The Fourth Sunday After Pentecost - 7.3.2022 |
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PLEASE REMEMBER IN YOUR PRAYERS
Our vestry, lay leaders, and congregation as we journey together on the search process for a new rector; Lainie Murrell, our postulant to the diaconate; Ian Cochran, Barbara and Peter dePinto, Carol Streichert, JoAnn Stone, Chris Mitchell, Bob, Ginny, Maura McGrath, Gerald and Marjorie Federico, Bob and Donna Weber, Bill & Theresa Weber, Yasso Herath, John and Shirley Federico, Robert Michael Weber, John Pluhowski, Margaret Fulmor Wagner, Margie Winslow, Diana Grace, Al and Carol Lalli, Bill & Lois Steinmann, Jean B., Lynn Johnson, Kim Hewlett, Maude M, Giuseppe Cristofalo, Carmela Cristofalo, Carmelo Cristofalo, Thomas Sproviero, Domenico Fragale, Marianina Fragale, Peter Zakrepine, Ileya Robinson, Carol Kiddoe Thompson, Sztyk Family, Drozdyk family, William, Ian, Jean, Stephen Yaw, Gloria Karpinsky, Tasha, Melissa Frustaci, Gina Lacey, Shirley Chalke, Amy Miller, David, Suzanne. Victims of gun violence everywhere
FLOWER MEMORIALS Edith V. Kilby, Lester Bittig, Sylvia R. Jewett, Joseph L. Graham, Steve, Helen & Alexander Christos
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I believe we are made for love, that our natural abiding place is love, and that we in fact are love. Our absolute foundation is communion with God and others. This is the “deepest me” to which we must return before we act. From this foundation, we know we must act, and we are able to act from a place of positive, loving energy. Unfortunately, when “triggered” by strong emotions, it is very difficult to come from that deep place of “yes.”
The next time you are offended, consider it a “teachable moment.” Ask yourself what part of you is actually upset. It’s normally the false or smaller self. If we can move back to the big picture of who we are in God, our True Self, we’ll find that what upset us usually doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in objective reality! But we can waste a whole day (or longer) feeding that hurt until it seems to have a life of its own and, in fact, “possesses” us. At that point, it becomes what Eckhart Tolle rightly calls our “pain-body.”
Tolle defines this “accumulated pain” as “a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind.” In this space, we seem to have a kneejerk, self-protective reaction to everything—and everyone—around us. I emphasize the word reaction here because there’s no clear, conscious decision to think or act in this way. It just happens and we are seemingly powerless to stop it. By doing healing work and by practicing meditation, we learn to stop identifying with the pain and instead calmly relate to it in a compassionate way.
For example, in centering prayer, we observe the hurt as it arises in our stream of consciousness, but we don’t jump on the boat and give it energy. Instead, we name it (“resentment toward my spouse”), then we let go of it, and let the boat float down the river. We have the power to say, “That’s not me. I don’t need that today. I have no need to feed this resentment. I know who I am without it.” This is the beginning of emotional sobriety. Many of us think we are converted to Christ, but without the conversion of our emotional reactions, we remain much like everyone else.
If we’ve been eating a regular meal of resentment toward our spouse, our boss, our parents, or “the world,” the boat’s going to come back around in the next minute because it’s accustomed to us filling our plate. But we must be able to ask and to discover, “Who was I before I resented my spouse? And even before that?” This is the primary way we learn to live in our True Self, where we are led by a foundational “yes,” not by the petty push backs of “no.”
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Sunday, July 3 - The Fourth Sunday After Pentecost
Collect of the Day
O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
8:00am Holy Eucharist, Rite I
10:00am Holy Eucharist Rite II with music
Also available via livestream
Order of service for 10:00am service available HERE
WELCOME:
Jan Valentine will be our organist through Labor Day while Brandon Beachamp is on summer leave.
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Announcements & Ongoing Programs |
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Counseling with Grace
“Counseling with Grace” is a variation of a program offered by Brother Jon Bankert (1944-2007) that strove to provide all people with short-term, low cost, individual counseling @ Grace Church, Nyack. Once again, we are here to help people work through mental health challenges including but not limited to:
- Anxiety and depression
- Bereavement
- Career transitioning
- Living free of addictive people or substances
- Learning to love themself
This program can also help people with finding local resources that may support their needs. This program is not designed to be psychotherapy, EMDR trauma therapy, or a replacement for 12-step involvement.
People in the Nyack and neighboring communities would be welcomed to participate in Sessions 1-4 @ $15, Sessions 6-10 @ $25. Location is offered in person at Grace Church, via Face Time or Zoom.
Please contact Caran Pullen, LMHC if you are interested in more information at caran.pullen@gmail.com or call at 845-499-4279.
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Our Virtual Offering Plate
Please keep your pledge current!
To help ensure continuity for the church and our outreach programs to the community, please keep your pledge current if you are able, or make one-time donations as you would on Sunday. You can mail a check to us at 130 First Avenue, Nyack, NY 10960 or use our Virtual Offering Plate to make an online gift. Use the drop down menu under "FUND" to choose "Other Gifts" or "Pledge Payments".
We are so grateful for your support.
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There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they’ve been set down—
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.
And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There’s a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,
as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest—
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
Jane HIrshfield
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