05/30/2026
Hello Again to Everyone,
Well, it was a great Sunday for S Paul's! Wonderful visit from Bishop Anne and the Venerable Archdeacon Bryan Gillooly. It was also a great thing to formally receive Christine Miller and Chris Gillen into the Episcopal Church. And, finally, we had a lovely time at our house for the House Blessing and socializing following. Thanks to all who brought snacks!
Julie and are grateful for the kind words about our place and it was fun sharing the quirks and ins and out of it. For instance, the room we use as a library/study was first identified to us as a "birthing" room when the house was a farmhouse and the residents needed to provide a workforce. I probably shared too many times that the inventor of soy milk lived in our house for many years. And people said nice things about the yards and outdoor stuff.
One of the added features we brought to the house is an indoor composter machine. It sits by the back door and serves as well, a composting machine. Showing that off was a highlight of the afternoon, too. I think about that machine alot.
A week or two before it arrived there was an appearance on the social media feed of a petition. The petition was seeking signatures to bring human composting to Ohio. I didn't sign it and skimmed over the proposal. It reminded me of the late 20th century debate in the churches about cremation v burial. One of the driving questions in this debate was what to do as cemeteries were filling up.
But as the composter found its place by the back door, I was reminded time and again about that petition. And, too, S Benedict. For each time one walks by the composter the lid pops open! As if to say "feed me" or something. Whenever I walk by it and the lid pops, I hear the word "Mortality! Mortality!" which is shorthand for S Benedict's admonition about keeping our death, our mortality ever before us. I suppose a particular piece from Ecclesiastes could go here, too. (saith the Preacher). Not to mention that line about ashes we engage once a year.
I am agnostic about the petition. But I take the composter reminder seriously. A month or so in, I still smirk whenever the I hear the whirrr of the top opening up in its inanimate expectation or duty.
But the whirrr causes me to think not micro but macro. That is, not just about my own journey to what happens next. But to a remembering that there is precious little in Creation that does not somehow contribute to Life. Besides plastics, can you name something?
No. the whirr causes me to remember that the word "compost" is really similar to the word "compose". Think, aren't we trying to build something, create something when we dump compost into our gardens?
Back to Sunday. It was a great day celebrating Pentecost. The picture way above captures that, too. The light, the Spirit still present ready to be carried forth. And it is that very Spirit that separates gathered compost in the dark and the creative composing that G-d lives into.
On Sunday we witnessed, the whole day through, a coming together of the disparate and different and even perhaps the cast-off too. What the amazing Good Friday Prayer notes as "...that which was cast down..." and saw that was can come out of it all is something new. G-d don't make junk.
That's pretty cool. I mean, maybe creation is another word for resurrection. Out of dirt, Life; out of death, Life. And that whirr sound is nothing more than the busyness of G-d connecting it all, us all (and please think of 'us' in the most expansive way). An invitation into relationship not from the Great Composter, but the Great Composer. Getting our hands in the dirt, if you will.
That's where we are for this coming Sunday. Trinity Sunday where we can (and will) focus on that relationship between everything.
See you in church,
Father Charles
