openMike's

2010-03-01T23:36:05-08:00

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openmike-s

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2010-03-06T00:00:00-08:00

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openMike's

2010-03-09T04:24:09-08:00

From grad student Ali... If any of you are watching TV right now, you'll see - it's not just me - food is a major issue in this country!  As I write this, CNN is doing a segment on factory farms, food safety issues, and the movie Food Inc.  In any case, I'm curious if any of you have started reading "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069906">Eating Animals</a>,"  by Jonathan Safran Foer (and co-author and UCSB grad Aaron Gross) and what you think about it.  I'd love to host a dinner or some sort of discussion group - are people interested, and if so, when?  Would it be helpful to wait until after spring break?  I do have a few more copies of the book and am planning on making a few more photocopies (teasers) to entice some more readers.  Thanks for your interest so far - I hope you're enjoying the book (as much as it can be "enjoyed")!   Stay tuned for info on the dinner party and conversation "Eating Animals." Email the chaplain for more info - revjanelle@gmail.com 0

2010-03-07T00:02:38-08:00

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st-mike-s-reads-eating-animals

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2010-03-06T00:00:00-08:00

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St. Mike's Reads..."Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer

2010-03-07T00:04:20-08:00

Ash Wednesday Services will be held on 2/17 at the UCen Lagoon at 12 noon and in St. Mike's chapel @ 5:30pm. Both services include the imposition of ashes. 0

2010-02-16T07:32:56-08:00

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ash-wednesday-services

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2010-02-16T00:00:00-08:00

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Ash Wednesday Services

2010-02-16T07:32:56-08:00

A program in its third year, Campus Connection brings middle and high school youth from urban Episcopal Churches in LA and Ventura Counties to experience university life at UCSB and CSU-CI. While at UCSB, the youth meet with students, faculty and others. We complete the Ropes Course and visit the Marine Touch Tanks together. All meals and the overnight are held at our Campus Ministry! This year Campus Connection welcomes youth from St. Stephen's Hollywood, Trinity Hollywood, St. John's San Bernadino and All Saints' Riverside. Weekend Schedule Friday 2/12 8:30am                        Arrive at CSUCI 8:30-9:30am                Get to know each other/Overview of weekend 9:30-11am                   Tour of CSUCI 11:15am                      Leave for UCSB 12:30pm                      Lunch at St. Michael's (South Coast Deli) 1:30pm                        Leave St. Mike's for Ropes Course 2-5pm                          Ropes Course at Robert Gym 5:30-7pm                     Thai Dinner (Muen Fan Thai) 7pm                             Night Beach Walk and/or Movie 10pm                           Group Reflection & Prayer 11pm                           Lights Out-Student and mentor sleepover at St. Michael's (chapel space & student lounge) Saturday 2/13 8:30-9:30am                Breakfast (Silvergreens) 9:30-11am                   Campus Visit 10am-11am                 Reef Tour - UCSB Marine Science Building 11:45am-1:15pm         Lunch (Silvergreens) & Panel Conversation with UCSB Students & Faculty 1:15-1:30 pm              Evaluations 1:30-2pm                    Clean up (vacuum, take out trash, set up church, etc.) 2pm - on                     Free time on beach or departure     What to Bring: ~ Ropes Course permission slip signed by parent/guardian ~ Campus Connection permission slip (give to your chaperone) ~ Sleeping bag or bedding, mat if you wish ~ Pillow ~ Toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, face wash, wash cloth, etc) ~ Appropriate clothing: layers for COOL weather (jacket, sweatshirt, etc.), no skirts or dresses for Friday evening ropes course (you will be active) ~ Rain Gear (rain jacket, umbrella, rain boots or extra shoes etc.) ~ Pajamas ~ Flashlight (helpful, but not necessary) ~ Journal and pen or pencil ~ Each car load should bring a case of water ~ Closed-toe shoes (required for ropes course) ~ Comfortable shoes for walking (sneakers) ~ Save your gas receipts for reimbursement ~ Energy, an open mind and a sense of adventure!    0

2010-02-06T21:47:53-08:00

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campus-connection-urban-episcopal-youth-connect-to-higher-education

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2010-02-06T00:00:00-08:00

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Campus Connection: Urban Episcopal Youth Connect to Higher Education

2010-02-06T21:54:14-08:00

Thanks to grants received from the IV Co-op and All Saints’ Church in Montecito, St. Michael’s University Church has built a 16 raised bed community garden for use by community members. If you’re interested in gardening at St. Mike’s or helping to develop this community resource, please contact us! Half of a raised bed is available for a student, group of students, community member or family to grow healthy, organic food. It’s free – though we will ask for a nominal monthly fee to help offset our water bill ($10 or less). An application, interview and signed contract is required. Gardeners will be required to attend a monthly or every other month meeting with others in the St. Mike’s garden community. To be placed on a list indicating your interest please contact The Rev. Nicole Janelle at revjanelle@gmail.com or 805/968-2712 <a href="/system/files/6/original/GardeningComFlier.pdf"> Community Garden Flier</a> <a href="/system/files/7/original/JardinAd.pdf">Jardin Comunitario</a> 0

2010-02-06T22:22:08-08:00

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iv-community-members-invited-to-garden-at-st-mike-s

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2010-02-06T00:00:00-08:00

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IV Community Members Invited to Garden at St. Mike's

2010-02-06T22:24:24-08:00

The Episcopal Peace Fellowship is sponsoring a Young Adult Urban Pilgrimage to New York City that will focus on issues of poverty and homelessness. The pilgrimage is scheduled for March 19-24th (this falls during the tail end of finals week and much of the spring break for those on the university quarter system). The trip is being co-led by the Rev. Nicole Janelle, chaplain at UCSB, and the Rev. Valerie Bailey Fischer, a former campus minister from the Diocese of Massachusetts who developed the pilgrimage with her students at Framingham State College. The cost of the program is $150 (participation fee that covers housing and Metrocard) plus a minimum of $60 for food and the cost of airfare. The Program Group on Youth & Young Adult Ministry (Dio LA) is generously providing scholarships for college students and young adults ages 18-30 studying and living in the Diocese of Los Angeles. All students and young adults living in the Santa Barbara area are eligible to apply for a scholarship (full or partial depending on need)! If you would like to participate and be considered for a scholarship, please speak to Nicole+ as soon as possible! Space and scholarships are limited. You need not be Episcopalian to apply, but you must be committed to engaging in theological reflection from a Christian perspective. Applicants interested in working with EPF in the future to design, create and lead a peace and justice pilgrimage experience for young adults in their own context are especially encouraged to apply. Application deadline is January 18th, 2010. Please email your application to revjanelle@gmail.com <a href="/system/files/2/original/EPFUrbanPilgrimage.pdf">Urban Pilgrimage Application Brochure</a> <a href="/system/files/3/original/UP2010Revised.pdf">Urban Pilgrimage Background Brochure</a>   Update 2/7/10: We will continue to accept applications for the Urban Pilgrimage until FEBRUARY 18th. Congratulations to Dawn Bailey, Jacob Sopher and Jonathan Pregill from the UCSB Campus Ministry who have been granted scholarships to attend the Urban Pilgrimage! A total of six young adults from the Diocese of LA have received scholarships from the Program Group on Youth Ministry to participate! 0

2010-01-06T21:48:35-08:00

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episcopal-peace-fellowship-urban-pilgrimage

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2010-01-06T00:00:00-08:00

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Urban Pilgrimage to NYC for Young Adults!

2010-02-06T21:43:28-08:00

2009-12-12T07:24:04-08:00

Learn how you can be involved in this green ministry!

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building-a-community-garden-st-mike-s

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2009-12-12T00:00:00-08:00

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Building a Community Garden at St. Mike's

2010-02-06T21:44:09-08:00

Join us for a reflective and celebratory service of Advent Lessons & Carols. It's a community affair! Choir members from St. Michael's, Trinity, All Saints', Christ the King, St. Mary's and St. Mark's will join together in beautiful song. Community members will serve as lectors. Mariachi Integral de UCSB and the Guitar Works program students will perform. Parishioners from the Standing Committee on Campus Ministry and area congregations will provide post-service winter treats! Do be sure to join us -- and spread the word! Invite family, friends and colleagues -- this gathering is a wonderful way in which St. Mike's shows hospitality to the larger university and surrounding community. And, if you're a member @ St. Mike's, don't forget your pledge! Pledges will be blessed during this service -- and the person who is first to submit his/her pledge will be presented the glow in the dark Virgin Mary! 0

2009-12-12T03:09:07-08:00

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a-community-service-of-advent-lessons-carols-st-mike-s

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2009-12-06T00:00:00-08:00

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A Community Service of Advent Lessons Carols at St. Mike's!

2010-01-06T22:07:36-08:00

[Riverside, Calif.] -- The six-county Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has elected the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool, canon to the bishops of the Baltimore-based Diocese of Maryland, to the office of bishop suffragan, in which she is called to assist Bishop Diocesan J. Jon Bruno in ministry to the region's 70,000 parishioners.   Glasspool, 55, was elected Dec. 5 on the seventh ballot taken by some 800 clergy and lay delegates to the 114th Annual Meeting of Diocesan Convention, gathered in Riverside, Calif., as the diocese's chief legislative body.   The Convention on Dec. 4 also elected the Rev. Canon Diane Bruce to the office of bishop suffragan. Glasspool and Bruce were part of a slate of six candidates nominated by a 24-member diocesan committee.   The second woman to be elected a bishop in the diocese's 114-year history, Glasspool is also the first openly partnered lesbian to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church, which includes some 2.4 million members in 109 dioceses in 16 nations. She is the 17th woman to be elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church; its House of Bishops includes some 300 active and retired members.   Glasspool received 153 votes in the clergy order and 203 lay votes, meeting the required majority of ballots after the Convention's necessary quorum was declared.   Consent to the election of Glasspool and Bruce by the bishops and standing committees of the Episcopal Church's other 108 dioceses will now be requested under longstanding denominational procedures in keeping with their elections as bishops not only for the local diocese but also for the whole church.   Consents must be received prior to the bishops-elect scheduled ordination to the episcopate, set for May 15, 2010, at which the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop, the Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, is slated to officiate.   "I am very excited about the future of the whole Episcopal Church, and I see the Diocese of Los Angeles leading the way into that future, said Glasspool, a native of Staten Island, N.Y., who has been ordained a priest for 27 years, and whose father was also an Episcopal priest.   "But just for this moment, let me say again, thank you, and thanks be to our loving, surprising God. I look forward, in the coming months, to getting to know you all better, as together we build up the Body of Christ for the world." Bruno said Glasspool brings years of valuable experience to her new role, noting that she has been essentially fulfilling the duties of a suffragan in her role as canon to Maryland's bishops since 2001.   He said he is looking forward to working with Glasspool because of "her congeniality and willingness to work together to bring us to a place of abundance.   "She's not afraid of conflict and she is a reconciler," Bruno said. He added that Glasspool and her partner of 19 years, Becki Sanders, are an example of loving service and ministry. "I will pray that Mary and I and Diane will be as strong a team as Chester and Sergio and I have been. I know Mary will be an asset to this diocese," he said. A resident of Annapolis, Glasspool has been canon to Maryland's bishops since 2001. Previously she was rector of St. Margaret's, Annapolis (1992-2001); rector of St. Luke's and St. Margaret's, Boston (1984-1992); and assistant to the rector of St. Paul's, Philadelphia. Ordained a priest in 1982 in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, she holds a master of divinity degree from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and a bachelor's degree from DickinsonCollege in Carlisle, Pa. She was in 2006 Merrill Fellow at Harvard Divinity School.   Glasspool's life partner, Becki Sander, holds a doctorate in social work. A resident of Irvine, Calif., Diane Bruce has been rector of the San Clemente parish since 2000. She was previously associate rector of the Church of the Messiah, Santa Ana, Calif. Throughout her ministry, Bruce has specialized in interfaith-ecumenical work, social-service outreach, and multicultural ministries in Orange County. Bruce speaks Spanish and Mandarin Chinese as well as English, and she is currently completing a doctoral dissertation on emergent church ministries. She holds a master of divinity degree from the Claremont School of Theology and a bachelor's degree in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to ordination she served Wells Fargo Bank as vice president, compensation management and analysis. She was employed by Wells Fargo (formerly Crocker Bank) in various capacities since 1980.   A former Roman Catholic, Bruce joined the Episcopal Church in 1986. She was named an honorary canon of the Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles, in 2003.   She is married to Gregory Stephen ("Steve") Bruce, and the couple has two adult children -- a son, Max, and a daughter, Jardine.   In response to a reporter's question about whether Glasspool might receive the necessary consents from other dioceses, Bruno said: "That would be a violation of the canons of this church. At our last General Convention, we said we are nondiscriminatory.   "They just as well might have withheld consent from me because I was a divorced man and in my case, it would have been more justified than in withholding them from someone who has been approved through all levels of ministry and is a good and creative minister of the Gospel."   He acknowledged rumors of a "concerted effort not to give consent" to Glasspool because she is openly gay." I would remind the Episcopal church and the House of Bishops they need to be conscientious about respecting the canons of the church and the baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being.   "To not consent in this country out of fear of the reaction elsewhere in the Anglican Communion is to capitulate to titular heads." The Diocese has voted from a slate of well qualified candidates whose talents fit well with the episcopal team approach of Bishop Bruno, said the Rev. Julian Bull, chair of the seach and nominating committee, and head of Campbell Hall Episcopal school in North Hollywood, Calif.   In addition to Bruce and Glasspool, other nominees were the Rev. Zelda Kennedy, senior associate for pastoral care at All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif.; the Rev. John Kirkley, rector of St. John the Evangelist Church in San Francisco; the Rev. Silvestre Romero, rector of St. Philip's Church in San Jose, Calif., and the Rev. I. Martir Vasquez, vicar of St. George's Church in Hawthorne, Calif.   In the second election, Kirkley withdrew on the third ballot and Romero on the fourth.   According to Convention rules of order, ballot results in Glasspool's election were separate from the election balloting in Bruce's election, according to Canon M. Janet Wylie, secretary of Convention.   The ballot results were posted in real time on the diocesan web site, http://www.ladiocese.org.   Bruce and Glasspool are the seventh and eighth bishops suffragan to be elected in the history of the Diocese of Los Angeles. They will succeed the Rt. Rev. Chester L. Talton, 68, who plans to retire in May 2010 after serving as bishop suffragan since January 1991.   Also retiring in 2010 is the Rt. Rev. Sergio Carranza, bishop assistant in the Diocese of Los Angeles since 2002 following his retirement as bishop of the Diocese of Mexico in the Anglican Church of Mexico.   The term suffragan is said to come from the Latin suffragari, which has been translated "to support with one's vote." Under Episcopal Church polity, bishops suffragan are elected to assist bishops diocesan without right of succession.   -- Robert Williams serves the Diocese of Los Angeles as canon for community relations. 0

2009-12-12T03:06:32-08:00

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diocese-of-los-angeles-elects-candidates-for-bishop-who-are-female-including-candidate-who-is-openly-gay

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2009-12-05T00:00:00-08:00

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Diocese of Los Angeles Elects Candidates for Bishop Who Are Female Including Candidate Who Is Openly Gay

2009-12-12T03:06:32-08:00

On True Religion: A Sermon on James 1: 17-27   Saint Michael’s University Church Isla Vista, California August 30, 2009   The Rev. Nicole Janelle, Vicar and Chaplain The Rev. Dr. Ronald David, Preacher   On September 5, 2007 I was in route to Charleston, South Carolina from Los Angeles.  Stopping over in Atlanta, Georgia, I found myself hovering near the Hudson bistro, bookstore and newsstand like an aircraft in a holding pattern.  The silvery jacket of Richard Dawkins’ recently published book, The God Delusion, had hijacked my attention.   I thought to myself, “Debbi,” my wife, “will sigh in exasperation if I buy another book.”  Always frugal, Debbi buys only what we need.  On occasion she will reluctantly relent and buy clothing for herself.  “Do you like it?”  She will ask while modeling before the mirror on the back of our bedroom door.  Before I can answer, Debbi is compelled to add, “Ross Dress-for-less . . . $12 on sale, down from $36 . . . a real steal!”   I buy books, and I do so without announcing their purchase or their price—even if I’ve bought them at a remarkable discount from Amazon.com.  Still, Debbi knows.  Only God knows how she knows.   Only God knows unless, of course, God is a delusion as Dawkins asserts on his silver-jacketed book.  This will be my justification when God reveals to Debbi that I’ve purchased yet another book: as a priest it is my duty to remain informed about the arguments made in the public domain against my God.   In fact, at the moment I decided to buy the book I wished that I had been wearing my clerical collar.  I declined the sales clerk’s offer to bag the book.  I wanted my fellow sojourners to notice not me but a priest carrying a book wherein the author calls to question the very existence of God.   I once heard it said that few people are persuaded rationally until they are first persuaded emotionally.  I believe that to be true . . . at least I know that it is true for me.  As a chaplain and supervisor in clinical pastoral education I try to be mindful of my emotional state.  In anticipation of delving into Dawkins’ treatise I pray for mindfulness, for ears to hear Dawkins’ story.  So, before cracking the spine on the God Delusion, but after reading the jacket abstract, here is the emotional state I found myself in, and the cognitive awareness evoked in that state: I was tingling with an excitement tinged with fear—an eagerness to engage in an existentially imperative dialogue or debate that at best would prove offensive.  Worse, it might undermine my faith.   My fear notwithstanding, I began to read Dawkins’ book, chapter by chapter.  But I had not yet read beyond the preface before realizing that The God Delusion was not about God at all.  Dawkins’ diatribe was about the institution and practice of religion.  Dawkins’ diatribe is about the harm done in God’s name by hypocritical, absurd, and brutal men.  It was not long before Dawkins reveals a rage and smugness that tests even my prayerful presence as a chaplain.  Still, I realize that beneath the blustery veneer, Richard Dawkins had not written a word about the immediate, ineffable, experience of anything transcendent, sacred, or holy.   I remembered my “encounter” with Dawkins as I reread today’s epistle from James.  Dawkins certainly does not heed James’ counsel: “You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.”  Quite the contrary, Dawkins is quick to speak with anger without any intention of apprehending or comprehending God’s reality and virtue. But more than an inability to hold his tongue or quell his anger, it is abundantly evident that what Dawkins means when he writes about religion is not remotely related to what James means in today’s epistle.  The words religion or religious appear only seven times in all of the New Testament (and not at all in the Old Testament).  The letter written by James, brother of Jesus of Nazareth, contains three of the seven references.  “If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” So, what does James mean when he writes about religion in the early life of the Christian community?  Among the many sources one might turn to in search of an answer, I think Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s study, The Meaning and End of Religion, is among the most comprehensive, coherent and compelling.  Briefly said, the religion about which James wrote was a personal, inward and immediate experience of the sacred, the holy.  Religion was, in effect, a visceral, perhaps intuitive experience that was the impetus to “first-order religious language . . . prayer, prophecy, proclamation, spontaneous utterances of love and joy . . .”<a name="_ftnref1" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>  This is to be distinguished from more contemporary and relatively recently evolved understandings of religions as “institutions, customs, laws, creeds, and theological systems . . .”<a name="_ftnref2" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a> The distinction is significant.  The “religion” of Dawkins’ time, of our time, is the outward and visible sign of the “religion” of James’ time, an inward, spiritual grace.  To be sure, it matters that the outward and visible sign may be a distortion and rank perversion of the spiritual grace that ought to inform and inspire religious practice.  The distortions and perversions are the root of the hypocrisy, absurdity, and brutality about and against which Dawkins justifiably rants.  It is the inward experience of grace that Dawkins, indeed too many of us, sadly lacks. This lack—or better said, this amnesia and/or anesthesia for the inward experience of grace—cannot be overemphasized.  Rudolf Otto wrote in his now-classic treatise that bears the ironic title, The Idea of the Holy, “The reader is invited to direct his mind to a moment of deeply-felt religious experience, as little as possible qualified by other forms of consciousness.  Whoever cannot do this, whoever knows no such moments in his experience, is requested to read no farther; for it is not easy to discuss questions of religious psychology with one who can recollect the emotions of his adolescence, the discomforts of indigestion, or, say, social feelings, but cannot recall any intrinsically religious feelings.”<a name="_ftnref3" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a> We are or ought to be religious practitioners seeking to celebrate our lived experience of the numinous, of God, or seeking to reanimate our experience of God remembered.  If our religious practice is designed to merely conjure an idea or image of God, our efforts will likely be frustrated if not in vain.  And so it seems to be for Dawkins. Again, Dawkins is not alone.  You have, no doubt, read or heard of the authors who have joined Dawkins in his screed, including Christopher Hitchens, author of God is not Great, William Lobdell, author of Losing My Religion, and Loyal Rue, author of Religion is not about God.  What they all share is a disappointment or outrage with organized religion, and an absence of “intrinsically religious feelings.”  And the absence of the experience of an inward, spiritual grace is profoundly consequential. Consider Loyal Rue’s claim that religion “is about manipulating our brains so that we might think, feel, and act in ways that are good for us, both individually and collectively . . . we can say with confidence that the ultimate goal of human beings accords with that of all other life . . . that is, to maximize reproductive fitness.”<a name="_ftnref4" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a>  Dawkins, a biologist and Darwinian evolutionist, no doubt would agree with Rue and both would run afoul of James, especially when one considers the plight of the “orphan and widow.”  In Rue and Dawkins’ world, care for the vulnerable and marginalized is an option.  Someone might easily decide that the orphan and widow, literal and figurative, are unfit for survival, and are drags on the human gene pool.  For the powerful, the privileged, the fortunate, and  the fit, health care for the orphan and widow is a debatable matter. To the contrary, in today’s epistle James writes, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress . . .”  In James’ world, the orphans and widows worthiness is not contingent on their reproductive fitness.  They are all unconditionally beloved of God.  The truly religious, the person filled with the spirit of God, the person moved with reverence for God, is compelled to care for the orphan and widow.  Such care is not an option.  Such care is imperative. Hence the commandment to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and souls, and might, and to love our neighbor—including the most wretched and weak among us—to love them as though they are one with us, as in God they most surely are. If our twenty-first century religion were the outward and visible sign of James’ first century religion—an inward, spiritual grace—Dawkins might have been “unstained by the world,” God would not have been a delusion, and I might not have felt obliged to buy a book at the airport in Atlanta.  Amen.   <div> <hr size="1" />  <div id="ftn1"> <a name="_ftn1" href="#_ftnref1">[1]</a> From the foreword by John Hicks, The Meaning and End of Religion, Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), page xi. </div> <div id="ftn2"> <a name="_ftn2" href="#_ftnref2">[2]</a> Ibid, Hicks, page x. </div> <div id="ftn3"> <a name="_ftn3" href="#_ftnref3">[3]</a> The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19923), page 8. </div> <div id="ftn4"> <a name="_ftn4" href="#_ftnref4">[4]</a> Religion is not about God, Loyal Rue (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005), pages 1-9. </div> </div>    0

2009-12-12T06:09:19-08:00

A Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Ron David

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on-true-religion

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2009-08-30T00:00:00-07:00

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On True Religion

2009-12-12T06:10:29-08:00