CommuniquéA Bimonthly Ministry of Christ Church Episcopal, Norcross, Georgia

Una revista bimestral ministerio de Cristo Iglesia Episcopal, Norcross, GeorgiaVolume 36, Issue 2 - June/July 2012

PILGRIMAGE

IN THIS ISSUEPARISH SPOTLIGHT

Jennifer and Greg Jordan

MISSION FOCUSThings Are Not Always

What They SeemTom Merkel

Majority or Minority?Vally Sharpe

OUR RECTOR REFLECTSResident Aliens

Pilgrimage to BeingDennis Marks

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CommuniquéA bimonthly ministry

of

Christ ChurCh EpisCopAl, norCross

400 holComb bridgE rd.norCross, gA 30071

770-447-1166

The Rev. Ceci DukeRector

The Rev. Jeff CaveAssociate Rector - Hispanic Services

The Rev. Nora Cruz-DiazDeacon

Aitor RecaldeVestry Liaison

Vally SharpePublisher/Managing Editor

Communiqué is produced bimonthly as a ministry of Christ Church, Norcross, distributed free to parishioners as well as to individuals and families in the greater Norcross and Peachtree Corners areas.

To subscribe to Communiqué in either print or electonic format, please email Beth

Holland at office@ccnorcross.orgor Vally Sharpe at

vsharpe@unitedwriterspress.com

Donations in support of the costs of printing and other expenses associated with production are always welcome, as are responses to the columns and articles herein. To make a donation, please send a check to the address above, noting that the contribution is to support the ministry or visit our website at:

www.ccnorcross.org

VOLUME 36, ISSUE 2

In honor of the upcoming journey of our J2A class to England, the theme of this second issue of the “new” Communiqué is simply “Pilgrimage.” Some of the articles speak of explicit travel to places held in reverence as symbols of spiritual journeys; others of the metaphoric journey of life.

All members in the Christ Church parish are welcome to submit articles, notes, and event announcements relating to the bi-monthly period of the magazine. The deadline for submission is the 10th of the month preceding the first month of the proposed issue as follows:

• August/September - July 10• October/November - September 10• December/January - November 10• February/March - January 10• April/May - March 10

For event announcements, please keep in mind that each issue will cover a two-month time period.

We hope you are uplifted, encouraged, and/or provoked (in a a thoughtful way) by what you see here. In the next issues, we hope to include a “Letters in Response” section where readers have an opportunity to comment on any of the articles. Please feel free to send me an email at vsharpe@unitedwriterspress.com or vally.sharpe@yahoo.com.

Vally

THE COVER PHOTOGRAPH

“On the Ring of Kerry”County Kerry, Ireland, 2005

Courtesy of Vally Sharpe.

From the Publisher

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I’ve never actually been on a “religious pilgrimage” as defined by The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church – that is, a journey to a holy place undertaken from

motives of devotion in order to obtain super-natural help or penance or as an expression of thanksgiving. However, with apologies to John Wayne, I do consider myself a pilgrim.

The word pilgrim is derived from the Greek, peregrinus, which means “resident alien.” As much as I love the things of the earth—a gathering of family around a warm hearth in the cold of winter, a nice cold beer after a long afternoon of working in the garden, great conversation with friends at the coffee shop, the Atlanta Braves—none of these completely fill the soul’s deep longing for home, for God. In his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee!”

Our search for that rest suggests that, in our mortal life, we are not yet there. In the Letter to the Hebrews, the evangelist identifies Christ’s followers as “strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” In Paul’s letter to the Philippians he points to our true citizenship, which is of heaven. In that sense then, our lives are a pilgrimage. Prodigals all, we are trying to find our ways back home to God, and the contours of our paths are rich with opportunity.

The day before my graduation from Virginia Tech, my college roommate Ann and I sat, after a long Blacksburg winter, on a hillside by the duck pond on campus watching one last, gentle Appalachian sunset. During our time together there, our neighbor’s boyfriend had died tragically in a traffic accident; I had faced into depression that had lingered from my childhood; and she had gotten her heart broken. Now we were about to part from one another, having reached another significant milestone. As young women with degrees in hand, we were sure we knew much about ourselves and life.

Last year, when we reunited at her home in Minneapolis after 20 years, we laughed uproariously as we remembered all the pronouncements we had made that evening on that hillside in Blacksburg. We had no idea then what we did not know. We still don’t, but now we know that we have no idea what awaits us. Come to think of it, isn’t that what pilgrimage is all about?

On June 30, 2012, David and I will join our J2A Class for our first ever religious pilgrimage. For a number of years now, the youth of Christ Church have sponsored events to raise money for their pilgrimage. The parish has consistently responded with enthusiasm and generosity: attending events, donating and purchasing goods and services, and reveling in such contests as the annual Stew Stomp. Now, the event is only weeks away.

The pilgrimage will be a microcosm of our life pilgrimage. We will learn to negotiate travel decisions, pray together, eat together, and walk together through markers of our Anglican Tradition—the cathedrals of Canterbury, Salisbury and others. Will it be a supernatural experience? Maybe, if we have eyes to see. Will it be penitential? Well, I’ll let you know about that later. Will it be an expression of Thanksgiving? Yes indeed! We are thankful for all who make this possible: our parish, the J2A parents and leaders, and all those who have walked the Pilgrimage of the Christian Faith through the centuries.

May we place our feet in their steps as we make our way home to God!

The Rev. Ceci Duke

OUR RECTOR REFLECTS

Ceci

OUR RECTOR REFLECTS

RESIDENT ALIENS

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BUILDING A LIFE OF FAITH

Sacred Journeys of GrowthGive me my scallop-shell of quiet,

My staff of faith to walk upon,My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My bottle of salvation,My gown of glory, hope’s true gage;

And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

—Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552-1618)

Pilgrimages hold a sacred place in most religious communities. For centuries, Muslims have traveled to Mecca, and Jews to Jerusalem. Christians, as well, have made pilgrimages to the Holy Lands. These journeys are a part of our discipline and our lives of faith.

However, when traveling to the Holy Lands became too dangerous as a result of the Holy Wars, early Christians began the practice of walking labyrinths on cathedral grounds. Along with labyrinths, the Stations of the Cross became another form of pilgrimage.

Today, many Christians still consider “making pilgrimages” to holy places as a part of their discipline and faith. In these sacred journeys is the opportunity to experience the transforming potential of sacred travel, of leaving the familiar behind, and seeking out places that have special spiritual significance. In the midst of all these tasks entail, there is the promise of tremendous joy and laughter and growth…and the chance to meet our Lord in new and deeply personal ways that are sometimes surprising.

This summer the members of our 9th-10th grade class, also known as J2A (Journey to Adulthood), will make their pilgrimage to ENGLAND where they will visit the holy places of our Anglican heritage. Among them will be Rochester, which dating from 1087, is the second oldest cathedral in England; they will also travel to Canterbury, Salisbury, and Coventry, where they will experience the stark contrast of a cathedral in ruins from the Blitz of WWII to its resurrection—rebuilt as a symbol

byGretchen

Creel

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J2A PILGRIMAGES

of reconciliation. The pilgrims will complete their travels in London, where they will experience the rich Anglican histories of both Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Our pilgrims this summer are: Sarah Brocksmith, Alex Broomfield, Mary Catherine (MC) Cross, Sarah Cunningham, Kiana Dunn, Harrison Murphy, Brandt O’Kelley, Alex Root, Meg Schurmann, Erin Donnangelo, Barbara McCue, David Duke, and the Rev. Ceci Duke. Please keep them in your own prayers this summer. Our prayer for them as a faith community is that in their travels to a “distant land” they will seek God and their own destinies. “If you seek the Christ, together we will find him.”

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DENNIS MARKS

I have never sought a holy shrine or quested to be more spiritual, but I have been a pilgrim all my life. At heart, a pilgrim is a wanderer, living in a present that is shaped by a calling towards an uncertain future by motivation beyond his control and understanding. My trek has been to find a self that seems to fit and I could call home, fighting through (when I had the will or means to fight) the barricades erected by nature and nurture, and to face, accept and seek to remedy the negative consequences of my choices. (And let’s not forget those choices made by others that became part of the terrain of my journey whether I like it or not.)

My pilgrimage involves you, me, and the set. The scenery behind the actors provides a context, and paradoxically completes the story while being a part of it. The context and story animate the actors, and the plot usually involves a clash of values. Are the universe and our relationships fair, unjust, good, evil, isolated, related, ordered, out of control, black, white, gray, merciful, cruel, reasonable, insane, etc.? All my experiences form a dynamic stage of set, actors, context, and story plot that are the details of the meaning and reason (or lack thereof) I assign to me and the world I live in.

During college, I realized that this life’s pilgrimage is like a set of Russian dolls, with a baby at the center, where each successive doll is slightly larger than the last. What seems to be a comprehensive cornerstone is just another springboard into the uncertainty between the dolls. However, the smaller dolls do not evaporate. They play a continuing part and their wounds must be healed so they are willing to come along; a house divided against itself cannot stand.

I have only tangentially mentioned God or religion. I was drawn to that which explained this life— knowledge—including the mythologies (some called religions) that were born in ancient times and guide us still. My life was mostly knowing without doing save for many escapist activities. I rarely went to church and did not consider myself a Christian of any kind; however, I have been at Christ Church for nearly 18 years. What happened?

The first thing was that my future wife was attending Christ Church. I only attended out of “team spirit,” the same motivation that led to working with Rainbow Village. I went to services and left, pursuing no relationships. As time passed, I felt guilty if I didn’t go with her, so it became more of a habit. You can’t go

anywhere unless you buy a ticket, however reluctantly.In November 1994, I went on a “pilgrimage” to Israel with

a group from Christ Church. We sailed on the Sea of Galilee, walked the streets of Nazareth and Tiberius, saw the supposed home of Peter and a first century synagogue in Capernaum, held silent prayer on the traditional Mount of the Beatitudes, explored the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, visited the Dead Sea, looked down from the heights of Masada, traveled through the rugged and desolate “Judean wilderness” on the way from Jericho to our hotel on the Mount of Olives overlooking the holy city of Jerusalem, and placed messages in the Wailing Wall.

Pilgrimageto Being

by Dennis Marks

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SCRIBBLES IN THE SAND

To me, those were tourist attractions. On the personal side, I found these were my kind of people, sharing “happy hour,” loving cheerfulness, and engaging in meaningful, rational discussions about the “Holy Land” experience—no beating with the Bible belt here. Then, one night, Sam Sturman (an Andy Rooney curmudgeon type) insulted me, and after I left the room, the group (made up mostly of people I didn’t really know) took him to task. He and his wife Millie (God rest both their souls) invited Laurie and me to sit with them at dinner the next day. We had excellent discussions which turned into tearful exchanges of “I Love You’s” at evening’s end.

We held Sunday service in a small room at our hotel. The ceiling was low and the lights muted. We sat in a small circle, and when it was time, gave one another communion. I had never done this, and my imagination transported me back to the time when some of the first “Followers of the Way” must have met like this, sharing remembrance of Rabboni; pledging to one another that the spirit of Abba and Yeshua would change us by faith and practice in the vision of loving them, ourselves and one another; that the Kingdom of God is created as we pass through our own lives, our own valleys, our own relationships to the rest of all life.

Then came the Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. It would take many pages to explain, so I’ll just say I went back in time to the anguish, doom, terror, and helplessness of all those who died naked and screaming in the “showers” as the gas was dropped. My chest hurt. It was hard to breathe. I did not want to go on. It was not fear I felt, but the soul-death and sorrow of thousands who clung to me.

I have always been sensitive to the pain of others, but this experience shattered any pretense that I was safely independent or could hide myself inside myself. It was the genesis of a thought that there was more to life than knowing and that isolation in thoughts was holding me back from me and you. Until then, I had just been one of those waiting for death, my grief telling me that salvation involves relationships—scary, uncertain, messy, and uncontrollable relationships—relationships in which we feel a sameness despite our varied lives and struggle to practice the Golden Rule in the face of those differences.

Riding away from probably the worst pain I have ever felt, I realized that while outrage brings courage, courage is needed in the absence of outrage, in all the small moments of life when doing right by any degree is a choice to be responsible for all humanity. I knew that too many times I had chosen expediency or shrunk from duty, opting for safety at the expense of others, and I regretted my inactions. I learned that the only way to find myself is to risk being myself.

That pilgrimage set me on a course of exploring how to find the strength to be myself in the real world rather than just in my mind, no longer imprisoned by anxiety and defenses that made sense in the past, but no longer applied.

Most of the changes have been at, or stimulated by, the people of Christ Church. I confess that I still do not consider myself a Christian in the classic sense, but I have found a way of experiencing what most call G_d and the essence of myself that suits me—the same place in stillness I cannot describe with precision because it is a non-rational mystery words cannot approach.

I now see my pilgrimage as the effort of loving G_d, self, and neighbor with all my heart, mind and soulish power, knowing there is no change in any one relationship without the same change in the other two. Just as the Christian Trinity is three, yet only one, so too is the Trinity of love three, yet only one.

In the liturgy, but mostly through EfM, Stephens, Vestry, AAL, Sunday School, Rainbow Village, the CC Players, workdays, casual words of care, and so much more, Christ Church and the Christian religion have given me a stage upon which to test, revise, and improvise my being and the “doing” of my pilgrimage, just as a church should do. Answers are elusive; only the Way is important.

What is to be? I don’t know. It does not matter. I am a pilgrim.

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PARISH SPOTLIGHT

Their voices precede them both—his the tenor that women swoon for, hers the soprano of ages long past, crisp and precise. Catch a strain from either of them and you stop what you’re doing just to listen.

By the time Jenn or Greg Jordan is through, the question begs itself. Why are they here at Christ Church? Not that we’re chopped liver—anyone who has attended a Christ Church Players event knows there are many talented performers among us. But these two could easily have made singing a career, him with a regional opera, her in Boston or New York, dedicated to bringing the music of the Renaissance and other historical periods to modern ears.

The answer is actually quite simple. Listen to either of them for more than a minute and you’ll hear one word or its variants far more often than you’ll hear talk of sharps or flats, SATB harmonies,

Gilbert and Sullivan, or the encroachment of the Baroque period. Ask them about each other, together or separately, and you hear its essence even if you don’t hear the word itself.

Greg says Jenn was the first person he ever met that smelled like fabric softener. Jenn describes a more earthy memory—the discovery that she’d never really lived in the “South,” though she was born in Northside Hospital and educated at Parkview and Clayton State. That epiphany had come when she’d accompanied Greg to visit his grandmother in Cordele over a July 4th weekend, and ended up on a dock on Lake Blackshear, fishin’ until midnight next to a young man who hadn’t…well…bathed in two days.

The word, of course, is home.It’s not that they didn’t set out to pursue the musical life. Both Jenn and Greg, who grew up

across town in the western suburbs (Lithia Springs and Austell), did follow their passions, whose tendrils reached backward a generation. Greg’s father, a UGA “Dixie Redcoats” trumpeter, had fallen in love at first sight with a concert pianist who’d accidentally dumped popcorn on his head from a window. She too, it seems, with him—the two married six weeks later.

Their middle child, Greg, who vacillated between medicine and music (he says medicine was something to “fall back on”) was a protege of William Fred Scott, long the Artistic Director of the Atlanta Opera. Jenn taught classical voice at The Lovett School while performing in a variety of venues. It was, in fact, the pursuit of their musical careers that orchestrated their meeting—they were “staff” singers for both a Catholic church and an Episcopal one here in Atlanta. Jenn says they sang on Saturday for the Catholics, Sunday for the Episcopalians.

They each watched as other friends and acquaintances began to spend their lives on the road. Jenn talked about a

Fishin’ and Fabric Softener

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PARISH SPOTLIGHT

traveling soprano she met as the singer passed through Atlanta, whose “darkness” betrayed a conflict that dampened her obvious excitement. Her children were coming to see her! (It had been two months since she had seen them.) Greg spoke of a magazine interview with famed soprano Renee Fleming in which she had boastfully revealed that she took two whole weeks off each summer to spend with her children. He was not amused.

The passion for music is clearly still there, but the passion for roots, for family, is much stronger. The Carlsons still live in Lilburn, one block away from the house they lived in when Jenn was born. Just as Greg’s grandmother didn’t even blink when she heard, with two hours’ warning, that Jenn was coming that Independence Day, Jenn’s parents welcomed Greg, who lost his own 51-year-old father Charles to cancer in 2001. As loving grandparents, his in-laws are unequaled, says Greg—always available for Will, who loves anything and all things academic, and Charlie, who is proving to be an apt namesake for the grandfather he will never see.

After leaving the Opera in 2004, Greg discovered he had a gift for sales, first of telecom services and then for fast, beautiful automobiles. His primary job, however, is as self-proclaimed head cheerleader for his wife. Jenn, who modestly suggests that, of the two of them, it was her husband who had the legitimate chance to sing on Broadway, saw that day on a South Georgia dock that a love for music isn’t the only thing they share. They both realized, early on, that the ordinary, everyday, often-messy stuff of home and family is far more satisfying than the fleeting accolades of the stage.

And so, not as occasional attendees of a matinee on Broadway or a night at the opera, but with envy-inspiring regularity, we at Christ Church are graced with the heavenly voices of “homebodies,” one whose occupation at Hennessy Porsche makes it possible for the other to be with their children fifty-two weeks per year.

Fishin’ and fabric softener. At home, together. Sweet music indeed.

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STEWARDSHIP AND LEARNING

Free market capitalism as practiced in the United States is riddled with inefficiencies, inequalities, and corruption. However, it is still the best economic system ever devised to direct the natural human tendencies toward greed and self-interest into serving the needs of others.

The technical term for this process is “enlightened self-interest.” The practice of stewardship in the Christian church falls into the category of enlightened self-

interest as well, as it is very much in our interests to serve the needs of others. “Why” you may ask? Here are several reasons:

1. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors. He didn’t ask us; he commanded us. Sharing our wealth with others is a very real and tangible form of love.

2. It makes us feel good. Don’t believe me? Try it and see for yourself. A key to happiness is taking the focus off ourselves and putting it on others.

3. One of the immutable laws of the universe is, “What goes around comes around.”4. God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:6-7)

The beauty of capitalism is that it incentivizes people to work hard and make a profit off their labor or their investments. God asks us to share a portion of our profits, what’s left over after all the bills have been paid, with others who are less fortunate.

If you are a hard-nosed, practical person, you can look at this transaction as a form of insurance, like a life or health insurance policy held with each other. “I pay my insurance premium every month and hope that I never need to use it. But if something bad should happen to me, I have the peace of mind of knowing that I will be taken care of in turn.”

Ultimately the act of voluntarily sharing our personal wealth to help others strengthens our relationship with God. That is not something that will show up on a personal financial statement or in a bank account, but I believe with my whole heart that there is no more important use for my possessions or my life than that of “investing” them in my relationship with God.

— Charlie Post

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL

OPERATION OVERBOARD: GO DEEP WITH GOD!

July 23-27, 2012 — 9am -12 noon

Movie Madness Mondays

Mondays beginning

June 4, 2012 Movies begin at 9:00am

This summer at Christ Church we will be offering a day of fun and fellowship for our children and their friends. The morn-ing will start at 9:00am with an age-appropriate movie. We will then break for lunch (bring your own brown bag lunch). Pick up time is 12:30pm.

Movies this summer include . . . Winnie the Pooh, The Muppets, Gnomeo and Juliet, Finding Nemo, A Shark’s Tale, and many others.

This could be a great time for parents to have the morning “off” to run errands or have that much needed morning to your-self!!

Reading Circle with the Rector

Tuesday beginning June 5, 2012

3:00pm - 4:00pm When I taught fifth grade, I discovered a story that, by its exploration of science and religion, stirred my faith. “A Wrinkle in Time,” written by the late Madeleine L’Engle, a lifelong Episcopalian, tells the story of a family whose father, a govern-ment physicist who has learned time and space travel, is stranded on a darken planet. The children, guided by three “witches” (actually they are angels), travel through space to rescue their father. I would like to invite children from rising 2nd graders through rising 8th grade to join me on Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. to read “A Wrinkle in Time” and share ideas about the story’s themes. We will also enjoy a homemade snack, and time for free play outside. We will begin on

June 5. Please join us!

Wonderfully Wacky

Wednesdays

Wednesday beginning June 6, 2011

“Classes” begin at 10:00am

Wednesdays, this summer, are going to be filled with lots of fun things to do and learn for the children of Christ Church (and of course their friends). We will be discovering some of the gifts that God has given us and how we can use those gifts for others. We will be exploring our Artis-tic, Culinary, and Horticultural gifts, along with our gifts for exploring the world that God has given us. These “classes” will cost $5.00 per class or $40.00 for the whole summer.

Activities will include . . . Creating a biblical garden, exploring our faith through Arts and Crafts, and more cooking, .

So set aside Mondays, Tuesdays, and/or Wednesdays this summer for a day of fun and fellowship for your child at Christ Church. You will need to call Gretchen at the church for reservations.

Vacation Bible School

Operation Overboard: Go Deep With God!

July 23 - 27, 2012 9:00am - 12:00noon

Come join us (and bring your friends) as we dive in and discover God’s under-water universe! We will journey miles below the water’s surface into God’s word to find what true faith is all about. We will meet people from the Old Tes-tament and New Testament who show deep faith by depending on God, daring to care, claiming Jesus, choosing to follow, and changing the world. To pre-register for this truly exciting week at Christ Church, please call Gretchen Creel at the church office -- 770/447-1166 ext. 227. OR you can visit our VBS website at : http://overboard.cokesburyvbs.com. Click “Locate Church” and enter the zip code 30071 in the space provided and look for Christ Church Episcopal.

Cost $25.00 for one child

$10.00 for each sibling

Children’s Special Events & Announcements

Only $25/child!$10 for each add’l sibling

To Preregister:Contact Gretchen@ 770-447-1166

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SCENES OF PARISH LIFE

J2A NIGHT ON THE

RED CARPET EASTER BONNET TEA

EASTERBREAKFAST & FLOWERS

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Homelessness ForeclosureEviction Poverty

QUICK!! What are the first things that come to your mind when you read those words?

Chances are you have a negative reaction. Perhaps even fear. Hear the word “homeless” and what probably pops into your head is the image of a drunk, dirty, unemployed adult sleeping on a sidewalk or under a bridge in downtown Atlanta. Read the words “foreclosure” or “eviction” and you think of a deadbeat, an irresponsible person who spends his money foolishly—and not on his mortgage or rent. And you may think of someone living in “poverty” as lazy, relying on society to pay their bills.

Don’t feel alone. You’re in the majority of Gwinnett County citizens.

But you’re wrong.Take a look at these facts:

• The average age of a homeless person in Gwinnett County today is…are you ready?...SIX. Georgia has the second highest number of homeless children in the nation. In 2010-2011 alone, the Gwinnett County Schools served over 1,700 homeless children.

• Foreclosure, on average, is the direct result of a catastrophic event—unexpected illness, death of a provider, a major accident, job loss, or a combination of factors. It affects the entire socio-economic spectrum of our county. Georgia is #4 in the nation for foreclosures, a top ten list no one wants to be on. Gwinnett County is “ground-zero” and has been since 2009. But it doesn’t stop there…

• In addition to foreclosures in 2011, there were over 26,000 evictions in Gwinnett County, affecting over 70,000 people, many of which were children. Which brings us back to…

• Homelessness and poverty. The majority of homeless families today were hardworking people living from paycheck to paycheck until one of those “catastrophic events” came along. The 2010 Census revealed Georgia’s poverty rate as third highest in the nation—and almost 14% of the citizens of Gwinnett were living below the established “poverty line.”

MISSION FOCUS

Tom MerkelCEO, The IMPACT! Group

Things AreNot Always

What They Seem

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MISSION FOCUS

The IMPACT! Group (TIG), is a private non-profit housing agency based in Norcross. Estab-lished in 1993, our mission is: “to transform lives and strengthen communities by providing quality housing solutions.”

Over 80% of our funding is provided by foun-dations, churches, private businesses, and people just like YOU. We operate two departments—one a “transitional housing” program, where families get back on their feet, the other our “Homeowner-ship Center,” where current best practices in own-ing and maintaining a home are taught.

Our transitional housing department currently provides over 60% of the long-term transitional housing available in Gwinnett County. While 60% sounds impressive, in reality, we provide 24 hous-ing units—yes, 24—in a county of over 850,000

citizens. Our programs offer not a hand out, but a hand up—certified case managers provide support services, including development of individualized self-sufficiency plans, training in life skills and financial literacy, ar-rangement for day care, assistance with job placement, and help in finding affordable rental housing. We are proud that over 90% of those served by TIG have reached a new level of self-sufficiency within 18 months of their graduation from our program.

The TIG Homeownership Center is staffed by HUD-certified housing counselors that provide traditional housing counseling, foreclosure assistance, and training in financial literacy and budgeting, through first-time homebuyer education programs and access to down payment assistance programs. Statistics show that people who complete certified housing counseling programs like ours are 60% more likely to save their homes in harsh economic times, and are 50% more financially secure than those who do not work with a housing counselor.

The need in our community is great. In 2011 alone, we received over 7,000 requests for assistance from the citizens of Gwinnett. Those families crossed all socio-economic lines and even included members of our own Christ Church family. Unfortunately, though, because of a lack of sufficient resources and space we were able to address the needs of less than one family in five who sought help.

This past month, I was fortunate to be invited by the Ves-try and Clergy of Christ Church Episcopal to address “The Need” in the community, and I want to take this opportunity to THANK YOU for your generous support and concern. My family and I have belonged to Christ Church for approximate-ly 30 years, and I’ve seen the love of this congregation over and over in those three decades. I am humbled by the support you’ve shown and I know you will continue to respond.

When I was a young boy, my grandmother often said when she saw another in need, “There but for the grace of God go I.” She was right. And in these troubled economic times, the number in need continues to be great. But the old images we’ve all come to associate with words like homelessness, foreclosure, eviction and poverty no longer apply. The evidence is right in our own backyard.

To learn more about TIG and how you can help, feel free to contact me personally @ 678-808-4456. Visit our website at www.theimpactgroup.org. Together, we can weather the blights of poverty and homelessness, and we must. Because, as my grandmother said: There but for the grace of God, go us all.

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SHARPE NOTES

MAJORITY OR MINORITY?

I recently subscribed to a free trial on Ancestry.com. Digging in, I followed one branch of my family tree all the way to southern France, another to Massachu-setts and the Salem witch trials (where my ancestor was prominently on the wrong side), and another to a noted English book publisher whose store had been in St. Paul’s Cathedral until Charles I was beheaded. His house and shop had been taken away from him, result-ing in his indenturing his two sons to a sea captain headed for Virginia. A couple of my ancestors fought as patriots in the Revolutionary War; a double-great uncle from Georgia died at Gettysburg but his brother did not, which was fortuitous for me.

Energized by my findings, I followed another line of my family tree that I had known almost nothing about, and soon reached a dead end. Unlike most of the others, which had revealed a reverse trail from north Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina to Vir-ginia and beyond, this one grew cold in South Carolina with the death of my fifth-great-grandfather in 1782. I dug around a little bit more, trying to learn as much as I could about this fellow of German descent.

That’s when I found it. His name appeared on a list of 300 soldiers executed by patriots after the Revolutionary War. He’d been a Loyalist, a Tory. Born in 1717 back in Germany, he’d come to the New World in search of a better life, just as most of the ancestors of European Americans did, and found himself on the wrong side of history.

Truth be told, he wasn’t alone. When it all started, there were many who thought it a bad idea. It is incredibly easy, it seems, to forget that it was, in fact, a small band of shopkeepers and landowners far to the north who started the whole dastardly idea of claiming independence from the oppression of England.

Few of us, even today, dare identify with a minority position; we prefer to stay with the safer, more predictable choices, unless we are the ones whose freedom is restricted. Even then, we can be brought around to the idea that there is something we’ve done or not done that makes us “less than” those who oppress. The Bible, unfortunately, is one of the main instruments wielded for that purpose.

I doubt anyone today with an IQ above 100 would suggest that slavery, in any setting, is right. Yet, it took a small band of black preachers and a tired lady who simply sat down in an empty seat one day in Montgomery in 1954 to begin changing minds about the equality of people of color.

If you look back to the very beginning, you will find that not many black Americans supported Mar-tin Luther King. I suspect they thought of him in the same way my five-great-grandfather John Nicholas Bundrick thought about Samuel Adams—that because of his rhetoric, the powers that were would come crashing down on their heads. And in both cases, they did. The Redcoats came marching and so did the longstanding “Jim Crow” justice of the South. But it didn’t stop MLK or Sam.

15

ON BEING A CHRISTIAN AMERICAN

The same thing has happened with respect to the rights of women, most recently with respect to the issue of women as formally recognized spiritual leaders in the church. As a young girl, I asked more than once why it was that the male leaders of my church thought it was “good news” to me that though I had a passion for God and a number of gifts with which to express it, I was denied the opportunity to use them. It’s been 50 years, but thankfully it’s no longer quite as jarring to think of someone named Cecilia as one’s rector.

Eventually, the tide will turn with respect to other issues that make our blood boil. One day, someone will write as I do today—about the American Revolution or the civil rights movement or women in the church—and wax philosophical about how hard it is to remember what it was like “back in the days” when the expression of love between two human beings was repudiated on any basis, liberal or conservative, black or white, male or female, slave or free, patriot or Tory.

Who knows how long it will take—after all, we’ve been waiting to read that particular essay for a lot longer than 250 years. Even so, just when we’ve gotten lazy, thinking an issue settled for good, another attempt to suppress the freedoms granted by God (and more recently the Constitution) flares up.

It was an immense undertaking, that all-encompassing freedom fight started 2000 years ago by a renegade band of 13 in a land thousands of miles to the east of where we stand. And, as usually happens, the majority at the time killed the leader of that band, hoping the whole thing had been quashed, that his message would be forgotten.

It’s easy two millenia later to rationalize that I would have been one of his followers, that I would have taken the road of love as Jesus did, no matter what the cost. But the truth is after researching my own history, I’m not so sure. This following Jesus thing is not for the faint of heart—even Simon the Rock had doubts when the going got tough. I might not have been in the crowd yelling for Barabbas but I can assure you that I would probably have beaten a path back to my fishing boat. I suspect that the majority of those who call themselves Christians (in this country also still the majority of citizens) would have done the same. Jesus did, after all, say that the “path to heaven” is narrow and the highway to destruction wide. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination as to where 51% or greater would fit.

The question, though, is not what I would have done 2000 years ago. What matters is what I do now. Will I stand in defense of those whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are restricted, those unjustly persecuted, controlled, oppressed because they don’t look like me, act like me, believe like me, love like me? Or in years to come, will I take the safe road like my ancestor John Nicholas Bundrick? Will I one day speak in self-indictment as did German pastor Martin Niemoller after WWII?

First they came for the communists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.And then they came for me...

My favorite humorist, Mark Twain, once wrote, “When you find yourself in the majority, it’s time to rethink your position.” Alexis de Tocqueville, French author of Democracy in America, spoke of the risk of the “tyranny of the majority,” a condition in which the larger crowd, who by nature yells the loudest, can drown out the truth. The Achilles heel of democracy is that “rightness” of an idea has nothing to do with the number of people who believe it.

Thankfully, a decision to love doesn’t require a majority vote…and once made, it can’t be drowned out, defeated, or extinguished. Otherwise, we would never have even heard of Jesus.

In case you missed it…our new bishop-elect is The Very Rev. Robert C. Wright, who most recently served as the rector of Historic St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, SW Atlanta, the oldest Black Episcopal Church in the state of Georgia.

Rob was born in a Catholic orphanage in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and adopted by Charlene and Earl Wright at nine months old. Upon graduating from high school, he joined the U.S. Navy and became a helicopter crew-chief and “search and rescue” diver.

After five years of service, Rob enrolled in Howard University where he received a degree in US History and Political Science. He has worked for the Children’s Defense Fund and two mayors of Washington DC as a child advocate. He formerly served at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City where he was Canon Pastor and Vicar. He is a graduate of Virginia Theological Seminary, Cambridge University and the Harvard Summer Leadership Institute.

Rob is married to Dr. Beth-Sarah Wright. They have five children: Jordan, Emmanuel, Selah, Noah, and Moses-Daniel.

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A Warm Welcome to Recent Visitors…

And…

To the Newly Elected 10th Bishopof the Diocese of Atlanta!

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