Date: April 21st 2012

RECTOR’S MESSAGE

April 21, 2012

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

I recently found a letter written to my parents by the head of the nursery school I attended. The first thing that struck me about the letter was just how well written it was. I have little to no recollection of my nursery school (Other than it was named Katydid, and one of the children with whom I attended was the son of Sonny Fox – at that time the host of a very popular children’s show in the New York area). I do not recall the woman who wrote the letter, but she wrote so beautifully, I wish I did.

The second thing that struck me about the letter – a sort of year-end report on my advancement through the rigorous curriculum of nursery school – was just how little I’ve changed since I was 3-years-old. (Certainly I’ve grown a bit taller, although, now that I think about it, I was tall for my age).

The director’s description of my personality at that age I think would still stand as a fairly accurate description of my personality now. It is sobering to think that I have not changed that much in the past 48 years, yet, at the same time, it is comforting to know that I’ve always been the person I am.

In reading the letter, I was reminded how many of our behaviors (both good and bad) can be formed at such an early age. And, while we try to stop many of our bad behaviors from becoming habits for our own children and any children for whom we care, it is amazing how poorly we fail to blot them out from our own lives.

I saw it first-hand on the playground of the school we started in my former parish. Even amongst children as young as 3 or 4, I saw cliques begin to form and children begin to ostracize other children. “I don’t want to play with her,” or “I don’t want her on my team” were phrases that were already in the lexicon of children that young, the same children who seemed to understand in chapel that to be a Christian meant that we love others as Christ loves us.

A church is a community, and how a group of people live in community says a lot about what kind of church they want to be. Many of us have paid a visit or two to a church in which we did not experience any type of welcome, in which we felt as if we had walked into a meeting of private club and instantly sensed we did not belong. The people of such churches most likely live in community both inside and outside of their church in that same manner, excluding others, not wanting others on “their team.”

People who live in a community that is healthy understand that they will not always agree, but that does not mean that in disagreement about any one issues or disagreement due to personalities they should cease to love one another, that they should cease to break bread together, that they should cease to continually reach out to one another with love, compassion and forgiveness.
I believe we in live in a healthy community at St. James. But it never hurts to reinforce the positive.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Geoff+