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My dear Saint Markans,
Last week I returned from ten days of retreat with my halo recharged. I’m now refreshed and reenergized for the coming year with you. Thank you for your prayers during my time away. I could feel you buoying me up in my silence and meditation. That’s the beauty of prayer. When we are centered in the heart of Christ, we begin to see how deeply we are tied to one another and to all living beings. True and deep prayer reveals our unity. As Jesus prays in John: that we all may be one as he and the Father are one.
The gospel assertion of unity urges us to build a community characterized by hospitality undergirded by prayer. With this hope in mind, we are taking small steps to welcome our neighbors and one another into relationships of prayer and beauty. This fall, the Nave will be open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Initially we’ll open from 11am to 1pm, with the Eucharist at 12.15. We hope to be able to expand our times of opening in the coming months. While the Nave is open, we’ll also be offering docent tours of our beautiful worship space.
As you know, hospitality presents many challenges. In order to open the Nave safely, we need two people present at all times. To celebrate the Eucharist, we need both a worshipping community and volunteers to set up and clean up the altar. Please consider helping us deepen our practices of hospitality and prayer by volunteering on a Wednesday or Saturday this fall. If you are able to volunteer, please let Mary Lusk know.
Hospitality, of course, extends beyond the hours the Nave is open for worship and tours. It involves the ways we treat one another, ourselves, and our neighbors. True hospitality is built on making space for another person to be exactly who they are, and then allowing them to change in whatever ways God calls them to change. I don’t mean that hospitality has no room for good boundaries. We can and should create spaces within our church, our homes, and our hearts that are safe and supportive of growth and unity. But also we cannot let our concerns for safety and propriety become so outsized that we have no room to discover Christ in those radically unlike us.
We face a particular challenge and opportunity with regard to our unhoused neighbors who spend time on our lawn. Their behavior sometimes creates very real safety hazards and a great deal of work for our staff and volunteers. At the same time, they are also “the least of these” among whom Jesus promised we would find him. How do we navigate these complex relationships with hospitality and love, even as we set boundaries to preserve the safety of our community? I don’t have an easy answer to that question, but I am committed to continuing to dream and wrestle with you all about the way forward. I’m particularly grateful to the members of our Safety and Security Task Force, chaired by our Junior Warden Rachel Babbitt, for their work in exploring these questions.
Together we can live into the difficult and beautiful unity to which Jesus calls us in the Gospel. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all planted in one another’s hearts, held there by the love of Christ that will not let us go. I’m grateful to be able to make a little more space for that love with all of you.
Your brother in Christ,
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