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In the Stillness of Advent

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Advent Reflection, Friday, November 26

By: Kilpy Singer

Can I share something with you?

Advent is hard for me. These four weeks are some of the most cherished in our liturgical year, but I tend to find them exhausting. It’s a combination of the cold weather, diminishing hours of sunlight, and anniversaries of a loved one’s passing. While the world gets decked out in string lights and takes on an air of excitement, I start to feel a little blue.

Maybe I’m not alone in this. Maybe you, or a friend, or a family member get this too. The season calls for boundless holiday cheer, but it takes all our energy just to make sure every family member is where they are supposed to be at the right time and in clean (enough) clothes. On top of that, we each carry our own invisible but very real burdens. We carry guilt, fatigue, hurt, and fear, especially after these past 20 months.

This expectation of how we are supposed to feel versus the reality of how we really feel is difficult. It’s a tension that I carry as I wrap gifts, go to parties, and re-watch Elf for the hundredth time. But there are two places I have relief from it: when I am in our kitchen lighting our table-top Advent wreath and when I am in the church late on Christmas Eve. I have a brief reprieve because I’m reminded. I’m reminded that the tension I’m feeling is between me and Hallmark, not me and God. I’m reminded that life is hard, and the world wants to distract me of it, but God, on the other hand, wants me to enter into it. I’m reminded that some 2,000 years ago, God did enter in by becoming incarnate – the Word made flesh.

This reminder requires very little of us. As the world screams “Do more, buy more, and look cheery while doing it!” God whispers a gentle, “Be still and know that I am God.” Be still. Our simple, yet sacred, Advent practices help us to find quiet amidst the holiday chaos. Know that I am God. It’s in that stillness that God enters in and reminds us of who God is – a God who doesn’t tell us to feel or be something we aren’t, but instead, becomes what we are.

Thank You for the Music

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Weekly Reflection, Friday, November 19

By: Meriwether Roberts

It’s come to my attention that people either love ABBA or hate it. I fall into the category of ABBA lovers having discovered the band a few years ago. Their song “Thank you for the Music” tells of someone’s life positively changed by music and their ability to share it with the world. I owe thanks to St. Mary’s for giving me music as a way to worship and a place to share it. Through Vacation Bible School and Sunday School I am able to connect with our youngest members, but more importantly, I thank St. Mary’s for giving me a choir that has become like family

At four years old, I joined the Children’s Choir because I loved singing and performing. Who knows if I was any good when I started but I learned to sing. Beth Stephens should probably become a Saint due to her ability to transform energetic children into musicians. After a few years, I moved up to the Treble Choir and, there, developed musically and spiritually. My favorite time of year is Advent and Christmas due to the music. Nothing has been more special to me than singing the opening solo of “Once in Royal City”, during the pageant. It’s still one of my favorites.

I “graduated” from Treble Choir with my very own hymnal that I still use every Sunday. As a member of the Adult Choir, I have expanded my repertoire and now sing a wide range of pieces. I love the routine and the familiarity of our service music contrasted against the unique choral music. Thanks to Ryan I have begrudgingly learned songs in German, Latin and Greek, among others. While most of my childhood at St. Mary’s is a blur, every clear memory involves music. It has always grounded me and given me a personal way to worship and give thanks. I missed it dearly while I was away in college and during the pandemic. Throughout those times I couldn’t wait to get back to the music and the community I found in it.

So thank you St. Mary’s, thank you Ryan, Dwight, and Beth, and thank you to the wonderful congregation that allows me to share my love of music. In the words of ABBA:
“So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance, what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me”

Grace Shined Through

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Weekly Reflection, Friday, November 12

By: David May

We have a practice at our staff meetings of looking back at the previous week’s events to report out on things we accomplished or want to learn from. Which is a good practice, for sure. What we mostly do is celebrate and give thanks. Or maybe that’s just the part I pay attention to!

So, in that spirit, before any more time goes by and we’re all on to the next thing, I want to give thanks and celebrate God’s goodness that gave this past week a special glow. This past weekend was All Saints’ Sunday. The whole weekend – from Friday evening to Sunday evening – was a gift of God’s goodness and grace.

On Friday evening, around 200 of us gathered in the church parking lot for BBQ & Brews. An amazing group of parishioners transformed the space with fire pits, bistro lights, and hay bales and all the rest. We ate good food, shared refreshing drink, and raised a good deal of funds for the Outreach ministries of our parish. All of that was great, wonderful, fulfilling. But what moved me so much was seeing each other, catching up, and embracing friends we hadn’t seen in who knows how long. There was lots of laughing, and I began to feel hopeful that things might start to feel okay again. And grace shined through.

On Saturday, a beautiful couple who was married here last year in an empty church with ten people, renewed their vows of marriage before all their friends and family who couldn’t be there before. The church surrounded this sacred gathering with love, care, and rejoicing. We all shared Eucharist together because this beautiful young couple holds that sacrament as the center of their lives. And grace shined through.

Then on All Saints’ Sunday, we baptized four children at the 9 a.m. service and two at the 11 a.m. service. We sang great hymns, and read the names and gave thanks to those we have loved and lost entrusting them into the arms of God’s mercy. And grace shined through.

On that beautiful Sunday evening, Kilpy Singer (our wonderful new Director of Youth Ministries) freshly off the road from taking a couple kids to the PYM weekend at Shrine Mont, gathered with 35 of our young people. There were parent volunteers there to help start a bonfire. The kids played ‘capture the flag’ in that same back parking lot where BBQ & Brews had been held two nights prior. And grace shined through.

Grace changes us. Which is another way of saying God changes us. Or tries to. Our part in trying, I think, is to be attentive – to pay attention. I want to pay attention to all the gifts from God we received last weekend. And be changed, more and more. And give thanks.

Thank you, God, for the gift of this life we share here, and for grace, that changes us.

God is Good to Us

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Stewardship Reflection, Friday, November 5

By: Harry Baldwin and Missy Roberts, Wardens of St. Mary’s Vestry

God is Good! – what a clear, simple, and profound statement. In general terms, the word “good” appears in the King James Version of the Bible 809 times while the word “great” is seen 669.

God is certainly good to us, both individually and collectively. God has graced us with faith and love for Him, while giving us well-being, friends to cherish, and family to love. Our Heavenly Father has abundantly graced us at St. Mary’s with a vibrant parish family, which offers us comfort, safety, and supportive relationships. In parts of the world, worship means risking one’s life and being susceptible to persecution or death – thankfully, this is not the case for us in the United States or at our parish in Goochland.
Since God is so good to us, how can we thank Him and express our gratitude.

  • As Senior and Junior Wardens, we offer you this meaningful and powerful process
  • Take an inventory of the ways which God has blessed you.
  • Call them by name.
  • Reflect on the ways in which these blessings have graced you.
  • Think how your life would be different without them.
  • Pray to God and thank Him for His goodness and mercy to you.

This inventory acknowledges our gratitude to God and expresses our profound thanks. When we were younger, our parents would often say, “Count your blessings.” We should not take God’s love and His gifts for granted.

Another way to express our gratitude to God is to extend kindness to others. St. Mary’s cares for each member of our parish family. During the pandemic, our parish found many ways to continue to care and support others; virtual worship services, “hand carried” meals, phone calls, and cards, our parish nourished each other. The Outreach efforts of St. Mary’s are not mere programs but a part of our parish DNA. They are tangible ways in which we can live out our call to be servants by serving others beyond the campus of St. Mary’s

St. Mary’s is a light to the world, whose light to the world will continue to shine and become even brighter when we express our gratitude to God. An additional method of expressing gratitude to God is to give financially to the work and spread of His kingdom. The strength of our financial position allows us to do God’s work. We urge you to pray, to reflect, and to ask for guidance in your pledge to St. Mary’s. Let your financial support and giving be a sincere and thoughtful expression of your gratitude to God for all of the good He has given.

“All things come of Thee, O Lord, and of Thine own have we given Thee. Amen”

Heavenly Sunshine

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Stewardship Reflection, Friday, October 29

By: Charlie Bryan

Some fifteen years ago, Cammy and I were looking for a new church home. We were becoming dissatisfied with the church where we were longtime members. It had begun to make changes that rubbed us the wrong way such as the abandonment of the traditional hymnbook in favor of one of so-called “contemporary Christian music.” I simply could not adapt to that switch in style. The passage from Psalm 100 of “make a joyful noise unto the Lord” was increasingly joyless for us.

With an exterior that was 1970’s style in design and look, little natural light made its way through small stained-glass windows into the sanctuary which was symbolic overall of a certain melancholy that seemed to hang over the congregation. In our fifteen years as members, we had four ministers, two of whom were specifically asked to leave the church. When the annual financial appeal was made, we grappled with deciding how much to pledge. With all those distractions we rarely felt the presence of God. Finally, we agreed to look elsewhere.

Leaving one church and going to another, however, is not easy. Over the years, we had made many friends, most of whom we served together as elders and with committees. That’s where St. Mary’s comes into the story.
Much to my surprise, Cammy suggested that we give St. Mary’s a try. She was a lifelong Presbyterian who persuaded me, a Baptist, to join her faith soon after we married in 1969. But she said there was something about St. Mary’s that had always appealed to her. We had driven by it numerous times, and both the church itself and the tranquil wooded grounds with a churchyard had drawn us.

We showed up one Sunday morning, where we were greeted warmly as we entered. I was struck by how bright it was as sunlight poured into the sanctuary. I couldn’t help but think about an old Baptist hymn, “Heavenly Sunshine.”
Heavenly Sunshine! Heavenly Sunshine!
Flooding My Soul With Glory Divine
Hallelujah, I am Rejoicing
Singing his Praises. Jesus is Mine!

The beautiful sounds coming from choir loft and accompanying organ were divine and a stimulating sermon by Christopher Brookfield topped it all off. On our way home later, Cammy and I agreed that we had found the right church for us even after only one try.

A few months later after numerous return visits, we were confirmed as members of St. Mary’s. Not once have we regretted that decision. We can thank God that we have found a church home that has so much going for it—a caring clergy, great preaching, splendid music, outreach to those in need, and a friendly group of worshipers.

Sometimes I wonder how much we realize what a special place St. Mary’s is. That alone should guide our giving generously for the year ahead so that we can continue in heavenly sunshine.