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November 29, 2012
Health and Wellness
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"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."
Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas
We are one week into the busiest, most hectic days of the year. Whether we're planning a feast or scurrying around to complete the many tasks on our "To Do" list, the energy of the holiday season can easily pull us off center. Some of this is due to our own choices, some is due to the demands that our culture places upon us.
That is why I believe it's a really good idea to think about the Grinch, and what lies at the heart of his story. Gratitude; plain and simple gratitude. The Grinch learned this the hard way. I am sure grateful that we don't have to work as hard as he did. That is, unless we want to.
According to the magazine, Psychology Today, gratitude is an emotion that expresses appreciation for what we have, as opposed to what we want or need. Choosing to be grateful changes us. In fact, studies show that gratitude can increase the sense of well-being of those who chose to deliberately cultivate gratitude in their lives.
As we move ever closer to Christmas morning, may we allow our hearts to grow larger and larger with each passing moment, as God's gift of gratitude fills us to overflowing. And, with each passing moment, may we, like the Grinch, be grateful that Christmas doesn't come from a store. Let's be grateful that Christmas means a little bit more.
Be well,
Rev. Mary Jo
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Quiet Day Changed to Sunday Quiet Time
9:15-9:45 a.m.
The Quiet Day scheduled for this Saturday has been rescheduled to meet weekly each Sunday of Advent. Join us for a half-hour of reflecting time for each Sunday in Advent from 9:15 to 9:45. Get a cup of coffee and meet us in the library. We'll read a scripture lesson and an Advent hymn text, then take time for spoken and quiet reflection. Take care of your soul and take a little extra time to prepare for Christmas. Offered by Margaret Boettcher and Buff Grace+.
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Parent Night Out!!! Want To Go Christmas Shopping? Let The 9th Grade Youth Group Watch Your Children When: Sat. Dec. 1st, 5:00-9:00pm Where: Ascension Parish Hall Cost: $10.00 Per Family (Money collected will go to buying gifts for Headstart Families) We will have crafts set up, games, and Christmas movie with dinner served.
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The Power of Deep Breathing
Your entire body is only as healthy as the cells that make it up. Each cell is a single living unit and, as such, it needs food and oxygen to do its daily tasks.
Cells also give off waste to maintain its health. If a cell's environment is healthy and maintained with plenty of nutrients and oxygen, it remains strong. If a cell's environment is polluted and weak, the entire organism is weakened, which can lead to disease.
How Do We Keep Our Cells Healthy?
Research shows that cells need rich nutrients and plenty of oxygen to remain healthy. Cells also need to be able to rid themselves of their own waste products. Our vascular system brings nutrients and oxygen to all the cells in our body, and our lymphatic system removes waste products from all our cells.
While the vascular system uses the heart to pump the blood supply throughout our body, the lymphatic system has no such pump to move its fluid. Instead, lymph is moved by breathing, walking, intestinal activity and muscle action. As muscles tighten, lymph vessels are squeezed and lymph is pushed along and filtered through lymph nodes on its way back to the veins and the heart.
An easy way to keep lymph moving is using deep breathing exercises. Not only is this beneficial to your lymphatic system, it also helps to reduce stress and increase energy.
Try this easy technique three times a day--morning, afternoon and evening--and notice the difference in how you feel:  * Breathe in for 3 seconds
* Hold breath for 12 seconds
* Exhale for 6 seconds
* Repeat procedure 4 times
Happy Breathing!
from a recent Health Partners newsletter
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Correction!!
Rummage Sale
Collection on Hold!
Ascension will begin to take collections for the rummage sale in May. The rummage sale will be the 1st weekend in June. Thank you for your interest already!
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Classes to support healthy families
Anne Gerber (a member of Ascension) is a certified holistic health counselor & nutrition coach. She will be teaching a class downtown Stillwater @ Mama Luna: Natural Apothecary on Dec. 6th at 6:30 - 8 pm. If you would like to reserve a spot call Mama Luna's at 651-342-0792. The class is called Nourishing your family through the winter.
Their informal, relaxed classes are held right in the store and are taught by select members of the local nutrition and wellness community. Have a cup of tea, meet some wonderful people and get the answers you need to care for yourself and your family. Mama Luna's is in the Staple Mills building at 402 N Main St., Stillwater, Mn 55082 | 651.342.0729 | for questions: info@mamalunastore.com or see their website
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Come one, come all!
The 28th Annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
Sunday, December 9, 2012
5:00 pm Prelude
Invite your family, friends and neighbors to Ascension for this much-loved Advent tradition featuring a renown line-up of guest musicians including: Manny Laureano, principal trumpet of the Minnesota Orchestra, Kathrine Handford, university organist and lecturer in music at Lawrence University's Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Jon Lewis, principal percussionist of the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra accompanied by the choirs of Ascension. Arrive early for the best seating. A free-will offering will be taken. Complimentary child care available.
Manny Laureano Kathrine Handford |
Our Community Kitchen will be closed on Christmas.
Please note our new hours! We will now be open from 8 - 10 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday's.
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Help Ascension decorate the Church
It is time once again to decorate Ascension for the festive Holiday season. If you would like to help offset the cost of greenery and wreaths, please consider a donation to Ascension Altar Guild for this purpose. Please contact the office with your choice of donation. 651-439-2609 or office@aechurch.org. |
Holiday Gift Gallery - Hot Chocolate Open House
hosted by ArtReach St. Croix
224 4th St. No., Stillwater
Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012 from 9:30 - 4 pm
Free
The St. Croix Galleries at ArtReach will have extended hours so you can enjoy hot chocolate and cookies while looking for the perfect gift for everyone on your list. Each piece is handmade by a Valley artist and includes jewelry, textiles, paintings, and much more. Don't miss local woodcarver Ron Nelson who will be on hand with live carving demonstrations.
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 Our stained glass windows make up a large part of our history and bring a beautiful aesthetic quality to our church.
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Headstart Clothing Wishes Drive Started
Our generous Ascension donors provide much needed and appreciated clothes for children participating in the Ascension Headstart program, and for their siblings.
Here's how:
1. Write your name and phone number by your child's Family Number on the donor list
2. Give a gift card or clothing
3. You needn't purchase all items on the child's list
4. Limit your gift to $20 to $30 per child - that way, all children get equivalent gifts
5. Leave your gift unwrapped
6. Attach the Clothing Wishes list to your gift
7. Mark the bag containing your gift with the child's Family Number
8. Place your gift by the tree in the parish hall
by December 9
9. Questions? Call me, Lorna Rupp, 651-228-7129
New! Headstart Wish List Drive Started
The Headstart Wish List is new. Headstart will keep these clothes at Headstart and give them to children as needed from the classroom - like an ATM machine for clothes.
* Girl - underwear* sizes 4-5
* Boy - underwear* sizes 4-5
* Girl - socks
* Boy - socks
* Socks for either boys or girls
* Mittens
* Boy - sweatpants** or sweatshirts sizes 3T, 4T, 5T
* Girl - sweatpants** or sweatshirts sizes 3T, 4T, 5T
* Underwear: low need
** Sweatpants: high need
 It's easy to donate - place your unwrapped Wish List donations in the "Wish List" box next to the Headstart Clothing Wishes tree. Donations needed by December 9. Add your name to the list of donors.
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Guatemalan Coffee and Chocolate
Did you miss the sales at church? Need more for Christmas or hostess gifts?Call Frank or Sue Langer @ 439-5766. Profits support July 2013 mission trip to Guatemala.
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Have you been thinking about replacing your full size mattress?
Now is the time as the 12 year old boy of the family that recently moved from homelessness to a permanent home is still waiting to have a mattress on the full-size captain's bed frame that was donated on the day they moved. A full-size air mattress would also be appreciated if camping days are over and one sits in your garage or closet!
There is also still a need for a freezer for a Supportive Housing Family. The freezer would allow them to freeze the perishable items that they get once a month from Valley Outreach Food Shelf.
Please call me about donations that you may have for our families. In-kind donation forms are available. Your donations are always appreciated!
Many thanks, Cindy (651-439-2641) |
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Personal Computer Upkeep Notice
for the Congregation
When we made the change from our web address and email addresses with a hyphen (ae-church.org) to the one without (aechurch.org) we paid to keep the ae-church.org for a year to avoid losing connections. That year is drawing to a close, and we are not renewing the ae-church.org address/domain. In 60 days, ae-church.org addresses will no longer work. Please update your files, address books, and notify contacts and friends that operable web address and email addresses are aechurch.org (no hyphen).
Thank you,
Buff+
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There will be no Healing Touch Spiritual Ministry from 9 - 11 am on Saturday, December 8th due to the rehearsal for Lessons and Carols.
We look forward to seeing you in January.
Be Well,
Mary Jo
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 Faces of South SudanAn exhibition of photographs by Debra Dawson
On view: November 28th - December 22nd
at Art Reach St. Croix * St. Croix Galleries
224 North 4th Street, Stillwater, MN.
In 2007, Deb Dawson traveled to Kenya and Sudan to make a documentary about a Lost Boy of the Sudan and his desire to help the orphans in the Sudan. In the village of Duk Payuel, the group was welcomed with song, hand shaking, back slapping and prayer. Deb had brought her camera to document her travels, and the villagers allowed her to photograph them. Return trips to the Sudan and partnerships with groups like H2O for Life - Water for South Sudan at Stillwater Junior High School have allowed this traveling exhibit to stay current. "What I encountered through the lens gave me an unexpected view of struggle, joy, despair and dignity." - Deb Dawson ArtReach St. Croix worked in conjunction with H2O for Life - Water for South Sudan at Stillwater Junior High School to bring this exhibition to the St. Croix Galleries. For more information on open gallery hours: http://www.stcroixsplash.org/event/detail/441719303
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John of Damascus 
Hymn-Writer,
Defender Of Icons (4 Dec 750)
John is generally accounted "the last of the Fathers". He was the son of a Christian official at the court of the moslem khalif Abdul Malek, and succeeded to his father's office.
In the East Orthodox tradition, three-dimensional representations are seldom used. The standard icon is a painting, highly stylized, and thought of as a window through which the worshipper is looking into Heaven. (Hence, the background of the picture is almost always gold leaf.) In an Eastern church, an iconostasis (icon screen) flanks the altar on each side, with images of angels and saints (including Old Testament persons) as a sign that the whole church in Heaven and earth is one body in Christ, and unites in one voice of praise and thanksgiving in the Holy Liturgy. At one point in the service, the minister takes a censer and goes to each icon in turn, bows and swings the censer at the icon. He then does the same thing to the congregation -- ideally, if time permits, to each worshipper separately, as a sign that every Christian is an icon, made in the image and likeness of God, an organ in the body of Christ, a window through whom the splendor of Heaven shines forth.
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Altar Flowers
If you are interested in sponsoring altar flowers for 2012, please contact Barb Smolik at 651-275-3533 or the office at 651-439-2609 for sign-up. Get your names on the dates you wish before they fill up.
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Ongoing Events
Please note New Hours for:
Our Community KitchenTuesday and Thursday mornings
8- 10 am @ Ascension's Kitchen and Fellowship Hall.
Come and meet your community and have a delicious breakfast!
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Ongoing Groups:
Scripture Reflection and Prayer GroupFirst & Third Thursdays from 9 - 10:30 am in the Library
Thich Naht Hanh study/meditation group
Thursday nights at 7 pm in Parish Hall
Zen style Meditation group
Saturday mornings at 7 am in Small Chapel
Healing Touch
2nd Saturday every month in the Sanctuary at 9 am
Youth Choir Wednesday nights at 4:45 pmfor more info contact Nancy Whipkey @ 651-439-2609Bell ChoirWednesday nights at 6:15 - 7:15 pm
Adult Choir
Wednesday nights at 7:15 pmfor more info contact Nancy Whipkey @ 651-439-2609
YogaDevotion & Tai Chi
Yoga began another session on 11/27, Tuesdays at 7 pm
Tai Chi was cancelled for the Fall, to be rescheduled at a later date.
Contact Laura Weston if interested in Yogadevotion at 651-430-9028
Centering Prayer Groupfor more information on meeting times contact Lois Welshons @jonlos@aol.com |
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Ascension Episcopal Church
E-Newsletter CommunicationsLynn Raarup To submit an article or question please e-mail me at: enews@aechurch.org 651-439-2609 |
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