November 14, 2025

Greetings from Rochester, home of the 2025 Convention of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota. Your Saint Anne's delegates - Corinne Hamlin and Cathryn Bashore - as well as Bob Furniss and I make up the Saint Anne's contingent this year; we are here through Saturday. And those of you who aren't with us in person are still very much a part of this in spirit. Earlier this week, Bishop Loya wrote the following about this annual ECMN gathering to do the business of the church, and to connect with each other:

Each time we gather, as I sit and look at the assembly, I can feel the real presence of all of our ancestors gathered with us. There is no challenge that we face today, that our forebears have not also faced at some point along the way.  We are not simply meeting to conduct the necessary business of institutional life; we are incarnating and giving voice to the mystical union that we have been given in each other, with all those who have come before us, and with all those who will come after us. 

In each of our local congregations, and as a diocesan family, we have been in entrusted with something we did not create. We will hand off to others work that is not ours to finish. But we have been given this moment and this work. What an astonishing thing.

We do have extraordinary challenges right now in terms of shaping a world that is more Christ-like, but It is good to frame it as work are trusted with it, and good to remember we don't it alone. We at Saint Anne's are members of a larger body, one that cares just as much about loving our neighbors as we do. One that wants health and safety for all, just as we do. One that can find joy in even the difficult work, can celebrate the little things, and is always looking to what's next, just as we do. 

My prayer for you this week is that, wherever you are, you feel the support and encouragement of this larger family, that our shared hope buoys you, and that you know whatever lies in front of us, we never walk alone.