ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
9 SEPTEMBER 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
Lots of things to convey to you on this late summer Friday.
So, let’s move on to the usual: a thought, the order of worship for Sunday, events in and around the church, and a joke.
All to keep you posted on the life and worship of your church.
JOKE
An elderly woman walked into the local country church. The friendly usher greeted her at the door and helped her up the flight of steps, “Where would you like to sit?” he asked politely.
“The front row please,” she answered.
“You really don’t want to do that,” the usher said “The pastor is really boring.”
“Do you happen to know who I am?” the woman inquired. “No.” he said. “I’m the pastor’s mother,” she replied indignantly.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
19 AUGUST 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
Welcome to the St. P’s e-newsletter: insightful, informative and, depending on the joke du jour, as entertaining as the Edinburgh Festival!
Indeed, a slice of the Edinburgh Art Festival will be at St. Philip’s from 28 August to 2 September.
See the announcement below.
Bring along flowers on Sat. 27th!
And volunteer stewards warmly welcome!!!
THOUGHT
A young man was considering a life of contemplation but first he wanted assurance from a learned and wise monk.
‘Can you teach me the goal of human life?’
‘No, I cannot.’
‘Can you at least teach me its meaning?’
‘I cannot.’
‘Can you… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
12 AUGUST 2011
COMMENT FROM THE EDITOR
After a two week break back to the newsroom, rested, relaxed and raring to go for another round of information, thoughts and jokes, just to keep you posted on all that’s happening in and around St. P’s.
And, two special plugs…
Coffee Morning: Sat. 13 August 10-12. Catch up with each other about all our summer activities!!!
Palestinian Artist Faten Nastas Mitwasi: Sunday 14 August 7.30pm in the Sanctuary. An excellent chance to hear about a Palestinian Christian’s use of art for the sake of community. Here’s a quote from one of her communications:
“The Palestinian is a human being first before being a cause. The human identity for the Palestinian precedes… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
3 JUNE 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
We’re beginning to slide towards summer weather after winds and stormy blasts. So your editor is perched on the beach with his iPad and slaving away with the waves washing up at his feet.
Is that suncream I smell?
THOUGHT
Your editor recently read a description of different types of worship services and attempts to weave alternative styles together. Within the article is a reference to a book by Gary Thomas called ‘Sacred Pathways’. He suggests different pathways to God for different personalities.
Naturalists: Loving God out of doors
Sensates: Loving God with the senses
Traditionalists: Loving God through ritual and symbol
Ascetics: Loving God in solitude and simplicity
Activists: Loving God through confrontation
Caregivers: Loving God by loving others
Enthusiasts: Loving God with mystery and celebration
Contemplatives: Loving God through… click here to read more
ST. PHILP’S E-NEWSLETTER
28 JANUARY 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
Your weekly missive to keep you posted on worship and events at St. Philip’s. Using the e-community to foster the faith community; ethereal contact to encourage face-to-face friendship.
THOUGHT
At the start of a meeting this week the chair mentioned a course recently attended at which the speaker referred to a famous prayer attributed to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A means for us to gather ourselves before discussion. Here it is, as a means to gather ourselves before the weekend:
People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centred. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.
Be honest and sincere… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
21 JANUARY 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
Your editor came upon this classic poem from Wordsworth only a few days ago and it is definitely worth saving. Not just as a reminder of the warmer weather that will (soon?) be coming but the importance of taking moments out of the everyday in order to forge rich memories.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
14 JANUARY 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
It feels a bit like hibernation has come to a (temporary?) end.
Most of the snow is gone and so is the chill in the wind.
Snowdrops and daffodils to come?
THOUGHT
Your editor recently read a reference to Margaret Nussbaum, who teaches classics at Brown University in Rhode Island. Because your editor’s knowledge of the Roman world in which Jesus lived is sketchy at best, he decided to chase it up.
In her book ‘The Therapy of Desire’, Nussbaum looks at how Aristotelians, Epicureans, Skeptics and Stoics used medical analogies to think about and respond to emotions. She especially focuses on the most powerful emotions: love, fear, anger, pity.
The Stoics felt that in the pursuit of human flourishing and health all passions should be extirpated. Here is a fascinating description of… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
7 JANUARY 2011
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
A Happy New Year to one and all!
Your editor hopes that each of you had a splendid holiday season and were able to enjoy the festivities of Hogmanay after the gift of Christmas.
THOUGHT
Your editor was given some months ago a book of poems by the Pulitzer Prize winning poet W. S. Merwin. It has been said that there is a ‘graceful urgency’ to his poems, many of which suggest that our alienation from nature has been disastrous. Merwin, the son of a Presbyterian minister, has lived on an old pineapple plantation in Hawaii since the 1970’s and has restored it to its original rainforest state.
The parable this Sunday is the wheat and the weeds from Matthew 13 and this poem seemed to reflect this scene of agriculture and harvesting.… click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
10 DECEMBER 2010
COMMENTS FROM THE EDITOR
A bit late today. Your editor was out ensuring that his e-postwomen and postmen had on those nifty little rubber and metal crampons that wrap round boots, helping to keep one’s balance in the ice and snow. In fact your editor has ordered some for climbing the walls.
THOUGHT
This Sunday we will have our Readings and Carols Service at 11am (see below). Your editor recently read a comment regarding 20th century sacred music in Diarmid MacCulloch’s ‘History of Christianity’. He notes that composers such as Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Tippett and Rimsky-Korsakov have had little if any Christian faith and have yet produced masterpieces of sacred music. He wonders if this is so because music ‘is, as it were, outside of time and space’ and thus reflects the view of mystics from East and West. … click here to read more
ST. PHILIP’S E-NEWSLETTER
28-29 OCTOBER 2010
COMMENT FROM THE EDITOR
Happy Halloween!
Your editor found himself with some time on a Thursday night but little space in the diary for Friday…so the newsletter is a day early!
Huzzah!!
PRELIMINARY JOKE
The Washington Post runs a competition in which readers are asked to take a word, alter a letter, and then provide a definition. Here are a few.
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows
little sign of breaking down in the near future.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with.
More at the end of the newsletter….
WORSHIP
Communion services at 9.30 and 11am. The order… click here to read more