From the Rector's Annual Report

Dear Good People:

I would like to welcome you all to the annual Meeting of the Parish and thank you for attending.  2010 was a full and rewarding year for the parish. At our vestry planning retreat last January I asked members of the vestry to write down what about St. John’s was closest to their hearts, or to give a concise description of the essence of St. John’s. We posted them around our retreat area, and looked at the opportunities and strengths they revealed. From there, we developed the “Gather Together, Grow Together” gatherings in which well over a hundred of you actively participated. We looked at our strengths, our living assets as it were, and explored how we could build on them to face future challenges. It is so easy in our society to ask, what is wrong, who is to blame, how to avoid failure. No wonder the world often seems like a dismal and unsupportive place. In contrast, a healthy and dynamic parish community asks what is nourishing, what energizes us, and what are the possibilities for new growth in our life together. A healthy parish uses its strengths to grow, to overcome obstacles, and to move forward.

       We discovered that as a parish we have great gifts and strengths in abundance. As a result of our gatherings we identified top strengths such as: we are a diverse, open community that is always evolving; there is a depth and breadth of activities supported by this parish; there is a generosity expressed in caring for one another and the larger world; youth are welcomed; our music ministry is comprehensive and superb; there is a richness to the liturgy and the Episcopal-Anglican tradition; we are home to Loaves and Fishes, and we have a quality and dedicated staff supporting us. I have asked the candidates who are standing for election to offer their specific comments, and we will add them to the mix at out vestry retreat next week. A few are displayed around the walls of the parish house. Ask yourselves what strengths and opportunities do they reveal?

       What are some of the past year’s examples of our building on our strengths?  Our youth offered a very competent production of Godspell to a more than capacity audience. We had the highest enrollment in our choir camp ever. In the past six months, our choirs have offered three sung evensongs. We continued our support down in New Orleans, in Haiti, the Kitchen cupboard, and Loaves & Fishes. This past Christmas we contributed over sixty-five gifts to the Salvation Army Christmas program. St. Simeon’s Guild, a new gathering for 20’s and 30’s has been formed. I could go on and on, but the copies of all the annual reports here also give a good, but never complete indication of what has been accomplished, and it’s too bad that we usually accept them by title. Read them, and digest them and enjoy them! I think you will be both surprised and proud. Copies are in the narthex entering the church, in the tract rack in the hall leading to the parish house, or available in the parish office.

         I don’t think this is the most important thing, but it is still OK to celebrate even minor victories. Three months ago we had a cash flow problem and it looked as if we might end up about $10,000 in the hole. A call for help and extra sacrificial gifts was issued, and you all responded. I’m happy to say that, thanks to you, you did it, and St. John’s ended the year clearly in the black, with its first operating surplus in three years. We are not wealthy, and with the cold weather the surplus has likely gone up the furnace stacks, and there are real financial challenges ahead. But it shows, we can do it. We have all the resources we need to be a strong and successful witness in our community. We all did it, so turn to a person next to you and say thank you.

      I do want to make note here that your vestry is working very hard to bring our income and expenses into balance. For 22011 we have had a larger than normal employee health insurance increase, and was a main reason why this year we did not give any salary increments. This has been common especially among education, public and social service employees during this difficult economic time. Some employers have in effect cut actual wages by seemingly granting raises, while at the same time making them pay a portion of their health insurance premium. This practice rarely benefits the employee. The point I’m trying to make is that we are not content to be an average employer, or to follow what the majority of employers around Ithaca do. We are called to be a leader, a model, and an above average employer. Average is simply not good enough. As necessary as it seems to have been, and I want to be clear I’m not protesting or second-guessing the decision, nonetheless, it still pains me, and one of the challenges we have is to ensure this does not need to happen next year.

       Coming up on Feb. 6th, Nancy Radloff and friends, including Andy McCullough who grew up here in the parish, are generously offering a benefit concert to raise funds to completely rebuild our choir room piano that is about 80 years to a century old. On the 27th of Feb., pianist Jennifer Hayghe has been invited back to offer a special recital. This is over and far above average for a parish to offer. I commend both of these events to you and your friends. You sure won’t be embarrassed to invite people to either of these two concerts. I also want to mention, that we are looking for a gift of a studio size piano for the parish hall to use for mini concerts and presentations. The old upright gives wonderful service to guests who come in and have pounded it for years. We have no intention of removing it. But we need a piano our director can see over and, and one that is not so heavily used five days a week. So if you hear of someone who is moving or wants to gift a studio piano, please let us know.

       I want to acknowledge and thank Taryn Chubb, Charlie Ciccone, and Susie Backstrom who have served as wardens this year and also to thank Woodrow Miller and Amy Cronin who have served on the vestry these past three years and are rotating off. It has been a personal joy to work with all these people.

       Lastly, I want to thank our paid staff, Nancy, Sarah, Sue, and Mindy for supporting all of us. Father Lewis Coffin continues to faithfully and generously celebrate the Eucharist on most Tuesdays.  Fr. Richard Strauss usually celebrates the early Sunday service once a month, and something that never should be taken for granted, keeps our organ in fine condition. All of them understand that what they do is a real and valuable ministry, not simply a job, and that is a very real leaven of blessing that permeates all through our parish.

       Lastly I also want to express my appreciation for serving among you as your rector for over twenty-two years. I may not be a Joe Paterno, but I think at least I’m not losing any ground on him.

With blessings and sincere gratefulness,
                                    Philip W. Snyder, Rector

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New Vestry

The following were elected to St. John’s vestry. More complete biographies have been on the bulletin board. They join Kevin Hallock, Jim Henry, and Gary Anderson. Please remember them all in your prayers throughout the year

Lloyd Hall: warden for a two year term. Lloyd has served previously on the vestry and as warden. He has served on the Search Committee for a new Bishop, The Diocesan Board, and is currently on the Episcopal Church at Cornell Foundation and on the ECC advisory group. He has served as a confirmation mentor,  is a member of the choir, and Eucharistic Minister. A cradle Episcopalian, he is  senior analyst in the Information Technology Dept. of Admissions & Financial Aid of Cornell.
Susie Backstrom: warden for a one year term. Susie practiced law in NYC before moving to Ithaca in 2001. Susie has been on the Board of the Tompkins Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Board of the Tompkins County Bar Association> and the Ithaca Garden Club. She is also an advisor to a Cornell sorority. She has previously served on the vestry and as a warden, and is a Sunday School teacher, member of the Altar Guild, and Eucharistic Minister, and commercial dishwasher operator at the parish breakfasts.
Mary Arlin is the daughter and the sister of an Episcopal priest, and completed her undergraduate education at Ithaca College while she taught Sunday School at St. John’s. Upon completion of her doctorate degree at Indiana University she returned to teach at Ithaca College’s School of Music from which she retired in 2006 as Professor Emerita. Previously serving on the vestry and as a warden, she is Treasurer of the parish, a counter, a greeter, an Eucharistic Minister, the parish’s web master, and on the Ithaca-Cortland District Discernment Committee. She is a first year student in the Education for Ministry Program.
Sara D’Aprix is a native Ithacan, but upon graduating from Cornell, she went to work in NYC and then Chicago. Fortunately she returned to Ithaca and is a development officer in the division of alumni affairs where she has worked for over twenty years. She is the mother of Nikki and Carrie. She is also currently serving as one of the counters.
Jim Johnson has previously served on the vestry and as warden. He has taught the class for adults who are specially challenged, been a member of the choir, and an Eucharistic Minister. He is a mentor for the Education For Ministry Program and is Coordinator for the diocese of the EFM program. He is a building contractor and craftsman.
Ed Kokkelenberg’s undergraduate education was in chemical engineering and then went on to obtain an MBA and doctorate and worked in industry for such companies as Amoco Chemicals and International Minerals and Chemical. He joined the faculty of SUNY, Binghamton, was chair of the Economics Department, and retired this past December. He previously served on the vestry and was President of the Board of Loaves & Fishes and is serving as a teacher for the class for adults who are specially challenged. He is currently a visiting scholar at Cornell and a Friend of Ithaca College.
Pamela Talbott has been a member of St. John’s since 2001, after starting the fourth year of the Education For Ministry program with Jim Johnson. She has also previously served on the vestry and as warden. She has served as a confirmation mentor, and has been on the Personnel, Liturgical Planning, and Education Committees and is an Eucharistic Minister. Pam is a social worker for the Franziska Racker Centers where she has worked for twenty-two years.
Bettie Lee Yerka retired as Professor Emeita from the College of Human Ecology at Cornell and also provided administrative leadership in program development and evaluation for the statewide responsibilities of Cornell Cooperative Extension. She has previously served on the vestry and currently on the Board of the Women’s Opportunity Center and President of the BD Chapter of P.E.O.
Scott Russell has served as warden and on the vestry, as a member of the Rector Search Committee, and the Heritage Fundraising Campaign, and Chair of the Outreach Committee. Scott is currently enrolled in the Education for Ministry Program. Scott has served as an officer in the US Navy, and worked for NCR, Cornell University, and Tompkins County Community Foundation.

(Mary and Scott were elected to fill two-year unexpired terms, and Bettie Lee an unexpired one-year term

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At the Vestry planning retreat a week after the annual meeting:  Lloyd Hall and Susie Backstrom (wardens), Kevin Hallock, Mary Arlin, Bettie Lee Yerka, Sara D'Aprix, Jim Henry, Ed Kokkelenberg, Jim Johnson, Kate Onley-Hawthorne (clerk of the vestry), Gary Anderson. (Absent but accounted for:  Pam Talbott and Scott Russell)

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From Have Faith in the Good  — by Herbert E. Thomas

       (Herb is a faithful member of our Tuesday worshipping congregation. He is a retired psychiatrist having practiced in New York City and in maximum-security state prisons. Psychiatrists, educators and social service workers throughout the world use his book The Shame Response. The following is an excerpt from an unpublished work in progress and is an attempt to understand and to relate to another reality that surrounds us.)

Scots have told us that on the Isle of Iona, the Holy Isle, off the west coast of Scotland, there is only a thin sheet that separates Heaven and Earth.

An Introduction to the Otherworld of the Celts

       I begin by telling of an event that occurred in late July or early August of 1947 when I was eighteen years old. It was the summer following my graduation from the Royal Canadian Naval College at Royal Roads, British Columbia and beginning my sophomore year at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

       A friend of my oldest sister, Alec Tate, owned an exploration company in northern Quebec and hired me as a surveyor's assistant for the summer. The base camp was on the eastern shore of Lake Albanel which is a good size lake. It is just east of a much larger one, Lake Mistassini, which is easily seen on a map east of James Bay.  At the time I understood we were three hundred miles south of the Takwa mountains and the treeline.

      We were located in a true wilderness. The nearest bush road was a hundred miles to the south of us, which meant that access to the camp was by canoe or floatplane. No logging had ever occurred so that everywhere was virgin forest.

      There were usually four members in our party when out in the woods. Jean de Seve was the surveyor and a Professor at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. There were two Cree Indians; the younger was René, and myself. Today the two native men would be called First Nation.  They were from the Lake Saint John region. René and I competed to see who could walk the fastest and carry the most, usually a little over a hundred pounds and using a tumpline, when on long portages. As he usually won it helped us become good friends. Before he summer was over he asked if I would consider spending the coming winter with him hunting in the Takwa mountains.

      Our work consisted of putting in claim lines to obtain the mineral rights to many square miles of forest. There was some evidence of hematite, an iron ore, in the area but nothing was ever found worthy of being mined. A huge deposit was found east of us near the Labrador-Quebec border at about that time so there was some interest in the mining community as to what we were doing.

      When one puts in a claim line, to work the border of a claim, the surveyor first has to locate a permanent metal marker placed during a government survey. This is marked with the latitude and longitude and is very accurate.  A point is then chosen in relation to it and this point marks the corner of the claim, which has straight sides and must be staked out.

      Initially a small straight tree is cut down, stripped of its branches and sharpened at both ends.  It is then driven into the ground to mark the corner of the claim.  A transit is then used to line up the next stake along the claim line, which is at least a hundred feet away, but this depends on the ups and downs of the forest floor. The next stake is lined up with the first two by looking back along the claim line, and so it continues until that line is completed.

      Problems begin when one comes to swampy ground covered with brush or a particularly large tree. One day I was working alone and had put in quite a number of stakes, clearing out the brush between them. At one point looking back I realized that my view was blocked by a tree that must have been three feet in diameter. At the time I saw no other choice but to cut it down, which I did, even though it seemed terribly wasteful and left me very saddened. I went on with my work, but I never forgot the incident, and I feel sad to this day when I think about it.

       Fifty years later, in the summer of 1997, I was confronted by what I will call the tree's spirit. It was asking why I had done such a terrible thing to it. Nothing could change what had happened, but it occurred to me I could offer to have it travel with me and that seemed to resolve our meeting. I did sense at several different times that it was accompanying me.

      In February 2002 I flew Swiss Air to Tel Aviv by way of Zurich. The return trip took us over Northern Quebec and as close to Lake Albanel as I was likely to get. During the night, I was half dozing. I experienced what I can only describe as an excited rustling sound immediately behind me. It lasted for several moments and then it was gone. I felt at peace and fell back to sleep.

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Christmas Eve at St. John's

A good read: Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments by Kent Keith. I was given this book at Christmas, and found it very rewarding, reading it in one short sitting. Keith wrote “ the paradoxical commandments” for high school student leaders while a sophomore at Harvard in 1968 and in the ensuring years found that it had found its way and was written on the walls of one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages. The commandments are a poetic challenge to do right and live with integrity, even if others do not appreciate it or reward you. It’s a good parallel with Jesus’ sermon on the mount. — PWS

Chamber Music at St. John’s: Sunday Afternoon, Feb. 27 at 2pm. We are happy to announce that we will have another chamber music concert like we have had in the past two years. Fellow parishioners for whom we are grateful have underwritten this series. Returning this year will be the pianist Jennifer Hayghe with her husband, Robert McGaha, bass-baritone. This concert is free and very cordially open to the public. A reception to meet the artists will follow in the parish hall.

Future community concert of interest: Neshama Carlebach in concert with the Reverend Roger Hambrick and members of the Green Pastors Baptist Church Choir­—The Unity Tour will be at the State Theatre, Wednesday March 2, at 7pm. Sponsored by Temple Beth-El and with area churches as associate sponsors (including St. John’s) this inspiring concert tour reaches across inter-faith boundaries. We will have tickets available nearer the time.

On the first Sunday of the month, St. Simeon’s Guild meets after the Sunday 10:30 service in the Chapman room. This guild was  formed primarily for 20’s and 30’s, although if you are a young forty you likely will not be carded. They are just getting started, so check it out on Feb. 6th.

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	The Chef, Dave D'Aprix, hard at work!
	The prep chefs, Susie Backstrom and Carrie D'Aprix.
	Happy helpers, Charlie and Penny Ciccone.

The end result . . . "Best Breakfast in town!"

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