St. Paul's
in
Willimantic
This page is intended to be our web
connection to the greater Willimantic community and all of its
people. To start, we would like to offer an invitation to all to
come to the little stone church at the corner of Valley and Walnut on
any Sunday. Visit for the service, for coffee afterwards or for a
full breakfast on the first Sunday of the month. You will find a
welcoming community, a place where it's safe to be yourself.
The focus of this page is to help us
bring God's love to everyone. And everyone means just that – rich,
poor, student, immigrant, churched, unchurched, troubled, serene,
Buddist, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, and on and on, all children of God,
all equally loved by God. To that end we will be offering a
Wednesday noon hour service.
Beyond that we are exploring ways to
serve the community - and especially its most troubled and vulnerable
members. To that end we always are open to providing support or
joining with other individuals and organizations in any appropriate
effort. Feel free to contact us at
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Our limitations primarily are available time and resources.
Organ Recital
A present to the greater Willimantic community: a recital
on the Fisk organ, featuring Ms. Lois Pardue as guest organist. It
took place on September 27, was well attended and enthusiastically
received. Ms. Pardue has some serious credentials (see invitation below!) and her performance
lived up to all expectations!!!
St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church at 220 Valley Street in Willimantic will
commemorate the 37th anniversary of the dedication of its
C. B. Fisk organ with a recital by Avon organist Lois Pardue on
Sunday, September 27th at 4:00 p.m. The recital is free,
and all those interested in organ music are encouraged and cordially
invited to attend.September 27th at 4:00 p.m.
Ms.
Pardue is a graduate of the famed Eastman School of Music, where she
studied with Harold Gleason, earning both a Bachelor of Music degree
with distinction and the Performer's Certificate in Organ; she also
studied in France with the renowned organist André Marchal. During
her career she has held positions as organist, assistant organist,
and instructor at numerous churches, colleges, and universities
around the country. She has taught organ at Vassar College, Wellesley
College, and at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. She was Assistant to the College Organist and Acting
College Organist at Vassar College, and Assistant to the University
Organist and Summer School Organist at Harvard University.
From 1973 to 1995 Ms. Pardue served as organist at the
First Baptist Church, UCC, in Bloomington, IN. In 1979 she
became the Administrative Assistant in the Choral Department at
University of Indiana’s School of Music. In December of 1995 she
relocated to Connecticut, and shortly thereafter she began her
service as organist at the West Avon Congregational Church. For her
program, Ms. Pardue has chosen music by Couperin, J.S. Bach, Paul
Hindemith, and the late German composer Hermann Schroeder. Featured
work on the program will be Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat (the
so-called “St. Anne”), which was performed when the Fisk organ
was dedicated on September 24, 1972.
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 |
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A benefit for the
Covenant Soup Kitchen. 7:00 PM, Sat. Feb. 27:
An innovative theater experience will be presented by Stafford Arts
Commission, at St. Pauls Episcopal Church/Covenant Soup Kitchen on Saturday - a production of Howard
Zinn and Anthony Arnove's "Voices of a People's History of the United
States".
Howard Zinn created this work to air his voice of protest against many of
the social injustices that have been perpetuated throughout this country's
history; to reveal the countless examples of exploitation of the human spirit
that have been devised over the centuries. His aim was to have his audiences
hear lesser known voices from US history, especially minority voices, in the
hope of inspiring later generations to work towards social justice and
change. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 March 2010 )
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Written by Administrator
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Monday, 08 February 2010 |
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There now are four of us taking turns
at designing and leading the service: Rev. Jaci, Deacon Ellen, Al
Eggen, and Andrew Seeling, but we're still looking for musicians to
join us. Our general theme for the season of Lent is "a journey through the desert." Here's the lineup for the next few weeks:
Feb. 24, Andrew's first service,
topic emergence, (emerging)
March 3, Ellen: Stations of the Cross
March 10, Al: taking MLK's words along on a Lenten journey into the desert
The January 20 service dedicated to
Martin Luther King went well – and even managed to make the front
page of the Willimantic Chronicle with a nice color photo. King is a
saint in the Episcopal calendar and his day is April 4 (Easter this
year). Since the January service was well received Al will lead an
updated version on April 7. It'll be about nonviolence, love,
compassion, mercy as the only way to a just and sustainable world;
lots of King's words, words that you won't find in the news on MLK day!
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 02 March 2010 )
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Written by Administrator
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Thursday, 07 January 2010 |
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St. Paul's Jan. 20 Service to
be Dedicated to MLK as Prophet for Our Time
On January 20,
St. Paul's regular Wednesday midday service will be dedicated to
Martin Luther King and his work. MLK definitely was not a saint - he
was a prophet - a prophet whose words speak quite clearly to today's
world and its problems. Just as the Old Testament prophets - Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Amos, to name a few - harshly condemned the faults of the
societies they lived in, so did King (“the greatest purveyor of
violence in the world today: my own government"). Those
prophets were not exactly popular and neither was King, especially in
the last years of his life (Time magazine on his April 4, 1967
Riverside Church speech: "demagogic slander"). On April 4,
1968 he was assassinated. Since then, that much-maligned Riverside
Church speech, and the work of those last years, rarely are mentioned
in the mainstream media. Difficult words that illuminate a prophet's
vision for a just world.
Everyone is
invited to join us when the church bells ring at 12:30 pm on that
special Wednesday - as well as every Wednesday. If you can't make the service, but would like to find out what it
was about, email
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for the program.
mea culpa
Shortly after sending Andrew
Seeling this release he replied with a link to the Episcopal Church's
list of Saints – and of
course MLK is on it! His Feast Day is April 4 (Easter this year).
The official prayer:
"Almighty
God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of
slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church,
following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist
oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your
children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen."
The
title saint can have lots of meanings. I assume most readers would
take my comment that King was not a saint to mean that he had human
faults. Accusations of plagiarism and infidelity very likely are
true - but they don't affect the prophetic nature of his words. They
just show that God worked and continues to work through imperfect
people like you and I and King (and Andrew).
Al
Eggen
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 February 2010 )
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Written by wednesday
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Tuesday, 18 August 2009 |
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Peace be unto you
Shalom aleichem
Salamuk Aslekum
Sat Sri Akal
Namaskar
Every Wednesday....
for the Wednesday noon hour - a
community service. By and for the whole Willimantic community
starting Wednesday October 28
with a Taizé inspired service
The plan: a series of services to
help you get through the week, the good times and the not-so-good
times, to bring you Peace, Pax, Paz, Salaam, Shalom....
No religion has the direct line to God
– there are many forms of revelation. However, the answer to the
big question, how should we live our lives, is essentially the same
for almost all religions. In fact, the same answer can come from
purely secular sources. At the same time all religions can be –
and regularly are – distorted to produce results that are in
complete opposition to their fundamental message. Each religion has
its own unique gifts to bring and it is not our intent or the purpose
of the service to say that ours is the only true message, or to
minimize all the many gifts from others. At the same time, we do not
want a service so watered down by the desire to become inclusive that
it becomes bland and meaningless. Rather, we intend a service that
shares the beauty of our particular vision with the community as a
whole.
As time goes on we
expect the service to take many forms, forms that will depend on your interests and
talents. We'll start with a variation on a Taizé chant service. It will run from 12:30 till 1:30pm but be designed around four 15 minute blocks. Each time block will be composed of music, prayer and silence so those of us with limited time still can have a full experience in whatever time they do have available. Each week will have a theme - and the first theme will be welcome. Click for a poster or a handout sheet.
Music is a gift with many variations –
and it certainly is a critical component of a service. We'll start with Taizé but beyond
that services based on jazz, gospel, rock, U2Charist,
whatever, will happen if enough of you have the interest and the
willingness to participate. Obviously, musicians with the required
talent and interest are critical but there are lots of other ways to
participate – just come and you will be a part.
Interested? contact us at
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Learn more? Taizé: wikipedia
giamusic
Ubuntu: wikipedia
buzzle
africafiles
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Last Updated ( Friday, 20 November 2009 )
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