Dear Friends,
We are on the cusp of endings and beginnings as we feel summer coming to a close (did we get a real summer in Chicago this year!?), school is beginning, and we are turning our thoughts to the beginnings of the program year at All Saints. We like to say at All Saints that we know how to hold sorrow and joy in one hand, and I think we know how to hold endings and beginnings, too. Dichotomy defines our lives as we experience volatile politics and the climate crisis alongside family vacations and celebrations, weddings and funerals. Life is so full, so beautiful, so calamitous. Clint Smith, one of my favorite poets and author of the great book How the Word is Passed, captures this in his poem “All at Once” (see in newsletter below).
How do we live lives wrenched from joy to sorrow, from the daily routine to the surprisingly rare? Well, you know what I’m going to say: community. And, especially, our community of faith at All Saints where we can tell the truth of our lives, live the truth of our lives, together. This fall at All Saints we are inviting our community to “Wade in the Water,” to go deeper in our relationship with God and one another (I happen to think that at All Saints we deepen our relationship with God BY deepening our relationship with one another and our larger community). The image of water is one of refreshment, cleansing, baptism, and, also, even an image that is a little scary or challenging. This year we will again celebrate the Season of Creation, and the theme this year is “Living Water.”
There will be many ways to experience living water at All Saints this fall—by joining a small group (see the announcement and sign up links below), participating in worship focused on creation, renewal, and baptism (our new baptismal font will show up in a new place soon), joining a group on Sunday mornings to learn more about our faith (see next week’s newsletter), by continuing your friendships here, in prayer alone and with others, conversations at coffee hour, and in singing hymns. How might living water be welling up in your life, right now?
See you in church!
Faithfully, Suzanne+