Already this week, it has begun to feel like the wall—or perhaps the fully decked halls—are closing in. Of course, the city's civic holiday decorations have inexplicably been up for months, and the holiday commercials are already on repeat. But more impactfully, our personal calendars are already full with events and parties and obligations, and every crack in these calendars is full of tasks. It's already getting hard to see how we're going to get everything done, never mind how we're going to live at all during the next six weeks. 

We had an honest conversation about this in the church office this week: about our desire not to compete in the "make your life hectic and overstuffed" sweepstakes the rest of the culture has already started. And also, having less stuff at church actually won't make any of us less busy—those hours will be filled by other obligations and tasks and "stuff."

Where we settled is, I think, a good place for all of us to settle as we try to find in this season time to wait and watch, to attend to the holy. However many activities happen (and we are backing off on a few things we might otherwise have done), we want them all to be meaningful. Next week we'll publish a guide to Advent at Saint Paul's this year and every thing in it will be something that can help us to wait and watch, to open space for God to arrive in our lives. I know that your lives will be impossibly busy for the rest of the year, and I won't holler at you to make more time for church because church cannot be itself, if it is one more obligation that we have to meet. Instead, I invite you to find the cracks in the calendar where you can slow down, make space, notice meaning. Even if we start with just a little time, those cracks will grow. And so will we, because when we make space for God to come to us, grace comes and takes up more and more room, crowding out our frenzied worry. 

We'll still have plenty going on at church, and I hope you'll join us for it. But your attention is more important than your attendance. Even in the mess of the next few weeks, attend to God, and God will come. 

Eric+

By Catherine Robertson

For more than 270 years, innumerable saints of God have worshipped within the walls of Saint Paul’s Church.  Though there have been thousands of saints who have trod these grounds, here are but a few who have stood out over time.

On the night of the 22nd of March in 1916, many of Augusta’s citizens lost their homes to the great fire. The burned district consisted of thirty-six blocks covering 118 acres, destroying 526 residences and 138 businesses. Also lost to the blaze was Saint Paul’s Church. On seeing the ruins, the Rector of Saint Paul’s Church, the Rev. G. S. Whitney wrote, “The old church was gone, and the dawn of another day revealed only the melancholy ruins which brings an ache to many a heart and tears to many eyes. May our Heavenly Father give us grace to see His hand laid upon us in loving chastisement, and vouchsafe us a vision of a future full of opportunities for greater things for His Kingdom.” The Senior Warden, William K. Miller said of the ruins, “It would wring your heart to see the remnants that are left,” and that “the vast majority of the trees are gone.”

But on March 24th, a headline in The Augusta Chronicle told a new story: “A NEW AUGUSTA SPIRIT BORN OF THE GREAT FIRE---THANK GOD!” The article reported that the people most affected by the fire were “gathering up the broken threads of their business or domestic life, but nowhere was there a pessimistic note, nowhere any discouragement,” but only “prophecies of a greater Augusta through a determined pull and a more co-operative spirt all around.” On March 27th, The Chronicle reported that “hundreds of homes were opened to the homeless….Almost everyone wants to do something for somebody else.

(1866-1941)

One member of Saint Paul’s Church was heralded as the “Man of the Hour in Augusta,” by The Chronicle. The morning following the fire, William Hale “Will” Barrett called a meeting at the courthouse to appoint members to the Committee on Public Welfare, over which he presided as chairman, to give aid to 250 destitute citizens who were rendered homeless by the fire. It was decided that at least $50,000 should be raised to that end. Will was the first of many citizens to step up to donate to the cause. The homeless poor were instructed to register at the courthouse, and any citizen seeing a need in the community should report it immediately. In the weeks and months following the fire, he gave his full service to the community, even as his own house on Broad Street, his law offices, and his beloved church were all burned to the ground, and his own family left homeless.

Will Barrett was born in 1866 to William “Hale” Barrett and his wife Susan Rhind Barrett, and was a lifelong member of Saint Paul’s Church. He received his Batchelor’s Degree from the University of Georgia in 1885. The following year, at the age of 20, he became the principal of the Sibley Central School for boys on Greene Street until he decided to read law. He passed the Georgia Bar in 1887. In 1892, he was married to Miss Ella Carson Barnes. Will practiced law for several years, and ultimately was appointed in 1922, by President Warren G. Harding as a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, in which position he served until his death in 1941. He was buried in Magnolia Cemetery.

as of 11/16/2022

Offerings pledged this Week $12,981.00

Offerings received this Week $ 5,058.90

Operating Expenses to Date $769,362.28

Operating Income to Date $853,879.12

Please contact the Parish Office to update our files.