SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2–5 P.M., Leffler House

The members of Saint Mark’s Writer’s Group invite you to join us at our first in-person Salon, to listen to, and/or share writing from the heart and soul. We welcome 20s/30s, 40s/50s, and Third Acters (60 plus). You may bring an original work, or a work by a favorite author (limit: 5–7 minutes). If you have a piece you would like to share but are shy to read to the group, one of us can read it for you.

If you plan to attend and just be an audience, that is great. If you want to read please submit your request to Elizabeth Clark-Stern: ecstern@yahoo.com (This is not an audition, just a way to keep track of how many readers we can expect.) Everyone please bring a simple snack to share. There will be time for community, laughter, and joy!

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2024, 9:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M.

FACILITATED BY THE REV. SR. MIRIAM ELIZABETH BLEDSOE, OSH

In a world of constant commotion, what does it mean to practice silence? In a culture of shifting change, how do we practice stillness? In the crowds of everyday life, where do we find solitude? While silence, stillness and solitude have long been foundations of living for those in monastic life, such practices are available to everyone. These wisdom practices can open in us hospitable space to welcome the Christ Child and bear hope into the world. The Rev. Sr. Miriam Elizabeth Bledsoe from The Order of Saint Helena, an Episcopal monastic order for women in South Carolina, will join us in exploring how these ancient practices can shape our lives for bearing hope in a modern world.

Register here.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2024, 10:00 A.M.–2:00 P.M.

Drawing on traditional cyclical wisdom that holds seasonal, weekly and daily rhythms as sacred, how we mark time matters, and it informs the ways we live intentionally in the ordinary routines of daily life. Guided by contemplative practices that help us align with the rhythms of the natural world, those gathered will prepare and share a meal as a way of framing our lives by rooted intention.

Register here.

FRIDAY–SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15–17, 2024, at Camp Huston Retreat Center in Gold Bar, WA

LED BY DEAN STEVE THOMASON

This weekend retreat is designed to create the space for quiet reflection, time away from the burdens of daily life, spacious time in nature, conversations with other men of faith, and worship. It will be a time of spiritual reflection and renewal with focused reflections and conversations related to forgiveness as the catalyst for healing and hope. Steve Thomason, Dean of Saint Mark’s Cathedral, will facilitate the weekend to which men of all ages are welcome.

Registration required.

Space is limited to 30, available first-come, first-served. Fee: $295 double occupancy, $325 single; includes two nights lodging and all meals. Partial scholarships are available. A $100 non-refundable deposit is required to hold your space. Payment in full is due October 15, 2024. Contact Dean Thomason sthomason@saintmarks.org to reserve your spot.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2024, 9:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M., in person in Bloedel Hall and online via Zoom.

FACILITATED BY DEBIE THOMAS

Though Christians are called to be an “Easter people,” a people of good news, joy, and resurrection, we are also called to live and speak with authenticity in a world that is not yet what it should be. Sometimes, that call requires us to walk the Emmaus Road, an ancient road that begins with lament before it carries us to hope. Neither despair nor whining, lament is an honest cry from our heart to the heart of a God who weeps over the world’s brokenness, and then offers us a grounded, reality-based hope that does not require denial. In this half-day workshop, we will explore lament as a healing, justice-oriented practice that will help us find our way to the fullness of resurrection hope. Our time together will include meditation, teaching, journaling, and conversation.

Registration required. Fee: $25

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 2024, 6:45–8:15 P.M., (as Cathedral Commons) in person in Bloedel Hall and online via Zoom.

FACILITATED BY THE REV. PHIL LABELLE — BISHOP-ELECT OF THE DIOCESE OF OLYMPIA

With overly-packed schedules, many of us wonder if we’ll ever be able to live the lives we yearn for. A life with space for the important things. With a connection to God, others, and the natural world. Jewish mystics suggest that God’s first act of creation was zimzum, a sacrificial self-withdrawal. God needed to open up space within God’s self before God could call forth the cosmos. What might that concept mean for us who are made in the image of God? Join the Rev. Phil LaBelle for an exploration of the Jewish mystical concept of zimzum, and what it can mean for us today.

Program is free; optional community dinner at 6 p.m. ($8/adult; $25/family max.)

OPENING PLENARY

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 2024, 6:45–8:15 P.M., (as Cathedral Commons) in person in Bloedel Hall and online via Zoom.

LED BY THE VERY REV. STEVEN L. THOMASON

Drawing on his decades of experience as a hospice physician and parish priest, Dean Thomason will explore a spirituality of hope, as a virtue worthy of practice especially in challenging times, and a spirituality of healing, as the prevailing gift of peace that comes to those who lean into newfound creativity and freedom.

Program is free; optional community dinner at 6 p.m. ($8/adult; $25/family max.)

DEADLINE TO APPLY: AUGUST 12

Dean Thomason invites members of the cathedral community to prayerfully consider applying to join the inaugural cohort of the The Center for Spirituality and Action (CSA), a new ministry of Saint Mark's launching this fall and based in Leffler House.

The CSA will function as an intentional Christian community for individuals who seek to order their lives by a contemplative spirituality and regularly gather for prayer, formation, retreats, spiritual direction and service. In the monastic tradition, this “prayer and work” model serves as a way of life even as we remain grounded “in the world.” The first cohort of 12–15 persons will form intentional community in September 2024.

Please carefully review the information on the CSA webpage, including the individual pages on what the group's plan for study and prayer might look like, and what form its action and service in the world could take. Then visit saintmarks.org/csa-apply to download an application. The deadline to submit an application is August 12, and the group will begin gathering in September.

THREE SUNDAYS: AUGUST 4, 11, AND 18, 2024, 9:30 P.M., in the cathedral nave, broadcast, and livestreamed

Following their debut in the summer of 2019, the Women's Compline Choir, led by Saint Mark's Associate Musician Rebekah Gilmore, has become an annual tradition at Saint Mark's, chanting the Office of Compline in place of the all-male Compline Choir and presenting special repertoire for women's voices, including world-premiere compositions and arrangements.

In the summer of 2019, the men of the Compline Choir traveled to the U.K. for two weeks, serving residencies in Canterbury and Salisbury. To cover the services during absence, Saint Mark's Associate Musician Rebekah Gilmore was asked to assemble an all-female choir, comprising some of the most accomplished choral singers in the Seattle area. The services they sang, the first all-female services in the 63-year history of Compline at Saint Mark's, were deeply moving to many.

The Women's Compline Choir now gathers to chant the service a few times each year, usually during the summer. This included a quartet of women's voices in the summer of 2020, and the full complement of voices in 2021, 2022, and 2023. These service can be seen and heard in the videos and recordings below on this page

This year, the men of the Compline Choir are again traveling to the U.K., this time to serve residencies at the cathedrals of Canterbury, St Albans, and St. Paul's, London. Rebekah will again lead the Women's Compline Choir in chanting the office for three Sundays while they are away: August 4, 11, and 18.

Note: In the fall, the singers of the Women's Compline Choir will also participate in the concert Shaker Harmonies: Celebrating 250 Years of the Shakers in America, presented on the Saint Mark's Music Series, November 10, 2024.

A MESSAGE FROM DEAN THOMASON:

On Being Christians in the Civic Discourse

 An email to the cathedral parish community, sent July 4, 2024

Dear friends,

The tragic irony is not lost on me that in this week when we observe the 248th anniversary of the signing of this nation’s Declaration of Independence, with its litany of the king's calumny, we have received another document into the public discourse—this time delivered by six Supreme Court justices who have rendered a starkly unsettling decision about presidential immunity. My purpose in writing to the cathedral community is not to levy an ideologically charged response; there are plenty of spinners across the spectrum frantically casting their webs of political response, ranging from full-on glory in the court’s verdict to fearful prognostications of the demise of democracy.

My purpose in writing is twofold: first, in the wake of so many of you confessing your heavy hearts to me in recent days, I intend a pastoral response for a community of faith here. Read on for that if you so choose. I get the weariness, even to the point of despair—the global manifestations of tribal hatred that holds war as the solution to our ills; the societal anguish of inequity in these hard times; the fractious political divide that has cast aside our better angels for a zero-sum game of ad hominem attacks; a perilous future for humanity which seems bent on self-destruction. It is a lot to hold right now. Let us hold it together; let us hold one another in community as we make our way. The Church exists for times such as this!

I am reminded that six months before Thomas Jefferson set his pen to parchment in 1776, Thomas Paine wrote famously, “these are the times that try men’s souls [sic]…” The words resonate across the generations into this Independence Day on which we reflect once more on the gifts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Of course, we know Jefferson’s document was not scoped to afford every human being with certain unalienable rights, and we continue to come to terms with the pain and suffering he and others caused even while tilling the soil for a democracy we have inherited. Historian Jon Meacham reminds us that “the story of America is...one of slow, often unsteady steps forward. If we expect the trumpets of a given era to sound unwavering notes, we will be disappointed, for the past tells us that politics is an uneven symphony.” We feel the dissonance today. And we have much work to do, as citizens, and especially as citizens who are guided by a Gospel that, quite frankly, is the balm needed to help heal our broken humanity.

Which brings me to the second purpose for writing today: to gently remind us that, in the person of Jesus, we follow One who knew suffering wrought by unjust governments, who knew the weight of war waged to keep the peace in injurious and demeaning ways, who knew intimately the tribalisms of human impulse which convince us that violence must be met with violence if there is to be any justice. Jesus refused such a quid pro quo calculus, offering instead a way of being that bends toward hope while insisting on a non-violent response.

Jesus was, in the span of his short life, a refugee, unhoused, hungry, targeted by his opponents, and ultimately murdered by an unholy alliance of leaders who saw him as a threat to their power. He knew the sharp end of the spear of hatred, and yet he never wavered. When we speak of his Body and Blood every Sunday, we remember this… and we commit to embody such a way of being in our own right.

So how do we translate this into our civic life? Well, (and here is the pastoral exhortation to us all), we pattern our lives after this Jesus we follow. We have truth to speak into the world in which we live, and it must be a just truth, even when that is hard to do or carries consequences. We must be clear not to be guided by ideological impulses that quickly degrade into violence, but by virtues that insistently orient to human flourishing. This is nuanced, to be sure, which is why we form community to navigate the path with care.

I am convinced that Jesus was able to remain non-violent in the face of all that beset him because with great intention he engaged in contemplative practices that were restorative and resolutely grounding in the “still point” of love that dwells deeply within each of us. The center of that love is God, and I am convinced that we must ground ourselves in such contemplative rhythms if our work of justice is to have any lasting effect. It is the both/and enterprise of the Church.

And finally, it is the Christian’s charism to retain hope, not because we ourselves will fix all that is broken in humanity, in this nation, or in our lives, but because we believe that this “still point” of love is the guiding force of the cosmos pulling us into a future that will be made whole in the fullness of time. We hope because we believe God is present in us and to us as we make our way.

Dear friends, be assured of my prayers for you, for this community, and for our nation on this day. I am,

Faithfully yours,

The Very Reverend Steven L. Thomason
Dean and Rector

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 10:10–10:50 A.M., Leffler Vegetable Garden

Everyone is invited to gather for the blessing of the Leffler Vegetable Garden between the 9 and 11 a.m. Sunday services on July 14 at 10:10 a.m. Following the blessing, enjoy a glass of lemonade and a tour of the garden. Bundles of oregano, mint, sage, parsley, and rosemary from the garden will be available to attendees! Contact Else with questions at: elsectb@gmail.com

(The Leffler Vegetable Garden will be open every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through August 18, as part of the 2024 Sacred Spaces offerings)

BRAINSTORMING CHAT: THURSDAY, JULY 25, 4:30 P.M., via Zoom

MARKET: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24

Last year's Alternative Gift Market was a terrific success, with an overwhelming response to the many items on sale and the many opportunities for donations. This year’s Alternative Gift Market will be on Sunday, November 24 in Bloedel Hall following both the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services. This is slightly earlier than last year, on the Sunday before both Thanksgiving and the beginning of Advent, which we hope that will make it easier for more folks to participate.

To build on last year’s success, let's team up now to consider what worked, what didn't, and what new additions could be added. Perhaps a "Treasures Table" for small items donated by parishioners, or themed gift baskets, or a raffle? Bring your ideas to a Zoom brainstorming chat on Thursday, July 25, 4:30–5:30 p.m. Join using this Zoom link.

If you are unable to attend, or if you have questions, email Canon Barrie: wbarrie@saintmarks.org

Saint Mark’s Intergenerational Council presents A Movable Feast—a new ministry of neighborhood-based gatherings to foster friendship and build community.

What is the format?
Parishioners who register will be organized into groups of 8–10 people near where they live or work, and then be invited to share three meals together between August and November. Each group will together decide when and where to meet. All ages are encouraged to participate!

Which neighborhoods are part of the launch?
The neighborhood groups below were chosen based on concentration of parishioners by zip codes to help make travel and meeting easier. Please choose which group is most convenient for you knowing the meeting location is intended to be in the neighborhood-area listed. 

• Ballard area including Loyal Heights, Crown Hill, Whittier Heights, North Beach-Blue Ridge, Sunset Hill (based on 98107 and 98117)
• West Seattle and White Center (based on 98116, 98136 and 98126)
• Wallingford area including some parts of Green Lake (based on 98103)
• Maple Leaf, Roosevelt, Green Lake, View Ridge, Hawthorne Hills, Wedgwood (based on 98115)
• Madison Park (based on 98112)
• East Lake and Capitol Hill-north (based on 98102)

“A Movable Feast” will start in these six neighborhood areas – we hope to expand depending on interest.

Where should we meet?
You don’t need to be an expert cook, or to have a huge space. Groups can gather in a home, in a park for a picnic, at a local restaurant, or another place of your choosing.

How do I register?
Register here by Friday, July 26.

Questions? Email Canon Wendy Claire Barrie: wbarrie@saintmarks.org