From the Rector

Organization as Resistance

This week, several news outlets reported an incident at a Dutch museum where a celebrated painting was damaged during an “unguarded moment.”

The work—Rothko’s Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8—was on display in a special “Depot,” an open-storage annex of Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

These publicly accessible spaces allow for expanded exhibition capacity and a closer, more intimate experience of extraordinary art – without the usual barriers and tight security of traditional galleries.

In this case, a child inadvertently touched the unvarnished painting, leaving light scratch marks on the €50 million masterpiece.

I hope that child has received a lot of grace. Accidents happen—even to masterpieces!

And still, perhaps there’s a case to be made for the protocols and safeguards museums usually enforce. Those of us with anti-authoritarian streaks may not love rules and ropes. But they exist for a reason: to cherish and care for what we value so that it can endure—so it can be received by those who come after us.

Over the past year, I’ve come to embrace part of my call to St. Michael’s as helping to renew and secure the organizational structures that support our life and ministry. We’re in a season of doing this work together—not just for now, but to ensure a legacy for those who come after us.

Things like good governance, systems integration, facilities assessments rarely get much attention, especially in a world that feels like it’s unraveling. But they are essential to living out our mission. (And if you’re not sure how vital these systems are, just look at the current efforts by so-called DOGE to dismantle them across the national government!)

Please join us Sunday afternoon!

This Sunday, 2:30-5:30 pm, is our next All-Parish Event in the Strategic Vision process. This Vision will get written down and become our roadmap for developing and resourcing ministry over the next five years.

To ground our planning in who we are today, we’ll ask you to share your experiences—what has drawn you in, what you’re passionate about, and where you’ve been involved. We’ll reflect on ministries “IN” the parish (formation, worship, care), “OF” the parish (outreach, advocacy, service), and “FOR” the parish (committees, building care, worship support).

It matters. And we need you to be involved! Please join us in Parish Hall, 2:30-5:30 pm, and add your voice to this important work that we are undertaking.

With you,

The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector

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Happy Easter!

“Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,/ Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;/
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:/ Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.”
(Love is Come Again, John Macleod Campbell Crum, 1872-1958)

During the next six Sundays of this Easter season, the readings will offer glimpses of early Christians coming to terms with manifold implications of resurrection. We will find a risen Christ appearing to disciples, dreamers, and skeptics alike. New believers will spread Easter tidings in word and action, far and wide. All will be undeniably affected by these encounters.

To all appearances, their wider world hasn’t much changed since the days before Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. (We can say the same in our own times!) But in heart and hope, everything is different now.

Everything is different, because they have seen the Christ—and he is risen. And if Christ is risen, then all of the powers of this world, including decay, destruction, and death, are not the most powerful powers. Their verdicts do not stand. Their judgments are null and void. Life and love win.

If this is true—and you know that I believe it is—then our faith is not unfounded, our hope is not in vain, and our lives have deep purpose in sharing in resurrection life and working for the renewal of all creation.

“Love lives again, that with the dead has been.”

The above stanza begins one of my favorite Easter hymns (one that rarely makes it into Easter Sunday lineups but always gets a turn during the Great Fifty Days). The singers look for the first shoots of green from a desolate earth, and they see in those meager signs a promise coming true.

I am with you in this Easter season, as we turn in joy and hope to the work of making all things new.

The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector

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