St. Mark's in Shelby

Sunday after worship, we bagged toilet paper. St. Mark’s cooperates with the Shelby Help Line to provide for those in need, and every Christmas (sort of a tradition) we end up assigned toilet paper. The point, of course, is that people who receive government assistance (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—SNAP, usually called “food stamps”) cannot use the benefits to buy non-food items such as laundry detergent, shampoo, or toilet paper. That is where we come in. The toilet paper is given out in packages of four rolls, but when you buy in bulk, you get much bigger packages, often 36 or so. And that is why, after church, we took toilet paper out of big bags and put it in smaller bags—117 packages of four rolls each. And it turned out to be a lot of fun. When you work with people, you build relationships.

Advent is the month-long period when we get ready for Christmas. (And it's the reason a lot of Episcopalians think of the Christmas season as the time after December 25.)  I always have trouble remembering when it all starts, so I looked it up. The first Sunday in Advent is Sunday, December 3. Here they are in order: December 3 December 10 December 17 December 24

Every year the diocese has a convention to discuss the basic business of the shared life of the 80 parishes in the northern half of Ohio. Every parish gets to send voting representatives, and this year it was Barb Traven, Hilary Finnegan, and me. Much of the convention, as you would expect, is the basic stuff of voting on budgets, approving nominees for committees, and so forth. Not exciting, but needs to be done. This was the first year for our new bishop, Anne Jolly. I really liked the previous bishop, Mark Hollingsworth, but it was time for him to retire. He was the only Episcopal bishop I had ever known, so he was at the top of my “best bishop” list. I got to know him personally on a couple of Bishop’s Bike Rides (those were his idea) and I really appreciated the vision he had for Bellwether Farm. I wasn’t all that thrilled at the idea of a new bishop, no matter who filled the post. I think bishop Jolly will turn out to be a very good choice, however. ...

I will be the first to admit that the blog got neglected for a couple of years. The original purpose was to keep the life of the church going during the Covid pandemic, and once the pandemic was history (sort of, anyhow), I was ready to forget anything that reminded me of those days. I’d had enough, so the blog moved very much to the back burner of my mind and stayed there for a couple of years. Things are a bit different now. We have a new bishop. We can again worship together in person. People have come and gone from the parish. I would like this blog to become a way for the life of the parish to reach out, both to the city of Shelby and to our friends in other places. I don’t want to be the only voice, either. There is a way to post comments, so please do it. Curt Allen