Trinity Stories

Dear Friends,

On Tuesday morning Becky Koskinen, Phil Skeldon, Mark Dubielak, and I will be driving out to Washington D.C. to meet with a few congressional reps, as well as dropping in to see our senators. During that time, we will also be delivering letters the Trinity Response Team wrote expressing frustration with the current administration and asking for support.

This trip will include a meeting with members of the Office of Government Relations. With the advocacy work Trinity members have been working on, we feel it is important to start a relationship with them and those who work in the Episcopal Public Policy Network. This visit that the four of us are taking on behalf of Trinity is hopefully the first of many. Please keep us in your prayers as we drive to and from our nation’s capital and for the conversations we will have during our time there.

If you are feeling compelled to write a letter for us to take to our congressional reps, please feel free to bring it on Sunday. I will be happy to add it to the pile and look forward to letting you all know how it goes!

Grace and peace,
George Benson

Dear Friends,

Happy Easter! I hope you were able to take part in some of the many worship opportunities we had throughout Holy Week and on Easter Day.

This week, the members of the staff at Trinity have been taking a well-deserved time of slower schedules and a bit less intensity at work. I hope you’ve been able to do a bit of that here and there, too – to take some time to really reflect on what it means to embrace this new way of knowing and experiencing life that the Christian experience offers.

And remember – Easter wasn’t just last Sunday. We will be celebrating Easter at Trinity for a whole season! So, keep this joyful worship as a part of your Easter discipline in the weeks ahead. There’s simply too much joy for us to try to contain it in just a single Sunday! We look forward to sharing it all with you.

Blessings,
Jon+

Dear friends,

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of composting. I toyed with starting to do it in New Jersey, but we were afraid that the smells of food waste outside might attract our neighborhood bears. We saw enough of them without putting out bait!

I know – it seems like a weird thing to be fascinated by. But I’ve always been drawn to the idea of not only reducing the waste I generate by living through my daily routines, but even more by the idea of finding new value in that waste. What was waste – through a process that, because of my ignorance, seems to me to be mysterious – gets transformed into something new that is beneficial in new ways.

As I write to you this week, we are in the final, waning days of Lent. And by the time you read this, we will be deep in the heart of the Triduum – those holiest days from Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday, and into Holy Saturday that give us our last moments of preparation for Easter and Resurrection joy.

It’s a strange time to write and reflect, because our practice of faith is sort of in a time that’s like mid-compost. Our old and used-up ways of looking at the world are, through a mysterious process, being reformed and transformed into something entirely new – something with new, profound value; something that will feed starving souls.

As we make our way into this, our first Easter together, I invite you to consider that. Consider the idea that God is actively working within you to break down the useless leftovers of hurtful faith traditions that you may be holding; and consider that God can, through the power of resurrection and love, transform them into something new and powerful.

That is the Easter hope and that is the promise of Resurrection.

Blessings,
Jon+

Dear friends,

This Sunday, we begin our journey to Holy Week by celebrating Palm Sunday. This entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey is full of expectations on his followers’ behalf. From the zealots, an over throwing of Rome’s power in Palestine, from his disciples perhaps the kin-dom of heaven establishing to earth, and everything in between. The story of Jesus’ last week of ministry this side of death is something Christians all over the earth have celebrated for almost two millennia.

It is impossible for me to prepare for Holy Week without thinking of the humanitarian crisis happening in the Middle East. For over 100 years, the Presiding Bishops of the Episcopal Church have taken up a Good Friday offering in support of The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem. This year’s offering will go to support specific ministries in The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem, look to the Easter appeal letter for more information.

For the past 18 months in our Noon Prayer Service, we have been praying for those in Palestine and Israel, and this Easter we can pray with our actions. We are inviting you to commemorate this holy season by making a special gift, beyond regular giving, to partner in this Easter offering appeal. Every cent that goes above our budgeted amount will go towards this offering.

We will continue our local direct missional support offering for the Christmas season. With everything happening in our world, we want to embrace our larger identity as Episcopalians and join the larger Episcopal Church in supporting those in the Middle East.

Thank you for your continued support of Trinity Episcopal Church and we look forward to seeing you Sunday.

Grace and peace,
George Benson (he/him)