Autumn Beginnings

Greetings to Good Shepherd’s Koinonia Pilgrims:

In North America the autumn leaves have turned to red and gold, yellow, and browns signaling their sap descending into winter’s hibernation.  However, for us at Mu Ai Tang, [Good Shepherd Church], our sap’s energy is rising as we throw ourselves into a new school year, work projects, and liturgical hopes for Advent and Christmas.

Our excitement grows between the festival of St. Francis Sunday, October 5 when we bless our brother and sister animals and Advent, November 30.  We celebrate All Saints Sunday, November 2.   Some of us will join with friends and family for America’s Thanksgiving Day on November 27. 

As we mark these days of harvest thanksgiving and the festival of Christ the King, the end of the liturgical year, November 23, our hearts rejoice in God’s many blessings and mercies. 

I encourage all of us to join in our koinonia opportunities to intimately participate in our worship and fellowship as these autumn days shorten and darken before we welcome the light of Christ into the world on Christmas Day.   Sign up to read on Sunday, bring a special food offering for our coffee hour, bring a friend to church, join special choir presentations, join the acolyte training, sing a little bolder, and share the peace with more cheer, belong, believe, and befriend in these shorter, darker, colder, wetter days of autumn and winter and let your light and spirit brighten all our world.

Love, hope, and Peace,

Father Herbert

My Summer Sojourn Home to USA

Greetings to Good Shepherd’s Koinonia Pilgrims:

Next Tuesday, 29 July, I will depart for the remainder of the summer to my retirement home in Arizona.  If you know Scottsdale, Arizona then you will know that I will not be escaping summer heat.  I am only exchanging humid temperatures for dry, desert ones.  That is the bad news for me.  Yet, before you begin to sympathize with me, I assure you all that, in truth, I will find beaches.   I plan trips to San Diego, Virginia Beach, and St. Lucia in the Caribbean.  Don’t cry for me Mu Ai Tang (Good Shepherd Church).

My good friend, Thomas Reese, will be caring for our English congregation during my absence.  Thomas is the Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Forrest Hills, Queens, and New York. Some of you will remember that he was with us last summer.

I trust that you will enjoy his preaching and warm pastoral presence.  Please extent to him our special Good Shepherd Koinonia welcome.  Tom will be with us from August 4 to August 31.  I will return September 3.

I regret that I will miss our joint congregational retreat on August 2 and 3.  I pray that you all will have a spiritual journey together and make new friends as you share in the beauty of Taiwan’s highlands. 

For those who will not be going on the retreat, remember that Good Shepherd Church will have no worship services on August 3^rd in either the English or the Chinese congregations. Please pass this news to your friends and neighbors.

I hope that you all will have a summer filled with joyful, seasonal growth that will result in a rich harvest of memories that will warm you through fall and winter.  

Love and prayers,

Herbert