October 2014
St. Mark’s News Volume 18/Issue 9
From the Rector This month’s “From the Rector” is actually “From the Assistant.” On the second Sunday of October we will welcome our new Assistant Rector, The Rev. Nathaniel (Nate) Jung-Chul Lee, to the St. Mark’s family. I asked Nate+ to introduce himself to us in this month’s Newsletter. We will also have an opportunity to become acquainted with him at the Mission and Ministry meals on October 12, 19, and 26. Welcome Nate+! (p.s. Since Nate’s home is in Waco, he will need a place to stay in Austin Saturday nights through Tuesday nights so let me know if you have, or know of, a place for him!) EZT+ Things got started for me just outside the nation’s capital, in suburban Washington D.C. I know that a lot of people down here in Texas like to think of the district as the “evil empire” ––a reputation, for the record, that is totally deserved––but for me, it’s also a place of great nostalgia: the building on the corner of 18th and K where my mom had her first job out of high school, the sidewalks where I used to skateboard (read: fall down a lot while my friends skateboarded), and those (Smithsonian) museums that led me to wonder over nature, and history, and the creativity of the human spirit. I grew up the middle child of the interfaith and interracial marriage between Hyeon-Kon Lee and Gail Sue Wright. My father immigrated to this country in 1976, as a four-time world champion in Taekwondo, in order to spread the growth of the Korean martial art abroad. He romanced my mother, somewhat surreptitiously, while she was a new student in his dojang. She had moved to the D.C. area from her hometown of Rochester, New York; herself the daughter of a veritable “Green Acres” couple––my grandfather, a coal miner from West Virginia; my grandmother, a native of Manhattan. While in Rochester, my mom In this Issue had studied Taekwondo, and my father’s school was the only one in From the Rector ......................... 1 the area when she arrived in D.C. The first time she walked into his Vestry Highlights ........................ 2 school, as my dad tells the story, he fell in love with her at first sight. Growing up with this diverse background—my parents’ immediate families include atheists, Confucian philosophers, NeoCon fundamentalist Christians, and advocates of a kind of ancestral spiritualism—has taught me to respect and value a variety of different perspectives. My family is eclectic, eccentric, and even deeply flawed. But they are also the best people I know. I personally found my deepest sense of place and self in traditional Christianity. Its
Mission and Ministry .................. 3 Outreach .................................... 4 Parish Life .................................. 5 Music Notes ............................... 7 Christian Formation .................... 8 Caffeine Ministry ........................ 9 Celebrations ............................. 10 ROTA ....................................... 11