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LAKES AND LIVE OAKS
"The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein."
Psalm 24
THE LAKE
I spent last Saturday at a Quiet Day at Camp Weed for EfM (Education for Ministry) mentors. Pulling off U.S. 90 and approaching the entrance, I suddenly thought about the lake, mindful of the recent lack of rain, the forest fires across north Florida, the hosepipe ban. Would the lake be bone dry? I braced myself for possible disappointment. To my relief, the lake was full of blue water and surrounded by abundant greenery. And there was no sign of the invasive water lettuce that only a while back threatened to overwhelm it. It is beautiful.
There was a stillness in Camp Weed that highlighted the intensity of its beauty. This was summer camp season, yet there was no sound of children. Helen Hargreaves, the interim co-director, explained the quiet. One group of campers departed the day before and the next day, Sunday, would bring the arrival of new ones—a return to scampering feet and plenty of joyful noise.
THE TREES
The trip home was beautiful as well. We took the back road through Lake City, Lake Butler, and Stark and dropped our Quiet Day leader, Gail Larkin, at Penney Retirement Center. Driving down the main avenue of Penney Farms, I commented on the beautiful old trees that formed a shady canopy the whole length of the town. “They were planted by J.C. Penney when he established the retirement community,” Gail said. She then added, “But we [local residents] worry about them.” She explained that the concern stems from the rapid growth in the area and the fear that sometime soon the state of Florida might remove the trees to widen the main road through town.
My ability to be anxious or worry in any situation—in this instance, the anticipation of a bone-dry lake or an avenue of asphalt barren of shade—was not sufficient to dent the pleasure I took from the camp or travelling the back roads of north Florida. And yet, at the same time, my thoughts darted back and forth in the direction of a kind of litany of despair regarding the environment—global climate change, rapid destruction of rain forests, the loss of arable land, deterioration in air quality, the pollution of fresh water and oceans choked with garbage, and in spite of a global drop in fertility levels a seemingly overwhelming population spreading ad infinitum.
ECOZOIC AGE
Thomas Berry (1914-2009), priest and cultural historian, has said that humanity is entering an Ecozoic Age—an Earth age in which ecological issues will dominate our society and our global life together. The great work of our time will be the endeavor to create a sustainable life on the planet for the future. One wonders where the Church will be in this endeavor?
I have been encouraged in my own thoughts on the matter by reading a book of essays by a group of Lutheran theologians called Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril. It was written in 2016 on the eve of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It encourages us to think of a new reformation in our day—one in which we seriously consider the treasures of God’s Word in the light of the doctrine of creation and our current concerns for our environment, e.g.
And he said unto them, Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. (Matthew 13.52).
THE CREED
I particularly liked the focus on the Nicene Creed in one of the essays in Eco-Reformation. We have a very strong theology of creation rooted in the first article of the Creed: “We believe in God... creator of heaven and earth.” The three articles of the Creed each in turn articulates the reality and work of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The essayist encourages us to extend our understanding of the second and third articles as directly involving not only our redemption and fulfillment but as including that for all of God’s creation. Scripture would support us. And rather than thinking of these articles solely as events that happen sequentially in time we might consider them as continuous realities—creation, redemption, and sanctification as the continuing and harmonious will and work of God for us and for all creation.
A PRAYER
Almighty God, give us grace to be not only hearers, but doers of your holy word, not only to admire, but to obey your doctrine, not only to profess, but to practice your religion, not only to love, but to live your gospel. So grant that what we learn of your glory we may receive into our hearts, and show forth in our lives: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Douglas Dupree
| | Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist | | |
BAPTISM
Love’s hidden thread has drawn us to the font,
A wide womb floating on the breath of God,
Feathered with seraph wings, lit with the swift
Lightening of praise, with thunder over-spread,
And under-girded with an unheard song,
Calling through water, fire, darkness, pain,
Calling us to the life for which we long,
Yearning to bring us to our birth again.
Again the breath of God is on the waters
In whose reflecting face our candles shine,
Again he draws from death the sons and daughters
For whom he bid the elements combine.
As living stones around a font today,
Rejoice with those who roll the stone away.
— a sonnet reflecting the mystery and grace of baptism in honor of the Baptist by Malcolm Guite
| | An Interview with Gail Larson | | |
Mary Kendall (St. Mary’s Church, Green Cove Springs), the EfM coordinator for the Diocese of Florida, convened a meeting of EfM mentors from our churches at Camp Weed on Saturday, June 20, 2026, and invited Gail Larson to lead the workshop. Gail was an excellent choice. Gail led the group on a thoughtful and invigorating day of conversation and fellowship. The group was "small but perfectly formed," to borrow a phrase, and we hope it will be the first of many more. I asked Gail to share with the newsletter what she told the group about the unique and interesting community in which she lives and about EfM and her ministry.
— Douglas Dupree
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AN INTERVIEW ESSAY BY GAIL LARSON,
RESIDENT LAY PREACHER AT PENNEY RETIREMENT CENTER AND EfM (Education for Ministry) MENTOR
Gail Larson took course work at Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School while attending the University of Rochester, where she earned a BA in English and MBA in Finance. A life-long student of theology with a special interest Benedictine Spirituality, she is a frequent retreat leader. She is a member of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Green Cove Springs, and a regular preacher at Penney Memorial Church in Penney Farms.
PENNEY RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
After a long and varied career in leading-edge technology and as an entrepreneur, my husband and I retired to Penney Retirement Community, founded in 1926, by JC Penney for missionaries and YMCA Workers returning home. What began as temporary housing in an abandoned logging camp quickly became a vibrant, self-sustaining community, and within several years JC Penney determined that a more permanent village was in order. The historic cottages were first occupied in 1926, with the chapel dedicated in 1927. Today, we are a continuous care retirement Community (CCRC) with 550 residents living independently, in assisted living or memory care, or in our Gold Seal Nursing facility (see visitprc.org).
Due to our unique origins, all resident activities on the campus are resident managed, including the chapel. Penney Memorial Church is a congregation without a pastor. Church administration is managed by an elected board, while Saturday and Sunday Worship is lead by a rotation of resident preachers. With over 28 denominations on campus, the services, featuring a robust music ministry, represent a wide range of styles and theological perspectives.
It has been my great privilege to be called to preach, and I enjoy the longer format of the 20-25 minute sermon. But we all wear many hats at PRC, and I have served on the Church Board, the board of the Association of Residents, and for the past five years have been Curator of Penney Arts in Public Spaces, managing our collection of 400 paintings and quarterly themed exhibitions.
When you move to PRCI, part of the application requires that you submit your résumé of volunteer service. Living an abundant life based upon service to others is one reason, I think, people live indecently into their 90s and even as centenarians!
EfM MENTORS MEETING
While I belong to several small discussion groups at PRCI, it is always a great joy for me to lead retreats for my own fellow Episcopalians, especially for a group as gifted and grace-filled as the EfM mentors gathered at Camp Weed on June 20. My goal for the gathering was to share scripture, story, and history that would stretch their understanding of what it means to live in relationship with and in service to the triune God. The materials I selected included some that I know have been controversial for PRCI residents with more conservative viewpoints, since as mentors they will be required to help their EfM groups navigate topics all may not be comfortable discussing.
Anyone feeling the call to enter into a deeper relationship with God will find EFM helpful. It creates a community of fellow seekers where one can feel safe to question, learn from the wisdom of others, and to “listen with the ear of your heart” as St. Benedict famously wrote in his Prologue to the Rule. Best of all, you can participate in person or online.
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For more about the EfM one-year and four-year courses available to the Episcopal Diocese of Florida in our churches via The School of Theology, University of the South (Sewanee), contact our Diocesan coordinator Mary Kendall at 904.613.3989 or Eerie-lily01@att.net.
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Lisa E. Dahill (editor), Bill McKibben (forward). Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril — Paperback, October 2016.
A book published just a year in advance of the 2017 500th anniversary of the Reformation to focus on the need for an ‘Eco-Reformation’ and a call for Christians to marshal biblical, pastoral, theological, and ethical thinking towards a coherent response to the pressing environmental concerns of our time.
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Adam Hamilton. The Holy Spirit: God’s Presence and Power at Work in Us —Paperback, April 21, 2026.
An attractive book for a small group or individual study in these weeks after Pentecost and Trinity Sunday. Adam Hamilton is the senior pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas—one of the fastest growing churches in the country.
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Michael L. Horowitz (photographer) and Elizabeth Anne Hartman (text). Divine New York: Inside the Historic Churches and Synagogues of Manhattan — Hardcover, November 2022.
Some 75 churches—their spectacular interiors beautifully photographed over 15 years from Lower Manhattan through Soho, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Midtown East and West, Upper West Side and Upper East Side to Harlem, and including a number of historic Episcopal churches. A beautiful book.
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Peter Kreeft. Every Word in the Lord's Prayer: Reflections on the Perfect Pray-er’s Perfect Prayer — Paperback, June 8, 2026.
Kreeft has to be one of the most prolific Christian writers in America with over 100 books to his name. He is a longtime professor of philosophy at Boston College and a superb apologist for Christian faith. I enjoyed using his book Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley as the text for a study group. What binds the three in conversation in heaven? They all died on November 22, 1963.
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James Martin, S.J. Learning to Pray: A Study of Prayer Traditions and Practice — Paperback, February 2022.
"What do we need to learn? That prayer changes us—and so changes the world we live in; that God is always there before us; that it's God's action that makes the difference. Practical, comprehensive, and above all God-centered, this book is a deeply valuable companion for growing in faith." - Rowan Williams, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury
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Marc D. Smith. Vestry Reflections: Cultivating Spiritual Growth in Church Leaders — Paperback, November 2025.
"A practical, uplifting guide designed to help congregational leadership navigate current issues and inspire deeper thought and contemplation."
— Amazon review
| | Year of St Francis of Assisi (2026, 800th anniversary of his death) | | |
Lawrence S. Cunningham. Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel Life — Paperback, May 2004.
"Imbued with peerless scholarship, this book is also charmingly written. Cunningham is a master storyteller as well as a brilliant biographer—qualities that his Francis of Assisi fully displays. It will at once inform and delight anyone interested in the fascinating life of Francis or his impact on church history." — Amazon review
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Valerie Martin. Salvation: Scenes from the Life of St. Francis — Hardback, March 2001.
This is an imaginative retelling of the life of Francis that gives insight into the man, his disciples, and the medieval world he inhabits that is so remote to us today.
[The hardback is half the price of the paperback.]
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Richard Rohr. Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi —Paperback, October 2015.
"As a standing paradox, he both stood barefoot on the earth and yet touched the heavens; he was grounded in the church and yet instinctively moved toward the cosmos; he lived happily inside the visible and tangible, and yet both suffered and rejoiced in the invisible." — Richard Rohr
| | America 250th Anniversary | | |
Michael Auslin. National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America — Hardcover, May 5, 2026.
"As we commemorate our nation’s 250th at a time of political division, we can strengthen our shared bonds by appreciating the profound story of our Declaration of Independence. In this fascinating and well-researched book, Michael Auslin weaves the glorious narrative of this document—as a piece of parchment, as a symbol of enduring principles, and as a cultural object—from its inception to our day. It’s a marvelous way to celebrate who we are, and who we should be." — Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin
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David McKean, M. Todd Bennett. The Flag Was Still There: A History of the American Experiment in Five Anniversaries — Paperback, May 12, 2026.
"The Flag Was Still There offers a unique new narrative of the American Experiment. By focusing on five remarkable years marked by both progress and backlash—1776, 1826, 1876, 1926, and 1976—and with an eye to America’s 250th birthday, David McKean and M. Todd Bennett explore how the United States has sustained its founding idea." — Amazon review
| | Commemoration of St. Francis of Assisi | | |
Friar and Deacon, 1226
800th anniversary since his death
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COLLECT
Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world; that, following the way of blessed Francis, we may, for love of you, delight in your whole creation with perfectness of joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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EAGER TO LOVE: THE ALTERNATIVE WAY OF FRANCIS OF ASSISI
By Richard Rohr
2026 marks the 800th anniversary of the death of Francis of Assisi. Pope Leo XIV, at the beginning of the year, marked it as ‘the Year of St Francis’.
In an address to the worldwide Franciscan family Pope Leo wrote:
At the beginning of his evangelical life, Francis heard a call: "The Lord revealed to me that we should say this greeting: “May the Lord give you peace.” With these essential words, he conveys to his friars and to every believer the inner wonder that the Gospel had brought into his life: peace is the sum of all God’s gifts, a gift that comes from above. What an illusion it would be to think that it can be built by human efforts alone! And yet it is an active gift, to be welcomed and lived every day.
In this age, marked by so many seemingly interminable wars, by internal and social divisions that create mistrust and fear, he continues to speak. Not because he offers technical solutions, but because his life points to the authentic source of peace.
Richard Rohr, American Franciscan priest and author of many fine books on Christian spirituality, provides us a wonderful introduction to Francis of Assisi. Eager to Love is a great guidebook for the journey.
Rohr begins his book by presenting us with the thought that the Church was already old—over a thousand years old—when Francis had his Damascus Road experience and gave his life to Christ. And it felt old. Rohr writes:
Francis of Assisi was a master of making room for the new and letting go of that which was tired or empty. As his first biographer said, "He was always new, always fresh, always beginning again. Much of Francis’s genius was that he was ready for absolute newness from God and therefore could also trust fresh and new attitudes in himself."
His God was not tired, and so he was never tired. His God was not old, so Francis remained forever young.
It was this sense of the ‘new’ that captured so many and began what we would term the Franciscan movement. At the heart of the movement is a return—a return again that Francis helps us make to: "that original but long-lost street called the Gospel." Another biographer of Francis, the Franco-American writer Julien Green (1900-1998), makes a similar observation in his reference to Francis as “the only true Christian in history.”
Rohr tells us we can try and understand Francis’s life by reading it from what has emerged through his and Clare’s imitators and followers who discovered and rediscovered ‘what can only be called ‘radical simplification.’ Here Rohr lists some of those who stand within the Franciscan movement: Nicholas von Fleu (1417-1487), Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833), Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), Dorothy Day (1897-1980), thousands of Catholic and Protestant missionaries, Mother Teresa (1910-1997), and, most recently, Pope Francis (1936-2025).
Rohr sees something authentic and valuable in the life and witness of this rollcall of Christians embodying as they do the spirit of Francis yet also feels that:
The way of Francis of Assisi cannot be contained inside of formal Franciscanism, simply because it is nothing more than the Gospel itself – in very distilled and honest form.
Continue reading the book review here.
| | Saint Peter and Saint Paul | | |
COLLECT
Almighty God, whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul glorified you by their martyrdom: Grant that your Church, instructed by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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The Church celebrates the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter on January 18 and the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on January 25. The joint commemoration of the two apostles on June 29 is found in the earliest list of Roman martyrs from the fourth century AD and it marks the anniversary of their death (and/or the movement of their relics) under the Emperor Nero. Traditionally ordinations are scheduled on or near the June 29 feast.
| | Licensed Lay Worship Leader Course | | From St. John's Cathedral, Jacksonville | | | | |
