Religious Education Update - February 2011

Lent’s late beginning this year makes it easy to remind ourselves that the name for the ecclesiastical season derives from the lengthening of the days as spring approaches.  Even on mornings when the temperature falls below zero, the warm sun on those cold, clear late winter days is measurably higher each afternoon.  We cherish those spirit-lifting moments of warmth, even though we know that March may still choose to enter lion-like.  Lent can also be a time for occasional celebration.  We can make good use of these remaining indoor days by finding time for reading, thinking, praying and preparing for the release which comes with Easter.

Among the opportunities for education and introspection that we’re making available for the season of Lent is the next in our series of wonderful Bible study courses conducted by our cherished Fred Berthold.  The Rev. Berthold, as many of you know, is a retired Professor of Religion at Dartmouth, and was the first Dean of the Tucker Foundation.  This term’s course, entitled “Early Christianity and the Road to Orthodoxy”, will begin on March 6th.  Signup sheets will be available in the church office.  Reading materials will be announced shortly, and will be on reserve in the Church Library. The course will meet each Sunday from 4:00 – 5:15 p.m. and will run for seven weeks, ending on Palm Sunday.  It is not necessary for interested participants to attend every session.  Each class will be recorded, and notes will also be circulated. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

I mentioned earlier that Lent can be a time for occasional celebration.  One of these occasions will be on Friday, March 25th, when everyone in the congregation is invited to celebrate our community at our annual March Madness potluck and talent show.  Last year we ran this as a dessert buffet only, but we are returning to the format of a full-blown potluck supper.  We’ll have signup sheets in the church office and on the credenza on the balcony.  We are hoping to feature talent of all kinds and you can expect a vigorous recruiting effort.  There is plenty of time for individuals and groups to prepare skits, songs, stories or standup.  We’re hoping to have a Sanborn Hall filled to Fire Code capacity.  Circle the date:  March 25th.  We hope to see you there!

Just a week ago, eight members of the CCDC congregation returned from Mississippi, having finished a good week of hard work and learning by helping Habitat for Humanity in the little town of Jonestown.  CCDC has been going to the Jonestown/Clarksdale vicinity for 16 years, and Carla counts well over 100 members of our church who have participated, including some for many years.  Such has been the case for Bob and Jean Keene, who are by now well known in the area. Jean spent the entire week in local schools, visiting old friends and making new ones, distributing some of the scores of books that she has been collecting, and reading with the children.  Although Bob’s skill as a carpenter made him invaluable on the work site, he spent the better part of a day in one of the schools, speaking to an all-school assembly about dental hygiene, and then staying after school to meet with the teachers and reinforce what he had taught.

Several of us who had been to Jonestown last year, including Mark and Curtis McPeek and longtime friend, Margaret Dyer-Chamberlain, had the pleasure of seeing the house we had worked on last year near the point of completion (thanks to cabinet-installer Bob Keene!), and meeting the family which had been selected to take on ownership.  Members of three different Habitat families worked alongside us all week, and at Friday’s dedication ceremony we met some of the younger children who will soon be moving into these houses.  Knowing that their lives will be fundamentally changed for the better, and multiplying that happiness by the hundreds of hours given to Habitat over the years by this church, both in Mississippi and here in the Upper Valley, is a humbling experience. Multiplying that by the thousands and thousands of hours given to Habitat chapters across the country really makes it possible to believe that this sort of work can not only change many lives, but may help change a generation.  We are fortunate and grateful to be a part of this work. 

Rob Grabill