Dear Friends,
Join us this Sunday November 1st at 10:00am for Zoom worship. We will be celebrating All Saints, honoring the members of our community who have died in the past year as well as the 228,000 Americans who have perished from Covid-19. We’ll celebrate the sacrament of communion, so please prepare your table and elements in advance. During a pandemic, whatever bread and drink you have on hand will be blessed by God.
Join us for 10:00am Sunday Worship here
Dial-in: 1-929-436-2866 Meeting ID: 150 620 342
Please keep our church and the city in your prayers as we head into next week. NYAPC is tentatively planning on being open on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday to provide post-election/protest hospitality. We will make a decision each day as to whether or not our building will be open for physically distanced, Covid-19 safe hospitality. Please stay tuned to our social media accounts (@nyapcdc) for the most up-to-date information.
If you are healthy and able, we need onsite volunteers for two-hour shifts. Sign up here and direct any questions about volunteering to Madison Neimer mneimer26@gmail.com. We are also in need of supplies—bottled drinks, non-perishable snacks, hand sanitizer/wipes, masks, small flash lights, and handwarmers. Donations can be dropped off at the church on Monday from 5:30-7:30pm or shipped directly from our Amazon Wish List. Please direct all donation questions to Aryn Myers aryn.myers@gmail.com.
If you are feeling anxious about the upcoming election, here is an at home liturgy that can be used for prayer, reflection, and meditation in the days ahead. Link Here.
And there is an in-person, non-partisan Election Eve Prayer Vigil scheduled for Monday November 2nd from 5:30-6:30pm – see this Facebook Events page .
Finally, a Mary Oliver poem, “When Death Comes” to nourish you this week:
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
Peace and Courage, Heather