First off, please sign up for our Advent wreath-making program! This will be on Sunday, November 22nd in the parish hall after service. The sign-up sheet is posted in hard copy in the parish hall. Bring greens to use from your garden! This makes our wreaths special and helps us celebrate the bounty of our good earth. Please indicate on the sign-up sheet with a note that you will bring greens to share--Deacon Green Jeannie will bring garden gleanings to share. And, even if you

As the dust continues to settle on this week’s elections, I’m still sorting through my own emotions and my hopes for the future or our community, state and country. This might seem like political or civic work, but as we’ve acknowledged over and over again in these past years, it is the spiritual work of a disciple, following the prompting of Jesus to shape the world we are in. I realized that I’m feeling many things right now: great relief, a bit of peace, a

This is one of my favorite Halloween stories: When our son Jesse was about four, he attended Sunday School at St. Cecilia’s Catholic Church, where we attended. Halloween was upon us and the kids were invited to dress up as their favorite saint that weekend. Jesse was enamored with the story of St. George and the dragon, and we had been reading some wonderful children’s books on the subject. He wanted to dress up as St. George for his Sunday School class. So we made him some a

Greetings, Friends! There is still time to join us for the next book reading group, Poverty, by America. We will meet on Wednesday, November 11th in the small meeting room near the parish offices and by zoom. Next, we have our Advent Book Watch for the Light. This link is from Bookshop.org, but you can purchase it at your favorite vendor. We will meet by Zoom on both Wednesday, December 2nd and Wednesday, December 9th. Here is the zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8

Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people. I found myself doing that little hand rhyme as we reached the final days of our steeple installation project this week. Pro tip: your pinky fingers must be pointing upward to make the steeple, and you have to remember to tuck your fingers inside your hands so you can “see all the people” inside the church. My fingers must have been much more flexible when I was taught that rhyme as a youngster. I

Whenever I read a great piece of writing, I immediately think, "Who can I share this with?" This summer, I came across this newsletter, "Taste and Read," an offering from the magazine "The Christian Century." "The Christian Century" is, on its own, great reading, and for free, in smaller doses, you can sign up for the email. As we are in the season of harvests, celebrations of abundance, and entering our stewardship time, now is an especially good time to read about and cons

Stewardship season is again upon us. On Sunday, Oct. 18, we will kick off our month of reflection and discernment of how we give our time, talent, and treasure, culminating in Ingathering Sunday on Nov. 16. On that day, individuals submit their financial pledges, estimating their 2027 financial giving. That, in turn, helps us anticipate income as we draft our 2027 budget. This year’s theme is “Plenty Good Room” from the Spiritual of the same name. In God’s house there is alw

Beginning in the fall of 2010 with one group, and adding a second group in 2013, Listening Circles at St. Peter’s have met monthly through the program year to experience and practice deep listening. Our time together is shaped by the Circle of Trust Touchstones developed by the Center for Courage & Renewal, in hopes of building trust and creating a safe place for listening and sharing. Participants take time to share some of their personal stories with each other and use

We’ve lost several national heroes of late – artists, writers, activists whose advanced age is a reminder of how long their wisdom, passion and commitment to the good has been shaping us. That’s important to remember when so many cruel and hateful voices are grabbing the microphone. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the passing of Dolly Parton. But I’m also mourning the passing of feminist icon Gloria Steinem, jazz musician Cassandra Wilson and author and activist Wendell Berry.

Greetings, Friends, I want to introduce, more thoroughly, the book for our first October 14th meeting (7pm, in the meeting room near the parish offices, changed from the library), Poverty, by America by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Matthew Desmond. A few years ago, I read his book, Evicted and was moved by his candid, often heart-breaking, account of how our neighbors come to be put out on the street. I recalled, from personal experience and those of friends, as to how clo

"It's not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving." Mother Teresa's most famous quote on giving speaks to recent good news. Paul Mortimer and Bertha Hepworth Mortimer were prominent members of St. Peter’s Church during the 1950’s. They witnessed much change in their time, including the building and consecration of the church building we know and love. Their legacy to St. Peter’s lives on today. For one example, next time you are in church, look up to bo

I just got back from a bath in the forest. Well to be honest, as full immersions go this was more like a sponge bath in the woods. Still, I had a bit of time in the middle of my day today and thought I’d try out forest bathing, which sounds a bit more romantic than taking a walk after lunch to reduce my glucose levels. Forest bathing is a ritual of presence and awareness done among trees, the farther removed the better. I opted for Edge Hill Woods, which has an uphill path th

We remember where we were on Sept. 11, 2001. Jess and the kids and I lived in Cleveland Heights, OH, at the time. My friend Pat called to tell me to turn on the television. How did he know I hadn’t yet tuned in? On every station were the images of the burning buildings in New York City, the news just starting to unfold. I watched in horror as I waited for my ministry partner Bob to pick me up. We were headed to a local school to offer storytelling and music for a back-to-sch

I marched in my first Labor Day parade shortly after starting my first job as a newspaper reporter for the Rochester Times Union in 1988. I was 21 years old, had just graduated from journalism school and was getting my first taste of the power of organized labor. In the four years that followed, I would encounter my first experience with contract negotiations. I would become a grievance chair at a time when the fast and constant typing required of newspaper staff was causing

Deacon Jeannie to Join St. Peter's in Early September Greetings St. Peter’s Community! I am so happy to be among you very soon. Sometimes, I call myself a ‘Garden Evangelist” as the other half of my bi-vocational life is as a landscape garden designer. You will come to see my love for the garden when I preach about seeds, trees, green things that grow. I am also an avid knitter and textile artist, and I love to read. I look forward to being part of your beautiful ministries.

The phrase “the glory of God is the human being fully alive” is often attributed to St. Irenaeus of Lyons. Whatever he originally meant by the phrase, it’s an idea that rings with its own truth when we encounter people that are unabashedly themselves, who are true to their deepest nature, and are unashamed at how God made them. When such a life is lived with open gratitude to the God who fashioned it, it especially rings with divine glory. As the nation mourns the death of co

The College of Congregational Development that Rector’s Warden Deborah Way, Rosalinda Ibañez-Memba and I attended this summer set a lot of wheels spinning in our collective heads and left us with numerous models that we plan to share with you this year. One theme that was especially interesting to us was that of identity. Our understanding of who we are and whose we are as a parish shapes what we have in common, the work that flows out of our mission and vision, and our sense

As I was gathering data to help plan our programming for children, youth, and families this year, I found that we have 40 children in our parish from toddlers to 17-year-olds. That number has been growing gradually since I got here five years ago at the close of the COVID pandemic. Of those, about 16 are from preschoolers through grade five—eligible for our Godly Play for Everyone program. Another 21 are old enough to be in youth ministry, for kids in sixth grade and up. That

Have you noticed that the outside of the building looks a little brighter these days? If you were around when the church was built in the late 1950s, the hues might look a bit familiar as well, as many of the color choices reflected the original colorways. This summer we completed an exterior painting and repair project that also addressed a number of spaces in need of repair, which you can’t see from the ground. We freshened the exterior finish, which hasn’t gotten a compreh

My retreat time the other week gave me time to really sink into some practices that I find little time for in my regular schedule. Last week I wrote about the gift of sitting with birds and allowing them to serve as my spiritual directors. I also made some time to start reading a book I’ve been trying to get to: Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, by Walter Brueggemann. Brueggemann died last year after a storied career as a New Testament scholar and an int