Weekly Clergy Letter from Mother Anne Turner

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

Monday night’s service was a great gift to me and a powerful welcome back to this community.  I am so grateful to you all.

 

I have been reconnecting with Grace Church this week—unpacking my office, meeting with the staff, and most especially hearing stories of the past year.  A lot has happened to you all, collectively and individually.  I am so grateful to hear these stories, and I look forward to more.

 

I have a few stories of my own.  Parts of this year were enormously difficult, but it was also a time of discovery and grace.  I worked at a summer camp, where I got my Commercial Driver’s License and learned to parallel park a school bus.  I saw the full totality of April’s solar eclipse.

 

Today the church celebrates All Saints’ Day, which offers us the gift of shared story.  Maybe in Sunday School or while traveling to faraway places you learned about the lives of the saints—some historic, some imaginative, but all faithful.  As we tell them over and over, we braid our own stories together with theirs.

 

This is a moment to think about the story of Grace Church, as well.  We have been through a harrowing but redemptive time—indeed, a time of discovery and grace.  How will we talk about what has happened to us?  What strands will we braid into our self-understanding? And how will we tell this story—to ourselves, to our community, and to the future?

 

This storytelling is the work of integration, and I believe it is the work before this community now.  As we prepared to renew our efforts for God in the world, we need to be prepared to explain who we are and to communicate our values and priorities.

 

Grace Church has remarkable gifts to offer—and I believe we have a remarkable story to tell.  I look forward to the work of articulating it together.

 

Yours in Christ,

Anne