Farnham & St. John's

Torrence's Weekly Message

Blessings shared

All around us in creation is turning as we deepen into Fall in the Way of Love and we begin to focus on the idea of blessing. To bless. In Genesis God talks to Abram about blessing, a relationship between God and what God has created (including humankind) whereby God blesses and then that which is blessed becomes a blessing. This is harvest time, a time of gathering in what has grown to fruition during earlier months. It is time to ponder where and how to share it. Perhaps it is hard to look back over the past six months of pandemic, violence, distress, anxiety, combativeness between factions, all the dis-ordering in the world around us. Where is there blessing in the middle of the dis-ease that seems to be taking over? That is why I want to share with you today the special offering from our Assistant Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson. But it is just about mushrooms and a morning walk, you might say. And I would say it is, but it is more. Deeper it is about opening to the blessings that abound as close as the earth beneath our feet and the air we breathe. It is about having eyes to see and a heart opening to the need to feel blessed and be a part of something bigger than oneself and whatever negative may be going on around oneself. There are blessings in the midst of everything. We just have to take the time to open our heart, mind, eyes and ears to see them. We need to re-orient our awareness. Bishop Jennifer offers us an example. In this time of harvest stewardship, the truth we seek is how to live into a generosity of heart and spirit that is the first step on the path. The first step is to see and open to how God has blessed us. Then share that story. In so doing we become a channel of blessing as we pass blessing forward. By sharing the blessing we become the blessing. That’s what God had in mind when forming us out of the dust of the earth, planting a spark of the divine within us and then breathing life into us, that we may live, move, have being and breathe life back into all around us. May we open our hearts and become, again and again, the blessing we were created to be. . Blessed by God to be with you on this path,  Torrence

background photo is by Chandra Garnier on unsplash. No permissions required. inserted here so that those viewing on phones get to see it.

Bishop Brooke-Davidson's Meditation for Pentecost XIX Pinecones and Mushrooms

After the first couple of months of confinement, I started walking the length of the long drive at Roslyn a couple of times a day. You'd think that it would get boring, but the flora and fauna have drawn me in with Beatrix Potter-like glimpses into their habits and habitats. I peer into doorways in the hollows of tree trunks, and tiptoe past grand earthen entrances to underground cities surrounded by garlands of moss and violets that would make the fancy catalog decorators weep. The rock-edged drainage culverts leading out from the hills and under the drives serve as well-traveled groundhog highways. I explain regularly to the enormous flotilla of Canada geese that they might enjoy CANADA this time of year (they show no interest, in Canada or in me, I'm sorry to say). Most mornings, three bluebirds swoop and loop as I pass the big loblolly pine at the bend in the drive, apparently rehearsing for a remake of the Snow White dressmaking scene. And I've certainly figured out why the local university chose spiders as their mascot -- those omnipresent arachnids will prevail when all else has gone down to the dust.

There is so much to see in God's breathtaking creation, when we slow down (by force, some of us) long enough to look.  God's plan is so much bigger, richer, more intricate, more colorful -- and more sufficient unto itself -- than we can imagine, or remember, especially in times when it feels like the world, and our options and resources and futures, are closing in.   What I've noticed the last few weeks are the pinecones and the mushrooms. Being new to these parts, I am scooping up the prickly loblolly pinecones and squirreling them away in the potting shed for Christmas. Where I come from, you have to buy pinecones in bags at the store (also dirt, but that's another reflection), so this feels like a bonanza. I look around for the symmetrical ones that have opened up, and I stuff them into my distended hoodie pockets. I learned not to wait too long when I see the good ones, because when it rains -- I don't know exactly how or why, but after it rains, there aren't any wide-open ones. I can't imagine how or why they would close up, but something happens, and they are all closed-up and soggy. Pinecones are sunshine treasures.

However, on those same foggy, soggy mornings, profligate mushroom magic springs forth from some unseen subterranean matrix -- huge white umbrellas in the mown fields, tiny red-capped domes in the pine needles, something that looks like a garden of brioches growing by the neighbor's fence, extravagant bohemian fringes on the downed logs over in the shady dell by the road to the canal, and a monstrous woody eruption that has endured many mowings of its crabgrass camouflage. The mushrooms will remain, morphing in shape and color, until the next bright, sunny day, when by the evening walk, most have vanished back into the safety of leaf mold and thatch.

Maybe we're a little like that, if we could only remember. Maybe some folks, and some traits, open up in strong light and heat, and pull in when it's dark and damp. And other folks, and other traits, emerge to surprise us when the rain sets in. Maybe God has given us all secret subterranean strengths and connections that only become visible when we are able to finish lamenting the pinecones we could have picked up yesterday (if only we'd known it was going to rain) and pay attention instead to what is growing today. Maybe there is miracle and magic in our rainy days, too.

Many of our leaders feel the unbearable pressure of believing they have to hold together a world that is falling apart -- and many of us anxiously look to them expecting them to do just that. Maybe we all need to exhale, and go mushroom hunting. These days are not sunny, and our pinecones are looking like they'll never open again. But they will. They will! We are called only to be faithful, as God is faithful, and to hold fast to our faith, the rock on which our house is built. The rains may come, the winds may blow, but this house that is God's church, built on the rock of faith, will withstand it. Look around. God's creation, God's plan, God's providence, is beyond our imagination. Just look for it. There are mushrooms all around us. Blessings --   The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Brooke-Davidson Assistant Bishop One of our bishop's posts a meditation to the Diocesan facebook page each week.

Announcements

Sharing the blessings

A Note about Stewardship  You should be receiving your stewardship letter and pledge card, shortly. Our Stewardship theme this year is "One Together, Sharing the Blessings." Please prayerfully consider your commitment to share your blessings and return your card as soon as possible by mail, since we are not gathering for services.

Click here for the current edition. Torrence's column, "Faith Matters" is on page 24.

Upcoming Services

Our Sunday services going forward into early November will be a weekly video recorded service which includes music, prayers and a homily.  There will be no outdoors Sunday morning service or Sunday afternoon Zoom services. While Torrence would prefer to alternate the venue between the St. John's and N. Farnham sanctuaries, the acoustics at Farnham create too much background interference for taping, so the videos will all be done at St. John's. Video services are subsequently posted on our website, Facebook, and YouTube pages.

October 18th The recorded service will be imbedded in an e-mail sent Saturday October 25th The recorded service will be imbedded in an e-mail sent Saturday November 1st Special Video Service for All Saints' Day

The Parish Prayer List

Courtenay Altaffer John Barber Martha Berger Randall Bone Sue Bowie Nancy Allin Bush Mary Claycomb Constance Edwards Bob File Regina Griggs Barbara & Harry Grander The Rev. Howard Hanchey Weir Harman

Mary Hertling Billy Hooper Rebecca Hubert Marcia Jenkins Stephanie, Nick & Donovan Kaywork Mary Douglas Lawton The Rt. Rev. Peter Lee Susan Lewis Frank Lynch Susannah Marais Tommy Neuman Judi Newman

Kirsten Palubinski George Patrick Ed Rynd James Rynd Bennie Shepherd Debbie Belfield Stacks Scott Strickler Waldy Sulik Billy Tennyson Roclyn Tennyson Connie Thompson Matthew Yates and Rose Mary Zellner

Please e-mail any updates to the prayer list to parishchurchnews@gmail.com Replying to this e-mail will send it to Torrence.

Oct, 8th - Paula Milsted

October Birthdays Oct. 19th - Michael Sisson

Oct. 24th - Mercer O'Hara

There are no in person services this coming Sunday. We will e-mail a video service on Saturday and subsequently post it to our youtube and facebook pages.

Farnham Church

St. John's Church