Dear Friends,
One of my core memories of St. Clare’s is forever going to be the evening of Easter Vigil 2026. Just as we were getting ready to get the service started in the Social Hall, somehow word spread through the group that there was a rainbow.
So of course we all ran outside to see it. And it was glorious. Everyone took pictures, but no one has yet invented a camera that could truly do justice to that bright glory in the sky and the awed, laughing faces below. If we hadn’t been ready to celebrate the joy and hope of Resurrection at the end of Lent, we were certainly well prepared after our little field trip outdoors!
2026 has been a year of joy and hope in our beloved church, as we celebrate the successes of our Capital Campaign, the new members who have found a home here, the continuing members who have found new ways to learn, grow, and reach out to help the community around us. In so many ways this has been a year in which St. Clare’s has flourished like the flowers after that gentle Easter rain.
Yet 2026 has also been a year of loss and uncertainty. Some dear friends have left us to move on to new stages of their lives, and some loved ones have slipped away to new life beyond the veil of death. The uncertainty and pain in the world around us affect us all; not just the work we need to do in the world, but our own emotional cores and the selves we bring to church.
In a shaky world, St. Clare’s has revealed itself as a place of stability. In a cold time, St. Clare’s provides the warmth of hope. Perhaps more importantly, the people and words of our community don’t simply rest here or hide from the insecurity outside. We come to renew ourselves, to renew our hope, and then we go back out to bring others in.
One of the greatest gifts of St. Clare’s is its faith in God, but that faith is greatly accented by the faith the people here keep in each other. We make more room. We find a way. And we keep creating new ways to show the hope of God’s promises to each other and to the world outside. We build, we plant, we grow. Even when we worry, with quite reasonable worries in this strange world (How expensive will utilities be this year? What will happen with our music program? What about children’s programs? How much help can we afford?), we stretch, pray, and ask God to help us make things happen.
The rainbow has long faded, and the Paschal candle waits in storage for Easter, but the light of God always shines, and St. Clare’s keeps reflecting it into the world.
Please pray with us and consider how much you might consider giving to the St. Clare’s operating budget in 2027. Pray for us to be good stewards of the many gifts the church has received and has to give. God is with us, in rainbows and hymns and love all around. That is the hope we can offer to a world that needs it.
In Peace,
Rev. Toby