From a Death Comes New life: After all, Resurrection is Truly what we’re all about

What do you do when a once-vibrant ministry that defined a parish's commitment to social ministry outlives the needs of the surrounding community and the resources of the parish to sustain it? That was the challenge facing Saint Aidan's, San Francisco, when Aidan's Way, our flagship ministry, had to face the reality that we as a community could no longer maintain this beloved program in the parish.

For more than a decade, Aidan’s Way offered an after-school program for at-risk children, welcoming all faiths, races, and ethnicities. The goal of the program was to provide educational services in a loving atmosphere to neighborhood children for almost no cost to the families.

As the years progressed, many of those who were most passionate in our congregation about this ministry were lost through death and grave illness. Those who were left, along with the paid director, were trying to make something survive that couldn't. We could no longer support the program financially, the volunteer pool shrunk to levels where we sometimes did not have a healthy adult-child ratio, and we discovered that we were no longer serving mainly neighborhood children. Instead, our ministry had become an inexpensive after-school alternative for families who could easily pay more than the $25 cost per semester. As California regulations of childcare increased, we realized we could not afford neither the required renovations to our space to meet state standards nor the state’s expectations of two full-time staff members and two years of advanced operating expenses in the bank.

During a meeting with the comptroller of the diocese, the Aidan’s Way Advisory Board and members of the St. Aidan’s Vestry, I felt with a heavy heart the responsibility of having to name the elephant in the middle of the room: that it was time for us to end our Aidan’s Way ministry. In that moment, we all experienced a profound death. Some members of our congregation were very angry. Others were in denial. Still others looked to blame me or the Diocese or the Vestry. These are all normal parts of the grieving process.

But Resurrection existed for us, too. After we reached the decision to close that day, our group moved from a meeting room into our church. We joined hands and offered God thanks for this important ministry in the life of our church and the neighborhood. We gave thanks for all the children and their families who benefitted from the program. We asked God’s Spirit to be with us to offer us inspiration as we looked for new ways to minister with children in our neighborhood. And from this liturgy we knew we could still provide a safe, loving place for children in new and exciting ways.

“When we realized we had to make other plans for these children, I was devastated,” said Pam Wong, a longtime member of our parish and volunteer at Aidan’s Way. “Initially, there was a great emptiness and I cried often and hard. Time has helped soften my loss and now I can remember more fondly the gift I received from all of our children and their families. I can still do things with them. For example, right after the closure of Aidan’s Way, I led a group of twelve children from the neighborhood in the most amazing dance for Pentecost, which was a moving and joyous time.”

After more than 6 years of volunteering, Judy Bley, a member of the parish who volunteered weekly for the program, found it hard to adjust, and she felt deeply for the parents and children who had relied on our program to provide a safe and enriching environment. “I see children as our future and received deep personal satisfaction in being a part of helping children to grow, achieve success in school work, and form lasting bonds. However, the reality was that our children came from far and wide and were not, for the most part, members of our surrounding community. It was not possible for us to maintain all of our financially draining programs.”

As our neighborhood changed, we realized that what we were ultimately experiencing was the Holy Spirit inviting us to adapt and change, as well. The Rev. Diana Wheeler, our parish deacon and Director of Aidan’s Way, reached out to Si, Se Puede, a program similar to Aidan’s Way in our neighborhood, and she facilitated a joint venture between St. Aidan’s, AmeriCorps, and the United Farm Workers, housed at the Vista del Monte Apartments just across the street from St. Aidan’s.

We now have volunteers there on a weekly basis, our resident story-teller visits regularly, and our congregation has made a commitment to helping the children with their plot in the local community garden. All of this involves no capital expense of our parish, but it does commit our talent and time in new and liberating ways. If “in the midst of life, we are in death,” we have found that the converse is also true. “This new adventure with our neighbors across the street helps us to never forget those people and things we will always love, but instead invites us to find meaning in them in new and powerful ways,” said the Rev. David Stickley, our current parish deacon. “In many ways, we have experienced dying to self and living to Christ by being as fully alive as we possibly can to the community around us without the heavy encumbrance of program expense.”

Since the closure of Aidan’s Way, we have also offered two summer camps for children. We offered a week of Spiritual Arts and Practical Arts, with a focus on non-violence for children in elementary school. As well, we helped to coordinate the Friends of God Summer Camp with two other parishes, where campers spent one week at St. Aidan’s, one week at St. Gregory of Nyssa, and one week at Grace Cathedral focusing on different Godly Play stories. We welcomed volunteers and campers from seven local Episcopal Churches, along with children and staffers from Roman Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian, and non-religious backgrounds. The camp was very successful and is currently being planned for 2012, with another week planned at St. Aidan’s.

Letting go of things dear to us is always difficult, and this proved to be no exception. The Book of Common Prayer reminds us that “In the midst of life, we are in death.” While this may not exactly cheer us on our way, it does serve as a wonderfully poignant reminder that life is a process that must include letting go from time to time if we are to be born again from above, and filled with the life-giving love of the Spirit. This is not to say that the grieving process must end; if it did, it might mean that the love we let go of is also gone, and as a people of faith, we believe that love never dies.

But, the people of St. Aidan’s will tell you: from a death comes new life. After all, Resurrection is truly what we’re all about.

The Rev. Tommy Dillon

Rector, St Aidan’s Episcopal Church

San Francisco

World AIDS Day 2011 at St Aidan's

The World AIDS Day theme for 2011-2015 is drawn from the new UNAIDS Strategy “Getting to Zero,” which focuses on zero new infections, zero discrimination and zero aids-related deaths. The liturgy used at St Aidan's on December 1, 2011 focused on the concept of “Zero Discrimination.”

The on-going discrimination and stigmatisation of people living with HIV is a major issue. People are still afraid to talk openly about their status in our congregations, communities

and society. Despite the fact that we have clear legislation on non-discrimination, people living with HIV, counsellors, social workers, and AIDS-service organizations, tell numerous incidents of neglect and stigmatisation of people living with HIV.

The liturgy sought to encourage each and every one of us to understand and promote Zero Discrimination in our specific contexts and church communities. Many have talked about discrimination, written about it, protested about it. Rather than just provide more words, we hope that the liturgy, using images and drama, modeled acceptance and inclusion.

The center of the worship space was the AIDS Names Panel Quilt created by the parish of St Aidan's honoring the men who died from the congregation in the 80's and 90's.

Everyone, Everywhere 2011

This week I am spending two days outside of Denver, Colorado participating in the Everyone, Everywhere 2011 (EE11) Conference with over 300 members of the Episcopal Church, including our Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori. This gathering hopes to fan the flames of passion for mission throughout the church that was started three years ago at the first gathering in Maryland.

The focus of Everyone, Everywhere 2011 is: Relationship in the context of mission. As Episcopalians, we are called to ‘seek and serve Christ in all persons’ and to ‘respect the dignity of every human being.’ It is this foundation of our faith that guides our efforts to nourish and deepen our relationships/partnerships in God’s unending mission. We all have our own unique identity and this gathering will engage all of God’s children from different parts of God’s world, recognizing and respecting the diversity of identity present in our Church and in the world. In addition, we recognize that, as followers of Christ, we desire to share God’s love and bring about shalom within God's world, which asks us to create more just, equitable and sustainable societies. The recognition of this desire and our multi-faceted yet common identity as people of God enables more faithful and authentic conversations around relationships and the reconciliation, partnering, and financial stewardship that can be part of them.

Our world is constantly changing and becoming smaller as in-person and on-line interaction becomes easier and more common and provides us with a myriad of opportunities that enable us to share mutual ministries, compare cultures, and experience how God is working in throughout the Body of Christ. How do we as Episcopalians deepen our diverse relationships with our neighbors – those halfway around the world and those just around the corner – to better understand our collective mission as children of God and discover our individual place in God’s wider mission?

In an effort to welcome everyone, especially those who work at the grassroots level and who many not be connected to any of the existing mission networks, EE11 will offer the opportunity to celebrate the depth and breadth of global and local relationships and ministries. It is hoped that by bringing everyone together we will see how our ministries complement each other and we will begin to shift away from the dichotomous thinking around domestic and global mission.

I look forward to reporting back on the tools I learn at this historic event in the life of the Church and how we can incorporate them in the life of our parish and community.

Finding God in New Orleans

Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit, I drove from Baton Rouge to New Orleans to experience firsthand the devastation of a place that I love dearly. I thought I had prepared myself for what I would see, but, indeed, I had not.

Approaching the city, I saw coffins that had floated out of the large above ground cement mausoleums and found a new resting place alongside the interstate. I wept. Not only had the living been affected by the flood waters, but also the dead.

Going further, I witnessed the large gaping hole in the roof of the Superdome and instantly returned to the images of the thousands who took refuge in this shelter of last resort-turned prison. Large blue tarps covered many homes and served as temporary roofs, a thin blue layer between fragile people and the wild nature that had so recently turned against them.

I parked my car in the normally bustling French Quarter, though this time, it was a ghost town. Peeking into Pat O’Brien’s famous bar, which usually hosts raucous dueling pianos, I was struck this time by the emptiness and hollow silence in its stead. The windy breezes stirred up alternating wisps of rotting food and mold. Fresh graffiti screamed anger towards President Bush, FEMA, and Governor Blanco. When I encountered people in the streets (which was rare), they were lifeless and listless: walking zombies who had their life sucked out of them.

There seemed to be so much despair, sadness, and loss of hope. Where was the light that shines in the darkness? Where was God in all of this mess?

In the many years before Katrina, I travelled to New Orleans on Sunday afternoons to gather with friends at the corner of St. Ann and Bourbon Street for what is known in the gay community as “Sunday Tea Dance”. This was sacred ground for me, a ground zero of sorts from which I “came out” as a gay man. Through the years, I had danced many nights away at the Tea Dance, laughing, singing, sharing stories, meeting new people, sometimes drinking too much and having a little too much fun. But the Tea Dance was where people knew to gather on Sunday afternoon.

My favorite stop at the Tea Dance was the Good Friend’s Bar, where a gentleman named Tom played an old piano on the second floor of the bar that sounded as if it came from a old western movie saloon. Tom was in his late sixties and gathered an eclectic group of people--gay, straight, men, women--around that old, out of key piano for a weekly sing along. We enjoyed singing show tunes, but sometimes when I would arrive, Tom would play a Gospel Set of well known Southern hymns and ballads. People would sing loudly. Many of them loved the church, but they no longer attended because they had either been either kicked out or left due to its stand on their “gay lifestyle”.

As I walked around a desolated New Orleans that fall afternoon, I wondered if any of my kindred were gathering at that sacred corner where we had spent so many Sundays at the Tea Dance. I turned onto Bourbon Street and glanced down at the section of the French Quarter where my father used to warn me, “Do not go down there son, it is where the homosexuals gather.” To my joy and delight, I saw life! In the distance, I heard the thumps of the deejay as I made out the gay anthem “We are Family” in my head. A few steps closer. Over 100 people were standing around the Bourbon Pub/Parade Disco, which reopened that day, peace and happiness swept over me. The community indeed knew where to gather that afternoon, even in the midst of desolation and despair.

A giant blue tarp covered the roof of the Good Friend’s Bar...surely, the second floor was flooded in the deluge, I supposed. But then, in the distance, I noticed the faint sound of singing. Could it be? Was Tom there? Were the faithful gathered around the piano? Drawing closer and closer to Good Friend’s, the singing was louder and louder. I walked into group of 30 people who were indeed standing around the piano, having picked it up and carried it downstairs so that they could sing.

Tom looked up, saw me, and yelled, “PADRE, YOU ARE HERE” and he began to play Gospel music and people assembled sang out from their hearts! First was “I Come to the Garden Alone”, and then a stirring rendition of “His Eye is on the Sparrow”. The voices grew louder and heartier. People raised the rafters in joy and celebration as tears filled our eyes. For the wayward souls assembled that day, even in the midst of destruction and despair, this was Church! We were not in a building consecrated by a bishop. The space was not filled with stained glass and statues. Instead, we were a church formed from the presence of the people and our piano became our altar, a place of sacrifice where we could offer to God our tears, our joys, our prayers, and our hopes. The piano became a sign and symbol of God’s redemption and love in our midst.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

The marvels of God are not brought forth from one's self.
Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played.
The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather,
through the touch of the Musician.
I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God's kindness.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, attributed, Soul Weavings

Holy Dirt and Prayers at Chimayo

Can a spoonful of dirt transmit a miracle of healing? To the more than 40,000 people who make a pilgrimage to El Santuario de Chimayó every year, miraculous recoveries in both body and mind have shown again and again that it can — whether by the power of the divine or the power of faith and belief.

Located in a high and remote valley northeast of Santa Fe, Chimayó has been considered a sacred site for centuries. The native Tewa Indians considered the fertile valley sacred because of a spring that bubbled from the ground in the surrounding hills; the Spanish settled here in the 1600s for the same reason. But when Don Bernardo Abeyta, a member of a local Catholic brotherhood, followed a mysterious dancing light down to the river, everything changed. Here’s how the wonderful story goes:

The light appeared to be coming out of the dirt itself, so Abeyta began digging, and eventually uncovered a six-foot-tall wooden crucifix featuring a dramatic, dark-skinned Christ. Abeyta called others to see the crucifix, and together they organized a procession to carry the heavy statue to the parish church in Santa Cruz, eight miles away, where they installed it in the altar.

Except the next morning it was gone. When they looked for it, they found it back in the same spot on the riverbank where it was originally found. A second time it was brought to the church — and a second time it mysteriously migrated back to its spot of origin. When this happened a third time, the diocese got the message and a small chapel was built in Chimayó to house the statue. The current Santuario was built in 1814.

War, though, was what truly created the Chimayó pilgrimmage as it exists today. During WWI, terrified New Mexican boys huddled in the trenches made a prayerful promise that if they returned alive, they would make a pilgrimage of gratitude to Chimayó. Since then, through the second World War, the Korean War, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, servicemen and women and their frightened families have come to Chimayó to pray for — and give thanks for — their safe return.

New Mexico has the honor of contributing more young people to the armed services than any other state, and today, an entire wall of the antechamber is papered with photos of young soldiers. Many of them are accompanied by heartfelt notes from parents, spouses and siblings requesting divine intervention and protection.

How did Chimayó’s dirt, dug from a small well known as El Posito, come to be considered healing? The connection was never made completely clear to me. But why wouldn’t dirt from which a statue miraculously emerged have divine powers? The dirt itself, a reddish soft powdery dust, is dug with a child’s playground shovel from an unprepossessing hole in a closet-sized room. And church staff are quite open about the fact that the dirt visitors dig up is no longer original dirt from the chapel — it’s carried in by the bucketful to replenish the supply every night. And yet every year tens of thousands of visitors, of all ages and every faith, visit Chimayó to pray for health, taking home baggies and vials of the dirt to distribute amongst their loved ones.

It occurs to me, looking around the shrine, that here at Chimayó is an expression of our deepest fears and sorrows. What shakes us more deeply than the illness or loss of a child, parent, friend or animal companion?

Within the anteroom is an enclosed shrine honoring Santo Niño de Atocha, an embodiment of the infant Jesus. He is surrounded by baby shoes of all kinds, from hand-knit booties to miniature high top tennies, a traditional gift of supplication to El Niño. The walls of the shrine are papered with pleas for intercession on behalf of sick children, prayers for those who have died, and expressions of gratitude for children restored to health.

I can barely look at first, but then I begin to peer closely and carefully at each tiny photo and name, feeling the force of the love of the mother or father who placed it here. And it occurs to me that this may be the most powerful force of all: The love we have for our children, our other family members and friends, the strength of our desire to see them live long healthy lives.

And yes, I too brought home Chimayó dirt – as much as I could take without seeming greedy.

( story of Chimayo comes from Melanie Haiken)

Jesus and the Beloved Disciple

During my pilgrimage in New Mexico, I ran across this powerful image of Jesus and his beloved disciple John. In the writings of J. Philip Newell he says that John listens to the heartbeat of God as he rested on the chest of Jesus. Where do we as people of faith find places where we too can listen to the heartbeat of the One?