Theology for Breakfast: Forward Day by Day Spring and Summer 2026

Every morning the Forward Day by Day app reads aloud the scripture assigned by the Episcopal Book of Common prayer. Then I relax into a short reflection on those readings offered by their quarterly print magazine Forward Day by Day, a different writer for each month. Every quarter I've culled highlights. See my responses going back to 2013.

I didn't keep up notes in February or March, but two envelopes covered with notes from April make up for that lapse.

April 2026 - Reflections by Katie NakamaraNakamara is a priest in the Diocese of Alabama.

In some meditations, scripture reminds Nakamara of people on the margins of life. Christ's call from the Cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" reminds her of memorials she has led for unhoused people who died of overdoses and related problems. Her efforts to alleviate pain in that population were never enough. No happy reassurances, here, just that Christ's suffering, too, was not alleviated.

In Acts, Peter and John "look intently" into the face of a lame man at the gate called "Beautiful." They heal him. She recalls a difficult man in the psych ward who was pacified when someone engaged him one-on-one. After that, he accepted detox and came back full of gratitude. Nakamara concludes, "Simply seeing God's people as beautiful and worthy is what we're called to do. Miracles... can follow later."

Why are there two angels at Christ's tomb on the day of Resurrection? Nakamara thinks that sharing news is "inherently relational," whether it's good or bad.

Nakamara has a lighter side. She observes that movie heroes never eat on screen. Mr. Darcy? James Bond? Bruce Wayne? Sherlock Holmes? She's right: we don't want our heroes to be too human. But the resurrected Jesus in Luke 24 asks his apostles, "Have you anything to eat?" Awestruck, they watch him eat fried fish. I love that. I imagine the only sound was his contented "Mmm-hmmm."

Like Nakamara, I shudder at the drowning of Pharaoh's solders and their horses. A lot of dads, brothers, sons, and animals who have no choice but to pursue the Hebrews go on to perish in the Red Sea. According to Nakamara, the Talmud commentators were also uneasy. Talmud says that angels did NOT rejoice with the Israelites. Can we, too, hold both gratitude for triumph for "us" AND empathy for "them?"

She is intrigued by the past tense in Col 1.20: "God was pleased to reconcile himself to all things." At this time, as we feel estranged from earth, family, friends, even our own capacity to accept and give, it is a comfort that God already reconciled us. "The question," she asks, "is whether we can believe and trust this enough that we can go and be reconciled to one another, to the earth, and to ourselves?"

Nakamara finds something good in the longest, most tedious psalm. It's 119:64, "The world is full of your love; instruct me in your statutes." She writes that the beginning of discipleship is to slow down to notice this ever-presence of God in all things and people.

June 2026 - Reflections by Megan Preston MeyerMeyer is a licensed lay preacher who lives in Switzerland and edits the Via Media Review.

Meyer goes off on memorable tangents from inconspicuous points:

• "The light of Christ" reminds her how concentric lenses in a lighthouse project a single bulb across 60 miles of Lake Superior. We are the lenses. Are we keeping the lens clean?
• A time to tear and a time to sew brings the admission that she could easily buy her husband new socks, but she sews "Frankensocks" from torn ones, valuing the time alone away from screens.
• Paul's admonishments come from a place of love, she says, based on the post script to one of his tirades: "See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand!" His large, rough handwriting contrasted to the cultured scribe's. This is "almost light-hearted," she says, and endears Paul to her. And me.
• "Oh, how I love your law! All the day long it is in my mind." My least favorite Psalm, 119, includes dozens of lines like that. Meyer admits that, no, God's law is not in her mind all day long, and she doesn't even want it to be! But she can want to want to, can't she? The idea, from St. Ignatius, is her alternative to guilt.

July 2026 - Reflections by Tina FrancisShe's a writer, photographer, and seminarian with ties to South India, Dubai, Canada, and Seattle. She includes taste and smell in many of her meditations. My own olfactory senses are underdeveloped, so those references are lost on me and a little annoying. But friends who've been following her work tell me how much they appreciate her enhanced palette of senses.

The first aroma she deals with isn't pleasant: it's sweat. The church heroes honored early in July were Pauli Murray and Moses the Black, people who "wrestled" with failure and "stayed in the ring" when "bolting" seemed a wise alternative. In raising children and being married, staying is the most courageous thing you can do. In another meditation, one about the command to "be a servant," she wishes that she could be a servant in a "charming, non-sweaty way," but servanthood often "smells like bleach and hospital coffee colling in a Styrofoam cup." When you're getting grumpy, though, stay with it, because "joy sidles in -- quiet as a cat curling up in your lap."

One anecdote above all others hit home with me in her response to the apostles' question at the Last Supper, "Surely not I, Lord?" Francis said something harsh to her husband early in their marriage. He walked out of the room. Silence about the incident carried through dinner and evening chores, but the question was always "humming underneath: Was I the bad guy here?" The story doesn't end with a reconciliation, but another question: "What if there are no bad guys?" She concludes, "Love is the place where your damage shows up to testify."

Francis gets fear right, how "it can break your resolve in an instant, can root you in place or send you running." So Peter denied Jesus three times in one night. "And still," she observes, "Jesus called Peter 'the Rock.'" Grace doesn't throw you away, she says.

Like a small pebble in your sock, a small bad habit or a minor grievance can "wear a groove" into your life. Beware.

She remembers a mix of aromas and tastes from a street where Jews, Muslims, and Christians were neighbors. Their different kinds of bread and spices mingled in the air as their different holidays overlapped. "Maybe unity isn't agreement," she writes. "Maybe it's a feast table [where] bread is bread, no matter whose hands kneaded it." I like that, and I like how it ties in with Communion. The Scripture, by the way, was Paul's respect for others' differences over piety concerning foods and holy days.

Finally, She tells how joy and ache can be "braided" as with the women leaving the empty tomb, "with fear and great joy" (Mt 28.8)As a toddler, her son wouldn't cry right away after a fall, but would give her a look. "His eyes asked, Is this nothing, or is the end of the world?" Just asking that makes me smile, and I think it's probably a good question to ask at every bump in our journeys.

The Vietnam War made me a Nerd: Bicycle Tour Continues

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Scott Smoot rides in Hanoi today, where the grandeur of ancient Vietnam blends with relics of French colonial rule. On Hanoi's busy streets, the only rule for cyclists and pedestrians seems to be "look out." I take the sidewalk whenever I can.

Hanoi was a world away from Chicago, where my family lived in 1968, but the Vietnam War was only a quarter-turn of the TV dial from super-powered characters I wanted to watch. To get to them, I had to pass through grainy footage of explosions and injured soldiers. I couldn't avoid radio news about the enemy in Hanoi.

That summer, the Vietnam War hit close to home, not even an hour's drive up Halstead Street, where police clubbed and gassed anti-war protesters. I lay awake nights, afraid that the Vietnamese would come to get us, or that I would be drafted to go over there. I was nine years old.

Mom told me that I wouldn't have to worry if I made good grades in school. "They don't draft students who have scholarships."

That sealed my future. Till then, I'd been pretty much a slacker. My third grade teacher Mrs. Lee observed that I was wrapped in fantasy while everyone else did their classwork. Even during recess, when the other little boys played sports, I was being the Joker or the Penguin.

But, seeking that college scholarship, I got straight A's in fourth grade. I got on student council. Mrs. Finkle exempted me from routine work so that I could teach reading and spelling to my classmate Glen from the trailer park -- an experience that made teaching my second-favorite career choice. (First choice was being a guest star on Bewitched.)

In the years that followed, I became an Honor Roll student at a prestigious school, recipient of the Angier B. Duke Scholarship, graduate with distinction in English, and teacher for 40 more years.

Hanoi is the latest stop on my virtual world-tour of places that have had an impact on my life. Since September 2025, I've biked 1200 miles on trails around Atlanta, the distance from the middle of India to Vietnam's capital.

Of related interest

• See my page Boomer Basement to find much more about Joker, Bewitched, and all the furniture of this Baby Boomer's inner world.
• My poetry blog includes a couple of poems that relate to that elementary school period. See Wingtips and Ghost Story.
• I found it hard NOT to put down a very uncomfortable but wonderful novel by an author whose family brought him here from Vietnam during the ignominious US withdrawal. See my reflection on The Sympathizer.

Miles YTD 760 || 2nd World Tour Total 21,851 miles since June 2020 || Next Stop: Japan

←← | ← || Use the arrows to follow the entire tour from the start.

Theology for Breakfast: Forward Day by Day April 2026

Every morning I let my Forward Day by Day app read aloud the scripture assigned by the Episcopal Book of Common prayer, then relax into a short reflection on those readings offered by their quarterly print magazine Forward Day by Day, a different writer for each month. Every quarter I've culled highlights. See my responses going back to 2013.

I didn't keep up notes in February or March, but in April I made up for that lapse with two envelopes covered with notes, front and back.

April 2026 - Reflections by Katie NakamaraNakamara is a priest in the Diocese of Alabama.

In some meditations, scripture reminds Nakamara of her involvement with people on the margins of life. Christ's call from the Cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" reminds her of many services she has led for unhoused people, especially memorials for those who died of overdoses and related problems. Her efforts to alleviate pain in that population were never enough. No happy reassurances, here, just that Christ's suffering, too, was not alleviated.

In Acts, Peter and John "look intently" into the face of a lame man at the gate called "Beautiful." They heal him. She recalls a difficult man in the psych ward who was pacified when someone engaged him one-on-one. He got to detox and came back full of gratitude. Nakamara concludes, "Simply seeing God's people as beautiful and worthy is what we're called to do. Miracles... can follow later."

Why are there two angels at Christ's tomb on the day of Resurrection? Nakamara thinks that sharing news is "inherently relational," whether it's good or bad.

Nakamara has a lighter side. She observes that movie heroes never eat on screen. She's right: Mr. Darcy? James Bond? Bruce Wayne? Sherlock Holmes? We don't want our heroes to be too human. But the resurrected Jesus in Luke 24 asks his apostles, "Have you anything to eat?" Awestruck, they watch him chew pan-seared fish. I love that. I imagine the only sound was his contented "Mmm-hmmm."

Like Nakamara, I'm always pained by the drowning of the Egyptians and their horses. A lot of dads, brothers, sons, and animals who have no choice but to pursue the Hebrews go on to perish in the Red Sea. According to Nakamara, the Talmud says that angels did NOT rejoice with the Israelites. Can we, too, hold both gratitude for triumph for "us" AND empathy for "them?"

She is intrigued by the past tense in Col 1.20: "God was pleased to reconcile himself to all things." At this time, as we feel estranged from earth, family, friends, even our own capacity to accept and give, it is a comfort that God already reconciled us. "The question," she asks, "is whether we can believe and trust this enough that we can go and be reconciled to one another, to the earth, and to ourselves?"

Nakamara finds something good in Psalm 119, the most tedious of the Psalms. It's verse 64, "The world is full of your love; instruct me in your statutes." The beginning of discipleship is to slow down to notice this ever-presence of God in all things and people."

Sue Monk Kidd's God's Joyful Surprise: A Road Well Traveled

Sue Monk Kidd's 1989 memoir God's Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved is in that pantheon of works like Snakes on a Plane and Saw III whose titles tell you all you need to know. From the opening memory of heart trouble induced by stress, we can identify. We know where this book is going, and so it goes.

Along the way, Monk Kidd strews some precious nuggets, experiences and quotations to enrich our own store of memories.

The book is assigned reading this year in Education for Ministry (EfM), an extension program of the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN.

A mom, teacher, and inspirational writer, Monk Kidd asks herself in chapter 3, "Have I written about God more than I've experienced Him?" Yes, her images of her life tell us. It's "algebra pie," a circle of life sub-sub-divided where God is "just another slice." It's spinning like a centrifuge, nothing left at its center. Pruning the rose bushes helps her to see how her life is overgrown with empty activity. One day, playing a "find-me" puzzle with her child, she becomes obsessed with her failure to find the drawing of a light bulb that's supposed to be there. Only when she glances at the page upside-down, she sees the lightbulb in plain sight, so large that it encompasses other objects, and a lightbulb goes off for her.

Central to her message is the idea that any event can startle us into some kind of epiphany. It's also a premise of the EfM program. She mentions the burning bush and the potter's wheel from the Bible, those roses and that lightbulb, and also her daughter's game of knocking on doors and opening them: they are all striking events that God can use to speak to us, provided that we listen for his knocks on our doors.

For a retired teacher like me, her best illustration may be an evening worship service for children when a firefly came in through a window, distracting the children. Instead of calling for attention, she turned out the lights. The children's awe was worth more than the lesson (148).

We may need silence to hear God. She tells how, stressed and sick, she retreats to an abbey for a couple of weeks. She immediately makes a list of objectives and a schedule. Healing comes only when she lays all that aside. She learns -- over and over -- "not to do battle with each distraction as it comes" (197). [I recently heard amusing advice on how to calm our own wayward thoughts. Ask, "I wonder what my next thought will be?"]

Looking for ways to "pray without ceasing," she cites inspiration bits from some great sources:

• Thomas Merton - "We already possess what we need, [but] we don't experience it." He says you need to find "your grateful center" (202).
• Paul - "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). She gives the example of worker on an assembly-line at a farm equipment factory who learned to see her repetitive work as feeding the world (218).
• Meister Eckhart - Wordless prayer is possible when "God laughs into you, and you into God."
• Karl Rahner - (appropos the light bulb anecdote) We "can and must always re-learn how to see." [My church's interim rector Pat Miller observed that Jesus seldom tells us how to behave, but often tells us how to see.]
• Madeleine L'Engle - "Nothing is so secular that it can't be sacred" (117).
• Morton Kelsey - "Conceptual thought does not have the same power as...images" (176).

That last quotation about images is central to Monk Kidd's approach, and to our EfM program as well. I see why our EfM editors chose this book. I found advice for EfM participants in Monk Kidd, both best practices and common pitfalls:

• Think of the Bible as "a person," not just a book. I agree: the Bible has personality, moods, self-conflicts, and evidence of growth.
• Role-playing when you read Scripture can open you up to seeing more than you're used to seeing in a familiar story. Monk Kidd demonstrates when she gets "into" the mind of a leper healed by Jesus (178).
• If you visit Paris in Spring expecting to experience Paris in Spring, you may not be open to appreciating the things you don't expect.
• Treat a passage of Scripture like a statue: walk all the way around it (181).
• Study in a small community. There are limits to what we can get alone.
• Monk Kidd is floored by the idea, "What if conversion happens, not all at once, but continuously ?" So Episcopalian, so EfM!

My favorite of all her anecdotes may be one about her son, on his way to play his first Little League game. No, he said, he did not believe that his team could win, "but I'll practice believing until I do."

Remembering my Mother's Cousin Pat

With the passing of my mother's cousin Patsy Jean Mathers, I know of no other "grown-ups" who remain from my childhood. We're next.

(from the tribute wall at h-p-w.com)

Mrs. Patricia “Pat” Jean Mathers formerly of North Henderson and Galesburg, passed away at the Courtyard Estates of Knoxville at the age of 99, March 3, 2026.

Pat was born in Bay City, Michigan on September 12, 1926, the daughter of Sigard and Opal (Craig) Clark. She spent her early life in Chicago where she lived until her family moved to the country near Rio. At 19 years, she taught at Mt. Vernon School near North Henderson where she met her husband, Gene Mathers. They married in 1949 and became parents of David, Laura and Elizabeth.

In her 40’s she completed her degree in education from Monmouth College. She worked at Harrington Home, First Galesburg Bank and Bergner’s.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Gene, son David, daughter Laura, and twin brothers, Robert and Richard.

Pat is survived by her daughter, Elizabeth (David) Timmons of East Moline, Illinois, daughter-in-law, RoseMary Mathers of North Henderson, Illinois, son-in-law, Jay Brandenburg of Oceanside, California; grandchildren, Melissa, Molly, David, Katie, Sara, Emily, Chris and four great grandchildren.

A special thank you to the staff at Courtyard Estates for their continuous compassion and care.

From the Tribute wall:

• Jenny Clark Spangler
  I was Pat's first cousin on the Clark side of the family. My father was Uncle Sig's brother. I spent a great deal of time at the Mathers farm in North Henderson during summers. Pat was always in a hurry to get somewhere, and whenever the family and other farmers in the area saw a cloud of dust coming up from one of the gravel roads, they knew that Patsy Jean (what Gene called her) was on the move!
• Rita Sprague
  I loved having Pat as a neighbor. She always treated me in such a kind way. She was so sweet with my daughter, Michele. We enjoyed our many visits with her sitting in her garage. My sympathy to Liz and the rest of the family. Rita Sprague
• Galesburg Rescue Mission and Women's Shelter
  Dear Beloved Family of Patricia "Pat" Mathers: On behalf of the Board and Staff of the Galesburg Rescue Mission and Women's Shelter, we would like to express our sincere sympathy. Thank you for your selection of the Galesburg Rescue Mission and Women's Shelter to receive one of the memorial designations. It is such an honor to receive them on behalf of a lady of such respect and integrity and a long-standing leader in our community.
• Nancy Howard
  Pat Mathers was one of the first women leaders I admired. I was 30 when I re-entered the workforce in 1986 after being a stay-at-home mom for several years. Pat had oversight of the downtown First Galesburg National Bank tellers and customer service. She was a great example of professionalism, navigating situations with unhappy customers or employees with grace and confidence. Her people skills and teaching methods were what I admired most. Sometimes teaching in the workplace has as much impact on others as in the education system. I became a manager in Carhartt and used many of the qualities I saw in Pat. My sympathy to the family and my gratitude for the impact in my life of this fine woman. Nancy Tracy Howard

I took this photo of Mom with her cousin when Pat passed through Atlanta on a bus. Pat said at the time that she would not be traveling again. I would heartily agree with her. She had gone from Galesburg to California, to Atlanta, and she had a long way to go. This was a final visit. My sister Kim and I visited Pat two or three times. Here's a story, with a link to a video North By Northwest

Theology for Breakfast: Forward Day by Day Nov - Dec 2025 - Jan 2026

Every morning I read the scripture assigned by the Episcopal Book of Common prayer, then relax into a short reflection on those readings offered by the quarterly Forward Day by Day, a different writer for each month. Every quarter I've culled highlights. See my responses going back to 2013.

November 2025 - Reflections by Bird Treacy Treacy describes herself as "a Christian formation director, Godly Play trainer, consultant, writer, and cat lady" who lives with her wife in Massachusetts.

She tells us to "play dress up" with the parables. Think of the ones who aren't at the center of the story -- not the prodigal son but the envious older brother; not the person who sells his property to buy the field with its hidden treasure, but the one "who sells the field without a second thought."

Reading how Herod responds to John, she puts herself in his place, too. He's scared. And so have history's most horrible tyrants been.

She remembers liking an evangelical rock group's song about rejecting "this world." She has come to realize how wrong-headed that was, when this is God's creation, with so much to love.

I'm planning to use her idea of "dress up" and "put yourself in" for a presentation to a group at my church on the theme of Reading the Bible as Literature." When we read "God's word" as if God wrote it, we miss the human experience of God and the world that inspired the writers. Understand the shifts in the writer's thoughts and feelings. Most scriptures were written to be read aloud. Read like an actor. Another way to say it: Let the Word be Flesh and dwell among us!

December 2025 - Reflections by Dorothy Sanders WellsThe author is a former lawyer and current Bishop of Mississippi, my home for 17 years.

This woman shares a wealth of memorable anecdotes and characters. She conjures even the people she didn't know personally in ways that intensify passages from the daily Scriptures.

Her elders repeated themselves often, telling her about their greats and great-greats in slavery and Jim Crow. She thinks of their urgency when she reads 2 Peter 1-12a, "I intend to keep reminding you."

She tells how, when very young, she used to make animal noises in the hall when her dad would take a shower after work. "Who's there? a cat? a horse?" he would always say, and she would laugh at his guesses. Only one time, it wasn't her. Only after he dressed did he realize that a couple of burglars in the house had been scared off by his voice. This is her response to "The day of the Lord will come like a thief." She has more: "I hope to meet that unexpected coming as my father did, with a well-practiced, loving response."

A phrase from Hebrews 10:39 about "those who shrink back" reminds her of a story of American soldiers held prisoner late in World War II. Anxious guards demanded that the sergeant order all his Jewish soldiers to step forward. Instead, he ordered all 1000 men to do so. "We're all Jews," he said, saving some 300 soldiers in his company. The example, I hope, would give me courage if I ever face "the time of trial."

She names Thaer Khalid al-Rahal, a young father who risked and lost his life on an overcrowded boat from Syria to Europe trying to find work to pay for his child's medical treatment. Zechariah's order not to oppress "the widow, the orphan, the alien, the poor" takes power from being remembered by name.

A boy's shame over his dirty clothes kept him from engaging in her church's after-school program. Everything changed when a parishioner donated a washing machine to the boy's school. The story humanizes the angelic vision of Zechariah 3:4, "Take off those dirty clothes."

Her uncle reprimanded the foreign-born workers in his field for allowing one of their own community to gather fruit for his family. She wonders, did the uncle feel betrayed by his workers? Did he ever regret his hardness of heart to the poor father? The author says, "Sometimes we are the owner of the vineyard [in the parable] and sometimes we are the tenants. In all, we seek to do Christ's will."

A blended family had lived together many years when they learned that the father's ex-wife had died in childbirth. No one else was there to take care of the baby. Without hesitation, the family adopted the little girl. "Imitate what is good," says 3 John 11.

The Bishop's final entry is on New Year's Eve, which she remembers for being "Watch Night" in Black churches. Members would gather waiting to commemorate the first minute of 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect. Its promise was limited and even after full civil rights were recognized, those rights were not enforced. She suggests reviving the tradition "as a reminder of our patiently awaiting the day of God's justice for all of God's people." A fitting response to James 5:7, "Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord."

January 2026 - Reflections by David SibleyRector of St. Paul's in Walla-Walla Washington, Sibley describes himself variously as "nerdy" and "terrified." He writes, "My default bias in many situations is to presume that I am the problem." I identify. So many of his observations speak to me. (Feeling unworthy of love, he takes comfort in the "Good Shepherd" who goes out of his way for the sheep that strayed.)

He notes that Elijah performed miracles, confronted authorities, and defeated fifty false prophets, but was still hiding, afraid and sick of not being listened to (1 Kings 19.11). He hears God between these contradictions, as in the silence between earthquake, wind, fire.

All the characters who witness the emergence of Lazarus from the tomb are "bound" by grief and worry. "Unbind him," Jesus says to all of us, and unbind ourselves. (This reminds me of Ken Medema's song "Moses" about the rod that God commanded him to throw down. Medema writes, What do you hold in your hand today? To what or to whom are you bound? Are you willing to give it go God right now? Give it up, let it go, throw it down?)

The proof that baby Jesus is our Savior isn't in the gifts of the Magi, but in the fact that, after seeing him, they "go home another way," changing the course of their lives. Sibley asks, "How does your life witness to receiving the unconditional favor of the living God?"

Tracing the story of Nicodemus from the leader's cautious meeting in darkness, embarrassment at not grasping what Jesus says to him, bewilderment at leaving him, but then speaking up in council, being ridiculed, then bringing costly ointments to entomb Jesus properly. God works through our own stories in similar ways.

"Original sin has never been about apples and snakes; it is a description of hyman nature. We have never been able to will ourselves to perfection."

Jesus asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answers, the Messiah. Sibley says we all have different answers as our lives shift: Creator of All, God in a Manger, Mourner for a Friend, Healer of the Sick, Forgiver of Sins, Companion in Pain and Suffering, the One who Rises from the Dead.

He points out that, unlike his neighborhood covenant with the H.O.A. that expects duties in return for upkeep, God's covenant with Noah goes just one way. "Salvation comes not from our own hands but from God's magnificent grace."

The woman at the well is bad news to her society. She comes to the well in the heat of the day, presumably to avoid the disdain of the women who gather earlier. She must rely on men for support, and she keeps getting dumped. Then, she's also beneath contempt for the Apostles, good Jews from Jerusalem who despise Samaritans. If this woman can hear God speak to her (and be the first person in the Gospel to hear Jesus make an "I am" statement, echo of the "I am who I am" from the burning bush), why shouldn't we be able to hear God speak to us, also?

Thanks to St. James from the Communications Coordinator

(Published Jan. 22 in our parish newsletter The Bells)

St. James was in a book we're reading with Education for Ministry (EfM). Not by name, exactly, but, in spirit. Theologian Luke Bretherton was explaining how Christian economics should value work that doesn't earn wages. Our churches, he writes, should "hold open times and spaces for wonder, prayer, rest, festivity, and play [to] regenerate the human spirit." That seems to me like a straightforward description of what we do here any given week, especially on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. (For more about EfM, see our St. James EfM blog)

Speaking of unpaid work, I had only a vague notion of the efforts that go into a funeral before last Saturday's memorial service for my mom. Some of these were efforts by members of my own family - sister Kim displayed photos of Mom's life, brother Todd shared Mom's legacy through favorite memories, and his wife Alice and son Raymond made their scripture readings clear and meaningful.

And there was so much preparation made by members of the parish.

(Screenshot from the livestreamed service)

Dr. Black was here Friday rehearsing pieces for the service. He arranged his own reverent organ prelude from an old popular song that Mom sang for a lullaby, "You are my Sunshine." The Choir was there in robes to sing for the service.

Nuno Nuñez was here an hour early to set out the signs to help guests find our parking lot, and he ushered strangers to good seats. Jane Sanders set up the cremains and the altar. Andrea Keener was here to help both of them.

Mother Mariclair never had a chance to meet my mother, but she nonetheless drew together threads from the scripture readings that made a meaningful celebration of an educator, runner, and mom.

Just before the service started, Cathy Brown offered to ring the bell during communion. I hadn't thought to ask for that to be done, but then, during communion, I realized how much would have been missing without that rich, golden tone sounding during the Eucharistic Prayer.

Being an old drama teacher, I was looking for reviews. "It was so uplifting!" said Katey Evans after the service. The Livestream produced by Kevin Kamperman reached Mom's older cousin in hospice, whose daughter texted that it was beautiful. The service brought tears to the eyes of my niece Mary Alice in Japan. She texted that she also heard her uncle's voice during the hymns.

Sue Hannan was here the night before to set up tables for the reception. Then Jean Sommerville and Suz Traendly set tables with sandwiches from Hoboken Cafe, with drinks and flowers. When the reception was over, Suz took trays of sandwiches to The Men's Extension.

I was gratified to see such a turn out for Mom, who outlived many loved ones and friends. Her niece Lisa came down from Cincinnati. Also present were our longtime neighbor Doll, my friend Susan, my friends Suzanne & Dimitri, Mom's friends from Holy Innocents School -- Nikki and David, and many who taught with her and told me how much they had learned from her -- plus my friends from Walker School Mike, Deb, Philippa, Kemper, and Terri. Mom's longtime Visiting Angel and friend Laura Robinson was there, and so was Avis, a caregiver from Arbor Terrace who visited Mom several times after the move to a nursing home, including the last time I heard Mom speak.

To list all of these names is not to overlook the numerous parishioners who never knew my mom but joined with family and friends to celebrate her life.

I'm grateful every day for this parish, and particularly grateful for the support I had on that day.

L-R: Laura, me, Avis at the reception.