January 2022 Bulletin

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CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL An Episcopal Community in the Heart of Houston, Texas

JANUARY 2022 CHRISTCHURCHCATHEDRAL.ORG

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Fractured and bleeding with light Several years ago, the sculptor Paige Bradley found herself at a standstill. Her style wasn’t en vogue with critics. Galleries declined to show her work. In frustration one day, Paige says, “I took a perfectly good wax sculpture — a piece I had sculpted with precision over several months — an image of a woman meditating in the lotus position, and just dropped it on the floor. I destroyed what I had made. It shattered THE VERY REV. into so many pieces. [I BARKLEY thought] ‘What have I THOMPSON done?’” But as she stared at the broken sculpture, Paige saw a truth that was hidden in the whole. She picked up the pieces and reassembled them, but she didn’t try to mend the fractures or fill the cracks. Instead, she placed a lantern within the sculpture and turned it on. The result is stunning. Blazing light shines through every fissure. One critic describes the woman as “fractured [but] bleeding with light.” Paige Bradley’s career took off because she began to see the light through brokenness rather than seeking perfection. The sculpture, entitled “Expansion,” is now known worldwide and shows in London, California, and New York. The great lyricist Leonard Cohen said, “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” It’s also how the light gets out. In January, we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord, and this is this same truth God conveys to Jesus at his own baptism. Not by doing away with whatever fractures Jesus carries, but by saying, without condition, cracks and all, that Jesus is priceless and pleasing does God give Jesus strength and direction. It is only after this

WITH LIGHT, page 3

The Rt. Rev. Gary Lillibridge, Bishop of West Texas, Retired, presided over the Confirmation, Reception, and Reaffirmation service in the Cathedral December 12. Confirmed: Brett McClenaghan, Danielle Hsu, Katherine Ware, Nina Johnston, Miles Duffey, Brian Mouser, Brenda Hendlmyer. Received: Jonathan Rea, Matthew Fontenot, Dorothy David, Jack Hendlmyer . Reaffirmed: Sarah Jackson, Claire McGinty, Kathryn Crary

Christ Church Cathedral is alive with weekend worship, formation, and fellowship this spring With the turn of the calendar to a new year, Christ Church Cathedral kicks off a spring semester of weekend ministry and programming to nourish the soul and better the world around us. First and foremost, in-person worship continues as the core of our parish identity each Sunday at 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m. in Spanish, and our Celtic Eucharist “The

Well” at 5 p.m. The 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. services continue to be live-streamed, with hundreds of parishioners viewing worship online each week. In addition to our usual Sunday worship schedule, on the First Sunday of Lent, March 6, the Cathedral Choir will present Choral Evensong at 5 p.m. in lieu of The Well.

WORSHIP, FORMATION, page 6

John Logan – the sermons, the stories, the love BY WILL HAMILTON - ARCHIVES@CHRISTCHURCHCATHEDRAL.ORG

In the April Bulletin, the Cathedral Archives’ goals were cited: to look backward to create a community of memory and to look forward to create a community of expectation of where we are going. This column looks back at Canon John Logan’s life among us and provides some of John’s views of who we should be and where we should be seeking to go individually and as a community. Bishop Doyle noted in his homily at John’s funeral that “we are here because we are woven together in John’s life. John was everpresent. His physical body will actually be noticeably absent from his office desk at the Diocese, his seat in the choir, his chair at the back of the cathedral, at a

LOGAN, page 5


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