June 30, 2009

Homily for Pentecost 3, June 14, 2009

Well, it seems like a more appropriate reading from the Old Testament for today might have been the story of Noah and the flood, seeing as how we’ve apparently set a record for rainy days in June.  And if the flood is upon us, I’m afraid that means none of us made it onto the ark … (and I bet they laughed, too).

At any rate, we’re now reading the stories about David’s life from the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel, and we’ll be with these stories all the way until the end of August.  And it’s no wonder: David is one of those characters without whom we might not have a Bible at all - or a Jewish or even Christian tradition, for that matter.  To Jews, he was the founder of Jerusalem and basically modern day Judaism, the first and only king to really unite the nation after years of operating as scattered, unstable tribes.  To Christians, meanwhile, he’s the literal ancestor of Jesus, who was cast as a new David to Israel and the whole world.  It’s hard to imagine Jesus existing (literally) or in the way we’ve come to understand him without David.

So these are obviously important stories, and so far, we’ve read about his early years.   Just prior to last week’s story, Samuel, who was the last judge of Israel (judges were sort of proto-kings of Israel, who ruled when called upon - it was sort of a federacy instead of a monarchy), was pressured by the people of Israel to put a king in place, so he anointed Saul, but soon regretted that decision and, at God’s request, went out looking for another king.  

So he went to the old tribesman Jesse’s house.  It’s a really remarkable scene, if you remember it from last week: Jesse had eight sons, and trotted them out one by one, starting oldest to youngest.  One by one, Samuel rejected them, noting to Jesse that only seven of the eight sons were presented.  So Jesse trundled back out to the fields and brought in his unassuming youngest son, David, whom Samuel anointed immediately.

It was a while, though, before David became King.  In the meantime, leading up to our passage for today, his older brothers went off to fight with Saul against the Philistines, Israel’s main threat in those days.  David wasn’t sent to fight, but his father, Jesse, sent him to the battlefield to (charmingly) take his older brothers some cheeses and various foods.  And that’s where David learned that the giant enemy Goliath had issued a challenge to the Israelite army: that if anyone can defeat him, that person will win the victory on behalf of all Israel.  

David walked onto this scene after a nearly forty-day standoff, which brings us to the passage we read this morning: David approaches King Saul and asks to take him on, and after some hesitation, Saul agrees. So he puts his armor on David, but David isn’t used to it and takes it off, goes out w/ nothing but his shepherd’s tunic and slingshot, and instantly kills Goliath.  (By the way, our text conveniently leaves off the last crucial verse, where he takes up Goliath’s own sword and cuts off his head with it.  No space indeed, as it claims in the header!  There’s plenty of room in that margin, and I’ve seen them use much smaller fonts to fit whole stories in.)  

But anyway, there’s so much to say about this story that it’s more than overwhelming.  But a question that intrigued me, and one that comes up a lot both in written commentary and art of this scene, is whether or not this was the triumph for David we assume it was.  On the one hand, it seems kind of obvious that it was.  He broke the 40-day stalemate, allowing the Israelite army to defeat the entire Philistine army.  He convinced the people that he was worthy to become their king, and, once king, he made Israel into a big, powerful united kingdom - the strongest it has probably ever been. 

On the other hand, David was never quite the same after this.  The light, unencumbered boy that approached the battlefield with his delivery of cheeses, who casually removed his heavy adult armor, who sprang into action before weighing the consequences or risks, became after this moment a calculating, powerful, protective king.  According to one version of this story (and there are different versions of David’s life in our Bible) he takes up Goliath’s sword and keeps it in his own tent from then on, which could be read as a symbol for the the way he becomes, in some ways, like the enemy he slew.

The artist Caravaggio painted this scene several times - not the battle scene, but the scene that became most popular in artists’ portrayals of this episode during the Renaissance, where David is holding Goliath’s severed head.  And it’s interesting to see the different ways he interpreted it through his paintings.  In one, David looks flush and triumphant, and there’s no doubt this is seen as a wonderful moment in his life.  In another painting, David is holding out Goliath’s head toward the viewer, and Goliath’s head is a self-portrait of Caravaggio himself!  Thus it becomes a sad commentary on the old being vanquished by the young, and Caravaggio’s struggles with his own mortality.

But the third painting intrigued me most.  In this case David is in the process of cutting off Goliath’s head, which is again facing the viewer (you notice I didn’t feature any of these on the programs for this week!), and you notice immediately that the two of them look alike.  I think Caravaggio saw in this story the ambiguity of David’s triumph, and the warning it issues to the reader: be careful, lest in trying to kill the thing that you hate the most, you become it. 

While I’m sure we’ll never have to worry about this in a literal sense, figuratively we do this all the time:  We put people down whom we don’t like and, in the process, become uglier than they ever were.  We try to overcome something about ourselves that we hate, only to have it get the better of us because of our obsession with it.  The list goes on, and such examples remind us that a life bitterly spent fighting enemies can only make us one, too.   

As we keep reading this story, we’ll learn of some positive examples from David’s life.  But we’re also going to find that David’s life is as much a warning as it is an example, making for a secondary lesson here: that great people tend to leave mixed legacies.  In fact, I’m not sure David would have made it on that ark!   But thankfully for him and us, God had already promised never to send a flood again. 

June 3, 2009

VESTRY MINUTES 5/3/09

Present: Astrid Storm, Vicar, Troy-Graves-Abe,warden,Larry Johnson,Vicki Kolb, Dale Cunningham, Gregory Citarella, Paul Conrad, Lithgow Osborne, Howard and Edie Palm, Nancy Mahoney.

I. Introduction and prayer by Astrid.

II. March minutes were reviewed. Edie made a motion to approve and was seconded by Larry. Approved by all.

III. New Business:

Summer vestry sessions discussed. Next vestry meeting will be 6/6/09 at 9 am, which will be a workshop. No meeting for July. Vestry convenes on 8/2/09.

Newcomer Issues: (Larry)

New membership packet or tri -fold brochure with our vision for the future discussed.

Vestry ID badges for members.

Vestry members to introduce themselves to newcomers.

Music Reports:

Easter CD.

CD,if needed for VBS.

11/15/09-recital followed by reception. Suggested donation- $5.00/pp.

Greg will take care of publicity for events.

Edie motioned to approve, seconded by Troy. Approved by all.

IV.. Old Business:

A.Budget gap- proposals for fundraising.

Chili fest to be combined with craft fair.

Expand food menu for Book sale.

Finance committee to come up with ideas for budget gap by 5/31/09.

Committee Reports:

Vicar’s Report:

Overview of Easter.Highest attendance this year.

Issues of photography during church discussed.

Upcoming Dates:  5/10- Confirmation classes begin.

5/17- Oliver’s dedication.

5/31- Instructional Eucharist.

6/7-Sunday School Picnic.

7/5 VBS play.

6/6 Vestry meeting-Astrid will read about family and pastoral size congregations.

Finance Report: As of 5/1/09.

Balance- 13,789.20

Income- 3302.00 

Expenses- 6724.31- includes pension payment. Back pension payments paid out of Oppenheimer Fund.

D.Property  Committee:

Bids to be voted on by Vestry after recommendations by Finance committee.

Meeting adjourned at 1 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Nancy Mahoney, Clerk

May 19, 2009

Homily for Easter 6 (May 17)


Throughout the fifty days of Easter, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, we always read from the book of Acts, the history of the early church.  And these last few weeks as Easter draws to a close read sort of like a Greatest Hits from Acts:  last week’s passage told the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch miraculously meeting one another in the middle of nowhere. This week’s story is the tail end of the famous scene where Peter has the vision of a sheet descending with all sorts of animals in it, which is eventually interpreted to mean that Christianity includes not just to Jews but also Gentiles.  In next week’s story they they choose by lottery the disciple who will replace the fallen Judas.  Then, the passage the week after that tells the most dramatic story of them all, the story of Pentecost, where the flaming tongues of fire come down and rest on the disciples and they start speaking in tongues. 


Meanwhile, alongside all these exciting stories, we have Jesus off to the side sort of rambling on about vines and branches, abiding, and becoming one with the father.  These readings come from what’s called the Last Supper discourse in John’s Gospel. (Whereas the other Gospels present the Last Supper as more of a profoundly quiet meal, John’s has Jesus give a very long and almost comic farewell speech that takes up almost half of the entire Gospel.)  It’s a very hard speech to follow, but every now and then a theme or a line stands out for me that, though not half as exciting as what we have in the book of Acts, is still worth looking at.  And there were things that struck me in today’s section of the speech.


The first is Jesus’ use of the word “abide.”  Abide is a word that’s used heavily throughout the Last Supper speech, and we saw it last week in his metaphor of the vine and branches (which is part of this week’s passage).  Abide is also  prominent in John’s Gospel more generally - appearing in it, I think I read, some forty-six times.  So, at the beginning of John’s Gospel, when the disciples first met Jesus, they asked him “Where are you abiding?” (or “staying” as it’s usually translated), and the beloved disciple is known as the one who faithfully abides with Jesus.  Those are two of the better known of dozens of examples of the word “abide” in this Gospel.

I guess what’s interesting to me about the prominence of this word is that John’s Gospel is very heavy throughout on what you have to believe, almost to the point where you think “Nobody can live up to these standards so why bother even trying.”  And yet, running alongside its high demands for spiritual head knowledge is this stronger theme of abiding.  It’s what the disciples see Jesus doing in their first encounter with him.  It’s what Jesus’ favorite disciple, the beloved disciple, does.  It’s what Jesus tells the disciples to do over and over again in his final speech at the Last Supper.

I think this is meant to assure that that’s where much of the religious life is spent: just abiding, remaining, waiting faithfully even as we’ve forgotten why we’re here or what any of it means or once meant to us.  That doesn’t matter as long as you just abide, and it will all come back to you eventually.  And that could be said as much about our faith lives as our personal lives and relationships, where commitment does much more of the work than conviction (much as we’d like it to be the other way around).

Along these lines, and to wrap up this first point, I recently came across a nice illustration of this (unfortunately I’ve forgotten where I found it & didn’t write it down).  But anyway, a young monk found he couldn’t say his prayers any more because he didn’t believe in what he professed.  He worried and worried about whether to tell anyone, but finally he couldn’t bear living with the weight of what he thought was his hypocrisy.  So he broke down, went to his superior and told him that he lost his faith, to which the unfazed superior replied, “That’s nice, now go back to your prayer desk.”  

I thought Jesus’ response might be the same as that superior’s: that’s nice, now just keep abiding.


The second idea that stood out in this week’s passage comes from the end, specifically from that line that says “And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”  We saw something like that last week, too, where Jesus said: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

I guess those two lines struck me because, on the face of it, this would seem a bold and even false claim to make.  After all, we know we don’t get a lot of what we ask God for.

But this gets to another prominent theme in John’s Gospel - aligning your will with God’s will until the things you ask God for are what God wants, not what you want.  I thought here of the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus, after resisting what his future holds, finally acquiesces to God and says “not my will, but your will be done.”  John’s Gospel presents this as a triumphant moment - that his will becomes God’s will, even if it means his own death.

I thought here also of two prayers from the Book of Common Prayer get to this point.  The first prayer is inspired by a line by the fifth century St. Augustine, who said “Love and do what you will” - or, as it’s sometimes translated, “Love God and live like you want” - the idea being that by loving God, our desires change.  The prayer comes from the Fifth Sunday of Lent and goes:  ”Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.”


The second prayer I thought of comes from the Prayers of the People, and reads:  ”Almighty God, to whom our needs are known before we ask:
Help us to ask only what accords with your will; and those good things which we dare not, or in our blindness cannot ask, grant us for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

To ask God only what accords with God’s will: it might be worth thinking this week about what that would look like.  It would probably mean asking a lot less for ourselves, especially those things that, whether we’re entirely conscious of it or not, we want because they give us some advantage over others or leg up in the world.  It would probably mean asking a lot more for others, and especially the poor and weak.  It would probably also mean a significant change not just in the things we pray for, but the way we pray.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”  May we have the strength to abide, and the courage, as the collect and our reading say, to ask only what accords with God’s will.

April 12, 2009

Easter Sunday - April 12, 2009


Recently - and for the first time since I packed up and left for college some … number of years ago - I’ve found myself in possession of a small plot of land on which I can plant my very first garden.  Now, you’d never guess that I grew up surrounded by farmland in Central Ohio, because I know almost nothing about growing a garden.  So, over the past couple months, I’ve been hitting the blogs and talking to friends and trying to figure out how to begin. 

Here, as with everything it seems, you can get buried here under a mound of opinions, which is why I appreciated the advice given me by a friend: avoid anything that claims it can help you create a “perfect garden” because you can’t - and besides, such a garden, if it did exist, wouldn’t be very interesting anyway.

I bring this up because the resurrection takes place in a garden.  We don’t know much about it - what was planted there, who planted it or tended it and whether they were very good at it.  If you look at art of this scene, you see a whole range of interpretations of what this garden might have looked like - from tidy gardens all the way to the sort of garden that I might plant.  

But that’s all speculation.  And, at any rate, even short of such details about the resurrection garden, this story seems to give us other clues that it wasn’t a perfect one. 

To summarize the story as the Gospel writer John tells it, Jesus’ friend Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb before sunrise to anoint Jesus’ body.  When she sees that the stone had been removed from the entryway to the tomb, she tells Peter and another disciple, and they race to the tomb, look in, and run off - presumably to tell the others.  

After that, we’re back alone with Mary, who sits there weeping and then peers into the tomb herself and sees two angels sitting there.  Then she turns around and sees what she mistakes for the gardener, only to discover, once they begin speaking to and touching each other, that this gardener is really Jesus.

I love this story, but in all my years of reading it, I’d never before noticed that it points us back to another garden - the Garden of Eden in the book of Genesis.  Yet you have in both stories all these similar features - the garden itself, of course.  You also have the man and the woman - only here instead of Adam and Eve it’s Jesus and Mary Magdalene.  You have Jesus tending the garden, just like Adam in Eden.  You also have the two angels sitting near the empty tomb, who remind us of the two angels who guarded the gate of the Garden of Eden.

It may also be that an allusion to nakedness and covering from Genesis also lurks in the background of this story.  I recently read a funny blurb about how there must be a naked gardener in this story, because the newly risen Jesus had to get clothing from someone somewhere after he removed his linen cloths.  So someone’s naked here in this garden, if not Jesus.

Which is all to say, it seems that this story wants us to think of the Garden of Eden with its similar characters and references.  A closer look, though, reveals some significant differences between these two gardens.  In the garden of Eden, Adam was a perfect, unblemished man, but in the garden of the resurrection, Jesus is not - he wears his scars for all to see.  In Eden, Eve had those flowing blond tresses, signaling purity and perfection, but in this garden we have Mary Magdalene, who - no offense to redheads here - had red hair signaling her impurity and imperfection.

In that garden, death and suffering were unheard of - literally.  (And hearing of it, as you might recall, meant their expulsion from the garden.)  But in this garden, death and the tomb stand right in the background, a shadowy reminder of the pain and confusion that these people had experienced.   And finally, in that garden, they were comfortable in their nakedness.  In this garden, they’re wearing clothing - perhaps even stolen clothing!

I gathered some of these dissimilarities not only from the Biblical story, but also from the way you see this scene portrayed by artists.  The Fra Angelico painting that I put on your bulletins is a great example.  There you see Christ’s scars on his hands and feet (complementing, you’ll notice, the little berries in the ground - a nice touch).  Mary kneels down in her red dress, red hair, arrayed in all her wanton splendor.  The grass and flowers look a little scruffy; there are even unsightly patches of dirt in the foreground.  And, most obvious of all, the tomb stands there, taking up almost a third of the frame.  

It makes you think of Eden, only to realize that this is nothing like Eden.  

One message in all this may be that the risen Lord doesn’t appear in perfect gardens, but in imperfect ones, where he encounters real people struggling with real circumstances.  The God who would once only walk and talk to the perfect man and woman in their perfect garden is now the God who prefers being among people as they - as we - really are.  

Related to that, another message in this story might be that we shouldn’t go looking for the risen Lord in perfect situations, else we’ll never find him.  Instead, we should look in our earthly and imperfect gardens - be those our homes, our spouses and kids, the friends we have, or the flawed communities that we live in.   

Because the risen Lord isn’t among things as we wish they were, or as we think they should be, but among the people, places, and things in our lives as they now are.  Our job this Easter season is to look for God in places and in people we’ve forgotten to look.   And to tend our gardens faithfully; because, whatever they look like, and however much they fall short of what we wish they were, our story assures us that they’ll be good enough for the risen Lord.  Amen.

April 10, 2009

Good Friday Homily - April 10, 2009

So the question on everybody’s mind on Good Friday - understandable, given the circumstances and mood of the day - is “Why do we call it ‘Good’ Friday?”  

In other cultures, it goes by names that actually seem in line with the day.  In Germany, for example, it’s “Mourning Friday.”  In France and Italy it’s “Holy Friday,” and in Denmark (I think it was), “Long Friday.”   (Parenthetically, I read that Long Friday came from the interminable length of the services on those days - remember that one of the main services for this day in the Protestant tradition is  the 3-hour service at midday, and that’s in addition to our service for tonight!  But “Long Friday” may also refer to the way grief seems to last forever as we’re experiencing it - an explanation I find much lovelier.)

At any rate, and as I said, those are names that certainly seem more in line with the day’s events, in a way that “Good Friday,” at least at first glance, does not.

There are a few theories as to why we call today “Good Friday,” the first two more etymological.  According to one, “good” was an archaic word for “holy,” and so it was actually more like “Holy Friday.”   A similar explanation is that “good” and “God” come from the same word (people point here to the way the valediction “God go with you” became “goodbye”).  So, in that case, people would have understood it more like “God’s Friday.”

But a third explanation says that it was always supposed to be “Good Friday,” and “good” refers to the good that comes to us as a result of Jesus’ death on the cross.  

Along these lines, I recently came upon a children’s song that attempts to explain this meaning in a kid-friendly way, and, as often happens, it made more sense than many of the adult explanations I’ve read about it.   The lyrics of part of it go like this:

Do you see why Good Friday’s good, Good Friday good, good Friday good?
Do you see why Good Friday’s good?
When it seems so sad?  

Things that seem so sad
Are not always bad.
When Christ died, He rose from the grave.
We’re no longer sad.

I was especially struck by that line: “Things that seem so sad are no always bad.”  Good Friday is about the hope that something good is always lurking in even the most terrible, hopeless circumstances. We may not see it right away.  We may not see it for a while.  But it’s there, waiting until we have faith and vision enough to discover it.

And if lesson lesson is true for these events, then it’s surely true for all the terrible things that we face in our lives.   So may today remind us to have faith, as the song and the day instruct, that “Things that seem so sad are not always bad.”  Amen.
April 9, 2009

Maundy Thursday - 2009


Tonight begins the first evening of the Easter “Triduum” - the three days in which all of these events central to our tradition occur: the Passover Meal (what we call the Last Supper), the foot washing, the agony in the Garden, the trial and crucifixion.  And in this service, we commemorate the first three of those (four if you include Judas’ betrayal) - the final meal that Jesus had with his disciples; the washing of the feet after the meal; and the agony in the garden - the first and last of which we enact in tonight’s liturgy.

Since we won’t do the foot washing at tonight’s service, I always feel compelled to talk a little bit about the it. The foot washing scene takes place before the Last Supper, and in it, Jesus takes off his outer garment, stoops down, and begins to wash Peter’s feet.  Peter rebukes Jesus, and Jesus rebukes him back (we’ve seen that before in John’s Gospel).  Then Jesus tells Peter that unless he lets him wash his feet, Peter can’t be a disciple.  And, by the same token, he tells everyone that you can’t be a disciple unless you do this for other people, as well.

This is one of those years when the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter overlap, and since I’ve been hearing so much about the Jewish Passover in the news, I got to thinking about this scene in the context of what Jesus and the disciples were thinking about and celebrating that night.   I think it helps us understand not only the disciples’ reaction, but also the significance of the gesture itself.  

The Passover, as you well know, is the annual Jewish celebration of Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt.  “Passover” refers to the night before they left Egypt, when God passed over the Israelites’ homes and spared their first born (whereas he didn’t pass over the Egyptians homes, and thus killed their first born sons).  Then, they gathered up all the could carry and left Egypt early the next morning.

Passover means a lot of things in the Jewish tradition that I wouldn’t presume to know or preach about.  But as it related to our story for tonight, it’s a celebration of freedom.  Which means the disciples that night would have been giving thanks for not having to live in humiliating servitude to others like their ancestors did. And it’s this story that they were telling and enacting when Jesus stooped down to wash the disciples’ feet like a slave.  

There’s a painting of this scene - actually, I put it on your bulletins - where the disciples’ discomfort with this gesture really comes through.  Some wear scowls; others are so disgusted that they have to turn away.  One disciple just casts his eyes downward, as if in embarrassment for Jesus.   Peter, whose feet Jesus is washing, appears to be nervously waving him off as if to say “I really wish you wouldn’t do this.”

On a night when they’re supposed to be celebrating their freedom, Jesus shows them that the only way to be truly free is to serve others - not because you have to, of course, like the Israelites of old, but because you want to, and because you understand that a meaningful life is found in choosing to stoop down to serve others.  

There are plenty of people in this world in need of our care.  So let’s not turn away from their needs but, following Jesus’ example in this story, kneel down, and serve.
March 5, 2009

Vestry Minutes - March 1, 2008

Present

The Rev. Astrid Storm, vicar; Troy Graves-Abe, warden; Larry Johnson; Dale Cunningham

Intro and Prayer - Astrid

Review and approval of February minutes

Since we lacked a quorum (lots of folks were on vacation or ill), it was agreed that minutes would be sent out to the vestry and reviewed via email. We will approve the minutes at the next vestry meeting.

Old Business

Update on Vicar’s pension payments - Astrid reported that she had spoken at length with the Church Pension Fund, which sent her an estimated bill for the back payments (dating back to January ‘07, since they can’t retro-bill further back than two years). The bill was $10,509.96, which seemed higher than expected. Astrid guessed that the figure was based on her latest - and highest - salary, rather than on the different salaries she has had since starting in October ‘06. She will look into it.

Discussion ensued about how to pay the bill when the proper bill does arrive. Lump sum? Spread the payments out? Larry questioned what the financial benefits, if any, of each option would be. Astrid said that the mattered may be decided for us, since she thinks that they may demand the late payments all at once. She will ask the Pension Fund what our options are (or aren’t).

Status of the Roof - Astrid received an email from the Diocesan Property manager, Michael Rebic, who pressed us for an engineer’s report so that we could start putting the roof out to bid. Diane Levitt, a parishioner who lives abroad, sent the name of the engineering firm that had worked previously with St. Nicholas (back in 1984), and Michael suggested that Astrid contact them to get an estimate for the report. He also said that the diocese would pay for the engineer’s report.

Some discussion followed about whether George had already lined up an engineer. Astrid said she would contact him to find out, though she wasn’t sure if he was checking his email on vacation

Contracts for Cleaning & Yardwork - Troy raised another issue pertaining to property: putting cleaning and yardwork contracts out to bid. He said he would consider asking Paul to take this on as Paul’s first job as property chair.

New Business

Budget gap - Troy brought up our $6000.00 budget gap for 2009, which led to a brainstorming discussion about how to cut the budget. Some options for reducing phone bills were discussed, but it was agreed that the budget is already so lean that it’s going to be tricky to save much money that way. That will be explored further, though, with the finance committee.

The conversation then turned to fundraising as a means to make up the shortfall. Some possibilities were bandied about, including possibly beefing up some of our existing annual activities like the fall craft sale and the organ concert. The addition of a spring event, maybe around Pentecost, was also discussed, along with possibly organizing another tag sale - or book sale, as was suggested at a prior meeting.

Astrid raised concern about spending too much of our energies on fundraising, rather than on encouraging parishioners to increase their pledges. She stressed that the major source of revenue for St. Nick’s should always be pledges, and that energies might best be spent working toward an even more ambitious pledge campaign for 2010.

From there, the group had a brief discussion about what can be reasonably expected from fundraisers. Astrid said probably no more than $2000, a figure that seemed reasonable to the others (though not enough to cover the budget shortfall).

Everyone agreed that the finance committee would take up this matter further at their next meeting.

Accounting - Troy gave an update on where we stand with our attempts to move our accounting over to Quickbooks. The Feb. 28 meeting with Ann Renzo, the accountant, was cancelled because our two treasurers were unavailable. Astrid and Ann are trying to find another date.

Troy said that he thinks we will need a newer computer for the Quickbook program than the one Paul kindly donated. He will confirm this soon, but the group was leaning toward trying to find a new but affordable computer, something that could save us a lot of stress down the road. Computers in the range of $400 were discussed, and Larry said he’d look into seeing if he could find a financial donation for it.

Since everyone attending the meeting was a member of the new finance committee, the conversation morphed into the finance committee’s role and authority. It was agreed that we should figure out what decisions will be left to the finance committee to make outside the vestry, and which would have to be taken to the vestry. These issues will probably need to be figured out as the finance committee continues to meet and define its role.

Meeting adjourned at 1:00.