Some Thoughts from the Lay Director
As my time as your Lay director draws to a close, I am excited about the prospects for the future of
Cursillo. With Jan Paxton as our new Lay Director, I am sure Cursillo will gain new levels of value within the Diocese. She has already begun a conversation about clarifying our identity as an organization within the Diocese. With Servant Community moving towards the clearer role of Leaders School, as well as the body that does the work of Cursillo, guided by the vision of the Secretariat, we should hopefully see it grow into a group of people called to become leaders within the Community, both as people who have the call to serve the Community regularly and people who serve the Community for specific tasks for a limited time.
I have mentioned that Jan is the new Lay Director, moving up as planned from the roll of Assistant Lay Director. Sandra Cummins has been called to, and has agreed to accept, the position of Assistant
Lay Director, which means that in two years, she will become the Lay Director. I believe she is an
excellent choice for the future of Cursillo. She will be an effective and compassionate leader. The Rev.
Kevin Coffey will continue in the roll of Spiritual Director for another year. The Rev. Ronnie Stout-
Kopp has accepted the position of Assistant Spiritual Director. She will then become the Spiritual Director next year. I believe she will be an asset to the Community in that roll. Beyond those changes, the decision was made to trim down the size of Secretariat to the minimum size prescribed in the by laws. This will help allow Secretariat to be more efficient in their roll as the governing body and the visionaries for the Community, while Servant Community takes on the roll of implementation of the vision. The body of Secretariat will be filled by Janet Hager as Treasurer, Glenda de Kruif as Secretary,
Carol Haefele as the Head of Servant Community, and Joe Pickard as the Spiritual Director of the
Servant Community.
It will be a strange feeling to not have to go to a Secretariat meeting each month. I will miss the
camaraderie that comes with working together with others for a period of time. I plan to remain an
active member within the Servant Community, where I hope to promote the true benefits of Servant Community within the larger Community as the place to become more acquainted with the meaning and the value of Cursillo beyond the Three Day Weekend. I think that the Fourth Day message is the vitally important roll of Servant Community over the next several years and beyond. Without a vibrant Fourth Day, the Three Day Weekend has significantly less value, and loss over time of unconnected weekend attendees will remain a concern. These are not easy problems to solve. It is, however, my hope that a growing and effective Servant Community will provide a better understanding, through study of the method (Leaders School) and programs such as Days of Deeper Understanding, of what it is to live in the Fourth Day.
To close, I would like to say that it has been an honor to serve as your Lay Director for so many years. Thank you for being part of my life and allowing me to be a part of yours. May God guide and strengthen you in your Fourth Day walk.
De Colores
Joe Stewart
Retired Lay Director
PIETY - Some Stuff I learned on my weekend at NewArk #31...
Kim Eisenhower
St. James, Ridgefield
It’s really cool to hug and get hugged, a lot.
It feels good to sing happy clappy songs about God, even in the shower.
I wasn’t a bad Mom; I just hadn’t been seeing Christ in my children. I do now.
Just because my husband doesn’t go to church, doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe. I learned to have
faith in him.
Love is enjoyed most when given freely and without expectations.
Trust is a really scary thing when you don’t have God.
Warm and fuzzies should be shared all the time.
Not speaking is the absolute best way to learn to listen.
God does answer prayer, every day.
Smiling when you sing makes the music all the more enjoyable.
I didn’t need to go far to find God. He was with me the whole time.
Meditation is rewarding.
I now know how to pray. And I do, every day.
Rainbow colored stuff is cool.
Friends come in all colors, shapes and sizes.
Candlelight and chanting is an amazing way to pray.
I make mistakes and it’s okay. God still loves me.
It’s easy to say I’m sorry but a bit tougher to really mean it.
I really like singing in the key of “C”.
Forgiving someone from my heart is a very liberating experience.
Holding hands during prayer is really nice.
It’s okay that I don’t know everything in the Bible.
Priests and Nuns and Bishops are regular people.
It's okay to cry. Jesus wept.
Other people, even people that don’t know me, pray for me.
Everybody hurts sometimes.
I am not the center of my universe, God is. And I’m okay with that.
The Bible is not impossible to understand.
Every new day is a blessing.
Jesus died to save me.
Stuff happens. Let go, let God.
Study
Bible Blast in Newark
Ronnie Stout-Kopp
Christ Church, Pompton Lakes
The Bible is our foundation as Christians, one leg of our Anglican three-legged stool, and an essential
source for our study in Cursillo. The Discipleship Committee of the Christian Formation Commission in
the Diocese of Newark brainstormed the idea of sponsoring a diocesan-wide Bible study last November. But this was not to be any old ho-hum Bible study. “Unpacking the Bible” was meant to provide the ideas and energy to start Bible study groups where there were none before and to reinvigorate Bible study groups that had become rather hum-drum. Even more important, the emphasis of the evening was on the fact that Bible study groups can be facilitated and led by the laity – they do not have to be led by the clergy!
How to get people to attend such an event? Feed them in body and soul! So, we started by breaking
bread together. After our bodies were satisfied, we began with an introductory plenary session led by
the Rev’d Esar Budhu (St. Agnes’ & St. Paul’s, East Orange). Esar explained “the image of Christian life is a journey – a journey of living and growing in faith. We are a people on the move and the Bible becomes an invaluable resource as we travel on the way.” Following Budhu’s presentation, everyone had an opportunity to sample various methods for “unpacking the Bible.” Don Cairns (St. Clement’s,
Hawthorne) led an information session on Kerygma, Kathleen Ballard (Christ Church, East Orange)
presented Living the Good News, Edna McCarthy (Christ Church, Pompton Lakes) presented Serendipity, Forward Day by Day was presented by Joe Piel (St. Peter’s, Essex Fells), and doing Bible study with videos and DVD’s was done by Bill Calcagno (Christ Church, Pompton Lakes). Each of the presenters demonstrated their respective method, provided information, and talked about how that particular method worked in their Bible study group.
Then the group came together once again and did an African Bible study led by the lay members of
St. Agnes’ and St. Paul’s Church (East Orange). The attendees were all delighted and inspired by the
evening but left wishing that there was more time to actually do Bible study with each of the methods that was presented and more time for sharing in the African Bible Study. Everyone commented on the
strong sense of community and the fact that they had been fed in many different ways. In response to
feedback indicating a strong desire to establish a regular diocesan-wide Bible study, the Christian
Formation Commission has scheduled the next “STILL Unpacking the Bible” for April 20th, 6:30 pm, at Grace Church, Madison (call Kitty Kawecki at 973-430-9902 to register).
APOSTOLIC ACTION
Kathy Coffey
Atonement, Fair Lawn
Over the past years I have come to view myself in a kind of ongoing apostolic action to create spaces
where people can encounter God and can form community. These “spaces” have taken on various
forms from quiet piano music during communion or Taize-style prayer services to women’s discussion
groups. As 2004 drew to a close, I felt myself called to create yet another kind of space that would draw people closer to God.
On the first Sunday of December as I sat in our annual meeting and listened to Kevin share his dream
of building a labyrinth in the vacant lot adjacent to our church buildings, I suddenly felt called to invite
our congregation to walk a labyrinth on New Year’s Eve as a way to pray us into 2005. I looked around
me and envisioned candles burning in the windows a labyrinth in the center of the room, and people
walking the labyrinth as they sang “All My Life’s a Circle.” And as quickly as that, I decided to create the space that I had just envisioned.
Those of you who know me well may know that when I feel led to do something, I don’t let my lack of
knowledge or experience deter me. Such was the case with the labyrinth. I issued my invitation even
though Atonement owned no labyrinth and had no one to borrow one from. I figured we’d just make one.
I knew I couldn’t carry this project out alone, so I asked Kevin to get instructions on how to make a
labyrinth. Kevin was happy to oblige. On the afternoon of December 31st, we set out to Home Depot to purchase our labyrinth supplies. As Kevin drove, I reviewed the instructions and started some preliminary calculations. I quickly determined that this labyrinth was too large to fit into our worship space.
Thanks to technology, Kevin phoned our son and asked him to find a simpler labyrinth on the internet.
By the time we arrived home with paper drop clothes, markers, and lots of tape, our son had printed a
workable plan, which he showed me how to implement.
Again, those of you who know me well know that I’m spatially challenged. Drawing a labyrinth was not
playing to my strengths, but my enthusiasm for the project and Kevin’s patient explanation of what to
draw next kept me working. At one point, however, I couldn’t picture how to continue drawing, and I
began to doubt that I would be able to complete the labyrinth. But as Kevin and I talked together about
how to approach the task, we realized how we could use the tools we had to make it work.
The time for the party to begin was quickly approaching, and I still had much work left to complete. I just kept working steadily. At that point I didn’t know if anyone would actually come to pray with us, but that didn’t worry me either. I knew that my task was to create the space, not worry about how many or who would come to pray. It was one of those blessed times where all the effort would have been worthwhile if only Kevin and I had walked and prayed our way into the New Year. At one point a stranger wandered in looking for a 12-step group. He chatted with Kevin for a while as he watched me drawing on my hands and knees. He shared our hospitality although he didn’t return after the meeting to walk with us. Still I believe he was in some way touched by our efforts.
As others arrived, they offered their help to complete the work. I was happy to accept their help both in
completing the labyrinth and in repairing the labyrinth’s multiple tears during the course of the evening. It didn’t matter that the labyrinth was still being drawn as they arrived, and it didn’t matter that it was crude and somewhat fragile. The blessing was in the creating of the labyrinth and the sharing of it. As I stated earlier, I had envisioned our walking the labyrinth and singing, “All My Life’s a Circle.” To that
end I had photocopied the words to that song and a couple of other songs that mentioned circles. I had
also asked Kevin to lead us in a simple service using Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, “For everything there is a
season, and a time for every matter under heaven … ”I had created the space, and beyond this really
simple plan, I had no plan. I just turned people loose to walk the labyrinth as they felt led.
Our evening of labyrinth walking was possibly one of the most exuberant labyrinth walks ever. We had two children with us in addition to our five adults. During the course of the evening we walked—alone and in“follow-the-leader” style. We also ran, crawled, rolled, and even marched to recorded Christmas songs played Dixieland style. What sheer joy just to be ourselves! While ours may have been an
unconventional approach, we prayed with our bodies and found the experience fun and freeing. Just before midnight everyone joined together as a group, and we walked the labyrinth singing, “All My
Life’s a Circle.” Walking and singing as the New Year approached, seemed so appropriate to me, especially as we sang the lines, “the seasons spinning round again/The years keep rolling by” and “There’s no straight lines that make up my life/ And all my roads have bends/There’s no clear cut beginnings, and so far no dead ends. The experience far exceeded my vision of it. As the New Year dawned, we toasted 2005 and popped some streamers—the familiar trappings of a New Year’s celebration. Soon after we left exhausted but blessed. We had each met God in our own way, a joyful community had formed, and we began the New Year filled with anticipation! We were really ready to “go round one more time.” And for me, the evening had been a New Year’s Eve and apostolic action unlike any other.
All My Life’s a Circle
by Harry Chapin
All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown
The moon rolls through the night time
Till the day break comes around
All my life’s a circle, but I can’t tell you why
The seasons spinning round again
The years keep rolling by.
It seems like I’ve been here before,
I can’t remember when
But I got this funny feeling
That we’ll all be together again
There’s no straight lines that make up my
life
And all my roads have bends
There’s no clear cut beginnings,
and so far no dead ends.
I’ve found you a thousand times,
I guess you’ve done the same
But then we’ll lose each other
It’s just like children’s games
As I see you here again,
the thought runs through my mind
Our friendships like a circle,
Let’s go round one more time.
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