St. James's Episcopal Church

A church in West Hartford, Connecticut engages community, scripture, and the world. www.stjameswh.org

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Big Gifts of a Small Life: Meeting God in Sticky Floors, Carpools & the Needy People I Call My Own

Big Gifts of a Small Life: Meeting God in Sticky Floors, Carpools & the Needy People I Call My Own

by Ellen Painter Dollar “Small chaos”—that’s the phrase I chose to describe my life with small children in my book No Easy Choice. They were the best words I could come up with to describe a life that was thrilling, boring, too full, not full enough, exhausting and exhilarating, all at once. A life full to the brim of the very things I had always most wanted, in which I was continually,…

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Who Are "the Least of These"?

Who Are “the Least of These”?

by Ellen Painter Dollar One of my favorite scriptures—I suspect it’s a favorite for many of you as well—is Matthew 25: 31­–46: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put…

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Finding God in Clutter & Strawberries, Long Walks & Big Rocks

Finding God in Clutter & Strawberries, Long Walks & Big Rocks

by Ellen Painter Dollar It was 20 years ago, but I still remember exactly how the preacher at my little coffeehouse church in Washington, D.C., pronounced the word at the heart of her message—“detachment.” She put such emphasis on the “ch” and the final “t” that the word became an onomatopoeia, her precise separation of its clipped syllables perfectly illustrating its definition. Detachment, the…

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A Memorial to the Church

A Memorial to the Church

As Episcopalians from all over gather for the 78th General Convention in Salt Lake City next week, join us in praying for the work they have to do. Bob and Curtis have signed onto a memorial, or written statement to Convention, urging that we collectively seek to proclaim the Resurrection boldly and refocus our vision for how the church might participate in God’s mission in the future. Read the…

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Why I'm Still a Christian

Why I’m Still a Christian

Last month, the latest Pew Research Center survey on American religion confirmed that our nation is becoming less and less religious. From 2007 to 2014, the percentage of Americans calling themselves Christian dropped from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent, while the percentage of people claiming no religious affiliation at all (the so-called “nones”) went from 16.1 percent to 20.8 percent. In America…

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De-Otherizing our Neighbors

Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed cross the road? In his book of the same name, Brian McLaren asks how Christians can fully embrace their unique identity and beliefs while affirming beliefs of Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and people with all other belief systems. While it can be tremendously easy to water down one’s beliefs for the sake of inclusion, it is a much nobler challenge to…

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What It Means to Belong to a Church

What It Means to Belong to a Church

In January 1999, Daniel and I drove north in an ice storm, leaving our home in Washington, D.C., for a newly rented apartment in West Hartford. At one point, the driver who had all our stuff in his moving van pulled over to sleep in his cab overnight, rather than continue crawling along the icy highways with terrible visibility. Our house plants, which the driver had agreed to take in the van…

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Introducing a new look at St. James's

Introducing a new look at St. James’s

In case you missed this in April’s Newsletter:

Deep within the recesses of the St. James’s Parish House, the rector, Bob, and his trusty assistant rector, Curtis, contemplate the outward and visible presentation of the St. James’s worshipping community.

Bob: I’ve been thinking that it may be time to augment the look of our publications to more stylistically express the richness and depth of St.…

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A Call For More Holy Saturday

A Call For More Holy Saturday

By the Rev’d Jonathan Chesney Assistant Rector, Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Auburn, Alabama

This is a call for more ‪#‎HolySaturday‬. We need it. Not more to do, exactly, it is already too busy a week for easy contemplation; but more space, rather than just a day to set the lilies out for Easter.

This is the day of Middle Space, the in-between times, the place caught between trauma and joy,…

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A Case for Stating the Obvious on Good Friday

A Case for Stating the Obvious on Good Friday

By The Rev’d Curtis Farr

This originally appeared on OnFaith.

The Nostra Aetate is a statement by the Vatican declaring the obvious: that all Jews are not directly responsible for Jesus’s death. One might assume that this sort of statement is unnecessary — one of common sense, even.

Of course we would not hold our Jewish neighbor, classmate, or coworker responsible for Jesus’s death 2,000 years…

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Why We Need the Resurrection

Why We Need the Resurrection

by Ellen Painter Dollar

I was maybe six or seven years old when my dad asked me, “Do you know what the most important church holiday is?” My answer, of course, was Christmas. When he said that, no, Easter is the most important Christian holiday, I was a little annoyed. Anyone could see that, as wonderful as jellybeans are (and I reallylove jellybeans…I’m eating some right now in fact, even though…

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5 Ways to Move from a Charity Mindset toward Justice Work

The Rev’d Curtis Farr

This originally appeared on OnFaith.

Imagine that you are walking down the boardwalk with a friend, and down in the water you notice there is a young boy bobbing in the water. You are a decent person, so you jump down and pull the boy out. He walks off, and you and your friend continue on your way, satisfied in being able to help the boy.

A few days later you’re on the same…

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Why "What Would Jesus Do?" Isn't Exactly the Right Question

Why “What Would Jesus Do?” Isn’t Exactly the Right Question

by Ellen Painter Dollar

In college, my favorite professor assigned Charles Sheldon’s 1896 classic In His Steps when we were covering the Social Gospel in an American religious history class. In His Stepsis a novel about an East Coast Protestant minister who, after being shamed by his own failure to respond compassionately to a jobless wanderer, enlists his congregation in an experiment. He…

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A Time to Feast and a Time to Fast

“Americans do not know how to feast because they do not know how to fast,”[1] or so says Marva Dawn. She speaks not for all Americans but for the vast majority who are so acculturated to the expectation that every (reasonable) urge and appetite ought to be quenched.

“I could go for a big juicy burger—let’s go get a burger…right now!”

“An ice cold beer would be good at the end of this long…

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One of My "Cloud of Witnesses"

One of My “Cloud of Witnesses”

by Ellen Painter Dollar

A few weeks ago there was a short notice in the Sunday bulletin about the death of a parishioner that a few of us remember, Meverell Good. He and his family were active at St. James’s in the 1980s; they moved to Martha’s Vineyard, where they had a summer home for years, permanently after Mr. Good’s 1989 retirement. I knew him well because his oldest daughter was my best…

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What makes you vulnerable? As our Lent Event this Sunday involves The Power of Vulnerability, we are priming the pump for discussion by asking you, "What makes you vulnerable?"

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Looking for God in (Another) Long Winter

Looking for God in (Another) Long Winter

by Ellen Painter Dollar

Below is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote here exactly one year ago this week. I thought it worth reposting as a reminder that we’ve been here before—in the seemingly endless howling monotony of polar vortices and immovable piles of snow. We’ve been here before, and it did end. Spring came. So did summer. They will come this year too. In the meantime, we might as well…

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