Alleluia Fund
Christ is Risen in our Deeds
To shout “Alleluia! “ is to praise God with energy and enthusiasm and anticipate new, surprising, and unexpected revelations of God at work. To proclaim “Alleluia!” with our financial resources is to announce our unshakable belief and joy that God is hard at work in us and in our ministries and that God is up to something awesome! The Episcopal Church in Vermont practices resurrection as we join our voices, our hopes, dreams, passions, and financial resources to serve God. One way to focus this work is through The Alleluia Fund.
Through The Episcopal Church in Vermont’s Alleluia Fund, the risen Christ is made known through our ministries to and in the world. The Alleluia Fund allows congregants and friends of the Diocese to pool financial resources in support of vital common ministries that are beyond the reach of the operating budget. Below you will find pictures, stories, and quotes from those who are engaged in or served by these ministries.
ALLELUIA! CHRIST IS RISEN IN OUR DEEDS!
Honoring the Gift of Creation
St. Barnabas Church in Norwich uses its Community Garden (located in front of the solar panels) to grow food for the Upper Valley Haven food shelf in White River Junction. On May 19th (Pentecost), we held an intergenerational work day to get the garden ready for the season. Parishioners and community neighbors showed up to help with necessary tasks, like pulling weeds, turning over the soil and adding compost. One of our folks even mowed around the garden so that we can put the mesh fence up again, once the plants are in! This year, we’re concentrating on plants that will have a high yield, and produce — like potatoes and winter squash — that will keep well, so the Haven will have fresh, local produce later into the Fall.
It’s always fun to get together. Our youngest work crew members were about 8 months old, and our eldest in their 80’s!
Walking the “Sacred Taize Path”
Members and guests of Christ Church, Bethel, entered sacred space by song, word, and body prayer on May 16th in an early evening Taize service which was combined with a seven-circuit labyrinth walk. Heather Leavitt Heather@leavitts.us of South Royalton offers either of her two canvases (the other, an eleven-circuit Chartres’ style canvas) to anyone interested (and who has the thirty to forty foot indoor space in which to lay it out.) Ever since Christ Church exchanged the dark pews for brighter blue chairs, the interior of the village church can accommodate creative liturgical events such as this one which brought people together for a unique meditative experience.
A poem by Marilyn McEntyre was read before people began walking the labyrinth. In part, it reads: “Every turning moves us toward the center…We learn how little we can measure, how great can be the gift of a moment, a pause along the path…We circle inward, consenting, outward, trusting and are taught again the folly of laying up treasures…But all we have comes down to this: yes to what is here, now. Thanks be to God, for what is here now, again, and again.”
“Holding our tender questions, we moved through the labyrinth, and in return, were moved by the presence of God. “Ubi caritas…where true charity and love abide, God is there.” Our combined labyrinth/Taize service was so deeply meditative that we didn’t want it to end. It drew us more closely into the desire and the ability to pray without ceasing.”
Deborah Aldrich
“The repetition of the chords on the piano, along with the quiet singing and walking enveloped the space with amazing sense of peace and calm.”
Kathy Hartman
“My experience was very healing. It grounded me, and renewed my sense of letting go and trusting that whatever is meant to be, will be. I needed that more than I knew.”
Heather Leavitt