Dear Trinity,
I'm catching you up with what has been a whirlwind few weeks. Late this summer, I found out that I won a scholarship to do research on that book I've been trying to write for the past few years ... the church calendar. Hooray! Thanks Calvin College! I was able to secure lodging and my same office desk from our Sabbatical in 2022, at the University of Cambridge. At this same desk, I was able to renew my research into the origins of the church calendar, to delve deeply into the library, and participate in theological discussion groups. It has been an incredibly productive and rewarding time, and I am so thankful for the gift of a theological library and scholars off of whom to bounce ideas.
This past week, I visited the team who is running the Archbishop of Canterbury's evangelistic outreach to England. We first met for prayer and communion deep in the crypt of Lambeth Palace in London. The head of the Church of England has lived here since 1100 (including Anselm, for history buffs out there), and I was able to see the desk where Cranmer wrote the entire Book of Common Prayer. I was encouraged to meet such a dynamic team of people translating the gospel for a post-Christian society, and to meet other writers for Seen & Unseen.
My hope is to share something monthly with you of what I'm learning and writing, because it will not be unfamiliar territory for you - but something I am finally putting words around. (See the black box below the photos, for a little summary of what I'm trying to write here!) It is such a gift to be here, and to be able to dig deeply into the earliest centuries when the calendar was developing. I'm alive with ideas and gratitude - and Matt joins me soon! Let's get ready - Advent is around the corner!
Julie
1. Lambeth Palace formal chapel, view from Cranmer's desk
2. Cranmer's desk
3. Crypt below Lambeth, for daily prayer/eucharist
4. My daily bike route!
5. Research in Wales
6. Old professors and friends at a conference
Julie's little excerpt about what she is attempting to write here - much of it learned from journeying through all this with Trinity Church!
In this little book, my hope is to plunge us all into a different way of seeing Jesus – and therefore ourselves – one that was intuitive to an ordinary woman or man of the early church. I want to examine
christology
anthropology
soteriology
ecclesiology
(though they did not have such divisions) through their simple, lived experience of what we think of as the church calendar (though they were not consciously creating it). I am coming at this not as a pure historian, theologian, or liturgist but as a mother and teacher, seeking connections between things forgotten, and beauty in things we practice but may not comprehend. Like a good protestant, I tend to come at things abstractly and only later realize the connections in my body, my lived experience, my ordinary church. I blame my children for forcing me out of my head and into my life, and therefore for this book. I began slowly incorporating things like advent, lent, daily prayer, and reflections on baptism because, for two decades, I was taken out of the academy and placed in a family with children to raise, holidays to celebrate, flowers to grow, bread to bake, Sunday school to teach. This growing revelation of the interconnectedness of all the theology I had thought about, with life, is why this book came to be.
As we as a family groped our way around and through and in the church calendar, I began to sense its inscape – Christ – and myself being drawn into a deeper way of being in him along the way. Paul speaks about living ‘in Christ’ over 160 times, but could this actually be more than a metaphor or phrase? As I poked my nose into books that took me further and further back in time, I realized that this experience was precisely why the calendar began – as a way to inhabit Christ in daily life. As a way to respond to the shocking mystery that, somehow, my little life has been taken up into Christ’s living life – and that I now get to live my life differently, in him. But my biggest surprise was that it was not created by anyone. No one had a great idea as to how to get the whole church on a new discipleship course. This was not imposed by purists out of reaction to any pagan calendars. Nor did some new official in the (now imperial) church decide top-down it was high time for a calendar. It was already happening in nearly every urban center and backwater town spontaneously, from Britain to Constantinople. This is because the calendar was not what one did now that they were a Christian; the calendar naturally expressed who they were as a Christian. It was their way of living en Christo.
Last Call - Solitude and Silence Retreat
Trinity’s second winter retreat will be held November 15-17 at Ingalls Creek. The first day focuses on Solitude practices, the second on Sabbath.
Jesus tells us his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Yet, out of habit, we can push ourselves relentlessly. Solitude and Sabbath help us to gently turn from such habits and rest under the easy yoke of Jesus.
Please join us in community at Ingalls Creek this November for a weekend of coming home to ourselves in Christ. The cost is $110.
Lessons and Carols - Join the Choir
It's that time of year.... calling all singers to re-assemble the Christmas Choir! We are looking for men and women (teenage+) to sing in December. This year, rehearsals will be Dec. 1, 8, & 15 (Sundays) after the second service.
On Sunday 12/22, the choir will lead music for both services and finally on 12/24 at 11pm the choir will lead the Lessons & Carols Christmas eve service. Questions? contact Hannah Pick: hannahmontzingo@gmail.com // (206) 354-2947 or simply show up to rehearsal!
George MacDonald Book Club
Thank you so much for those of you who attended the George MacDonald book club on Oct. 27th on At the Back of the North Wind! If you haven't read this yet, I heartily encourage you to do so (or read it again) and we have made the meeting notes on the Imagination and Fantasy Literature available for you here.
Bulletin Board
Our bulletin board is a place where you can express a need to our church body (ex: housing, items needed, jobs wanted, etc.) so that others can reach out and respond. Have a submission? Please email hello@trinitywenatchee.org for us to review.
Three more meals are needed to fill the meal train for Karen Krystyniak. Let's join together and bless her as she recovers from surgery. Sign up here.
We are looking for someone to plow snow in our parking lot this winter. We pay for this service. If you know of someone reliable and reasonable cost-wise, please call or text Mike Andreini at 509-881-0523. We are also looking for a volunteer(s) to take on the responsibility for snowblowing the public sidewalks that border the church building this winter. We provide the snowblower. It has heated hand grips!
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