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Deans' Note May 30, 2021

The unofficial opening of summer, Memorial Day, this year makes us remember where we all were a year ago. Few of us probably thought as we entered last summer in the midst of Covid that it would be a year later before we would start to emerge into a world where we would finally meet one another person to person and even begin to shed our masks. We look forward to a better summer this year.


We also celebrate Trinity Sunday - that day the Church teaches us that relationships are at the very heart of God's nature. We know a God who is disclosed to us in creation, and who in the person of Jesus is "unmasked" before us as God in the flesh, without any barrier to our relationship with him and in response, as St. Paul reminds us: "All of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit'' (II Corinthians 3:18). The work of the Spirit is to transform us so we reflect on Jesus. And the Spirit does that work not just as individuals, but in community.


And yet, after a year of being together primarily digitally, physical presence may be a little unnerving. Taking off our masks is more intimate than we are used to. In fact, some of us may be anxious, or fearful, or even experiencing the effects of the trauma of the last year. The healing power of the Spirit is with us. To help us through this transition time, we give thanks to our sister Martha Watson, a trained and licensed therapist, who will lead a conversation over Zoom on Wednesday, June 9 at 7 pm (read more in this edition of the update).


St. John's Writers' Group will take us another step into meeting the Spirit in community at a retreat morning in person on Saturday, June 5. They will invite us all to reflect on the pandemic -- what we've lost and what we've gained and what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives personally and communally. Come ready to listen, speak, be silent, and write about your own reflections (Read more in this edition also).


Our God is a Trinity of persons who invites us into a relationship of growing abundant life. Take a step into that new life as we emerge into becoming something new, something unknown in our lives, in our world, and as God's people at St. John's.