Letter from the Rector – July 30, 2026

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Dear Good People of St. Paul’s,

In this week’s gospel, Jesus is grieving the murder of his cousin, John the Baptist by Herod. We might imagine he was grieving and he and the disciples might be scared that they may be next. They withdraw to a boat for some time away.

The crowds saw where he went and they hiked around the lake to meet him on the other side.

What was Jesus’s response when he was grieving and depleted the needy crowd following him? Did he ask the disciples to drop the anchor to stay in the middle of the lake? Did he take the long way to the other side of the lake?

The text says he had compassion on them. The Greek word for compassion is splagchnizomai. The word literally means guts or innards. Moved by his guts. That’s where those in Jesus’s day believed compassion came from, think “gut-punched” or “hit in the gut” or “spill your guts” to describe something intensely emotional.

Jesus was moved with compassion. Literally moved. By the inside.

Now the text is not saying to ignore when you are grieving and help others or tune out your feelings. It is honing in on Jesus’s ability to be moved even in the midst of his own suffering and grief and possible fear. Jesus and his disciples went to the edge of the lake and Jesus “cured their sick.”

I find it interesting that we in the West tend to separate our bodies from the conversation about our spiritual life. Yet, spirituality, at least the Christianity that we inherited from Jesus, deeply connects us with our bodies. We are moved with compassion, in our guts, when we see something that needs tending and we have the capacity and energy to do it.

For us in the West, how can we again trust our bodies to help us notice where God might be leading us? And, how do we do the discernment to know what is ours to do? We know we cannot do it all, there is too much. But we can do what God has called us to do, individually and together as a congregation. And when we do what is ours to do, using the discernment we receive from our bodies and from the Spirit, we work in our gifts, we work together so that no one has to do it all, and, by doing so, we prevent burnout.

May we, too, have compassion for those we meet and do the discernment to know what is ours to do in response to the needs we see around us.

In Faith, Love, and Service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – July 24, 2026

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Dear Good People of St. Paul’s,

Do you ever feel like you don’t know how to pray?

Do you pray for a certain outcome – how do you know for which one to pray? Or what if there are several possible and good outcomes?

Or what if the situation is totally overwhelming – a deep injustice, a death, a betrayal, what is going on in the world? How does one pray in those circumstances?

This week’s excerpt from the lectionary begins with, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). The Spirit helps us pray; when we don’t know how, the Spirit prays for us.

Our sighs become prayers, our cries become prayers. This morning, after experiencing so many calls of people who need help with rent and utilities from people we have already helped, my heart was heavy with the need right around us. I reached out to a friend, tears in my eyes, bemoaning the number of people who are working, trying to make ends meet, and do not have enough.

That call became my prayer.

Anne Lamott in her book, “Help, Thanks, Wow,” gives us her three one-word prayers. They are in line with these groans from the Spirit. Help – calling for assistance from God. Thanks – gratitude for the good things around us. Wow – naming the wonder around us.

I wonder if at times we make prayer too difficult. Prayer is communication with God. It’s part of the relationship we have with God. It’s talking; it’s silence. It’s the exclamation of “Ugh!” in frustration when evil seems to be winning. It’s the deep sigh when none of the options in front of us seem like good ones. When we are in relationship with God, it’s all prayer.

Let us allow the Spirit to do the work in us and through us, praying for what is important to us, from the personal to the global, trusting that God is in it all.

In Faith, Love, and Service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – July 17, 2026

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Dear Good People of St. Paul’s,

It’s always tempting when life is hard to go back to a time when we remember it was easier. Sometimes, what we remember actually didn’t exist. At times we only remember the good, or the ease, when life is difficult.

In this week’s excerpt from the Romans, the discussion veers toward talking about being enslaved to the flesh, a way of living contrary to God, and the invitation to living a life with God, called life in the Spirit. And at times, living a life with God is hard. It’s tempting to go back to when life was seemingly easier, even if perhaps it wasn’t.

Take the Israelites in the desert. God had just literally rescued them from being enslaved to the Egyptians. And they were wandering around in the desert. They were scared, in the desert, worried about food. They began to complain, wanting the life of being enslaved rather than being free in the desert. They were remembering the food they ate while selectively forgetting being treated poorly and the insecurity of their life in Egypt.

We do the same thing. We make a change in our life, following an invitation from the Spirit. Sticking to it becomes difficult, the environment is unfriendly, all of sudden we are wanting to just go back to how life was before the change, when life was easier.

In Romans, we are reminded that we have a new identity as God’s children and have been given the Spirit who gives us courage and strength.

May we have the courage and strength to continue in this life God calls us to live and remember we are loved as dearly loved children.

In Faith, Love, and Service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – July 10, 2026

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Dear Good People of St. Paul’s,

After the exodus from Egypt, the people of God followed God through the physical manifestation of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. In time, the people of God made a tabernacle in which God could dwell. Then, much later, King Solomon made a temple for the tabernacle.

The temple, literally, was the place God dwelt. God’s presence.

In this Sunday’s reading, St. Paul in his letter to the Romans gives a new place for God to dwell – inside followers of Jesus. St. Paul uses the same word as was used for God to dwell in the temple for the Spirit to now dwell inside the followers of Jesus.

This is huge. St. Paul is developing a theology of the Holy Spirit, helping us understand what it is the Holy Spirit does and how the Holy Spirit works.

The same God that once led God’s people through the desert now has taken up residence in you and in me. And it’s through this Spirit that we have what we need to live the life that God calls us to live in Christ Jesus, helping us live the life God calls us to live. We don’t always get it right, but the Spirit is there, cheering us on, reminding us of who we are all the time.

It’s heady stuff. And real stuff. And the stuff that can enact God’s dreams.

In the midst of whatever challenges you face in life, God dwells in you through the Spirit and gives you what you need to partner with God.

May you know you are loved today.

May you know the Spirit dwells in you.

May you go and live like it.

In Faith, Love, and Service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – July 3, 2026

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Dear Good People of St. Paul’s,

This week I have been the chaplain for the Leader-in-Training (LIT) program at Waycross, our diocesan camp. I have heard other campers running and squealing, seen a sea of tie-dyed campers making their way to lunch, and had the privilege of presiding at communion for a group of young children participating in a special family camp program — experiencing Waycross for the very first time alongside their parents.

Camp life is full in a different way than normal life. People are bone tired from activity and being outside. I’ve loved how instead of people taking a peek at their devices at the table, teenagers are making up games to play. Simple, sometimes inane games, but games nonetheless.

I can’t help but hear the end of this week’s gospel as I’m here:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message).

With heat indexes so high, I don’t know if I could call being here rest, but it’s a different rhythm, one that allows me to see a rhythm of grace. And here’s the deal: you don’t have to go to Waycross or somewhere else to find it. You can notice the unforced rhythms of grace right where you are. God wants to show you. God invites you into that sort of life. A life that makes sense.

Here at St. Paul’s, our Sunday Eucharist is a place where we can notice that unforced rhythm of grace, a place where we practice seeing it in our day-to-day lives.

May you know this grace Jesus speaks of.

In Faith, Love, and Service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – June 26, 2026

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Dear Good People of St. Paul’s,

Welcome.

On hot, humid days, days before bottled water was ubiquitous, one of the seven kids in my family of origin would run inside when people came to collect the trash to get a cup of ice water for them. I’m not too sure when we started this practice. It was the 80s, the summers of just hanging around in the neighborhood. Between riding bikes, playing capture the flag with the neighborhood kids in our front and back yard, having tea parties in forts, making our voices sound like robots in front of the fan, we would see when the truck was coming down the street and do what we can to make our ridiculous climate a bit more bearable for those who had to work in it.

This week’s gospel is about welcome.

Connected with last week’s of going out to help and serve others in need, this welcome of others in this gospel starts small, with a cup of water. A cup of water for culture that is known for hospitality is a low bar, the least anyone could do. And yet, that’s where we start. We just start somewhere.

We welcome people: into our lives, into our church community, into our ministries. By doing that, we demonstrate God’s love and care for all people.

So offer a cup of water to someone who is thirsty, say hello to someone who might be lonely, or just treat the next person you have contact with in a way you would like to be treated, with dignity and respect. In doing so, you offer God’s welcome to them.

In Faith, Love, and Service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – December 7, 2025

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Dear Friends of St. Paul’s,

A surprising image from this week’s passage in Isaiah – a new green plant, a shoot, coming from something that is supposed to be dead, a stump.

New life from something that was not just past its prime.

Hope in unlikely places.

I love Advent. I love the reminders of hope, that contrasts a life that is a mess with the dreams of life with God. I love exploring ways to define hope – it’s not optimism, it’s not positivity. Hope has this substance, not only an ability to see that life could be different but a desire to work toward it.

Isaiah’s vision of this new green shoot offers a vision of a different world from the one Isaiah was living through, one full of the threat of war and take over. He calls for a peaceable kingdom, one that, while seemingly impossible, is worth working toward.

Because hope blooms in unlikely places.

May you see those new blooms in spaces you once thought were dead, no matter what is going on in your own world. May we have eyes to define hope and work for it in our world.

In faith, love, and service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – November 2, 2025

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Dear Friends of St. Paul’s,

This Sunday we celebrate one of the Episcopal Church’s high holy days: All Saints’ Day and the day after, All Soul’s Day.

All Saints’ Day (November 1) is the day we celebrate people who are exemplars in the faith—people who have gone before us and demonstrated how to live life with God.

This includes Red Letter Saints, people present in the New Testament like our namesake, St. Paul, and others like Phoebe.

Black Letter Saints are people whose lives the church commemorates. These include Benedict of Nursia, the father of modern monasticism, who died in 540, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who died at the hands of the Nazis in WWII.

All Saints are commemorated on the date of their death.

I write this on the anniversary of my mother-in-law’s death, an amazing woman of faith. The Anglican perspective is that while we honor specific people as exemplars, all of us who are following Jesus are being made saints. That brings me to the next special day: All Souls’ Day.

All Souls’ Day (November 2) allows us to remember those we know personally who have gone before us and are no longer with us.

This Sunday we will mark both All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day together. We remember those people throughout time that we look up to and learn from, holy people, saints. We specifically remember those we have lost to death this year on All Souls’. At St. Paul’s we take quiet time during the service to remember, to pray, to light candles, to grieve.

Through it all, we ask God to make us saints—to make us people who are following the way of Jesus. We love others, we muddle through life, we confess when we make a mess of it all. We live this life with God. And through it, God redeems us and makes us saints.

Let us celebrate All Saints’ and All Soul’s Day together.

In faith, love, and service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – October 26, 2025

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Dear Friends of St. Paul’s,

The song echoed through camp as the campers lined up for Eucharist, each one receiving, then joining hands in a circle around the altar.

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord.

They swayed gently, their voices overlapping, echoing one another with the words of Luke 18.

And God,

Will lift

You up,

Higher and higher.

Did I know what this meant as a child? As a teenager?

Do I truly understand what it means now?

Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord.

In Luke 18:9–14, Jesus tells of two people who go up to the temple to pray. One appears outwardly spiritual, doing all the right things, but full of arrogance and contempt for others. The other is painfully aware of having missed the mark, standing humbly before God.

Jesus asks: who was justified? Who was made right?

And God,

Will lift

You up.

God makes right not the one who appears righteous, but the one who humbles themselves before God—the one who doesn’t need to tear others down to lift themselves up.

It’s a tough piece of “Jesus wisdom” for a world that often seems to believe that might makes right. Humility doesn’t mean refusing to stand up for ourselves. It means doing so without standing on top of someone else.

And still, around campfires and sanctuaries alike, the song continues to echo—the wisdom of Luke 18 set to melody:

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord,

And God will lift you up.

In faith, love, and service,

holly+

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Letter from the Rector – October 19, 2025

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Dear Friends of St. Paul’s,

Deacon Sue and I spent the past few days with about twenty other clergy from the Dioceses of Northern Indiana and Indianapolis—staring, for hours on end, at a block of wood that would eventually become an icon of Jesus the Pantokrator. The process required incredible patience and precise instruction—both of which, at several points, I wasn’t sure I possessed.

At one moment, I was convinced I’d finally succeeded in transforming Jesus’s mitten-shaped hands into something that actually resembled human ones—only to realize I had accidentally given Jesus six fingers! I dissolved into laughter, but my heart also sank, feeling momentarily like a failure. That feeling didn’t last long; a quick swipe of paint covered the extra finger, and the work went on. But it captured the range of emotions that marked the experience—frustration and joy, humility and wonder, all mingled together.

At the final Eucharist, all of our completed icons surrounded the altar. Though each of us began with the same line drawing of Jesus the Pantokrator, every icon was unique. Each one reflected its maker’s heart, hands, and prayers. It reminded me how God reveals God’s self to each of us in deeply personal ways.

When it came time to pick up our icons to be blessed, I almost didn’t recognize mine. Enough time had passed since I’d last stared at every imperfection that I could now see it differently—from a distance, no longer fixating on flaws, but seeing only Jesus the Pantokrator, Sustainer of the World.

May Jesus sustain us all.

In faith, love, and service,

holly+

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