Category Archives: Church

February 14, 2014 · 2:11 pm

Swords to ploughshares, Rwanda

Machete caked with garden dirt, in Kigali, Rwanda

Swords into ploughshares is from the Book of Isaiah:

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. — Isaiah 2:3–4

I thought about Bible verse many times while in Rwanda last week, particularly when watching machetes being used for gardening. I have many garden tools and, despite living on the Guadalupe River and regularly clearing brush as part of my work on the bank, I have never needed a machete. In Rwanda, I several times watched a machete being used as a hoe or to clear an overgrown path, and reflected that it is a good general-purpose implement if other tools are lacking. However, I also remembered Immaculée Ilibagiza writing of her 1994 experience during the Rwanda genocide:

There were many voices, many killers. I could see them in my mind: my former friends and neighbors, who had always greeted me with love and kindness, moving through the house carrying spears and machetes and calling my name. “I have killed 399 cockroaches,” said one of the killers. “Immaculée will make 400. It’s a good number to kill.” (from Left to Tell, 2006)

Rwanda is essentially twenty years old – its remarkable success since 1994 being all the more impressive because of the depths from which the country has risen. Last week, the TechWomen delegation visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre (in which a machete is prominently displayed as the signature weapon) and saw graveyard/memorials along the road into the mountains. There must be few parts of Rwanda entirely free of the memories and events of 1994’s savagery. Yet, Rwanda has indeed turned swords into ploughshares (or, machetes into hoes in their case) and gotten on with the necessary business of making things better.

Some of my garden tools, in San Jose, California, USA

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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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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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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!