Healing Compline and Open Prayer Space in a Time of Racial Injustice

Hosted by St. Luke's and Trinity New Haven Reconciliation Group

Gather with members from Trinity and St. Luke’s every evening this coming week at 6:30pm, Monday through Friday, for a brief prayer service of compline and an opportunity to share and process recent events, including the trial of the police officer who is charged in the killing of George Floyd. Together, we pray for justice and healing.

Zoom Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87009730432?pwd=Sk84TUtEVGx2alMyQ2MzZnQ0T1pLQT09

Meeting ID: 870 0973 0432

Passcode: healing_21

Trinity Choirs Return to Outdoor Rehearsal

The week following Easter, our Choirs began regular rehearsals outdoors, weather permitting. Thus far, only a few have been rained out, and we look forward to not only rehearsing the full Choir of Men and Boys/Men and Girls on their normal rehearsal days for the first time since March of 2020. The full Parish Choir did meet outdoors/in-person last Fall, but only the Boys and Girls sections of their respective Choirs met outdoors/in-person in the Fall. In the coming weeks, from time to time you will see and hear music leadership content recorded at these outdoor sessions, and our Choir Recognition Sundays (May 16th for Parish Choir and June 6th for Men and Girls/Men and Boys) will include content normally associated with those days of thanksgiving that has been recorded outdoors. Here are a few samples of items recorded thus far - Men & Boys (https://youtu.be/OM6ljNWtIt4) and Men & Girls (https://youtu.be/JDPufqujIwQ). The Parish Choir was rained out of its first outdoor rehearsal on the 11th, but more to come. It has been a wonderful experience to be singing in one place again while still taking all due precautions.

Vaccine Clinic with Cornell Scott Hill

On April 1st (Maundy Thursday), we worked in tandem with the Cornell Scott Hill Health Center to hold vaccine and foot care clinics. If you were hanging around DESK the last few Sundays, you would've seen Jane going around with a clipboard and signing people up to get the vaccine. Thanks to our efforts, Cornell Scott Hill was able to vaccinate more than 70 people, including Assistant Rector The Rev. Heidi Thorsen.

While we did not do our traditional Maundy Thursday footwashing, Cornell Scott Hill also set up a foot clinic on the church apron, which allowed people on the green to receive foot care from a nurse.

Drop-in Center Volunteers Wanted

Our Chapel on the Green partner the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen has just opened a drop-in center on State Street. We are looking for volunteers who would be interested in making a regular commitment to the drop-in center, which is open from 1 pm to 5 pm Sunday through Friday

Click here to learn more.

The Right Reverend Ian T. Douglas announced his retirement plans as Bishop Diocesan in his letter to The Episcopal Church in Connecticut on April 7, 2021, and described the transition process for selecting a new Bishop Diocesan. He wrote:

"Over the next month the Standing Committee, Mission Council, and leadership of our Regions will work together to establish a Bishop Transition Committee as called for in Canon XVI of the canons of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. The Bishop Transition Committee will be responsible for overseeing the transition process, including discerning nominees for the election of the next Bishop Diocesan."

With this in mind, the South Central Region Leadership Team invites you to apply to be considered for membership on the Bishop Transition Committee.

The South Central Region will have one Lay and one Clergy member on the Bishop Transition Committee, selected by the South Central Region Leadership Team.

Candidates should:

• For Lay candidates, be an adult voting member1 of a parish of the Southeast Region. Clergy candidates should live or serve in the SE Region.

• Engage in a ministry within one’s parish.

• Have experience in collaborating with other churches, ministry networks, or church councils beyond one’s parish.

• Have a working internet connection and email account.

• Be able and willing to serve 18 months and attend frequent meetings and be ready to work on subcommittees of the main committee to gather data, checks references, etc.. We anticipate that this will be a significant commitment of time and energy.

1.A voting member in a parish as defined by ECCT canon 1 section 5: “Members of the Parish entitled to vote at any Parish meeting are those adult communicants who, for at least six months prior to that meeting have been faithful attendants at the services of the Church in the Parish, unless for good cause prevented, faithful contributors to its support, and faithful in working, praying, and giving for the spread of the Kingdom of God”

Bishop Ian closed his letter with these words from the letter to the Ephesians:

“Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 3:20,21

Trusting in that greater-than-imagined power, we ask you to join us in prayer as together we discern whom God is calling to serve on the Bishop Transition Committee.

South Central Region Leadership Team:

• Ms. Diane Kyle, Convener, Christ Church, Guilford

• Murray Harrison, Trinity, New Haven

• The Rev. Matt Lindeman, St. Peter's, Milford

• David Rivera, St. Paul & St. James, New Haven

• Nancy Staniewicz, Church of the Holy Spirit, West Haven

• The Rev. Heidi Thorsen, Trinity, New Haven

• Lisa Yarbor, St. Luke's, New Haven

• Whitey Batson, Grace & St. Peter's, Hamden

• The Rev. Canon Timothy Hodapp

• The Rev. Rachel Thomas, SE Region Missionary

Here's How to apply!

Please submit your application in a Word or PDF document by email to Diane Kyle, kyledance53@gmail.com, no later than 5:00 p.m. Friday, April 16, 2021. Please include the following:

Name:

Parish:

Email:

Phone:

Mailing Address:

Please limit your response to each question to 150 words or less.

1. Share a story that describes how you participate in ministry through your parish.

2. Describe a time that you have been involved in collaboration in the common life of our region and diocese beyond your own parish.

3. What priorities do you see for us as The Episcopal Church in Connecticut, and therefore what qualities are you looking for in our next Bishop?

4. At our 2020 Annual Convention, we passed Resolution 7, a wide-ranging initiative that addresses issues around Racial Healing, Justice, and Reconciliation. Where do you see yourself fitting into that work?

Apply by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 16

Returning to Worship on the Green

We will be returning to public worship and offering a socially-distanced healing service on the Green this coming Sunday, April 11th at 2 pm. This has been in the works for a while -- we have been have been thinking about what a return to worship on the Green would look like ever since we left for DESK a year ago. While we are returning to worship, things won’t look exactly like before. Our prayer service will be a bit shorter than usual, with some of the familiar elements: the opening sentences and Serenity Prayer, Gospel reading and reflection, prayers of the people, and the blessing and dismissal. There will be bucket drums! Though we are asking people to refrain from singing, to wear masks, and to keep 6 ft. social distance at this time, due to the increased risks related to Covid-19.
This return to worship doesn't mean that we're abandoning DESK. We have made the decision to continue the pause on distributing food after our 2pm service, instead directing people to DESK's 5pm evening meal, at which we will continue to hand out supplies. In this way, we're returning to our roots as a healing ministry and delegating the feeding aspect of our ministry to those better equipped to handle it, at least for the present moment.

Easter Flowers:

Take Home a sign of resurrection!

We are looking to share the beauty of the flowers that decorate our altar on Easter Sunday! Email Rev. Heidi (hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org) if you would like a potted Easter flower for your home!

In your email let us know if you have a preference for what type of flower you would like, and we will do our best to meet your request. Options are:

• Medium Lily

• African Violet (small, various colors)

• Large Lily

• Blue Hydrangea

Secondly, let us know if you are able to pick up your flower, or would like it dropped off at your door! We also welcome volunteers to help with delivering flowers to those who cannot pick them up. Flower Pickup times:

• Sunday, April 11 from 12:30-1:30pm

• Sunday, April 11 from 3-4pm

Meditation Groups

Meditation Groups with Lilian: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 8:30am and Thursdays at 8:00pm via zoom – starting Monday, April 12, at 8:30am.

Meditation is essentially a discipline. The purpose of this discipline is to develop a silent mind, open and receptive to the Divine Mystery. This inner attitude is essential for putting on the mind of Christ. Many people practice meditation on a daily basis (or even twice a day) by themselves or together with others. Lilian will be offering group meditation on three mornings and one evening. Please join her for one or for all sessions, which will last no longer than 30 minutes. The zoom link will be the same for all sessions. Please let Lilian know if you are interested so that she may be able to share the zoom link with you. It will also be posted in the weekly E-News.

Meditation Group

Click here to join the Zoom call

or Call +1 (877) 853-5257 | Meeting ID: 863 5978 6006 | Passcode: 557358

The Beatitudes

New Course on the Beatitudes with Luk and Lilian– via Zoom – Wednesdays at 5pm, from 4/14 – 5/26

Following in the steps of the course on the Universal Christ, we are now offering a course on the Beatitudes. All the great wisdom traditions have a teaching about True Happiness which takes us both to the particular heart of each religion as well as to the essential unity of vision they share. The Christian idea of happiness is epitomized in the Beatitudes found in Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount. We will be guided by the book Happiness Here and Now by Elizabeth West. The author looks at the Beatitudes from a Christian perspective but includes at the same time the way a Buddhist, whose perspective she has a deep empathy with, can look at the Beatitudes. Learning to see the familiar with freshness and new wonder is to expand our minds and enrich our hearts. We will provide the reading materials, as the book is out of print and not available anywhere (except maybe a library). Please let Lilian know if you are interested in joining this course. lrevel@trinitynewhaven.org or pastoralcare@trinitynewhaven.org

Maundy Thursday Outreach on the New Haven Green

Chapel on the Green is partnering up with Cornell Scott Hill Health Center on Maundy Thursday to provide medical and spiritual outreach to people on the New Haven Green. Cornell Scott Hill will provide foot care, while Chapel on the Green will distribute socks and be present for prayer and spiritual support. While much smaller than previous years, this event is one of many ways we continue to be present for people in our Chapel on the Green community.

We are also partnering with Cornell Scott Hill to help get the vaccination to people in our community, especially those who are unsheltered and unhoused. If you know of someone who meets these criteria and would like to be vaccinated, contact Rev. Heidi (860-850-0323) no later than Sunday, March 28. Advance sign up is required.

Pauli Murray

(November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985)

Pauli Murray is often remembered for “firsts” - for being the first Black woman ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church (1977); for being the first Black person to graduate with a Doctor of Juridical Science Degree from Yale Law School (1965). These milestones are significant, and yet even they do not convey the breadth and influence of Pauli Murray and Murray’s lifelong commitment to justice and faith. Murray dedicated years to a legal vocation, graduating first in class from Howard Law School in 1944 and going on to confront systems of sexism that denied Murray admission to Harvard Law School the following year. Murray’s legal writings became a key resource for the work of other legal justice advocates such as Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Gisberg. At a time when the relationship between women’s rights and civil rights was unclear and at times tenuous, Murray affirmed that justice for people of color and justice for women are deeply interconnected.

Also deeply connected to Murray’s legal career was Murray’s Christian faith, which ebbed and flowed throughout Murray’s life, reaching a point of clarity and fulfillment with Murray’s ordination to the priesthood in 1977. Pauli Murray stated, “I began to realize that universally, all of mankind is constantly falling down from these high ideals... that racism and sexism are actually sins, the sickness of sin; that human beings are not really in harmony in relationship to their creator. And since they are not, they are not able to be in harmony, in relationship, and to love-- to respect their neighbor.” Faith gave Murray a lens through which to imagine a better future. This faith in the future is particularly inspiring given all the ways that the world was not welcoming of Pauli Murray: as a woman, a Black person, and a gender non-conforming person who explored using different pronouns in public and private life. Murray’s faith in God and in the future is perhaps best expressed in Murray’s poetry:

Dark Testament Verse 8

By Pauli Murray

Hope is a crushed stalk

Between clenched fingers

Hope is a bird’s wing

Broken by a stone.

Hope is a word in a tuneless ditty —

A word whispered with the wind,

A dream of forty acres and a mule,

A cabin of one’s own and a moment to rest,

A name and place for one’s children

And children’s children at last . . .

Hope is a song in a weary throat.

Give me a song of hope

And a world where I can sing it.

Give me a song of faith

And a people to believe in it.

Give me a song of kindliness

And a country where I can live it.

Give me a song of hope and love

And a brown girl’s heart to hear it.

In 2017, Yale University named a new college after Pauli Murray, who among many accomplishments is an alum of Yale Law School. We also lift up the legacy of Pauli Murray as a faithful Christian, and leader in the Episcopal Church.

Sources:

“Fighting Jane Crow: The Multifaceted Life and Legacy of Pauli Murray,” BackStory, podcast (20 March 2020), https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/pauli-murray/, accessed 24 Feb. 2021.

Pauli Murray, Dark Testament and Other Poems (Silvermine, 1970).

Preparing Our Ministries to Resume

In March we are gathering with several of our committees to prepare our ministries to resume once possible. We certainly can't wait to return to church and restart our ministries. Our staff members have already been working on getting our ministries ready for action. We now want to connect with parish members through our ministry committee.

• Tuesday March 2, 5:30pm: Outreach Committee | Zoom Link

• Tuesday March 9, 5:30pm: Pastoral Care Committee | Zoom Link

• Tuesday March 16, 5:30pm: Liturgy Committee

• Tuesday March 23, 5:45pm: Music Committee

We will meet on Zoom and all committee members are called to join, as well as all who are interested to be part of the conversation.

Livestreamed Organ Recital

Walden will present a half-hour organ recital from the First Congregational Church in Madison on Friday, March 5, at 12:15 pm as a part of that church's Five Fridays Lenten Concerts. The recital, containing works of Fanny Mendelssohn, Florence Price, Louis Vierne, and Cesar Franck, will be livestreamed on First Church's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/fccmadison) or listeners may park outside the church on the Madison Green and listen from their cars via the sound being broadcast from speakers in the church steeple.

Allan Rohan Crite

(March 20, 1910 - Sept. 6, 2007)

Allan Rohan Crite, born in Plainfield New Jersey and an almost lifelong resident of the Boston area, was an artist whose life work demonstrates two things: first, a commitment to exploring and celebrating the lived experience of Black Americans; and second, his deep Christian faith as a lifelong Episcopalian. Crite’s early paintings depict lively, everyday scenes in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, a predominantly Black neighborhood. Describing these works, Crite writes: “My intention in the neighborhood paintings and some drawings was to show aspects of life in the city with special reference to the use of the terminology ‘black’ people and to present them in an ordinary light, persons enjoying the usual pleasures of life with its mixtures of both sorrow and joys… I was an artist-reporter, recording what I saw.”

During the 1930s Crite shifted to more religious subject matter. He created profound ink drawings and lithographs depicting stories from the Bible, particularly the life of Jesus Christ, in contemporary settings. In one image, Mary cradles an infant Jesus next to a trash can in a poor urban neighborhood. In another, a dark-skinned Jesus hangs on the cross facing oblivious light-skinned pedestrians with the caption: “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” Crite’s images are heartfelt, faithful meditations on how the incarnation of Jesus is present in our lives today, and how we as Christians are called to see Jesus in the face of those who are marginalized and oppressed; those whose very lives are at stake in a country still plagued by racism. In his autobiography, Crite stated, “For a long time, I felt as far as the Church was concerned, that there was too much the impression of a mostly European institution, practically to the exclusion of anything else.” Crite offers a different impression - an impression of a church that is diverse and courageous in facing the social realities of our present time.

While Crite does not have a direct personal connection to the City of New Haven or to Trinity, we are grateful to have come to know Crite’s work better through Trinity parishioner Bill Kellett, whose father the Rev. William Kellett was a pastor to Crite while serving at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Boston.

Sources:

“Allan Rohan Crite,” The Smithsonian Institution, website, accessed 17 Feb 2021, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/allan-rohan-crite-1047.

“The Art of Faith: Allan Rohan Crite at St. John St. James Parish, Roxbury,” Historic Boston Incorporated, blog (28 Feb 2019), accessed 17 Feb 2021, https://historicboston.org/the-art-of-faith-allan-rohan-crite-at-st-john-st-james-parish-roxbury/.

The Way of Love

Coffee Hour Topics during Lent 2021

During the Season of Lent, our Coffee Hour will begin with 5-7 minute breakout groups in which we are invited to explore a theme of the week, based on the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry’s roadmap of Christian faith, The Way of Love. The Way of Love is not a program or a curriculum, but rather a description of a core set of practices that have long guided Christian life:

• Turn - Feb. 21

• Learn - Feb. 28

• Pray - March 7

• Worship - March 14

• Bless - March 21

• Go - March 28

• Rest - April 4

Join us for these breakout conversations, or feel free to stay in the main “Zoom room” if you simply need a breather after our service. Grab a cup of tea or coffee - and our regular, unstructured Zoom Coffee Hour will begin shortly.

Plan Ahead! Coffee Hour Topics are based on this introduction to The Way of Love: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/way_of_love_introduction.pdf

Stations of the Cross with St. Luke’s

Our neighbors at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Whalley Avenue have invited us to tune in to their weekly observance of the Stations of the Cross, on Fridays at 7:30pm on Facebook. Join us (you do not need a Facebook profile to access the following link) >> https://www.facebook.com/WhalleyAve/

Praying with St. Luke’s is one way of walking together with this parish, which is linked to our own through Trinity’s historic failure to allow Black members of our congregation to sit in the main pews, a sad manifestation of racism that led to the subsequent departure of Black parishioners to found their own congregation, St. Luke’s, in 1844.

St. Luke’s has invited members of Trinity to participate directly in Stations of the Cross on Friday, March 26, by reading the scripture texts that accompany different stations. Email Heidi (hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org) if you are interested, and we will get you connected!

Alexander Crummell (1819-Sept. 12, 1898)

Alexander Crummell was an African American priest, missionary, and educator whose life exhibits both the amazing contributions of Black Episcopalians to the church, and the failure of the church to make space for the ministries of Black Americans. Throughout his life, Crummell struggled to find a place in the church in which to exercise his vocation. Having been born and raised in New York City, Crummell was denied admission to New York’s General Theological Seminary. He studied independently for ministry instead, during which time he lived briefly in New Haven, CT. Crummell was at one time in conversation to become the first rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which had recently formed after members of Trinity on the Green refused to allow Black people to sit in pews designated for the general congregation. Ultimately Crummell moved on instead to Providence, Rhode Island, where he began parish ministry. Crummell was ordained a deacon in 1842, and a priest in 1844.

Crummell’s next call was to a church in Philadelphia, though he resigned in protest for being excluded from diocesan convention, due to his race. Crummell moved to England, where he could finally pursue a formal theological education while serving as a curate. While in England, Crummell discovered a passion for missionary work. He moved from England to Liberia, where he served as a missionary from 1853 to 1873. Despite his passion for the work, Crummell struggled to find his place there as well, at times caught between his white Episcopal colleagues and the ruling elite class of mulatto Americo-Liberians. Crummell returned to the United States in 1873, where he founded and served as rector of St. Luke’s Church, Washington D.C. He also organized the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People, a forerunner of what is today the Union of Black Episcopalians (UBE).

W.E.B Dubois, whose grandfather was one of the founding members of St. Luke’s New Haven, was profoundly moved by Crummell’s story and wrote about it in his book The Souls of Black Folk:

“He did his work, --he did it nobly and well; and yet I sorrow that here he worked alone, with so little human sympathy. His name to-day, in this broad land, means little, and comes to fifty million ears laden with no incense of memory or emulation. And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, --all me know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, --who is good? Not that men are ignorant, --what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.”

Sources:

Randall K. Burkett, “The Reverend Harry Croswell and Black Episcopalians in New Haven, 1820-1860” in The North Star: A Journal of African American Religious History (Fall 2003: Vol. 7, No. 1).

The Episcopal Church, “Crummell, Alexander” in An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/crummell-alexander/.

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, originally published 1903 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009).

Harold T. Lewis, Yet with a Steady Beat: the African American Struggle for Recognition in the Episcopal Church (Trinity Press international, 1996).

Words in the Wilderness

Walk through the season of Lent with Trinity, one word at a time. Every day (except on Sundays) we will post a photo and a brief refection on Facebook and on our website from a Trinity parishioner responding to a Lenten "word of the day." These words are chosen from the weekly lectionary texts, and are chosen to help us embrace Lent as a season of repentance and restoration.

We want you to contribute!

Email Heidi (hthorsen@trinitynewhaven.org) if you are interested and might like to contribute a photo and reflection, or if you have any questions. Alternately, you can see the full list of words and sign up here. We want you to sign up!

This Week’s Lenten Reflections

Reflections this coming week will be provided by: Barb Hedberg, Paige Nelson, Joe Dzeda, Will Oxford

On Facebook >> https://www.facebook.com/trinitynewhaven

On our Website >> trinitynewhaven.org/words-in-the-wilderness

Do you need help registering for the COVID-19 Vaccine? Let us know!

The State of Connecticut is beginning to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to essential workers and people who are 75 years or older. We know that there are some members of our parish who have received the vaccine already – and this gives us hope! We give thanks for the doctors, researchers, and government officials who have brought us to this moment. If you are 75 years or older and need help registering for the vaccine, let us know! Please also see the following resources:

CT COVID Vaccine Appointment Assistance Line: Call 877-918-2224 Mondays through Fridays from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

State of CT Online Vaccine Enrollment >> https://dphsubmissions.ct.gov/OnlineVaccine

State of CT Vaccine Information >> https://portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus/covid-19%20vaccinations

City of New Haven Vaccine Information >> https://covid19.newhavenct.gov/pages/covid-19-vaccination

Throughout 2019 and the beginning of 2020 a group of seniors met on a monthly basis in the undercroft to connect with each other, and to discuss issues of mutual interest, both spiritual and practical. We called ourselves The Trinity Sages (the Wise People). Then came Covid-19 and disrupted our gatherings. We now wish to reinstate these meetings on Zoom. They will take place on the second Tuesday of every month at 11am. Everybody is welcome. No need to register, just join us. The first meeting will be on Tuesday. February 9, at 11am. Contact Lilian Revel to express interest and request a link to the Zoom meeting.