The CATHEDRAL TIMES The weekly newsletter of the Cathedral of St. Philip · Serving Atlanta and the World · May 10, 2020
I SAW A SNAKE: DANGERS AND DIGRESSIONS By the Very Rev. Sam Candler, Dean of the Cathedral Boog and I broke our quarantine the other day. We were glad, and eager, and ready, to drive down to Coweta County, about an hour southwest of Atlanta. That’s where I grew up, going to school for the first six grades of my life at Elm Street Elementary School, in Newnan, Georgia. Yeah, that’s where Alan Jackson, the country singer, is from. The other day, my mother sent me his recording of the song, “The Older I Get,” which was actually written by Alan Jackson’s nephew, Adam Wright, who also grew up in Newnan. A friend of my mother’s, in Newnan, had apparently run into Adam Wright’s mother while walking the other day. But I digress. It’s a habit of Southerners who are from where I am from. The point is, Boog and I drove down to see my parents, who still live down there, outside Newnan, in Coweta County. They live in the same house I grew up in. My sister and her husband live nearby on the old farm property. My brother does, too. Actually, my son now lives nearby, too, with his own family. So, it was refreshing, and a nice gradual way to expand quarantine, to get down there, to those familiar woods and pastures. I walked a lot, and I bicycled a lot. My daughter’s family, who live in Atlanta, also got down there, with her three children. It was lovely to play and walk and bicycle with them! But, I digress. The point is, I saw a snake. It was actually a beautiful snake, a black snake, a long one, almost five feet long. He was perfectly still, lying right by the road as I drove by. I have driven down that road a thousand times, and –even as the bushes and trees change—I know what that roadside is supposed to look like. Had I not been down that road a thousand times before, I would not have noticed something different this time. Yes, it was a smooth and silky black snake, trying to remain still and not attract attention to itself. I had to stop and digress! I like snakes; and so I knew it could have been a black racer, as silky and slender as it was. But they usually race off! This was probably a thicker, black rat snake, who are happily more docile. (The next day down there, I saw a second snake; that one was definitely a black racer, and I could not catch up to his speed, slipping and sliding through the woods.) My mother tells the story of when I was quite young down there. She had been telling me all morning to go outside, to go ride my bicycle. I kept coming back inside. She kept sending me out. I kept returning. “Go ride your bicycle,” she instructed. “I can’t ride my bicycle,” I replied. “Why not?” she asked. I said, “Well, there’s a snake under my bicycle.” Yeah, this time of year, no matter what else is going on, snakes reappear. Oaks and pines bud and blossom; and the weather gets warm enough for snakes to come out. It is part of the rhythm of life. Despite everything else going on in the world, the wildlife of the world is moving again. The snakes can be frightening, but these black snakes are fine. They do keep the mice and rats and rodents away. This rhythm of life, the rhythm of God’s creation, can be frightening. But it can also be important, even healthy. I have no idea where this beautiful creation will end up. But I am sure glad to be a part of it. Psalm 104:25 says, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” Even the dangers and the digressions can be useful. Digressions happen, time stops, and what we thought we were headed for is not where we end up at all. We stopped going one way, and we turned another. “The Older I Get,” they sing. Part of growing older is understanding how wisdom comes with age, too. Growing older is meeting those dangers and digressions with patience, and turning them into wisdom. Hey, that reminds me; it’s my mother’s birthday this week. She’s getting on up there, like the grandma that Elton John sang about in the song, Country Comfort. “And it's good old country comfort in my bones /Just the sweetest sound my ears have ever known,” he sang. But, I digress. I will go see her this week.
This SUNDAY
MAY 10, 2020 · The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Acts 7:55-60 · Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 · 1 Peter 2:2-10 · John 14:1-14
EACH OF THESE SERVICES WILL BE LIVESTREAMED AT CATHEDRALATL.ORG/STREAM, ON THE CATHEDRAL APP, AND ON THE CATHEDRAL FACEBOOK PAGE.
8:45 A.M. AND 11:15 A.M. HOLY EUCHARIST Celebrant: The Very Rev. Sam Candler Preacher: The Rev. Canon Lauren Holder
4 P.M. CHORAL EVENSONG THE FEAST OF DAME JULIAN OF NORWICH RECORDED MAY 6, 2018 Celebrant: The Rev. Canon Wallace Marsh Richard Shephard, Preces and Responses Ēriks Ešenvalds, Merton College Service William Mathias, As truly as God is our Father Patrick Hadley, My beloved spake
PRAYER List FOR THOSE WHO ARE ILL OR RECOVERING: IMMEDIATE NEEDS Mary Chase Mize
LONG TERM PRAYERS R. Huntley Allen • Patricia Anderson • T. Mayo and Pat Atkins • Warren Barnes • Edgar and Judith Beach •
Perry Benton • Virginia Bicksler • Corey Cashion • Heather Clark • Sue Clary • Marie Corrigan • Terry
Dornbush • Sarah duBignon • Kitty Dukehart • Deborah Ellington • Randy Farmer • Robert Fox • Mike Greenlief • William Ham • Katie Hughey • Louise Kan • John Kelleher • Chris Kopecky • Lisa Krysiak •
Rose Leon • Elaine Lyon • Patricia Madison • Carol McDonald • Glenn Miller • Ashley Minear • Royce
Mitchell • Henri Muller and Family • Susan Myers • Charlie Neal • Linus Nickel • Marion Palmore • Joann Lewis Pobst • Garry Pryor • Rowland Radford • Rubye and Wayne Reid • Tommy Ripley • Agnes Elizabeth
Robertson • Peter Sanders • Louis “Skip” Schueddig • Bill Sutton • Julie Thompson • Tommy Truesdale • Ryan Webb • Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr. • Faye Van Winkle • Karen Young
FAMILY AND FRIENDS Eileen Abeyesundere • Alford Family • Karyn Bacon • Bettina Bass • Suzette Brading • Tom Bingham • David Bond • Lynn Chandler • Andrew Clark • Robert Coatney • Robert Discavage • Maureen Fernandez • Carleton
Fuller • Bruce Gillies • Holloway Family • Tom Ingegneri • Stephen Jones • Bernard A. Kan • Pete Livezey • Joyce Lyford • Richard Malek • Pat Martin • Michelle Maxwell • John McCann • Bonnie Shields McCormack • Diane McCrory • Bob McGill • Will McGuffin • David Mickle • Dawna Dunn Newton • Steven Norman • Sally Taylor Rogers • Frank Roth • James Sands • Lillian Sandoval • Patricia Schooley • Jim and Becky Settle •
Steve and Colleen Settle • Milton Shiver • Tina Susco • Yvonne Tate • Pierson Thames • Jeffrey Thomas • Janiece Townshend • Roger Traylor • Ron M. Wallace • Katherine Welden • Sara Wilkerson • Woodfin Family • Whit A. Wright • Patricia Young • Hollis Youngner
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE DIED Charlie Gearing
This letter is part of a series of fictional letters by Canon George Maxwell intended for Episcopalians young and old who wonder what it means to be faithful in the world today. Dear Anna, You asked where the soul fits into the spiritual life. I think you should listen to some of the music that I grew up calling soul music. Soul music started with traditional African-American gospel music and then blended in elements of rhythm & blues and jazz. The term “soul” came to mean the experience of being black in America. The musicians talked about the music as dignifying a people by finding meaning in their suffering and their love and, in doing so, giving them life. I think of it as the soul at work. David Benner, in his book Soulful Spirituality, describes the soul as a perspective and not a thing. The soul, he says, is the womb of experience. It is the part of our consciousness that connects our body and our spirit. It makes us aware of things that happen to us in a way
that allows us to reflect on them and experience them as having meaning for us. Whether you feel it in the music or hear it in the words, I’m hoping that you will see that, in many ways, the soul is the heart of our spiritual life. It’s the soul that opens us up and allows us to be present to whatever we might encounter. The spirit is always inspiring us, calling us upward to places that we haven’t seen. But it’s the soul that goes down into our depths, taking us to all of the places inside of us that we don’t want to see. It’s the soul, it seems to me, that keeps healing us and getting us ready to go where we want to go. I’m serious about listening to soul music. Just thinking about Etta James, Otis Redding, and Aretha Franklin brings back a lot of good memories for me. I didn’t really appreciate what I was listening to at the time and I still loved it! Your affectionate uncle, Ames
Old Fashioned Sunday School and Parenting Unscripted meet at 10:10 a.m. on Sunday via Zoom. Contact the organizer for information on where to connect: Canon George Maxwell, gmaxwell@cathedralATL.org for Old Fashioned Sunday School, and the Rev. Nate Huddleston, nhuddleston@cathedralATL.org, for Parenting Unscripted.
The CATHEDRAL off ST. PHILIP
The Very Rev. Samuel G. Candler, Dean Dale Adelmann, Ph.D., Canon for Music The Rev. Lauren R. Holder, Canon for Community and Education The Rev. George M. Maxwell, Jr., Vicar The Rev. Catherine Zappa, Canon for Liturgy and Pastoral Care The Rev. John William Harkins III, Ph.D., Priest Associate The Rev. Nathan G. Huddleston, Priest Associate for Youth and Young Adult Ministries The Rev. Julia B. Mitchener, Priest Associate for Children’s Ministries The Rev. Deacon Juan Sandoval, Deacon for Hispanic Ministries The Rev. Theophus “Thee” Smith, Ph.D., Priest Associate The Rev. Carolynne G. Williams, Canon Associate for Pastoral Care and Elder Ministry Del King, Senior Warden Dorsey DeLong, Junior Warden
CATHEDRAL TIMES SUBMISSION DEADLINES: FOR THE SUNDAY, MAY 17 ISSUE, THE DEADLINE IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 6. FOR THE SUNDAY, MAY 24 ISSUE, THE DEADLINE IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 13. TO RECEIVE THE TIMES BY EMAIL, CONTACT MELANA DICKSON, MDICKSON@CATHEDRALATL.ORG. TO SUBMIT AN ANNOUNCEMENT REQUEST, CONTACT THE EDITOR, DAN MURPHY, AT DMURPHY@CATHEDRALATL.ORG.
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PARISH Life KANUGA PARISH RETREAT CANCELLED Due to COVID-19, the Kanuga campus will remain
closed through the end of June and our parish retreat, scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, will not take place. We are already planning our 2021 parish retreat next May with keynote speaker David Zahl! Knowing that Kanuga’s finances have been hard-hit by the need to cancel so many events, the Cathedral has donated $2000 to Kanuga in response. Those who had already registered for the 2020 retreat can contact Lisa McNamara, LMcNamara@cathedralATL.org, with any questions about full refunds.
PASTORAL Care COMMUNITY SUPPORT GROUPS Hospice Atlanta, which regularly holds grief groups and other support groups at the Cathedral, is now offering virtual support groups to anyone in the community, free of charge. Throughout May and June, Hospice Atlanta will hold weekly groups around grief, support for healthcare workers, mindfulness, parenting, and more. For more information or to register for any of these free groups, please contact Barbara Moore, 404-869-3086 or barbara.moore@vnhs.org.
UTO INGATHERING IS THIS SUNDAY In this time of uncertainty, the United Thank Offering invites you to notice the good things that are happening each day, give thanks to God for your blessings, and make an offering for each blessing. Through UTO, your blessings become blessings for others. Be grateful each day and share your gratitude by putting a note of gratitude into your Blue Box or an envelope. Then, before the UTO Ingathering on Sunday, May 10, you can open your Blue Box or envelope and read and count your blessings before making a donation online at cathedralATL.org/UTO.
THRIFT House DONATE TO THE THRIFT HOUSE The Cathedral Thrift House needs your help! We are so grateful for your donations, but because of limited space and personnel, please be selective in donating only your finest treasures when we reopen, which we hope will be in the next few weeks. Fine housewares and decorative items; clean, pressed linens; nice adult clothing; furniture; art; jewelry; and current, best-selling books are always welcome. We will not be able to accept children’s clothing, electronics, or items that are ripped, torn, stained, or broken. Thank you so much for your support and understanding! —With love from the Cathedral Thrift House staff and volunteers.