Light, Warmth, & Joy: contribute to our Community Board in the Connector!
How do you experience winter? This month’s Community Conversation board invites you to lean into the places you find light, warmth, and joy in the midst of winter and share those with us! Feel free to grab an index card and write your thoughts on occasions of winter light, warmth, and joy…or to answer any of the questions provided!
Palestinian olive oil will be available for sale by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship in the connector following both services today. It is organic, virgin, first cold press and fair trade. Olive oil is normally sold on the first Sunday of each month, but was postponed due to the annual meeting. The proceeds from the sale enable Grace to provide a scholarship for a student at the Episcopal Technological and Vocational Training Center in Ramallah. Our current student is Teya Awad. She is studying hospitality and culinary arts, and loves to cook tasty and beautifully presented dishes.
Mindfulness, Meditation, and Epiphanies, Wednesday, February 23, 6:00 – 6:45pm in the church In this final session we continue the opportunity for inner renewal and the deepening of prayer and worship. The first part of our time together, led by Kell Julliard, will teach specific practices of mindfulness and meditation. This will be followed by a modified compline service, led by Megan, in which we will apply the practices we learned to deepen our experience. Each week features a different epiphany. Even if you couldn’t take part in our first three events, we encourage you to join us for this Wednesday – focusing on the water of baptism, which enables us to bring these epiphanies into our life in the world. The church will offer us the opportunity to be socially distanced in this time of COVID.
Grace’s Closet With the cold weather upon us, particularly being another winter in this time of COVID, the Fireplace Room in the Parke House is a storage and distribution site for warm winter clothes for those in need. There are several ways you can help. Volunteers sort and organize clothes in the Fireplace Room, as well as deliver clothing to the Amherst Survival Center, Craig’s Doors, and Not Bread Alone as requests come in. Parishioners can also donate clean, usable coats and winter clothes for adults only by dropping off items on Sunday mornings or during regular business hours Monday – Friday. We hope you feel called to help, because we need your help. Please check the pockets of clothing you bring. It is unpleasant for the volunteers to have to go through them to take out used tissues! Even more unpleasant for a homeless person to receive such clothing. Thanks. All health and safety protocols will be maintained, including the need to wear a face mask at all times. For more information, please contact Kevyn Smith at kevynsmith09@gmail.com.
The Grace Church Stewardship campaign for 2022 To date 138 pledges have come in totaling $420,738 – most encouraging, we have 7 new pledges. To those who have pledged God Bless, to those who have yet to pledge please pray and pledge so our Vestry can budget for 2022. If you need a pledge card, they are available as you enter the church or you can contact the office (413) 256-6754 or Bruce Stebbins at (413) 549-5933.
Parish Directory It’s time for a new Grace Directory! The last one was done in 2018. We have new members, and some folks have moved. Please send your updated address and phone number(s) to Terrie Korpita at tkorpita@gracechurchamherst.org. We plan to use the same photos as the last directory; unless you wish to submit a new one. Thank you!
Save the Date
Conversations about Haiti, 7 p.m. on two Tuesdays in March, On Zoom. The first two meetings in this series have been very informative and fruitful. We hope you will join us in March for further conversations with leaders of organizations that work with education in Haiti. We’ll begin with brief presentations and will then open up the floor for questions, and for sharing experience, advice, and ideas. Each session should last about 90 minutes. Here is the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7028052390
March 1: The Rev. Rebecca Crosby, co-founder and Executive Director of the Crosby Fund for Haitian Education, Old Lyme, CT. The Crosby Fund provides full scholarships for students from pre-k through university and offers additional academic support at their Education Center in Haiti’s Artibonite Valley. They began fifteen years ago offering scholarships to 32 secondary (high school) students. Today they offer over 500 full scholarships to students at the primary, secondary, technical and university level. The Reverend Rebecca Crosby is one of the founders of the organization and remains deeply involved. For more information see https://crosbyfund.org/
March 8: Leslie Harrison, of Be Like Brit and more. Leslie Harrison has done extensive volunteer work in Haiti with three organizations. With Worcester-based Be Like Brit she has helped to build homes and develop access to potable water in Grand Goave, in Haiti’s southern peninsula. Be Like Brit also sustains an innovative school. Leslie has worked with the Athol-based Christian organization Tree Of Hope Haiti in their projects to build houses and develop a trade school. Having recently become an acquaintance of Dr. Paul Farmer, she now also works with Friends of Zanmi Beni, a sister organization to Zanmi Sante, the healthcare organization Farmer founded. Incorporating her service as a member of the Northboro Rotary Club, she is helping Friends of Zanmi Beni to expand the resources of an education center for special needs children. For more information: https://www.belikebrit.org/home/.
St. Nicholas Bazaar Important Notice! We do not accept upholstered furniture for the bazaar, so please do not put any in the undercroft. Donations of many other items in good, clean condition are gratefully accepted. If there is any question about an item, please contact Joan at jobrien82@gmail.com
Lent at Grace Church
2022
Ash Wednesday Services
Holy Communion and the Imposition of Ashes
March 2, 2022
8:00am, 12:10pm, 5:00pm, & 7:00pm
(All services will be in the church. The 5:00pm service will include Taize. The 7pm service will be live streamed)
Lenten Book Series: Witness at the Cross: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Friday, Sundays at 9:15am and Thursdays at 9:30am The crucifixion is heavily populated: Simon of Cyrene, two men executed with Jesus, the women, including Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ mother, the centurion and other soldiers, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, the Beloved Disciple, chief priests, scribes, and numerous bystanders. Join adult education for this six week series exploring the witness these various groups provide concerning the death of Jesus. We will use Amy-Jill Levine’s book Witness at the Cross as the basis for discussion. Amy-Jill Levine is a scholar specializing in the New Testament, early Christianity, and Jewish studies whose work challenges Christians to come to deeper and more responsible understandings of Jesus’ Jewish context. We have two groups, one will meet on Sundays at 9:15am in the fireplace room of the Parke House, beginning Sunday, March 6th. The second group will meet Thursdays at 9:30am via Zoom, beginning Thursday, March 10th. A zoom invitation will go out closer to the date. For more information about the course, please email Tom at tsynan@gracechurchamherst.org.
The Cross Through Artists’ Eyes : Artistic Lenten Lunchtime Meditations, Mondays at 12:15pm
Every Monday of Lent, we will gather over Zoom for a short, 15 minute service of prayer and meditation at 12:15 p.m., focusing on different artists’ interpretations of the cross either through visual art or creative writing. Feel free to bring your lunch with you! Artists will represent a wide spectrum of relationships to Christianity and the cross, as well as vary significantly in their depictions, but all will invite us into a deeper and more creative relationship with this essential symbol of our faith. No familiarity with the week’s artist or writer is needed to participate! In these 15 minutes, there will be a short introduction to the artist’s work and to our prayer practice, time with silence or background music to prayerfully meditate on that artist’s perspective, and time for a few comments. We’ll begin Monday March 7th with “The Cross Through the Eyes of Georgia O’Keeffe” followed by “The Cross Through The Eyes of Marc Chagall” on Monday March 14th. Be on the look-out for the Zoom invite, as well as info on featured artists for the rest of Lent. If you cannot make this time but would like to be on a list to receive recordings of the meditations, please email Megan at mmcdermott@gracechurchamherst.org.
Language & Liturgy – Exploring Possibilities for Prayer: Wednesdays at 6:00pm
This Lent, join us for an hour-long class on Wednesday evenings exploring language and liturgy. We will meet in-person at 6 p.m. in the Connector, and our first class will be Wednesday March 9th. As Episcopalians, the language for our liturgy typically comes from the Book of Common Prayer – a text that has both its gifts and its challenges. Emerging from ongoing conversations around liturgy, the prayer book, and other prayer resources, Raising the Questions (a discussion group dedicated to theological conversation and inquiry) has compiled a booklet of alternative prayers that showcase varied approaches to liturgical language. This booklet will be available for the whole congregation’s personal use throughout the Lenten season and will also serve as our guide for the class. Copies will be available in the back of the church by Ash Wednesday. Tom and Megan will lead the class through different types of prayers featured in the booklet, such as creeds, confessions, and versions of the Lord’s Prayer. As a group, we will explore how the language of different prayers impacts and forms us – discussing which images for God, the church, and humanity resonate with us, stretch us, stifle us, surprise us, and more. The class will include both time for conversation around different examples of liturgical language and for prayer itself, drawing on these resources.