In this Issue:

All Saints Village: Executive Council endorses further exploration of concept

Blessing of teddy bears during Bishop's visit and Children's sabath

Part of the Heart of our Mission: News and pictures form around the diocese

Mission in Mississippi: Diocesan Team Works at 10 Locations in Pascagoula

From the National Front

From the Anglican World

2006 Diocesan Convention

Commentaries

From the Bishop: Thankful for how much we have

Reflection: Saints of the address book

X-ercizing: Community, solidarity and humanity (Part 2)

Diocesan Calendar

Past Issues

Reflection: Saints of the Address Book

For Jan, The Feast of All Saints is a holy time. All Saints Day is a time she wants to be in her church. This Nov. 1 was no exception. She looked forward to music, liturgy and message which would feed her spirit.

The priest who stood before the congregation at sermon time held a small book in his hand. It was beyond tattered — held together by something that appeared to be duct tape.

He held it up for everyone to see.

“This is my book of saints,” he told them.

Jan couldn’t wait to hear the title and the author. It would surely be an important spiritual book. And then the priest said:

“It is my address book.”

He thumbed the pages.

“Many of these people are no longer with us. They have gone on before us to be with God. Most of them are not people you would ever have heard of. But they are the saints of my life. They are saints to me not only because I loved them — as I love those who are still alive. They are saints to me because they loved me. And in showing that love to me, they gave me a living experience of the love God has for me. They are my saints!”

In my purse, I carry an address book which contains those numbers, addresses and e-mails I use most frequently. Other current address books expand the list of names to include people I don’t want to lose. In my desk drawer at home, and in several files are old address books. Glancing at one the other day, I followed a friend through a whole page of moves. The pages are frayed from use. A few pages have pulled loose from the seam, and are just stuck inside the binding, no longer in alphabetical order. Somehow I never seem to consign these old address books to the trash. Thanks to Jan and her All Saints Day priest, I know why.

It is no small thing to know you are loved by another human being. By God. Author Henri Nouwen filled an entire book trying to help people “get it”; to understand that they are the beloved of God. He called it The life of the Beloved. In a Sunday School class a few years ago, a group of men and women began their study of the book by trying to get in touch with a time when each had felt “beloved”– dearly loved. For some, the exercise was joyful, and easy. Feeling dearly loved was familiar. For others, the exercise was hard; sad. Feeling dearly loved was not something they could own. The very people for whom Nouwen fi rst wrote his book could not understand what he was telling them.

Beloved? Such a powerful word!

It was not a Sunday morning I was likely to ever forget.

I want to go back to that classroom and those men and women, widening the circle to include Jan and her priest and the duct-taped book. Together, maybe we could invite everyone to take out their address books and think again about being loved. And be thankful for the saints in our lives who have shown us the face and heart of God, if we only recognize what we are experiencing.

It’s not that we don’t know deep down somewhere that God loves us. That we haven’t heard that great good news. Sometimes it takes some simple, everyday part of my life — something I can see and touch to remind me of the things that I do know most profoundly.
Like an address book.

I am re-reading mine, like a novel I can’t put down. A holy book. And I am re-remembering this season of All Saints, the hundreds of ways in which the face and heart of God, the great love of God, have been manifested to me by the saints in my life.

I sing a song of the saints of God
Patient and brave and true
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew…
And one was a doctor and one was a priest
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast….

…and one was my teacher, and one was my friend; one was my hairdresser and one a neighbor; one was a daughter and one a sister… one was a niece and one was a writer…and one was a member of a group I was in…and ….

I am beloved of God. My saints have shown me so.

Amen. Amen.

Advocate Online Staff:

© 2005 The Episcopal Diocese of Lexington

The Advocate is mailed free to all Episcopalians in the Diocese of Lexington. The Advocate is published 10 times a year (monthly Sept.-Mid-Summer, bi-monthly Mid-Summer-June, July-Aug.) by the Diocese of Lexington, a non-profit organization.

Additional subscriptions: $10 per year and address changes should be sent to: The Advocate, P.O. Box 610, Lexington, Ky. 40588-0610.
The deadline for submitting articles, photographs, announcements, and letters is the last Friday of the month prior to publication. These should be sent to:
The Advocate, Kay Collier McLaughlin, Ph.D., Editor, P.O. Box 610, Lexington, Ky.
40588-0610 (Kcollierm@diolex.org).

Member: Episcopal Communicators; Associated Church Press Office: The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Lexington, Mission House, 203 East Fourth Street, Lexington, Ky. 40508-1515. For information call (859) 252-6527.

All rights reserved. The Advocate reserves the right to refuse publication and to edit all contributions. Permission required for reprinting.