We'll replace the banner photo of the church with a greener one once all the plants have had a chance to fill in, but for members of the parish in far-flung corners of the world, here's what your church looked like two days ago.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Spring is Here!
We'll replace the banner photo of the church with a greener one once all the plants have had a chance to fill in, but for members of the parish in far-flung corners of the world, here's what your church looked like two days ago.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Easter Sunday
If you were looking for evidence that St. John's is growing, you need look no further than today's Easter services: there were three of them! Does anyone remember the last time this little congregation had to hold three Easter services to accommodate everyone?
What a spirit-lifter, after the Stripping of the Altar on Maundy Thursday, to find the church decked out in lilies and banners this morning.
[Click on any picture in this column to see a larger version of it. Then use your back arrow to return to this page.]
I attended the 8 a.m. service, which had "only" 35 attendees. I say "only" because that's about twice what we normally get. At the 8 o'clock, congregants gather around the altar for the communion prayers. Can't do that with 35 people! We didn't know how to behave.
I came back to take some pictures of the 11 o'clock service.
The "banners" behind the readers above and below are actually strips of ribbon hanging down. From the back of the church they give the illusion of being whole-cloth banners. Kudos to the artistes, Leslye and Julianne!
Below is Kara reading the Gospel. This time I didn't get the back of her head (see Maundy Thursday), but maybe you recognize the back of Julianne's head?
Here's Kara giving a great sermon about, among other things, the dangers of certainty in religion. Usually, a few of the faces at Easter services are people dragged there by family members. They gave up on being part of a church community because they found dogma to be an obstacle to faith. [On this subject, I love a comment by Flannery O'Connor: "Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow."] I thought the Easter sermon was an excellent introduction for these folks to a different way of thinking about faith. Look for it on the official St. John's Web Site. (This puts a little pressure on Kara to actually write the sermon down. Do it in your spare time, Kara!)[Update: Well, that didn't take long. Kara has posted it.]
At the 11 o'clock service, Rich, Karen, Jackson, and Geneva all signed the parish register. Geneva was signing when the picture below was taken, and the podium hides her pretty well. That's Jackson behind the lilies.
Once Rich was finished, Vlada and Rebecca signed, too. Both these families have already contributed a lot to life at St. John's, and we're happy they've decided to stick around.
Okay, everybody, stretch your legs for a hymn!
Communion.
Once everyone had gone to the undercroft for coffee and goodies, or into the garden for the Easter egg hunt, I got closer to the altar to take more pictures of the flowers.
The reredos were open again, with Theon Betts's paintings of St. Francis, Mary, St. John, and Thomas Aquinas. Welcome back! We missed you. Yes, even you, Thomas.
What a spirit-lifter, after the Stripping of the Altar on Maundy Thursday, to find the church decked out in lilies and banners this morning.
[Click on any picture in this column to see a larger version of it. Then use your back arrow to return to this page.]I attended the 8 a.m. service, which had "only" 35 attendees. I say "only" because that's about twice what we normally get. At the 8 o'clock, congregants gather around the altar for the communion prayers. Can't do that with 35 people! We didn't know how to behave.
I came back to take some pictures of the 11 o'clock service.
The "banners" behind the readers above and below are actually strips of ribbon hanging down. From the back of the church they give the illusion of being whole-cloth banners. Kudos to the artistes, Leslye and Julianne!
Below is Kara reading the Gospel. This time I didn't get the back of her head (see Maundy Thursday), but maybe you recognize the back of Julianne's head?
Here's Kara giving a great sermon about, among other things, the dangers of certainty in religion. Usually, a few of the faces at Easter services are people dragged there by family members. They gave up on being part of a church community because they found dogma to be an obstacle to faith. [On this subject, I love a comment by Flannery O'Connor: "Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow."] I thought the Easter sermon was an excellent introduction for these folks to a different way of thinking about faith. Look for it on the official St. John's Web Site. (This puts a little pressure on Kara to actually write the sermon down. Do it in your spare time, Kara!)[Update: Well, that didn't take long. Kara has posted it.]
At the 11 o'clock service, Rich, Karen, Jackson, and Geneva all signed the parish register. Geneva was signing when the picture below was taken, and the podium hides her pretty well. That's Jackson behind the lilies.
Once Rich was finished, Vlada and Rebecca signed, too. Both these families have already contributed a lot to life at St. John's, and we're happy they've decided to stick around.
Okay, everybody, stretch your legs for a hymn!
Communion.
Once everyone had gone to the undercroft for coffee and goodies, or into the garden for the Easter egg hunt, I got closer to the altar to take more pictures of the flowers.
The reredos were open again, with Theon Betts's paintings of St. Francis, Mary, St. John, and Thomas Aquinas. Welcome back! We missed you. Yes, even you, Thomas.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Maundy Thursday
I don't have much of a narrative for these pictures of the Maundy Thursday service. Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper, when the sacrament of communion was instituted, and when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. It is really one of the most moving services of the year -- right up there with the candlelight Christmas Eve service, in my opinion. Even if you don't participate in the foot washing, it is a surprisingly spiritual experience. Enough said about that.
I was struck before the service by the "still life" aspect of the bowls and towels set in place for the foot washing:
Reading the Gospel:
Let the washing begin:
At the end of the service, as the lights are gradually lowered, comes the Stripping of the Altar. The shroud over the crucifix is changed from white to black.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Darwin's Birthday
And now for something completely different.
Tonight we celebrated Darwin Day at St. John's:
Why Darwin Day? Well, Darwin was born 200 years ago yesterday, and Darwin was an Episcopalian. That's all the reason we need to party. Okay, so maybe he was an Anglican, but in America Anglicans are called Episcopalians. (So far, at least.)
Why today and not yesterday, his actual birthday? Maybe you can party on a work night!
A band called Overman played for about an hour, and they were very good! I hadn't heard of them before this week, but we were lucky to have them. They sang a song about evolution which I couldn't understand the words to (the acoustics of church basements being what they are, and my hearing being what it is), but which is supposed to be very popular on iTunes; viz., it has actually made them some money.
They did a song about Mother Theresa which I did understand, and which was fine, fine, fine. You will recall that after her death, and after beatification activities had begun, it was revealed that Mother Theresa had actually been struggling with her faith for most of her adult life. The songwriter said that made him like her even more. Me, too.
And there was food! They called it "Primordial Soup," but I cut through the kitchen and saw a lot of Progresso Soup cans in the garbage. Draw your own conclusions. Actually, we should be thankful it wasn't really primordial soup. Here's Tim dishing out some hopefully faux Primordial Soup:
And there was dancing! Overman played a great blues number that would not allow feet to remain in place on the floor.
The person in the blue jeans with the clerical collar is our rector, Kara. The guy leaning against the pole is her husband, John. Give some people a little Primordial Soup, and they lose all inhibitions. (Not John, though.)
Anyway, festivities were finished off with a birthday cake, after which everybody sat down for a showing of Jurassic Park.
Yeah, you heard right, a birthday cake.
And, as is appropriate for any event held at St. John's, BBC radio was there!
You can hear their report here. The St. John's Church part is at the very beginning (singing Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin), and beginning at about the 15 minute mark. You can slide the slider to that point, if you don't want to hear the whole 30-minute show.
Addendum: I would like to point out that, contrary to what the BBC reporter said, St. John's is not in a suburb of Chicago. We are in Chicago.
Tonight we celebrated Darwin Day at St. John's:
Why Darwin Day? Well, Darwin was born 200 years ago yesterday, and Darwin was an Episcopalian. That's all the reason we need to party. Okay, so maybe he was an Anglican, but in America Anglicans are called Episcopalians. (So far, at least.)
Why today and not yesterday, his actual birthday? Maybe you can party on a work night!
A band called Overman played for about an hour, and they were very good! I hadn't heard of them before this week, but we were lucky to have them. They sang a song about evolution which I couldn't understand the words to (the acoustics of church basements being what they are, and my hearing being what it is), but which is supposed to be very popular on iTunes; viz., it has actually made them some money.
They did a song about Mother Theresa which I did understand, and which was fine, fine, fine. You will recall that after her death, and after beatification activities had begun, it was revealed that Mother Theresa had actually been struggling with her faith for most of her adult life. The songwriter said that made him like her even more. Me, too.
And there was food! They called it "Primordial Soup," but I cut through the kitchen and saw a lot of Progresso Soup cans in the garbage. Draw your own conclusions. Actually, we should be thankful it wasn't really primordial soup. Here's Tim dishing out some hopefully faux Primordial Soup:
And there was dancing! Overman played a great blues number that would not allow feet to remain in place on the floor.
The person in the blue jeans with the clerical collar is our rector, Kara. The guy leaning against the pole is her husband, John. Give some people a little Primordial Soup, and they lose all inhibitions. (Not John, though.)
Anyway, festivities were finished off with a birthday cake, after which everybody sat down for a showing of Jurassic Park.
Yeah, you heard right, a birthday cake.
And, as is appropriate for any event held at St. John's, BBC radio was there!
You can hear their report here. The St. John's Church part is at the very beginning (singing Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin), and beginning at about the 15 minute mark. You can slide the slider to that point, if you don't want to hear the whole 30-minute show.
Addendum: I would like to point out that, contrary to what the BBC reporter said, St. John's is not in a suburb of Chicago. We are in Chicago.
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Epiphany Pageant
Epiphany is the holiday (January 6) that celebrates the arrival of the Three Kings, or Magi, in Bethlehem.
St. John's has about 140 members, of whom it seems about 190 are children. That makes things very lively, and you have to constantly watch where you're stepping. Each year the kids put on an Epiphany Pageant, and each year it's different. We are lucky to have a vast number (relatively speaking) of very talented people in the congregation: artists, playwrights, mechanics – it's amazing. And the adults chip in to make costumes, take out the "quire" pews to give the kids room for a stage, build sets, assist with direction, feed everybody during rehearsals, and keep the littlest ones from wandering off.
The youngest children are assigned to be "angels," which is not always type-casting. They have a few lines but they say them in unison, so there's usually at least one that's paying enough attention to get the line out on cue. The adult here is Jason. He is a professional actor and has a lot of lines, but the most difficult thing he does is herding these cats.
I took about 10 shots of the angels, and each one is charming and hilarious in its own way.
This is the Annunciation scene. Notice that Jason has a wire going down the back of his neck to a battery pack. His "halo" had little lights in it. You can't say we don't have a sense of humor at St. John's. Mary is showing an appropriate level of apprehension, I think.
There's no room at the inn.
Shepherds watching their flocks by night (sort of):
Joseph and Mary, with a doll. One year we used a real baby. The baby survived, but I'm not sure the mother did. And yes, Joseph wore glasses and a wristwatch. You don't know your Bible, do you?
The Magi arrive. And yes, of course Joseph and Mary had a Christmas tree.
The cast, mostly. I think some of the angels have wandered off.
The audience was totally charmed. Suellen looks positively enraptured.
St. John's has about 140 members, of whom it seems about 190 are children. That makes things very lively, and you have to constantly watch where you're stepping. Each year the kids put on an Epiphany Pageant, and each year it's different. We are lucky to have a vast number (relatively speaking) of very talented people in the congregation: artists, playwrights, mechanics – it's amazing. And the adults chip in to make costumes, take out the "quire" pews to give the kids room for a stage, build sets, assist with direction, feed everybody during rehearsals, and keep the littlest ones from wandering off.
The youngest children are assigned to be "angels," which is not always type-casting. They have a few lines but they say them in unison, so there's usually at least one that's paying enough attention to get the line out on cue. The adult here is Jason. He is a professional actor and has a lot of lines, but the most difficult thing he does is herding these cats.
I took about 10 shots of the angels, and each one is charming and hilarious in its own way.
This is the Annunciation scene. Notice that Jason has a wire going down the back of his neck to a battery pack. His "halo" had little lights in it. You can't say we don't have a sense of humor at St. John's. Mary is showing an appropriate level of apprehension, I think.
There's no room at the inn.
Shepherds watching their flocks by night (sort of):
Joseph and Mary, with a doll. One year we used a real baby. The baby survived, but I'm not sure the mother did. And yes, Joseph wore glasses and a wristwatch. You don't know your Bible, do you?
The Magi arrive. And yes, of course Joseph and Mary had a Christmas tree.
The cast, mostly. I think some of the angels have wandered off.
The audience was totally charmed. Suellen looks positively enraptured.
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