Staying Safe and Staying Connected
Good Morning Saint Stephen’s Church,
We continue our life of daily prayer. The Lord be with you!
Today’s Prayer
You take the pen,
Dag Hammarskjöld, 1961
and the lines dance.
You take the flute,
and the notes shimmer.
You take the brush,
and the colors sing.
So all things have meaning and beauty
in that space beyond time where you are.
How, then, can I hold back anything from you?
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations. He still remains the youngest person to have held the post, being only 47 years old when he was appointed in 1953. His second term was cut short when he died in an airplane crash en route to cease-fire negotiations during the Congo Crisis. In his apartment was found a manuscript which he described as ‘negotiations with myself – and with God’. It was published under the title Markings. Dag Hammarskjöld is the only person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.
From Our Prayers of the People
Today, let us pray:
For the just and proper use of your creation: for the victims of hunger, fear, injustice, and oppression.
For comfort and healing for all who are affected by the Coronavirus: for physicians, nurses, and all others who minister to the sick and the suffering, may God grant them wisdom and skill, sympathy and patience, and may God keep them healthy and safe.
For all essential workers: for police, firefighters, EMTs, postal workers, sanitation workers, grocery personnel, delivery and transport workers, and all who must report to work because what they do is essential for our well-being, health, and safety.
For those on the Parish Prayer Chain: Mary Alice, Pauline, John, Jane, Molly and David.
For those who are homebound: Stephen, Pauline, Joan, Janet and Marilyn.
Our Government Leaders: Donald Trump, President of the United States; Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State; Gary McCarthy, Mayor of Schenectady
Our Church Leaders: Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop, William Love, and Daniel Herzog our bishops; James and Dennie our priests; Pat our deacon and Allison our Lay Reader
Those who are imprisoned: those particularly vulnerable at this time, especially the women in the Schenectady County Jail.
For those in need of healing: Cindi, Mary Frances, Debbie, Joe, Matt and Lisa.
For Nathaniel – today is his birthday!
For Tammy and Daniel – today is their wedding anniversary!
For all the blessings of this life.
For our dioceses in the Anglican Communion Niagara (Canada), Antsiranana (Indian Ocean), Jamaica & The Cayman Islands (West Indies)
For all who have died: especially Charles, Ruth, Paul and Lila.
For one another.
Something to share
Towards new shores
Quiet – as when long bitterness breaks in tears: bare ground.
Soft light over wide, shimmering waters –
Around me soft walls of thaw and haze, low ceiling of clouds, mauve from the setting sun.
In the lake’s world of mirrors, pale olive and pewter, bare alder branches are reflected, swayed by slow, invisible waves.
And then:
Around the lone flame an embrace of warm light in the soft darkness. The white clouds of hyacinth over the mirror, the deep, sombre well. Glimpses of tree trunks in a whispering forest of books.
Not for us, perhaps never for us:
Through the silence the jarring telephone signal from conversations we fled from but shall not escape. Beneath the calm your memory whispers of promises and the peace of burdens shared.
No rest if it is not everybody’s, no peace until all has been fulfilled.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Reminders
If you have an update/news, a prayer or poem or something inspirational you would like us to share with the congregation, please send it to us. Please also send us any prayer requests. We will incorporate these into the Morning Prayers as best we can.
Prayerbook Parish Morning Prayer in Zoom – each morning. Join Dennie and me for an inter-active service of Morning Prayer at 9 am. Time to bring your prayer concerns will be provided. (contact me for the link: james.ross.mcd@gmail.com)
If you did not receive a phone call in the last few weeks from a member of the Vestry and you would like to be added to the communication list, please let me know (james.ross.mcd@gmail.com) and share with me the best telephone number(s) where we can reach you. We will add you to the list right away.
Our church campus is closed. All parish meetings and gatherings are canceled and postponed until further notice.
Our goal is for all of us to stay in touch and connected in this time of isolation.
Share this news, and spread some love, not the virus!
Irish Blessing
May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be at your back,
May the sun shine upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
Be of good courage. We are in this together, and we will be together again soon. God bless you and may God be with us in the days ahead.
Peace,
James+