EpiscopalCenter at Duke University

I share with you A Prayer Written for Haiti by the Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Raleigh, NC:

 
God of all, on the day of your Son Jesus’ crucifixion, the earth shook and the rocks were rent:
We, your frail and finite creatures, cry out to you for help when the earth beneath our feet quakes
    changing in an instant life as we know it. 
On the wings of your Holy Spirit carry to the people of Haiti our heartfelt prayers and love.
Keep safe those who travel to help in the midst of the earthquake’s aftermath.
Watch over and help heal those who are injured.
Guide the minds and hands of the medical teams who treat the many who are injured.
Inspire your people around the earth to work together to provide shelter, food, and medicines. 
Give peace to the hearts of those who cannot, for a time, speak with those they love,
    whether nearby or far away.
Bless those who have died and receive them into your loving arms.
For these and the unspoken needs which lie in every human heart,
    we ask your holy blessing in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“There is more to life than merely increasing its speed.” Gandhi

A month ago I was at Costco.  I had to walk past Christmas trees to get to the food section! It seems that stores put out their Christmas decorations earlier and earlier every year.  I used to be surprised to see Christmas items right after Halloween, and now they appear way before then.

Two weeks ago a group of Episcopal students at Duke went to the North Carolina mountains to experience sabbath time.  It is interesting that our commandment is to “remember” the sabbath.  Sabbath is already a part of the natural rhythm of life, and yet most of the time we roll right on over it.

Sabbath is a time to rest and take delight in God’s creation, to give thanks for our many gifts, to call to mind that all that we are and all that we have is a gift from God.  It is a time to count our blessings, to disconnect from frenzy and accomplishment and to consecrate a time for healing.  Sabbath time is a forced STOP; there is never a time when “everything is done.” 

As we approcah the frenzied holiday season and end of the semester, let us all remember to set aside Sabbath time in our lives - whether once a week or a few moments each day - to step back, rest in God’s presence and give thanks.

Blessings,

Karen+

“Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”   Ephesians 4:7

What is grace?

Walter Brueggemann describes grace as God’s “transforming disposition towards the whole world.”  In the Gospel stories we read again and again the ways in which God invites people to faith and new life - often in surprising and unexpected ways - revealing the beauty and wholeness of Christ’s spirit in the world.   God offers us all the gift of grace - sometimes in ways that are more subtle than obvious,  and each of us is uniquely gifted to be vehicles of God’s grace to the world.

Come explore the ways of Grace as we read stories from John’s Gospel and reflect on how God’s grace is active in our own lives.  We will journey together as we study, reflect and share our lives with one another on Wednesday nights during September on West Campus.  We will meet 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. Sept 9, 16, 23 and 30.  Sept 9th we will meet in Soc Sci Room 109; the following weeks we will meet in the LINK classroom #2.  Please come join us.  Materials will be provided.

For further information please contact Chaplain Karen Barfield at 286-0624 or kclaybarfield@gmail.com.

Blessings,

Karen+

2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the Episcopal Center at Duke in its current location at 505 Alexander Avenue!  

We have been busy updating our physical space to provide a more welcoming place for students to come and relax.  The Center now has wireless internet, we have spruced up the inside, and the exterior has been painted.  Chairs on the front porch and the bench in the garden provide a great space to relax on cool Fall days.  Hot chocolate, coffee and fresh cookies will be available for students who want to drop by and take a break or have a place for quiet study.

The Episcopal Center at Duke will continue our rich traditions in our life of worship and service.  All students, faculty and staff are invited to make our space a “home away from home.”  Feel free to contact the interim Chaplain, the Rev. Karen C. Barfield at kclaybarfield@gmail.com or 286-0624 with any questions or concerns.

The Rev. Nils Chittenden, the new chaplain at the Episcopal Center, is still in process of getting his religious worker’s visa approved, and his arrival has been delayed until the end of 2009.  We look forward to welcoming him into our community when he arrives. 

Please come back and visit our website - events and news will continue to be posted.  Make sure to visit our “calendar” for the most up-to-date postings.

Shalom,

Karen+

Hello!

One Sunday last year - 13 April to be precise - I joined the congregation at Duke Episcopal Center for the Eucharist.  I had been in the United States a mere 36 hours - my first visit ever.  My baggage was still in London - or possibly New York…who can tell?

The welcome I received at both the Eucharist and the meal afterwards was so warm and friendly: I felt instantly at home, and I was very glad to be able to participate in the life of Duke’s Episcopal Center for the next couple of weeks.  It was great to be able to join in the 2008 Seniors Banquet and to wish them well for their onward journey.  Little did I think that, one year on, I would be invited by Bishop Curry to become the Chaplain of Duke’s Episcopal community: I feel both excited and privileged to be coming back to Duke!

As you may have gathered from the reference to London…I am a Brit.  However, I am more cosmopolitan than just the UK - I am in fact half-Swedish, with a bit of German, Finnish and French thrown in, but I have lived my whole life in England.  I was born and raised in the south-east, near Canterbury, about an hour south of London.  I read for a Bachelor’s degree in Theology, and my Master’s degree is in Politics.  One of the lovely and serendipitous coincidences about coming to Duke is that my undergrad university - and where I subsequently was a chaplain - was Durham, UK.  So I shall enjoy the continuity of still ministering to university students and staff in Durham.

As well as having been a university chaplain and in a parish, I have spent time in other chaplaincies - healthcare, industry and local government.  I have been very closely involved in the development of non-profit organisations and community development work is very dear to my heart.

I have been fortunate to have been able to minister in many contexts: urban, rural, multi-faith, muti-cultural; I am so delighted to be coming to the Diocese of North Carolina, where there is such a wholehearted commitment to welcoming all of God’s people, whatever their backgrounds and circumstances, to the fullness of life that God wants us to enjoy.

OK.  What about me? I enjoy travel, dinner parties and TV comedy.  I am also hoping that I will get to do my pilot’s license at some point in the not-too-distant future!

I am writing this on Easter Day, having seen-in this special and holy day at my current church of St. Mary-in-Castro, Dover Castle.  At 6am we stood on the ramparts of the 11th century castle and watched the sunrise and met the Easter dawn in all its glory.  And, yes, it was cold and windy.  Well, it is Britain.  I am SOOOOOO looking forward to some North Carolina sunshine!!

Nils Chittenden

The invitation to observe a Holy Lent according to the Book of Common Prayer includes “self-examination and repentance; prayer, fasting and self-denial; and reading and meditating on God’s holy Word.” 

Until recent years I always thought of Lent as a time of darkness and denial.  I was supposed to give up something I enjoyed to be reminded of Jesus’ suffering.  While I think this understanding has plenty of merit, over the past few years I have begun to look at Lent in a slightly different light. 

I have begun to see Lent as a time to step back and take a look at those things in my life that are hindering my relationship with God.  There may indeed be something I need to “give up,” or there may be something I need to “take on.”  One year I realized that the anger I was experiencing in relationship with a family member was hurting not only myself and my relationship with God but was hurting my entire family, so that Lent I focused on not responding in anger.  Another year I realized that in my hectic life I was not spending enough time just sitting alone in the presence of God, so my Lenten discipline was to practice Centering Prayer each day.

Lent offers us the opportunity to step back and evaluate our lives.  In what ways can we be more aware of God’s presence in our lives? In what ways can we nurture our relationship with God?  Are there certain actions/ways of living that are putting barriers between us and God and our neighbors that we need to let go of?

Each person’s journey will be different, but we are all invited to embark on the journey – wherever it may lead. 

May your journey be blessed!

Karen+ 

Why is Lent forty days? Lent actually occurs over a forty-six day period prior to Easter.  Only forty days count as the penitential season because the six Sundays are omitted.  The Church from the earliest times considered every Sunday as a Feast of the Resurrection and never a day of fasting!

The significance of the number forty stems from the forty-day fasts kept by Moses, Elijah and especially Jesus.  In the early centuries, a forty-hour fast was kept as a way to prepare for Easter.  Changes in practices continued and around the 4^th century, the time of preparation for Easter, known as Lent, became established at forty days.

Ash Wednesday has served as the beginning of Lent with a special rite for placing ashes on the heads of penitents since at least the 8^th century.  Public sinners sat outside the churches with ashes on their heads as penance and as a way of seeking forgiveness for their sins.  The practice of repenting of our sins in this special way during Lent came to include all people, not just public sinners.  The ashes remind us that in our beginning we come from the earth and that in our ending we return to the earth.  In the Anglican tradition this service has been in the Book of Common Prayer since 1549.

“May Christ, the Son of God, be manifest in you, that your lives may be a light to the world.” 

Thus begins the blessing for this Season of Epiphany, the season of the church year when we celebrate the manifestation of Christ to the world.  As we remember stories of Jesus’ early ministry, let us also remember that God calls us, too, to reveal the light of Christ to the world.  At different points in our lives, we all find ourselves lost, broken or confused.  We may never know how a kind word or a gesture of welcome or offer of help may be the light in someone’s darkness.   

Let us walk in love as Christ loved us…

Shalom,

Karen+

My brothers and sisters in Christ,

As we come to the end of Eastertide and the feast of Pentecost, we shift to an awareness of God present with us in Holy Spirit. The early church marked that gift as inspiration, fire, and language — the breath of ever-new life and the burning desire for ongoing relationship with God. That gift of Holy Spirit keeps us lively and moving, bears us into new territory and challenges unsought.

In this as in every age, we face issues of identity, vocation, and mission as members of the Body of Christ. Entering the long season of Pentecost brings our focus to how we, too, will follow Jesus inspired by Holy Spirit. I would like to offer a few reminders about identity, vocation, and mission that I shared recently with the people of the Diocese of San Joaquin:

1) Jesus is Lord. In the same sense that early Christians proclaimed that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord, remember that no one else — not any hierarch, not any ecclesiastical official, not any one of you — is Lord. We belong to God, whom we know in Jesus, and there is no other place where we find the ground of our identity.

2) We are all made in the image of God. Even when we can’t see that image of God immediately, we are challenged to keep searching for it, especially in those who may call us enemy.

3) In baptism we discover that we are meant to be for others, in the same way that God is for us. This means that God’s mission must be the primary focus, not anything that focuses on our own selves to the exclusion of neighbor. For when we miss the neighbor, we miss God.

4) None of us is alone. We cannot engage the fullness of God’s mission alone, nor know the fullness of God’s reality alone. Together as members of the Body of Christ, we can begin to try. And the Spirit, burning fire, inspiring breath, and speaking in many tongues, is present in that Body, empowering and emboldening and strengthening our work. Thanks be to God who continually makes us new.

Your servant in Christ,

+Katharine Jefferts Schori

I know it’s going to be a good summer if by the end of the school year I have a big stack of books waiting. This promises to be a very good summer.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to ‘do good work’ in the world. It’s hard to spend more than a few minutes on Duke’s campus without realizing that this community of students is passionately interested in attacking some of the hardest and most pressing issues in the world: hunger, poverty, genocide, homelessness, access to healthcare, and fair wages among them.

At the same time, it’s hard to open a newspaper or magazine without coming across an ad for some product that includes a tie-in to a good cause as part of its purchase price. Part of the profits generated from each purchase will go to saving the environment, furthering research on a cure for breast cancer, or distributing anti-retroviral medicine in Africa, just to name a few examples.

So, I’m thinking about ‘consumption’ and ‘choice’ and how those things shape our response to the call to love God and our neighbors. I’ve gathered some interesting-looking books, including Jeffrey Sachs’, The End of Poverty; Moritz Thomsen’s, Living Poor and The Farm on the River of Emeralds; Samuel Wells’, God’s Companions; John le Carre’s, The Constant Gardener. I’m still tracking down some other titles and looking for more suggestions.

Of course, come July 21st, all other reading will have to wait until I’ve finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It is summer, after all.

Blessings,

Sarah+