At Diocesan Convention 2005, we passed a Resolution that included the request that congregations study the Windsor Report and report their findings electronically. To do this, please go to http://www.diomaine.org/windsorreport.shtml. Your reports will be collated by Heidi Shott and can be read at http://www.diomaine.org/windsorresults.shtml
It’s time again to register for summer camp session at our own Camp Bishopswood. All materials are available on line a www.bishopswood.org or by calling Georgia at 772-1953 x 27. Don’t let your children miss this wonderful opportunity.
Family and friends of the Rev. Katrina Swanson have scheduled a memorial weekend for this pioneer priest July 27-30, 2006, at St. Saviour’s Parish in Bar Harbor. Details at www.katrinasdream.org
The weekend is intended to move America a little closer to the complete liberty and justice for women that Katrina did not find.
At this date people have said they’re coming from across the country.
If you would like to offer someone a bedroom for July 27-30, please contact Katrina’s husband, George, at 244-0579 or seawallroad [at] yahoo.com. It will soon be necessary for people “from away” to book motel rooms for our high season before they fill up. So your offer of a room would help right away. Lunch and dinner on Saturday, July 29th, will be pot luck. Anyone who would like to sign up to bring food please contact George. Your art, your poetry, your music are all welcome – again contact George.
To receive news updates about the weekend, send your email or US Mail address to George Swanson at the email above. Or to PO Box 1265, Southwest Harbor, ME 04679. Or call 244-0579.
ALPHA NEW ENGLAND is offering The Marriage Course and The Marriage Preparation Course at its Marriage Conference on Wednesday, June 21, in Greenland, NH, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Early Bird registration deadline is May 31. More information is available from the Parish Office.
"God has gone up with a shout… Sing praises to God, sing praises…" (Psalm 47:5, 6)
The celebration of the Eucharist for Ascension Day — a sadly under-celebrated holiday in the Church Year — will be at 6 pm on Thursday, May 25, at St. Dunstan's in Ellsworth. The regional PRE-GENERAL CONVENTION HEARING will follow at 7 pm. It would be a mistake not to attend, if you are able.
There will be an Ultreya at St. Andrews Lutheran Church in conjunction with the local Episcopal churches and the Redeemer Lutheran Church (Bangor). We are excited about getting together with St. Andrews for Ultreyas, beginning with one planned for June 24th. They will also be participating with the Episcopal churches for the upcoming Cursillo in November. Beginning at 5:30 pm on Saturday, June 24, you will enjoy great singing by Bob Theriault and Tony Sousa, along with Tim Searchfield and some of the musicians from St. Andrews. There will be a witness speaker and Eucharist will be celebrated by the Rev. Yvonne Wesley-Rohrbach, a retired Lutheran minister, who will be assisted by the Rev. Chuck Bradshaw. Please come and bring a friend. . .or two. . .or more, plus a potluck to feed six people! Be part of this great night of worship and praise (to end no later than 8:30 pm).
The Parish of SS. Mary & Jude will be moving to St. Mary's by the Sea this Sunday, May 21st (Rogation Sunday) and weather permitting we will process from the chapel to the stone church. We are still under much scaffolding, but have a more workable space than we did last summer, as restoration continues. The good news is that the Transfiguration window should be back in place by early July (the bell tower and bell are already back) and when the apse window comes out for repair, it will be replaced by plexiglass, not plywood! The early morning sun should stream in from the east. For the time being, the single service will be scheduled for 9:30 AM as it has been all winter. Until regular summer services begin, we are experimenting with a different arrangement of the 'cathedral chairs' in order to create a more intimate space. The communion table will be in the trancept since we do not have access to most of the chancel at this point. An active committee is exploring the possibilities to make worship amid scaffolding a positive experience both spiritually and visually. Senior warden (and organist) Peter Vaux can't wait to get his fingers on that keyboard again in a wonderfully acoustic space! Come join us for a Sunday.
KKS
In a decision of some moment to Episcopalians on Mount Desert Island, the members of the Parish of Saint Andrew and Saint John in a special parish meeting this past Sunday 30 April voted to sell Saint Andrew. Find out more at the parish web site here, here and here. The sale is not likely to happen quickly. It must first be endorsed by the Diocese. And in spite of this decision, seasonal services will resume at Saint Andrews at 8:00am Sunday June 4. Also, there will be a Taizé service at Saint Andrew at 7pm Sunday June 11.
We ask for your prayers as we move forward with this difficult choice.
Please continue to hold the people of St. Martin's in your prayers. And, if you are driving by the site of the church, please join a growing tradition and stop for a moment to pray there. I want you to know how grateful the people of St. Martin are for your support. We have established a line in our Diocesan accounting for donations to St. Martin's. If you wish to contribute to St. Martin's, please make your check payable to the Diocese of Maine and note "For St. Martin's, Palmyra" on the memo line. Mail it to Diocese of Maine, Attention Pam McLellan, 143 State St., Portland, ME 04101-3799. As they reach an insurance settlement (still pending) and their needs become known, we will disperse these donated funds to them promptly.
As we gear up for our increasingly lucrative Quietside festival, it is fun to look at this type of fundraiser as it is presented in British fiction. One of the simplest versions is the ubiquitous Jumble Sale. All kinds of odds and ends are sold at such parish sales and one can easily revisit one’s old possessions. In A Glass of Blessings Barbara Pym describes Wilmet meeting a “distressed gentlewoman wearing a lavender-colored cardigan that I had sent to St. Luke’s last jumble sale…I could only suppose that one of the organizers of the sale had allowed Miss Prideaux a kind of preview of some of the best things, for I hated to think of her fragile old body being buffeted by the rough jumble sale crowd.”
Elizabeth George in The Presence of the Enemy presents Stanley, a hapless garage mechanic, as a prime suspect of a child’s murder when part of the child’s school uniform turns up as a rag in his garage. The detective asks, “Can you tell us where you got the uniform?”
“At the Jumble Stall.”
“What Jumble Stall?
“At the church fete. We have a church fete every spring and this year’s was Sunday. I took my gran because she had to work in the tea booth for an hour. It wasn’t worth taking her to the fete, going home, and coming back, so I hung about. That’s when I got the rags. They were selling them in the Jumble Stall. One pound fifty each. It was for a good cause. They’re raising money to restore one of the windows in the chancel.”
Miss Prideaux and Stanley are typical Jumble Sale shoppers and the church benefits from their small purchases. Our Quietside Festival now has a chairman for a Jumble Table, so save your attic treasures and “white elephants”. We can make this an important part of our festival. And is Stanley the murderer? Read The Presence of the Enemy and unravel the clues for yourself!
CassWright
I’ve just finished gathering and disseminating information on collective purchasing of fuel oil for next winter’s heating season. This year the four island churches, plus St.Dunstan’s bought or pre-bought 25,350 gallons of #2 heating oil for a total of $47,679.
The least expensive price per gallon was $1.77 for 12,000 gallons ($21,240); the most expensive was $2.32 for 4,950 gallons ($11,484). A total of three oil companies served the 5 parishes. Had we pooled our purchases about $2,810 (6%) would have been saved for doing other of God’s work on this island. Hopefully we’ll have a program in place that will help everyone next winter. One of the next critical steps is to have interested persons from the four churches gather and find more ways that we can collectively serve our island community.
Ted Bromage
There will be a Taizé service at 7:00pm Sunday June 11 at St. Andrew's in Seal Cove.
