A Reflection from The Rev. Eileen O’Brien
Dear People of St. James’,
If you are new to the Episcopal Church, you may very well be wondering: What is this Annual Parish Meeting thing, and why should I bother showing up?
One of the things I love about the Episcopal Church is that we stop everything that we are doing every so often and take counsel together. We do this in big and small ways. Every three years, we do this in a big way in that giant family reunion/revival/mini-legislative session known as General Convention. Thanks to some aggressively friendly and insistent volunteer recruitment when Gen Con was in Austin in 2018, many of you saw this work in action. On a yearly basis, we do this in a big way at that extended business meeting/dinner party that we call Diocesan Council. In Texas, our Council, made up of lay and clergy representatives, is nearly as large as The Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies, but, as you know, everything is bigger in Texas. We are not simply beholden to the whims and wants of our own diocesan bishops, because the bishops across our multinational church take counsel together through the House of Bishops. The Lambeth Meeting gathers bishops from all over the global Anglican Communion every 10 years or so. The Anglican Consultative Council is like a global House of Deputies, including the voices of lay people and clergy alike. The Primates Meetings gather the head of each regional province in the church for mutual counsel and discernment.
Each of these gatherings offers us an opportunity to speak together with one voice about those things that are foundational to our faith and unity and to navigate sometimes profound and lasting differences in worldview, identity, and in our sense of God’s call in our particular time and place. At St. James’, we take counsel together through our monthly Vestry meetings and in the course of other committee work, but we also stop everything to come together for our Annual Parish Meeting, where we have the opportunity to look at the big picture of our life together so that we can forge a path forward, listening to one another and to the Spirit in our midst.
This year is both a particularly challenging time to get together and a particularly crucial time to see each other and let ourselves be seen by one another, even if we are just in our little Zoom boxes. I know, I know, you are zoomed out. But you all know the utter joy and delight of seeing and reconnecting with an old friend, a familiar and beloved face that perhaps you lost sight of a while back. May this gathering be a foretaste of the joy we will have together when we can regather in person!
This is a particularly crucial time to see each other and let ourselves be seen by one another because we want to get on the road together. This year, we are getting on the road to the 80th anniversary celebration of St. James’ life together in December 2021. I think that St. James’ founders would be rather stunned to see St. James’ today – a multilingual, multicultural body where multiracial families feel at home because of the way we practice being family. But, I hope that they would say what Mrs. Bertha Means, our remaining surviving founder always tells me, “This is my Church, and I just feel so proud! Keep it up!”
The work of regathering as a multicultural community as we continue to move through the pandemic will require us to rely on that core virtue of radical hospitality that we talk about so much. The practice of radical hospitality looks like a love that sacrificially makes space for the other, where each can know and be known. As individuals and as a community, we will return to each other changed by what we have been through, by the losses and the grief, but also by the joys of learning, new discovery, and daily blessings of light and life. As we get on the road together, we will need to make space for those who have discovered a new sense of God’s call to them and for those who are seeking to hear God’s call afresh.
As a congregation, we will get on the road to St. James’ 80th together by doing the forward-looking work of strategic planning even as we connect more strongly to our foundation by sharing stories about the history of St. James’ Episcopal Church. I look forward to sharing more with you in the Rector’s Address. Get ready to be inspired by the good work done over the past year, reflected in the other reports. Be sure to take a look at the Resolution on Nominations, and prepare yourselves for an encouraging Treasurer’s Report and Proposed Budget. We look forward to responding to your questions to the best of our ability.
Looking forward to seeing you, praying with you, and taking counsel with you as we get on the road together on Sunday!
Rev. Eileen
