News for the Church, 6/25/22

Good Day to you Church,

Well, today is a big day in the Hebb house.  My son Henry is graduating from high school today and then we’re packing the car and heading to our family reunion in New Hampshire for a long weekend!  My mama’s heart is overflowing with joy, but also with some twinges of sadness for the end of an era.  I’m about to become an “empty nester,” as they say.

For these reasons, I’m going to keep this email short.

Here’s the news for this week:

Coffee Hour This Sunday at Church

Drum roll please…… I am elated to announce that beginning this Sunday we will be returning to regular coffee hour in the Center. 

Session met this week, and as we do every month, we looked at Covid in our county. This last week SLC has been oscillating back and forth between “moderate” and “low” levels. Consequently, Session decided that it’s time to bring back coffee hour– obviously without masks so that we can enjoy drinking coffee and eating cookies.

That said, we will continue to require masks during worship on Sundays (for at least until our next check in next month). Session feels that worship needs to be accessible to everyone in our congregation without fear of contracting Covid (including people who are immuno-compromised)– especially since we are singing hymns. When levels are consistently low, we will be able to make masks optional. This is a way that we can love and support our people who struggle with health issues.

Special Offering for Buffalo

This Sunday we will be taking a special offering at church to support the grieving Black community in Buffalo, following the racially-motivated mass shooting at the Tops Market there. Whatever we collect for this offering will be sent to the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Buffalo, a Black church that does extensive community outreach.

Marty Weitz to Preach

Also, Rev. Marty Weitz will be preaching and leading worship this Sunday.

Celebrating Ivette Herryman-Rodriguez’ Music

A few weeks ago Ivette received one of the highest honors you can receive as a music composer. The renowned music director Gustavo Dudamel, who conducts the LA Philharmonic, the Paris Philharmonic, and the philharmonic in Argentina, selected one of Ivette’s pieces to be played at the Walt Disney Concert Hall by the youth orchestra, and it will be played there again by the philharmonic in the coming weeks! Her piece is called “A Danzon Done My Way” and is a take on a danzon from her native Cuba. 

I’ve included an article from Crane about the event and another link that allows you to listen to the piece. I hope you enjoy listening!  

Listen to Ivette’s piece here:
http://ivetteherryman.com/a-danzon-done-my-way/

Read more about it here:
https://www.potsdam.edu/news/IvetteHerrymanRodriguez

Friends, I could use some of your prayers this weekend with my family. One of my aunts has been fighting cancer, and it’s looking like this might be our last family celebration with her. Additionally, my mother will not be joining us because she is recovering from cancer surgery herself. This is going to be a weekend of both joy and sorrow for us.

I know that I am not the only one facing grief, struggle, and sorrow this week.  May God hold all of us in tender care, as we live out the tension of life’s joys and sorrows.

In this light, I will leave you with a few lines from last week’s Psalm, Psalm 42-43:

My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep
    at the thunder of your torrents;
all your waves and your billows
    have gone over me.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life….

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
    my help and my God.

If your soul is cast down this week, may you find hope and help in God,
Pastor Katrina