Which wolf wins?

 I like to eat pretty much everything - except olives and brussels sprouts!  What you feed yourself can be healthy or unhealthy - fruits and vegetables or lots and lots of sugar.  Same for your mind: tv, video games...  Know what else you can feed?  Your heart.  That determines a lot in how your treat people: you can be mean and hurtful or be kind and loving.  It depends on what you feed yourself - body, mind, and heart.

The story I told stemming from the gospel on the first Sunday of this month in which Jesus sent his disciples into the world "like sheep in the midst of wolves" seems like it might be worth repeating, given the current state of our world right now. It goes like this:

 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.  “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.  One wolf is evil - he is anger, sorrow, greed, arrogance, guilt, and lies.  The other wolf is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, kindness, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.  The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too.”  The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”  The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

 

You can feed your body, mind, and heart healthy or unhealthy things and that determines how you treat people.  Like a snarling wolf, you can feed yourself unhealthy things like anger and hurtfulness or like a Christlike lamb (or a good wolf) you can feed yourself kindness and love.  It all depends on which one you feed.

The Rev. Marc Vance

Associate Rector

Our Good Samaritan Story

Our gospel reading last Sunday included the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here, Bernard and Debbie Young share their own Good Samaritan story.

Debbie and I owned a brownstone house in Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn, New York. Our tenants skipped out on us, without notice and without paying their rent. They had wrecked the house. We decided to sell it. Our realtor told us that there were rats in the cellar. We engaged a firm to take care of the problem.
 
On Thursday February 20, 2020, we met an exterminator at the house. He told us that we needed to get garbage bags. We decided to walk the two short blocks to what was a ‘commercial’ street. As soon as we made it to that very busy, heavily trafficked street, Debbie slipped and went face down on the sidewalk. I got down to help her. As she raised her head, she kept saying that she could not see. Folk just passed us by. No one offered, or stopped, to help us for nearly five minutes. I just knelt and held her as she kept saying that she could not see. Then I heard a voice saying that I should call 911. I tried then to get her up on her feet as the same voice said “ let me help you to get her up.” Two arms joined mine and we got her up. She kept holding me, still telling me that she couldn’t see. I wanted to get her to a place where I could maybe sit her down while I called 911. We were close to a ‘Church’s Fried Chicken’ shop, so the person helping me suggested that we could find a seat in there. We got her in and sat her down. The same voice asked what could he do and I said ‘get her something sugary to drink, Sprite or orange soda.’ I pulled out my cell phone, punched in 911 and gave some information to the dispatcher. When I finished talking, I saw a guy holding a can of soda and a bottle of water, with straws in them; he was holding them to her lips telling her to take sips. Just then I heard a man’s loud voice shouting and cursing, ‘you homeless piece of ….. get out of my store.’ It was then that I looked at the person who had been helping me. His attire and his appearance made me realize that he was a homeless man; he was Hispanic and in his late twenties. I got angry; this homeless guy was the only person who had not passed us by, he had paid for the soda and the water, his money had been accepted and now he was being’ thrown out.’ The paramedics arrived, keeping me from using a few choice words. I am not certain how long the guy stood around but as I was dealing with the paramedics, he slipped away. I never got to thank him or to repay him what he had spent but, as Debbie was being put into the ambulance, one of the paramedics mentioned to me that ‘that homeless guy had walked off with my soda and my water’. I quickly told him that that homeless guy had purchased them and they were his, not mine.
 
We went to a neighboring hospital, and Debbie's sight slowly returned before we got there. I happened to have been on the hospital board, but we signed her out and subsequently had her admitted to the hospital in Manhattan where she had worked, overseen by the doctors for whom she had worked. She had surgery on February 24, 2020. She had fractured the orbital lobe under her right eye; she has a titanium plate under that eye. That side of her face is still quite numb.
 
Many people passed us by that day; only a guy who lived in the streets and had no place to lay his head, stopped to help and even spent what little money he had. I pray for him regularly. Wherever he is, May God bless him, provide for him and keep him safe.

The Ven. Rev. Canon Bernard O.D. Young

Sacred Ground

I was walking my children home on the last day of school, feeling more than the usual, confusing mix of gratitude and grief that comes at the end of each school year. We were headed home down River Rd when I was filled with an overwhelming sense of God’s presence. Time froze and I saw my oldest in this exact spot (pictured above) as 9 years old, 4 years old, 2 years old, all at once. That same tuft of curly blond hair. The same gait. The same sidewalks we’ve walked almost daily for ten years. There must be hundreds of holy spots along these sidewalks, unseen monuments to the sacred moments between parents and children, friends and strangers, neighbors and guests.

It got me thinking about the nature of sacred space and how, in Jesus’s time as well as ours, we often identify sacred space only within a church or other house of worship. When, really, it’s public spaces—perhaps even more than private ones—that hold that sacred quality. In this Sunday’s Gospel, which opens on a conversation between Jesus and an expert in the law, Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan as a way of overturning expectations, by pointing to holiness and righteousness from a race of people his friend least expects.

This is your invitation to notice what is holy wherever you find yourself this week, perhaps especially from the places or people you least expect. For those who are listening, God makes His presence abundantly, and beautifully, clear.

Ginny Chilton, Supervisor of Children's & Youth Ministries and Minister of Music

The gift of connection

When I was a child, my parents had their hands full caring for my special needs brother.  All of my grandparents had died before I was born, and none of our extended family lived in state.  Yet I was not bereft of adults who made special time for me.  I found them—or rather, they found me—at church.

Monica Schaeffer, old enough to be my grandmother, would sing All things bright and beautiful to me.  Susan Fish drove me to church along with her children and years later was my counselor at a weeklong diocesan youth camp.  I still have a rock she painted for me.  Phyllis Cowie, whose children were older, took me out for a special restaurant meal.  Mr. Connor, also the parent of older children, taught my Sunday School class.

When I joined my dad’s Presbyterian church because of their very active youth group, the volunteer leaders—Sue, Judy, Chris, Jim, Connie, Bruce, Ronee (all of them adults with families of their own)—spent hours with our group: playing, praying, teaching, encouraging, and, most importantly, listening.  Elo Tanner, an octogenarian, invited me to be a youth representative on the Outreach Committee, where I was given voice and vote and was included in the rota for leading devotions. 

All of those adults—and many others—saw me, knew my name, and cared about me.  None of them were paid church staff.  They were faithful members who took to heart Paul’s description of the Church:  we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another (Rom 12:5).

The children and youth at St. Andrew’s are members of us all.  At every baptism, we promise to do all in our power to support the newly baptized in their life in Christ.  I rejoice in the many ways that I see adults here at St. Andrew’s doing just that, not only through “official” roles such as Children’s chapel teacher or acolyte leader, but also simply by greeting our young members with a smile, learning their names, engaging them in conversation.  Thank you so much for the priceless gift of your interest and compassion.  As I know firsthand, it makes more of a difference than you could ever imagine.

I am mindful of Ginny’s observation that our families with young children crave connections across generations.  Through Christ, these families and their precious children are ours.  What a blessing; and what a responsibility.  With God’s help, let us continue to wrap them in our prayers and in our love.

I am grateful to be part of Christ’s body with each of you. 
Every blessing.  -Anne

Life is short...

Often, Sunday's service dismissal begins Life is short and we do have much time to...  My friend, John, says that life is too short for bad cheese.  The highway billboard said that life is too short for bad TV.  Sometimes when counseling, I’ve asked folks to consider that life is short: too short to put up with the difficulty any more or too short not to forgive?  Jesus' life and ministry was all too short, so in the middle of this Easter season in which we continue to celebrate what Jesus' life, death, and resurrection means for us, maybe this a good time to consider the nature of faith as it is lived in this short time frame of life.

Go ahead and fill in the blanks:
Life is too short for ________________________________________.
Life is too short for ________________________________________.
Life is too short for ________________________________________.
Life is too short for ________________________________________.
 
- Marc Vance