Our Building

Dear People of Christ Church,

This week, I'm passing on a building update from senior warden Jonathan Duce...many thanks for all the hard work, Jonathan!

As you've probably noticed, our tower is looking significantly shinier, and the lift is gone! Our engineers from Simpson Gumpertz & Heger have submitted six field reports since April 15th.. Each report documents the progress of our tower repairs. The most recent report states that the cross is securely in place at the top of the spire and repointing at the spire is complete. A lot of attention has been paid to detail such as the ochre color of sand to match the ochre color of the original mortar in the as closely as possible. The final mix is made up of: 5 parts East Hartford yellow sand, 1 part East Hartford Red sand, 1 part Iron Clad gray ("buff") cement, 1 part lime.

The final work to be done on the outside was to repair the roof stone slabs at the tower stairs. Interior tower work starts next. Our mortar and cross stabilization was paid for by our CPA (Community Preservation Act) grant for historic preservation from the city of Waltham, which will also cover the majority of the interior roof work. Our own capital campaign funds have gone to the project oversight from SGH, to be sure everything is done to spec.

Another capital campaign project is to improve handicap accessibility.  This spring, the vestry voted to engage Perry Brothers Construction to rebuild the sacristy bathroom (and resulting sacristy re-design). The paperwork is now slowly making its way through the city permitting process. Once the permits are in place work will begin. We have been told that it will be a 4-5 week construction timeline once the crew gets started.    

The generosity and faith on the part of everyone at Christ Church in contributing to the capital campaign has been an inspiration; if you haven't yet made a pledge, please see the full write up about the work to be done  here. Our final tally was $311,220 in commitments, from 45 individuals and families.  Our average pledge was close to $7,000 divided over five years...you are amazing givers!   Since we met our first campaign goal, 85% of funds now stay at Christ Church with 15% going to wider mission

Thank you for your gifts, and for your patience!

Blessings, 

Sara+ 

Listening for signs and wonders

Dear People of Christ Church,
This morning, I've been organizing for our conversation tonight with Rob and Christine about preparing for death; we have a booklet, A Christian Prepares for Death, which will be available tonight and online, and there are some terrific new resources on the medical side from the Massachusetts Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment website-it's based around a newly available form for medical guidance for those who are terminally ill, but it also has some other great Q and A around the different choices we face at the end of our lives. Still, I hope to see you tonight at 7pm, in the clergy office (come through any of the doors, with the exception of the front door of the church itself). If you can't come, I'll upload the document to our online library, or I can send you a hard copy if you want.

I'm also still feeling "wow"ed by our Bible Study conversation on the Acts of the Apostles on Sunday; about nine of us gathered for a phenomenal conversation. One new member talked about receiving more generous help than he ever could have imagined, quite out of the blue, and how it took him years to accept that he just happened to have met an angel in the cornfields of Iowa, and to stop trying to pay back the one who helped him. It's hard to be vulnerable, to give voice to our need and to share our suffering-even harder to accept help where it comes and just receive it gracefully. Erin Jensen started out our conversation with her own questions about the way the biblical writers talk about "signs and wonders"-at Christ Church we've never baptized 3,000 in a day, and we don't cast out too many evil spirits or cure diseases, either. There are smaller miracles everywhere, but in the midst of working or parenting or just trying to keep up with contemporary life, it can be hard to be alert to them. When I'm paying attention, the absolute trust and love of my daughter reaching up her hand into mind is a mind-blowing miracle, but only if I can see her. The fact is, the biblical world was different; God meets us in different ways, but meets us, all the same.

I'm also looking forward to our reflection and action discussion after church on June 23, a week from this Sunday. We'll meet in small groups (each facilitated by a vestry member) to talk about what's going well and what new things we'd like to see happen at Christ Church. This was planned separately from the Hartford Seminary Survey (see below if you haven't done yours yet!)-so if it seems like we're doing an awful lot of reflecting about what we do and how, you're right. And for now, that's just what we need to do. Our world is changing so rapidly, and while the mission of God is the same, the way we implement that mission as God's people is not eternally the same. The "Waltham Churchman" is no longer delivered to your mailbox every week-instead, most of you are reading this on your computer, smart phone, or iPad screen. Rev. Ekwall and I are working toward to serve the same mission of education, reflection, and communication, but using the tools that are in front of us. We, individually and as a church, can always be transformed more and more into the likeness of the God who created us. But-looking for those "signs and wonders" as the apostles did-we have to pay attention in a new way.  Finally, please mark your calendar for the "Listening Group" at Redeemer Lexington to reflect on what our diocese hopes for in our next bishop, June 27 at 7pm.

Blessings,
Sara+

Preparing for Gentle Death

Dear People of Christ Church,

As you may have heard on Sunday, this week we'll gather at 7pm to hear from our own Rob Atwood and Christine August on end of life care. Rob is a hospice social worker and Christine is an ICU nurse-both come to us with a great wealth of knowledge of how we die.  It happens to everyone, and even God in Jesus Christ went there with us, but it's still a topic we fear.  The fact is, though, talking with the people we love about what we want near the end of our own lives, or what they want at the end of theirs, is one of the greatest gifts we can give.  But it's hard. We don't want to be ghoulish, or make anyone uncomfortable, or we can't countenance the idea of not having those we love with us every day.  We'd just rather talk about it...another day.  

In a Christian context, though, we're given a new freedom, a different context to consider the death of our bodies. We can stand neither "for" nor "against" death, but beside, as a known part of our human existence that will happen to us all.  Francis of Assisi put it this way in the hymn we know as "All Creatures of our God and King:"

And thou most kind and gentle Death,

Waiting to hush our latest breath,

O praise Him! Alleluia!

Thou leadest home the child of God,

And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.

O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Kind and gentle death, leading us home to God.  Wow.

Life is a tremendous gift, and we are stewards-caretakers-of these bodies and souls that are given us. They are a blessing. Our life is a blessing. Modern medicine and technology are a blessing. There are many of you whose lives I treasure who have survived illnesses that just twenty years ago would have been a death sentence.   As much as we are grateful for all the many treatments that are now possible to prevent death, we also know that there's more to the story than just our bodies' eventual end. 

We have a responsibility to preserve life, but we can also be realistic about what treatments are likely to be effective and which are not.  If nothing can separate us from God and the love of those we love, then we don't have to approach death as the enemy.  Choices about care can be made from the standpoint of compassion for the whole person, not just the scientific alleviation of a particular symptom or illness. If someone near death is unable to swallow or loses interest in food, for example, is it compassionate to give a feeding tube? It's a hard question.  It may prolong the life of their body, but that may come at another cost.

In our Church's teaching about the end of life, we differentiate between "passive" and "active" ways in which death may be hastened. The passive withholding of treatment is an ethical choice; if there is no prognosis for recovery, the question becomes whether the patient's dying process is being prolonged, as opposed to whether their actual life is being extended.  At the same time, when the physician assisted suicide referendum came around at election time, I voted "no;" to take an action specifically with the desired outcome being death is not, in my view, an ethical choice. As Episcopalians, also, we respect each others' freedom of conscience. These issues are complicated, and we don't condemn those who believe otherwise.  There are times when the lines are blurry and that's why it's so important that we talk to those we love about the choices they want us to make.  Fill out the legal paperwork for who will be your health care proxy if you can't make decisions for yourself.   Put down, in writing if necessary, the kind of treatment you do and do not want and tell that person.

As part of our conversation next week, I'll also make available a booklet we put together several years ago called "A Christian Prepares for Death," which leads you through many of the choices to be made in preparing for the kind of burial you want. We might think, "I won't exactly be present, so I'll let the people who survive me make the choices." But let me tell you from the experience of going through this with a lot of people-the most comforting thing for the surviving person is to know what you would have wanted!  This goes for whether you want to be cremated or have "Go Tell it on the Mountain" sung as much as for whether you would want to be removed from a ventilator.  Small decisions loom awfully large in a time of grief.  Communication about death is not morbid--it's one of the most loving things you can do. 

I'll leave you with this piece of Scripture:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Thanks be to God!

Blessings,
Sara+