February 16,  2017       
Picture
of the week

The Haiti "Girls"
Worship Schedule
Sunday
8:00am Rite 1 Holy Eucharist
9:30am Rite 2 Holy Eucharist 
5:30pm -  Celtic Eventide

Monday
5:00 pm - 
Centering Prayer
REMINDER
Drop off your palms from last year in the basket in Bonoff Hall.
We will use them for the ashes this year at Ash Wednesday services. It is the best way to recycle the palms.  
Summer Seminarian Update
St. Alban's summer-seminarian-to-be, Holly Clark, is getting excited to join us as part of her preparation for ordination, and we look forward with joy to welcoming her gifts and passions. There's just one logistical piece waiting to be sealed up...Holly needs a home!
 
Do you have space to welcome Holly this summer, or know someone who may? 
 
She has a car and is single, and we hope for a space ideally not too distant and with some privacy. Those who've housed our past seminarians have found it to be a joy! Please be in touch!
The Rev. Reed Loy
Meetings & Events 
2/19   BP Check
2/20   Office Closed/Holiday
2/22   Haiti Trip Returns
2/27   Feldenkrais
2/28   Shrove Tuesday Supper
3/1     Ash Wednesday
Children's Formation
REGISTRATION HAS STARTED!
July 10-14

 
Children's & Youth
programs on Sunday during 9:30 worship.  
Come check'em out!
From the Health Ministry
February 19th 
AFTER THE 9:30 SERVICE 
 
February 27th 
7:00 PM
 
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This week there will be fewer of us in worship at St. Alban's. ...Because 9 of us will be worshiping at St. Luc's Church and School in Trou-du-Nord, Haiti. These courageous and blessed travelers, supported by the full Haiti Committee, and by every one of us, have taken a host of gifts to Haiti. They brought science projects for the kids, and art projects. They brought jars filled with prayers from our kids. They brought soccer balls, and crayons and school supplies, and funds for paint and teacher support. But most of all they brought their selves.

Of all the gifts we can give, there is no gift like the giving of a self. To place your body alongside of another; to live with them. Jesus was always up to the crazy activity of going into other people's homes and eating with them. People of all identities and statuses. Having a person over for dinner is still a treasured ritual, and still vulnerable and challenging, and a chance to practice being Christ.

And then there is this trick about it. That we have to notice, somewhere along the way, that we're not quite practicing being Christ ourselves, but being guests, with Christ, alongside those who we eat with. Even in our own homes, we are guests. This joyful, subtle work is what our travelers have been practicing for ten years. Discovering and bringing home to us the experience that we're not bringing Jesus in with us (packed up in a box with our soccer balls), but that Jesus is already at that table in the kitchen in Haiti. We're all guests, hoping for a glimpse of the Son of God, and a wise word, and a healing touch.

I'm thankful to each of you who reads this message from 1500 miles away in Haiti, and will bring your experience home to us. Bring Christ home to us from afar. It is a vast and mysterious and precious gift that we have sent you out to receive. God bless you each, and all of us, American, Haitian, and all the rest of us in the one Body of Christ.

Yours in the One Body,
                
Adult Formation
Late Winter Reflection,
The Rev. Jonathan Appleyard.
Sunday Mornings after coffee
An opportunity to reflect during a season of conflicting forces: ice hardening and earth stirring; staid habits and demonstrations of hope; doors closing and doors opening. As people of faith, we wrestle with the question, "How do we put faith ("To act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God," Micah 6:8) into practice."
Jonathan Appleyard will gather with us in the pews as we share with one another and look for signs of God's movement.
You are welcome to come for one or all on Sunday mornings after coffee on February 19, 26, and March 5
The Rev. Jeremy Taylor, a student of dreams for more than fifty years, says, "All dreams speak a universal language and come in the service of health and wholeness." You might be surprised to learn that he means physical health as well as spiritual and psychological wholeness. Taylor claims that some part of every dream carries at least a grain of information about our bodies. Actually Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine and his famous Greek contemporary Galen agreed. You can imagine this is complicated. 
There will be a Dream Study Group  
offered during Lent 
     Beginning March 5  
through Palm Sunday 
      The group will meet at the church 
     Sunday afternoon  3- 5pm 
     Please call Tom Cushman to register 846-6263 

Here's a rich experience for those who would like a calm, candle-lit way to start their week. Celtic Eventide is held every Sunday at 5:30pm at St. Alban's Episcopal Church. Come for the quiet; come for the music. Come. 
Making A Difference
J ubilee Center/Essentials Pantry 
The warm winter wear that was donated have gratef
ul, and warm, new owners now, thanks to you, our caring  congregation that kept t   he blue box and straw baskets filled throughout Advent and Christmas.
In addition to the need for winter clothing and small household items and appliances, when you travel this winter, consider bringing home a handful of the little bottles of unopened hotel toiletries and bars of soap for the Pantry.  These little "luxuries" that you don't need, go a long way to delight guests at the Pantry. 

Newcomers to the Pantry line up for coats and boots, so please continue to donate what you don't need or no longer fits