St. Andrew's Episcopal Church of New Paltz

06/11/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore
You have probably noticed that I really enjoy changing liturgies with changing seasons. My goal is to draw us all into an experience of the Divine in sacraments and sermons and prayers. I look for liturgies from the global Anglican communion that move beyond masculine, parental and political images of God as King and Lord and Almighty. This summer season, probably until September, we are using a Eucharistic prayer from St. Mark’s in the Bowery, 2016.

Two things are different this season. One change I expect to change back, unless I hear differently, is the Aramaic translation of the Lord’s Prayer. We tend to move through the Lord’s Prayer on auto-pilot, especially the “traditional” version. There is virtue in a prayer so deep in our bones and psyche that we don’t need to think about it. And the words Jesus taught us are profoundly revolutionary—we need to notice, pay attention, and hear words of awe and longing for God’s kindom (old feminist revision of kingdom!), profound care for one another and forgiveness and almost demanding daily bread for all people.

The other is that the congregation says, with the celebrant, the words of institution: “Take, eat, this is my body . . . this is my blood.” The BCP specifies that the presider must say those words as the bread and wine are consecrated, but doesn’t say anything about the congregation remaining silent. The theology that the priest gathers the people and we bless the sacraments together is built into Episcopal worship. The older word “presider” rather than celebrant emphasizes that. Having all of us say the words of institution together suggests that we all have a part in both blessing the elements and then going out to invite others to “Take, eat, Christ is present here and now, in us, to be shared.”

See what you think! I rarely hear any negative feedback about new prayers, and I hope that’s not because anyone is afraid to tell me that something makes them uncomfortable (well, at times shouldn’t God make us uncomfortable?!?!) or disturbs their worship.

06/03/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore
As part of a deanery discussion group, Spiritual Practices for Resistance, we are reading sections of Jim Wallis’ book The False White Gospel, (a text suggested by the Anti-Racism Committee’s 2026 Diocesan Read). A shameless advertisement: we’ll also be reading parts of Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, one of my favorite books ever! The group continues on Zoom on Wednesday evenings in June.

In a discussion of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Walliss quotes the Latin American theologian Gustavo Guttierez: “Who is my neighbor? The neighbor . . . is not the one whom I find in my path, but rather the one in whose path I place myself” (Wallis, p. 63). Most people travel the same paths most of the time—home to work to errands to entertainment—seeing the same folks and objects. In the US neighborhoods are often segregated by race or ethnicity and class, so we’re seeing people like ourselves most often.

Gutierrez argues that Jesus asks disciples to choose intentionally to walk another path, in terrain and with people new to us and different from us. Wallis incorporates this into a discussion of proximity, how we expand our awareness of how other people live by working, living, worshipping, and studying together—“Proximity is what most often creates understanding, empathy, and compassion” (Wallis, p. 64).

In the gospel for Sunday a powerful synagogue leader rushes up to Jesus begging Jesus to heal his daughter, who is at the point of death. Jesus quickly agrees. On the way a poor woman suffering from hemorrhages tries to quietly touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak so that she can be healed. Jesus feels her touch and affirms her faith before continuing on to the synagogue leader’s house, where he also raises the daughter from death (or near death). The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all sandwich these stories together—why? So that people from very different social-economic positions might see each other? So that disciples know that no one is beyond the range of Jesus’ attention?

If I were the synagogue leader, almost hysterical with grief and worry and despair, I might well resent this upstart woman who delays Jesus. Conversely the woman may have been totally unaware of the plight of the leader. For a moment there’s the opportunity for them to see each other, and maybe appreciate both their differences and their common desire for healing.

Christians often segregate themselves into congregations of “people like us”—it’s comfortable and feels safe. Wallis argues that this is one of the cardinal sins of contemporary Christianity—we have so much to learn from sharing worship with folks very different than ourselves, telling stories of our lives, hearing stories of others’ lives, finding that we have more in common than we think, and noticing in ourselves things we had taken for granted. Over and over again proximity has been a powerful tool for overcoming opposition and growing together.

What can you, can we as a congregation, do to put ourselves in proximity to people with very different experiences, and to work and eat and talk together long enough to be changed by our interactions? It takes courage, and patience, and faith that Jesus will meet us in these interactions and we will all know a bit more about the “kindom” of God.

05/28/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore
I am still moving slowly back into everyday life after a period of deep silence, prayer, and reflection at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester. In silence and concentrated prayer, I bathed in God’s love and let Love heal whatever in my heart and body and mind keeps me from knowing and trusting God. The natural beauty of rocks and ocean and spring, a week ahead of spring in New Paltz, provided times of knowing how intimately I am connected to every atom of creation. I wonder whether the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, developed over centuries in different ways, is an attempt to capture in an image the dynamism of love in relationship.

We’ve been hearing in John’s gospel lately about you and me and Jesus and God and the Spirit and creation and everything that is, all part of One Unity and all in relationship. John’s language can be dizzying, but I think he was trying to describe in words a concept of hope and strength and ongoing conversion that doesn’t fully fit in words.

Imagine God as an ever-expanding Source of Love, known in the Spirit which “hovered over the waters” in the beginning of creation and accompanied the people of Israel in the desert and moved the prophets to denounce injustice, known in Jesus in the flesh, and known in the disciples and in the church to this day as the power that enables us to love and be loved. Each and every part of creation is a manifestation of God’s love. Each human is part of God, inseparable, although because we have consciousness and free will we can (and often do) choose to ignore or deny that connection.

For me now conversion into God is a life-long process of tuning our loves to God’s love, getting in touch with the Love in us and in the heart of the world. Richard Ho**er, a fifteenth century Anglican theologian better known for his image of a 3-legged stool of tradition, Scripture, and reason, described the sacrament of communion as literal participation in Jesus’ body, as, through grace, we strengthen our ability to live in response to our essential unity in God.

As we do that, we become more and more aware of our inseparable connection to absolutely everyone else and everything else that lives or ever has or ever will live. Awareness of connection is love, manifest as delight, creativity, truth, healing, justice, as anything that nurtures and honors and respects the relationship between diverse things and our underlying unity. Sin is anything that denies our connection or inhibits healthy relationships with everything that is. Conversion is acknowledging the sin, repenting, and seeking to align ourselves once again with God in us, our truest nature.

The Trinity invites us into an ongoing dance of relationship with God, Jesus, the Spirit, and all of creation. Let’s dance!

05/14/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore

Today, May 14, is Ascension Day, when the Risen Christ is lifted up into heaven. The story is at the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts, written by the same author but with some creative differences, and it seems simply unbelievable. My response too often is laughter, some quip about deus ex machina or launching people into heaven, and then some guilt at my irreverence. This year is no different.

“Beam me up, Scotty, there’s no intelligent life down here,” says Captain Kirk when he initially explores a new planet in ancient episodes of Star Trek.

Jesus said to the disciples, who were standing around worrying that something odd was going to happen, ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1).

The more I lived into “beam me up, Scotty” the more I appreciated Luke’s story. I want to be lifted out of suffering, out of my own stupidity and the stupidities of the world, out of having to care for others. Wanting to escape suffering is completely understandable and very human. But what happens when we refuse to see the suffering of those around us? When we blame the suffering of others on their own bad decisions, or work ethic, or stupidity? Or even when we deny and ignore our own suffering at our own expense?

Jesus is effectively “beamed up.” And yet, he is surrounded by friends, he acknowledges their grief and confusion, he promises the Holy Spirit, and he gives them a mission: to be among those who are suffering, to admit their own pain and sin and forgive each other, to trust when it seems that hope is gone that Love, or God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit “will not leave us comfortless” (John 17, which we will hear Sunday). More than that, we have not only the capacity but the commandment to love, to be compassionate, to walk with people through suffering and to know that we are not alone. Our compassion can inform our politics, our faith, and our common life.

There are still days when my first response is “beam me up Scotty,” or Jesus, or whoever is staffing the space ship. And there were episodes where the Star Trek crew exhibited great compassion and wisdom. And yet, I think I’ll stick with Jesus, and with the lifelong opening of my heart to more love.

05/12/2026

THE CLOTHING SALE CONTINUES ON SATURDAY, MAY 16th!!

05/07/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore

Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything.

--Mary Oliver, excerpts from “Sometimes,” found in Devotions among other collections.

Hear that next to part of the Gospel for Sunday:

Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. . . .. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:15-21)

Christian faith is a life-long journey of discovering love—love for and by God, love for and by one another, love for and by creation. We will feel orphaned at times. We will want love to solve everything and find that it doesn’t. And that the love we discover is enough for the moment, each and every moment.

In the family service, which falls on Mother’s Day, we will use another section of “Sometimes” to experience love for mothers, parental figures, and all of creation. I hope it will help all of us remember to take time, notice, and give thanks for moments of love.

04/30/2026

04/30/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore

Quick Jeopardy clue: The Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday preceding Ascension Day.
Answer: What are Rogation Days?

Here’s an example of a relatively obscure church rite which, if revived and tweaked a bit, could become a useful environmental sustainability practice. The word “rogation” means to ask or beg in Latin (e.g. interrogation). Rogation days seem to have been observed in Spring, beginning in the 4th-5 centuries, possibly taking over a pagan festival in honor of Robigo, the protector of crops from mildew (every basement needs a Rogation Day Holy Card!!!). In medieval England, when written maps were rare, the people of a parish would walk around the boundaries of their parish, older people helping children memorize the trees, rock formations, roads or streams that defined their turf and asking God to bless all the crops that were to be planted.

Rogation days give us three days to fast and pray for the well-being of the planet. All the trees and flowers are begging us to pay attention; we can return the favor by saying thank you and recognizing how much our life is inextricably bound to every other living thing. In the family service sermon we will practice observation skills with flowers that you can then either take home to plant or plant them around the “boundaries” of the church.

I close with a link to St. Francis Canticle of the Creatures, interpreted by Franciscan friars of Santa Barbara. Their website expresses my hope for ever greater conversion towards God. “The deeper [St. Francis] grew in relationship with Christ, the more he found himself intimately related to the things of creation as brother. We might say that his relationship with Christ changed his internal focus. He developed a deeper consciousness of "relatedness" and came to realize he was related to all things no matter how small, because everything shared in the primordial goodness of God, the source of his own life. Francis discovered that he was part of the cosmic family of creation.”

From the boundaries of the church, the parish, the town, to the cosmic family of creation, praise be to God!

04/22/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore

On Sunday children received "Stations of the Resurrection” cards, in theory 14 images with Scripture to complement the 14 Stations of the Cross many folks use in Lent (we have a set on our walls). Children were, appropriately, more excited about eggs and candy, but several adults asked for copies. Here are the 12 I adapted from a PDF no longer available online, from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit. Or, see these links:

Stations of the Resurrection scripture and pix
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qo3h_Rfzg4AtLHn3l_XoHW0hG4xvymnL/view?usp=drive_link

RC stations of the resurrection
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iPsMCQ0n5KkOEmgrAAC5ZTAcZDqHwCz2/view?usp=drive_link

04/16/2026

A PRIEST’S PONDERINGS… The Rev. Allison Moore
Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my life’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.

There is a balm in Gilead!

Clergy retreats are not a retreat for me. They are annual parts of every ordained person’s calendar, in probably every diocese, and they are great opportunities to see other clergy, to catch up with friends, to see new faces, and usually .come away with some new insights for parish ministry. And yet, the day of, I usually wonder why I’m going and how I’m going to catch up with work left undone. This year was no different.

Except, I have been worried lately about declining Sunday attendance, the lack of folks able to host Saturday quiet days, and sometimes a sense of apathy and concern about our future. Sometimes I feel discouraged. Sometimes I think Jesus did too! Click on the title to hear Nina Simone sing about her life.

And in the past three days I’ve had a text from Luba suggesting a prayer gate, a text from Julie suggesting a “grandmother’s ministry,” and an email from the Beddell fund about additional money for building renovations. Pedestrians like taking butterflies from our cross (thanks to Joey and Thea who helped put them on the cross this year!) Those messages made me remember a fruitful vestry planning day this May. Christ is risen, Alleluia!

Here are some ways the Holy Spirit has revived my soul recently.

From the vestry retreat:
A commitment to nurture community within the congregation, helping us know each other better through parish events phone calls from vestry members, and maybe small dinners at parishioner’s houses.
A music committee and a Christian education committee, where committee is really a commitment to host two or three conversations over the year with interested folks about what is working and what you might like to see (and help implement!)
Yoga class with convo about connections to spirituality and Jesus, musical Sunday afternoon worship
Detailed plans from the architects in the next month or so about accessibility work

From clergy conference:
Books to read:
Rebecca Solnitz, The beginning comes after the end: Notes on a world of change (authoritarian backlash may be death throes of new social order based on relationality and interdependence)
Stephanie Spellers, The Church Tomorrow What “nones” and “dones” teach us about the future of faith (for the 35% of people who have left churches in the past few years in the US because they’ve lost their faith and they’re “done” with “the way we’ve always done it”)
David Carr, Holy Resilience: Traumatic Origins of Hebrew Bible (the word “crisis” never appears in the Bible; it is a story of traumatic suffering and communal resilience)

Hope from the Diocese (some signs among many):
A regional canon, Nicole Hanley, will start June 1 shepherding churches in Ulster County; she has years of experience as a lay woman in small churches, and as a priest has helped St. Francis of Assisi in Montgomery and St. Andrew’s in Walden thrive.
A new staffing pattern to focus on clergy and congregational health through education, connection building, and listening campaigns
Desire to create a culture of ongoing formation in faith.

See what you think and where you might want to help St. Andrew’s experience and share Resurrection Power.