Calendar News

Quiet Rest

Fallow farmland is plowed or tilled but left unsown for a period to restore fertility.  Agricultural science tells us that fallowing raises levels of carbon, nitrogen and organic matter, improves moisture-holding capacity, and increases beneficial microorganisms in the soil.  Fallowing is described in the Torah as a field left unplanted to rest and regenerate, to replenish nutrients depleted from the top soil by crop production. It is strongly advised throughout scripture: “Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield.  But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of the Eternal” (Lev. 25:2-5).  Things happen when we slow down and rest with purpose. We actually may be doing something very important when we stop doing anything at all. Spiritual fallow time might be a time when we are not insistent on doing solitary inner work, but quietly letting God help us move away from the things that devastate us: overproduction, too many chemicals, the stones of unjust anger, lack of forgiveness, the hard clods of self-centeredness.  When we move away from that which deadens, we clearly see the poetry that is in our souls. Fallow time is what gives us the space to intentionally rest, to savor the friendships, the waning light, and all those other small moments and gestures that nurture our trust in the cycle of seasons.  To intentionally rest is not a time-out to discipline yourself. The fallow season is an invitation from the Creator to spend time letting micronutrients develop, letting what is small and invisible rise from within your deepest places.  God is doing something in the fallow field, so small, so magnificent, so intricate, and so miraculous, it is astounding. But on the surface, it may look like hardened, untended, infertile, and cold acres of dirt.  Don’t despair. Light will come again. We will look for new life soon enough.  These days are for soundless, invisible, undisturbed regeneration and restoration. Let it do its work in you.

Keeping Our Church Safe

At St. John’s, we share a core belief that we are better when we are together—that a loving community is at the center of our life as followers of Jesus. Part of our obligation to everyone is to prevent the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable  adults and to preserve the trust people have in our organization.  The Episcopal Church in Wyoming is supporting us in this mission by providing  a training program for everyone at St. John’s. Yes, almost everyone.  You may have gotten an email telling you your account with Praesidium is ready.  Please don’t share your link – it’s just for you. You will get a second email soon  from Martine Grant, explaining which courses you are required to take. Most of  you will take a couple of introductory courses, which take about 20 minutes each.  Leadership of all kinds are required to take more. Because setting up the accounts is still taking some time, the deadline for completing  courses is going to be extended again.  Stay tuned!

Upcoming Events

Empty Bowls

This amazing fundraiser for Powell Valley Loaves and Fishes returns this Tuesday, November 19th, from 5:30-7p.m. at The Commons.  The event is hosted by our very own Elaine DeBuhr, Northwest Associate Professor of Art, and her students.  Please  follow this link to read the article from the Powell Tribune:  

https://www.powelltribune.com/stories/empty-bowls-scheduled-for-nov-19-at-the-commons,147091

Christmas Tree Trip

Plans are forming for the annual Christmas Tree Trip on December 21.  Stay tuned  for more details!  The Conoco Station in Lovell (307-548-7110) plans to have permits available in a couple weeks.  They tend to sell out quickly, so plan accordingly.   Five Springs Campground is BLM land.

Thoughts and Ponderings for the Week Ahead

November 18 is the birthday of Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood, born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1939. Because her father was an entomologist, while she was growing up, her family lived for extended periods in insect-research stations in the northern Canadian wilderness. Atwood is most famous today as a novelist, and in particular as the author of The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) — but she began as a poet.  

November 20 is the birthday of astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble, born in Marshfield, Missouri, in 1889. His father encouraged him to become a lawyer, but he fell in love with astronomy, and left legal practice after a year in the field. After World War I, he joined the staff of the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California. His specialty was nebulae, and in 1923 (just a hundred years ago!) he discovered that the “Andromeda Nebula” wasn’t a nebula at all, but rather another galaxy entirely — a stunning breakthrough, since at the time astronomers believed our own Milky Way galaxy to be the only one in the universe. Hubble discovered more than 20 other galaxies over the course of his career, and noticed that virtually all of them are moving away from the Milky Way; his data eventually demonstrated that the universe as a whole is expanding, lending observational support to the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. As Stephen Hawking later put it, Hubble’s discovery was “one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century.” 

November 21 is the day the Mayflower Compact was signed in 1620(November 11 in the Old Style calendar). The Mayflower had originally set sail from Plymouth, England, bound for the colony of Virginia — but fierce storms blew them off course, and they arrived instead off Cape Cod. Of approximately 100 people on board, about half were religious separatists (known as “Saints” or, later, “Puritans”) who had split from the Church of England. Since they’d missed Virginia entirely, the leaders on board thought it wise — not least because of simmering tensions between the Puritan separatists and the ship’s other passengers — to draw up a provisional system of government while they waited for a new royal charter to arrive. With the ship anchored in Provincetown Harbor, a 200-word document was drafted, based loosely on a Puritan church covenant. Each adult male had to sign the compact before they were allowed to come ashore. It was the first endeavor by European immigrants to form a democratic government in what would become the United States.

​

As often is the case in United States history (and all history), this anniversary calls us to a complex kind of remembering: the momentous feat of European immigration and an important step forward in democratic government — and at the same time, a beginning of the colonial injustice toward native people in this part of the world, a devastating history that includes the Nauset tribe of the Wampanoag Nation, whom the passengers on the Mayflower first encountered. Far from remembering only one dimension of this story and erasing the others, what’s required is the ability to take up and learn from multiple perspectives at once. This time of year provides a distinctive opportunity to do just that, since it includes not only the Mayflower anniversary, but also Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day next week. And with all this in mind, here’s recent U.S. Poet Laureate (and Muscogee (Creek) performer and writer) Joy Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.”

November 22 is the feast day of St. Cecilia. The story goes that, in the early third century CE, Cecilia sang to God as she died a martyr’s death — and in later years, she became the patron saint of musicians, and of music. In the sixteenth century, a large music festival to honor St. Cecilia developed in Normandy, and the custom spread to England in the next century. Both Handel and Purcell composed odes to honor her, the painter Raphael created a piece entitled, “The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia,” and Chaucer wrote of her in his Second Nonnes Tale. Today, in paintings and stained glass, St. Cecilia is typically depicted sitting at an organ.