Episcopal Church of St. Anne

Dear Friends in Christ,

I do not know about you, but the morning paper and the evening news have become a drug.  Consuming the news heightens my emotions:  anger, resignation, resolve to shout my opinions from the roof tops all jostle against each other leaving me depressed and unsure about who I am and what I am doing.

Here are some words that were written by Adam Michnick when he was in prison for protesting the Soviet presence in Czechoslovakia: 

Start doing the things you think should be done – start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in the freedom of speech?  Then speak freely.  Do you love truth?  Then tell it.  Do you believe in an open society?  Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society?  Then behave decently and humanely.

These are wise words that give each one of us a way forward:  a little less news, a lot more rational behavior.  A way forward toward a more civil society.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Sunday is All Saints Sunday.  Members of St Anne’s are invited to bring pictures of loved ones who have gone on before us so that we can decorate our church with our memories.  At Zion, we will toll a bell for those who died last year and place  names of those we have lost on our memory tree.

Dear Friends in Christ,

Both St Anne’s and Zion are blessed with church partnerships that both help us to continue to work, pray and worship within our own traditions and then extend our witness beyond what we could do on our own.

As several Tongan Methodist churches gathered to celebrate and contribute to the ongoing success of the Free Wesleyan Church of Tonga here in Stockton at their annual Misinale, many people expressed their gratitude for St Anne’s hospitality.

As we offer hospitality to the Tongan Church, we are blessed in return.  Not only does the Tongan Church contribute to our bottom line, their presence on our property, especially in the evenings and the early morning hours, contributes to our safety and security.

We also appreciate the lively participation of their youth in Grandma’s Garden, Code 7 and other church activities.

On Monday, the Grandma’s Garden board will meet with members of Primera Iglesia’s Christian Education Team to plan a bilingual, collaborative summer program at Zion.  This builds on the friendships that were developed during the Grandma’s Garden, Zion’s version during July 2025.

Following up on the collaboration that was established during the Family Water Festival last August, Primera Iglesia and Zion are collaborating on a Christmas Family Festival on Saturday, December 20 at 10 am.  This will be held on the lawn at Zion that faces Gettysburg.  Primera Iglesia will provide the Live Nativity. Zion will provide the petting zoo and the bagpipes (Thank you Abe!).  And we will both provide the hot chocolate and the cookies.

In November, as we prepare for Thanksgiving, we will all have the opportunity to provide food boxes for needy families in our communities and for farmworker families living in trailer parks in Linden.  More information about exactly how we will do this will be coming soon.

Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians:

“There is one body, and one spirit, just as you are called to the one hope of your calling” (Ephesians 4:4)

We are blessed as this unity and this hope become real within our community of four churches.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Dear Friends in Christ,

As Stewardship Season looms, the leadership groups at Zion and St Anne’s are working hard to prepare. Committees are meeting at both churches to consider next year’s budget.  We are asking for input from the groups at both churches that are responsible for discretionary spending: buildings and grounds, music, worship committee, altar guild and various benevolences: Family Promise, Trunk or Treat, Christmas Giving Trees, Food for the Hungry.

We will develop budgets that are realistic but are also asking us to dream a little and consider plans we might have for the future.

When you decide what you are going to pledge so that Zion and St Anne’s can function smoothly in 2026, please consider an additional contribution that will help secure our futures.  Currently both churches depend on bequests given by people who wanted to make sure our churches would survive the inevitable hard times that would occur as our churches served the generations yet to come.   Our bequests  given now will lengthen our futures beyond that which our benefactors have already provided for us.

Your pledge and whatever bequest you might make should be made separately with your intentions made clear as to which is which.

Thank you for being the church.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Dear Friends in Christ,

When we returned to 1020 W Lincoln Road from three weeks of vacation, it seemed as though I had been away forever.  

Jim, Matthew, Ellie, Eric and I spent time in very green spaces: the Columbia River Gorge, the Umpqua Valley (with Jim and Matthew) and Santa Cruz and the Point Lobos State Park (with Ellie and Eric).  There was a lot of hiking to waterfalls (pictures attached).  In the eighteenth century, William Wordsworth remembered hikes he had taken into the Welsh hills in his poem, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

Soon, very soon it all came back to me – the work, the joys, and ultimate concerns – that make up my days here.  This too was Wordsworth experience.  In the same poem he writes:

—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man’s life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:—

Here at Zion and St Anne’s we attend to each other and acknowledge the presence of God in our lives.  Wordsworth uses the word sublime rather than the word God and probably means something a little different than what we mean.  Nevertheless, the goodness of our lives together is anchored in God’s presence in the world around us, God’s love for us and our love for each other.

Thank you.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Dear Friends in Christ,

Since I arrived in Stockton, I have voted in one bishop’s election (Sierra Pacific Synod of the ELCA) and will soon vote in another bishop’s election (Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin)

In both cases, I have been heartened to meet and get to know men and women who are eager to take on the challenges that face our churches in the 21^st century.

To a human being, they are smart, well read and compassionate.  Their attitudes toward the Church have been forged by the many years that both the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church have wandered in the wilderness trying to find the illusive path toward long term vibrancy and growth.  

They are nevertheless confident that God has not given up on us.  That there is a future ahead of us.  Thanks be to God.

Yesterday was the 24^th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the plane crash in Pennsylvania.  As wanton violence continues to haunt our world, this is a good time to pray for peace:

O God, where hearts are fearful and constricted, grant courage and hope. Where anxiety is infectious and widening, grant peace and reassurance. Where impossibilities close every door and window, grant imagination and resistance. Where distrust twists our thinking, grant healing and illumination. Where spirits are daunted and weakened, grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams. By the power of your Holy Spirit, grant us wisdom and a will to seek the common good. Give us ears to hear your voice in the midst of all that confounds.  In Christ’s Name. Amen       (from the ELW)

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

For the next 3 weeks, there will be no Friday Letter as I will be on vacation.

Dear Friends in Christ,

As I was pulling up tomato vines that had sprawled all over the place, I came eye to eye with a praying mantis.  She looked at me, waved her antenna and then went back to eating insects.  I felt blessed that she and I were working together to feed ourselves from my backyard garden.  

Chickens, birds, bees, butterflies and moths as well as any number of Grandma’s Garden children have found food and a haven in this small back garden where others have gardened before me, and others will garden after I am gone.

All of us are blessed by the deep fertile soil that is the product of thousands of years of erosion and is improved every time we add compost and other detritus that comes our way.

As the harvest slows down, I make plans for the coming year:

·      Do I really want to plant so many cherry tomatoes?

·      Maybe more onions?

·      Maybe corn?

·      Shall I expand the strawberry patch?

·      Make a larger raised bed where the squash and cucumbers are currently growing in grow bags?

·      This wasn’t a great year for potatoes.  Do I want to try again?

·      What will delight my visitors, whether they be insects or birds or children?

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Beginning September 15, I will be on vacation for three weeks.  First, Jim, Matthew and I will be glamping up at the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.  Then Ellie, Eric and I will be camping at Big Sur.

Pastor Barry will be filling in at Zion

Reverend Lyn and Father Christian will be filling in at St Anne’s.

Thank you to all three of you for stepping into the breach.

Dear Friends in Christ,

As Christians, we take prayer seriously.  As modern people who function in a secular environment, prayer (speaking to an unembodied entity and expecting that unembodied entity to hear our concerns and address them in a loving way) can feel odd and at times ridiculous.

Nevertheless, we persist.  We know God is pleased when we pray. 

Every week we pray as we worship God.  We commend people and their specific needs to God’s attention.  We support the concept of daily devotion with booklets published by our denominations.

At St Anne’s, Daughters of the King have a ministry of intercession (praying to God to intercede in situations we feel need God’s attention).  We also pray for specific people during our Sunday /service.

At Zion we publish short term and long-term prayer lists in our weekly bulletin.

These ministries exist to support our congregations in our lives in Christ 

It is helpful if  all of us are supportive and thoughtfully engaged in our prayer ministries so our ministries can continue to be lively and helpful..  

·      We need to inform – Daughters of the King and/or the church office at St Anne’s and the Church Office at Zion – when we want prayers for a particular person or situation.  The Daughters of the King keep their prayer list confidential. The Zion list and the list generated by the St Anne’s office are public: It is important to make sure the person for whom you asking prayers does not mind having their name on a public (or even a private) list.

·      We need to help keep our lists current.  Please tell DOK or the Church offices when your person (or people) no longer need our prayers.

·      To help keep our public prayer lists current, we have several rules

o   When a person dies, s/he/they and their family are on our prayer list for one week.

o   When we are praying for someone who is ill or in a difficult situation, that person stays on the prayer list for 4 weeks.  Then they are taken off.  If you feel they need to stay on the list, you must inform the office once those 4 weeks are done

o   Zion has a long-term prayer list.  This list is a list of members of the church who live in long term care facilities.  Even though these people cannot get to church, they are still members of our church.  Praying for them keeps us connected

o   Due to the confidentiality that my role requires, I do not place people, unless they have died, on our prayer lists.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesians recommends.’ Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Dear Friends in Christ,

When Pastor Pablo described the turnout for La Primera Iglesia Bautista del Norte’s Children’s Water Festival, he said he was overwhelmed by the number of families that showed up.  When I describe the number of children who enrolled in Grandma’s Garden, I too use the word overwhelmed.  I was overwhelmed by the number of families who wanted their children to attend our program.

These were two very different events, but they both showed us, the organizers, that families are eager to show up for programs sponsored by churches.  We saw this at Zion’s Grandma’s Garden Petting Zoo and see it at St Anne’s Parking Lot Ministry as well.

It is true that there are more children outside of our churches than inside them.  It is also true that offering programs to children who are not formally associated with our churches is an act of unselfish generosity that is hard to maintain.

Jesus said to Let the children come onto him.  The children are coming to us.  As we invite them in and provide opportunities for them to flourish in communities of their peers, supervised by loving adults (who have done their Safe Church Training), we are growing into the Body of Christ that we are meant to be.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Dear Friends in Christ,

Essential to the practice of our faith is the concept of Lovingkindess.  Lovingkindness is a word that the early translators made up as they were translating the Hebrew word hesed into English.  It combines the meaning of several words into one: steadfast love, mercy and faithfulness.  It hints at the quality of forebearance.  Lovingkindness describes attributes that are essential to our understanding of God.  It also insists that if we are to consider ourselves to be faithful to God, we too are expected to be loving and kind in return.  The psalmist says this in Psalm 92:

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High:

To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night, 

Our current political climate is providing many opportunities for us to be loving and kind.  As opportunities that were developed to give a diverse group of people a helping hand are no longer available, our efforts to reach out to our neighbors become more welcome and more important.  St Anne’s Parking Lot Ministry and Zion’s collaborations with La Primera Iglesia Bautista del Norte, our shared Grandma’s Garden programs are examples of what we do.  Thanksgiving and Christmas will be opportunities for us to continue to share our good fortune with those who have less than we do.

I found this on the website of the Church of Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio.  Their Rector, Phillip DeVaul writes:

I dream of a world where Christians are known primarily for being merciful, forgiving, non-judgmental, humble servants of all people. You know: Like Jesus – the one whom we purport to follow. I dream of a world where Christians are looked at as radicals for our insistence in the dignity of every human being, who spend our time, energy and power seeking to lift up others. I dream of us being known for loving people as they are.    

His dream is ours as well.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca

Congratulation to Nolan and Grant Dyke who were baptized at Zion last Sunday.