John Ayer, Organist & Choirmaster

My dear friends,

Greetings, and Happy Eastertide! I hope many of you took advantage of the various services offered during Holy Week, and especially on Easter Day itself. As always, our choir folk rose to the occasion(s), giving up countless hours of their own free time to ensure that each service was thoroughly and lovingly prepared. By the time the Easter Vigil came around, we were all beginning to feel a bit like monks... Bravo to the choir!!!

The church year is beginning to wind down now, but there is plenty of work to be done before the choirs officially go on hiatus in June. So there is STILL time for you to join us. We'd love to have you! The adult choir rehearses Thursday nights beginning at 7:30 p.m. And each Sunday morning, we come together for a pre-service rehearsal, which starts at 9:30 a.m. Our youth choir rehearses every Tuesday afternoon from 4-5 p.m. They also sing at the 9:15 AM Family Service, which is scheduled on the 2nd Sunday of every month. So here's your chance. COME ONE, COME ALL!

Peace,

John Ayer

On Sunday evening, April 22, St. George's hosted the 35th Annual Interfaith Holocaust Commemoration service. Some of our choir members sang in an ad hoc choir comprised of folk from different churches and synagogues throughout the area. The following message was sent from the music director for the event, Cantor Perry Fine.

Congratulations to all for helping to make last night's Interfaith Holocaust Service so beautiful. With hardly any rehearsal at all, you made not only the music, but more importantly, the texts come alive!

Thank you to all the soloists who sang from the heart with passion and beauty, and to John Ayer and everyone at St. George's for their hospitality and warmth.

Blessings to you all!

Perry

The Outreach Committee will thank you effusively and will host a festive coffee hour immediately following the 10:30 a.m. service on Sunday, May 13. Contact Lindsay McHugh with any questions.

Thanks to the support and dedication of the people of St. George's, we now have a comfortable year-round venue for worship and other community activities. We successfully replaced the malfunctioning steam-heat system and added cooling units to the new forced-air system. Great progress has been made toward our Capital Campaign goal of $332,500 to pay for this work. However, we still have a way to go.

If you haven't pledged yet to help us cover the costs of our new heating and cooling system, you can do so at any time by filling out a pledge card. The campaign will run through 2013, and payments may be made in a lump sum or in installments over a period. Contact Lindsay McHugh or Clint Rataczak for more information.

Spiritual Salon is a gathering for informal conversations over a potluck dinner about spiritual issues and topics. Books will provide the springboard for the conversation in different areas of faith and spirituality. The group is open to all.

Our next meeting will be Sunday, May 13, to discuss In the Valley of the Shadow by James L. Kugel. We'll meet at 5 p.m. at the Rectory.

Please RSVP to the Rev. Bernie Poppe, Rector.

Cheryl Notari

As part of my Lenten discipline this year, I chose to intentionally keep Sunday as the Sabbath. Initially I wasn't certain what that would really mean. Prior to this experience, I had always thought of keeping the Sabbath as attending worship services but not much more than that. Even being fully present at Sunday worship was becoming difficult for me. Over the last year, I had allowed my work to creep into my Sundays. As a psychologist, often working six days a week, my work week can be emotionally and sometimes spiritually taxing. And while I was not seeing patients on Sunday, I was finding it difficult to leave my work in the office. Additionally, I began to support and encourage doing "church business" on Sundays, setting up committee meetings for Sunday and doing church business before and after the service. It all seemed convenient and logical to me. Sunday was the one day that all of us had free.

Slowly, over time, I found my focus during the Sunday service drifting away from prayer and worship. I was caught up in the lists of people I needed to speak to and the things that I needed to get done. And, as a consequence, my relationship with God began to suffer.

In an attempt to find my way back to God, I began to see a spiritual director and she suggested that at least for Lent, I try keeping the Sabbath on Sundays. That would mean no work, no household chores, no shopping, and the hardest of all, no church business on Sundays. "No church business!" That seemed impossible to me. Even though I doubted that I could do it, I agreed to try.