Northside Associated Ministries
Cooperating in Ministry
Office Phone: 734-663-5503
Administrative Assistant:
Ellen Magee
St. Aidan's Officers
Senior Warden
Len Coombs
Junior Warden
Phil Singer
Recording Secretary
Cindy Pierson
Secretary
Shirley Coombs
Treasurer
Ed Trager
Financial Secretary
Gail Graham
Liturgical Readers
Len Coombs
Acolytes
Susan McGarry
Choir
Noel McRobbie, director; Susan Wyman, coordinator
Evangelism
Michael Earl
Collar Industry
Lyn Solms
Finance
Alan Vayda
Altar Guild
Susan Pfoutz
Vestry
Phil Singer
Marian Kummerl
Jim Pierson
Shirly Coombs
Northside Officiers
Clerk of Session
Linda TerHaar
Financial Secretary
Mary Ann Wilson
Treasurer
Nancy Renner
Session Members
Joan Penner-Hahn
Diane Zahn
Steven Grosse
Linda TerHaar
Caroline Richardson
Jenny Howard
Brian Spolarich
Tom Weeks
Ministry Contacts
Choir
Joesph Kozma-Cruz
Membership/Nutrure
Sharon Lean
More Light/Peacemaking
Kate Baker
Nominating
Kelly Maxwell
Personnel
Geoff Stanton
Prayer Group
Jean Loup
Stewardship
Joan Penner-Hahn
Worship
Pat Hodges
NAM Officers
President
Marian Laughlin
Vice President
John Board
Secretary
Litha Chadiha
Treasurer
Dill Howarth
Children and Youth Ministries
Marian Laughlin
Property
Jim Pierson
Communications and Publicity
Kim Zaugg
Adult Education
Debra Davies
Social Stewardship
Sue MacDermaid
Reehill Gallery
Kate Baker
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Pastor's Corner: Celebrating Our Children
There is a poem by the Middle Eastern poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran, "On Children", that has always meant a lot to me. That wonderful ensemble of African-American women known as Sweet Honey in the Rock popularized it in song in recent years. In fact, their tuneful rendition introduced me to the poem, stamping it on the back of my eyeballs and engraving it on my heart. Here it is – changing the second person plural pronouns to third person plural:
Our children are not our children.
They are the sons and the daughters of Life's
longing for itself.
They come through us but they are not from us,
and though they are with us they belong not to us.
We may give them our love but not our thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
(For they have their own thoughts).
We can house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which we cannot visit – not even in our dreams.
We can strive to be like them,
but we cannot make them just like us.
(Strive to be like them,
but we cannot make them just like us.)
Last Sunday, June 1, we celebrated and recognized our youth and children at St. Aidan's - and their Sunday School teachers - at a brief event after Worship in the church lounge. Especially recognized at that time were high school graduates David Rozycki and Charles Singer of St. Aidan's (to matriculate at UM and Michigan State, respectively - covering all the bases!), and college graduate Marie Penner-Hahn of Northside (University of Chicago).
In a small church, there are almost inevitably small numbers of the small. And yet, they come. And they come because their parents come. And their parents come because they deeply desire their children to come.
I don't know how often I've seen it as a pastor, but it always seems to be the case: Nothing - but nothing - grounds an adult, no matter of what age, in the faith and a faith community more abruptly than either a life-threatening experience or a life-giving one. And the life-giving ones are made manifest - more often than not, it seems - by the incarnation of new life in their midst.
Scripture gives ample mandate for us to ground our children and youth in faith through our faith communities. More often than not: They return the favor.
Let us celebrate the rites-of-passage of these and all of our children this season, as we rededicate ourselves to Jesus' incarnational teaching: "Whoever welcomes (a little) child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me." (Mark 9:37)
Chuck B-H
In the News this month:
June brings us
"Gay Pride Month" ,
"National Adopt a Cat Month" ,
and "Fight the Filthy Fly Month".
Personally, I prefer the first week: National Fishing Week (my cats do too. Actually, Reese
prefers turkey in gravy to fish. Actually, it's turkey in gravy over any canned cat food
containing fish. Both cats like shrimp. I like dogs).
Amongst the more memorable days this month are
Those of you who have not followed my urging to make the GoodNewsLetter web site your home page
(full disclosure: neither have I) will have not noticed that there is a new rss feed up on the
St. Aidan's web site. This will alert you whenever one of Susan's sermons get uploaded.
Currently, there are six sermons available.
I am also trying to stimulate discussion about anything you see on these pages. Send your
constructive comments to me, and I will make sure that the whole world can watch the discussion.
Finally, as always, please continue to send your deconstructive comments to /dev/null@staidans.org
Answer to Last Month's Question:Is it true what they say about Velma? Ans.: Yes, she is the
smartest one of the bunch. And shame on you if you thought I was refering to anything else.
Question of the Month: What is the most important leg on a three legged stool?
Now back to the news.
Why Oil will Never Again Cost $20/bbl.
Here is the best article I have found on the subject.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2693 .
Most articles simply ignore basic geology. The ones which don't are either too technical to
understand or more interested in pushing an "everybody in the United States is evil" agenda to
be believable.
How To Improve Your Gas Mileage
Meanwhile, I just discovered the
cleanMPG web site.
The highlighted link is to an article dedicated to the techniques used in "hypermiling", the
effort to get wwaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more miles per gallon than anyone thinks possible. While
some of the techniques are borderline dangerous (such as shutting off your engine and coasting on
a straightaway) and others are well-known (such as inflating your tires to the maximum listed on
their sidewall) others were new to me (such as always parking at the crest of a hill or trying
to drive on the crest of a road during rainy or snowy weather).
Northside Presbyterian Church Events
June
Welcoming Church Weekend!
Friday, June 6 at 6:00 pm:
Pie-fest Potluck, Northside sanctuary. Bring your meat, vegetarian, or dessert pie! (Remember, quiche, shepherd's pie, pizza, potpie, and steak-and-kidney are all pies too, as much as apple or blueberry!)
Friday, June 6 at 7:00 pm:
Free Showing of “For the Bible Tells Me So”, a powerful documentary of the faith-transforming coming-out stories of five couples and their lesbian and gay children. For more information, see
the state-of-the-art website .
Saturday, June 7 at 6:00 pm:
Supper with Michael Adee on the patio of the /aut/ bar, 315 Braun Court, across 4th Ave. from Kerrytown, Ann Arbor. (Of course, we'll move indoors if the weather dares to not cooperate.) Perhaps the best-known local rainbow gathering place, it’s not just a bar, it's a fabulous restaurant! The exact time will depend on the vagaries of the airlines, of course; Michael's chauffeur team – Brian & Alan – will meet his scheduled 4:50 arrival at Detroit Metro and whisk him to the dinner rendezvous!
A word about Michael: Michael Adee, M. Div., Ph.D, is a Presbyterian elder from Santa Fe, NM. For nine years, he has served faithfully as the National Field Organizer – and recently was appointed as the Executive Director as well – of More Light Presbyterians (see www.mlp.org),the seminal rainbow justice support, education, and advocacy organization for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Sunday, June 8 from 9:45 am – 10:45 am:
In the church library, Michael Adee leads a Presbyterian-Episcopalian adult Christian education class on "Rainbow Justice: Love, Ecumenical Style"
Sunday, June 8 at 11:00 am:
More Light Sunday worship at Northside! Michael Adee, preaching. Communion will be celebrated. Special music from the Northside choir, and a solo from Anne Jackson with guitar accompaniment.
Sunday, June 8 at 12:30 pm: –
It's a "Chuck Roast"! - Luncheon celebrating ten years of Chuck Booker-Hirsch’s ministry at Northside. Humor will be included...
Sunday, June 8 (6:00 pm) through Monday, June 9 (3:30 pm):
Presbytery-wide Retreat for Progressive Presbyterians with Michael Adee at Howell Conference and Nature Center: "Seeing the Church, Being the Church". How are we to "see the Presbyterian Church", on the cusp of our biennial General Assembly in late June (in San Jose, CA)? How are we to continue to "be the Church", when rainbow justice for all of God's children at that Assembly is not completely fulfilled?
For more information, contact Brian (358-0033, bws@briansp.com) or Chuck (646-3550; morelight@sbcglobal.net).
Our Gratitudes For:
- Our high school and college graduates! (See Pastor's Corner)
- New life, in the form of the pregnancy of Sharon Lean of Northside - mother of three-year-old Gillian Fox - who, with husband Greg Fox, is expecting a second child in December!
- Jim Pierson and the NAM Property and Finance Team, for seeing through the repaving of the church parking lot and the restoration of the woods behind the church!
- Marian Laughlin of Northside, for her steadfast labors with the children's Christian Education program and the woods restoration!
Chuck
It's Official!
The woods behind the church have been declared a Nature Preserve by the National Wildlife
Federation. The official plaque arrived last week, and it only remains to decide how to
properly display it.
Wildlife Preserve Plaque (click to enlarge)
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This appears to be the final chapter in the story of what to do with all that property.
As I understand it, the current building was supposed to be the first step in a large
complex of buildings. Behind it was going to be the Sanctuaries for the two congregations,
connected by an activities building. Fronting Plymouth Road was going
to be a social services building housing a medical clinic, housing offices, etc. In the middle of all this was going to be a Peace Center, with some of the woods left intact for meditation.
The current building would then become a classroom/office building.
New entrance to the trail(click to enlarge)
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[for the benefit of those too young to have been there, yes, that really was how
people thought and acted in Ann Arbor in the mid '60's]
Whether it was a failure to grow, the start of the ecology movement, or an inability for
the congretations back then to decide on a final plan, none of this happened. Which means,
lucky for us, we get to watch the deer during Sunday Services. There's probably a sermon
in all of this, somewhere.
Wild and Crazy Videos
A band in Great Britian found a way to beat the
high cost of making a music video. They performed all over London in front of 80 of the 13,000,000
security cameras, then used the British version of the U. S. Open Meetings Act to get a copy of
the recordings, which they then edited into a single music video. Nice trick if you can
get away with it.
Meanwhile, this youtube video
has been all over the web, but just in case you haven't seen it yet, here is your chance
to see the old philosopher in action.
The Usual Suspects
Lectionary Readings for June
Calendar for June
Worship Schedule for June
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