Sunday Club Newsletter: February 2013

“Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, God loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely…  God loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful or broken.”                        - Dieter F. Uchdorf

Dear Saint Anne’s families,

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I’ve seen the famous and fabulous quote from I Corinthians on a number of cards and gifts:    

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  (I Corinthians 13: 4-7)

It’s beautiful.  But I’ve always understood this passage from I Corinthians in terms of human love - and I’ve always found myself feeling twinges of guilt when I read or hear it.  I do love the people in my life– with my whole heart.  Yet…I am not always patient.  I am not always kind.  Sometimes I can be boastful or proud.  Sometimes I’m self-seeking, and sometimes angry.  Too often I fall far, far short of what I’ve always heard in I Corinthians as the call to love one another.  If I can’t even love well those I love, how can I even begin to manage the more difficult tasks to which we are called?

And then I stumbled across the quote at the top of this page.  Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely….though we are imperfect, God loves us perfectly….  

As I read that quote, a voice came into my head (or maybe it’s more accurate to say I felt something touch my heart).   It was something that whispered, Love is patient, Love is kind…. And God is Love.   

God is patient, God is kind.  God does not envy or boast, God is not proud.  God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs.  God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves….  

Ahh.  I do think I Corinthians is a call and a directive.  This is how I will strive to love.  But when I fall short, I Corinthians is also a love song from God to me.  To us. “Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely… even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful or broken.”  Well, that list includes all of us isn’t, it?  But God is patient, God is kind.  What a Valentine's present. 

Happy Valentine’s Day.  As always, thank you for sharing your children with Saint Anne’s.  They are the greatest of our many loves!

p e a c e,

Jennifer

UPCOMING SUNDAY CLUB DATES

 

^{Family Ash Wednesday Service:  February 13, 5:30 pm}

Youth Music Festival, February 23rd

Bishop’s Family Day:  March 2.  10:00 am – 3:00 pm.  St. Mark’s Cathedral, Minneapolis

Youth Ski Trip through St. Christopher’s in Edina:  March 3^rd   

Holy Week:  week of March 25^th  

St. Paul TEC:  April 12 – 15^th 

Summer in the City:  June 18 – 21^st 

MinneEYE:  June 30 – July 3^rd

Sunday Club Newsletter December 2012

Newsletter:  December 2012

And unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Isaiah 9:6. 

Dear Saint Anne’s families,

I have a new favorite Christmas song and I can’t get enough of it.  I set my iPod to repeat and listen to it over and over, until the kids beg for something different.  It’s DaveMatthews’ Christmas Song: 

She was his girl; he was her boyfriend
She’d be his wife; take him as her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy

 

One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy…  Just this fills me with Christmasy warmth.    

Though, of course, as every parent knows, the story neither begins nor ends with a baby in our arms.

Sometimes the journey to the baby is long and rocky, filled with pain and uncertainty.  For some, the uncertainty and fear begins when the baby arrives – things may not be as we had anticipated in any number of ways.  And then begins the actual parenting.   There is much joy and laughter (and much dribbling!).  But there is also sacrifice that can deplete us.  There can be struggle to provide and protect.  Sometimes there is loss and pain and grief so inky and deep it engulfs and consumes us.  We have no way of knowing, before we start out, just where the road will lead.  

We are told Advent is about making room in our hearts for Christ to be born into us.  But the story of Jesus is a human one, and the full human experience is a true pilgrimage – adventurous and exhilarating, challenging and difficult.  It is no simple matter to embrace the whole of it.  

As we settle into the darkness of another Advent and look toward the light of another Christmas, we have the opportunity, once again, to make peace with these tensions.  This peace is offered freely in the hope and in the promise of our Christmas story, where in the celebrations of our joys and in the depths of our pain, we are not alone.  Where not only God, but the whole of creation meets us:  angels and shepherds and stars in the night sky shining down on our so-excited-for-Christmas-that-they-can’t-stand-it children.  And there we are in the middle of the story, loving with our whole hearts, with everything we are and everything we have to offer, the bundle that divine grace places into our arms.  Christmas is where we gratefully embrace this giggling dribbling life; all that is and all that is to come, whatever that might be. 

The wise men came - three made their way
To shower him with love while he lay in the hay
Shower him with love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around

Merry, merry Christmas, 
 Jennifer

Sunday Club date for the calendar in December and January:

During Advent:  Mary and Joseph’s Big Advent Journey

Sunday Club hour during December and first week of January:  Epiphany pageant rehearsals

December 6^th:  High School Youth White Elephant Gift Exchange & Party

December 8^th:  A Celtic Christmas Concert held at St. Anne’s. 
“Tunes, Carols, Stories for the entire family”.  Adults $10, children & students, free

December 9^th:  Winterlights Tour at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  1:00 pm, led by Colleen Watson

December 15^th:  Children’s Christmas Boutique at St. Anne’s 9:00 am – 11:00 am

December 21^st:  Winter Solstice Service & Bonfire  7:00 pm

December 23^rd:  All-Parish Christmas Caroling at Southview Acres Care Center 12:15 pm

December 24^th”:  Christmas Eve Eucharist at 4:00 pm – with a visit from St. Nicholas!

                                                  Christmas Eve Eucharist at 10:00 pm  

December 25^th:  Christmas Morning Eucharist 10:30 am

January 6^th:  Epiphany Pageant during 10:30 worship

January 18^th:  Feed My Starving Children

Halloween Parade at Southview Acres

Halloween Parade!

Newsletter: October 2012

“There are two ways to see the world:  one is as if nothing is a miracle. 
The other is as if everything is a miracle.”

                                                                                - Albert Einstein                                                                     

Dear Saint Anne’s families,

This summer, when NASA touched down on Mars during the same week that news of the Chik-Fil-A controversy was also unavoidable, I received a “joke” card via email from a friend of mine.  The card depicted a photo of the Mars landing and text over the top of the photo in the form of a mock letter that read, “Dear Religion, while you were busy arguing over a chicken sandwich, I landed on Mars.  Sincerely, Science.”

I have to admit, the card stung.  I know it was meant to be a joke.  But still, it stung.  It stung, I think, because it is still a common misperception in certain circles, that science and intellect are on one side of the coin and faith on the other.  That religious people must suspend thought and reason when they enter the doors of a church.  It stung, I think, because in certain circles, religion is still scorned in the name of science.  And because those “certain circles” are sometimes circles of my friends.   The card made me wonder if I need to do a better job of expressing more publically that religion and science are not in any way mutually exclusive in my view.  That for me, the more I learn from science, the more amazed I am at the complexity and intricacy of the world.  That in fact, science helps me to see the world as more sacred and more holy, not less.   The card made me want to invite my friend and her daughter to Sunday Club…

As we study Creation in Sunday Club this month with focus on the Creation stories in Genesis, we don’t ask our children to leave their bright minds, their wonderings and questions, and their understandings of science at home.  Our children stand proudly and correctly on the side of science.  In Sunday Club, we bring our knowledge of a living, loving, creative God with us as we travel to Mars.  What we hear in the Creation stories is this:  God was there, and is still here.  This is still the day of Creation.  And what science does is point to all of the miracles that continue to be.  That yes, even on Mars God sees that it is good.   

p e a c e,

Jennifer

Sunday Club dates to remember in November:

November 9 - 11^th:  Middle School Retreat: St. John’s in the Wilderness

November 17:  Youth Bell Choir performance at the Mall of America, 3:30 pm.

November 18^th:  Tween bowling (3^{rd -} 8^th grades) with St. Mary’s.  1:00 pm

November 25:  Advent Wreath Making during Sunday Club Hour