From the Dean
It is before sunrise on August 16 and I am walking our dog amid the remnants of the crisp evening air. The weather reporter is telling us this next night will be even cooler. The morning roads see school buses filled with faces of protest and wonderment as the new school year begins. There is a turning of seasons, even as we know we have not seen the last of the heat.
By the time you read this All Souls will be in its fall rhythms: a new year of Sunday education, liturgical training, choir retreat, fall newcomers classes, St. Francis Day, Crop Walk and other events that mark this season. We will have marked Genia Dowdeswell’s retirement and the addition of Rosa Lee Hardin and Milly Morrow to our Cathedral staff. Kyle will have left on sabbatical and Marti Rideout will be our interim musician. We will be celebrating the work of our Capital Campaign and the continued faithfulness of a community which offers itself in all times and seasons.
During the fall we will begin an adult series on money and meaning which will continue through this next year in various offerings and with all ages. During the fall Sam Portaro will be our guest for the Zabriskie Learning Series engaging us about our vocations, all our vocations. We will have recognized those who received grants from our Food Booth proceeds. In the first weekend of November we will recall All Saints and All the Faithful Departed.
All of these represent transitions and change, cycles and rhythms. All of this reminds me of the importance of observing and marking the cycles and rhythms of our lives. It reminds me of the importance of doing this as a community. For it is in the observing and marking of these moments that we find our life, that we find the Christ among us.
A Personal Note of Thanks to our All Souls Family
When Becky and I came to All Souls at the end of 1997 we did so for many reasons. A major reason was wanting to be in a faith community that would be good for our family. We wanted to grow as a family and wanted our girls to be in a place which not only cared for them but took seriously the baptismal charge, “Will you see that the child you present will be brought up in the Christian faith and life?” We wanted to be in a place that lived out what we hope they, our girls, would learn to live out.
In these fourteen years our family has passed through many moments, all of them in the context of you, our All Souls family. Our girls have experienced passages such as confirmation, first dates, youth pilgrimages, first car ‘dents’, the death of a grandparent and the opportunity to serve at the altar including the swinging of incense (does it get any better than that?). They have experienced a community which cared significantly for them and for their parents. They and we have been the subjects of your love, your support, your prayers, your humor. They and we have seen clearly what it means to be a people of faith, a people of hope in a very crazy and beautiful world.
I did some quick math and realize I have processed down the aisle of this church over 1500 times during our Sunday morning Eucharists, Holy Week services, ordinations, weddings and burials. On July 16 I walked that aisle not in vestments but in street clothes (well not exactly street clothes) holding on my arm the woman who was an eleven year old girl when we arrived. We processed as daughter and father amid a community which has not only ‘brought up’ both Gina and Leah, but has ‘brought up’ Becky and Todd. Our ability to celebrate that day is directly connected to being part of you and you being part of us.
For you and for the sacred life we share, Becky, Gina, Leah and I give our deepest thanks.
Peace,
Todd