Recent Vestry Notes

Vestry Notes

Vestry Notes (week of 10/12/25)

The Season of Creation began with great aplomb as animals were blessed, and joy was spread as we welcomed the Rev. Willie Smith to be our Priest in Residence in this time.

What a blessing! His sermon contained a riddle that has stayed with me; what is the fastest thing in the world, the most dangerous thing in the world and the most important thing in the world???  I’ll provide the answers for anyone wondering but first, he challenged us all to look for the face of Jesus in the world.  Where have you seen it recently?  Was it in the struggling mom at the grocery store?  Or the person begging along the roadside?  Or in the face of your child, your partner, your parent?  I find myself looking anew at day laborers, baristas, our mail lady and so many others.  I imagine their stories; some I know and many I do not. I give thanks for St. Francis’ example of reaching out to the leper and pray I may do so as well. As Frederick Buechner so eloquently reminds us, “Jesus had a face his life gave shape to and that shaped his life and others’ lives, and with part of ourselves I think we might turn away from the mystery of that face, that life, as much of the time we turn away from the mystery of life itself. With part of ourselves I think we might avoid meeting his real eyes, if such a meeting were possible, the way that at certain moments we avoid meeting our own real eyes in mirrors because for better or worse they threaten to tell us more than we want to know.”  Where will you see the face of Jesus this week?

Now, for the answers… the fastest thing in the world is a thought, the most dangerous is to walk between the precipice of life and death every day, and the most important is happiness.  May you have happiness as you revel in the beauty surrounding you.

Vestry Members: Brian Malcolm, Paulette Bellew, Wardens, Melissa Allman, Paul Cecala, Jennifer Corrieri, Agnes Clyne, Leslie Harden, Colleen Hintz, Chuck Johnson, and Barbara Shannon.