The Fullness of Circles

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Wells, VT and St. James Episcopal Church, Arlington, VT

As I made my visits this week to St. Paul’s Church in Wells and St. James’ in Arlington, I was impressed upon by the circular nature of life.  The life of a parish or congregation of people, while certainly longer than that of an individual, differs in cyclical pattern very little.  As I witnessed the light shine in the eyes of a young family who find love and comfort in the congregation of the newly restored church in Wells, the sense of growth and renewed fortitude was palpable.  And as I wandered St. James’ graveyard on a picture-perfect June day and read again and again on stone markers of a faith that in death is life eternal with God, I was struck by the notion that here and now is but a step in a continuous circle.  In both churches, as I expect is the case with all living churches, the everyday functions of life bear witness to the health and vigor of the parish, while the memorials remind of a past and presage our inevitable future.

images from St. Paul's church in Wells

In January of this year, St. Paul’s Church in Wells, VT celebrated the culmination of four years of restoration.  The foundation was firmed, the steeple shored up, and the rot and decay removed.  Like the building, the congregation, too, found invigorating renewal as they began this venture.  How could this tiny congregation afford this huge restoration project?  Yet, how could they not and not simply wither away and die?  It turns out that the whole community of Wells felt connected to the church, even if they were not “members.”  My sense is that the entire village of Wells are members of St. Paul’s, whether or not they are Episcopalians or attend services or are “on the rolls.”  So with the help of the immediate community and the larger community in the form of the Vermont Trust for Historic Preservation, the project was done.  The historical integrity maintains its balance with the addition of modern conveniences and necessities such as running water and accessibility.  And all this is as support for the spiritual home of its congregation.  A testament to the sacredness of this small New England Church is its inclusion in National Geographic’s Sacred Places of a Lifetime, featuring 500 sacred places around the world.  Today, St. Paul’s stands on the town green proudly refurbished and preening like a mother hen protective of her brood. 

This pretty little church has every right to its satisfaction, for it is loved by its congregation and

images from the parish house and surrounds

its surrounding community, and that love grows as the congregation grows.  With broad smiles that reached their eyes, members of the congregation shared with me that as thrilling as the completion of the restoration of the building is, the restoration and growth of the congregation is even more so.  For the first time in years, they are able to have a Sunday School because there are new young families with children attending.  Indeed, in the yard between the church and the parish house is a little toddler’s playground that seems to make the church building itself smile.  Okay, that might just be my fanciful imagination, but the smiles on the faces of those warm and welcoming parishioners I met were true and sincere!  The day I visited St. Paul’s just happened to be the day of their monthly rummage sale.  The rummage sale something of a permanent fixture and is open every third Saturday of the month. This, too, seems to be something the surrounding community encourages and supports.  The new parish house is also opened to serve the community with space for meetings and other gatherings.  The evidence of the Spirit may seem small and subtle, especially to those closest to it, but the impact and stirring in this community is grand and marvelous!

St. James church in Arlington

St. James' graveyard and resting place of founding fathers of the diocese

The congregation at St. James also shows signs of slight stirrings that create significant impacts.  St. James in Arlington is also known as “the cradle of the diocese.”  The first Episcopal worship services recorded in Vermont were conducted by lay reader Captain Jehiel Hawley out of his home in 1764.  Shortly after the Revolutionary War, Nathan Canfield led a group of families into forming the first Episcopal Society and installed Vermont’s first Episcopal priest, the Rev. James Nichols, in 1786.  The first convention of the Episcopal Church in Vermont was held in Arlington in 1790.  Much of this history is reverently displayed throughout the church and in the church yard.  The people of the parish have created a self-guided tour of the cemetery wherein many of these founding fathers are buried and memorialized.  These original stirrings have a continuing affect upon the generations of descendants that have followed.

As is wont to happen over years and years, the life of the parish ebbs and flows with periods of vibrant action juxtaposed with periods of quiet recuperation and everything in between. At any given time, depending on one’s angle of perspective, the parish can be seen as in the midst of any one of these periods.  Five years ago, Rev. Scott Neal, the rector at St. James, and Rev. Kathy Clark of East Arlington Federated Church recognized a need within their community.  That is childhood hunger.  Vermont has consistently ranked as one of the top ten hungriest states in the nation.  With 22% of Vermont children living in food insecure households (that is, households whose finances preclude regular and healthy meals), the mandated school breakfast and lunch programs have become crucial to more than 27,000

kicking off the summer lunch program with Holy Eucharist

children.  When school is out of session during the summer, hunger becomes even more problematic.  So, the two congregations worked together to make up for that loss.  Today, five years later, St. James and four other faith communities gather each week during the ten weeks of summer to fill over sixty grocery bags with enough food for five lunches and snacks for each child. Along with such staples as bread and tuna, a number of local growers donate fresh produce from their gardens to supplement each bag.  This week marks the kickoff of this summer’s lunch program, and begins with an ecumenical worship service with Holy Communion.  Now, some folks may feel that a five-year old program is well-founded and risks tending towards inertia. Yet to those grateful recipients—both the children and their parents—there is nothing stagnant about a well-run program that meets such a life-altering need.  It is a prime example of living out the teachings of Jesus: feed the hungry, not to receive anything in return, but because it is right.  The Spirit continues stirring up something right and good in Arlington.

As impressive as watching life draw circles may be, I find myself more drawn to what those circles encompass.  Like pebbles tossed into still water, the Holy Spirit creates tiny stirrings that ripple out into ring after ring, encompassing all that has come before yet excluding nothing as a possibility.  As life—an individual’s or a congregation’s or even a church building’s life—moves inexorably along its cyclical path, it is the faith and actions and love filling in and coloring the circles that tell the most gripping story.  And that is what impressed me at St. Paul’s Church in Wells and at St. James’ in Arlington.