Our New Presiding Bishop

[Episcopal News Service] Diocese of North Carolina Bishop Michael Curry has been elected June 27 by the House of Bishops as the 27th presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church.

S'more Campfire Stories Vacation Bible School

Come join us...

Well, we are at it again! Grace, St. Alban’s, St. Thomas' and St. Patrick’s will work together to put on Vacation Bible School this summer. See the dates and mark your calendars now. V.B.S is. for Kindergarten – Fifth Grade – Older children are invited to help.

The dates and time for V.B.S. are July 12-16, 2015 from 6:00 p.m. till 7:30 p.m. Registration will start at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 12. Our theme this year is S’more Campfire Stories. It is a camping/summer camp theme with familiar camp songs, snacks/food, games, Bible Stories and crafts. We will take advantage of St. Thomas’ beautiful bayou location, hiking trail (walking path) and their new outdoor pavilion and fireplace. Dinner is served each night and a special closing is planned for the last evening.

Registration forms are available at church or here. 

Join us!

Dancing in the Eye of the Hurricane

The Archdeacon's Trinity Sunday sermon at St. James, Alexandria

Late last week, I was listening to American Roots on public radio and heard a song called “The Eye” by Brandi Carlile. The key lyric in that song is, “You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you’re standing in the eye.”

Striking imagery. And my immediate response was, “The title of my memoir—when I get around to writing it—will be ‘Dancing in the Eye of the Hurricane.’”

Maybe 24 hours later I sat down at the computer to look at the propers for today. And that’s when I realized that today is the one day in the church year devoted to a point of theology—perhaps our most important but most challenging point of theology—the Trinity.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t know if that memoir will ever be written. But today’s Trinity Sunday sermon is entitled “Dancing in the Eye of The Hurricane.”

Because that’s how I experience the Triune God and God’s call and claim on my life. 

 

Now, you are not about to hear some clever theological explanation of how the Trinity is like a hurricane. Rather, like every other sermon I have preached, this one comes from my life, from what happened this week, from how I encountered God in the world yesterday, this month, 10 years ago. 
God comes to us disguised as our life, writer Paula D’Arcy said. And that quote is now available as a poster, on a t-shirt, printed on.. whatever.

It resonates. God comes to us disguised as our life.

And life is a lot like a hurricane. Sometimes we dance along happily and competently in the relative calm of the eye. And then we miss a step or the roiling turmoil around us lurches in an unexpected direction, and we are bouncing off the walls. It takes time to get back into that eye where we can dance again, and only in retrospect can we see that God was in it… and we in God... the whole time. 

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