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Chicken Chat
from
Fr. Moki's Chicken Coop
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Servants for April 12th
Virtual Service Reader:
Brian Shuster
Altar Guild:
Chancellor Brown
Ushers:
Ronnie & Virgie Pasalo
Readers:
Les Totah (1st Reader)
Brian Shuster (2nd Reader)
Lay Eucharistic Ministers:
Sharon Daniels (1st Chalice)
Joan Smith (2nd Chalice)
Dixie Kaetsu (3rd Chalice)
K. Peter Lee (paten)
Sunday School:
Sharon Daniels & Joan Smith
Coffee Hour:
'Ohana Latayada
Ka 'Ohana Kitchen
Sannan Evangelista
Milestones
Birthdays
Kailani Jamias
Amy Valle
Jacob Akana
Lynne Takara
Cora Sinfuego
Ryanna Hernandez
Wedding Anniversaries
Rogelio & Mary Dinong
Death Anniversaries
Pauline Higa
Lita Mailem
Teofila Lucas
Elias Evangelista
Irene Afalla
Attendance
Maundy Thursday: 30
Good Friday: 50
Great Vigil of Easter: 40
Sunday at 9:00am: 150
Ka 'Ohana Kitchen: 170
Facebook Views for Palm Sunday: 238
YouTube Views for Palm Sunday: 25
Bishop Search
We ask God to be with those on the Search Committee, the Transition Committee, and the Standing Committee; and for the Diocese of Hawai’i, as over the next months we prayerfully discern who is called to be the next Bishop of Hawai’i. May our hearts not be hardened, but open to the presence of the Holy Spirit, our advocate and guide. Amen.
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Candidate for Bishop of Hawai'i
The Rev. Canon Andrew J. Arakawa
Canon for Ministry Formation
Dean of Waiolaihuiʻia Center for Ministry
School Chaplain, ʻIolani School
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Candidate for Bishop of Hawai'i
The Rev. Elizabeth "Libby" Berman
Rector, Church of the Holy Nativity
Honolulu, HI
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Candidate for Bishop of Hawai'i
The Rev. Timothy J. Yanni,
Rector of The Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist
Phoenix, AZ
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Happy Easter Everyone!
My goodness. What a joyous Easter service we had yesterday! And it was made all the more beautiful by the baptism of Ella Aspilla who squealed with delight when the water of baptism was sprinkled over her.
On top of that, the US service member who went missing Iran was found, and that was an answer to our prayers that began when he went missing on Maundy Thursday.
And our potluck, as always, was incredible. So many people pitched in to make sure that we had a wonderful luncheon after the service and I’m grateful to all of you. And then so many people pitched in to clean up that the hall was almost spotless when I left to go home.
Our Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter) was very deep in meaningful services and also very well attended. Dixie and I were talking and we came to the conclusion that this year we let the rites speak for themselves. Because there weren’t a lot of trappings, people could come as they were and be fed.
On Good Friday, Dixie and I put out a video of the Passion Gospel of John on Facebook for people to take a look at and reflect on. Then on Saturday we put out another video that we prepared with prayers for a broken world. Here are links to the videos:
Good Friday Passion Gospel from John
Kintsugi:
Broken Vessels in a Broken World
Several of you have asked me about my time away on Palm Sunday and I wrote a report for Bishop Fitzpatrick to read and I will include it below. It was a very thought-provoking and moving weekend for me and I hope you get something out of what I have to share. I will warn you in advance that the third paragraph might be a little crude for the decorum of some of you and I chose to leave it the way it is because it’s the way it was presented to me. The reflection is below the Bible readings.
Again, thank you all for a wonderful week of services and please have a very Happy Easter.
Much aloha,
Father Moki
THIS WEEK
08 (Wed)
OFFICE CLOSED
Bible Study
3:30PM
Bell Tower
09 (Thu)
Tai Chi
9:00AM
Office Courtyard
11 (Sat)
Worship Committee
09:00AM
Rectory
Eucharist
05:00PM
Office Courtyard
12 (Sun)
Virtual Morning Worship
Facebook & YouTube
7:00AM
Sunday Eucharist
with Music, Sunday School,
and Coffee Hour
9:00AM
Ka Ohana Kitchen
12:30PM
Twelve Step Meetings
Unless otherwise stated,
meetings are held in the
Lufkin Parish Hall.
Monday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Monday 6:30PM
Responsible For Our Recovery (NA)
Tuesday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Tuesday 7:00PM
Pono (NA)
Wednesday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Wednesday 12:00N
Sober & Crazy (AA)
Wednesday 6:30PM
At Some of These We Balked (AA)
Thursday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Thursday 7:00PM
Wailuku Group (AA)
Friday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Saturday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Office Courtyard
Saturday 8:30AM
Al Anon
St. Matthew's Conference Room
Al-aTeen
Office Courtyard
Sunday 6:30AM
Dawn Patrol (AA)
Office Courtyard
Sunday 5:30PM
Wailuku Big Book (AA)
St. Matthew's Conference Room
Please click below for this week's
Virtual Morning Devotion
April 05th Morning Devotion
Parish Prayer List
Please take a moment to pray for each person by name.
Erick, Lydia, John, Maggie, Shirley, Jacinta, Charlotte, Ingrid, Aulani, Elizabeth, Ernesto, Marilyn, Ernesto, Nancy, Penny, Alfredo R., Brian, George, Margaret, Cora S., Barbara, Elena, Charlesta, Briyana, Paul, Lynne, Tamo, Kathy, Gail, Janet, Basilio, Hoku, Sean, Frellie, Louise
Vestry
Moki Hino, Rector
Louise Aloy, Senior Warden
Brian Shuster, Junior Warden
Class of 2026
Frellie Sayno
Natasha Lau
Milton Rickard
Class of 2027
Kris Galon
Quinn Robinson
Class of 2028
Velma Coloma
Leslie Dummitt
Delegates to Convention
Louise Aloy
Chancellor Brown
Brian Shuster
Sharon Daniels, Alternate
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Readings for The Second Sunday of Easter
Sunday, April 12th
Acts 2:14a,22-32
Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd, “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him,
‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
moreover my flesh will live in hope.
For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One experience corruption.
You have made known to me the ways of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
“Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying,
‘He was not abandoned to Hades,
nor did his flesh experience corruption.’
This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”
Psalm 16
1 Protect me, O God, for I take refuge in you; *
I have said to the Lord, "You are my Lord,
my good above all other."
2 All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land, *
upon those who are noble among the people.
3 But those who run after other gods *
shall have their troubles multiplied.
4 Their libations of blood I will not offer, *
nor take the names of their gods upon my lips.
5 O Lord, you are my portion and my cup; *
it is you who uphold my lot.
6 My boundaries enclose a pleasant land; *
indeed, I have a goodly heritage.
7 I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; *
my heart teaches me, night after night.
8 I have set the Lord always before me; *
because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.
9 My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; *
my body also shall rest in hope.
10 For you will not abandon me to the grave, *
nor let your holy one see the Pit.
11 You will show me the path of life; *
in your presence there is fullness of joy,
and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.
1 Peter 1:3-9
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith-- being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire-- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
John 20:19-31
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
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Report on Renewal on the Road
I’m writing to unpack my time this past weekend at the Betty Ford Center. First, I want to thank Bishop Fitzpatrick for the support help he provided when I wrote to him and told him about the weekend offering in Rancho Mirage. I would also like to thank the congregation at Good Shepherd who sent me to California with their blessing—on Palm Sunday weekend, no less. This is why I love this congregation so deeply.
When I signed up to go to Renewal on the Road, I assumed it was going to be a workshop that provided tools to deal with recovery and sobriety after having been a patient at Betty Ford. It turns out, however, that it was much more. It was a retreat on spirituality to give us tools to continue in healthy ways on the spiritual path we set foot on when we made the decision to confront our addiction. The insights given in the retreat, however, could apply to anyone who is on a spiritual path. I’d like to share insights from retreat leader Paul Anderson that come from his wisdom and experience. Many of the words you read in this report come from his plenary lectures.
Imagine my shock when the first thing I heard Paul Anderson talk about was how we love to polish our turds. I was more than a little taken aback by the analogy and yet it landed solidly on the story of my life’s struggles. Paul’s point was that to stay firmly planted on a spiritual path where we’re in touch with the presence of God, it would behoove us to stop polishing our turds, meaning that many of us seem to value and hold dear the negative aspects and experiences of our lives—our sorrows and our tragedies. Rather than trying to deal with them, send them on their way, or allow them to die the deaths that they should; we hold onto and honor them so that we can remain in a state of indignation and offense, which is really a way of hiding our need to feel superior to others. So, for example, when I rehash and rehash things that happened in past cures that were challenging, difficult, or even abusive; that’s polishing my turds. When we gossip about clergy and the things that they did that we find dumb or stupid; that’s polishing our turds. It reminded me of going to the Cenacle Retreat House in Manila several years ago, writing out my sorrows, and wanting to put them in my safe deposit box to go back to when I got home. The nun who was my spiritual director looked at me blankly and said, “You should burn them. Why would you treasure your sorrows?”
I think this “polishing our turds” dynamic is more about promoting the festering of our wounds. Perhaps instead we are called to put salve on those wounds so that they can heal—that salve, our spiritual Balm of Gilead, being things like forgiveness, gratitude, or looking at how much we have grown spiritually since the time we made the choice to drop and let go of these turds. And when we let them go, we see how we have been open to God’s grace, God’s ministrations, and God’s goodness. Maybe it’s time to let our turds decompose the way God meant them to decompose and fertilize our spiritual lives with strength and the wisdom of experience we gain from our trials and tribulations.
Paul Anderson talked at length about the benefits of a daily spiritual practice. For some of us, this includes saying grace before meals. For others, it may be reciting The Rosary. Others pray Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer daily. Others have a regular time for meditation. Some recite psalms. Others intentionally pray for people by name. When I was a kid on Guam, devout Roman Catholics would drop everything at noon and pray the Angelus. Today I endeavor to set aside 20 minutes for centering prayer. I also read spiritual writings. Right now, I am delving into a book by Thomas Keating called “Open Mind, Open Heart”. I also sit every day with Scripture in a book called “Jesus Calling” and I often refer to the reflections in this book in my Sunday sermons. What is your daily spiritual practice?
Paul Anderson also delved deeply into the concept of codependency. For years I have struggled to come up with a good working definition for codependency. Paul says it’s “the need to micromanage people, places, and things”. How many of us have worked for bosses like that? Better yet, how many of us have been bosses like that? And does this dynamic play out in our life as a church? Time and time again we hear comments like:
· Someone is sitting in my pew.
· Someone parked in my parking space.
· The baptismal font isn’t where it’s supposed to be.
· The Prayer Book rubrics say we have to . . .
· The church canons say we have to . . .
· We’ve always done it that way.
· We’ve never done it that way.
· That isn’t in the budget.
· If you do that, people will leave the congregation.
· The color of the altar frontal is wrong.
· The gospel candle never stands alone.
The list goes on, people feel guilty or inadequate, give in, and follow the directives of the critic who ends up being in control. Another definition of codependency I learned recently is, “an inability to trust, value, care about or respect myself unless other do, so I engage in relationships with people and organizations that I think will give me what I need, and then I need to control and manipulate them to get them to keep giving me what I need.”
This points to a people who, as St. Augustine says, “have God-shaped holes in our hearts” that we fill with self-aggrandizement, bullying dominance, and excessive control over others rather than fostering an awareness of the Christ light that longs to shine from every human heart. What would Christianity be like if we could all say and believe, “Jesus, I put trust in you. Let your light shine through me.”? And so maybe it’s time for us to sit with who we are and where we’re at—as individuals, as a family, as a congregation, as a diocese, as a denomination, and as a church. Or as Paul Anderson says to “be where we are and pay attention to what’s coming up.” Are we codependent? Do we love control? Or is God in charge? We would be wise to heed the words in the Book of Proverbs that say, “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:6)
Maybe what’s coming up is the painful realization that, “We’re not the solution we’re in need of,” because we’re bombarded with our bedevilments. In other words, the things in our spiritual lives that continue to be devils to us. These can be things like (but not limited to) the need to be right, the need to have the last word, the need to control, the need to feel superior, the need to put people in their place, the need to relitigate the past, the need to feel offended, and the list goes on. Maybe we need to get out of the way of our own progress.
So, what are the roadblocks that keep us from having spiritual-God connections with one another, the kind of spiritual-God connections that lead to good and healthy relationships based on mutuality, honesty, kindness, compassion, generosity, truth, and love? When was the last time you were in a conversation and you felt seen for who you truly are, or where you saw another for who they truly are? When was the last time you were able to hold space for the story of another person’s pain and fear just by sitting and listening? When was the last time someone held space for your story of pain and fear by just being with you?
That can be difficult to do in an environment where we jump to conclusions about what’s going on in people’s hearts and lives and feel like we ‘re entitled to fix things when we really aren’t. Perhaps we’re quick to assign motives that may or may not be totally off the mark and then we coerce, correct, shake our finger at, criticize, mock, and shame others. Perhaps we’re called instead to make an investment of ourselves to simply be with our brothers and sisters. They say that contempt prior to investigation is a “reservation” where we have reservations about discerning truths about ourselves and others when it can be so much easier to just jump to conclusions without doing any discernment. Then we engage in magical thinking where we base our reality and what we feel entitled to pronounce the reality of others is. That’s based on nothing more than the fantasy of our egoistic sense of knowingness.
So, what is discernment? A good working definition might be: seeing God’s will through waiting, watching and listening in the form of an intuitive nudge that we can trust. As Paul Anderson points out, “My intuition has never been wrong, but my interpretation of it has.” What is God really saying to us or asking of us? We need the help of our spiritual communities to help us figure that out. That why we always discern in community; never by ourselves.
That community of togetherness seems more appealing than living in the isolation of codependency and shame, that deeply held belief that I am somehow defective, flawed and unlovable. Shame is spiritual infidelity because when we see ourselves that way or demand that others see themselves that way, we are saying that what God has created is unworthy. We slap God in the face. We refuse to see God’s grace, and that is sin. Unfortunately, many of us have developed a habitual pattern of living from the woundedness of shame and as a church community, perhaps the time has come for us to work together to help each other transform into a spiritual consciousness where we understand that God does not sees us through the eyes of our shame. God sees us through God’s eyes of unconditional love.
Hear this, please: we do nothing to warrant anything but nurturing treatment from others. This was Paul Anderson’s opening salvo about trauma. Sadly, there are many times when churches and people in churches fail to put this salvo into practice, and it causes God’s people to suffer. I have pastorally counseled and spiritually directed countless people who experience trauma because of broken and dysfunctional relationships, especially relationships in church structures and communities. And I’ve sought counseling to deal with trauma that I’ve experienced in the church, including character assassination and physical assault. We need to take an honest look at our trauma and figure out, through discernment, how God calls us to deal with our trauma and move forward so that it doesn’t continue to hold us back from the spiritual pathways God calls us to forge. In the midst of that call, it can be hard to know that someone took sadistic pleasure from causing us pain and suffering. This happens a lot in church communities. And it’s harder still to feel like no one cared enough to come to the rescue. This also happens a lot in church communities. We can be better than that. We can and should proclaim that no one gets forsaken and that no one is “abandon-able” by God, even though many human beings are more than willing to do that, often in the name of God. Let’s ask ourselves how we are showing up in this life with the things we haven’t dealt with yet. Let’s remember that our greatest moments are when God comes to us disguised as our lives.
So, here we sit. And God comes to us as the lives we sit in. God longs to be with us. God longs for us to hear God’s voice and soak in God’s will for us. And we remember that the work we do is a testament to the One who sent us. That One is God and the Resurrected Christ who longs be there for us and with us.
Submitted faithfully in Christ,
Moki+
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