Dear Five O' Clock Friends,

One of my favorite theologians and pastors is Howard Thurman who, among his many achievements, was the first African American dean of the chapel at Boston University, was the co-founder of the first intentionally bi-racial and interdenominational church in the United States (the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco), and unofficial chaplain of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's.  

It was Thurman's practice to include a short meditation with every service bulletin.  His full career and productive retirement yielded a gold mine--maybe many gold mines--of meditations.  One of my favorites is his "Sacrament of Thanksgiving."  

"Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving.
I begin with the simple things of my days...."

Thurman goes on to list those simple things.  When I read the prompt for the day, I could not help but think about a sacrament of Thanksgiving...a sacrament of Thanksgiving for those who have supported and sustained my ministry.  And so today--the day after Thanksgiving--I make a Sacrament of Thanksgiving. 

Today, I make a sacrament of Thanksgiving for all the people at Live at Five and for the many times we have gathered around the table together:
           Larry and the choir and the music that weaves us together;
     People who serve at worship:  
            acolytes and altar servers,
            readers and prayer leaders, 
            ushers and alms bearers,
            people who set up the altar,
            preachers and priests who join us from time to time,
            people in the pews who lend the voices in song and who
              raise their spirits in prayer,
            dogs and cats and mules and chickens and all kinds of 
              crawly beings who join us on the Feast of St. Francis,
            the Live at Five Council who gives guidance with wisdom,
            the Worship Committee and their creativity,
            the Vestry that supports us,
            and the Community of St. Michael's.
Today, I make a sacrament of Thanksgiving for Live at Five.

But today is the day after Thanksgiving.  It's time to look ahead--ahead to Advent and all that happens in the next four weeks.  Common wisdom and tradition too view Advent as a time to slow down, to take stock, to make room for the unexpected, to make room for God to enter into our lives.

Our Live at Five Community will be busy this Advent--busy living out our life together in Christ through service to others at St. Martin's, celebrating theFeast of Guadalupe by bringing Live at Five to Nine O' Clock, and by celebrating Posadas with our whole church community.
 
One of the many ways our Live at Five community contributes to St. Michael's is by sharing our celebrations and our identity as an intentionally diverse and bi-cultural community with the larger community.  We'll be sharing two celebrations in December--the Feast of Guadalupe(December 15) and Posadas(December 22).  I hope that you all will put these celebrations on your calendars and help give the gift of Live at Five to the congregation of St. Michael's.
 
 In the meantime, please give yourselves the gifts of time and silence.  
  In gratitude for all of you.



Susan+

Dear Five O' Clock Friends,

Perhaps you have heard that old saw "Necessity is the mother of invention."   Maybe you know the composition of the Chinese character for crisis-danger and opportunity. Last Sunday morning the Congregation of St. Martin's lived out those sayings. The folks we had counted on to provide breakfast did not put the date on their calendar. When I walked into the shelter last Sunday morning, the kitchen was empty. There was no food and there was no one there to cook, serve and clean-up afterwards. And yet there were over 300 people hungry for the first meal of their day.   We really couldn't cancel breakfast.

The heroes of the day were the folks at Garcia's(the restaurant across the street from St. Martin's), the people from the Congregation of St. Martin's, and the folks who gather outside the shelter every Sunday. When asked if they could whip up breakfast for 300 people in less than an hour, Carmen, who works the front at Garcia's said, "Just let me check with the kitchen." In a few minutes, she returned and said, "Sure. We can do it." Scrambled eggs, beans, potatoes, and tortillas for 300 people. In less than an hour. "How much will this cost the Mission to the Homeless?" I wondered to myself. Carmen slipped me the bill--$320. That's it. Breakfast for 300 for a little over three hundred dollars. Garcia's stepping up to the plate.

While I was negotiating with Garcia's, the Congregation of St. Martin's wasdoing the work of the people-carrying on with the liturgy. By the time I walked through the back door, they had sung the opening song, said the opening prayers, and were reading the scripture of the day. At announcement time, some people volunteered to serve the food while others volunteered to carry food from Garcia's to St. Martin's.   While we were worshipping, the folks out front were taking up a collection to pay for drinks for 300. They took their six dollars to Lowe's on Lomas where they bought enough kool aid and sugar to make drinks for all. When the doors closed at 10:00, the cooks at Garcia's and the team from St. Martin's had fed over 300 people. More important-the people at St. Martin's-folks other people often overlook or dismiss-had stepped up to the plate.

There was another way the people of St. Martin's stepped up to the plate last Sunday. When they heard about the broken stained glass windows at First United Methodist Church, a church that serves lunch to the homeless one day a week, they voted to donate Sunday's offering to First Methodist to help pay to fix those broken windows-sixteen dollars in quarters, pennies, nickels and dimes and few crumpled bills handed over to a fellow congregation.

From time to time, we are all asked to step up to the plate. From time to time, we are all offered the opportunity to work with others to fill a need.

When folks come together as the Congregation of St. Martin's did last Sunday, you can see the Spirit of God at work through the people of God. "Wow." "Thanks." That's all that need be said.

As St. Michael's fall pledge drive draws to a close, it is my hope and prayer that we at Live at Five will step up to the plate just as the people of St. Martin's did last Sunday. Wouldn't it be great if we had a 100% pledge rate?

That's not so hard to achieve. It takes each of us making a commitment to give a portion of our earnings to our church. The only pledge that is too small is the pledge that doesn't come in at all. Let's make a commitment to be a 100% community-a community in which we all take a share in supporting the whole. 

LET'S STEP UP TO THE PLATE!

In gratitude for all you do and all you give,

Susan+

Dear Five O'Clock Friends,

Perhaps you've heard me tell the story of how we came to take an offering every Sunday at the Congregation of St. Martin's.  It's a story worth repeating.  

One Sunday, after the service, one of the regulars came up to me.  He said to me, "People tithe to their church, don't they?"  I replied, "Some do."  He then said, "I made fifteen dollars singing at the corner of Third and Central last night.  I'd like to tithe to my church."  Then he handed me two dollars.
The next week I asked the congregation if they thought we should be taking up an offering as part of our service.  All of them said yes.  Then one of the older members of the congregation said, "Sister, you should have done this long ago."

I think that taking up a weekly offering was what made us see ourselves as church.  That, folks having jobs to do, and the sense that when someone isn't there, folks miss them.  People in the Congregation of St. Martin's seem to understand the truth that lies beneath that old African proverb, "I am because we are."

I believe that people at Live at Five know the truth of that proverb as well. There's work for everyone to do, and folks pitch in doing what needs to be done so that we all can join around the table every Sunday at five.  Most of the people who worship regularly at Live at Five help out in one way or another--reading scripture, leading the prayers, singing, serving at the altar, bringing food for the potlucks, cleaning up after worship and/or after supper. And when people aren't there, they are missed by those who worship with them.  

Like the Congregation of St. Martin's, Live at Five also takes up a collection--both on Sundays and through pledging.  Last year, our pledges far out-stripped our costs.  

Many of you have heard me say that in many ways Live at Five has paved the way for the transition we as a parish are undergoing.  Two and a half years ago, we lost our beloved priest.  He moved on to a different ministry in the diocese.  For a while, we were shaken.  We wondered what would happen to us.  Our community stuck together.  We grieved and then we released ourselves and Father Daniel.  We reflected on who we were and on who we were called to be.  We found new life growing in us.  We can teach St. Michael's a thing or two about transitions.  

One amazing aspect of that time in our lives together was not that we continued to support our community through our work and through our wallets, but that our support grew.  More and more people volunteered to serve in worship.  And our pledges grew as well.

Tomorrow, we will hold an in-gathering of the pledges of our Live at Five Community.  If you have not yet pledged, please do so.  Let's show St. Michael's what 100% looks like.  Think of it--100% of Live at Five pledging to St. Michael's.  That's paving the way.  

No pledge is too small.  It's the commitment to support the community, not the size of the commitment, that's the important thing.   Every Sunday, as I walk to the back room at St. Martin's, a man stops me and hands me a handful of change. "It's for the offering," he tells me.  He never comes back to the service.  He doesn't take communion when we bring it out.  But I know that the service is important to him.  And his contribution--or rather his contributing--sometimes is the act that gets me through the hard times of the week.

WE AT LIVE AT FIVE CAN BE THAT GIFT AND GIVER THAT HELPS SUSTAIN ST. MICHAEL'S IN OUR TIME OF TRANSITION.  LET'S SHOOT FOR 100%!

In gratitude for all you do and all you give,

Susan+

Dear Five O' Clock Friends,

Live at Five is breaking out of our routine.  Tomorrow we'll meet not at 5:00 p.m. as we usually do but at 1:00 p.m.  And we'll be meeting not at St. Michael's but at the Sheriff substation on the corner of Centro Familiar and Isleta.   Once we've all assembled, we'll walk a block west on Centro Familiar to gather for communion not under the cross but under a beautiful cottonwood tree.  Ours will be a short service--the bread, the wine, the word of God, prayers of the people, the giving of the peace.  Maybe even a song.  Then we'll go forth to spread God's love and God's peace in the world in which we live. 

Tomorrow, that world in which we live will take on a slightly different hue--at least it will for me and perhaps for you as well.  Tomorrow we'll go straight from the communion table to the Marigold Parade.  We'll see strange sights; we'll hear lively music; we'll encounter a crowd pulsating with life and joy in the moment.  

I'm hoping we'll hear echoes of another song.  I'm hoping we'll hear echoes of "The Lord of the Dance."  Perhaps you know the song.  In case you don't remember all the words, here they are: 

I danced in the morning when the world was young
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth 

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he 

I danced for the scribes and the Pharisees
They wouldn't dance, they wouldn't follow me
I danced for the fishermen James and John
They came with me so the dance went on 

Dance, dance, wherever you may be 
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he 

I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame
The holy people said it was a shame
They ripped, they stripped, they hung me high
Left me there on the cross to die 

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he 

I danced on a Friday when the world turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body, they thought I was gone
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on 

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he 

They cut me down and I leapt up high 
I am the life that will never, never die
I'll live in you if you'll live in me
I am the Lord of the dance, said he 

Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said he
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said he       

Susan+