THANKSGIVING
And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. John 6. 11.
We begin the month of November on All Saints’ Day by giving thanks to God for all the saints who have gone before us. We are nourished by their example and legacy. We end the month on the Last Sunday after Pentecost (November 26) where the Gospel from Matthew 25 presents us with a vision of all the faithful disciples of Christ. These are the ones who dedicate their lives to the benefit of others: they feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, etc.
I hope I am not forcing a thought in saying we begin November giving thanks for the lives and work of others who have benefited us, and we end the month (and the church year) by giving thanks for the opportunities we have had over the last twelve months to bring benefit to others. And somewhere in the middle of my image of a month of Thanksgiving is the actual Thanksgiving Day feast we enjoy in our family groups as we thank the Lord for our creation and sustenance and for all the gifts of His creation.
Let me throw another image of Thanksgiving into this November mix. The Sunday we now call the Last Sunday after Pentecost used to be called ‘the Sunday Next Before Advent’ and the Gospel for that Sunday was always the story of the feeding of the multitude as told in St John’s Gospel.
Austin Farrer (1904- 1968) the Anglican philosopher, theologian, and Biblical scholar and a contemporary of C.S. Lewis, has a beautiful meditation on this Gospel of the feeding of the multitude and the theme of thanksgiving as the key to making our Christian life and witness alive with the spirit of God.
Austin Farrer writes:
THE Church has shown a special affection for the mysterious narratives of Christ’s feeding the multitudes, seeing in them the type and figure of the feast still more mysterious and holy which Christians share. The evangelists' story throws no light upon the working of the miracle, except in telling us that Jesus gave thanks over the bread and certainly everything becomes charged with divine power when we have given thanks for it to God. Our whole life becomes a sacrament of blessing to ourselves and others if we are sincerely and continually thankful for it to our Creator.
He concludes:
In the sacrament we celebrate today, Christ says a final grace for us over the banquet which divine goodness has spread for us in the past year. Consider how marvelous, how various, how rich a thing our existence has been, and is. Christ's thanksgiving is alone worthy and sufficient. He makes the thanksgiving for us, by the offering of his life; we say the words after him, we receive the crumbs that he has blessed.
May the Lord bless you and your loved ones this coming Thanksgiving Day and may our lives be charged with divine power and grace as we embrace a new Advent, a new year.
Yours sincerely,
Douglas Dupree
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COLLECT
Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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An Interview with
Senior Seminarian, Teri Calinao
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Teri Calinao is a seminarian from the Episcopal Diocese of Florida in her senior year at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas and a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Jacksonville.
HDD (Douglas Dupree): Teri, would you tell us a little about yourself, your family, and background (e.g. what did you do work-wise before deciding on seminary full-time)?
TC (Teri Calinao): I am currently a senior seminarian at The Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. I am married to my husband, George, and have a daughter, Savannah, a son-in-law, Matt, and a grand dog, Augustine (a greyhound rescued all the way from Ireland). Our daughter is an Episcopalian Priest ordained in Washington, DC and currently serving in a parish just outside of Providence, Rhode Island. I was raised in the United Methodist tradition and became an Episcopalian about nine years ago. After a lifetime as a United Methodist, becoming an Episcopalian felt like coming home. For the better part of my life, I have been called to ordination by God and service in the church. This was not a lightning bulb moment but a gentle nudging that has never left me.
Prior to accepting the call to Holy Orders and moving away for higher education, I served in roles in Banking, Insurance, and nonprofit organizations, including Baptist Health and The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. I served as the Philanthropic Services Officer at The Community Foundation for seven years. In that role I managed the day-to-day activities of the Women’s Giving Alliance (a giving circle of close to 500 women).
Both my husband and I received our undergraduate degrees from Florida State University and we enjoy travel to the province of Quebec, Canada and Alaska when we are able.
HDD: Your home church is the Good Shepherd. How were you involved in the life of Good Shepherd before you felt called to prepare for the ordained ministry? How were you involved in the Diocese of Florida? E.g., courses at Camp Weed, etc.
TC: I was involved in many roles at Good Shepherd including, Lay Eucharistic Ministry, Lay Eucharistic Visitor, Stewardship Committee, Lay Delegate, Baptism Preparation, and Confirmation Preparation. I also served as a LEM at many funerals in the parish.
In the Diocese, I served monthly at Gateway Community Services in the Holy Eucharist service. A ministry of service to those who lives have been impacted by substance abuse.
At the beginning of my postulancy, I served at Resurrection Episcopal Church as an intern for one year under Mother Carrie English.
My husband George and I have attended many events at Camp Weed over the years including seminars by Earl Palmer and a four-day conference entitled, Wisdom Calling. It was at Wisdom Calling that I discerned that God was calling me to attend residential seminary as opposed to distance learning.
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Rector's Book Picks for Advent | |
Penelope Wilcock Collins. Into the Heart of Advent: Twenty-five Conversations with Jesus
(Paperback – August 20, 2020.)
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Leslie Leyland Fields and Paul J. Willis (editors). A Radiant Birth: Advent Readings for a Bright Season (Hardcover – September 5, 2023.) | |
Michael and Rosemary Green. In Touch with God: Advent Meditations on Biblical Prayers (Paperback – August 17, 2017.) Michael and Rosemary Green are popular authors. Michael is an Hon. Fellow of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and a noted evangelist.
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Don McCullin. Unreasonable Behavior: An Autobiography (Paperback – June 13, 2017.)
This is just a very personal choice: I am reading this for pleasure this late November and maybe into Advent.
McCullin grew up in an impoverished family in north London and lived through the Blitz and as a young man coming out of the Air Force discovered an extraordinary gift for photography and journalism. As one of his reviewers describes him: ‘He has been shot and badly wounded in Cambodia, imprisoned in Uganda, expelled from Vietnam and had a bounty on his head in Lebanon. What’s more, he has braved bullets and bombs not only to get the perfect shot but to help dying soldiers and wounded civilians. Compassion is at the heart of all his photography.’ I have also my eye on a beautiful new book by McCullin I want to advertise in the December-Christmas e-Newsletter. Watch this space.
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Andrea Wells Miller (editor). The Eternal Present: Daily Readings from Today's Most Inspiring Christian Writers (Paperback – October 1, 2003.)
The meditations in The Eternal Present are offered by a distinguished group of Christian writers called the Chrysostom Society that includes writers like Madeleine L’Engle and Eugene Peterson.
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Lucinda Mosher, Elinor J. Pierce, et al. With the Best of Intentions: Interreligious Missteps and Mistakes (Paperback, September 28, 2023.)
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Glen Scrivener. The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality (Discover the Christian roots of the values we prize in western society) (Paperback – June 1, 2022.)
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Riki Yarbrough. The Branch of a Christmas Tree: An Advent Journey Through the Lineage of Christ (Paperback, November 2017.)
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Alan Vermilye. The Carols of Christmas: Daily Advent Devotions on Classic Christmas Carols (28-Day Devotional for Christmas and Advent) (Paperback – September 11, 2022.)
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Mission Spotlight:
St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Jacksonville
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St. Mary’s food pantry volunteers from left to right Jim and Carol Rountree, with their son Todd Rountree and his wife Stephanie, and grandson Jamie. | |
St. Mary’s Church is located in the heart of the historic Springfield neighborhood of Jacksonville. It sits on a tree-lined street and an open gate welcomes you onto a campus that is immediately pleasing to the eye and suggestive of the loving hands that care for it. This oasis of calm is also the center of many outreach programs that minister to the spiritual and physical needs of people living within the urban core of Jacksonville.
November is St. Mary’s annual fund drive to support these many outreach programs. Donations received via their website during November (www.stmarysjax.org) will be matched by a generous donor.
One of the strongest outreach programs at St. Mary’s is the Food Pantry Ministry. The Pantry is staffed by dedicated volunteers.
Jim and Carol Rountree are two of the Food Pantry volunteers and they are communicant members of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Jacksonville. Jim has kindly given us an interview of the work being done in St. Mary’s Food Pantry. I hope you might be moved by it and encouraged to visit the St. Mary’s website.
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An Interview with Jim Rountree
HDD (Douglas Dupree): Jim, how did you and Carol get interested in the St. Mary’s Springfield food pantry ministry? How long have you been volunteering? How often do you work for the food pantry ministry?
JIM: Carol and I were introduced to St. Mary’s food pantry ministry in 2020. This was during the COVID pandemic, and volunteers were in short supply. We saw a real need to help feed Jacksonville’s food insecure community and have continued volunteering since then. Our normal volunteer work is on Tuesday morning whenever we are in town. That is the time when dry good bags are prepared for the pantry session which takes place on Tuesday afternoon. Separate volunteers help execute the pantry session on Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning each week.
HDD: How many individuals and families does the Food Pantry serve each month?
The Food Pantry serves up to 1000 individuals and family members each month. The specific number varies each session based on time of the month, season, and weather conditions.
HDD: What are some of the jobs that volunteers are called to do?
JIM: Volunteers are called to help pick-up food from local grocery stores (arranged through Feeding Northeast Florida); receive and store dry and canned goods, frozen foods and bread products; put together dry and canned good bags in preparation for each pantry session; and to help execute each pantry session by managing the flow of clients into the pantry and by escorting clients in selecting available items.
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A Thanksgiving Address by Doug Milne, Esp. | |
For some thirty-five years Jacksonville lawyer Doug Milne has given a Thanksgiving talk to many churches, civic groups and schools in the greater Jacksonville area. The talk has been essentially the same since Doug first delivered it in 1988 when his local Rotary Club invited him to create an address for their Thanksgiving gathering. The talk has remained essentially the same with additions as time has moved on, e.g., names of new U.S. Presidents to add and the advent of things like ‘Zoom Meetings.’
From that first talk to the several talks Doug has delivered over this last week, Doug’s motivation has increased with each passing year. How much longer will he make his speech? I asked him this and he replied: ‘As long as I can see smiles in the audience, and tell people are feeling better about the country and themselves, I’ll keep it up.’
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Dedication
When I[first] put together and delivered this, my father was still alive.
He grew up during the Depression in the Pacific Northwest and loved every minute of his life in this land. I tried to mold this talk through his eyes --- a man with a boundless zest for life, its challenges, and a keen sense of fair play.
Ah, great it is to believe the dream as we stand in youth by the starry stream; but a greater thing is to fight life through and say at the end, the dream is true! [Edwin Markham]
Who reached, I dreamed deep. Those dreams became goals, then achievements. A wonderful role model for Sister Mary, brother Jack and me, this message is dedicated to the earlier Doug, Milne.
Thanksgiving, USA.
Doug, Milne
This land is your land. This land is my land, from the Californias to the New York island, from the redwood forests, to the gulf stream waters. This land was made for you and me.
Thus rang Woody Guthrie’s lyrics of my American 1940s and beyond. And this same spirit of love and devotion, pride and thanksgiving has been in the hearts of Americans for all our centuries.
Around the turn of the last century, a young, tired and lonely, Scotsman landed at Ellis Island, embarking on his own adventure in this great land of unmatched opportunity. A plumber by trade, who would make his way from New York to San Francisco after the earthquake there. Then, moving north into the Oregon wilderness, he sent back to Scotland for his future intended whom he had not seen in nearly five years, so they could build their dream together in America. And that they did, and for that they were ever thankful.
Long, even before the pilgrims arrived at Plymouth rock, this land made for you and me, was the object of dreams, mystery and challenge. In the early 1500s, Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce DeLeon landed just south of what we know now as Jacksonville Beach, laying claim of the country for Spain.
Not many years later, French Huguenots, searching for religious freedom, landed at the mouth of what they called the May River me to establish the first significant settlement from foreign lands, anywhere in the US. Today, what they called the May River--- we call St Johns.
For thousands of years, the words of the Hebrew psalmist had been read, and believed:
Praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God; yes, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.
Picture those struggling, freedom-seeking Frenchmen, discovering the beauty of the same land that you and I live in and love today. My guess is these people gave thanks, just as the Hebrew had done thousands of years earlier.
Our nation, as international observers often point out, even though still young, when compared to many other lands, is every bit the world’s benchmark. Did the pilgrims foresee this? Did those amazing men, women and children, who endured the dread winters, hunger and pain, sickness, and death, have any idea this land would become the greatest nation known in the history of man? I believe they did.I believe the Plymouth colonists knew. After surviving those severe conditions, and then seeing corn break through the fertile soil, and grow like other crops, and, like hope, as breath is to the body, hope is to the spirit. They knew.
As they established their farms, built their towns and businesses, churches and schools: they knew. And they stopped. They took a day, a Thanksgiving Day, to rejoice and give thanks. Puritans, Catholics, Quakers and Huguenots, Jews and Protestants. They knew. Like Americans have continue to know for over 350 years.
America means thanksgiving and freedom. Love and devotion. Family and gratitude. Courage and principles. And the will to fight to protect those things we so deeply, cherish, and, yes, to even die for them.
My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee we sing.
As the years go by, the love and thanksgiving for this great new land grew stronger – and stronger.
Thirteen colonies: Massachusetts, to Georgia, rice, Indigo, tobacco, livestock, corn, wheat, and timber. Taxation without representation and restrictions against that which Americans crave most —- their freedom!
The Boston, tea party, Paul Revere, and Betsy Ross. The Revolutionary War, including the battle of Thomas Creek--- now the dividing line between Florida counties, Duval and Nassau.
To continue Doug’s address, click here.
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Ready for the Holidays, Ready for You:
St. John's Cathedral Bookstore
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St. John’s Cathedral Bookstore & Gift Shop operates in a beautiful historic home across the street from the Cathedral. We are staffed by a welcoming team of Cathedral volunteers directed by bookstore manager, Kathryn Bissette. Our profits support outreach ministries of St. John’s Cathedral. We have donated over $10,000 in the past two years to Blessings in a Backpack, which provides nutritional support for at-risk elementary-aged school children in Jacksonville.
The bookstore stocks a variety of Bibles and prayer books and offers local imprinting services. In addition to our curated book collection for adults and children, we offer a selection of special gifts for life’s occasions both large and small. Our gift collection emphasizes social enterprises that provide “outreach shopping” with beautiful products made by people being lifted out of poverty. Each month we spotlight a different social enterprise and offer a 15% discount on that enterprise’s items. This month we are featuring Haitian Fair Trade metal art from Beyond Borders.
Shop the Bookstore this season for all things Advent: books, calendars, candles, and wreaths. For Christmas, we are featuring a gourmet food section that includes British tea and tea biscuits, Italian olive oil and balsamic vinegar, South Georgia pecans, Charis Chocolates from City Rescue Mission, and assorted products from the North Florida School of Special Education. Call ahead and we can create a customized beautiful Christmas gift bag.
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We are open Monday-Thursday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m., Friday 11 a.m. - 3 p.m., and Sunday 9 a.m.-12 p.m. We also have extended shopping hours of 5-8 p.m. on Wednesday, December 6 for the Christmas Luminaria on Cathedral Hill event, which is also during Downtown Vision’s monthly Art Walk.
We look forward to helping you with your Advent and Christmas shopping as well as throughout the year!
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The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Romans 13.12
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
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The Sabbath
What is the Sabbath, should we have a day of rest, and should it concern Christians today? There are two main Hebrew words used for rest in the Bible. The first is shabbat, which gets partially translated into the English word “sabbath.” Shabbat simply means to stop working. God introduces the idea of rest in the book of Genesis. In the creation account, God works for six days creating the world, and He rests on the seventh day.
The number seven is a big deal in the Bible. It is connected to the idea of completeness. Genesis begins with darkness and disorder but then God speaks and brings about light and order so that life can flourish. This happens over the course of six days. Each day is marked with the phrase “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”
But on the seventh day something special happens. God stops and rests, because creation is brought to its completion on the seventh day, and the phrase “there was evening and there was morning” it doesn't appear on day seven. It's like a day with no end because God's presence fills all His creation. And we (through Adam and Eve) are invited into this endless day of rest, in the fullness of God’s creation.
But Adam and Eve are deceived, and they forfeit that endless rest. God tells Adam “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life...” They are exiled into the wilderness where they must work as slaves to the land until they die, but God wants to restore them (and us) back to that seventh day of rest.
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