From Don's Desk
A few miscellaneous items in no particular order:  I continue to be both pleased and impressed with St. Paul’s generous response when asked to help in a worthy cause (we received over $350 in response to Gay’s request for contributions to help with medical relief in Sudan . . .  it isn’t too late, if you’d like to add your gift) . . . and by the tremendous dedication of so many of us on projects like our cherished Mitford Tea (we outdid ourselves again this year. Kudos. Bravissimo!) . . . and isn’t it great to have Donna and Rob among us again?…and, since several have asked, we are cautiously optimistic that our elder daughter Allyson’s bone marrow function is improving and producing more white cells . . . and I’m making progress with my finger, even though sometimes I get lazy and don’t do the therapy  . . .
    
    Here are a couple of items I want to share with you:

    “A politically committed spirituality contends against wrong without becoming wrongly contentious. It confronts national self-righteousness without personal self-righteousness. It cherishes God’s creation; it serves the poor; it is not interested in the might of a nation but in the goodness of its people.”  (William Sloan Coffin, who died recently)

    And this, an Easter poem written by Fr. Matt Conrad (St. Luke’s, Atascadero, used with permission):

Easter 2006:  Mark 16:8
“…Terror and Amazement Seized them… They Were Afraid!”

May our worries and fears become only grist for the mill of your love, O God.
May our love become only the merest flavoring for the flour you grind.
May our weakness…
May our small and narrow view…
May our wonder…
Be crushed under the wheel of life, and sifted through…

Then knead us, O God;
salt and leaven us…
Bake us well with grace;
that we too, as He,
may become bread for the world.

Break us then;
distribute us, as You know best.
And in this feeding, may all creation be blest.

And we?...
We…be lost,
…no…found,
…in You!
And…therefore…raised!

    Don’t forget to wear red for Pentecost, June 4. Still basking in the afterglow of Easter, still baking and being baked in the incubator oven of Easter,
Don