Category Archives: Church

December 28, 2013 · 11:08 am

After Christmas

Only a few Christmas presents are left to be distributed. We sadly bid farewell to Jessica and Matthew, who have traveled back to their jobs. John and Paul and I are still happily investigating our own presents here at home. For me, this means watching the Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and the four movie set of The Hollow Crown (Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, “Henry IV” i and ii, and “Henry V”). Yesterday, John posted his code and instructions on how to program a Christmas tree, on: http://www.spcoast.com/wiki/index.php/Christmas2013. Paul is enjoying post-final-exams, pre-quarter-start downtime. John and I went out on a movie date to see “Ender’s Game”, which was a good representation of that disturbing and superb book. It is pleasant to have some quiet days together.

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Tagged as Eleanor, Jessica, John, Matthew, Paul, Shakespeare, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

December 21, 2013 · 2:35 pm

Highway Angels

The Highway Angels of St.Andrew’s met at 7 am this morning to clean up our adopted section of California Highway 85, near the Saratoga Avenue exit. This was my first time picking up trash along the freeway and, despite our very early start, it was fun and interesting. Since 1999, our church has participated in the Adopt a Highway program, sending out a volunteer crew with trashbags, hardhats, tongs, and yellow safety vests about once a month.

Most of what we picked up was paper (cups and food wrappers, cardboard) and plastic bags, plus bits of metal, glass, and plastic off of cars. There were very few recycleables and only two big items – an old rug and a cardboard box. We found one empty wallet and quite a few gift cards: 2 from Starbucks, one from Jamba Juice, and one from Powell’s Sweet Shoppe. I also found a library card, a dime and a marble but everything else was trash. I shared a road section with Bob who started the Highway Angels ministry, who said he once found a $100 bill – which he donated to St. Andrew’s. We left the trash bagged along the road for Caltrans to pick up next week.

While pulling plastic bags out of the bushes, I thought about how much cleaner the public roads are than when I was a kid. I remember on our cross-country drives at night, the highways back then were lined with cans and bottles reflecting in the headlights. The strong culture of recycle-reuse-reduce has eliminated most of that, in California at least.

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December 16, 2013 · 5:18 pm

Silicon Valley Bethlehem and Cable Car

We enjoy Christmas events old and new here in the Silicon Valley. Our EfM class went to the Bethlehem – Walk Through the Christmas Story together a week ago – followed by dinner at Mio Vicino in Santa Clara. An unofficial highlight of the show was watching one of the flock headbutting all of the other sheep in turn while the shepherds and angel said their lines.

Last night a group of us current and former-Huawei staff got together for dinner (at Il Postale in Sunnyvale) followed by a motorized Cable Car Ride to see the holiday lights in Willow Glen.

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Tagged as Education for Ministry, Geeks, Huawei, John, Silicon Valley, technical women

December 12, 2013 · 4:06 pm

Reading Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” Aloud

The St.Andrew’s Shakespeare Reading Group decided to read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in honor of the season. Above you can see our hostess, Melita Thorpe, with John Watson-Williams dressed for his lead role as Ebenezer Scrooge. It took about 4-1/2 hours to read the entire short novel aloud (with breaks between staves for refreshments and a potluck dinner). We considered using one of the plays but decided that reading Dickens original 1843 text was better – since the plays both add and remove some of Dickens’ excellent prose. We distributed the text among our dozen readers:

Taking turns reading narration (about half a page before going to the next reader).
Dialogue was spoken as assigned parts. Some famous parts (including the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) have no spoken lines. We doubled up on small roles.

It was a delightful evening! Several of us plan to follow up by going to the Dickens Christmas Fair (at the Cow Palace) and to the ACT “Christmas Carol” stage play in San Francisco.

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November 14, 2013 · 1:25 pm

Dunk the Bishop and Other Convention Activities

Last weekend, the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real on California’s central coast held its 2013 convention – and celebrated the start of our seventh year under the inspiring leadership of Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves. I have been honored to be elected to serve as a convention delegate (or alternate) for the last ten years. My home parish of St. Andrew’s hosted the convention this year in Saratoga.

ECR includes 13,000 people in 47 congregations:

The Diocese of El Camino Real stretches from south of San Francisco to north of Santa Barbara. The congregations of El Camino Real are found in the five counties of San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey. Although the youngest diocese in California, ECR’s Trinity Cathedral, in San Jose, is the oldest cathedral structure in the State of California.

Conventions are for celebration of our ministry, updates, and managing the business of the church. However, this year we also enjoyed dunking Bishop Mary. She gamely “volunteered” to get wet as a fundraiser for our youth mission trip. Tickets were sold: $10 for 3 balls to try to dunk, or $20 not to dunk the Bishop. The youth raised $1,200 from ticket sales in one night! As always, the Rev. Stephenie Cooper and my husband John Plocher were the “Assistant Secretaries for Everything Else” – that is, running the computers and displays for the ECR convention.

Other more-conventional (ahem) activities included:

Celebrating the two month visit of The Rev. Fred Kalibwami to ECR from the Diocese of Western Tanganyika (DWT)
Bishop Mary’s annual address to the diocese, including announcing the purchase of Sargent House for the Bishop’s new offices in Salinas.
Honors to notable volunteers and lifetime contributors:
- Bishop’s Cross Recipients: The Rev. Roger Barney, and The Rev. Canon Linda Taylor
- Simple Servant Awards: Don and Diane Cooley, and Rosemary Tisch
Lunch gathering of the Education for Ministry mentors in ECR (including me!)
Reports on key ministries – outreach to the jails, campus ministry at four universities, and caring for the poor and homeless in our communities.
Election of delegates to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (held every three years). I was elected as first Alternate for the 2015 General Convention.
Displays by diocesan and charity groups, plus sales of crafts and Bishop Mary’s newest book Unearthing My Religion

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Tagged as Education for Ministry, Episcopal church, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

October 20, 2013 · 8:38 pm

Honoring My Parents with Sacred Threads

Two of the twelve newly-embroidered chairs dedicated at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) today were donated by my husband and me in honor of my parents: Wade and Eleanor Dickinson. The replacement chair seats were created as part of the Sacred Threads project. The new chair seat designs are inspired by the 1957-era stained glass church windows by Mark Adams. I think my mother was pleased to sit in a chair with her name on it!

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September 18, 2013 · 2:32 pm

30th Anniversary SMUM Community Ministry

On 15 September 2013, Santa Maria Urban Ministry (SMUM) celebrated its 30th anniversary with a “Fiesta for the Future” hosted by St.Jude’s Episcopal Church in Cupertino. SMUM was founded in 1983 as an outreach ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real, to provide emergency food to the residents of San José’s inner city. In addition to continuing to serve the needs of clients and promote their self-sufficiency, SMUM has developed transformative programs (pre-school, homework and computer lab, English as a Second Language, VITA tax services, backpack and Christmas present distribution…) to serve the needs of and promote self-sufficiency within the San José community.

The evening included a worship service lead by the Right Reverend Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves, a silent auction, folk dancing, music, and dinner with thanks to honor to the hundreds of donors and volunteers who have made this generous program a long-term success.