Notes for the Week Third Week after the Epiphany January 26 2020

Dear friends,

Throughout all of nature, one is compelled to call things order, or make order out of chaos, or create chaos, or to keep things the way they’ve always been, or to change them just for the heck of it.

Here the Great Blue Heron, obviously in charge, is quite possibly pontificating about correct use of the Columbia Slough flying rites and the rights of geese, or what to do about dogs and people and the tides.  Of course, they might not be in a business meeting, they might be in church.  The Great Blue looks as if he has a prayer or two tucked up in his wings.  Regardless, it is clear there is much business to be discussed, whether bird or human, whether regarding one’s habitat or one’s church, or both.

Everyone needs representation.  Even geese and Great Blue Herons.  That’s probably why everyone showed up for the bird meeting, including the fellow on the end of the log, who even though he might well be at the wrong meeting.  It looks as though someone has taken a stand to speak, perhaps because he is running for office or he’s volunteering as a delegate to the Great Goose Convention coming up at Lake Heron come Spring.  After all, you get out of everything, whatever you put into it. Thank goodness someone has taken some leadership.

And now it’s our turn.

This Sunday, following our coming together in community for Holy Eucharist, we will come together in community to discuss the business of St. Aidan’s at our Annual Meeting.  We will look back at what we have accomplished during the last twelve months and we’ll look forward, as we consider what it is we are to be about in the year to come.  Many people hold some dread about annual meetings of any kind, thinking that it will be a confrontive or adversarial experience.  Not so.

While the Annual Meeting of St. Aidan’s offers us the opportunity to take an honest look at where we are and how we are faring, it is also our opportunity to celebrate the same.  I look forward to spending this time with you, hearing your thoughts, sharing our progress and our continuing vision.  We will elect new leadership to the Vestry, and Delegates to convention.  These are the people who will stand up to represent us all by assisting in making decisions for us in the coming months and who will represent us amid the greater body of the Church.

Some come to listen, come to speak, come to stand and be heard, and celebrate the ones who dare to take a lead.  There is room for all this and more.  Even if you think you could the odd duck out on the end of the log, you still belong!

We journey together,
Mother Esme+

“And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another,
and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)