Recently Baptized

We have had two recent baptisms:

• Jeff Fuller (husband of Erin and father of Casey and Tyler)
• Jessica Briggs

Celebrate!

Free Concert

Kechi Okwuchi — You may remember her from the 2017 season of "America's Got Talent" — will be at St. Matthew's Saturday evening, July 7 and Sunday morning July 8 for our Sunday service. Kechi is a young Nigerian woman who sings like the angels.
Saturday, July 7

• 4:00 to 5:00 pm: Kechi will share her story and answer questions.
• 5:30 pm: Light supper will be provided
• 6:30 pm: An evening of testimony and praise

Sunday, July 8

• Kechi will be with us for our regular 10:00 am worship service

Our organist is moving on

Kevin Jacque has been one of our organists for the last ten years. He was still in high school when he began and has played for us through college, veterinary school and now as a professional veterinarian. Kevin and his wife, Ashley, will be moving to Seattle, Washington, in June because Ashley has found a new job there.

Kevin's last Sunday at St. Matthew's will be May 27th. We will miss him greatly as he has been a valuable resource and a good friend.

Wakeman Campground Dedicated

Last Saturday, about 300 of us gathered from around the Diocese for the dedication of the Wakeman campground. It was a beautiful day, and the program was about what you would expect: speeches by leaders, tours of the grounds, games for the kids, and a grand picnic lunch.

Much of the financing for the project came in through the Planting for Tomorrow capital campaign fund. (This was the fund that we used to put on a new roof, paint the building, and buy a new stove. We kept 70% of the money we raised, and 30% of the money went to the Wakeman campground.) As a Diocese, we raised more than our target amount, so we will be able to do this project right, and do it more quickly than we expected.

The property itself is pretty much unchanged from the last time I was there two years ago. It is still a beautiful spot, bounded on three sides by the Vermilion River (quite a contrast with Cedar Hills, which is bounded on one side by an Interstate highway and on the other by a gas station). Most of the work to date is invisible: architectural and engineering studies, codes and permits, demolition of old buildings, and roughing in roads and parking lots. The local people and the town government seem very happy to have us there, so the various permits have been quite easy to obtain.

In a quick summary, here's what we hope for in the new property:

• Camp Cedar Hills never had its own water source and could never be made handicap accessible, so it was always expensive to operate and had limited usefulness. The new location will not have those problems.
• Cedar Hills was north of Youngstown, which put it out of reach for our people in northwest Ohio. This is one reason it was never fully utilized. Wakeman is much more centrally located.
• For those of us in Ashland, the driving distance is about half: 45 minutes to Wakeman versus 90 minutes to Cedar Hills.
• We actually have a bit of farmland in Wakeman, which we will use for sustainable agriculture projects. There has been a lot of interest from outside groups in using our property for their programs too.
• It has been two years since we were able to have a summer camp program at Cedar Hills; we are hoping to have one in Wakeman in July 2017. (The cabins are being pre-built in warehouses over the summer, so they can be put up very quickly next year.)

The place has a name

With a bit of fanfare, Bishop Hollingsworth announced the new name for the property:

Bellwether Farm

Here's his explanation of the term:

Since the Middle Ages, shepherds have singled out one ram in a flock to wear a bell and indicate where the flock is going. The bellwether has come to signify a harbinger or herald of what is to come. In this sense, it is the Church's vocation to be a bellwether of the kingdom of God, and the vocation of every Christian is to be a bellwether of God's mission to heal the world. It is, of course, our common prayer that through this new camp, retreat, and education center, and in each of our lives, we will be the bellwether of Christ's redeeming and reconciling love.

Two more thoughts

1. Of the 300 or so people there, at least 100 were children and teenagers. Their numbers surprised me. A retreat/conference center such as this one is really important to our mission to teach and disciple these kids, and they will (very soon) grow into the adults who sustain our church.
2. It's very easy to forget that there are members of our larger church beyond the walls of our parish and the 40 or so people we see weekly. When I attend such events as Winter Convocation, the Mission Area Council, and the Bishop's Bike ride, they pull me out of myself and remind me of the larger church, and when I show up at such things as the Wakeman BBQ picnic, I always get involved in conversations with distant friends. There's much more to the church than our tiny corner.

Virginia Bemis working toward becoming a Spiritual Director

Virginia Bemis has just completed the first year of a two-year licensing program in spiritual direction at John Carroll University in Cleveland. She will begin her second year in September. After certification, she plans on starting a spiritual direction practice.

Virginia describes spiritual direction as

training to listen to what God is saying in your life. It's growing your prayer life. It's discovering yourself and how you related to God. It's not psychotherapy, and it's not being told what to do. Instead, you start on a journey, along with a guide, to find out more about how you and God speak to each other at this point in your life. This guide is known as a spiritual director and is sometimes described as a personal trainer for your spiritual life.

The first year of the licensing program consisted of theological study, including the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The second year will combine theological study with internship. Virginia will work with directees under the guidance of an experienced supervisor, and will then be eligible for certification.

The University offers the licensing program through its Institute of Ignatian Spirituality.

Organ Dedication

Today the Norma Elizabeth McKinley organ was dedicated with a recital by guest organist David Powers. We had a large crowd that included members of our own parish and a lot of old friends. Most stayed for quite a while at the reception that followed the dedication ceremony.

Mike McKinley, who generously donated the organ in memory of his wife, was unable to attend because of health problems, but the family was represented by his son and daughter-in-law.

The organ is an electronic organ, but if you are imagining something that sounds fake, the recital was quite a surprise. The first thing we heard were chimes. Later in the recital, Powers showed off the clarinet and harpsichord voices. Modern electronic organs get their voices by taking digital samples of musical instruments and storing them, so when the organist calls for a particular sound, it is not a synthetic guess. It is an actual representation of a particular harpsichord. It was all very impressive.

New organ!

Today was the first day for the new digital organ! (Honestly, there was a question whether the old console would make it another month.)

It sounded fine, and even with a few glitches (there are a lot more bells and whistles to manage) we're sure it will be a great addition to the sanctuary. The ordinary observer sitting in the pews cannot see any difference whatsoever, so the difference is all in the hearing. No more odd moments when a key sticks and the note continues to sound. No more times when the organist presses a key and nothing happens at all.

The Organ Committee is planning a proper dedication and recital, with guest organists and a big invitation to the community. (The date will depend on availability of the artists.) We're also looking into ways to use the new organ at other times, perhaps for such things as guest recitals and evening programs.

Taize Field Trip

Last Wednesday, nine of us made the trip to St. Alban's in Cleveland Heights to participate in their Taizé Compline service.

(Full Disclosure Note: We also used this as an excuse to have dinner together at a restaurant which features all sorts of sandwiches and melted cheese creations.)

The Taizé community in France is an ecumenical monastic community which has become known for its simple songs and chants. Here is an example of their singing. (We were fewer than a dozen, and we didn't have musical instruments, so we didn't sound much like the YouTube version here.)

Compline (which is an evening service similar to Vespers or Evening Prayer) is an excellent setting for this sort of meditative music. St. Alban's has enormous windows to look out on the gathering evening, and all of us agreed that the prayer service was really profound.

The point of all this is to learn whether we should incorporate this kind of music at St. Matthew's. Thursday Evening Prayer seems like the place we would see it first.

(OK—here's another advertisement: Singing at Evening Prayer will go a lot better if we have a few more voices. We generally meet every Thursday at 5 p.m. for about half an hour. It's a great way to close out a work day.)

Church Organ News

As Rev. Kay said on Sunday, there is some bad news, some good news and some excellent news about the organ.

The bad news

Kevin Jacques, who plays for the church several times a year, gives the current organ six months to live. An increasing number of notes simply do not work, including one whole stop.

The good news

Our organ committee has listened to several options and has made a decision. The proposed new organ is a digital (electronic) organ that sounds remarkably good and has the endorsement of several of our friends who are organists. We will keep the organ pipes, and it's possible in the future to set up the organ console so the pipes will sound too.

The excellent news

One member of the organ committee, Mike McKinley, has decided to pay the whole cost of the new organ as a memorial to his dear wife Norma. The papers are being signed this week, so a new organ will certainly be in place by summer.

The footnote

When the Capital Campaign was first proposed, organ repair/replacement was part of the plan. We held off on several other needed projects (for example, new floor in the Parish Hall and landscaping) because of the expense of the organ, but now we can use Capital Campaign money for other needed building repairs and improvements.

Catherine Kearns 90th

March 27, Easter Sunday, was Catherine Kearns's 90th birthday. During coffee hour, we had a decorated cake and a card shower, and several family members came from out of town to help her celebrate.

Rev Kay's 25th

Last Sunday was the 25th anniversary of Kay Ashby's ordination to the priesthood. We had a grand celebration, with music, lasagne and a decorated cake. Friends from all over (including the Bishop and a lot of clergy) attended.

We tried to keep the whole thing secret. Kay's husband, Joe Ashby (who is the priest at Grace Episcopal in neighboring Mansfield) organized the whole thing, and the secret almost worked, but at Winter Convocation several people said to her, "I hear the Bishop is visiting you this Sunday." And "I hear you are going to have a grand celebration this weekend." So the cat was out of the bag. For her part, Rev. Kay did a great job of feigning cluelessness all morning on Sunday, even though the trunk of her car was stuffed with paper plates for the dinner and her son just happened to want to visit and stay over night and just happened to bring his saxophone along.

The service itself was Candlemas, which celebrates the arrival of light and life through Jesus Christ and that seems appropriate, considering the impact Rev. Kay has had on our parish.