e-tidings

Spring Clean Up Day is THIS Saturday, May 19, starting at 8:30 with donuts and coffee. Please plan to join us. Project suggestions are listed on the easel in the parish hall.

Everything you've always wanted to know about the Church... but were afraid to ask is the name of our adult ed series that ends this Sunday. Many of us began our lives in other churches, other denominations, or no church at all. Many of us still have questions about the Episcopal Church and may wish to understand more fully this church where we worship. Join us from 9 till 9:45 am in the parish hall, for the conclusion of a six-week series designed to give us a grounding in the Episcopal church and its ethos. And of course the primary question that hovers over all of us all the time will also be covered--what does it mean to follow Jesus Christ?

Jazz Vespers this Sunday 7pm! Our theme: Let’s Move! Come and join us for lively worship. Bob Kolb, versatile on saxophone, clarinet, and flute, will be returning to play with our own musicians, Paul Avgerinos and Martha Meyer, accompanied by Chris Pike on drums. Bring your friends and plan to be enchanted with another evening of beautiful music!

kids age 7 and up are invited to a 2-session series on their faith that stresses the person of Jesus and the Holy Communion. As we know, our church admits to Communion all baptized persons; but when kids are of elementary school age it may help for their foundation in faith to have a little focused instruction that deals with the theology of the sacrament. Sessions on Wednesday, May 9 and Wednesday, May 23 at 3:30 last 40 minutes. Parents are asked to remain in the building and are free to join us in the church during the class time. Please RSVP by email if your child will participate.

Facebook for the Church is active again, thanks to helpful tutorial from parishioner John Holden. Thank you, John! Join us as a member on FB: go to Christ Church Parish, Redding Ridge, Connecticut. See you there.

Felt Figures for Uganda~ As part of what I take to Uganda, I've purchased 2 large felt-board kits for teaching the basics of faith. They will be given to the Faith School in Sheema, near Bushenyi. Assembling the parts involves cutting and gluing felt pieces together. They make felt figures of Jesus, apostles, churches, the Temple in Jerusalem, fish, stars, trees, etc. Would you like to help put them together? We can work to find a good mutual time. Please let me know. I'd love the help and the company! Thank you.

Mission Garden: Sowing and Growing in Faith. The crocuses are finished blooming already and leaves are budding. Spring has arrived! With last year's hard labor of creating our beautiful garden behind us, we are happy to be able to focus our energies on early spring planting this year. Over the next few weeks, we'll be planting kale, spinach, and Swiss chard. In May the Church School children will help us plant herbs and vegetables as well as flowers for the Children's Butterfly Garden. As it gets warmer, we'll plant tomatoes and cucumbers. As we harvest we will distribute our produce to seniors through the Redding Senior Center and Quality Living at Home through the RVNA. We need volunteers! If you like to garden, or if you are interested in learning about organic gardening, we need your help! All ages willing to get their hands a little dirty are welcome. Please email Renee Ruder at rhruder@yahoo.com.

Thanks so much for supporting our monthly Dorothy Day Meal. We had plenty of food donated and some cash for salad! Next month we don't need food but we could use small donations for salad...everything helps and it all adds up. How nice to have fresh greens when most everything else is canned. Thank you for helping.

Join us for Compline Sunday evenings at 7pm. We pray in the calm of the darkened church with an icon, candles, and recorded chant. Come, pray, and center yourself as the week begins.

Five Days with Mom~ This is a gift we can give to children whose mothers are incarcerated at the women’s prison in Bedford Hills, N.Y. Each summer, the children are allowed to visit their moms for five days if local families are willing to host them in their homes overnight and transport them to and from the prison. One member of our parish, Julie Caraluzzi, did this last summer and says it was a wonderful experience. This summer, we hope to get a number of parish families involved during the same week so that we can have evening gatherings and share carpooling. There is no need to have children of your own, only an open heart. For more information, you may call Carol Tolonen at (203) 762-0601 or email at caroltolonen@yahoo.com, (please use email between March 13-23.) Julie is also happy to talk to anyone about her experience last summer (203) 270-0767, evenings. Because hosts need to have paperwork processed by New York State and this takes an eternity, it is important that we get on this right away. Information/application packets are available on the oak table in the parish hall. If you think you are interested, please email Carol and let her know what weeks would work for you.

The documentary film, “The Mothers of Bedford,” will be shown on Wednesday, April 25, from 9:30 till 11:30 am at St. Matthew’s Church in Bedford and from 7 to 9 pm at Fox Lane High School in Bedford. It is about the mothers
incarcerated in Bedford Hills prison and how they are learning to nurture and
strengthen their relationships with their children. Julie Caraluzzi is planning to attend the evening showing. If you are interested in going as a group or meeting for coffee beforehand, please call Julie at 203-270-0767.

Church School for Grown-ups: Mothering Sunday, or Mother's Day as it is known in the States, is celebrated in england on the 4th Sunday in Lent. It was a day in Lent when the fasting rules were eased in honor of the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Four hundred years ago people visited their nearest big church or cathedral, the Mother Church, or the church where they were baptized, which typically was close to their parents' home. Traditionally they made a Simnel Cake (topped with 11 Marzipan balls representing all the disciples but Judas) for their mothers.

THANK YOU to all who donated formal occasion dresses and accessories to the Prom Dress Re-cycle project. Forty-seven beautiful gowns, 14 evening bags, 4 pairs of fancy shoes, plus necklaces, earrings, and hair clips were collected and delivered to St. Paul's in Fairfield, where area teens will soon be selecting their special prom outfits. And a huge thanks to Fran Kimball for coordinating it all and going the extra mile to help others.

FYI for Liturgical Junkies: It's official! Among the first denominational publishers to offer authorized eHymnals, Church Publishing Incorporated (CPI), is launching Episcopal Church hymnals and songbooks as digital editions for iPad® tablet readers.  Following significant testing, the first of these new products are intended to work with any digital reader that supports the ePub standard.   Five of the Episcopal hymnals were successfully uploaded to the Apple iBookstore in mid-February and are now available for iPads and other digital readers.   Check the iBook store through Apple if you wish to purchase a hymnal for iPad. Additional volumes plus Google eBook versions are expected to follow shortly. That includes Wonder, Love, and Praise, which is not yet released. The Hymnal 1982, ISBN: 978-0-89869-683-7, $17.99 through the Apple iBook store.

Calling all knitters and crocheters~ We could surely use more prayer shawls. Please consider whipping one up for us this year. Please use Lion Brand Homespun Yarn (about 3 skeins) or something similar. The knitting pattern calls for casting on 69 stitches and using size 15 needles. The pattern is K3, P3 on each row. Please make a big rectangle, which is at least 4 1/2 feet long--the better for wrapping oneself in!!    Because these are for both men and women, earth-tones work great. Thanks very much.

Anyone have a burning passion for the kitchen? (hmm) Or for helping with fundraising? If so please email or chat with Beth Cox in our office. We would love to staff a few new small groups to oversee these things. And Renee Ruder is looking for a few more people to help plan and harvest our mission garden for next year.

Poem attributed to Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe:

Nothing is more practical than

finding God, than

falling in Love

in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,

what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide

what will get you out of bed in the morning,

what you do with your evenings,

how you spend your weekends,

what you read, whom you know,

what breaks your heart,

and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, stay in love,

and it will decide everything.

[Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907–1991) , Finding God in All Things: A Marquette Prayer Book, quoted in The Edge of the Enclosure for Jan. 22, 2012,
www.edgeofenclosure.org ]

Save the Date for La Trattoria Gallo Diviono della Toscano - this year's Gala Mission Dinner and Silent Auction on Saturday, May 5th at 6:30 pm. I can't wait to see how our lovely parish hall will morph into a Tuscan bistro...stay tuned!

Video to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the King James Version contained a mistake in the link. So sorry! Corrected link appears below, with thanks to the Rev. Dick Wyland and parishioner Mary Lancaster for the catch. Check it out! Really terrific and kind of rappish--it celebrates all the catch phrases from that ground-breaking vernacular translation into the King's English (which, of course, is what God speaks)... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQVbBjgBS6A

List of apps available that deal with Jesus, faith and the Bible follows. This was sent to me by Sharon Pearson, who works now for Church Publishing Group. Sharon used to be the specialist in children's education in the Diocese of Connecticut. Take a look at some that appeal to you. Perhaps they would be good for kids...

iFound Jesus

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ifound-jesus/id492093464?mt=8

Bible: Who Am I?

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-who-am-i/id493875246?mt=8

Bible IQ Builder

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-iq-builder/id397704988?mt=8

Bible Puzzles

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-puzzles/id374272588?mt=8

Bible Quest (bundle)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-quest-nt-bundle-1/id389923557?mt=8

Bible Quiz Game

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bible-quiz-game/id491685366?mt=8