On July 1, the Episcopal Church celebrates the feast day of Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, a truly remarkable member of our clergy and person of many accomplishments. Many of you had the chance to learn more about Pauli in our Bread Talk on June 29, and I was so glad to see so many people interested in this amazing person from our recent church history! Pauli was born in 1910 in Baltimore but grew up in Durham, North Carolina. They became a college graduate (rare enough for anyone in that era, let...

I've discovered that, as the Children & Youth Program Director, I spend a lot of my time at St. Clare's asking and answering questions: which room is available? is the schedule up-to-date? where did the marker cap go? how many sandwiches do we need and do any of them have onions? Most of these questions have concrete answers—18 sandwiches, no onions—but there are many that don't. The questions that need time and space, prayer and conversation to answer, are the same ones I come back to...

June 8 is a big day at St. Clare's! At 8:30, we'll celebrate a quiet Pentecost service in the St. Francis chapel. You're welcome to bring a favorite poem that reminds you of Pentecost to share, if you wish. At 10:30, our Cantabile choir will roll out our theme for the season after Pentecost, with their musical: The Rock Slinger and His Greatest Hit. What can we do when we're up against a giant force that wishes us harm, and everyone is a little too afraid or unsure to know how to face it?...

Forty days after Easter, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Ascension. The story of Jesus ascending to heaven is told in Luke’s Gospel and in Acts, with minor differences (even though scholars believe the same person or group wrote both books). Jesus and the disciples go a little ways outside of Jerusalem, they have a conversation (in Acts), Jesus blesses them (in Luke), and Jesus is carried up into heaven. In Acts, the disciples stare up watching to see where Jesus went (certainly...

A teacher of mine used to say that conducting operas / musicals was like learning how to drive a stick shift car. Your body and your brain are working on multiple planes simultaneously, and once you’ve done that, driving an automatic vehicle (ONLY playing an instrument or ONLY conducting an orchestra) seems easy! In many ways, being IN a musical is the same: our amazing young performers have been working tirelessly on our upcoming spring musical which will be presented on Sunday, June 8 at the...

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...