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A recent article in the National Geographic really hit home with me. It was about a study of the impact of the built environment --- everything from streets to housing to transportation systems--- the impact on how we interact with each other, and, indeed, on our mental and spiritual health. The author of the study, an architect, used the example of the Italian piazzas as an ideal environment for community and individuals to flourish—piazzas are open to people, have a hub of restaurants and shops and are attractive to the eye with natural clay bricks and stones, often covered in ivy (nature).
I have an abiding memory of one such piazza in the northern Italian city of Piacenza. The controlling image of that memory is of a group of elderly, sun-tanned, white-haired men sitting at a table in the Piazza Cavalli sipping coffee, playing cards, and laughing loudly at one another’s anecdotes. There they were every morning I walked through the piazza during my stay in that quiet, beautiful city.
The author, on a more personal note, relayed how her local neighborhood environment in Dallas gave her strength, at a challenging time when her mother had just died and she was alone all day with a newborn baby. Her mother had given her good advice---‘stay connected’. And so, she did, baby strapped to her back, daily walks around the neighborhood, sitting in coffee houses and chatting in the local grocery. It wasn’t that she needed in-depth interaction with others, but rather, simply to be out and amongst others.
The Christian faith is pre-imminently about staying connected. I remember the story of two friends discussing religion one winter’s evening before a roaring coal fire. One was a priest, the other a car mechanic. They talked about everything from God, to death, to after-life and about prayer. Eventually they got on the subject of worship and the importance of church attendance. The mechanic asked the question: “Is it necessary to go to church before I can be a Christian?”
The priest replied, “No, it is not necessary, but it is extremely important if you want to experience the vitality of being a Christian.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the mechanic.
Without saying a word, the priest got up from his chair, picked up a pair of tongs, and carefully lifted one of the burning coals out of the fire and placed it on the hob. As they both watched, the coal swiftly lost its heat and glow and flickered out. Then the priest once again took the tongs, picked up the dead coal, and placed it back amongst its fellows, where it once again glowed and recovered its heat.
The mechanic nodded. “I get your point."
An apt illustration as our beautiful Eastertide leads us nearer and nearer to Pentecost and our celebration of the birth of our family the Church.
Douglas Dupree
| | Since early in the Medieval period, May has been traditionally associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus. An old and familiar custom is the decoration of her image in church and graveyards with a crown of Spring flowers. Many poems and hymns celebrate Mary in the merry month of May. Below is one such by the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. | | |
THE MAY MAGNIFICAT
May is Mary’s month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season—
Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunist
And flowers finds soonest ?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring? —
Growth in everything—
. . .
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathizing
With that world of good
Nature’s motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
| | Interview: Joe Chamberlain | | Executive Director (1982-2014) Camp Weed and Cerveny Conference Center | | |
Joe and Sharon Chamberlain
Joe, tell us a little about yourself, i.e. your background where you were born and grew up, education, marriage, family and how you came to come to Camp Weed.
Joe: I was born in Washington DC in 1951 while my father was stationed there in the Marine Corps Reserves. Soon afterward we moved to Florida. You should know we had a large family (8) and curiously my mother was also a Marine and served in WWII in communications. We (the children) didn’t know it but all the years as we were growing up, we were in the Marine Corps too, LOL. That said we had a loving family and the best childhood one could ask for. We moved to Jacksonville in the late 50’s. I went to Catholic schools, Bishop Kenny and ended up at U of F majoring in Wildlife Ecology.
After marrying Sharon at Holy Cross Episcopal Church, I landed a job with the Florida Game and Fish Commission in the Division of Fisheries and moved to Lake City. We became very active at St James and participated in many church and Diocesan activities. After attending Cursillo I felt a calling to serve God, but I didn’t know what it could be. After much prayer and fasting over a three-year period I got a call from Bishop Cerveny’s office. A deep voice on the phone asked, “Would you be interested in managing Camp Weed?” It was Canon Walter Saffran. We met and he described the vision Bishop Cerveny had for the camp. It was a grand vision and a little difficult for me to envision since the 500 acres the diocese had purchased was for the most part undeveloped. But I realized this was the answer to my prayers over the previous three years.
What was Camp Weed like in the first year that you took up your appointment? What were the ‘plus points’ of what you inherited in the history and then-reality of the Camp? What were the obvious challenges of beginning a new Directorship and direction for the Camp?
Joe: Sharon and I still lived in Lake City but I spend every waking hour on the property. The property was unique. We later discovered it was home to a large Indian village that Hernando DeSoto encountered on September 12, 1549. But that’s another story in itself. I fell in love with the property. My first job was to be the office manager for construction. We built 7 cabins, cleared roads and later built the Juhan Dining Hall. I remember a BBQ event we hosted for the entire diocese. Yes, we invited all the churches of the diocese to come see the new camp and enjoy a free BBQ. It was a massive venture. Volunteers cooked 10-200lb hogs and 750lbs of chicken and we served 2300 people! Bishop Cerveny stood on a construction trailer and said the blessing. What a day.
I’ll never forget that first summer at camp. It was 1982 and Sharon and I were still living in Lake City. That summer she was in charge of the kitchen and the young summer staff who helped her. Calling it a kitchen was a bit presumptuous. There was no dining hall. We ate our meals in an open-air pavilion across from the “kitchen”. At night she slept in a cabin with the female staff, and I was in a cabin with the male staff.
There was great support and enthusiasm for the camp in those days, the early 1980’s, and it grew stronger each year. The history of Camp Weed and all the lives it touched over the previous years laid the foundation for such strong support. Characters from the early years at camp would be remembered by those older than me, people like Bishop Juhan and Fr. Frank Dearing (who designed and supervised the construction of the Camp Weed Cross).
The challenges? Never enough help and not enough hours in the day. But somehow, we were able to get things done with a minimal staff. In the early years of camp at Live Oak I was young and inexperienced and actually overwhelmed at times. But the gradual growth and development of the camp seemed to match my personal development as a manager and later a director.
In terms of the Diocesan clergy and staff, who were some of the people who you worked with closely and what was their involvement and commitment to the camp and conference center?
Joe: Canon Walter Saffran was very influential in my early years. He was my supervisor and my friend. His council was always welcomed and his calm approach, no matter what the situation was the voice of wisdom.
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And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.
Matthew 6.12
The playwright Herb Gardner (1934-2003) is best known for his 1962 play A Thousand Clowns which ran for 428 performances. The screenplay for the successful 1965 movie adaptation won Gardner an Oscar nomination.
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A SCENE FROM THE PLAY
Murray, the jobless rebel against society, has gone out to try to get a job for the sake of Sandra, the social worker who came to save him and winds up loving him. He comes back and tells her what happened.
Murray: (takes her arm, smiles, seats her on the chair in front of him) I shall now leave you breathless with a strange and wondrous tale of this sturdy lad’s adventures today in downtown Oz.
Picture me, if you will, me. I am walking on East 51st Street an hour ago and I decided to construct and develop a really decorative, general-all-purpose apology. Nothing complicated, just the words “I am sorry,” said with a little style.
Sandra: Sorry for what?
Murray: anything. For being late, early, stupid, asleep, silly, alive. Well, you know, when you’re walking down the street talking to yourself how sometimes you suddenly say a couple of words out loud? So, I said, “I’m sorry,” and this fella, complete stranger, he looks up a second and says, ‘That’s all right Mac,” and goes right on. (Murray and Sandra laugh) He automatically forgave me. I communicated. Five o’clock rush-hour in midtown you could say, “Sir, I believe your hair is on fire,” and they wouldn’t hear you.
So I decided to test the whole thing out scientifically. I stayed right there on the corner of 51st and Lex for a while, just saying “I’m sorry” to everybody that went by. (abjectly) “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir.” (slowly, quaveringly) “I’m terribly sorry, madam…” (warmly) “Say there, miss I’m sorry.” Of course, some people just gave me a funny look, but, Sandy, I swear, seventy-five percent of them forgave me. (acting out the people for her) “Forget it, buddy….” “That’s okay, really.” Two ladies forgave me in unison, one fella forgave me from a passing car, and one guy forgave me for his dog, “Poofer forgives the nice man, don’t you, Poofer?” Oh, Sandy, it was fabulous. I had tapped some vast reservoir. Something had happened to all of them for which they felt somebody should apologize. If you went up to people on the street and offered them money, they’d refuse it. But everybody accepts apology immediately. It is the most negotiable currency. I said to them, “I am sorry.” And they were all so generous, so kind. You could give ‘em love and it wouldn’t be accepted half as graciously, as unquestioningly...
Sandra: (after a pause) Murray, you didn’t take any of the jobs.
Murray: (quietly) Sandy, I took whatever I am and put a suit on it and gave it a haircut and took it outside and that’s what happened. I know what I said this morning, what I promised, and Sandra, I am sorry. I’m very sorry.
——Herb Gardner, A Thousand Clowns
| | The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker | | |
A review by Owene Courtney, St John’s Cathedral
Watching interviews of authors is a great way to see into the soul of an author and her book, and thus I watched an interview of Priya Parker, author of this month’s featured book, The Art of Gathering. Not only did I discover what a delight Priya was to listen to, I noticed …drum roll please…she had on blue stockings aka en Français “bas bleu!” Many of you who know me will remember that we once had a book club called Bas Bleu, and “why?” you might ask.
Because we were a cantankerous group of women who “challenged traditional gender roles by fostering intellectual discourse and promoting female education” the definition of the Bluestockings of the Enlightenment, “They hosted literary conversations aiming to replace social gatherings focused on cards or frivolous activities with more stimulating intellectual discussions.” Not only were Bluestockings radical for their discussions, but they were radical for discussing because they were women! Now this is probably more information than you need, but when I saw Priya in blue stockings, I knew I would like whatever she wrote!
Her book is a brilliant approach to gathering people with purpose, increasing the level of meaning and focus of a gathering. “We spend our lives gathering – at home, at school, in the workplace, in our communities and beyond. And yet all too often these occasions are lackluster and unproductive. Priya Parker offers a human-centered approach to gathering that can help us design meetings, events and experiences with greater care, clarity and creativity,” it says on her website. With the intention to guide people in creating gatherings that are exciting and invigorating for groups, Priya also guides people in the art of speaking across differences by highlighting similarities in whatever reason they are coming together.
For example, a journalist approached her for help with some ideas about how to put together a dinner party. “Real Simple” magazine asked for this article, so it had some high expectations. Rather than telling the journalist where to put the fish knives and the wine glasses, Priya said, “What is a need in your life that you might address when you gather this group?” The journalist cocked her head and said, “What?” then she said, “Well I am a worn-out mom and the other day a friend invited me for lunch and made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cut it into triangles and fed me and I burst into tears!” Priya said, “Why?” and the journalist said, “Because I realized I was a worn-out mom, and I just needed somebody to take care of me. Hey…what if I hosted a dinner party for other worn-out moms?” “Great,” said Priya, “Give it a name, make it seeable… ‘The Worn-Out Moms’ Hootenanny!’ Give it a rule- if you talk about your kids you have to take a shot!”
And so this ultra clever woman guides the reader through a myriad of ideas and methods for gathering people with intention beginning with deciding why you are really gathering so that you convene people meaningfully and commit to a bold sharp purpose and finishing by accepting that there is an end, saying goodbye by honoring what has happened in this time together, making it a good and meaningful closing so the guests go way thinking “this gathering was different from all others.” In between, she suggests ways not to be a chilly host, what size gatherings are appropriate for what types of foci and how to cause good controversy! At the end she offers an excellent Reading Group Guide for practicing what she preaches!
It was not lost on me that Priya says, “every gathering is a social contract – an agreement between the promise of a host with what she is going to provide both materially and psychologically and an actual opportunity to say yes, I am willing to take that risk as a guest!” That subtle allusion to Hobbes and Locke who influenced the intellectual climate in which Bluestockings emerged and engaged with political and social issues just confirmed for me that Priya Parker is brilliant, clever and cutting edge just like Bas Bleus are supposed to be! Don’t miss this book!
| | Rector's Picks: May Books | | |
James Grier, Liz Grier. Normal, Imperfect Heroes: The 'failures' God used to teach us about leadership Paperback – April 22, 2025.
James Grier, the Bishop of Plymouth, and his wife Jane Grier, combine years of biblical study and pastoral experience to help us reflect on how the heroes of scripture may be more like us than we realize and how God uses us--- strengths and profound weaknesses and all.
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Francesca Kay. The Book of Days Paperback – April 10, 2025. Historical novel set in the last years of the reign of Henry VIII.
‘. . . captures the reality where historians can only hint of how it was in 1546. Kay, like Tolstoy, excels in grasping “the tang of the actual.” This adds flesh to History – the impact of the Protestant reformation under Edward VI and his regents Somerset and Northumberland and Cramer sounds dry but this makes it real. . . Characters that one cares about, beautifully structured, a real page turner, and not a single novelistic conceit.’ An enthusiastic Amazon reviewer.
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Timothy Keller. Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter Paperback – March 1, 2022.
Words of hope from this most wonderful pastor, preacher, and Christian apologist.
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Martyn Percy and others. The Bright Field: Readings, reflections and prayers for Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity and Ordinary Time Paperback – May 30, 2014.
‘We are offered here a feast of ideas to stimulate the mind and motivate the heart. In every case these ideas shed light on the central premise that there’s nothing ordinary about ordinary.’ Bishop John Pritchard
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Priya Parker. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters Paperback – April 14, 2020.
See the book review by Owene Courtney in this Newsletter.
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Margaret Renkl. The Comfort of Crows (Reese's Book Club Pick): A Backyard Year Hardcover – October 24, 2023.
A howling love letter to the world. --- Ann Patchett.
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Augustine Sedgewick. Fatherhood: A History of Love and Power Hardcover – May 27, 2025.
In Fatherhood, celebrated historian Augustine Sedgewick explains how this style of parenting emerged in the first place, why it has changed over time, and whether it will endure as we know it, despite its extraordinary costs. Told through the lives of emblematic fathers like Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Henry VIII, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud... ---Amazon review.
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Christopher Summerfield. These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means Hardcover – March 11, 2025.
Summerfield argues that the dawning of an era in which AI can speak is a watershed moment comparable to the invention of writing, the printing press and the internet. His book poses three questions: ‘How did we get here?’, ‘Do language models think?’ and ‘Are we all doomed?’
“Witty, brilliant, and deeply thought through – by far the best guide to a newly emerging species with which we will share the planet for the foreseeable future.”—Stuart Russell, author of Human Compatible
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Janet Todd. Living with Jane Austen Hardcover – March 20, 2025.
Coincides with Austen’s 250th birthday. ‘This is a book for all Jane Austen’s readers by one of the very best of those readers.’ Richard Cronin, author of Byron’s Don Juan: The Liberal Epic of the Nineteenth Century.
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Paul Kerensa. Fantastically Faithful Heroes Who Gave their All for God (Fantastically Faithful People, 1) Paperback – April 15, 2025.
Age 7+. Get ready to be inspired by eight fantastically faithful people who all had one thing in common: they each answered God's call to help others and became a hero. Maybe a bit like giving names to the hymn I sing a song of the saints of God.
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Tom Wright. My Big Story Bible: 140 Faithful Stories, from Genesis to Revelation Hardcover.
The whole sweep of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for kids.
| | The Creation of the World | | |
We were born through you. We do not originate from the silent elements, but from the free power of your commanding word; not from the prime matter of the world, but from your clear truth. And all things also were born through you. The world is not nature shrouded in its own mystery, but your work. You conceived it and brought it into being. From you, it has reality and strength, being and purpose, and you bore witness to it, calling it “good” and “very good."
I believe that all was created by you, O God. Teach me to understand this truth. It is the truth of existence, and if it is forgotten, then all sinks into injustice and folly. My heart has agreed to it. I do not wish to live in my own right, but in freedom through you. By my own efforts I have nothing; everything is a gift from you, and only becomes mine when I receive it from you.
Always I receive myself from your hand. So it is, and so it should be. That is my truth and my joy. Your eye is seeing me always, and I live upon your gaze, my creator and my salvation. Teach me, in the stillness of your presence, to understand the mystery that I am. And that I am through you and before you and for you. Amen.
---Romano Guardini, Prayers from Theology
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The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
May 31
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Father in heaven, by whose grace the virgin mother of thy
incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more blessed
in keeping thy word: Grant us who honor the exaltation of her
lowliness to follow the example of her devotion to thy will;
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth
with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Three-Part Stained Glass Discussion Series:
May 27
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