Deeply moving and laugh-out-loud funny, Mission: Joy, directed by Louie Psihoyos and Peggy Callahan, is a documentary with unprecedented access to the unlikely friendship of two international icons who transcend religion: His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmund Tutu. In their final joint mission, these self-described mischievous brothers give a master class in how to create joy in a world that was never easy for them. They offer neuroscience-backed wisdom to help each of us live with more joy, despite circumstances.
In addition to the recording of our panel and community discussion, please see these calls to joy: the many ways you can bring joy into your life, your loved ones, your community, and to the world.
What Next?
Take Part. Take 4 minutes to create some joy for yourself and be part of the largest-ever citizen science project on joy. Take me to the BIG JOY Project!
The How-to of Joy. Don’t wait for joy. Create your joy, today. Science shows that starting with even just one act of joy will help you feel better, right now. Download the one pager (PDF).
Do Kindness. Do a small thing to help someone else. Practicing kindness feels good and creates a ripple effect of greater good. It can be as small as smiling at someone in the grocery store. In short, it’s just doing something that will benefit another person or the world. Spoiler alert—it will benefit you, too. The Science of Joy.
Express Gratitude. List 8 things you’re grateful for or write 3 gratitude notes. For people, for pets, for things, for moments and memories. For anything! Just pause for a moment and think about something that feels good in your world. Really feel that good feeling. Acknowledge it. The Science of Joy.
Shift Perspective. List 3 potential ‘bright sides’ to a problem you’re facing or ask yourself, 5 years from now, will the thing that is bothering you still matter? Look at situations from a different point of view to see the bigger picture. So often we can’t make an immediate change in our circumstances. But we are always capable of changing how we look at things. You can think of a challenging task as hard work, or you can think of it as good exercise. Choose the thought that helps you feel more joy. The Science of Joy.
Connect Together. Send a friend a quick text message that will make them smile or tell a family member or friend about something small or large that you’re struggling with. Reach out and discover what’s shared and special between us all. Opening your heart to another will bring joy to both of you. So even though you might want to avoid humanity altogether when you’re feeling down, you’ll be a lot happier if you connect with some of us. Bonus: Doing a kindness for someone or telling someone you’re grateful for them are two ways to build connection. The Science of Joy.
Begin or Join a Contemplative Practices Group. The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia offers weekly and monthly online group contemplative practices. Find those and other offerings at Contemplative Practices.
Why bother to create more joy?
Research is clear. Happiness, resilience, connection, and kindness are skills that can be taught and developed over time—with practice. Visit UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, in collaboration with HopeLab. Synthesizing hundreds of scientific studies, Greater Good in Action collects the best research-based methods for a happier, more meaningful life—and puts them at your fingertips in a format that’s easy to navigate and digest.
225 scientific studies show that people with more eudaimonic happiness, that is, joy:
Are more productive at work and more creative
Make more money and have more sought-after jobs
Are more effective leaders and negotiators
Are more likely to marry and have fulfilling marriages, and less likely to divorce
Have more friends and social support
Have stronger immune systems, are physically healthier, and even live longer
Are more helpful and philanthropic
Show more resilience to stress and trauma
Watch the March 11, 2022, panel discussion and community conversation of Mission: Joy
We, as the Circles of Color in the Diocese of Olympia, renounce the acts of violence and war in Ukraine and stand with the many around the world who call upon Russian President Vladimir Putin to cease and withdraw Russian military presence. We raise our prayers for peace in Ukraine and for safety for all those affected in the region: soldiers on both sides, civilians, children and refugees. We pray that the aggressors may have a change of heart and realize that we are all children of one God and members of one human family. Especially we call on the Russian military to comply with international humanitarian norms and avoid targeting hospitals, schools and child-care centers, along with other civilian targets. As Archbishop Oscar Romero said to soldiers in his country,
You are killing your own…brothers. The law of God –‘Thou Shall Not Kill’ — must prevail over an order to kill that a man may give. In the name of God and the name of this suffering people, whose cries rise up to heaven, I implore you, I beg of you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.
We pray for strength for all who are seeing their homes destroyed and for consolation for those who have lost family and loved ones in this war. We particularly stand in solidarity and love with members of the Ukrainian and Russian churches who are witnessing to God’s love in the midst of this conflict, including St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Moscow and Christ Church, Church of England, Kyiv. We also pray for members of our local congregations and communities, who have family and friends in Ukraine, or who have family and friends serving in the armed forces who may be drawn into this conflict.
As Circles of Color, we are aware that our prayers are needed every day for people in Ethiopia, Yemen, Palestine, Israel, Mexico, Haiti and other areas where violence rages. While not diminishing our concern for the situation in Ukraine, we note that on-going tragic violence and its consequences in areas of the world populated by non-European people of color do not receive the same level of attention by dominant culture media that this white European conflict has generated. We also pray that in the midst of the fear and chaos of this war, that racial divisions do not divide the people of Ukraine, and that they and we may be united in our work for peace for all of God’s children.
We urge you to pray, to not be misled by divisive false media reporting, and to donate as you are able to the organizations listed below:
This is a message about change is from the Rt. Rev. Gregory Rickel, eighth bishop of the Diocese of Olympia. It is for the start of Lent in 2022.
The point of Lent is this, that entered into intentionally, prayerfully, with a committed discipline and practice, if we do it that way, one thing seems certain: we will be changed. There’s no way around it.
Greetings, Diocese of Olympia and all who may be watching.
It is indeed hard to believe that this will be our third Lent in which one of our main overarching themes and topics of daily life is this ongoing pandemic. These last three years have been a rollercoaster, to say the least, up and down, feeling that this long disruption will soon end, only to have it not end, but even worsen. All the while we learn, we grow, we lament and we keep on keeping on.
As this Lent approaches, we are still there. Again, I have great hope, as I know many of you do that this will be the final turn, the final rush on that rollercoaster before we safely return to home base. But what is true, what is always true about humans living through a time such as we have is that when we do return to that home base, we will not find it the same, nor will we find ourselves the same.
As one colleague told me just as we entered into this pandemic, he said, we will be changed. And indeed, that’s true. Now, none of us would’ve manufactured a pandemic to get that to happen in our collective lives, but that is what was handed to us. And yet the church’s tradition was to build in just such a time every year in our yearly journey and rhythm of prayer, and that time is Lent.
The point of Lent was just what my colleague said was kind of the point he was taking from the pandemic. The point of Lent is this, that entered into intentionally, prayerfully, with a committed discipline and practice, if we do it that way, one thing seems certain: we will be changed. There’s no way around it.
You’ve heard me say many times what I once heard Elizabeth Wheatley say, that she felt people didn’t really fear change, but they are filled with terror at the thought of being changed. Lent is the time each year where we’re called to stretch, to bend, to enter willingly into that place where we don’t just experience change, but where we ask for it, hope for it, expect it.
So however that will work for you in every way you can, I invite you to the observance of a holy and prayerful Lent, whether it’s reigniting your prayer life or by studying and reading our Lenten books, or perhaps by reading one you have not been able or willing to read until now, taking time for yourself to think and feel and be still and know God is God, and perhaps in the process knowing yourself in ways you never have before.
So let’s lean into it, Olympia. Lent is here, we are here and we are different. May we change even more, moving ever closer to perfection in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Beloved, I wish you a blessed, holy, and life changing Lent.
Bishop Greg Rickel
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
As many of you are well aware by now, yesterday, on the first of February and the first day of Black History Month, several of our historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were terrorized with bomb threats. Sadly, this incarnates the reality that we still have a long collective way to go to reach Beloved Community and that any notion that we can now stop talking, working, and struggling toward it is an illusion.
I want to say first how sorry I am to our African American and Black siblings who feel the terror of such acts and to all the BIPOC community as well. Second, I want to encourage all of you to be proactive in speaking out against this, and also to be working to change it.
Another concrete thing that I was going to put before you and ask of you, even before the sad events of yesterday, was to consider a gift to the HBCUs. Below, you will find a link to our Presiding Bishop’s invitation to give to the Absalom Jones fund in support of our HBCUs. You will also find instructions that will help facilitate your generosity both to economically assist these fine institutions but now, even more, to stand in solidarity with them. I gave today! Please pray for those who live in fear and anxiety due to such acts, and for those who feel the need to perpetrate them. Pray for our human family.
Absalom Jones is one of the Episcopal Church’s and our nation’s most heroic founding fathers, and on February 13, we commemorate blessed Absalom, the first black priest and founder of the first black congregation in the Episcopal Church. Absalom Jones had been born into slavery in 1746 and achieved his own freedom in 1784. But, from whom?
I know it’s awkward at this time of celebration to acknowledge the man who enslaved Absalom. But the 2006 General Convention mandated that the Episcopal Church give a “full, faithful and informed account of our history” with slavery. So, the time is right to remember that the man he called “master” for 38 years was Benjamin Wynkoop vestrymen, warden and benefactor of Christ Church and St. Peter’s in Philadelphia, our Church’s two historic congregations that helped give birth both to the nation and the Episcopal Church. May a fair accounting of Jones’ and Wynkoop’s history as slave and master provide Episcopalians today with the insight to overcome the legacies of a racist past infecting our society, and beloved Church, still.
Absalom was not given the last name of Jones when born on the plantation of Wynkoop’s parents in Sussex, Delaware. At an early age, he was taken from the fields and came to work in the house. When Wynkoop chose to farm no longer, but to make his way as a merchant, he sold Absalom’s mother and six siblings, and brought the 16-year-old Absalom as his slave to Philadelphia in 1762.
Upon arriving in Philadelphia, Wynkoop began attending the newly constructed St. Peter’s, built when Christ Church had become fully subscribed; Christ Church and St. Peter’s were one parish church in two congregations.
Wynkoop’s business was successful, and how not? Absalom labored from dawn to dusk, he reported, often till midnight. Not only staffed by slave labor, the store sold the fruits of slave labor: “rum, molasses, coffee, chocolate, pepper, and other groceries.” According to a biographer, Wynkoop was a “prompt contributor to worthy causes” through his gains reaped by the labor of others. A major donor in the parish, Wynkoop was elected to the common Vestry of Christ Church and St. Peter’s in 1769.
According to Absalom’s own autobiographical sketch, Wynkoop permitted him to attend a school for blacks, possibly one in Christ Church conducted by the Bray Associates (another history that needs a full accounting). Absalom married a slave, Mary, whose master was Wynkoop’s neighbor and fellow parishioner at St. Peter’s. Absalom took on the cause of Mary’s freedom. With the skills learned in school, he wrote the case and raised the necessary money to purchase her freedom, which her master accepted. Absalom remained a slave.
When General Howe marched his British troops into Philadelphia in the autumn of 1777, Wynkoop temporarily fled. Absalom could have easily taken refuge with and received freedom from the British. But he stayed in the Wynkoop’s store. Mary was now free, he had a family that he would not abandon, and a house he had built that he rented to free blacks, saving the money. “I made application to my master in 1778 to purchase my own freedom,” he wrote, “but this was not granted.”
“My desire for freedom increased,” he wrote, because he feared that, while a slave, his house might be taken by Wynkoop. He made “many applications to [Wynkoop] for liberty to purchase my freedom,” but Wynkoop wouldn’t budge. Why couldn’t Wynkoop breath the air of freedom rich and redolent in Philadelphia? Why did his Church, that had many abolitionists as members, remain silent? Those are the questions we are obligated to ask now.
On October 1, 1784, Absalom recounts with a charity surprising that Wynkoop, “generously gave me a manumission.” Then, Absalom freely took the surname Jones, uniquely American and sounding nothing like the Dutch Wynkoop.
Within three years, Absalom Jones co-founded the Free African Society. In 1792, he led his congregation from St. George’s Methodist Church and founded St. Thomas, which then in 1794 affiliated with the Episcopal Diocese, and the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas was born. But what of Benjamin Wynkoop? He becomes warden of Christ Church and St. Peter’s during these formative years of the Episcopal Church, but little detail of his life remains. The most interesting detail is from Absalom Jones.
After his manumission, he writes, “I have ever since continued in [Wynkoop’s] service at good wages, and I still find it my duty, both late and early, to be industrious to improve the little estate that a kind Providence has put in my hands.”
I leave to historians the interpretation of the meaning or importance of Absalom Jones continuing to work for Benjamin Wynkoop, building a relationship of some warmth and forbearance such that Wynkoop’s respect for Jones was quoted in Jones’ obituary in 1818. But I challenge myself, and the tour guides at Christ Church who will tell Wynkoop’s history of slaveholding this year to some 100,000 school children, not to jump to the conclusion of a happy ending to a slavery story in our beloved Episcopal Church. I hope that Jones and Wynkoop truly enjoyed the embrace of reconciliation, but take that possibility as a challenge today to reconcile our present Church with its own history with slavery. Might we be guided by the wisdom of theologian Miroslav Volf: “Remembering well is one key to redeeming the past; and the redemption of the past is itself nestled in the broader story of God’s restoring of our broken world to wholeness — a restoration that includes the past, present, and future.”
Absalom Jones wrote that the motivation for founding the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas was “to encourage us to arise out of the dust and shake ourselves, and throw off that servile fear, that the habit of oppression and bondage trained us up in.” That same habit of oppression and bondage will continue to infect the Episcopal Church until we tell our complete history with slavery. I pray we, as a Church, arise out of the dust and shake ourselves, and give an informed account of the slaveholders in our past, and not just the slaves.
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
This is the message from the Rt. Rev. Gregory Rickel, Bishop of the Diocese of Olympia, for Christmas 2021.
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Greetings, Diocese of Olympia and all who may be watching, and most especially on this day, Merry Christmas to all of you.
I hope you all are with those you love and who love you, but if you can’t be with them, I hope you will make connections with them today in some way.
I know this can be for many, a season of wild extremes. For some, the most joyous and happy time of the year, and for some, the lowest and most depressing. If that is happening to you, know that this shall pass and know that Jesus, who is born this day, is as every bit right there with you and for you as he is for anybody. For as Christians, we believe that that is the greatest gift ever, and it’s one equally and fully given to each and every person. That is your gift, too.
I always use this message each year to remind you that Christmas is a season, not just a day. Christmas in a real sense, starts today, but runs for 12 more days, right up Epiphany. This was the drama that was read on Christmas Eve, but in real life, it played out over days and weeks and months, just as our lives do.
Like so many of our holidays, the secular world will celebrate today and then cast the Christmas trees on the corner, pack up the decorations, get back to normal, if you will, right when we might say we’re just getting started. In the Hallmark calendar, Advent has become what is our Christmas and Christmas has really, I hate to say it, been diminished to one day and in most quarters completely lost the original meaning.
My prayer for you is whether you decide to celebrate just today and then by the evening or tomorrow, erase all signs of Christmas, or if you actually try to ride out the whole season with those few of us that valiantly are trying to reclaim it, in either case, that you stop at some point or remind those around you, remind yourself what this day is all about, what it celebrates, what it points to, what it hopes for. We need this message now more than ever. Christmas begins today.
Christmas, or Christ’s Mass
Christmas (in old English, Cristes maesse) is a festival celebrated on December 25, commemorating the Incarnation of the Word of God in the birth of Jesus Christ. In the Book of Common Prayer, it is also called The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the United States it is also a popular secular holiday.
The customs associated with Christmas have developed from many sources. From early days the popular observance of Christmas was marked by the joy and celebration characteristic of the Roman Saturnalia and the pagan festivals which it replaced. It came to include the decoration of houses with greenery and the giving of gifts to children and the poor. In Britain other observances were added including the Yule log and Yule cakes, fir trees, gifts, and greetings. Fires and lights (symbols of warmth and lasting life) and evergreens (symbols of survival) were traditionally associated with both pagan and Christian festivals. Their use developed considerably in England with the importation of German customs and through the influence of the writings of Charles Dickens.
In the Book of Common Prayer, Christmas Day is one of the seven principal feasts. The Christmas season lasts twelve days, from Christmas Day until January 5, the day before the Epiphany. The season includes Christmas Day, the First Sunday after Christmas Day, the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and may include the Second Sunday after Christmas Day. In many parishes, the main liturgical celebrations of Christmas take place on Christmas Eve.
The Book of Occasional Services includes a variety of resources for use during Christmas, including a form for a Station at a Christmas Crèche, a form for a Christmas Festival of Lessons and Music, and seasonal blessings for use during the Christmas season.
The above adapted from Christmas on the website of the Episcopal Church.
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Regardless of whether or not you really get to slow down, I hope you will, even in the hecticness, try to find time to reflect on what in your life is important beyond all things, all stuff, all material possessions, and focus on how we cure our divides and mend our relationships.
Bishop Greg Rickel of the Diocese of Olympia offers his reflections on Advent and blessings for the season.
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Advent
Advent is the first season of the church year, beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas and continuing through the day before Christmas. The name is derived from a Latin word for “coming.” The season is a time of preparation and expectation for the coming celebration of our Lord’s nativity, and for the final coming of Christ “in power and glory.”
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
For us as Christians, every day is Thanksgiving Day. There’s nothing wrong with all of us setting aside such a day once a year to shine a light on our need to be thankful, but we should never do that blindly, and we would do well to tell the truth about this day, and then after telling that truth, to remake it as we can into something that truly befits what we are called to be and do in our thankfulness.
Bishop Rickel shares his reflections this Thanksgiving and his wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.
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An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortizoffers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.
With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: “The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them.”
Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.
Ahead of the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving, a new look at the Plymouth colony’s founding events, told for the first time with Wampanoag people at the heart of the story.
In March 1621, when Plymouth’s survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth’s governor, John Carver, declared their people’s friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the “First Thanksgiving.” The treaty remained operative until King Philip’s War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy peace between the two parties would come to an end.
400 years after that famous meal, historian David J. Silverman sheds profound new light on the events that led to the creation, and bloody dissolution, of this alliance. Focusing on the Wampanoag Indians, Silverman deepens the narrative to consider tensions that developed well before 1620 and lasted long after the devastating war-tracing the Wampanoags’ ongoing struggle for self-determination up to this very day.
This unsettling history reveals why some modern Native people hold a Day of Mourning on Thanksgiving, a holiday which celebrates a myth of colonialism and white proprietorship of the United States. This Land is Their Landshows that it is time to rethink how we, as a pluralistic nation, tell the history of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday and day of thanks. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. This custom is based on the celebration of three days of prayer and feasting by the Plymouth, Massachusetts, colonists in 1621. There was also a Thanksgiving celebration with prayer by members of the Berkeley plantation, near what is now Charles City, Virginia, in 1619.
The first national Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in 1789. Under President Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Day came to be celebrated annually on the last Thursday of November. Thanksgiving Day was celebrated on the third Thursday of November in the three years 1939-1941 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, the Thanksgiving Day commemoration was moved back to the fourth Thursday in November by Congress in 1941.
Thanksgiving Day is a major holy day and a national day in the Prayer Book calendar of the church year (pp. 16-17, 33). The Proposed Prayer Book of 1786 included “A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for the Fruits of the Earth, and all the other Blessings of his merciful Providence.” The first American Prayer Book (1789) replaced the four national days of the 1662 English book with propers [lessons and collect of the day] for Thanksgiving Day.
The collect for Thanksgiving Day gives thanks to God the Father for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. It asks that we may be faithful stewards of God’s great bounty, providing for our own necessities and the relief of all who are in need (BCP, p. 246).
Hymns for Thanksgiving Day in The Hymnal 1982 include “Praise to God, immortal praise” (Hymn 288), “Come, ye thankful people, come” (Hymn 290), and “We plow the fields, and scatter” (Hymn 291). The Hymnal 1982 Accompaniment Edition, Vol. 1, provides musical settings for a “Litany of Thanksgiving for a Church” (S 391; see BCP, pp. 578-579) and a “Litany of Thanksgiving” (S 392; see BCP, pp. 836-837). The Litany of Thanksgiving may be used on Thanksgiving Day in place of the prayers of the people at the Eucharist, or at any time after the collects at Morning or Evening Prayer, or separately.
Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we pray, faithful stewards of your great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A Litany of Thanksgiving
For optional use on Thanksgiving Day, in place of the Prayers of the People at the Eucharist, or at any time after the Collects at Morning or Evening Prayer, or separately.
Let us give thanks to God our Father for all his gifts so
freely bestowed upon us.
For the beauty and wonder of your creation, in earth and
sky and sea. We thank you, Lord.
For all that is gracious in the lives of men and women,
revealing the image of Christ, We thank you, Lord.
For our daily food and drink, our homes and families, and
our friends, We thank you, Lord.
For minds to think, and hearts to love, and hands to serve, We thank you, Lord.
For health and strength to work, and leisure to rest and play, We thank you, Lord.
For the brave and courageous, who are patient in suffering
and faithful in adversity, We thank you, Lord.
For all valiant seekers after truth, liberty, and justice, We thank you, Lord.
For the communion of saints, in all times and places, We thank you, Lord.
Above all, we give you thanks for the great mercies and
promises given to us in Christ Jesus our Lord; To him be praise and glory, with you, O Father, and the
Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
Bishop Greg Rickel
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Bishop Gregory Rickel, and bishops in Georgia respond to verdict in Ahmaud Arbery case from Georgia.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry responds to verdict in Ahmaud Arbery case
While nothing will return Ahmaud Arbery to his loved ones, our justice system has held three men accountable for hunting down and killing a Black man who did nothing but go for a run in a predominately white neighborhood, and I give thanks for this outcome. My prayers are with Arbery’s family as they continue to grieve his loss.
Even so, our work as followers of Jesus, as a church, and as a nation, continues; we cannot rest until these modern embodiments of terror against any human child of God are no more. We must labor on for racial healing and reconciliation in each of our hearts—and in our society. We must reimagine and advocate against systems, laws, and policies that encourage vigilantism and diminish human life, because all people should be treated with the dignity, love, and respect that is due children of God.
Bishop Greg Rickel statement on the verdict in the Ahmaud Arbery case
Today, the jury in the Ahmad Arbery trial has returned its verdict and found the men responsible for Arbery’s death guilty on nearly all counts. While this verdict does not, as our Presiding Bishop has said, bring Ahmaud Arbery back to his family and loved ones, it does provide a measure of justice from a system that has too often denied justice to our BIPOC siblings.
I echo the prayers and pleas of our Presiding Bishop and the Episcopal and Lutheran bishops of Georgia in their statements following the verdict [below]. I commend them to you. The joint statement from the Georgia bishops is especially good and also provides some very good resources, including a link to the resource library of the Center for Racial Healing.
There is much work still to be done in reforming our justice system, and quite frankly much of that work is inside ourselves, for as many of you have reminded me over this past week, we humans make up, implement, and oversee this system. Much work remains to be done in each of our hearts to dismantle our own racism and bring about healing and reconciliation. When this happens I do believe any unbalanced and/or unjust system can and will change. I most definitely include myself as one that continues to need work and most likely will the remainder of my life. I ask you to pray for everyone involved in this case, their families, and for the repose of the soul of Ahmaud Arbery.
Episcopal and Lutheran bishops in Georgia respond to the verdict in the McMichaels-Bryan trial
The jury charged with handing down a verdict in the case of three men accused of murder for their roles in the death of Ahmaud Arbery issued its decision today finding Travis McMichael guilty of malice murder and other charges, Gregory McMichael guilty of felony murder and other charges, and Roddie Bryan guilty of felony murder and other charges. We give thanks for the dedicated work of the judge and jurors who served in a charged atmosphere with intense public scrutiny. Any verdict arrives too late to offer true justice in this case. Ahmaud Arbery is dead, and the court cannot return him to his family. Nonetheless, this moment is an important one.
We prayed for the court to bring earthly justice and the court has acted. But it took a public outcry and the release of video of the incident to force the system into action. The three men who are now convicted of crimes were initially shielded from facing their accusers in court. Until we can bring equity to the system that initially protected them, the rest of us will not have done what we can to create the just society for which we long. Our country has not dealt with the racism built into the system at its founding and perpetuated until this day. Living into our faith means addressing directly any sin we see in our lives and in our communities. Divisions around the human-made concept of race are an offense against our faith which teaches that all people are made in God’s image and likeness. Jesus taught us to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Through his parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it clear that all are our neighbors. Any racial divide breaks the heart of God.
One bright spot of hope we have seen emerge following Ahmaud’s tragic death has been the interfaith group of clergy in Glynn County. Their clarion call for justice after the video surfaced was critical in getting attention to this case. They followed this call by engaging in candid conversations that drew them together even as other forces could have deepened divisions. Participants included clergy from all five Episcopal Churches in the county and those of many other denominations, as well as leaders of Jewish and Muslim congregations. News stories have often quoted the clergy who were consistently engaged, offering a non-anxious presence on the courthouse grounds. They have witnessed to the dream of God: all of us becoming beloved community, not divided by ethnicity, but united in our common humanity. We know that long after the cameras and reporters are gone, the clergy in Glynn County will still be working together toward that dream.
We hope not just for good to overcome evil, but for God to redeem even the worst tragedies and the gravest injustices. While the court has acted, the work of healing and justice remains. Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
The Southern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America offers resources: Racial Justice.
The Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta’s resources can be found at the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing: Our Virtual Resource Library.
It does not take an evil person to do an evil act. Murder is evil. Ahmaud’s killing was evil. But we need to guard against demonizing anyone or denying their basic humanity. The accused have been convicted. They will serve their sentences and need our prayers that they may be awakened to repentance. In this, as with all of us, we pray that God will bring all who are guilty to repentance and amendment of life and give us all hope for the future. In that spirit, we offer this prayer:
Eternal God, we give thanks for the judge and jurors charged with bringing earthly justice in the death of Ahmaud Arbery. Be with the Arbery family and all in the Brunswick and Glynn County Community as they seek further healing. Be with Gregory, Travis, and Roddie and their families as they serve their sentences and work toward their own repentance. Be with all of us as we seek repentance and healing for ourselves, one another, and our communities. Give us all the grace to hunger and thirst for your righteousness that we may work together to become the beloved community to which you call us. This we ask for the sake of your Son our Savior, Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns now and forever. Amen.
May God grant us grace to see the healing needed in our lives, our families, and our communities.
In Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Frank S. Logue, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia
The Rt. Rev. Rob C. Wright, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta
The Rev. Kevin L. Strickland, Bishop of the Southeastern Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. The campus is a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
I was saddened to learn of the verdict today in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, the young man who traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year and fatally shot two people, seriously injuring a third. The incident brought to the surface many of the issues that our country wrestles with—and all-too-often attempts to ignore—around racial justice, white vigilantism, and gun violence. Rittenhouse came to Kenosha, heavily armed, as part of a mob of white men to stop the protests for racial justice and took two lives. Under the auspices of protecting property, he came prepared to commit violent acts and did just that. As the prosecutor stated, there is a difference in defending yourself from violence perpetrated against you, and you creating the situation in order for you to do it—or more specifically, “You lose the right to self-defense when you’re the one who brought the gun, when you are the one creating the danger, when you’re the one provoking other people.”
As the verdict came in today, it has been widely observed that we have two legal systems in this country—one for white men, and one for everyone else. Many have suggested that if Rittenhouse had been Black, the verdict would have been drastically different. I would go further—when you watch the videos of that night, I would say if Rittenhouse had been Black, he most likely would not have come out of that night alive. A young white man brazenly carrying an automatic weapon through city streets was virtually ignored by law enforcement. Had it been a Black man, I do believe the result would be drastically different.
In these same days we are witnessing the trial of the ambush of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, in Brunswick, Georgia. And even with all the accused admitting that Arbery was unarmed and ultimately not threatening them, and all evidence pointing to Arbery trying to flee the scene unarmed, this case hangs in this unjust balance as well. In both cases, we see self-appointed vigilante’s taking justice into their own hands. And folks, if it can happen to these folks, it can just as easily happen to any of us.
But, the point is, mostly, it doesn’t. Especially if we are white, if we are privileged, if we have enough money to defend ourselves. We simply must do better, and we must be better.
Justice is supposed to be blind, but time and time again, our justice system has been proven to favor white men. It is severely out of balance.
I pray for all involved in this case, including Kyle Rittenhouse. I pray for all the victims of gun violence. I pray for our country and for our justice system. There is so much that needs to change. Let’s engage and act so that we may see a more just system going forward. To get involved in making our criminal justice system equitable, you can see what steps The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations recommends here: Get Involved with Criminal Justice Reform.
Blessings,
+Greg
Bishop Greg Rickel
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia
The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia traces its history to the establishment of the Missionary Jurisdiction of the Oregon and Washington Territories in 1853. We are also known as the Episcopal Church in Western Washington.
Admitted by General Convention in 1910, the Diocese of Olympia is made up of more than 26,000 Episcopalians in more than 100 worshiping communities through Western Washington. Our geographic area stretches south from Canada to Oregon and west from the foothills of the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
Through worship we do the following:
Affirm our faith
Pray together
Reconcile together
Share peace and thanksgiving together
Gain strength and renewal through Eucharist
Prepare ourselves to minister to the world
We share hope in God’s incredibly extensive grace to forgive all repentant people.
Our congregations cover a whole range of sizes and stages of development. Several affiliated institutions and numerous outreach and social justice ministries as well as a number of multicultural ministries are supported by the whole diocese.
Church of the Redeemer
Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world around us. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
Bishop Rickel delivered the following address on October 30, 2021, at the 111th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia.
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John Prine, former Chicago Postal worker and singer/songwriter, is one of my favorite musicians. He sang songs such as “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” and “Big Old Goofy World,” among many others. On April 7, 2020, John Prine, became one of the nearly 3/4 of a million people in this country to die due to complications of COVID. Another song he sings that I love is, “God Only Knows.” It starts with this line:
“God only knows the price that you pay
For the ones you hurt along the way”
In our Gospel, Matthew 5:23-24 specifically, we read:
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.
In the Yom Kippur Confessional, Jewish people recite the following:
Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness. And before a people is forgiven, it must confess its sins. We confess our sins and those of our fellows for we are responsible, one for another. Heal us Adonai, and lead us through darkness to light.”
These convention addresses are always tricky. How does one sum up a year in half an hour? And especially a year such as we have had together? So, I always seem to start with apologies, and so I will, and this year this address shall end with some too.
The apology on the front end is my apologies for missing the mention of anything that you think I should have mentioned. If I do that, which I am quite certain I will, let me know afterward. I am quite sure you will.
Today, in this address, I want to center my remarks around those three quotes I began with, by starting off with a review of our lives together as the world continued to grapple with the pandemics of COVID and Race. Then moving to us together as the Church, and then by sharing personally. My hope, in this address, will be to offer a framework to continue the work begun at our last convention and, in reality, from many years before, and then finally to share personally my work, regrets, reflection, and hope for our days ahead.
As a planet we do seem to be in disarray. The angst of the world is so evident, our divisions so raw and apparent. There is so much more of an edge to everything and everybody. The pandemics have revealed the great disparities in our world. The virus especially has put front and center the reality that, whether we like it or not, we are one human family on this little flying object, hurtling through space, called Earth, and while it is our human tendency to erect walls, and borders, and boundaries, a virus reminds us that it has no respect for any of those.
I have to say the absurdity of states thinking the virus would follow their intention for it within their borders, and not affect the next state over, or the world for that matter, shined a light on how self-absorbed we can really be.
Countries have thought and done the same. The truth is the virus cares not—not about race, not about country, not about party, not about beliefs—none of it. If there was ever, truly, a “we are all in this together” moment in my lifetime, this has been it. To say the least, it has been less than an overwhelmingly united response or one that gives me a whole lot of comfort.
Of course, as a church, some of those same disparities have been highlighted yet again, by the virus, and by the martyrdom of Mr. George Floyd. As I said last year, we, as a church, we as individual Christians, who remain human, are not exempt from this. We have just as much to atone for and to repair if that is possible. What our faith does, what my faith does, is give me the hope and assurance that it is possible. I can’t give up on that.
Last year, at this convention, thanks to the courageous witness, and vulnerability of our Circles of Color, you overwhelmingly assented to a host of resolutions to help us, as a Church, begin to make that turn. That too was courageous and yet long overdue, and as I said then, several times, and attempted to say as we brought that convention to a close, we just finished the easiest part.
The truth is the Church often gets as far as we did last year at this convention, signing on to resolutions that say all the right things, or most of them, and points us and even calls us to enact them. But, too often, that is where the breakdown occurs. That’s where the work stops.
This past year has been a test in many ways, but certainly one of those has been whether we, as the Diocese of Olympia, could take the next step and not fall into the usual patterns.
Let me first simply list some things that, even in the face of all of this, we did accomplish this last year. Before I get into specifics, I want to simply say this, to all of you, and please carry this back to your people locally, thank you, thank you, thank you for the incredible way you adapted together, worked together, learned together, grew together, and in many cases, exercised tremendous patience and grace together as we all pivoted to this new reality.
Clergy and lay leaders had to turn on a dime and really begin doing church two ways. This was the year we had hoped this would be over, come to an end, and yet, again, I would say through our divisions, we still struggle to bring this pandemic era to a close.
Two years ago, could we have ever imagined, just how many of us now, know exactly what it means when you say, “you’re still muted!”
Two years ago, I couldn’t set up my own Zoom meeting. I could be the CEO of the company today, as could most of you!
As we slowly emerge from the pandemic, the most arduous days may be ahead as we don’t just offer virtual worship, but both virtual and face-to-face, and doing that now as very changed people. None of us are the same after this.
Clergy and Lay leaders are exhausted. Simply living through this has been exhausting. And yet, at the same time, it has been truly inspirational to watch you, and us, adapt.
Here are some things I believe we did well in response to this new reality.
As a diocese we became aware of and focused on clergy wellness. We did this through a wellness survey, retreats, and other offerings virtually or otherwise. We will continue that focus into this next year as well.
We used the new virtual connecting points to serve lay leaders and clergy both in ways we haven’t been able to before – the clergy wellness for lay leaders webinar, the vestry/BC training day, making videos for transitions, etc., Project Resource for stewardship development. These, and many like them, are new and newly effective offerings that are helping us to standardize leadership practices and expectations across our diocese.
We piloted a hybrid College for Congregational Development, which went really well and may improve and change how CCD is delivered across our diocese and denomination. During this pandemic CCD has continued to grow and expand across the Episcopal Church.
We worked together with Circles of Color for the One Service for Turtle Island and began important conversations around how to appreciate worship practices from Indigenous and other ethnic cultures without appropriating.
I have witnessed all of us learning new skills at virtual connection, and that became ever more apparent in how the preparation for this convention felt, versus last one. I had a lot less anxiety and concern about simply pulling it off this year. I hope you do too.
You all should be very proud of yourselves. You adapted, we adapted.
I simply want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, to all of you, lay, clergy, young and old, rural and urban, small and large, everywhere in this diocese. I thank you for the creativity, the innovation, the persistence, the hopefulness, the ability to see positive opportunity in some of the roughest and most traumatic times to be church in recent memory.
God only knows the price that you pay
For the ones you hurt along the way —“God Only Knows,” John Prine
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. —Matthew 5:23-24
Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness. And before a people is forgiven, it must confess its sins. —The Yom Kippur Confessional
I want to acknowledge and restate today that our main goal as the Office of the Bishop is to serve you and equip you and convene you as the Body of Christ in the world, and that is why we do all that we do – including the uncomfortable work around racism that is center stage at this moment. Church is the exact right place for us to learn to be uncomfortable, to learn to love across difference, and to learn how to repent in ways that make real impact. I constantly think and say, if we, the Church, the Body of Christ, can’t pull this off, I am not sure who can. And who are we really, if we can’t do that? If we can’t model this, our bread and butter quite frankly, then I do feel as a whole, we are doomed. This has to be a moment in history where we speak, live, and act on the words we proclaim as Truth.
As a staff and as the Office of Bishop, I would want to say that the work of dismantling racism in the diocese, in the Church, and in the world, had been a desire, a hope, a stated goal for quite a long time before last convention, but as it did for so much of the planet, the martyrdom of Mr. George Floyd rocked our world, rocked the church, and our past response or lack thereof, and opened our eyes, and when I say ours, our staff, mine, to the very real fact that our work is incomplete, and even more importantly, that there are many people in many corners of this diocese who are hurt not only by racism in the world, but also in our church structures, and by me personally, as bishop.
In short, our BIPOC beloved who had been hurt by institutional racism in the Diocese of Olympia did not trust the leadership of the diocese to faithfully execute this work because of the complicity we in leadership had in making decisions that hurt BIPOC members of our Body.
You will hear this said a few times today in my remarks, that was not our intent, I believe that, but it has been the impact, and we have to believe that too, acknowledge it, and begin to atone for it.
And if there is one theme today that might be it, or at least a huge part of it. We have to stop getting stuck in the comfort of our intentions and open our eyes to the blindness of our impact. Intent, in the end, is never enough, and is only the framework, the wish, the hope, the goal. In a sense you might say this diocese offered a rather full-throated intent at our last convention. The impact remains to be seen. That is a work in progress, and so much more, far more, than has been done on that, remains.
We might look back in history and say we have done that, specifically put the words down, over and over again, and yet, we don’t move past that, and we hardly ever risk going to the real issue, the impact of our decisions, our actions, and most often, our inactions or inattentions.
One of the most compelling protest signs, to me, in this past year, was the one that I saw that said:
George Floyd was not a wake-up call, the phone has been ringing since 1619, you all just keep hitting the snooze button.
To me, this sums it up. The “you all” on that sign is white people, dominant culture, me. The snooze button is intent, is platitudes, is hollow rhetoric, words, and even actions we take to push it back down. We have to move on to impact. We have to stop trying to end the spotlight and truth of this past, and instead deal with it, acknowledge it, interrogate it, and even perhaps apologize for it.
We have to let the wake-up call ring, and then wake up to courageously look at the impact, and resist the urge to hit the snooze button.
For our part, after last convention, and looking ahead to this year, our Office of Bishop staff agreed to the following:
To prioritize the ending of harm and pastoral care of people impacted by the church’s racism.
To model a culture of:
admitting our faults,
apologizing when we offend, misappropriate, fail, or stumble, and
communicate what new or changed behavior or policy or procedure we will enact instead. In essence not just apologizing, but also putting forth the plan to stop it from happening again.
To provide a variety of learning opportunities and resources in the areas of
intercultural competency,
racism, anti-racism, and resisting racism,
ethnic and multicultural ministries.
Last year, this convention was presented with five key resolutions to address this topic. You passed them overwhelmingly, and during this past year our staff, working with the Circles and others in leadership across this diocese, have kept these front and center, I said some of this, but even more, the members of the Circles addressed this, both in terms of what has been done, and what remains to be done, in the video we saw yesterday. These were, in many ways, this convention’s intent, and now we begin to look at and plan carefully for impact, and of course, we are hoping for positive impact, instead of blind, and negative impact.
The Circles, in perhaps the most moving time I have ever experienced at a convention, courageously and graciously shared some of the harm they have experienced at the hands of this church, at the hands of the dominant persons they share this Church with, at the hands of our staff, at the hands of my office, and of me. Those are still posted on our website I believe, and I urge you all to go back, after this convention, and hear those again, listen to them again.
In this past year my office began a discussion with the Circles about the possibility of hiring a staff position to work with this area. The Circles generated a position description of Canon for Multicultural Ministries and Community Transformation and Program Assistant.
The proposed budget, that thankfully you approved yesterday, is bold, and larger, because of this need and, and I would call it, needed investment that we believe must be made now, and so it includes an 8% increase over 2021’s budget and includes a full time Canon and Program Assistant position. That Canon will be a co-laborer with the Circles and be an executive member of the Bishop’s Staff. Currently a search committee recommended by the Circles and appointed by me is working on filling this Canon position.
As your Canon to the Ordinary Arienne Davison is very fond of saying, and when she does she speaks such truth, “this work moves at the speed of trust.”
God only knows the price that you pay
For the ones you hurt along the way. —“God Only Knows,” John Prine
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. —Matthew 5:23-24
Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness. And before a people is forgiven, it must confess its sins. —The Yom Kippur Confessional
Finally, on this day, I want to talk about my personal work over this past year. Several of us on staff were blessed this year to receive coaching on intersectional feminist approaches to non-coercive leadership. While I entered into it with some trepidation, and by the way, you will have some of those feelings, and should, if you are really going to do this work, and also having some hesitancy wondering if my studying feminism would have much to do with this, I can truthfully say it was one of the most life-giving and revealing experiences of my life. As you are challenged to do any such work, please remember, if you are not a bit frightened, concerned, unsure, off balance, then you might just not be doing the depth of work you need to do, and I had to own that this year too.
Our coach Kimberley George was amazing and I want you to know that through this study, and coaching, and reading, especially Black Womenist theology and writing, and the challenges put forth toward me, I was awakened to something that will probably make at least half of you listening to me roll your eyes, or look to heaven and say, how long oh Lord? Or perhaps, if you are generous, think with a smile, it is about time! And I get that, but the revelation was this.
Because of my power, in this position, because of my whiteness, because of my maleness, because of my privilege, because I am part of the dominant culture in this country, and world, because of all of that, anyone, any person, who deals with me, has much more emotional labor they must do in order to be in that relationship. What came to me in these nine months of coaching was just how much emotional labor I cause, and at times capitalize on. Was it intended? Well, definitely not always, but if I am honest, of course I know I can use that, even though I didn’t really have the name for it, and I did, and have, and not always well, and not always rightly, and not always befitting my role and position.
For all the ways I think I personally see clearly, my blindness came to me far more. The emotional labor I have caused for so many is something I have to deal with, atone for, and hopefully repair and mend in myself for the future.
In the course of this last year, I was invited into a face-to-face conversation with the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton and Canon Jerry Shigaki, to begin the hard, and long work of attempting to rebuild trust. They both were extremely courageous and gracious in that discussion, and I want to publicly thank them both for it. In the course of that discussion, I learned my impact on them, what my actions of the past, my words, my inaction, and in some cases my inattention have been. I am sure I have not learned it all, much more remains. But especially from Canon Shigaki, who bravely shared his experience of me in the earlier days of my episcopate. While I did not intend harm, it was the impact. I know that now and acknowledge it. While it might be very difficult for Canon Shigaki to ever believe this, though we differed on the way forward, I never doubted his dedication, his commitment, his discipleship in Christ, and most of all his honor. That is exactly why I named him an honorary Canon. He is the superlative example of such an honor.
And yet, in Canon Shigaki’s own words, he described my treatment of him and others around him as cruel and abusive. That was hard to hear. As I said, that was not my intent, but I now know that was the impact. So, today, before you all, I want to publicly apologize to Canon Shigaki for that suffering he experienced at my hands.
With this apology I do not expect forgiveness, or that the past will not still need to be more deeply examined and interrogated.
I suspect I have many more apologies to make, much repair to be done. I suspect some will never be fully repaired.
I owe apologies to the Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton as well, and she has graciously begun the work of sharing with me my impact on her, the emotional labor I caused her. That work continues.
This is my work, and I think it is your work too, and as much as a novice as I am to it, still yet I am going to challenge you to it as well. Because that Yom Kippur confessional is so right.
Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness.
This has not been easy. What lies ahead won’t be either, but I am convinced it is the only way if we wish to realize the vision of beloved community. It pains me to have to say this to you, but I am ultimately very resolved and settled in this path, as difficult as it is going to be, but for this to work in our Church, we are all going to have to be about this work. And it may be work I can do with you, alongside you, and it may be work we will find better done with me out of the picture. All of that is still on the table. Regardless of any of that, we cannot miss this momentum, this moment, this opportunity to not hit the snooze button.
One of the things about becoming bishop in the church is that there is no real training manual. I remember coming here and having the feeling of having fallen into a rushing river, where I was gasping for breath, trying to keep my head above water, trying just to survive, and in my leadership arrogance ridiculously trying to look wonderfully secure and together in doing so.
The metaphor falls apart because being in a rushing river and barely being able to keep your head above water, is not a place to look calm, cool, and collected. It is a charade, and I can be good at that. It is necessary sometimes, for a good leader, to be non-anxious, together, seemingly calm in a rough situation, but that same skill can be used, wittingly or not, for good and ill. I have done both.
I am not the same person, nor the same bishop, who answered your call over 14 years ago but I own all those 14 years and I know I made many mistakes during them. Being human, I am certain I will make many more.
I am not sure I will ever discover a way to stop making them, but what I do believe is that we can learn how to mitigate them, how to own them, how to atone for them, and how to work to make that struggle just a little easier and less emotionally laborious for whomever we encounter, and I do vow to work on that, here with you, or with anyone I walk with in the future.
I say none of this as an excuse or in hopes of getting a pass. I don’t deserve either. I say it here to be honest and to share with you a bit of the personal work, and challenge, that is before me in my fervent hope that you will take it up too.
Last year, at this convention, as we passed some serious resolutions regarding this work, I reminded you, and I have to say I was preaching to myself as most preachers do, that this was the easy part. Passing the resolutions, saying the words, laying out a plan and a goal and even a vision of beloved community, but the hard part is still before us, the hardest parts, we have yet to touch.
That work blessedly has started, but we have a long, long way to go, and I stand before you today to admit I have a long, long way to go.
So, this year, it is time to take our hopes, our visions, our longing for beloved community and begin the hard work of rebuilding the trust that will be vitally necessary to make that a reality. Will we be able to get there? I honestly don’t know. So many things need to fall in place, so much still needs to be rectified, acknowledged, forgiven. What I do know and believe is that this work has to begin, in earnest, locally, in your setting, and then ultimately, inside you, each of you.
Last year we resisted, together, the urge to hit the snooze button. The wake-up call is still ringing. The longer it does, the more tempting it will be, the harder it becomes to bear it, the more tempting it will be, to hit it, snooze, to go back to sleep, and wait for another terrible moment, which will get us this far yet again, but no farther.
Let’s resist. Let’s let it ring. Let’s not hit snooze.
In the discussion that will follow this address today that is exactly why we are doing it as we are, asking you, locally, with your delegation to engage this topic. You might take up these questions.
In the hopes of moving closer toward reconciliation and becoming the beloved community of Jesus:
What will you do together as a congregation to interrogate and confess the sins of the past and reduce mistrust and suspicion?
What are you going to do personally in your spiritual life and practice to reflect on your own sins and rebuild relationships?
How will you help your congregation resist the urge to hit the snooze button?
What will you together, locally, in your context, do to begin the work of interrogating the past, confessing the sins of the past, to ring out as much as possible of the mistrust and suspicion, so that you can move closer to reconciliation and beloved community?
And, what are you going to do personally, inside your own soul, to do the same?
God only knows the price that you pay
For the ones you hurt along the way. —“God Only Knows,” John Prine
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. —Matthew 5:23-24
Before a person is healed, he must acknowledge his illness. Before a person finds light, she must know her own darkness. And before a people is forgiven, it must confess its sins. We confess our sins and those of our fellows for we are responsible, one for another. Heal us Adonai, and lead us through darkness to light. —The Yom Kippur Confessional
Amen.
Bishop Greg Rickel
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel was elected bishop on May 12, 2007, and became the eighth Bishop of Olympia in September 2007. He embraces radical hospitality that welcomes all, no matter where they find themselves on their journey of faith. He envisions a church that is a safe and authentic community in which to explore God’s infinite goodness and grace as revealed in the life and continuing revelation of Jesus Christ.
The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia
The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia traces its history to the establishment of the Missionary Jurisdiction of the Oregon and Washington Territories in 1853. We are also known as the Episcopal Church in Western Washington.
Admitted by General Convention in 1910, the Diocese of Olympia is made up of more than 26,000 Episcopalians in more than 100 worshiping communities through Western Washington. Our geographic area stretches south from Canada to Oregon and west from the foothills of the Cascade Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.
Who we are
Through worship we do the following:
Affirm our faith
Pray together
Reconcile together
Share peace and thanksgiving together
Gain strength and renewal through Eucharist
Prepare ourselves to minister to the world
We share hope in God’s incredibly extensive grace to forgive all repentant people.
Our congregations cover a whole range of sizes and stages of development. Several affiliated institutions and numerous outreach and social justice ministries as well as a number of multicultural ministries are supported by the whole diocese.
Church of the Redeemer
Welcome to Church of the Redeemer: Worshiping God, living in community, and reaching out to the world. We are an Episcopal Church serving north King County and south Snohomish County, Washington. As you travel your road, go with friends walking the way of Jesus at Redeemer.
Church of the Redeemer is at 6220 Northeast 181st Street in Kenmore, Washington. We are a short distance north of Bothell Way, near the Burke-Gilman Trail. The entrance looks like a gravel driveway. The campus is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. And we managed to hide a large building on the side of a hill that is not easily seen from the street.
