Trinity Stories

Dear friends,

Next Friday, June 6 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day and the kick-off of Wear Orange Weekend. Trinity will observe Wear Orange Sunday this Sunday, June 1, because next Sunday, June 8, we’ll celebrate Pentecost. So please wear orange to church this Sunday! Why orange? Because it’s the color of safety for hunters, chosen to honor 15-year-old Hadiya Pendelton, who was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago in 2013. Dr. Yolanda Dawn Waller will be our guest preacher. Dawn is a gun violence survivor, and I have learned in doing this work that it must be victim and survivor-centered. The voices that need to be amplified are those closest to the issue. Survivors are the leaders of the movement to reduce gun violence. They need and deserve our support. They welcome us to walk with them as allies. Read about Dawn’s background here, and come hear her preach on Sunday!

I became involved in gun violence prevention in Toledo two years ago when I marched in the Old West End Festival parade with Moms Demand Action and met Mike Linehan, a parishioner from Olivet Lutheran Church. Mike and I had a brief conversation about how our two faith communities were wrestling with the issue of gun violence, and exchanged contact information. Later in June, we began to work together to form the Multifaith Coalition to Reduce Gun Violence. We have hosted five public forums on topics including survivor testimonies, legislative advocacy training, safe gun storage, and updates from the City of Toledo’s Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE). About 250 people from more than 50 northwest Ohio congregations representing many faith traditions have participated in at least one forum, including an impressive 40 Trinity parishioners. Thank you for your commitment to help reduce gun violence!

Several members of the Multifaith Coalition to Reduce Gun Violence engaged over the past year and a half in MONSE’s community-driven process to develop Peace in Motion, the City of Toledo’s five-year plan to reduce violence, which was approved by City Council earlier this month. The City’s dedicated efforts have reduced homicides, from 65 in 2022 to 37 in 2024. 2024 saw the lowest number of youth (under age 18) homicides since 2019. The City’s Save Our Community (SOC) program has built up a caseload of young people who are at high risk of experiencing gun violence. SOC staff provide mediation, de-escalation, and connection to services, opportunities and support to help meet their needs. The Peace in Motion plan contains actionable recommendations, such as the launch of the Healing & Compassion Fund – United Way of Greater Toledo to provide immediate financial support after the unfathomable loss of a loved one from gun violence (application and more detail here). The process to develop the Peace In Motion plan has helped to eliminate “silos” within the community around efforts to address gun violence. We can accomplish far more working together than we can in isolation. Partners like the Multifaith Coalition to Reduce Gun Violence bolster this work and ensure a community-oriented approach to addressing gun violence.

This Sunday, we will remember recent victims of gun violence, and honor the bruised and broken, strong and resilient survivors that are leading the movement to prevent gun violence. Free gun locks will be available for anyone who wants them. Here are many resources to explore for more information on how to reduce gun violence: organizations, safe gun storage, books and more. Please email me if you’d like to receive email updates from the Multifaith Coalition to Reduce Gun Violence. See you Sunday with your orange on!

Peace,
Deacon Meribah

Dear friends,

As I write this to you, I am on my way to the annual Diocese of Ohio Clergy Conference (thank goodness for speech-to-text tech!). It’s about a 3 hour drive from Toledo to the conference center.

I’ve always enjoyed long road trips, even as a young child. My family would often take long road trips. My mom and I, in particular, would regularly drive from Louisiana to Iowa to visit my aunt and her family. I came to treasure those times because they were some of the most important times when mom and I could really get to know each other better. Our relationship would deepen as the miles ran beneath us. Now, as an adult, Michael and I also enjoy taking long road trips. As much as we both love music, we often find ourselves riding along with the radio silenced – just to talk with one another; to spend some quality time together.

Road trips are about building relationships. Certainly, it’s about bringing people together from one place to another; but the relationships can also be built on the trip itself as we’re riding along. Nowadays, when I’m alone on the road, I often use this as time for intensive prayer. Prayer isn’t always with your head bowed, and your eyes closed. A lot of times, prayer isn’t much more than deep thoughts. It’s about talking to God like you talk to your loved one in the passenger seat next to you. Again, it’s about building relationships and about deepening bonds. Our relationship with God needs that as much as any of our physical relationships do.

Soon it will be Memorial Day – a day that many people think of as the sort of beginning of summer (even though the summer season is still weeks away). If your summer calendar has you taking a road trip sometime this year, I invite you to turn the radio off for a few minutes and listen to the people around you. If you’re fortunate enough to be alone for a while, spend some time deepening your relationship with God. Talk with God just like you’d talk with a dear friend or a treasured loved one. God wants to hear what you have to say. And, if you embrace the silence long enough, you might just hear what God has to say.

Blessings,
Jon+

Dear friends,

Over the past few years, something that has made me smile is seeing the number of children and families joining us at Trinity. Watching and listening to these kids in service whether it is during the procession, in their clubhouse, or in the nursery has been a source of great joy. This weekend we can share in this joy as we plant the children’s garden on the Trinity Plaza. Saturday morning at 9:30am, Melanie Schell will be leading the way and helping our kids with this endeavor. I look forward to joining them and invite you all to do so as well.

Looking to the future, I wanted to also let parents know that the last week of Sunday School in the Club House will be on June 15th, Trinity Sunday. For the summer season, our elementary kids will join us throughout all of worship, while the nursery will still be open for littles. This past year has offered us some great opportunities to continue to look at how we include our kids in the service, and what we provide for them. So stay tuned as we continue to work on this ministry.

See you all Saturday at 9:30 on the Plaza!

Grace and peace,
George Benson (he/him)

Dear Friends,

There are a few spiritual disciplines that I’ve discovered in the course of my life that have had a legitimate role in shaping me and helping me to become a more mature and genuine practitioner of the Christian faith. One of those disciplines is a conscious commitment to looking for reasons to be grateful.

A truth I’ve come to know as a person growing into Christianity (we’re all growing – no one has it figured out. Not even priests!) is summarized in Jesus’ simple teaching, “seek and you will find”. And I’ve learned that if I seek occasions of gratitude, I will find them. And when I find them, life feels better, and the Christian faith is more meaningful. So, I try to set aside some time each week to specifically look for reasons to be grateful: grateful to the people around me, and grateful to God for the blessings I might otherwise overlook.

The Vestry and I are practicing this search for gratitude as a part of our monthly meetings. We set aside a few minutes near the beginning of each meeting to specifically think about reasons we’re grateful and people for whom we are grateful. We say the names and the reasons out loud for each other and we record them, because we want to begin sharing this gratitude with all of you.

This is the list from our last meeting:

• For all the people who assisted with Holy Week services and preparing for it
• For Grace Mauk coming back
• For the music on Easter
• For police officers who have been assisting with breakfast incidents
• For Michael Kidney for being involved
• For Heather Meyer, specifically for the Toledo Grows connection and learning about pollinators

Look for more lists like this in Trinity Topics each month after our Vestry meetings. Of course, this is an incomplete list – they always will be. In a parish like Trinity that has so much going on, it takes a lot of people and a lot of passion to make this ministry happen. So, we hope that you’ll join us in seeking out these occasions of thanksgiving. If you notice something or someone that deserves our thanks, send me a quick email or text to let me know.

I hope you will find, as I have, the ways that being intentionally thankful enriches our lives every day!

Blessings,
Jon+