Annual meeting & vestry elections

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Beloved Siblings in Christ, At last week's Forma conference for Episcopal formation professionals, Fr. Edwin Johnson spoke about Loving Kindness. Both the appreciation for kindness, and the kindness itself. He challenged the community gathered to see kindness not as "being polite" but as an opportunity to love people radically in to their belovedness, so that we might see our own. He started and ended his plenary with a poem he wrote, and we haven't stopped thinking about it. It used to be that when I heard that we should be kind. It would drive me crazy to the point of losing my mind. Instead of taking my heartbeat and sending it soaring. It would lull me to sleep and sound just plain old boring. It’s not that I wanted people to be mean. Or for folks to shout at each other using words obscene.

It’s just that try as I could with all of my might. I couldn’t get past thinking that it was just about being polite. And then as I reflected on the true meaning of kindness. I realized that I had chosen to walk in blindness. To a way of being prescribed by our one true God. One so powerful that the heavens could not help but applaud. At its heart is a feeling, a way of being, an attitude. Steeped in a sense of God’s blessings that brings forth gratitude. At its heart is a sense that we are all truly kin. Beyond ability and gender or the color of our skin. So when I think again about Micah’s God inspired phrase, I consider a way of being worthy of emulation and praise. One that the Kingdom of God it will help us to find. Should we be brave and loving enough to be kind.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? - Micah 6:8 The Staff and Clergy of Trinity Episcopal Church +