Communique’ Winter 2013

Communique Winter 2013

Table of Contents

*Only select articles are posted from our archive. The entire publication is viewable within this pdf.

From the President’s Desk “Stir Up the Spirit,” Stir Up the Dust By The Reverend Deacon Nancy R. Crawford

Walking in the Footsteps of God by Michelle Johnston

Tech Talk A Tweet a Day by Lisa H. Towle

Perspectives Living a Fifteen-Hundred-Year-Old Rule of Life by Karen Potts

EpiscoMom Faith in the Balance by Kristen Pratt Machado

United Thank Offering Grant Awarded to Center for Disabled Children in Jerusalem by The Reverend Deacon Nancy R. Crawford

Diocesan Discourse

By The Reverend Deacon Nancy R. Crawford

In the last years of my mother’s life, whenever I visited her we also visited her attic. There, we found items that had been precious in her life, but which no longer fit into the living parts of her home. She hoped that these precious items would find new purpose, and new life, in my home or in my children’s homes. Quite often, because the items had been left in the attic for years and years, they had accumulated dust. Some things I dusted off and took home with me, and other things were left for another time. […]

Of all the places in the world, why travel to Israel?

By Michelle Johnston

This seemed to be the question a friend was asking me when, before my trip, he asked, “what are your expectations for this trip?” Did I have expectations? I thought for a minute and said, “I don’t have any expectations. I want to be open to whatever happens.” When I thought about it more, deep down I was hoping to have some type of transformative spiritual experience. According to scripture, this is where my God walked the earth – how could I physically inhabit the same places that God physically inhabited and NOT be transformed? […]

How one young professional Episcopal mother finds time for a family, her career, and faith.

by Kristen Pratt Machado

I dropped my daughter off at a birthday party an hour early. We live in the South so the host was very gracious and although I felt a bit uneasy, I couldn’t immediately determine the source. The table was set, my 5-year-old daughter, Piper, had already run off with the birthday girl, yet the host was wearing sweat pants (not a big deal in my book, but quite unusual at Southern special events), so I retreated to my car where I looked up the Evite on my phone. The vague uneasiness I had felt a minute ago turned into a feeling of shame that I haven’t felt since I was a teenager. My face was beet red and my pulse raced. What to do? With possibilities for total escape limited (I was bound to see this mother again somewhere), there was nothing to do but face the consequences. […]