This Sunday we will be celebrating the baptism of Tommy and Theo Daniels! We’ll officially welcome them into our church family and reaffirm our own commitment to follow the way of Christ, while the parish community promises to help them and their family grow into their baptismal promises. In honor of that joy, I want to tell you the story of the absolute BEST baptism I’ve ever seen. During my time as a deacon, finishing up seminary and my internship at St. Clement’s out in Berkeley, I had the...

I have quite a few anecdotes that make it easy to explain why I love being a priest at St. Clare’s so much. Probably the most succinct one, though, is that a year or so ago I asked a few folks “what if one Sunday morning we sent all the adults downstairs for bible study and the kids stayed upstairs and we called it Upside Down Sunday?” and literally everyone said, “Sounds great!” And it was, in fact, great! So we’re going to do it again! Upside Down Sunday Part 2, coming this Sunday at 10:30!...

I want to tell you about how I’ve found being trans to be a joy. I want to tell you why it has been a blessing. [click the image for Rev. Toby’s homily delivered last Sunday at the Transgender Day of Visibility Evensong service at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Detroit.]

Recently while I was looking for something else, I found a pile of cloth face masks in many colors. I started sewing them by hand 5 years ago during all those early-Covid-era Zoom meetings when I desperately needed something to do with my hands to keep my anxiety down. Actual medical grade masks were nowhere to be found and we were supposed to be rationing them for medical workers anyway, but Joann Fabrics had plenty of scrap fabric and elastic. Once I got the hang of it, it was pretty easy....

In these weeks of so much destruction, the themes of Ash Wednesday have stayed present to me as Lent has unfolded: the finitude and potential present in ash. There have also been, as there so often are, a lot of emails, and so I hadn’t caught up on Kate Bowler’s lovely Lent series until today. The very first one spoke to me the most, and so I thought I’d share it. I hope you are finding grace and hope in the midst of this strange and beautiful and terrible experience of being human, created by...

During the next few months, Eliza and I are planning a few new ways to help engage kids in what’s going on during communion. Whatever works: First of all, there’s no right or wrong way for them to engage, and each kid is different (and then they grow and change and they’re different in a new way!). There’s nothing wrong with their needing a break in the family room after listening and participating in church school and children’s chapel. But engaging is good! I want you to know, without any...

by the Rev. Toby Darrah In our “Love God, Love God’s World” discussion group this week, one of the things we talked about was the ways in which we feel more connected to the earth. I mentioned that something I’ve noticed is that I feel more connected not only to the earth but also to the community when I’m able to walk places instead of driving everywhere. It also reminded me of how when I was a kid crawling around in my yard, making (probably structurally unsound) tents and houses out of...

One thing that’s been especially important to me in these overwhelming months is to make space for the difficult emotions- grief, fear, sadness. Because when I make space, I notice that these emotions don’t actually last forever, and they don’t take up all the space in the world. I, like all of us, have grown and can still grow in my ability to process and feel difficult things, and also to note that more positive emotions- happiness, joy, contentment- can all exist right alongside the more...

I have to admit, I sometimes struggle to pray with the Psalms. Some are lovely and joyful with wonderfully poetic expressions of the greatness of God. Some seem kind of irrelevant for prayer purposes; Psalm 45, for example, seems to be a description of a royal wedding. Others call for horrible curses upon the enemies of the psalmist. Psalm 109 asks that God make the unnamed opponent suffer and die: “May his children be orphans, and his wife be a widow.” Psalm 137 infamously prays that God make...

by Eliza Nuxoll, Children & Youth Program Director The morning after the Annual/Animal Meeting, I left for Waycross Camp & Conference center in Morgantown, Indiana, for the 2025 Forma Conference. Waycross was one of several on-site locations for this “radically hybrid” conference, which is hosted by Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) for Christian formation volunteers and professionals across the country.   At Waycross, there were five people from the Episcopal Diocese of...

by Karen Slagell, Parish Administrator How many times have you been at St. Clare’s and nudged the person next to you before asking, “Who is that [insert description of the person in question so you can identify them without pointing]?” Or maybe you asked “Who is [insert name here] because I need to talk with them about [insert topic here]? Now think about it from the opposite perspective: how might someone else know who you are? Answer: By your photo in our church directory! Right now, we have...

I wanted to give a little bit more of an in-depth update about our youth group, after our excellent youth group announcement at the annual meeting about the fundraiser. We tried a new, big thing this year: we moved youth group to its own time and space on Sunday evenings. This change has been great: it gives the youth group its own space, with time for deeper discussions, prayer, and building community. It's one of the most joyful parts of my job, getting to spend a few hours a week with these...