We are all Connected

Dear People of Saint John’s,
All of us worry in times like these. The national financial news has been frightening at times, and many of us are worried about job loss or work slow-down. Where will be cut back on household spending? These events are cyclical, they will get better, but there is still the “now” that we have to live in. With retirement and college funds shrinking, what will the future bring?

Perhaps the Apostle Paul had such events in mind when he wrote to the Church in Rome:

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans, Ch. 8).

God’s love is with us! It is through our church community that we can find this connectedness to the anxietyrelieving Spirit of God. Sunday worship, Sunday School, fellowship and visiting at coffee hour, all provide spiritual food. And as we have to watch our household pennies, you might find that some church events are the best bargain out here.

Mission Perspective

Another antidote to our own financial worries is to look at the blessings that God has given to each of us. As tight as things can get, an excursion through the third world, not to mention the poorer sections of our urban area, reminds us how blessed we still are with relative prosperity. This was one of the things that Burt and I, and our two sons, learned when visiting Guatemala last July. For example, in the town of San Andres, where our diocesan youth group led the dental hygiene clinic, the poor still live on dietary staples of corn and beans, and the wood for cooking is still brought from the field to the home by burro. We saw many firewood loads like the photo below, alongside trucks and cars on the same road. Another sight was clothes washing in the villages. The San Andres “Village Laundromat” was a wash area behind the Chay Balan School. Many a mother and young daughter would walk to this communal area where fresh water was available, and there wash the family laundry by hand. From there, the clothes were taken home for line drying. It’s not the same as putting the clothes in the washer and dryer in my basement, for sure!

Wine, Food & Auction

Our annual fall fundraiser is just a weekend or so away. The redesigned gala raises funds for the parish budget and for mission. In the spirit of gratefulness for what God has given us, and as a communal stress-relieving evening in these difficult times, there are still tickets available for this November 15 event. If you can find $35 for a ticket or two, you will go far to help Saint John’s, yourself and the Guatemalan people that we are connected to, heart and soul.

Fr. John