Who We Are

January Epistle

Download the January issue of our newsletter:  The Epistle, January 2009

On the Cover:

Listening for God's Will

Letter from The Rev. D. Wallace Adams-Riley

My Dear People,

“Choice congestion,” a phrase coined by Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson, describes the experience of being paralyzed in indecision by a multiplicity of choices.  Just coming off the Christmas season, perhaps the phrase needs no defining.  For that matter, living in the “consumer culture” we live in, perhaps the phrase needs no defining.  That said, whatever the culture, whatever the era, to be alive is to face a multiplicity of choices.  And so it is for us, for you and me, at the beginning of this new year.

• What will be different about 2009? 
• How will our lives be different?  
• How will St. Paul’s be different?  
• How much will things remain the same? 

In the lead-up to our Celebration of New Ministry, I spoke with the Richmond Times Dispatch about “brave, bold things.” 

What brave, bold things will we do together in the coming months, in the coming years, and how do we decide which to do? 

And, knowing that we have some available room in our pews, who are the folks that we want to reach out to, in hopes of growing our church? 

How do we reach the 1000’s of people moving into downtown Richmond? 

At the same time, how about the folks that used to go to St. Paul’s but are now elsewhere? 

We have many choices to make, many decisions, many options, many possibilities!

I have a little card that someone gave me years ago that says, “Until we find our center, we are at the mercy of every choice.”  How true, how true.  And we all know this, deep down.  It’s just that we have to be reminded of it again and again, Sunday after Sunday, day after day, minute by minute sometimes.  And this is as true for a parish family as it is for each one of us personally.

Both individually and corporately, we must keep returning to our center, so that we can hear that still, small voice within.

I am reminded of a blessing that one of you shared with me recently, a grace that has been said at meals for generations.  I was immediately charmed by it, and at the same time moved by the depth of spirituality expressed so simply and beautifully:

Back of the loaf, the snow-white flour,
Back of the flour, the mill,
Back of the mill, the wind and the shower,
Back of it all, God’s will.

Yes, back of it all, God’s will.  When the choices come piling on, when the decisions come in a flurry, that is what we listen for at the center, God’s will.  When we do this, the rest follows.

Your brother in Christ,

Wallace+ 

 

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