These days the Altar is in green and the priests’ stoles are green. We are now in the “Season after Pentecost,” the liturgical season which I always think of as the “long green time”. It used to be called “Ordinary Time,” but there is nothing ordinary about it, if we pay attention to the Scripture passages. They are all about the extraordinary man Jesus traveling around the countryside, speaking his message of hope, healing people of diseases, spreading the Kingdom of God. Preaching forgiveness, urging people to love God and love one another.
Crowds of people are following him, believing that a better time is at hand. It is actually a season of “green and growing hope,” a phrase I have lifted from the prayer below.
And we at St. Mary’s are also profoundly in a season of green and growing hope, poised on the threshold of a time of new leadership and ministry at St. Mary’s. I see energy all around, with the Search Committee enthusiastically interviewing candidates for Rector, a new roof on Clay Hall, freshly painted Sunday School rooms under Sharon Tiner’s leadership, lively discussions in Vestry about budget matters and stewardship, Celtic music concerts, monthly Library Book Sales in Lower Edwards Hall, continuing parish outreach of all kinds, and lively preaching by Supply Priests.
It is my great pleasure to be among you during this time, serving as part of the Transition Team, along with Elizabeth McCorkle, Senior Warden, and Robert Daunt, Junior Warden.
All blessings,
Wendy Howe, Transition Priest
Creator God,
Give us a heart for
simple things:
Love and laughter,
Bread and wine,
Tales and dreams.
Fill our lives with
Green and growing hope.
Make us a people of
justice,
Whose song is
Allelujiah!
And whose name
breathes love.