All Saints Gazette: Welcome Back!
All Saints: Welcome Back Eucharist, Season of Creation Reflection, and More Opportunities!
Greetings from All Saints!
“I keep thinking how it's endearing that I finally have a church community to miss during time off,” someone wrote to us during our pause. Thanks be to God, and thanks to each of you for being part of this in whatever way!
This week:
Sunday, 1 September, 17:30—Worship at Vrijburg
Scroll down for a reflection prompt—let’s get these running again!
1 September: Welcome Back Eucharist
The wait is over! We are resuming our biweekly worship this Sunday at 17:30 at the usual location of Vrijburg. It would be nice to have a big crowd after such a long break (or what feels like one), so please come if you can! The after worship meal has been a real highlight of our life together, so plan to stay, and bring a dish to share if you can (when possible—and we know it’s not always—friendliness to common dietary restrictions is appreciated).
Want to go deeper with worship?
Nobody is ever just a spectator at All Saints. Your mere presence (or prayers when absent) is already active participation and God uses it. But is God moving you to engage in a new way? Pay attention to that feeling of excitement or even slight discontent. What is God moving you to desire? Maybe to have the scripture read with your voice? Maybe to lead a song? Do you want to help with the kids? Or do you have some other idea of how you’d like to contribute to worship? Let us know, no matter how far-fetched it seems.
Thursday Community Meal
Our first Thursday gathering in September is a community meal with the other churches that meet at Vrijburg. It is on September 5 at 18:00 (note: next week, not this week). Bring something if you can (or someone), but the main thing is to come. You have to eat dinner anyway, right?
Upcoming Offerings
Thursdays will feature a rotation of community meals, Bible study using the South African Lumko method, and a prayer lab series on prayer book spirituality. More detailed descriptions next week, but for your calendars: 12 September is Bible study, 19 September is prayer lab
Festival of Gathering
The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe will hold its Festival of Gathering in Florence on 18-19 October. It is a good chance to meet other Episcopalians, have fun, and learn and share. Online participation is also possible. The theme is Faith and Art. Registration is online (let me know if you need help; it’s slightly confusing). Let me know if you’re interested as soon as possible, as we may have some funds available from the Convocation to cover a couple of people.
Season of Creation
In response to our acute climate crisis and other ecological threats, The Episcopal Church joins the World Council of Churches and the Ecumenical Patriarch in devoting September to God as a “Season of Creation,” running from the Orthodox Feast of Creation of September 1 to the western feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4. At All Saints, we will share a weekly reflection and prompt here.
Reflection Prompt for this week
On Sunday, we will hear a reading from the Song of Songs 2:8-13 (the first reading here). You’ll notice that lots of beings have voices besides the human lovers: “The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance.”
Hold it in mind as you read these words by Bishop Steven Charleston, retired Episcopal bishop and member of the Choctaw Nation (an indigenous tribe whose present-day territory is in the US state of Oklahoma since forced removal from Mississippi):
"Do not doubt what you see" from Ladder to the Light:
Last night they came again, the spirits of earth and sky, of wind and rain, of deep seas and tall mountains. In all shapes and sizes they came, from every tribe and nation: the deer and the elk, the bear and the wolf, broad-winged eagles and crows as black as night. They all came and stood in a solemn circle beneath the one-eyed moon and spoke with a single voice this message from the sacred: “Do not doubt what you see: the world is warming, the waters are rising, and the winds are coming stronger than before. Do not turn away, do not pretend not to see, but speak the truth and set the spirits free to heal the world, before the ice has gone, before the last tiger falls, before only the desert remembers the ones who once walked this land.
How do we listen to the voices of the more than human world?
To use Bishop Charleston’s words, how do we “set the spirits free”?
Share your thoughts in the WhatsApp group, or send them us by email.
Here’s another quotation I couldn’t fit anywhere, but can’t bring myself to cut:
From The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Both of these readings are copied from the Episcopal Season of Creation website.
That's all for today!
Want to talk to a priest? We want to talk to you too!
Website: https://allsaintsamsterdam.church/
Mpho: mpho@allsaintsamsterdam.church
Kyle: kyle@allsaintsamsterdam.church
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