Parish Newsletter
- February - March 2012
PARISH LETTER
FEBRUARY-MARCH 2012
Dear Friends,
Before we discuss our plans for Lent, I want to thank everyone who helped with the Christmas services. Attendance at the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services was up, and the church was also full for the St. George’s Choral Society concert conducted by Dr. Lewis just before Christmas.
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
***Uche Akwuba, Master of Ceremonies, Padmini Abeywickrama, Altar Guild chairperson, and all the chalice bearers, readers, acolytes and ushers who helped with the Christmas services.
***The Women’s, Men’s, and 20’s/30’s Groups for decorating the church, and to everyone who gave so generously for the Christmas decorations and music and for the Christmas Fund.
***Anna Holmgren and the many parishioners and friends who helped launch Operation Santa, our first new outreach program in some time. We expected to be able to send out around a dozen presents; in fact, volunteers mailed some 50 presents!
***Laurie Mygatt and everyone else who worked so hard on the Christmas Fair. Thanks to the many donors and workers, we realized over $8,000 to support parish work in the year ahead.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone who thinks they might like to attend an earlier service on Christmas Eve in addition to the 11 p.m. “Midnight Mass” and the 11 a.m. service on Christmas Day.
ASH WEDNESDAY
Ash Wednesday brings more visitors into our church than any other day of the year. The clergy will be in the Church to offer ashes throughout the day, February 22. I am pleased to announce that my new neighbor and old friend, the Rev. Canon George Brandt will be assisting us on Ash Wednesday. Father Brandt recently retired from the rectorship of St. Michael’s Church on the Upper West Side.
We will also have celebrations of the Eucharist at 8:15 a.m., 12:15 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.; there will be hymns and organ music during the 12:15 service.
LENTEN LECTURES
As is customary on the Sundays during Lent, there will be discussions after the Coffee Hour accompanied by delicious homemade soups provided by volunteers and paid for by free-will offerings.
This year, I have chosen the theme, “Spiritual Autobiography.” Ginger and I will take four of the discussions; one session will be led by the Rt. Rev. Mark Sisk, who is visiting us for confirmation on April 10. Here is the complete schedule:
Lenten Lectures 2012
Spiritual Autobiography
Sunday, February 26: Spiritual Autobiography Begins at Home. Two clergy memoirs
Sunday, March 4: The Most Famous 20th Century Anglican: C. S. Lewis
Sunday, March 11: Bishop Sisk
Sunday, March 18: Julian of Norwich
Sunday March 25: Trying to be Honest: Thomas Merton
All lectures run from 12:30 to 1:30; no reservations are required.
FROM THE ASSISTANT MINISTER:
Mardi Gras Party
We’ll continue the Incarnation tradition of pancakes and a great party on Mardi Gras. We will gather in the Parish House from 6:30-8:30pm. Dinner will include pancakes, ham, salad, and other treats. There will be entertainment for all and a special activity for children. The cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children. Volunteers are needed to set up, decorate, flip pancakes, or clean up – please contact me at ginger@churchoftheincarnation.org or 212-689-6350.
Reaching Out
A group of Incarnation parishioners met on Sunday, February 12 to discuss ways in which Incarnation can reach out to the community in love and service. We considered key characteristics of a faithful and effective outreach program that would be a good fit for Incarnation.
We explored about ten organizations in need of volunteers, visiting most in person, and used the criteria above to narrow our choices down to two options:
1) Open Door, a transitional housing center run by the Moravian Church. The center provides low-cost housing for homeless men and women over 55. Looking for congregations willing to provide a small amount of financial support and to organize occasional enrichment activities (game night, movie night, holiday meals) at their facility and for individual volunteers who are willing to be paired with residents and offer encouragement through cards, phone calls, hospital visits when needed.
2) New York Cares, an organization that provides a variety of one-time volunteer opportunities for individuals or groups from school clean-ups to organizing canned foods for food pantries. Incarnation would choose dates and projects and volunteer together as a congregation.
The Outreach Committee asks you to seriously and prayerfully consider which program would be a better fit, and to let me or a committee member know. We also ask you to consider how you might become involved as we move forward. Members of the Outreach Committee are: Janet Loengard, Melissa Gordon, Harris Healy, Michael Foley, Kim Neufeld, Linda Gossett, and Danny Curtin.
Women’s Group
On Thursday, March 1, the Women’s Group will gather in the Parish House from 7-8:30 PM for a “hands-on” workshop on prayer. A light dinner will be served.
Please also mark your calendars for the Women’s Holy Saturday Retreat. We’ll meet on April 7 at 4:00 pm in the church. We will be exploring the faith and witness of the women disciples who waited outside the tomb of Jesus; we will also consider our own seasons of waiting and our need for the hope of the resurrection. We’ll have light refreshments then work together to decorate the church with flowers before the Easter Vigil service begins at 6:30 pm. Please enter the church at 25 East 35th Street, and try to arrive promptly at 4:00 pm, or shortly before.
You can RSVP for either of these events by emailing ginger@churchoftheincarnation.org or calling the office, 212-689-6350.
Twenties and Thirties
The next meeting of our Twenties and Thirties’ Drinks & Discussion group will be on Tuesday, March 6. Meet at the Parish House at 7:30 pm and we will walk to a local bar where the Rector will lead a conversation on the differences between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. As always, first drink—be it a Coke or a beer—is on the church. RSVP: ginger@churchoftheincarnation.org.
Families with Children
There will be a special activity for children during our Mardi Gras Party. Children are invited to our annual Easter Egg Hunt after the April 8th 11:00 am service. There will be baskets available, but your child is also welcome to bring his/her own. Thanks to our excellent volunteers, our Godly Play program continues through the month of May.
–the Rev. Ginger Strickland
MORNING PRAYER AND COFFEE
Those wishing a special devotion for Lent are welcome to join Ginger and me and a group of parishioners who gather in the Chapel of the Nativity for Morning Prayer at 8 a.m. on Tuesdays. Coffee and pastry follow the twenty-minute prayer service and everyone is on the way to work before 9:00 a.m. Enter by the side door at 25 East 35th Street.
NEW PARISH LEADERS
At the Annual Meeting on January 8, Janet Loengard was re-elected to another term as Senior Warden; Sandra Cecchini, Steve Deihl, Gretchen Morgenson, and Elizabeth Westcott-Pitt were elected to the Vestry. Their biographies follow.
***Sandra (Sandy) Cecchini has attended Incarnation since 1994 and from that time she has considered Incarnation her home church even when living abroad. Sandy retired from the U.S. State Department Foreign Service in 2007 and thereafter has occasionally done temporary assignments as a management officer to fill staffing gaps at embassies in various parts of Europe. She has been known to slip off to her condo in Florida when the New York weather gets bad but she can usually be found at home in her “oversized closet” in Tudor City and as a volunteer in the Incarnation office several mornings each week.
***Steve Deihl has been a member of the Church of the Incarnation for eleven years; Steve Deihl is a visual artist whose paintings and projects have been exhibited at, among other places, The Butler Institute, Ohio; The Bellevue Art Museum, Seattle; The Islip Art Museum; NASA (Huntsville); and The Seti Institute, Paris. His writing on the connections between science and art has appeared in Leonardo and other journals. He is represented in New York by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in Chelsea. In 2002, he was awarded a New York City Teaching Fellowship in mathematics and since then has taught at a public high school. A resident of Murray Hill for 14 years, he moved with his family a few years ago to the historic district of Jackson Heights, Queens, and enjoys painting in his studio and working on his house in Sullivan County, New York.
*** At Incarnation, Janet Loengard has participated in stewardship, outreach, and hospitality, and for the past several years has chaired the Silent Auction at the Christmas Fair. She was elected to the Vestry in 2007 and became Senior Warden in 2010. She grew up in Pennsylvania and holds a B.A. from Cornell and graduate degrees from Harvard and Columbia. She works in English legal history and is professor emerita of history at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She lives in Bernardsville, New Jersey, where she attempts to garden despite woodchucks and rabbits.
***Gretchen Morgenson is assistant business and financial editor and a columnist at the New York Times. She has covered the world financial markets for the Times since May 1998 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her coverage of Wall Street. She joined Vogue Magazine as an editorial assistant and began writing the personal finance column for the magazine several years later. In 1981 she became a stockbroker at Dean Witter Reynolds, a job she held for three years. Ms. Morgenson joined Money Magazine as a staff writer in 1984 and moved to Forbes Magazine in 1986. She remained there until 1993 when she became executive editor of Worth Magazine. She returned to Forbes in August 1995 and the following month became national press secretary to Steve Forbes when he ran for President of the United States. When Mr. Forbes withdrew from the race in March 1996, she returned to writing and editing at Forbes. She joined the Times two years later. Ms. Morgenson lives with her husband Paul Devlin and son Conor Devlin in Murray Hill.
Liz Westcott-Pitt’s bio will appear in the next newsletter.
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Congratulations also to Charles Beardsley and Susan Ridgeway who were selected to be delegates to the Diocesan Convention, and to Robert Torretti, who was chosen to be the alternate delegate.
FROM THE SENIOR WARDEN:
***Five parishioners – Laurie Mygatt, Kim Neufeld, Ann and Ted Rast, and I – together with Ginger Strickland and Michael Foley – flew to London in January for a four-day visit with our link parish, St. Vedast-alias-Foster. We were guests of St. Vedast members, who opened their homes to us. It was a whirlwind trip, including among other events a tour of the Tower of London with one of the Queen’s chaplains and a visit to the Houses of Parliament guided by Elizabeth Batchelor (one of the two wardens at St. Vedast’s) who spent her career working there. A high point came on Sunday, when we enjoyed a festive parish lunch where we were able to meet and spend time with the church’s members. The schedule arranged by the Rev. Dr. Alan McCormack, rector of St. Vedast, enabled us to get an “insider’s” view of many London institutions and best of all, we came to know some wonderful people! A number of St. Vedast parishioners plan a visit here in the Fall, when our parish can get to meet them and welcome them to New York.
–Janet Loengard
MEN’S GROUP
On Monday, March 7, the Men’s Group will meet from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. I will begin a discussion on the topic, “Differences between the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.” I am personally interested in this topic because my younger brother, a former Episcopal priest, is about to be ordained a Roman Catholic priest.
We will also meet on Monday, April 2, for a discussion appropriate to Holy Week. Refreshments will be served at both meetings.
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF MUSIC:
Looking ahead at Holy Week and Easter, I thought you might like to know of some of the music planned for Sunday mornings at Incarnation during Lent. As I have mentioned before, I believe some of the best sacred music ever written is for the more austere occasions, so Lent, for me, usually includes some of my favorite music.
The 12:15 service on Ash Wednesday (February 22) features organ music of J. S. Bach, including the beautiful ornamented chorale prelude on “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß,” BWV 622 (“O man, bewail thy great sin”), as well as the Fantasia in b, BWV 563.
I will be in Pottstown, PA on Sunday, February 26, presenting an organ recital at Emmanuel Lutheran Church that day. But you and the choir will be in excellent hands with organist David Ralph.
Sunday, March 4 features the second anthem by Randall Thompson, commissioned by Thomas Dunn in 1970 for Incarnation. These two anthems are on poems by George Herbert (Dunn introduced Thompson to the poetry of Herbert). We did “Antiphon” on February 5. The second piece is on a poem called “Bittersweet.” It is a beautiful, stirring piece. I hope it becomes a part of our permanent choral repertoire!
Sunday, March 11 includes music of Bairstow, Stanford and Fauré for Confirmation, and Bishop Sysk’s visit to Incarnation. We will have extra singers for this day.
Looking ahead, we will have music of Dvořàk and Burleigh for Palm Sunday. This is an interesting combination, as the two were friends in New York City during Dvořàk’s time here. Burleigh introduced him to Spirituals, which found their way into the New World Symphony.
Easter morning continues our seasonal theme, this time with Vivaldi’s “Spring” Concert from the Four Seasons (for strings). Pauline Kim Harris, who so brilliantly played “Winter” in December, will be the violin soloist.
More details on Holy Week and Easter to come!
–Dr. Matthew Lewis
INCARNATION CAMP
Now is the time to think about enrolling your children, nieces, nephews or grandchildren in the Incarnation Summer Camp program. Situated on 700 acres with its own spring-fed private lake, Incarnation has been providing the classic summer camp experience for diocesan young people since 1886. It is the oldest church camp in America and one of the largest.
Our church is the founding parish, and our Vestry constitutes the Incorporators of Incarnation Center, the umbrella organization for the children’s camp, two day-camps, seniors and adult programs and facilities, and a nature center.
The main incarnation center web site is www.incarnationcenter.org. From there, you can find the appropriate summer program. Scholarships are available for children from sponsoring parishes and also from our parish. Early signup is recommended because the most popular sessions fill quickly.
NEWS FROM FORMER PARISHIONERS:
***Former Vestry member, Barbara Pena Coyle writes that her daughter, Rachel Pena Aaron is expecting her second child in July. Rachel was once an acolyte at Incarnation.
***Former Honorary Associate Minister, The Rev. Jessica Hatch wrote that she has retired from full-time ministry but is remaining in Utah with her husband, Steve.
***During the Christmas season, we received visits from the Rev. Paul Stallsworth and Maya Brittain and their families.
***In late December, Anne Perkins moved to New Mexico, to be near her family. A longtime supporter of Incarnation, she will be much missed.
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Every Lent, I remind members of Incarnation of the duty of every Christian to make plans for our eventual passing from this world. These plans should include filling out a healthcare proxy and a living will so that your designated relative or friend can make medical decisions for you if necessary. Also be sure that you have an up-to-date will for your material estate. Your will and other last wishes should be kept in a location outside of your apartment and accessible to your heirs.
Every year, we also remember with gratitude those who have recently made bequests to Incarnation. This year, Legacy Sunday will be March 18.
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We are in the process of updating our Altar Flower Registry. Unless the church office is notified to the contrary, your designated Sunday is carried over from year to year. If you find that you would like a specific date other than what you have or want information on available Sundays, please contact Sandy Cecchini in the church office. The donation for flowers is $65. We will notify you after the flowers have been purchased and when your offering is received, it will be reflected in your pledge statement.
CONGRATULATIONS TO:
***Gabriella Taylor and Sven Eenmaa, whose daughter, Phoebe Gaudete Eenmaa was born on November 24, and to Caroline Risman and Jeffrey Swiatek, whose daughter, Elizabeth Maclay Swiatek was born on December 22.
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For the second straight month, Incarnation has been featured on the homepage of FaithStreet, a relatively new web site that offers information on some New York City houses of worship.
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As noted above, the Rt. Rev. Mark Sisk will be preaching and confirming at Incarnation on March 11. Since the Bishop of New York only visits an individual parish once in every four to six years, and Bishop Sisk reaches the mandatory retirement age of 72 in two years, this will likely be his last visit to our parish.
I hope you will therefore make a special effort to greet him on March 11. He has been a model diocesan bishop: while maintaining the expected progressive stance of New York City, Bishop Sisk has taken great pains to keep in touch with traditionalists. He has also reduced diocesan costs and assessments and done much to allow parishes freedom to pursue their chosen ministries.
Bishop Sisk will be succeeded by the Rev. Canon Andrew Dietsche, who was elected Bishop Coadjutor in December. All New York Episcopalians are invited to attend the consecration of Canon Dietsche on Saturday, March 10, at 10:30 a.m., at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Yours,
The Rev. J. Douglas Ousley