A Christian community of all ages

grounded in

worship, well-being, and service.

September 14 - September 20, 2024

From the Lay Associate

Dear People of St. Mary’s, 

I’m so excited that I get to join you this fall. I will be with you as Meaghan’s assistant through the Sunday right before Thanksgiving, serving at the Sunday service, preaching each month, writing to  you here, facilitating a series of conversations about Walking in Love in October and November and  lending support where I can. When I’m not with you, I serve in the Diocese of Massachusetts and  work as a psychologist. I live in Worcester where my husband and I are raising our two adolescent  boys. We have a cat, a dog, a tank of fish, and a failing vegetable garden. 

For two and a half years, I have been traveling around our church spending a season of the church  year in residence at different parishes, preaching, serving, and developing formation and  discernment programming exploring the growth edge for that particular parish. It has been a  tremendous gift to me to be invited in, trusted, and included in their processes and faith journeys.  Discernment fundamentally needs community because we each know God in our own particular  ways and by sharing these experiences all our understandings and relationships with God are  deepened. Like mirroring works in parenting a child, as we reflect what we see, we know more, are  open to more, and grow more.

I’ve been praying for you and for our time together and looking to the Spirit for signs to guide my  thinking: What is God doing bringing us together? How

will we inform each other’s lives? What gifts  will come from this? For you? For me? For the church and the world in which we live? I know some  things about discernment through my journey in our church and also through my work as a  psychologist. For example, I have come to understand that there is no healing without God and I have been blessed by the ways that people have shared and shown this to me: One person who  was on a run and came across a bale of baby turtles (I had to look it up) making their way across the  path toward the pond. One man who found a spiritual connection with a future business partner  who came from a completely different walk of life. The grief another experienced in the love that she offered a foster child who returned to her bio-mom. These are moments when we are broadened,  surprised, deepened. These are moments where things pivot and a part of us that we didn’t know or  that we had forgotten about or lost emerges. I wonder what might emerge for you. I wonder how we  may all be changed.

In Christ and with gratitude,

Brian

Parish Meeting

Please join the wardens and the vestry after coffee hour on Sunday, September 29th for a parish meeting to discuss the Rectory renovation project. The meeting will take place in St. George's Chapel at approximately 11:20 a.m.

For a calendar of all of St. Mary's activities visit our website.

Well-Being

Apple Sunday

We are simplifying our Apple Sunday! Apple treats will be provided by our coffee hour hosts, and you can simply join us after worship to enjoy them. Immediately following coffee hour we will have a Parish Meeting in St. George's Chapel. Feel free to bring your treats to the meeting!

Please signup to help clean up afterwards!

Support St. Mary's Community Garden

Celebrate the return to a fall schedule and support the Community Garden with a floral bouquet!

Throughout September 2024, the Community Garden will receive $1 for every specially marked $10.99 Bloomin' 4 Good bouquet purchased at:

1360 West Main Road, Middletown RI

Service

This year the Community Outreach Team will highlight the needs of the immigrant community. Our kick-off event will be a book group discussion and coffee hour on Sunday, October 20 after 10:00 worship.

We will be discussing the book Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora, which was the selection for "Read Across Rhode Island" this year.

The memoir chronicles Zamora's journey as an unaccompanied minor from El Salvador when he was nine years old.

The book is available at your local library, bookstore, or on ebooks. The audiobook version also translates Spanish phrases as you listen.

Order it soon and start reading!

If you have questions, please contact Lynn Carlson.

Image credits: Richard Grosvenor, Historic Church, watercolor, used with permission.

Stay Connected:

http://www.smcportsmouth.org/