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INFORMATION
| Pray with us...
Sundays @ 9 a.m.
Spirit Village
a child-centric & play-based spiritual circle
Sundays
@ 10:10 a.m.
Sacred Roots
Communion & Music
Wednesdays @ 9 a.m. Solace
Communion & Meditation
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Weekly Happenings at Turk & Lyon...
Simply Sandwiches
Fridays
10 a.m. - Noon
Volunteers make over 200 sandwiches for San Francisco's hungry.
Alcoholics Anonymous
Saturdays
11 a.m. - Noon
Al-Anon
Mondays
6:30-7:30 p.m.
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Our Partnerships
St. Cyprian's Church
is also home to
First United Lutheran, San Francisco Live Arts, and The Village Project, an after-school and summer program for Western Addition youth.
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This Sunday's Scripture
Click here. |
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 Dear Friends, Neighbors and Members of St. Cyprian's,
On New Years Day a huge crowd gathered at St. Cyprian's for The Village Project's last night of Kwanzaa. I must say I was surprised and moved by the experience of seeing so many people in the Community Hall celebrating community, family, and culture. Adrian Williams and her gifted team including Clint Sockwell, III and Malik Seneferu have done an incredible job bringing people all over this city together for this season which is about affirming the dignity of every human being.
In my welcome I shared Cornel West's description of white supremacy, and my gratitude for how Kwanzaa seeks to challenge this evil.
"White supremacist ideology is based first and foremost on the degradation of black bodies in order to control them. One of the best ways to instill fear in people is to terrorize them. Yet this fear is best sustained by convincing them that their bodies are ugly, their intellect is inherently underdeveloped, their culture is less civilized, and their future warrants less concern than that of other peoples."
The reason I care so much about the future of St. Cyprian's is because when I look at the Episcopal Church as a whole, a church I love very much, I see that we have not repented fully of the sin of white supremacy. St. Cyprian's as a church founded by African Americans and Caribbeans has an important witness to make, not just in San Francisco but throughout the world (we are of course part of the Anglican Communion) about the human struggle. One African American child connected with The Village Project said to me the other night "this is a black church" and I said a strong YES, and it is also becoming a red church, white church and a yellow church. We are also I pray a straight church, a gay church, a rich church, and a poor church. Most of all I hope we are a faithful church discerning together what the Spirit is calling us to do and be for the 21st century.
Ever since I heard him speak on a cold night in Amherst, MA during college, Cornel West's voice has influenced my journey. His description of Christianity I hope may nourish our work at Turk & Lyon as we strive to be a people of faith, action and community.
"To be a Christian --- a follower of Jesus Christ --- is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom. This is the radical love in Christian freedom and the radical freedom in Christian love that embraces Socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope. If Christians do not exemplify this love and freedom, then we side with the nihilists of the Roman empire...who put Jesus to a humiliating death. Instead of receiving his love in freedom as a life-enhancing gift of grace, we end up believing in the idols of the empire that nailed him to the cross. I do not want to be numbered among those who sold their souls for a mess of pottage --- who surrendered their democratic Christianity identity for a comfortable place at the table of the American empire while, like Lazarus, the least of these cried out and I was too intoxicated with worldly power and might to hear, beckon, and heed their cries. To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely --- to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away. This is the kind of vision and courage required to enable the renewal of prophetic, democratic Christian identity in the age of American empire."
Democracy Matters pg. 172
Happy New Year & see you soon at Turk & Lyon!
Peace,
Will
St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church
415-987-3029
turkandlyon@gmail.com
P.S. Thanks to everyone who helped make Kwanzaa happen at St. Cyprian's particularly St. Cyprian's congregation member Gigi Smith & her team for preparing an amazing array of dishes for Kwanzaa
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Coming this month to Turk & Lyon...
Saturday, January 12th
SF Live Arts @ Cyprian's presents
Music Legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott
plus Vikki Lee & Russ "The Muleskinner" Whitehead
8 pm
Brownpapertickets.com
More info: cyprianscenter.org
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Friday, January 18th
Cyprian's presents
Parents Night Out
6 pm - 9 pm
Parents: you're on your own
Kids: pizza and movie at cyprian's
Ages 5-12
$30 for 1st child, $20 for 2nd, $15 for 3rd
Pre-registration req. by January 15th
To register email: events@cyprians.org
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Wednesday, January 23rd
Episcopal Senior Communities & St. Cyprian's present
Free Senior Lunch
12 pm - 1: 30 pm
Come enjoy lunch and a musical performance
415- 752- 0139 Episcopal Senior Communities
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Friday, January 25th
Book Launch featuring Nick Flynn
7 pm
Reading by Nick Flynn from his new memoir, "The Reenactments"
Musical performance by Penelope Houston & Cass McCombs
Discussion to follow with Rebecca Solnit
More info: nickflynn.org
Tickets: eventbrite.com
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Saturday, January 26th
SF Live Arts @ Cyprian's presents
Gaucho and Kally Price & the Old Blues-Jazz Band
8 pm
A night of dynamic gypsy jazz
$12 door/$10 advance brownpapertickets.com
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Weekly E-Mail Archives
In January, 2011 St. Cyprian's began sending weekly e-newsletters. You can find an archive of all these messages here. Forward messages and invite friends, neighbors, and distant congregants to join our list. |
St. Cyprian's is a congregation emboldened by the opportunity to engage with our energized urban neighborhood to create a community
where everyone matters.
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