The View from Bolton Street
Justice Committee Meeting
Just a reminder that the regular Justice Committee meeting (7 PM) preceded by the Justice Eucharist at 6:30 is scheduled for the second Wednesday of the month. That is next week on April 11. We will meet at the church. I look forward to seeing you.
In addition I want to bring to your attention a training opportunity with BUILD to be held this Thursday. The details are in the body of an email from Libby Cohen who is the BUILD organizer that works with Memorial...copied and pasted here. I know that Dick W. is going. All others who are able are encouraged to participate also.
"Hi Memorial-ites,
I wanted to make sure you all knew that we'll be gathering for our next citywide issue action team training, or 'Nehemiah' training, next Thursday, April 5th from 6:30 to 8:30 at Northside Baptist Church.
Just as a quick reminder, we've divided into 4 issue action teams: youth trauma and opportunities (where Jessica has been helping us do great research work--thanks, Jessica!); policing and public safety; mental health and addiction; and jobs. Our police team has been doing great accountability work with the new commissioner, and they will lead us in a workshop on moving from 'problem to issue' and political judgment. We'll then break into our issue teams to apply what we've learned. **No worries if you did not make it to our first of these trainings in January; you are welcome to jump in now!"
Family Dinner at Memorial
Hi Memorial Families,
I am looking forward to our first family dinner/fellowship next Wednesday PM in the Upper Parish Hall.
As Grey mentioned in his last email, we hope to hold one monthly through out the year and have at least 1 picnic this summer.
In our initial discussion about creating this time, we saw the objective of this time together is to take a breather from our busy week to talk amongst ourselves about opportunities for and challenges to spiritual growth of our families. Of course we will talk more about this next Wednesday, including a discussion for best format and timing for a monthly get together.
Just bring yourself and kids - church will provide dinner, and childcare
Stay Tuned for an Evite so you can RSVP
The View from Bolton St.
Fifty years ago this spring, on March 31, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached what would be his final Sunday sermon, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, at Washington National Cathedral just days before his assassination in Memphis. That Friday, April 5th, thousands came to the Cathedral for a national service to mourn this preacher, prophet and man of faith. People filled the Cathedral; thousands spilled out onto the Pilgrim Steps.
In this 50th year since Dr. King’s death, Washington National Cathedral will host a series of programs reflecting on his leadership and his faith. We take as our guide Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s call for racial healing, justice and reconciliation, embodied in the document Becoming Beloved Community. We have much to do as a community, and as a country, to live into Dr. King’s dream.
For more information, please click here to go to the Washington National Cathedral site.
Memorial Players Presents: Into the Woods
Memorial Players presents six performances of “Into the Woods” April 20, 21, 22, 27, 28 and 29. This beloved musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine uses familiar fairy tales to explore parent-child relationships that, as always, are difficult, scary and loving. Featured here are our old friends Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack, Little Red Riding Hood, plus some new characters such as the Witch, and the Baker and his Wife, that are added to the fairy tale canon. The show explores the consequences of the characters getting everything that they wish for, what happens after they get what they want and face the inevitable consequences, and the ensuing mayhem, chaos, blame, and finally forgiveness.
Casting for this show is diverse, full of intergenerational Memorial teens, children and adults. Nampoina Randrianarivelo is Cinderella, Ruby Webb is Little Red Riding Hood, Brinley Fisher is Rapunzel, Paris Weeks is the Narrator, Sallie Ratrie is Lucinda, one of the stepsisters, Ginny Hornbeck is the Baker’s Wife, Jamie Griffith is double cast as the Wolf and the Steward, Megan Dimmock is the Stepmother, and Sue Gorman is the Giant. A children’s chorus featuring Memorial’s and the neighborhood’s children enriches the production with their lovely voices and beautiful presence on stage. An adult ensemble adds richness to the vocals with Rebecca Gorman, Jill Griffith, Tom Penniston and Debbie Phinney. Last but not least we feature Grey Maggiano as “The Priest.” Look for Kate Gorman, Noah Stone and David Dimmock in the pit.
Our Director, Stephen Deininger, well known to the Memorial Stage as Uncle Archie in “Secret Garden” and Tateh in “Ragtime,” is an actor, a singer and a musician and fun to work with. Our Assistant Director, Stacy Wells, teaches our children their songs, blocks them and rehearses them. John Seeley’s set is creative and imaginative. Beth Ratrie and Ros Kooser’s costumes dazzle. Lighting and sound by Daryl Beard. Ochestra conducted by Tim Viets. Kaite Vaught is our Stage Manager. Julie Modlin will coordinate the concession stand. Kristine Smets worked so hard to get our Bolton Hill neighbors to open their homes for the pre-show receptions. Paul Seaton is the producer.
For details on reserving a spot in those popular pre-show receptions please visit http://memorialplayers.org/reservations/index.html.
As always Memorial Players features open seating, and free admission. Free-will donations will be solicited at the show. Online donations in advance can be made at http://memorialplayers.org. For questions, do email or text the producer Paul Seaton at pseaton@memorialepiscopal.org or 410-615-4532.
Green Team updates
Below you will find all the information you may need for the Inspirational Bus Tour. If you still need to register, you can find that information here.
The OneWaterPartnership Inspirational Bus Tour gets on the road! April 8, 2018.
The rain garden at Chizuk Amuno is designed to filter 2.8 million gallons of run off annually from their 4300 sq. ft. roof.
The Bus Tour ends at what is quite possibly Baltimore's most world-famous landmark - Mr. Trash Wheel. With his googly-eyes and his green mission, Mr. Trash Wheel has been featured in articles and lectures from Singapore to Sweden.
Spirit of Assisi Forum - April 12 8:30am - 1:00 pm at Shrine of St. Anthony, Ellicott City
If you are interested, please contact Dick Williams, who has already reserved a couple of spaces.
The View from Bolton Street
An Invitation to the Triduum
Tomorrow night begins the Triduum, an ancient tradition in the Church that allows us to recreate the last moments of Jesus’ human life, as we join him and the disciples in the Garden, in the upper room, at his arrest, trial, and finally his crucifixion, death, and resurrection.
It may seem odd to come to Church Thursday, Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. You may think it is hard enough to get there one day a week! Or perhaps that ‘we heard the whole story on Palm Sunday - what’s the big deal?’ But let me encourage you to consider making Maundy Thursday, Good Friday or the Easter Vigil part of your Holy Week this year.
Why? Because it is one thing to know the story. Another to read the story. And another entirely to re-enact the story. So please join us as we re-enact these last moments of Jesus. Washing Each other’s feet. Breaking bread. Carrying the cross. And finally staring into that empty tomb, scarcely believing it can be real.
Please Join Us. 7:30 pm on Thursday, Friday or 8:30 pm on Saturday Evening.
A Blessed Holy Week to you all.
March 23 Baltimore Ceasefire -Love and Light
You may have followed the news of the Baltimore Ceasefire efforts that call attention to Violence in the city and called for a successful 12 day ceasefire in January. They gather every time a person is killed at the site where it happened to pray and bring positivity back into the city.
This week a man, George Michael Hill, was killed just a few blocks from Memorial in a place that can often feel miles away from our community but is just around the corner.
If you are able on Friday join us at 7 pm at Laurens and Mculloh to pray for the life of George Hill and for an end to violence in our city.
The View from Bolton Street
One time in college I visited a faith healer.
Not for me, mind you, at least not consciously. I was active in a Bible study, and one of the leaders said there was a faith healer in town and we might want to go and see what it was all about.
I was skeptical, but once I was assured we could leave whenever we wanted, I decided to go. It was an interesting experience. People were friendlier and more normal than I would have thought, and there were snacks, which is always important. And lots of big blown-up pictures of gold teeth (more on that later).
And then the healer came out -- I can’t remember his name – and he did have a certain appeal, acknowledging that most people don’t trust these kinds of things but saying that he was different and that the truth would reveal itself. In truth, not much happened; he identified a few “illnesses” in the crowd, people came forward, he prayed over them, some said they felt healed but none of them (in the three hours we were there anyway) exhibited the “sign” of healing he was known for: teeth with gold crosses on them. I hadn’t thought too much about that moment until this past week when news broke of “Cambridge Analytica” using stolen Facebook data to shift elections.
The strategy this “faith healer” used and that “Cambridge Analytica” used are remarkably similar. You may think that all of the data stolen was used to change people’s minds and trick them into believing things that aren’t true, but it isn’t quite that simple. No matter how much any company or individual knows about you, they can’t make you believe anything you don’t want to.
What some faith healers, or some psychics do is essentially a low-tech phishing exercise. In a room of 300 people, all of whom are predisposed to be healed for something — the healer can say “Someone in this room is in pain!” And a lot of people will say, “Yes, me.” “Someone here has been in pain for a long time!” And a few less.“Someone has a pain in their knee, and pain that won’t let them walk, a pain that makes them feel LESS THAN,” and suddenly a few people are thinking “YES. THAT IS ME. GOD IS TELLING HIM ABOUT ME.”
Cambridge Analytica, or any big data-mining company, succeeds by identifying particular subsets of people and delivering messages specifically to them to which they will be receptive. Essentially they are very good at “building the room” for the faith healer or snake oil salesman to work.
And boy did it work.
But this is not all Facebook’s fault. At some level we as human beings have to be responsible for the information that we consume and our willingness to hear and digest voices we might naturally disagree with. The success of this particular effort was not only in “building a room” of people predisposed to anti-immigrant, pro-racist, anti-government, anti-intellectual attacks — but also to block out any opposing voices by convincing people that “only they” had the truth. “Only I can fix it” was, and is, an oft-repeated line.
The Church is not always innocent in this regard. While there was no Facebook 2000 years ago, many of the gnostic cults succeeded with very similar messaging – “we have a secret truth you need to hear” -- and at some level the structure of many churches puts one figure at the top who “alone can speak to God.” And faith healers and snake oil salesmen have successfully peddled their wares without the use of social media for generations.
What does this mean for us? Quit? Pull back?
How about Speak the Truth in love?
One of my favorite reflections from the vestry retreat was the acknowledgment that we as a community need to be more open to opposing viewpoints. We are too “monochromatic” in race, color, political ideology and economic status. The danger is that we are in effect building our own room and blocking ourselves from differing perspectives and ways of seeing the world, and the Church.
I left that “faith healer” in 2003 feeling very strongly that I never wanted to do that again, and I never wanted to be guilty of the kind of manipulation I had just seen. Now after digesting much of what I’ve read about Cambridge Analytica, I am equally concerned about making sure that we don’t create communities where that kind of abuse andradicalization can take place. I hope you will join me and the vestry as we consider what kind of culture we have here at Memorial, how we make people feel welcome, and how willing we are to hear outside viewpoints and outside voices, to ensure that the only radicalizing force in our life is Jesus.