Audio meditations are available here to help our diocesan community answer Lent's invitation to self-examination and repentance, fasting and self-denial, prayer and meditation on God's holy word.  Bishop Tom Shaw, Bishop Bud Cederholm and Bishop Gayle Harris are joined by Bethany House of Prayer's executive director Julia Slayton and deacon candidate Ema Rosero-Nordalm, each offering a meditation for listening and sharing with others.  (Newly posted:  Ema Rosero-Nordalm's meditation on prayer, in Spanish and in English).

Also of note:
The Cathedral Church of St. Paul's Lenten issue of "Listening for God" is available here.

Members of Charles River Deanery congregations are posting daily Lenten meditations here, as are members of Calvary Church in Danvers, here.

COURTESY PHOTO

Natalie Finstad (center back) with the leadership team she's built to "Be the Change Kenya."

Former Life Together intern Natalie Finstad is now living in Nairobi and has started Be the Change Kenya, through which she's aiming her community organizing skills, together with others, at nothing less than ending child poverty.

Natalie returns to Massachusetts for a spring visit and invites anyone interested in learning more about Be the Change Kenya to join her for conversation at St. James's Church in Cambridge on April 3, after the 10:30 a.m. service, and at St. Mark's Church in Burlington on May 1, where she's speaking at the 9 a.m. service.  Contact her at director.btcke@gmail.com to learn more or to arrange additional speaking events.

Meanwhile, Natalie talks about how Life Together helped her get from here to there, in this interview.    

Christen Mills, an Episcopal Church Young Adult Service Corps member from Massachusetts who is currently serving at a youth program in Nagoya, Japan, is safe following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that have devasted parts of the country's northeast coast.  Nagoya is about 200 miles west of Tokyo.

"We felt the earthquake slightly here but there was no damage as far as I know," she told Episcopal News Service.  "As for me, I am continuing my ministry here and I plan to help however the church here calls on its members to help."  Mills is a postulant for ordination in the Diocese of Massachusetts, sponsored by All Saints' Church in Chelmsford.

Read the full ENS story.

For an update on Episcopal Relief and Development's support of relief efforts in Japan, or to make a donation, click here.

PHOTO: A. Cook

Small groups gathered for mission conversations at the Spring Learning-Episcopal Village Mission Event.

The annual diocesan Spring Learning Event on March 5 was a "village" gathering, with the diocese partnering this year with the Episcopal Village network and inviting Episcopalians from neighboring New England dioceses for mission conversations, resource sharing and inspiration for fresh expressions of mission.  An estimated 230 people attended the event at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston.

Missed it?  Audio of Ian Mobsby's keynote address, as well as the two "Mission Spotlight" presentations, is available on the cathedral's Web site, here (see the "Audio/Video Spotlight" panel on the right side of the home page).

 

The Rev. Mark McKone-Sweet and the Rev. Margaret Schwarzer take part in MECA's video conversation with Bishop Shaw.

Bishop Tom Shaw talks about the role of Christian community during bad economic times and in public discourse in a video conversation with the Rev. Margaret K. Schwarzer and the Rev. Mark McKone-Sweet, representing the Massachusetts Episcopal Clergy Association (MECA). 

MECA's board members envisioned the video as an "e-pastoral"--"short and to the point, not staged, genuine, with questions from clergy for Bishop Tom to speak on to the diocese," they explained in an e-mail to clergy colleagues encouraging them to share the video with their vestries and congregations. 

Watch MECA's video here.

Congregations that have spent time studying the proposed Anglican Covenant, either on their own or in deanery groups, are invited to send summaries of their responses by April 1 to the diocesan Office of Convention and Council (loism@diomass.org) so that they can be included in the diocese's report to the Episcopal Church's Executive Council.

All are invited to take part in a conversation forum, the last in a series of three offered by members of the diocese's General Convention deputation, on March 22, 7-9 p.m., at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (138 Tremont Street) in Boston.

The covenant first was proposed in 2004 as a way for the Anglican Communion to maintain unity amidst conflict.  The current version goes before the Episcopal Church's General Convention in 2012.

Congratulations, Canon Rodman:  Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries will honor the Rev. Canon Edward W. Rodman of Episcopal Divinity School as a civil rights pioneer during an awards dinner and program on March 17, 6-9 p.m., at First Church in Cambridge.  More information is available here.

Really not reverent at all:  March Madness of an unsportsy sort is underway over at Clergy Family Confidential where 32 saints from the Episcopal Church calendar are competing, by popular vote, for this Lent's Golden Halo.  Today's match-up is here.  The Rev. Tim Schenck explains how it works here; the brackets are here.

The Rev. Thomas Brown of the Parish of the Epiphany in Wincheseter reads with a young friend at the library reopening.  (Photo courtesy of St. Stephen's Church)

Reason to read:  St. Stephen's Church in the South End of Boston has been leading efforts to refurbish the Blackstone School's library, unveiled on March 2.  Bishop Tom Shaw was among the supporters on hand to read with the students, as was the Cat in the Hat, otherwise known as Life Together intern Kyle Boudreau, pictured in the South End News's March 9 coverage.

Good times roll in Rockland:  Check out the Rockland Standard's March 9 photo coverage of Carnival Sunday at Trinity Church. 

Goodbye to a good friend:  Bishop Shaw's remembrance of the late Rev. Peter J. Gomes as a good friend to the Episcopal Church was included in the Boston Globe's March 2 story following Gomes's death on Feb. 28.  The Rev. Wendel "Tad" Meyer has been named acting minister at Memorial Church, the Globe reported March 11.

Lenten makeover:  Janis Galvin of Grace Church in Everett talks about going on a carbon fast for Lent in this Feb. 28 Religion News Service feature, available on the Pew Forum's site.

All quieter now:  No one was hurt and no property was damaged by homemade explosive devices set off at Trinity Church in Marshfield on Feb. 26.  Thought by police to be a prank, the explosions set off a round of TV news coverage more enduring than the incident itself, including this story on NECN.

Priest removed:  The Salem News on Feb. 26 reported on the removal of Franklin Huntress from the priesthood following the diocese's investigation into sexual misconduct allegations.

Getting greener all the time:  Bishop Bud Cederholm and Grace Church in Medford are featured in this Feb. 17 Episcopal News Service story on collaboration among New England Episcopal dioceses to hire an energy stewardship minister.

Did we mention Grace Church in Medford?  They're going "green" this spring with a series of lectures and park clean-ups, picked up here on MedfordPatch.