Epistle

From the Rector
Looking Outward During Epiphany

My dear parishioners and friends of St. Paul's,

Let me begin by thanking all of you for so faithfully and devotedly keeping a holy Advent and a most joyous Christmas season. Let me also thank all those who worked so hard both behind the scenes and "on stage," as it were, to enable our Christmas and Epiphany celebrations to be so spectacular. The church looked beautiful, the music was sublime, the attendance good, and God was glorified and the Church has been edified. Thank you all very much.

No sooner is Christmas celebrated than our minds go to the next great feast day after Epiphany, the Feast of Candlemas, and then on to Lent. Candlemas, or the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple, on February 2, has always been a great day here at St. Paul's. A candlelight procession and Mass with the blessing of candles is always one of the more magical liturgies of the year. This year, we will mark the occasion in a very special way. Mark Dwyer, our music director, and his colleagues have prepared for us a glorious musical feast, with a Schubert Mass and orchestra.

Candlemas
This year, Candlemas here at St. Paul's will also be part of the official launch of the Walsingham Appeal in the United States. The chairman of the Walsingham Appeal, the Rt. Rev'd Alan Chesters, the retired Bishop of Blackburn, in England, and Fr. Philip North, the priest administrator of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, will be making a visit to the United States at the end of January and the beginning of February to mark this launch.

Fr. North will have preaching and speaking engagements on the West Coast and then in New York before coming down to Washington right after Candlemas. Bishop Chesters will go to the Midwest, beginning his visit at the first Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United States at my former parish, Our Lady of Grace, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He will then visit St. Thomas in New York and will be with us as the preacher for the Procession and Solemn Mass on Thursday, February 2. He will then go on to St. Clement's Church in Philadelphia.

The celebrant of our Mass on Candlemas will be the Rt. Rev'd Keith Ackerman, the Bishop of Quincy. We have had the pleasure of Bishop Ackerman's presence with us here at St. Paul's on a number of occasions. He is here this time in his capacity as being, with me, one of the two U.S. Honorary Guardians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Also present at that Mass will be a number of clergy from around the United States who have generously and graciously agreed to serve with me on a U.S. Walsingham Appeal board to oversee the fundraising activities. I am very grateful to Jenny Brake and our other parish pilgrims to Walsingham and members of our cell of Our Lady of Walsingham, who have agreed to sponsor the reception that will follow that Mass.

Walsingham Appeal
I am sure that Bishop Chesters will be speaking about the appeal. The appeal hopes to raise £3 million to be able to complete Phase II of a major building project at the Shrine. The first phase was the very lovely and successful new refectory on the Shrine grounds. This second phase will include much-needed renovations, will make the grounds more accessible to the handicapped, and enhance the various entrances to the Shrine grounds.

The new building project will also involve the erection of a Visitors Center and a Pilgrims Welcome Center. If you have been to Walsingham, you know how difficult it is to find out on your initial visit where to go and indeed what the whole thing is about. The Visitors Center will be set up to enhance the visits to the Shrine by many people who come for the day, and so we hope that tourists will in fact be turned into pilgrims. The new Pilgrim Welcome Center is also much needed. It will be a point of gathering and welcome for all pilgrimages and will include a suitable reception area as well as a combination of offices. It is for this latter part of the project, the Pilgrim Welcome Center, that I have been asked to try to raise $300,000 in the United States. It seems to me that a nation of people who exercise so beautifully and so generously their own hospitality might enthusiastically provide a warm and smooth welcome for pilgrims to the Shrine.

If any of you have any interest in contributing to the Walsingham Appeal, you will find Appeal leaflets in your bulletins on the Feast of Candlemas as well as at the tract table. Donations may be made by making a pledge over a period of one, two, or three years.

On the day after Candlemas, Friday, February 3, I shall be hosting the first and, I suspect, only meeting of the U.S. appeal board. This will involve those visiting clergy who have been with us the previous evening as well as those who will be traveling to Washington on February 3 following their own celebrations of Candlemas in their own parishes. Fr. Philip North will also be traveling to be with us, and he and Bishop Chesters will be making a presentation to about a dozen clergy who, from that meeting, will go to their own geographical regions to begin the fundraising effort. The membership of the appeal board includes representatives from all the provinces of the Episcopal Church.

Looking forward to a successful campaign for Walsingham, I hope you will also join me in providing a warm welcome to our many visitors for the Feast of Candlemas and that they will see St. Paul's at its very best on this wonderful feast.

Altar Guild
There will be a meeting of our parish Altar Guild on Saturday, February 4, following the 9:30 AM Mass. At that time, Dorothy Spaulding will be tendering her resignation as the directress of the Altar Guild after a number of years of faithful service in that position. The Altar Guild really are in some ways our unsung heroines in the parish. Their careful and prayerful work of preparation and tidying up after every liturgy in this parish is indispensable work. I have always said that the work of the Altar Guild is really reflected through the whole liturgy, which I hope reflects in turn a right sense of dedication and care and prayer.

I am delighted that Lynne Walker has accepted my invitation to succeed Dorothy Spaulding as the directress and that Catherine Dirks has also agreed to be the deputy directress. As you may know, Catherine lives just around the corner from the church on 25th Street, and she will be able to cover in the event of bad weather, which might be a difficulty for Lynne Walker in making her trek in from the Deep South! I know I speak for all of you when I offer my thanks to Dorothy Spaulding, Lynne Walker, and Catherine Dirks and all the members of our first-rate and dedicated Altar Guild.

Honduras
Elsewhere in the Epistle you will be reading of Jo Stelzig's plans to go to Honduras to teach at one of the schools in our companion Diocese there. We shall be commissioning Jo for her work at the 9 AM Sung Mass on Sunday, February 5, and I know you will want to be there to support her. Jo is giving a great and important gift of herself to the Diocese of Honduras, and it will provide us with an onsite representative, as it were, from the parish to that Diocese.

In the summer there will be another Diocesan trip, I understand, to visit Honduras, where Jo and Geoff Suiter and John Presley and Tina Mallett have already done some stellar work on our parish project there, the building of a medical clinic in Protecci¢n. The rest of the clinic will be finished before the summer, and I am certainly hoping to be able to go to Honduras, perhaps in the late summer, to attend the dedication of that building. It would be wonderful if others would accompany me on that trip! More about this soon!

And other matters
Our planned giving work is already underway, as I hope you are aware. The weekend of February 11 and 12 will provide more opportunities for us to learn about how we can make effective gifts to St. Paul's through the proper management of our estates. I am very grateful to David Lewis and Larry Toombs and the other members of the Planned Giving Awareness Task Force who are spearheading this important work. Please look out for announcements from them.

I will be away in the second half of February. I shall be taking my post-Christmas week as of Monday, February 13, when I shall be going to England and, among other things, visiting my mother. Come Monday, February 20, I shall be leading the annual pre-Lent retreat for priests at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. I will certainly be grateful for your prayers for that, and indeed during that week. I shall be back in the parish on Monday, February 27.

Lenten plans
While Lent doesn't officially begin until next month, March, it seems that this Epistle is a good opportunity to alert you to our Lenten plans and observations.

The first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, will be Wednesday, March 1. We will follow the usual schedule, namely Low Masses with Imposition of Ashes at 7 AM and noon and then Solemn Liturgy of the Day at 6:30 PM. Our Wednesdays in Lent programs begin on Wednesday, March 8, with Mass at 6 PM, followed by a potluck supper and then by our program. On page 9, you will find the article by Linda Wilkinson about the first of our Awareness Courses from the Trinity Institute for Christianity and Culture that we will be using for our Lenten Study.

Also in this Epistle, Fr. Humphrey writes about our Fridays in Lent program designed for young families and others for whom a Friday evening is perhaps more manageable than a midweek school night. This was a very successful experiment on Friday evenings last Lent.

Fr. Humphrey will be leading a Lenten Quiet Day from 9:15 AM to 2:30 PM on Saturday, March 11. The rector's forum on Sundays in Lent from 10:30 to 11 AM will be studying Canon Martin Warner's Lent book, Known to the Senses.

The point of Epiphany
Last, but not least, let me remind you that the purpose of the Church during Epiphany time is always outside of itself. The season begins with the Feast of Epiphany, the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, when we celebrate the universality of the message of God in Jesus Christ. Thus we are reminded of and empowered for our own mission and ministry to the world. So I commend to your prayer, attention, and action our various outreach programs at home and abroad as well as our ongoing work of evangelization in which each one of us plays a crucial and vital part.

As always, this comes with my gratitude and my love,
Andrew Sloane+

Farewell from Jo Stelzig

As many of you already know, my work with the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras has totally taken over my life: I have been working with the Diocese of Washington's Honduras Committee off and on since Hurricane Mitch devastated the country in the late 1990s, and I helped to organize St. Paul's efforts to send aid to the victims.

Since then, I have traveled to Honduras three times, most recently during summer 2005, when four of us from St. Paul's (Tina Mallett, John Presley, Geoff Suiter, and I) spent a week helping the parishioners of Santa Luc¡a in the village of Protecci¢n in the Department of Santa Barbara, Honduras, to get started in building the new health clinic that we are helping to fund. (Incidentally, Fr. Sloane plans to travel to Honduras for the first time for the dedication of this clinic, hopefully sometime within the next year; details on that will follow as the construction of the clinic nears completion.)

In October 2004, during a visit to Washington, Bishop Lloyd Allen of Honduras was accompanied by about ten teachers from the six Episcopal bilingual schools in Honduras. At that time, at a reception held for the Honduran visitors, a plea was extended for Americans to teach at these schools. It turns out that calling these schools "bilingual" is actually a misnomer because all of the classes, from kindergarten through eleventh grade (except Spanish grammar) are taught in English, and having Americans assist in teaching improves the quality of the teaching provided.

Well, I have been telling Bishop Allen ever since that date that I would be perfect for this assignment, and it has taken me a little over a year since then to get myself organized, but I will travel back to Honduras on February 8 to begin this new adventure. I will probably be assisting all of the grade school children with their English pronunciation, spelling, and composition during the rest of this school year (February through June). I have also committed to teaching there during the next school year, September 2006 - June 2007, and may have a different assignment at that time, but will be teaching English.

During our August 2005 trip to Honduras, Tina, John, Geoff, and I visited the school in Tela, and we all agreed that it would be a great place for me to return to teach. The town of Tela is on the north coast of Honduras, directly on the Caribbean. That -- and the fact that I'm tired of winter -- does not detract from my accepting this assignment. The school and the church located with it are named Espíritu Santo (Holy Spirit).

It is with very mixed emotions that I say farewell, as I will miss all of my friends here, but even more I will very much miss our incredible opportunities at St. Paul's for sacramental life. I know already that I will definitely miss our two full-time clergy with two Masses a day during the week and three on Sunday, as well as the full round of additional services and the wonderful weekly Evensong and Benediction. In Tela, there will probably be only one or two celebrations of the Holy Eucharist on Sundays. The good news for me is that, as the school will be closed for a week at Easter, I have already booked my return home for Holy Week and Easter at St. Paul's, and I'm sure I will appreciate all of the services, especially (as Fr. Sloane has pounded into our heads) the one service of the Triduum from Maundy Thursday through the Great Vigil of Easter.

Stay tuned, as I will be sending updates as I settle in and get to work at Tela. Please keep me in your prayers as I depart on this new adventure. I will be commissioned for this work during the 9:00 AM Mass on Sunday, February 5, and your support at that time will also be very much appreciated. My new e-mail address where you can correspond with me is jastelzig@yahoo.com. [JS]

Lenten Quiet Day

Fr. Humphrey is in the midst of planning a Lenten Quiet Day for March 11. Look for further details in the parish notices and the March Epistle.

Friday Nights in Lent

Beginning on March 3, Fr. Humphrey will be leading a family-oriented Lenten series every Friday night from 7:00 to 8:30 PM using The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as its basis. You've read the book, you've seen the movie: Now come find out how this children's classic by C.S. Lewis can help families prepare for Easter as we journey together through Narnia during Lent. And while this series is designed with families in mind, if you're not a parent or youngster, you're more than welcome to come join in the fun and learning.

Fr. Humphrey is also looking for volunteers who can contribute their artistic talents to making the story come alive, as well as parents and other adults who have experience in organizing potlucks and the like. The weekly program will follow Mass and Stations of the Cross in the church, beginning in the dining hall with a potluck supper and continuing with an hour of presentation and intergenerational activities. If interested, please see Fr. Humphrey or e-mail him at Humphrey@StPauls-KSt.com. [NJAH+]

December Vestry Meeting Notes

In December, Kenwin Benn's resignation from the Vestry was accepted by the rector. At the December Vestry meeting, the wardens nominated Brian Hoyle to serve as Kenwin's replacement until the next annual meeting of the parish. Brian was unanimously elected by the Vestry.

The Vestry also passed a balanced budget at its December meeting. However, the rising cost of utilities raised concern about whether utility costs will stay within the budgeted amounts. (To save on heating costs, the thermostat will be turned down in parish buildings.) [AMN]

St. Paul's 2007 Walsingham Pilgrimage Planned

Dear past, present, and future Walsingham pilgrims!

Mark your calendars now for the 2007 St. Paul's Pilgrimage to Walsingham, including visits to Normandy, France, and Canterbury and London, England, and please review the itinerary below. The Pilgrimage is planned for April 16 through April 30, 2007 (13 nights).

This itinerary is proposed and is subject to change, especially the number of days at each destination.

4 nights in Normandy, France (may change to 5 nights)
3 nights in Canterbury
2 nights in London
3 or 4 nights in Walsingham

In early 2006, a detailed itinerary will be forthcoming. The cost of the Pilgrimage will be published in February or March, upon receipt of air travel, hotel, and ground-related costs. [DE]

The First Christian

There was such a positive response to my Advent sermon on Mary that I was encouraged by the rector to have it published in the Epistle. So here it is. I hope that these reflections on Mary will inspire a large turnout on Candlemas, February 2, a great feast of Our Lady as well as of Our Lord, and not coincidentally the kickoff of the Walsingham Appeal, about which you will be hearing much, I am sure, from our rector, who just happens to be the Chairman of the U.S. fundraising apparatus. Do Our Lady and her Shrine deserve anything less than your fullest support? I think not. She is, after all, the first Christian. Nathan Humphrey+

We have just heard the story of the Annunciation, that famous passage that recounts the angel Gabriel's visit to Mary, the announcement that she was the chosen one. I have always liked this tale, but up until a few years ago, it never really meant much to me personally. To me, it was merely a good story, a story that plays a dramatic role in setting the stage for the birth narrative later on in St. Luke's Gospel, but not much more. To me, the Annunciation was prologue, the background we needed to know before the real story actually began.

But then several years ago, I can't remember exactly when, I heard someone call Mary "the first Christian." I believe it was on a monastic retreat, and I recall the speaker telling us that Mary was the first human being to accept Christ, in a very tangible way. The speaker told us we are all called to be "little Marys," people who accept Christ in the same way that Mary did.

This morning, I'd like to explore how Mary became "the first Christian," and how it is that she can be for us not simply a distant model or ideal, but rather a real human being who, in making herself vulnerable to God's presence in the most intimate way imaginable, invites us to join her in making room for the inbreaking of Christ's real presence in our own lives.

What must it have been like for Mary to carry Christ inside of her? What might it mean for us to carry Christ within us? Reflecting on this question for myself, the closest parallel I could come up with comes from my early childhood. I grew up around people who said that they had accepted Jesus into their hearts, and, when I made my first profession of faith, at age five, I was taught to pray, "Lord Jesus, come into my heart." I was told that my heart had a little door and that I was the doorkeeper. Borrowing language from St. John's Gospel, my teachers told me that Jesus was standing at the door and knocking, banging on it, pounding on my heart, entreating me to let him in, to accept him as my "personal Lord and Savior." It was a powerful image, for as I placed my hand on my chest, it was as if with every beat of my heart, Jesus was pounding away, beating, beating, beating upon that little door of my heart, calling insistently to me to open up and let him in.

That image still holds sway over me. But in relating to the Blessed Virgin Mary, I need not just a different image, but a stronger one. And of course, the big difference between Mary and me is that, plainly put, I'm a guy. Thus, I have found that I need to turn to the stories of women in order to experience vicariously what I can never experience for myself: the state of pregnancy.

I am indebted to two women in particular for giving me some insight on this most intimate of topics -- and I'm not talking about my mother, nor am I talking about my wife! (At least, I'm not aware of any personal annunciations.) The two women who gave me insight were both contributors to an essay collection I edited a few years ago, entitled Gathering The NeXt Generation. Two brief passages from that book shed light on this mystery for me. The first comes from an essay by Kate Moorehead, who writes of how her hearing of the Passion Narrative in Holy Week was profoundly affected by the fact that she was pregnant with her first child at the time. She writes:

I sat through Good Friday and could not help but wonder how Mary survived seeing her child murdered. That child had come out of her. Didn't she sometimes recall how he had moved deep within her? How his personality and his tranquility were known to her even then? How did she do it? I sat in silence for three hours on Good Friday, feeling my child move inside my belly. Although I couldn't kneel that day, my heart knelt as it had never knelt before.
If we felt Christ move within us in the same way that Mary felt him move within her, I doubt that any of us could remain standing for long.

While Kate Moorehead's reflections during that Good Friday liturgy focus on the Sorrowful Mysteries, our second essayist, Margaret Schwarzer, focuses on the Joyful Mystery of the Annunciation itself. She wrote this tantalizing tidbit in her essay "Youth's Authority: A Spiritual Revolution":

[Mary] does not call herself to the awesome task of becoming Christ's mother, but neither will she shrink from that call. She is both thoughtful and open to God's possibilities: "How shall this be?" she asks. As she ponders, the future shape of the entire cosmos is suspended, and the universe waits upon the answer of a girl.

What a simple yet awesome power women have, to hold new life within their very bodies. In Mary's case, her answer didn't just affect her future, which is what I would have expected Mary to focus on, but her answer has shaped the entire course of history. She is aware of the significance of her choice. "As she ponders, the future shape of the entire cosmos is suspended, and the universe waits upon the answer of a girl." Talk about "girl power!"

Mary's response was simple, straightforward, and is the reason why each of us is here this morning, over 2,000 years later: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." Simply and without regard to herself, she accepted. Without that "yes," none of us would be Christians. Truly, Mary is the first Christian.

The Eastern Orthodox refer to Mary as the "Theotokos," Greek for "God-bearer." This term caused quite a stir in the first centuries: Wasn't it saying a bit much to proclaim that Mary was pregnant with God Almighty? It took an Ecumenical Council to affirm that since Jesus was fully divine as well as fully human, it was perfectly reasonable to refer to Mary as "Theotokos." In bearing Jesus in her womb, Mary carried God within her, and in so doing showed herself to be a true servant of God.

We, too, can be God-bearers -- bearing God within ourselves and bearing God to a hurting world: a world of suffering, grief, and barrenness. And like Mary, we must ask, "How shall this be?" How exactly do we bear God within ourselves and bear God to a hurting world? When the task seems too big, the problems too complex, we must remember how the Archangel Gabriel answered Mary's perfectly logical objection: "With God nothing will be impossible."

When we doubt that God can work through us to accomplish the impossible, whether it's a global problem, like relieving world hunger, or a local but equally convoluted problem, like reconciling with an estranged family member or friend over the holidays, we can hang on to Mary's response to Gabriel: "Here I am, the servant of the Lord."

Whether the problem is great or small, close to home or far away, we need to remember, with Mary, that we are first of all the servants of the Lord. Only then can we begin to open ourselves up to God's impossible possibilities in the world around us. Only when we offer ourselves wholly, body and soul, as God's servants, will this all-too-barren world bring forth new life.

But what does this "opening up" of ourselves entail? In this morning's epistle, St. Paul gives us a clue when he mentions that "the preaching of Jesus Christ" brings about "the obedience of faith." It is this same obedience of faith that Mary demonstrates in her acceptance of the Incarnate Word.

"Obedience" is not a very popular word. The last time I heard it used, I think it was in reference to the training of dogs. In canine obedience school, dogs learn to listen to their masters and to respond instantly to their masters' command. Similarly, in the obedience school of the Church, we learn to listen to our Master and to respond without delay. The big difference is that since we have been made in the image of God, God expects us to reflect on what it is we're hearing and to choose to respond as faithful servants, eager to do God's will -- just as Mary did when she questioned the angel Gabriel. It wasn't that Mary was stalling for time. Rather, she was using her God-given capacity for listening and responding not only with her ears, but with her heart.

In fact, the word that Paul uses for "obedience" comes from the Greek verb for "to hear." Gerhard Kittel, the editor of the ten-volume Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, sums up Paul's meaning in his inimitable Germanic way: The Greek words translated as "to obey" and "obedience," "as terms for religious activity are always to be thought of within the sphere of a religion which receives the divine Word by hearing and then translates it into action." In Mary's case, once her "How shall this be?" is answered and understood as God's power being made present in her life, she responds with, "Let it be to me according to your word."

She takes action, receiving the Word not only by hearing it, but by nurturing the Word with her whole self, body and soul. The Word becomes joined to her very flesh and grows, "until the days were accomplished." From the Annunciation on, we will see Mary listening to that Word, made incarnate in Jesus' person, teaching, and actions. And Mary, the first Christian, will follow him all the way to the foot of the cross.

We, too, can emulate Mary in her obedient listening for the Word of God made flesh in Christ Jesus. In Advent, we can, like Mary, be pregnant with the Word of God, as we prepare to bring forth that Word in service to the world around us.

But is the metaphor enough? While I've never particularly wanted to experience for myself what it's like to be pregnant, in the end, I do envy Mary that physical closeness. And while I've felt spiritually close to Christ from time to time, I always yearn for something more tangible, more physical. But where is that closeness to be found?

One day, years ago, as I reflected on where I might find this yearning fulfilled, I suddenly was reminded of the simple yet profound fact that the one who sprang from Mary's flesh in turn gave his flesh to us: In the Mass, we receive physically the mysterious and very real presence of Christ. In turn, we become the Body of Christ, given to the world in service to the Lord. For me, the Mass has become the source of encountering physically that closeness to Jesus that Mary herself knew. For when we encounter Christ at the altar, we become better equipped to encounter Christ in each other -- not merely metaphorically, nor even metaphysically, but truly physically. By looking and listening for Christ in friend and stranger, we emulate Mary's openness to God's presence in the here-and-now.

At the end of the Great Thanksgiving, the priest holds aloft the Body and Blood and proclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God: Behold him that taketh away the sins of the world." The fifth century bishop, St. Augustine of Hippo, would proclaim at that point in the liturgy: "Behold what you are. Become what you behold."

Behold what you are. Become what you behold. Mary gave her body to Christ and in turn became a part of Christ's Body. As we behold Mary, the first Christian, may we also see in her what we ourselves are called to become: God-bearers to a barren world, a world desperately in need of the new life that comes in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord. [NJAH+]

TICC Awareness Course Offered During Lent

In January, a group of parishioners, including Ann Korky, Peter Laugesen, Ed Loucks, Linda Wilkinson, and Fr. Sloane, participated in a conference to train leaders for the North American pilot of the Trinity Institute for Christianity and Culture (TICC) Awareness Courses. Participants from various parts of the United States and Canada attended three days of intense training at Grace Church, Charleston, South Carolina, with a goal of returning to their home parishes to present the courses to a wider audience.

The aim of the Awareness course is to promote an understanding of what it means to hold fast to the Christian faith in a pluralistic society, while appreciating and respecting other world religions. While it is neither an inter-faith course nor an academic one, the Awareness course assists people to live their Christian faith without feeling threatened or having to compromise their beliefs. Strengthened in their own faith, they are then secure to study other faiths and develop the courage to face difference and diversity with an open mind.

On Wednesday evenings in Lent (March 8 through April 5), we are excited to present the first module of the Awareness Course -- Living as a Christian in a Diverse World: Challenges and Opportunities. This foundational module offers a world view for the third millennium, taking into consideration the resurgence of religions and contemporary conflicts. Globalization is here to stay -- the question that faces Christians is: How do we live in a global village and still take our faith seriously and work on our spiritual journey, rooted in the person of Christ?

Topics covered include:

Conflict of Cultures in the Third Millennium
How should Christians respond to the challenges and opportunities of living in a culturally and religiously diverse society?

Living in a Global Village
The relationship between globalization and the hardening of religious and cultural identities.

The Resurgence of Religion
The various factors which have led to the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East -- in order to understand better the situations in which Christians communities find themselves today.

Tolerance, dialogue, or embracing diversity
The need to make space for difference and diversity in our plural society and how tolerance alone is inadequate to the task. The role of Christian education in equipping people to live peaceably in a world of cultural and religious diversity.

Fear, Faith, and Change
How the affirmation that the Christian revelation is embodied in a person affects the way we read and interpret the Bible. How we can avoid the extremes of hard-line fundamentalism and liberal compromise by understanding faith as a process.

The Culture of God and the Cultures of the World
Understanding better how the relationships within the Trinity model for us the divine culture of self-giving love. How the culture of the Trinity challenges contemporary culture and indicates how it can be transformed into a hospitable space for all to meet.

Citizens of Two Kingdoms
Considering how Christians can engage with society and begin to transform it. Christians need to be secure in their personal knowledge of God to share space with others in a multicultural society.

The next two modules will be presented later in the year.

One God -- Three Faiths: Common Ground and Divergence is concerned with exploring the three Abrahamic faiths from a Christian perspective, looking at the similarities, the differences, and the challenges we face together. Christianity has a unique perspective on God that does not exist in Islam and Judaism, and it is very important for us as Christians, if we want to understand the other faiths and live together and respect each other's beliefs, to know where we stand at the basic idea of the One God that all three faiths share. Topics include: The Origin of Religion; An Introduction to Mythology; The Concept of God in Three Monotheistic Faiths; The Hebrew Bible in its Cultural Context; Islam in Its Cultural and Religious Context; Jesus and the Gospels in Their Cultural Context; and the Challenge of the Incarnation.

A Global Gospel for a Diverse World: St. Luke the Universal Evangelist studies the writings of the only Gentile writer of the New Testament -- Doctor Luke. The module is important because it addresses the fundamental issue of claiming the Gospel in a multicultural, multi-faith society in early Christianity because Luke wrote to the Gentiles, and he wrote to a diverse society, a fact that can resonate a great deal with our situation in the third millennium. Topics include: Introducing Luke and His Writings; God's Plan to Save the World; Jesus' Manifesto; Case Studies: the Good Samaritan; Breaking Through Frontiers: From Jerusalem to Rome; Breaking Through Frontiers: National, Cultural, and Religious; The Church Today: Crossing Frontiers.

TICC has its roots in Anglicanism, but its committees and boards include members of the Roman Catholic, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational, and Armenian Protestant Churches, as well as the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

The head office is in London, England, and TICC's international consultants, who are supporters and advocates both in the clergy and the laity, come from North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. There are offices in Aleppo, Syria, and Washington, D.C. [LW]

Planned Giving Fair Coming to St. Paul's

"'Render unto God,' not a tenth, not a third, not half, but all that is God's, be it more or less; by employing all on yourself, your household, the household of faith, and all mankind, in such a manner, that you may give a good account of your stewardship when ye can be no longer stewards; ... and that every act may be rewarded in that day when the Lord cometh with all his saints." -- John Wesley, Sermon No. 50, The Use of Money

Wesley reminds us that we have a Christian duty to be good stewards of what the Lord has given us. Part of that good stewardship should include planning for the disposition of your property upon death, to ensure that your loved ones are provided for and that worthy causes -- including the Church -- receive your support.

In addition, there are a number of options that let you optimize both cash flow and contributions to the Church while you are still alive. These options are generally referred to as inter vivos gifts and include charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts (or living trusts), charitable gift annuities (which can be used to help alleviate the tax consequences of required distributions from IRAs and 401(k) plans), and donor advised funds.

To help you with your estate and/or philanthropic planning, St. Paul's is holding a planned giving fair on Saturday, February 11, in the dining hall, beginning at approximately 10:00 AM (after Mass) and concluding at approximately 1:00 PM. Coffee and breakfast fare will be provided. The fair will feature a presentation by William G. Nolan, an attorney and the regional gift planning manager for the Southeast Region for the Episcopal Church Foundation, who will discuss the various planned giving options, followed by shorter presentations from a certified financial planner and attorneys licensed to practice in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. There will also be an opportunity for parishioners to ask questions of these speakers.

Why bother?
The majority of people die intestate -- that is, without a will. Most of us want to avoid thinking about our deaths, and, besides, it seems like a lot of trouble (and money) to go to a lawyer to draft a will. But if you do nothing else to take care of your legal affairs, you should write a will or draft a plan to otherwise dispose of your property.

Failure to plan can lead to a lot of delay, uncertainty, added costs, and emotional turmoil for your family after your death. Your affairs will be left in the hands of lawyers, administrators, appraisers, and bonding companies.

On the other hand, effective estate planning can help you avoid probate, as well as cut or eliminate taxes, protect your assets, protect your privacy, ensure speedy distribution of your assets, and even protect the survival of your family business. Plus, you will get to name who administers your estate.

If you die without a will and without having disposed of your property through non-probate transfers, your state's law of descent and distribution will determine who gets your property. Under your state's intestacy scheme, your property may not go where you would have wanted it to go, and a judge will decide who raises your children.

Starting your estate plan doesn't have to be difficult. You will need to list your assets -- what you own that will need to be disposed of at death. You will need to decide who you want to leave your property to -- children, other family, friends, the Church, charities, etc. And you will have to decide how you want to transfer your property -- by bequest, in a trust, or through insurance and other payable-on-death contracts. You will probably then want to consult with an attorney, financial planner, and/or a tax adviser. You can meet some of these at the planned giving fair on February 11.

Wills and avoiding probate
If you are young and your estate is under the estate-tax threshold (currently $2 million), you can probably get by with a simple will.

If you expect to owe estate tax, you probably want more than a basic will. This is also true if you want to control what happens to your property after your death, if you have a child with special needs that you wish to address in your estate plan, if you have children from a prior marriage and you wish to avoid conflict between them and your current spouse, or if you expect someone to contest your will.

One disadvantage of having a will is that upon your death, your will must go through probate -- that is, your estate must be administered by a probate court (sometimes called a surrogate's court or even orphans' court). This probate administration legally transfers your property according to the terms of your will. The probate process can be very time-consuming; large estates can take years to go through probate. In the meantime, the estate's assets may be frozen. And probate costs money, diminishing the size of the estate when it is finally distributed.

For this reason, many estate plans aim to pass most or all of the decedent's assets outside of the will and therefore outside of the probate process. Some common means of effecting non-probate transfers include living trusts, life insurance, joint tenancies, and contracts with payable-on-death provisions.

With a living trust, you transfer your property into the trust, administer it as trustee, and then upon your death your property is distributed according to your wishes by your successor trustee. The probate court does not get involved and the distribution is therefore faster (and cheaper) than under a will.

The designated beneficiaries of a life insurance contract also take the proceeds outside of the probate process. There are also no estate tax or income tax consequences.

When property is held in a joint tenancy with right of survivorship, when one party dies, his ownership interest in the property disappears and the surviving tenant automatically assumes full ownership of the property.

And under various types of contracts with payable-on-death provisions, the beneficiaries take the proceeds outside the probate process. Such contracts include pension plans and IRAs.

Taxes
A final estate planning consideration is federal estate taxes and state inheritance taxes. A federal estate tax is levied on estates that are larger than $2 million (in 2006). The maximum estate tax rate is 46 percent of the amount over the threshold. The estate tax is scheduled to be eliminated in 2010 -- but then it will be resurrected in 2011, and back at its 2001 levels (with a $675,000 threshold and a maximum rate of 55 percent). Commentators expect that Congress will not allow the estate tax to come back in 2011, but so far attempts to make the repeal permanent have failed.

This brief synopsis of your estate planning options really only scratches the surface. Come to the St. Paul's planned giving fair on February 11 to learn more and to start your estate planning process. [AMN]

February 24, Saint Matthias the Apostle

"Matthias" in Hebrew is as much to say as "given to our Lord," or "a gift of our Lord," or else "humble" or "little." For he was given of our Lord when he was chosen from the world, and was set and entered among the seventy-two disciples, he was also given of our Lord when he was chosen by lot and numbered among the apostles. He was little for he had all very meekness in him and humility.
-- The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints, compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275, trans. by William Caxton, 1483

February Birthdays

5 Anne Kirlin; Timothy Martin; Alexander Malson
6 William Moschella; Andrea Benn
7 Maryan Darmstadter; Rachel Dickey
8 Richard Burke; Pattie Kindsvater
9 Fr. Perrin Radley; Elizabeth Freeland; Cynthia Efird
10 Catherine Jones
11 David Taylor; LisaAnne Fischer
13 Brooke Reasoner; Kate Kirlin
14 William Burns
15 Rebecca Wood
16 Martha Last; Esme Pierzchala
17 Corey Wronski; Frank Darden
19 Diane Dean
20 C.B. Wooldridge; Sybil Boggis; Marcia Berrien
21 Martha Evans
22 Matthew Leddicotte; Peter Schlatter; Stasia Schlatter
24 Jenny Brake; Cindy Nadeau; Oghene-Bruru Ajueyitsi
26 Kathleen Cameron; Ruth Brill
27 Sharon Watkins

If you have a February birthday that was not included, or if there are any mistakes, please contact the parish office. [MW]

Parish Statistics

Transfer In: Dorothy Etherridge from Church of the Redeemer, Sarasota, Florida

Transfer Out: Carol Mullarkey and Erin Mullarkey to Church of the Holy Comforter, Vienna, Virginia

Marriage: Phillip Merrill and Gay Hanna (December 31, 2005)

Baptisms: Noah Andrew Wallner; Jullian Antonette Wallner; Katie Victoria Wallner (January 8, 2006)

Burials: Frederic Blair Roehner (December 10, 2005); Robert M. McAllister (December 19, 2005)

Feast Days in February

The Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple: Candlemas
Thursday, February 2
6:45 AM Morning Prayer
7:00 AM Low Mass
5:30 PM Devotions at the Walsingham Shrine
6:15 PM Evening Prayer
6:30 PM Blessing of Candles, Procession, and Solemn Pontifical Mass
The Rt. Rev'd Alan Chesters, preacher
The Rt. Rev'd Keith Ackerman, celebrant

St. Matthias the Apostle
Friday, February 24
6:45 AM Morning Prayer
5:30 PM Devotions at the Walsingham Shrine
6:15 PM Evening Prayer
7:00 AM Low Mass
6:00 PM Low Mass

Ash Wednesday
Wednesday, March 1
6:45 AM Morning Prayer
7:00 AM Low Mass with imposition of ashes
Noon Low Mass with imposition of ashes
5:30 PM Devotions at the Walsingham Shrine
6:15 PM Evening Prayer
6:30 PM Solemn Liturgy of the Day with imposition of ashes

Mission Calendar
Hunger/Homeless
Grate Patrol every weekend
Preparation Friday afternoons 3-5 PM
Delivery Saturday and Sunday mornings

Salvation Army dinner preparation
First Friday of each month, 5-7 PM

The Epistle
A monthly publication of St. Paul's Parish
K Street -- Washington, D.C.

Editor Alistair Nevius
Assistant Editor Allison Freeman
Desktop Publisher John Walker
Designer David McGaw
Contributors David Eld, Nathan Humphrey+, Andrew Sloane+, Jo Stelzig, Linda Wilkinson, Melva Willis

Submissions Invited
We welcome the submission of articles, comments, and suggestions. Manuscripts and correspondence can be dropped off at the church office or e-mailed to the editors at nevius@erols.com. Electronic manuscripts are preferred. Articles accepted for the Epistle are subject to editorial revision.

SAINT PAUL'S PARISH
Washington, DC 20037-1797
phone 202-337-2020
fax 202-337-7418
e-mail info@StPauls-Kst.com
Web www.StPauls-Kst.com

Parish Staff
The Rev'd Andrew Sloane, Rector
The Rev'd Nathan Humphrey, Curate
Mark Dwyer, Music Director
Scott Dettra, Assistant Music Director
Melva Willis, Parish Administrator
Frederick Murdock, III, Maintenance Manager

The Vestry
The Rev'd Andrew Sloane, Rector
David B. J. Chase, Senior Warden
Philip Schlatter, Junior Warden
Chip Heath, Secretary
Polly Peckham, Treasurer
Jeremiah de Michaelis, Debra Loucks; Rhoda Geasland, Brian Hoyle, Matthew S. Leddicote, Lynne V. Walker; Alistair Nevius, Geoffrey Peckham, David Schnorrenberg, Linda Wilkinson

Our Mission
St. Paul's Parish seeks to restore all people to God and to each other, through Sacramental Worship and Christlike lives.

Deadline for next issue
Monday, February 6