The prayer books arrive

Some weeks ago (weeks? looking it up it was almost 2 months ago!) Fr. McGrath sent out a request for Books of Common Prayer, 1928, noting:

"some of my fellow chaplains are interested in the Anglican Way, and are especially fascinated by the Book of Common Prayer. ... My problem is that in our small worship room/library at Newport we only have one [1979] prayer book which obviously does not jive with my prayer book, so it is very hard to lead others in worship."

There was a lot of talk about purchasing some for the library, but it was not an organized activity and so not much happened. But last week, or the week before, one of our parishioners packed up some of the small 1928 BCPs still around but no longer used and shipped them off to Fr. McGrath.

Three days ago I received an e-mail that they had arrived, noting:

"now I’ll finally be able to celebrate a Communion Service for my colleagues."

THAT should be interesting!

Changing the Guard

Didn't make it to church Sunday, due to desire to stay in and quiet to keep the nose from hemorrhaging again, not to mention needing to work on Friday's talk, so I'm still somewhat out of the loop. I did hear reports that the Parish is excited about Fr. Davis' arrival and I'm sure plans for our traditional greeting are underway.

I also learned that Acolyte Master and Master Chef Ranjit has passed on the acolyte baton to Master Chef and (now) Acolyte Master Drew. I'm sure Drew won't be long in cracking the whip to have the boys scrubbing out the old incense pot.

But more seriously, we seem to be headed for a problem -- an excess of Acolytes! If we include the boys who need more training, and the parishioners who are trained but not serving, our schedule of rotation could run rather longer than a single month, which is enough time to start forgetting things not drummed in well by practice.

Still, remembering the days when we had only one Lay Reader and one Acolyte, this is a good problem!

Senior Warden's update

From a parish-wide e-mail from the Senior Warden in the wee hours of the morning -- or very late last night, 1:30 AM -- Matt, are we overworking you?

"After meeting with three candidates and their families, the Vestry has called Fr. Robert Davis to serve as our next Rector, and he has accepted. ... He and his wife Cynthia and their twin 13-year-olds Genevieve and Geoffrey are busy preparing for the move to the Puget sound.

Father Davis will begin his service at St. Bartholomew’s on Sunday, August 16!"

Selah (again) and conflict

I had not meant to be so long away from the blog, but this week's travel plus preparations for a 2-hour talk next week caught up with me. Again. I haven't even managed to download the travel photos from my camera yet (did the diocesan Family Campout really end only last week?) -- not to mention I'm now quite out of touch with what's going on this week at St. Bartholomew's.

My big problem is what to do Saturday? I've got three events to attend, including St. B's Men's Breakfast (and Work Party, I presume) as well as the Pacific Northwest Highland Games down in Enumclaw. I missed last month's MB&WP (traveling) and as Master Chef Gordon is back on the job I'd like to be there, but family are wanting to go to the Games.

Saturday update: Well, that was easily solved: none of the above. A run to Urgent Care with a massive nosebleed instead. Hopefully a byproduct of yesterday's cauterization rather than a repeat from the Family Campout two weeks ago.

Blog visit from Iran

Just about to sign off and get to work, I checked in on the visitor map (to the right on this blog). I was a bit surprised to see that this blog had a visitor from Iran -- not Tehran, as best as I can tell, but on the shores of the Caspian. There's a connection or two to be made to Iran, but that is for a subsequent post regarding this week's travels.

St. Bartholomew's issues a Call

The news is almost a week old now, but as long as I'm logged in I should mention that the Vestry of St. Bartholomew's has concluded what must have been a difficult process on deciding which of our three candidates would become our next Rector. I had already known two of the candidates and after meeting the third (our first visitor), I knew the choice was going to be hard -- three excellent candidates, each with different strengths.

The decision was to issue a Call to the Rev. Robert Davis, currently at St. Luke's, Redding, California, and (knowing the process) the Letter was approved by Bishop Provence and accepted by Fr. Davis.

All my information about what is going on now is second-hand, because I have not been to St. Bartholomew's since sometime in June, given travel and illness. But I understand the target for Fr. Davis' arrival is approximately mid-August -- roughly about the same time Drew, Deedee & family will be moving to Redmond from Kent, much closer to work and church. Looks like we'll be needing to call up St. Bartholomew's Movers (who haven't been called up since sometime in the early 80s, if I remember correctly).

So... a welcome to Fr. Davis, and to our other two candidates: I only wish we could have called all three of you!

Not a Christmas Letter

There is so much going on I'm not able to blog it all. It took until this morning, a week later, to get a photo up on the first Family Campout entry. (I don't know why, but something was preventing my laptop from uploading photos from camp.) And I still have a photo from Sunday's Mass in the Rain on my cellphone to post on the second entry.

In the meantime none of the photos of the trip, including the visit to St. Augustine's in Chico CA, have made it from my cameras to the computer and probably won't until tomorrow. And I still haven't read the latest diocesan newsletter that came out Tuesday or Wednesday, I completely missed last night's event where St. Bart's fed Tent City IV (led by master chef Drew), and I haven't even mentioned St. Bartholomew's call for a new Rector yet.

For excuse, I have to fly to Chicago Monday to conduct a class for a group of software developers in a particular piece of technology I work with and my class powerpoint needs to be updated. Plus I am speaking July 31st at a conference back East and that powerpoint is due Thursday. Lots to do.

So why am I blogging? I just received an e-mail from Paul Jr. & Nancy, which sounds like they have been in a similar situation. It starts out: "As usual, we did not get a Christmas card out this year, Nor did we send graduation announcements for Ruby, so here is an update..."

Wow! Such news from fellow parishioners and I knew so little of it. But it's great news (or mostly so: prayers are requested for Paul Sr., who is in the hospital recovering from what was nearly "near multiple organ failure caused by complications from his prostate cancer").

I'm glad they didn't wait until Christmas.

Fate, tempted

The previous post may have tempted fate a bit too much. Although things seemed to be drying a bit Saturday afternoon, when I woke up Sunday morning there was a soaking drizzle ("rain" to Californians) well underway and the trees above us were saturated so it was coming down on our tents as well. Everything was wet. So Mass was conducted from within the cooking shelter, the serving counters defining the "sanctuary." And afterwards we all packed in the rain and headed out.

Due to circumstances I was almost on hour late leaving -- by which time the clouds were clearing, the sun was shining (we had not seen it the whole time) and things were warming up and drying for the next group to use the campground.

There were discussions about how things had fallen through with regards to including the new Oregon churches in the announcements for this camp, but the organizers are determined this will not happen again next year. The tentative plan is to have next year's camp somewhere in southern Oregon (one suggestion was "Lake of the Woods" near Eugene) and make sure they're included!

Another side discussion noted how the SoCal churches aren't coming (but after all, it IS a long ways north) and how maybe if somebody in SoCal were interested we could pool experience and have northern" and "southern" campouts for those interested.

Family Camp: Damp but not Dampened

The Diocesan Family Camp is a bit more damp than it was last year, and turnout was a bit down (probably due to the economy), but no matter. It's only a light mist (to us Seattlites, "rain" to Californians) and the only thing it's keeping down is the dust.

Although, coupled with the chill, the mist has made the campfire pit quite a but more popular than before. Usually everybody would be right in front for Morning Prayer, but this year they're mostly by the fire (off to the right).

Tomorrow we all strike camp and head home, or to wherever our next destination is. Always a sad time. But... maybe next year in Oregon?

New provincial website

Just took a look at the Province's website to look up something. Was surprised to see a whole new look -- I like it!

Tough choices

From what I gathered over the weekend, our third and last candidate has visited and gone. And now the Vestry has a very difficult decision ahead of it: who to call? We can't (even afford to) say, "We'll take all three," as much as we'd like to.

The Vestry was scheduled to meet tonight (at the time I was on an airplane again, headed home to the West Coast from the East). I am certainly on tenterhooks as to the decision, call and response. But having met all three candidates I can easily back whatever choice the Vestry makes; IMHO there are no bad choices, just different choices.

Selah again (and again, and again...)

Usually my big travel seasons are autumn and spring, but this summer seems to be trying to play catch-up. Back from a week in Louisville tomorrow we're off to Connecticut (to bury my mother-in-law's ashes), then back home for a day before we head off to the diocesan Family Camp campout followed by a visit with family in CA. I get one or two days home after that then it's off to Chicago for a couple of days, back a week and then off to Ohio... and then it'll be August, with about 7 weeks home before the fall season leads off with Strasbourg (maybe).

Having been home sick Sunday means it will be a month or more I'll be away from St. Bartholomew's, including two Men's Breakfast and Fellowship Saturdays. Not good.

But if I have Internet at the campout I might blog from there. (T-Mobile's site says I'll have Internet there, albeit slow.)

Our third Rectoral candidate will be here this weekend; I am sorry I am going to miss that.