was no stranger to this diocese or our churches before, but becoming your bishop gave me new eyes and changed my life, and I am grateful to you for everything. And when the time comes to move on, I will bear you with me on my heart."

NEWS FROM THE VESTRY

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 December. Thank you so much for volunteering!