The Pathfinder: March 21st, 2024
Savoring Every Last Drop
Savor, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, means to enjoy food or an experience slowly, in order to enjoy it as much as possible. It’s an apt word to describe how I feel about each Sunday morning with you all in worship, and each Wednesday evening with the choir in rehearsal. Time spent together in song and prayer, in worship of God, and in service to the community, is well worth savoring.
It’s the verb that immediately comes to mind as I write to share with you that, after many months of prayer and discernment, I have made the decision to retire at the end of July. This is for a few reasons:
As many of you know, my husband Jim, and our two golden retrievers live in Chicago. The long-distance nature of our relationship, after 40 years together, has been bearable, but never easy. I look forward to being with them on a permanent basis.
I’ve had several health challenges that have made it difficult to keep up with the busy schedule between All Souls and CDSP. Taking time to concentrate on my health is of great importance to me.
I have been a Lay Professional for 48 years. I have nothing but gratitude in my heart for the vocation I answered in my teens, and for the people of God, literally thousands of them, with whom I’ve served delighted in singing the praises of God.
Among those thousands are you, the All Soulsians who have touched my heart from the very first interview until this day. I say it often, and I know it to be true. You are “game” in the way you sing. You are literally a Music Leader’s dream! For this reason I leave worship each week renewed and inspired. Thank you!
In the coming months I pledge to do everything I can to make the transition to new musical leadership as smooth as possible. Each moment of song and prayer with you has been a profound blessing, and it is a joy and an honor to be a part of this amazingly creative and talented staff.
My prayer is that we will all savor the song God has put in our hearts and voices, and give thanks for The One who calls us too be Church.
I am deeply grateful for you all.
— Dent Davidson, Associate for Music
Dear All Soulsians,
Sigh. I do not want to be writing these words because it means that the retirement of Dent Davidson is real. And, for many good reasons, it is. It has been a joy to share the life of this parish with Dent. He has led us into harmonies and melodies we never heard coming, encouraged us to sing with heart and soul, and trusted us all along the way. For many, many reasons Dent will be sorely, sorely missed.
As deeply saddened as I am to see him go, I fully support the decision he has made to retire. Between now and the end of July we will do our best to savor as many of these moments as we can, relishing the remarkable ways that he has taught us to make music and church together.
In the coming weeks I will be gathering a search team to create a job posting, spread it far and wide, and discern with those who feel called to lead us in song and worship. Our goal will be to call someone with a similar set of skills, talents, interests, and experiences, ideally by the early fall.
Until then, please give Dent your love and appreciation and pray for the person who will next guide us in wonder, love, and praise.
Peace,
– Phil+
Repairing the Breach: Isaiah Project Updates
In connection with the Living Water capital campaign, the All Souls Vestry in June 2022 voted unanimously to commit a tithe – 10 percent – of the pledged funds to a small number of projects that seek to meet the needs and do the work of justice and reparation in our surrounding East Bay communities.
We are calling this work the Isaiah Project, drawing inspiration and guidance from Isaiah 58:12, which proclaims, “Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”
An All Souls team has been meeting since September 2022 to consider the harms in our communities that are in need of repair and to make recommendations to the Vestry on what projects to fund. The team currently consists of the following members: Phil Brochard; Nathan Brostrom; Wendy Calimag; Lewis Maldonado; Toni Martinez-Borgfeldt; Paul Mathew; Mark Mattek; and Christine Trost. We spent the initial months of our work evaluating the focus areas we should consider and the type of impact we hope the All Souls’ grants to have. As part of this work, we held two listening sessions with the congregation to determine what focus areas our congregation believes are most important to consider.
In December of 2022, we made the following four focus area recommendations to the Vestry, which the Vestry unanimously approved:
Children and Youth;
Housing, especially for those who are unhoused and those in transition to permanent housing;
Native American Land and Sovereignty; and
Environmental Justice.
Striving for racial justice is the major theme underlying all four of these focus areas.
Rather than turning immediately to selecting specific organizations for potential grant consideration, the Isaiah Project team in 2023 decided that we should first spend time looking at the history of the harms in our East Bay communities. The geographic area we are considering is from Richmond in the north to San Leandro in the south. A recently published book, Reparations: A Plan for Churches, by the Rev. Peter Jarrett-Schell, an Episcopal priest, suggests that, in order to do the work of repair, we must acknowledge what we do not know, ask questions, and seek to learn something about the history of our surrounding communities – “truth-finding”, as the author calls it. We also decided that we should look at the All Souls archives to see whether there might be any relevant All Souls history that would inform our work.
We spent a good part of 2023 on this truth-finding work and in September 2023 we issued a report summarizing our findings and detailing some of the breaches in our East Bay communities related to the four focus areas. The report has been posted on the All Souls website and can be found here. We also shared these findings and engaged in very meaningful and heart-felt discussion with the congregation at the Parish Retreat on September 16th and in the Parish Hall on September 17th.
Since the fall of 2023, the Isaiah Project team has been conducting research on many non-profit organizations in the East Bay that are doing work in one or more of the four focus areas All Souls has selected. We are particularly interested in smaller organizations with annual budgets in the range of $5 million or less; that are rooted in the local communities; that are addressing in some way the breaches of racial injustice and have people of color in their leadership and on their boards; and that are having a significant impact on the communities they serve.
Through various sources, we assembled an initial list of about 35 organizations in the East Bay doing work in our focus areas. After further research over a period of several months, we now have a list of eight organizations that we will recommend to the Vestry at its April meeting. If we receive Vestry approval, we will then reach out to each of the entities that the Vestry has approved, engage with them and invite them to apply for a grant through a fairly simple, streamlined process that we are creating. Once the Vestry has acted, we will share further information with the congregation about the organizations that the Vestry has approved for further consideration in the process.
Our hope and intent is that in the fall of 2024, we will be in a position to award grants to 3 or 4 of the applicants. Each of these grants will be in the range of $100,000 to $125,000 and will likely be disbursed over a three-year period. Please stay tuned for a further update later this spring.
– Lewis Maldonado
A Good Movie Should Be Shared
The Racial Justice Committee hosted a movie night featuring American Fiction, a hilarious comedy-drama film written and directed by Cord Jefferson, and based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett.
Over 30 people attended the event, including about 10 guests from Congregation Beth El and St. Paul AME church, co-collaborators in the Building Interfaith Bridges program.
The film features a frustrated novelist-professor who writes an outlandish satire of stereotypical "Black" books, only for it to be mistaken by the liberal elite for serious literature and published to both high sales and critical praise. The movie offers a critical and satirical view of racial tropes and stereotypes. The film delivers insight on multiple levels, as a complex family drama and social satire, among others. In our post-film conversation we focused on the satirical aspect, looking at what behaviors made some of the characters ridiculous, and what elements of truth were present behind the comedy. We had a thoughtful dialogue, which included people from all three congregations.
Here are some of the reflections that were articulated in that time:
People of color often have to be chameleons - one way at work, one way at home.
So often people can’t be themselves. They have to be what other people expect them to be.
So many of our impressions of the ‘other’ go back to childhood — what we are taught about the ‘other’ or socialized to believe about them.
Individual perceptions of other people are often limited by the filters we impose on ourselves – we only see what we expect to see.
It is remarkable how many stereotypes can be satirized in one movie!
We have enjoyed presenting multiple film nights previously for All Souls, and we’re pleased that it can also be a way to bring together our partner congregations.
The Oscar that American Fiction won for Best Adapted Screenplay is richly deserved. If you missed the movie, we highly recommend it!
– Don Gates and Paul Mathew
Holy Week 2024 Schedule
Holy Week is the week leading up to Easter Sunday, where we follow the path of Christians who for centuries upon centuries have been gathering together to retrace these last steps of the Christ. While the week’s services are meant to be experienced as one service spread out over several days, please join for any or all that you are able.
Here is the schedule for the week. Live-streamed services are indicated with *.
Maundy Thursday
6p Agape Meal, featuring feasting, prayer and song— Please RSVP here!
7:30p Eucharist, with the Washing of Feet, Stripping of the Altar, and Procession to the Altar of Repose*
Good Friday
10-11:30a Drop-In Rite of Reconciliation with the Rev. Emily B, in the old Rector’s Office (downstairs, across from the Common Room)
12-3 Contemplative Service (with poetry, silence, song, and prayers)
3:30-5p Drop-In Rite of Reconciliation with the Rev. Phil, in the old Rector’s Office (downstairs, across from the Common Room)
4-5p Holy Week for Kids (interactive service with prayer stations)
7:30p Eucharist with reserved sacrament, reading of the Passion Gospel, and Veneration of the Cross*
Holy Saturday
9:30a Holy Saturday liturgy
8p The Great Vigil of Easter, with lighting of the New Fire, and the First Eucharist of Easter* (don’t forget to bring your bells!)
Easter Sunday
9:00a Sung Eucharist
10:15 Easter egg hunt for children 5th grade and younger
11:15a Sung Eucharist
(Note: There will be no 8a Chapel service on Easter Sunday)
Holy Week Needs:
Help us fold and assemble Triduum booklets on Mon/Tues March 25 & 26th. Email diana@allsoulsparish.org if you have a window of time to come to the office to help.
Help set-up for the 6p Agape Meal––show up sometime between 4-6p in the Parish Hall.
Cook a dish for the Agape Meal— email Emily Hansen Curran.
Sign-up to hold vigil and pray through the night after the Maundy Thursday service (sign-up here)
Bring food/drinks to share for the reception following the Easter Vigil on Saturday!
Show up a little early on Saturday night to help set-up for the Vigil (arrive between 6-8p)
Take home Easter eggs to fill for the children’s egg hunt! Pick up empty eggs this Sunday and return them anytime during Holy Week.
– The All Souls Staff
Announcements & Events
Happening This Week
Worship This Sunday
8:00am, Holy Eucharist in Chapel
10:30am, sung Eucharist (click here to access the live stream)
Wednesday 9am Service. Join the Zoom call here, or join us in person in the Nave. Password: 520218.
NOTE: This Sunday, March 24th, our services will begin outdoors with a procession and Blessing of the Palms. The 8a service will begin on the Jordan Court labyrinth (gate will be open). The 10:30a service will begin in the courtyard outside of the Parish Hall.
BYO Palms: Please bring a branch, grass, or other leafy foliage! (Palms will be available for those who need them).
Reading Between the Lines Bible Study, Sunday @ 7:00a. Click here to join by Zoom, or join them in-person in the Common Room.
Youth Group is happening this Sunday, March 24th, 7-8:30p. We’ll make Palm Crosses, prepare for Holy Week, and fill Easter eggs for the kids. There will be no Youth Group the following week, Easter Sunday (come to church in the morning instead!).
Adult Formation
Coming Up: Written that you May Believe: The Gospel of John with the Rev. Michael Lemaire
In this introduction to the Gospel of John, we will explore this most unique of Gospels emphasizing how its Theology and Christology enrich the Christian faith. (April 7, 14, 21)
Children & Family
Nursery The downstairs nursery is open and available to you for your use whenever you’re at All Souls. This is not a staffed nursery, so an adult must be there with your child, but if you need a quiet place to take a time out, change a diaper, let your child play or take a rest, the nursery is open for you to do all of those things. If there is a service going on that’s being livestreamed, you will be able to watch the livestream on the computer in the nursery as well.
Children’s Ministry Sunday School continues each week during the 10:30 a.m. service for children from pre-K through 5th grade. Children head downstairs at the start of the service, then return after the “Peace.” See an usher if you need directions.
All ages attend a shared Godly Play “Storytime.” Then, our youngest kids (pre-K to 1st grade) remain in the Godly Play classroom for “wondering” and “work” time, while our older kids (grades 2-5) split off for deeper investigation and exploration.
Note to Parents: We encourage all kids to return to the sanctuary after Sunday School and save outdoor playground time for later. In the Godly Play curriculum, we view the Eucharist as an important extension of Sunday School; the sacred space that we create downstairs continues and expands as we join the whole congregation upstairs. We appreciate your help reinforcing this norm!
Read more about our Sunday School program here.
Holy Week for Kids Service, 4p on March 29th. Join us for a Godly Play Passion story, prayer practices, and Stations of the Cross.
Youth Program - Youth Group happens weekly on Sundays from 7-8:30 in the Parish Hall. If you are not receiving weekly Youth Program updates but would like to, please reach out to Emily B to be added to our mailing list.
Save the Date: the 3rd Annual Walking Pilgrimage to Grace Cathedral will take place on Sunday, April 28th, from 11a to 7p. We’ll join other youth from the Alameda Deanery as we travel by foot and ferry to Grace Cathedral for dinner, fellowship, and Vespers (and meet the incoming Bishop!). Open to middle school and up. RSVP here by April 12th to get a free t-shirt!
Justice & Peace
Interfaith Gaza Ceasefire Pilgrimage: Saturday, March 23rd
Our longtime partners at Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity have extended an invitation to an interfaith pilgrimage dedicated to calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The 22-mile walk begins in Berkeley and is broken into five segments. You can join for the whole march, or just part, and they are also seeking volunteers to help run the event. Find more information and register here.
Ways to help with the Israel-Hamas War, from Episcopal Relief & Development
Since the start of the current Israel-Hamas war, Episcopal Relief & Development has been supporting long-time partners in the Holy Land including Al Ahli Hospital, a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, to provide emergency medical support in Gaza. Despite being hit by two explosions that damaged buildings and claimed hundreds of lives, the hospital is still serving those who are in need of care. Episcopal Relief & Development stands with the brave staff of Al Ahli Hospital as they risk their lives to help others.
Please pray for peace in the Holy Land and consider making a contribution to the Episcopal Relief & Development Middle East Fund to help meet the growing needs of all people in the region.
Stay informed about the Episcopal Relief & Development response at episcopalrelief.org.
Needs of the Community
Holy Week Rides Ministry Many of our Holy Week services occur at nighttime, which is a difficult time for people to drive. We are hoping that as a community, we can help everyone get to church who wants to attend.
To coordinate, we have made a spreadsheet: All Souls Holy Week Carpool 2024.
Sign up in the top half of the sheet if you are willing to be a driver.
Sign up in the bottom half of the sheet if you need a ride.
There is space to indicate where you live and what services you are attending.
Post-Easter, we intend to reinvigorate our broader Rides Ministry Team. We hope that this sign-up will help folks connect in the meantime.
Weekly Sermon Haiku
Fun fact: Chat GPT can take the transcript of a sermon and generate a catchy haiku! Some are lovely, some are awful, some are worth a laugh. Check here every week to see the haiku from the previous Sunday’s sermon.
From The Rev. Phil Brochard’s sermon, 5th Sunday of Lent:
Let go, fall, break, die,
Transformation's painful path,
Rise in light, reborn.
(Watch the full sermon on our Youtube channel, or listen to it as a podcast here).
Everything Else
Random Kindness & Senseless Acts of Beauty, 30th Anniversary Edition Celebration
March 22, 2024 7pm PT, Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia Ave, Piedmont, CA
Join M. Paloma Pavel (an All Soulsian) and friends for an evening of education and celebration. Learn how a phrase became a book, then a global movement. Welcome by Life Artists Guillermo Ortiz, Anasuya Isaacs and pianist Arthur Kloian. Hear Betsy Blakeslee’s World Harmony Chorus Ensemble in stunning arrangements from Kenya and Ukraine. View the art of Leslie Plato Smith, and enjoy the animal puppets of artist Annie Hallatt. Free and open to all! Please register here.
Help Us Fill Easter Eggs! In three easy steps…
Pick up some empty eggs in the narthex after church
Take them home and fill them with candy, stickers, or toys.
Drop off the filled eggs in the narthex anytime during Holy Week.
(Bonus: Return any empty eggs you might have kept from last year!)
Contact Emily B with questions.
Cooking for Agape Meal Contact Emily HC to sign up to bring cook for our coordinated potluck at 6p on Maundy Thursday. Volunteers will be given a recipe and a specific dish to bring.
And regardless of whether you’re cooking: RSVP for the dinner here!
Maundy Thursday Prayer Vigil We are still seeking folks for the all-night prayer vigil in the Chapel (surprise: we still need 3:00 and 4:00a!). Sign up here for a one-hour slot on the night of Thursday, March 28th the Friday the 29th.
