Please Consider ...
Christmas Flower Offering envelopes are available on Sundays next to the bulletins. Please consider making a donation so that our Christmas services are filled with the beauty of the season.
End of Year Contributions are due to the church by 12/27, if you would like them on your 2020 Giving Statement for tax purposes. Thank you for your generosity, always!
One More Vestry Person is needed to round out our slate for next year. Are you ready to serve St. Paul's in this fashion either for the first time or again! I'm excited to share that we will start off the vestry year with a Saturday retreat in February (in-person or via Zoom) where we will decide as a leadership team what we want to focus on for 2021. Please consider being a part of this team! *Regular meetings are the 3rd Tuesday at 6pm, in-person or via Zoom as you prefer.
This Week at St. Paul's
Mother Michelle Walker
Dear St. Paul's Family,
As I write this, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping their happy song on the bird feeder right outside the window . I can't help but stop and recognize the beauty of nature.
This week I have been on vacation. Typically my vacations require airports and passports and lots of fun and excitement. However, this has been more of a working vacation than I have every experienced. I've written 4 sermons (Christmas week can get hectic), prepared for and attended my (3rd of 10) Sacred Ground Racial Reconciliation training, studied and outlined my Wabash Pastoral Leadership Program materials, attended 6 different wellness/health & beauty appointments (catching up on all the delayed ones from earlier in the year), and spent 5 glorious hours in retreat. It's definitely not my typical vacation time, but there is nothing typical about this year - for any of us.
For this newsletter, I'd like to share with you a bit of my "wilderness" experience / retreat time from Monday. While I was initially rather concerned about my ability to _simply be_ versus have a 'to do' list of activities, I actually found the time refreshing and wonderful. The best way I can describe this time with the Holy is as follows.
Have you ever watched those commercials on TV for the large plastic storage bags in which you place your bulky items and then use your vacuum to suck the air out of the bag so that it can be stored in a smaller space? Monday felt like that, in reverse. It was as if the Holy said "Enough!" and opened the valve and refilled me with breath, with creation and creativity, with an awareness of the Spirit. I'm blessed to have also had a Spiritual Direction appointment the next morning to help me process the time.
I share this with you not because I want you to think me some Holy and saintly person. I share this with you because I needed this time so desperately and hadn't even realized it. The chaos of life presses in on us continually until we are all like that vacuum-packed bag and barely able to breathe. We all need the valve released every once in a while to be filled with the Holy. It is how we are designed as humans, to be filled with the Holy.
As for what I did in those 5 hours, well I prayed and meditated, I read the first 2 chapters of Luke from The Message (which is not an authorized translation but definitely a unique perspective), I journaled and ate breakfast while watching the birds hop around the yard, and I listened to instrumental chant-like music while making a rather miserable attempt at a mandala (no judgment here ... it's about the process, not the result). None of those activities did anything but help me _still_ my mind and spirit ... something we all could benefit from in these times.
Saints, take time for yourself this coming weekend and week. Take time to experience the Holy. Take time to be released from that vacuum-packed storage container and be filled with the Spirit. The infant birth is coming. Let us be ready to revel in that miracle with our whole selves.
Blessings!
Mother Michelle
priest@stpaulslaporte.org | 219-575-0226