The Congregational Church of Austin, United Church of Christ

     God, are you out there? If so, do you know me? Do you love me, and care about me? Do you listen to me when I pray to you? Do you respond to my prayers? Why do you often seem distant and remote? Why so silent? Why don't you respond more vigorously to my suffering?
     For millennia, these questions have gnawed at many a human heart, mind, and soul.
     Reynolds Price, in the March Men's Book Club selection, Letter to a Man in the Fire, writes, "I'm compelled to say that I'm profoundly uncertain of whether or not the Creator notices and loves every creature as much as another....It has seemed to me for years that there may well be many human beings of whom the Creator takes sporadic notice, if any. Few believers known to me have survived to midlife without the sense of occasional, or frequent desertions by God or absences of his interest or--hardest of all--his intentional silences."
     God, are you eternally present to us, or is your presence sporadic? If you're attentive to us, is your interest occasionally diverted from us in other directions? If you're not normally attentive to us, is your interest occasionally redirected towards us from your more pressing and interesting affairs? Are there periods in our lives--moments, days, and years, with the tragedies and triumphs that occur therein--that unfold totally outside of your awareness? Are there people who pass through this life--who live, laugh, cry, and die--without ever attracting your gaze?
     These questions arise from our human experience, experience that also informs how we perceive the God we question. We interrogate a God we perceive to be a separate cosmic entity existing way up and out there, far removed from us little creatures down here, and requiring special skill or persistence to elicit a divine response. But what if we interrogated our own perceptions? What if, like Copernicus, we asked whether things were other than they appeared? Is the sun really orbiting the earth, or is it the other way around? Is it God who doesn't answer all our prayers, or the other way around?
     Is God really a separate cosmic entity living up and out there, removed and remote, possibly watching over us way down here, but maybe not? Or are we deeply and intimately connected to a God we're largely unaware of because we're the ones who are sporadically present to and easily diverted from this God? What if God is continuously praying to us--sending us spiritual wisdom, love, power, joy--through channels within us and around us that we've scarcely noticed and inadequately developed? What if most of what God communicated to us elicited no response from us? What if God agonizes over our silence?
     If God does continuously send us healing, reconciling, earth-repairing, justice-creating, peace-making, and life-renewing power, and we don't take the time to discover and develop the channels through which we can receive and incorporate this power into our lives, then our lives are diminished. They're mere ciphers of their true potential. But if we do take the time to discover and develop these spiritual channels that run through our hearts, minds, and wills, then our lives become more of a lived response to God's prayer. We break the silence between us and God. We experience transformation. We become agents of transformation. The world is renewed.
                                                                                Tom

Palm Sunday, April 13, 11:00 am. On Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus' entry into the city of Jerusalem, on a donkey, amid palm waving crowds. We also recall the events in the Temple and his interactions with the authorities and the people of Jerusalem in the days leading up to his arrest. We will commemorate this day with a palm procession.

Maundy Thursday Service, April 17, 7:00 pm. The word maundy is derived from the Latin mandatum, which means mandate or command. On Maundy Thursday, we remember Jesus' last supper with his disciples, and we hear again his final command, to "love one another as I have loved you." We will recall the events surrounding Jesus' last supper, his moment of agony in the garden, and his arrest and trial. We will share holy communion together.

Good Friday, April 18, 7:00 pm. On Good Friday, we remember Jesus' crucifixion on the cross. In this sorrowful service, we contemplate the significance of Jesus' death for the living of our lives.

Easter Sunrise Service, April 20, Mt. Bonnell, Sunrise. Join us on top of beautiful Mt. Bonnell as we celebrate Jesus' resurrection with a service including song, prayer, an Easter message, and morning refreshments.

Easter Communion Service, April 20, 11:00 am. We will celebrate Jesus' resurrection with a holy communion service in our sanctuary. We will also include a special participatory liturgy that transforms the cross of death into a symbol of hope and new life.

In April, our Lectio Divinas Bible Reflection gatherings will be held on Thursdays, April 10 and 24. In this time of reading, hearing, and contemplation, we listen to the text of a scripture passage several times, and contemplate how it opens the text of our own life before us. We ask ourselves in a variety of ways, where do I encounter God in the text of this scripture, and in the text of my own life?

It was brought to the attention of the Board of Deacons that several members of our congregation have difficulty and discomfort sitting through the full length of our service. In an effort to shorten the service without losing any of its value or beauty, as well as accommodate the needs of these members, the Board of Deacons agreed to suspend the verbal announcement portion of the service.
Beginning in April please mail, e-mail or call the church's Administrative Assistant, Trish Karli, by Thursday of each week with any and all information that needs to be made available to the Sunday congregation. All of those announcements will be included in the announcement sheet inserted in that Sunday's program. (E-mail: ucausti@swbell.net; Phone: 472-2370)
We hope, in this way, to comfortably reduce the length of our service without compromising its fellowship and spirit.

Congratulations to Nannette Strickland who coached the Kealing Junior High School MathCounts team to victory for the second year in a row. One of her students was the top scorer overall and will be one of four Texas students competing in the national competition which will be held in May.
     Bee Harris Polomé and her new husband Milt Weiss have had some serious ups and downs these past few months. They were married in a lovely service at Crestview United Methodist Church on January 3, 2003, and greatly enjoyed their honeymoon in Puerta Vallarta. Daughters Marilyn and Lana and son Evan were at the wedding, but Carole Marie and her family did not come from Sweden for the occasion, but will be here this summer when it is warmer. In February, Bee went to the doctor because of continuing pain with her shoulder--a rotator cuff injury. While doing tests for that problem, the doctors discovered a shadow on her lung. She has since had lung surgery, tests showed it to be malignant (this is quite distressing as she has no connection to cigarette smoking at all), and she is recuperating from the surgery while waiting for her next doctor's appointment when she will find out how much radiation and chemotherapy she will be undergoing. Bee has a long history in our church as her daughter Marilyn Harris was our cellist for many years, her daughter Lana Harris Duff played the viola for us on many occasions, and Bee herself contributed her musical talents on violin and viola on a number of occasions. Drop her a note if you can.
     Massage therapist Julia Deisler has completed her third semester of advanced training at the Lauterstein-Conway School of Massage Therapy here in Austin. Son Eric, a second grader, has advanced to the blue belt level in karate and won first place in his last sparring. Daughter Olivia greatly enjoyed her participation in the annual fifth grade production of an original opera written and produced by the fifth graders at Brykerwoods. The opera, based on a book by Austin author Louis Sachar, THERE'S A BOY IN THE GIRL'S BATHROOM, was a great success. Olivia worked on the costuming for the project. The performance was given added importance when Louis Sachar himself attended and greeted all of the students and parents.
     Michael, Kerry, Jamie, and Julia Adams are delighted to be living in their home now that all of the building inspections are finished. It has been a long ordeal since the fire of more than a year ago destroyed much of the interior of the house. The whole family has worked on the restoration--and many church members have helped out as well.
     On 28 February Rizer Everett drove to Houston and registered at the Radisson Hotel and then ventured on to Pasadena where he had a nice visit with an old friend who was one of Hildegard and Rizer's neighbors in 1964 when they lived in Palemang, Sumatra. He then drove to Overcup where he had a good visit with friends they knew in Oklahoma City in 1952. On the morning of March 1, he visited the Museum of Fine Arts to view the paintings borrowed from the State Pushkin Museum in Moscow which is one of the great museums of the world. The centerpiece was White Water Lilies done by Claude Monet in 1899. Also included in the exhibit were paintings by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, and modern American artists. In the afternoon he had a fine visit with his truly old friend John Woods for his 100th birthday. Rizer reports it was a pleasure to hear John's strong voice and feel his firm handshake. Rizer, you are a brave soul to be driving around in all that Houston traffic!
     In 1975 Paul and Ellen Deisler received into their home in Houston an exchange student, 17-year-old Jenny Wallwork, from Perth, Western Australia. When Jenny went home a year later, Paul and Ellen felt as if they had lost a beloved daughter. Twenty-eight years later Jenny's daughter, 20-year-old Jacqui Cook, now spending one semester for special studies at Boston College, spent part of her spring break with the Deislers who did their best to give her a concentrated taste of Texas: the Bob Bullock Museum, barbecue at Cooper's in Llano, a visit to the Longhorn Caverns, a tour of Austin (including the Capitol), and a Tex-Mex dinner at Ninfa's. Paul and Ellen had not seen Jacqui since they last visited Australia when Jacqui was five years old. What a great, inter-generational, Australo-American reunion Jacqui's visit was!
     Marilyn Gaddis and George Carruthers have exciting news this month. They have two new hot water heaters!
     Don and Sharon Brown had a wonderful celebration the weekend of March 8. On Friday afternoon their older son Greg married Juliet Garcia at their Guadalupe River place west of Kerrville and on Saturday the reception was in Austin at the Barr Mansion. Everything went beautifully--perfect weather, happy guests, and good food. Sharon reports that seeing Greg and Juliet lead that first dance was one of those life milestones for parents that is always treasured.
     Lisa Kirch had a number of delays getting home from her last trip to Germany, but finally made it. While she was in Germany, her daughter Sarah stayed with her grandpa and enjoyed several adventures with him.
     Pat and Mel Oakes are delighted to be grandparents again. Their daughter Beth and son-in-law Eugene are the proud parents of Ethan Louis (one of Mel's middle names) Jinook ("calm rising sun" in Korean) Buck. Ethan was born on Sunday, February 23, the same day that Mel transplanted one of the huge crape myrtles from the church garden to their yard. It is now known as Ethan's tree. Pat went to Iowa the next day (fortunately missing the ice storm which would have grounded her here on Tuesday, her planned day of departure) and stayed for 11 nights and 12 days. Retirement is good. Making out lesson plans for that long would have been a drag. Beth was in the hospital less than 40 minutes before Ethan arrived! Big sister Emily, 26 months, is adapting relatively well to the new family member.
     The dear friend of George and Lynne Lemley, Philip Redwine Donley, age 41, passed away peacefully at Christopher House on Tuesday March 4, after having been diagnosed with glioblastoma in mid-September to the shock of all his family and friends There was a memorial service full of laughter and tears at the church to celebrate his spirit. The memorial service was followed by a mini-feast featuring Phil's 4 favorite food groups: 1) chips, queso, and margaritas [the presence of the rented margarita machine was cleared beforehand with Pastor, Moderator, and Chair of Deacons] 2) pizza 3) Chinese food, and 4) IHOP food. The speakers at the memorial service included his First Wife, Dr. Jane Johnson, his Senior Wife, Lynne, his Great Wife, Ms. Lisa Earlene Bruce, his Ornament, Dr. Cherie Mitschke, and his Shepherd, Rev. Thomas VandeStadt. He had attended our church approximately 3-4 times a year for the past 6 years and was known by many of us. The comfort and care of the Lemley family for Phil during his illness was extraordinary, and Phil was always in the prayers of the church family. He will be missed by many.


APRIL BIRTHDAYS

2 Ellen Luna
3 Mary Tomasek
4 Ricky Masters
5 Sarah Oakes
Katherine Anderson Ashton
10 Lynne R. Lemley
14 Susan Ashton
16 Eleanor Towery
22 Suzanne L. Bradford
24 George Lemley
28 Sarah Bentley

One last chance in April, Whit Bodman will continue teaching his Christian Education series entitled, Encountering Jesus And His Interpreters. Gather with us in Fellowship Hall from 6 pm to 8 pm on Sunday evenings for informative and stimulating discussion.
The topics are:

April 6 The Betrayal and the Crucifixion -- What God Jesus Crucified?
April 13 The Resurrection...and then?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Chronicle of a Death Foretold. April 14 at Robin Chapman's
Anita Diamant The Red Tent. May 10 at Betsy Tylka's

It has been approximately 20 years since the city, in an effort to make possible the establishment of the Renaissance Market, "temporarily" closed 23rd street for six of the seven days of the week. It was to remain open on Sundays for the convenience of members and friends of the church to come to service.
     Over the years there have been changes. The street has been narrowed, the south sidewalk has been widened and stripes have been painted on the street in front of the church to accommodate "spillover" vendors who are unable to find space in the locations east of the alley. In addition, the Renaissance Market vendors have won the additional concession that the market area will be closed to traffic ALL seven days of the week during the Christmas season when anticipated sales are highest. Finally, we have observed an erosion of the Sunday opening of the traffic from the full day to only the morning. As a result, Sunday afternoon special meetings, memorial services, educational series and other special events scheduled after the noon hour are unable to utilize 23rd street. The vendors simply move their stalls to close and lower the barrier to fill the narrow gap left for traffic access in the morning.
     The net result of all of this is that even for the limited "window of opportunity" on Sunday mornings, it takes a brave soul with much grit to run the gauntlet of stalls along the Renaissance Market pathway. For many of the persons joining the church in the past 15 years, they are not even aware that what used to be the primary means of entrance to the church, turning west off of Guadalupe onto 23rd street, is even an option. Many travel along the alley east of the church or take less direct routes off of Nueces and San Antonio. Is it any wonder that many visitors to the church describe in frustration, their difficulties in reaching the church despite knowing its address.
     In an effort to salvage ease of access the Building and Grounds Committee of the church urges you to use the Guadalupe access route as often as you conveniently can. You see, the less frequently the route is used, the more new vendors believe that there is no access permitted at all. Hence, we are contributing to our own demise. The B&G committee especially wishes to alert recent members and visitors of the situation since, not surprisingly, many of you have no idea about this circumstance.
Building and Grounds Committee

They Make Us Proud

     We have always been proud of our young people and consider them to be "a cut above." We got continuing validation of the accuracy of that assumption recently when we heard of the accomplishment of two of our "about to leave for college" youth: Jamie Adams and Jake Burlinson.
     Many of you may not be aware that Jamie Adams rose to the finalist level of the National Merit Scholarship Program, a nation-wide contest to identify the most promising among college prospects. Jamie scored at the 99.5th percentile on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT). Up to the current semester he has a cumulative grade-point average of 93.4 on a possible 100 point scale. He has already completed 6 hours of college level course work. Marilyn Pickens, his British Literature teacher and member of this church reports, " He is a joy to teach." In addition to his academic expertise, Jamie currently serves as Editor of the Yearbook and Literary Magazine at Huntington-Surrey School. We all should be proud that one of our own was able to go so far in a highly competitive and prestigious nation-wide contest.
     Even though Jamie will not receive financial support from the National Merit Scholarship Foundation, his achievement as a finalist will help him qualify for scholarship help from alternate educational foundations and collegiate institutions to whom he applies.
     Jake Burlinson is heading for Texas A&M with hopes to major in engineering technology with an eye toward a career as an Army Engineering Officer. Because of his strong academic performance at Anderson High School, 3.51 GPA and a good showing on the SAT (Total score of 1210), he as been encouraged to apply for ROTC scholarship support at A&M.
     Jake's accomplishment are not only of an academic sort. He has participated in multiple extra-curricular activities both in and out of high school. Most of us are aware that he participated last summer on a mission trip to a remote village in Honduras. He has also worked with University Baptist youth on Hands On Housing projects. In school his primary extra curricular involvement has been with "Technical Theatre." This involves set design, lighting for plays and other programs and the like. He has had a leadership role as the back-stage manager. Most of us are not aware that Jake's athletic abilities led him to go out for Track and Cross-country. He has somehow found time to do part-time work first as a cashier at McDonalds and most recently as a management-trainee for the Four Seasons Hotel Security Division.

     We all know that Easter is going to be late this year: April 20th. But in preparation for this important annual event we had our quarterly clean-up and planting workday at Covert Park at Mt. Bonnell.
     Some of you are already aware that our efforts at planting in the large flowerbed at the summit was completely trashed by visitors who seemed insistent on having their picture taken in front of the large memorial rock. To accommodate both our needs for enhancing the beauty of the space and visitors need to have a personal record of their visit, the hardy band of workers came up with a diplomatic solution. We created an attractive, broad, rock-bordered pathway leading to the large memorial rock.
     To assure permanency to our planting efforts, we limited our planting to both sides of the pathway. We also selected large plants in the hopes that might deter trampling.
     We are delighted to tell you that the volume of trash collected is actually declining. This validates the axiom: Clean-Up Messes Early, Since Limited Trashing Begets Lots More Trashing.
     Special thanks are offered to the participants. Things started out very ominously, the workers awakened to a very foggy morning. Fortunately, the fog soon burned off. The church members taking part were: Matt Blackstock, Robin Chapman, David and Kathi Foster, John Goff, Megan Goff and Gail Christeson, Cathy Hubbs, Brita Jenquin, Pat & Mel Oakes, Tommie & Doyal Pinkard, David Ross, Chester Rosson, Mary Sinclair, Alex VandeStadt and Vic Appel. Our thanks also go to Max Moore, our liaison with the Parks & Recreation Department. They continue to furnish needed tools, mulch, plastic bags and portage for the heavy items to the summit.
     We hope that we will see you all at this year's memorable Easter Sunrise Service and at our next quarterly Mt. Bonnell clean-up scheduled for June 14 from 9 am to 1 pm.

On Easter Day we will celebrate after worship with our traditional stand-up walk-about brunch in the Fellowship Room. If you would like to contribute goodies, time & talent, or money toward this, please speak to Suzanne VanderPoel or Lynne Lemley. Thank you.

April Calendar

1 LifeWorks Oversight 11:00
4-6 Congregational Retreat
6 Daylight Savings Time begins
Encountering Jesus.... 6:00
7 Youth Bible Study
9 Trustees 7:00
10 Deacons 7:30
Lecto Divinas
11 Easter Basket Making 6:00
13 Palm Sunday
Encountering Jesus.... 6:00
14 Women's Book Club
Youth Bible Study
15 Coordinating Council 7:30
16 Men's Book Club
17 Maundy Thursday Service 7:00
18 Good Friday Service 7:00
20 Easter
21 Deadline for May Visitor
Youth Bible Study
24 Lecto Divinas
27 Youth Bible Study

Sanctuary Fellowship enjoyed few gatherings during March. We enjoyed a dinner and, on a different evening, a movie.
     We postponed our Camping trip, opting for signing up for and going to the retreat at Slumber Falls. The chance to be together and pray and talk with one another will be important. We're hoping to enjoy some much needed contemplation and Fellowship at our beautiful camp.
     The group is planning to help chaperone a trip with our Jr. High/Sr. High young people to Scarborough Faire near Dallas in late April. The plan is to meet up with the Youth Group of a UCC Church in Dallas. Anne Cubbage, the youth advisor for the Dallas Church, says they are excited about it and are looking forward to meeting us.
If you, or someone you know, might be interested in joining us for activities:
call: 573-5324 (Craig)
     surf: www.geocities.com/sanctuaryfellowship.
     E-mail: sanctuaryfellowship@yahoo.com