It’s summer and attendance is predictably lighter at Sunday services. Beginning in August, even the pick-up summer choir which has been practicing on Sunday mornings before the service in July will be on break. Our summer seminarian has finished her eight weeks with us. It will be a while before our new school year seminarian arrives. (St. George’s has been blessed and enriched for many years with gifted seminarians, due to our proximity to the seminary, but that’s another blogpost.) Both the Rector and Associate Rector have taken some well-deserved time off, and will be taking more, but not at the same time. It’s wonderful to be fully staffed. When the organist takes a rare Sunday off, we miss him, but the music continues.

One of the surprises of this summer was that despite summer vacation schedules, attendance was strong at the Adult Forum series on racial reconciliation, led by our own Lynn Crawford, a member of the Diocesan task force on issues related to race, and by our gifted summer seminarian. For five weeks in late June and July thirty to forty people joined in a deep and substantive discussion of the book, the Cross and the Lynching Tree, and the all too immediate and timely relevant current events, including the church shooting in Charleston and the reminders that Black Lives Matter, spurred by incidents where they appear not to have.

Vacation travel provides an opportunity to visit other churches, to bring home new ideas, or examples of what not to do, and appreciation of the very special place we have at St George’s. Were you greeted warmly when you attended services elsewhere? Was the service leaflet clear and easy to follow? Were the music and liturgy well thought out and energetic?  Did the announcements inspire you to think that church is engaged in meaningful activities and relationships? And for visitors to St Georges, have you greeted the stranger sitting next to you and invited them to coffee hour?

The monarch butterflies that pass through our area in late summer need milkweed plants to nourish the caterpillars that will later emerge from their chrysalis changed into the next generation of monarch butterflies. The very last generation of the summer will join the mass migration to winter over in the forests of Oyamel, in Mexico. In recent years, the population of monarchs has drastically declined, and this unique (miraculous?) migration is threatened, in large part due to loss of habitat that includes the several species of native milkweed plants which are the only plants the caterpillars can eat. Many people are now planting native milkweed plants in their gardens to support these very special butterflies. It is a special joy to see a monarch alighting on a milkweed plant you yourself have grown.

Our we planting metaphorical milkweed that will attract and welcome special visitors to worship with us? One visitor several weeks ago said he dropped in because he had noticed the EYC garden outside.   Even in the summer, while we are relaxed and more casual, our worship service and scaled back activities provide a nourishing place to visit, and an invitation to become a part of St. George’s.