We are looking at some great possibilities for procuring a labyrinth for around $2,100. There is strong support from vestry, and I'm hoping to have it on hand by mid-August. Also, have talked with a guy who is very interested in being our chef for our fall Wednesday night program. Things are quietly moving along...
Mary Lyons loaned me Gathering the Next Generation -- about ten years old, essays by gen-X clergy and a few others. It's a mixed bag, but there two particularly good essays that I would send out to y'all if my scanner was working. A couple of bites:
From Youth's Authority by Margaret K. Schwarzer
"The authority of audacity, the authority of inexperience, the authority of interior truth -- these are some of the rich sources of power which scripture teaches us that young adults possess. Scripture's images of David, Mary, and Jesus are intended to be prescriptive of young people's authority, as well as descriptive of the particular experiences of the Israelite king the mother of God, and the Christ...
...young adults also prize the mystical and vulnerable reality of spiritual disciplines. In a world where technology produces an overabundance of information, it isn't surprising that these women and men long for the silence, intimacy, and slowness of the spiritual process. Students understand that these disciplines can lead to wisdom and peace -- two rare qualities in a nantion clamoring with the overstimulation of sound pollution two-job families, and information superhighways."
From Episcopal Culture through an Xer's Lens by Beth Maynard
I am not sure that someone born before the 1960's can grasp how truly post-Christian our generation's experience has been, or how negative are most of our associations with the institutional church. Clergy: the word means "pedophiles." It means Jimmy Swaggart...hypocrisy. It means irrelevance....
...Ask for something "contemporary," and the Episcopal Church's default setting seems to be to downplay both the spiritual and Christianity's distinctiveness. We'll just have ski weekends and social events.... Unfortunatedly, for Xers, this strategy is backward. Postmodernism has led us to expect that each human tribe will have its distinctivve worldview and way of life; tell us there's nothing special about yours and we'll stop caring fast. Postmodernism has also led us to assume the reality of the spiritual, so that we are usually drwn in, not repelled by myster and the numinous -- as long as it doesn't come off as manipulative....
Next Meeting
Wednesday July 30th
7:00 St. Stephen's Parish Hall
Over the break we will be working in small groups to plan the half hour sunday evening services for the Fall. We will reconvene in July to check on the progress of this and to share our experiences with field trips to experience other alternative services.
We welcome everyone who is curious about the new service or interested in being involved in the planning of it to join us for our weekly discussions.
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