Kristina DeFrancesco
Prayer for a New Day
Prayer for a New Day
Worship, News
Kristina DeFrancesco
Blessing of the Animals October 3

Join us October 3 at 5pm for an outdoor Blessing of the Animals. Animals on leashes or in carriers are warmly welcome, as are stuffed animals and photos.

Blessing of the Animals October 3
Sermon
Kristina DeFrancesco
Pentecost 2 (6/6/21) – Garrett Yates

“It feels like this is something of our last Sunday of the school year, before we shift into summer mode next week with one 9am service. It’s also like we are at this societal moment of pivoting out of COVID-19 restrictions and more or less going back to normal – if there ever was such a thing. What’s been a bit disorienting for me was the radical abruptness of reopening. It was like the CDC and our civic leaders just got tired of the gray zone of semi-regulated communal life, and rather than slowly undimming the lights, they just decided to flick the switch on, and many of us, accustomed to the dark and coziness of quarantine, are squinting a little bit, trying to acclimate to the bright lights of normal.”

Pentecost 2 (6/6/21) – Garrett Yates
Sermon
Kristina DeFrancesco
Trinity Sunday (5/30/21) – Garrett Yates

“Imagine a Portrait Gallery approached you and wanted to capture your image for posterity. How would you like to be portrayed? What picture of yourself would you like others to see? And do you think that picture ties up at all with the pictures others have of you? How would you be in this portrait? Where would you be? What emotion, position, look would just capture you?”

Trinity Sunday (5/30/21) – Garrett Yates
Sermon
Kristina DeFrancesco
Day of Pentecost (5/23/21) – Garrett Yates

“Human beings take around 650,000,000 breaths in their lifetime;

About 25,000 a day. How many of those are we aware?

My Apple watch rings once an hour with a reminder to Breathe.

It’s kind of annoying:

What does it think I’ve been doing for the last hour?

It doesn’t give me a reminder to tell my heart to pump blood

Or to my intestines to digest food.

Why does it suppose I’ve neglected my breath?”

Day of Pentecost (5/23/21) – Garrett Yates

Pentecost 15 - Garrett Yates (9/20/20)

Pentecost 15 - Garrett Yates (9/20/20)

“In his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College “This is Water,” David Foster Wallace highlights the difficulty of giving attention and care to the most obvious, matter-of-fact, unmistakable aspects of our lives. He begins this address with a comical little parable about two fish. There were these two fish who are swimming along in the ocean, when a wise old fish swims by and shouts, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the heck is water?” Wallace’s speech, which I commend to you, is about the singular challenge raised by these two young fish: how do we as people gain the awareness, the attention to see and notice that most obvious and essential of things – the water in which we are immersed. For Wallace, it takes practice, prayer, and attention to gain the miracle of sight, to be able to see what is right in front you, and say, “This is water. This is water.”

Jesus’ parable for us this morning is like an icy splash of water onto his disciples faces – and he’s trying to shake them awake to recognize the water that is the Kingdom of God.”

Pentecost 14 - Greg Johnston (9/13/20)

Pentecost 14 - Greg Johnston (9/13/20)

“I have to say, after six months of a global pandemic, I'm in better physical shape than I've been in the last decade.

Like many people, I’ve been working from home on a fairly strange schedule. For most of the spring, I'd usually get up around 6:30 in the morning, drink a cup of coffee and answer emails or work on my laptop until around 8:30, then spend a couple of hours with Murray while Alice was in class. We spent the rainy month of April trading off between wandering around outside and logging on to Zoom. With libraries, coffee shops, and playgrounds closed, going for a run together was one of the few leisure activities we had left, other than playing with the grass clippings outside the Harvard observatory. And so Alice, Murray, and I spent most of the spring running from place to place with our stroller, discovering that a two-year-old makes an inspiring, albeit rude, track coach: “I want you to run faster!” “

Pentecost 13 - Greg Johnston (9/6/20)

Pentecost 13 - Greg Johnston (9/6/20)

“In my second sermon here—way back in September of 2018—I preached about my two pet turtles, the Song of Songs, and love. It was a pretty good sermon. I re-read that sermon a few weeks ago, because I wanted to know if anything had changed. I wanted to know much these two years of ministry alongside you had changed what I thought, had changed who I was.

Not very much, it turns out. And unimaginably.”

From the Parish Administrator

How comforting to write these words from my office chair! Looking over these last six months, so much of my work has been done away from my big, broad desk here in the Parish Office, and it’s nice to be back among my scrawl-labeled file folders, jumbled bulletin board (whose Kalendar is still on April!), and hidden stash of smokehouse almonds.

I have been “on-campus” quite a bit, though – when we closed St. Anne’s in March, the painting of the exterior of the building had just begun.

From the Racial Justice Allies Initiative

In mid-June, 30+ parishioners gathered to form the Racial Justice Allies (RJA) group with the intention of exploring ways to take action at St. Anne’s to address racial injustice. The group has developed a vision statement to articulate our goals:

Racial Justice Allies Vision Statement

· We acknowledge the white supremacism on which our society and economy are built, rooted in 400 years of violence, indifference, and inaction.

· We believe in love, respect, repentance, and opening our hearts and minds to our fellow human beings.

· We commit to:

    • Listen, look, and reflect more deeply in order to take responsibility for liberating ourselves from our own biases.

    • Create opportunities to connect to, learn from and celebrate with communities of color.

    • Identify, support, and take actions to promote racial justice through social, economic, and environmental policy.

Update from the Music Director

I’ve been busy adapting to our strange new world—and I’ve learned how to make and edit videos! Each week I record a prelude and postlude; Jean and I record a hymn; and I also provide something for the anthem, which can be a newly-recorded solo, a recording from past years, or a “virtual choir” piece. This last option, where each singer appears in a box, is very labor-intensive: first I make a video that the singers sing along to as they record themselves, then I combine all the individual videos into one big movie. This complicated process really does give listeners the feeling that we are singing together, and so we gladly do the extra work—we want to keep our community happy and healthy while we tune in from home, looking forward to the day when we can be together again safely.

Update from the Bookkeeper

Your generous online giving through the St. Anne’s website is so heartwarming! If you are a new (or newer, or would-be) online donor, here are some aspects you may not know about.

Also, SSYP Pandemic Relief Fund is no longer accepting gifts for help for St. Stephen’s families suffering from the economic effects of the pandemic. If you have recently made a gift to St. Anne’s for the benefit of the SSYP Pandemic Relief Fund, your gift will be forwarded to St. Stephen’s for their ongoing mission to support their local families and children.

Update from the Communications Director

Out of all the church staff, COVID has changed my job the least: our communications already were sent via email, our website, Facebook, and Instagram. A big change for me is that with Greg's departure, I'll be doing tech for the 10am Sunday online service. I've had some practice runs, and I find it both comforting to be in our sanctuary and sad to not have happy voices greeting each other.

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Update from the Children's Formation Director

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We are in the season of Pentecost. “Where has the Holy Spirit appeared in your life this summer?” is a question I have often asked our kids at the start of a new year. I do know a little bit about how we offered our time and attention to one another as a church family. Immediately after our online Pentecost celebration, which included photographs, recorded readings, an offertory anthem, and a sermon all given by students of St. Anne’s, we saw the fire of the Holy Spirit driving protestors into the streets across the nation.

Senior Warden's Reflections

It’s hard to believe that the season is shifting from summer to fall, and as hard to believe that after six months, we are still needing to safely manage and navigate COVID 19 risk in all that we do as individuals and as a faith community. This has been a difficult time for all of us….

But I will go on to say that I feel proud that St. Anne’s has been able to slowly and successfully move forward over the past six months, and I would like to point to a few of our blessings.

Rector's Intro to Early Fall

Not long into quarantine a friend on a school board shared something she heard the head of school say as they were thinking about re-opening procedures: “We are living at the nexus of persistence and patience as we do our best to plan ahead.” I have very much felt to be at the intersection of persistence and patience. This is a challenging tension to live into – personally, I am much better at persistence. I love a good challenge, or a new opportunity for adaptive thinking. Patience is much more difficult, especially when life throws you into Patience’s classroom and you have no idea when class lets out.

Announcement from the Rector

Announcement from the Rector

As Christ’s body, we have been given the good work of raising up leaders and empowering them to serve in new ways and in new places. It’s always been a great sign of the life and Spirit present in our community that we do this — forming, equipping, and sending out leaders – and it’s been one of the key ways St. Anne’s in-the-Fields continues to serve our diocese. With this in mind, it’s something of bittersweet news that Greg has accepted a call to serve the people of St. John’s in Charlestown.

Pentecost 11 - Greg Johnston (8/16/20)

Pentecost 11 - Greg Johnston (8/16/20)

“Many people find comfort in the ideas of a divine plan or of the prosperity gospel. It’s comforting for many people to imagine that God must have a plan for everything. It’s comforting for many people to imagine that if they just stay strong and keep their faith, everything will be okay. It’s comforting, at least, until someone else uses these ideas to try to wipe away your pain. Hence the bittersweet title of Kate Bowler’s book: ‘Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.’”

Pentecost 10 - Garrett Yates (8/9/20)

Pentecost 10 - Garrett Yates (8/9/20)

“If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get out of the Boat. That was the title, some years back, of a popular book written by John Ortberg. And the title reflects what is surely the most common take on this story. Peter had the right idea getting out of the boat, and stepping out on faith…Like Peter, we must heed this invitation, find the courage needed to swing our legs out over the boat’s side, and then step out into the waters…But something tells me this won’t do.”

Racial Justice Allies Vision Statement

Racial Justice Allies Vision Statement

In mid-June, 30+ parishioners gathered to form the Racial Justice Allies (RJA) group with the intention of exploring ways to take action at St. Anne’s to address racial injustice. Various activities are already underway, and we recently crafted a vision statement to articulate what we acknowledge, what we believe, and what we commit to doing.