Weekly Words

The Season: Be Wilder

The word “bewildered” means completely confused or lost.

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Its root, the rare verb be-wilder, means to lead astray or cause someone to lose their way in a wild, trackless place. It’s used today when your brain feels lost, like being stuck in a maze of hard choices or complex information. Even looking at driving directions on your phone can be bewildering, which is ironic because that is the precise moment you are trying to find your way.

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The connection between the words “bewilder” and “wilder” comes from the noun wild. But as an old verb, “wild” means to wander or lose your path in the woods. Adding the prefix be- turns it into an intensifier. Bewilder literally means to be thoroughly lost in the wilderness. Many of the people from our Hebrew Bible readings in these weeks find themselves thoroughly lost in their circumstances.

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The services during this season are meant to call us into nature, to be wilder, and perhaps to become bewildered in order to find what is sacred all around us.

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The Episcopal Church and Creation Care Topics

Believing we are called by God to care for creation, The Episcopal Church advocates for and supports public policies that protect natural resources, address climate change, and support biodiversity. Our Office of Government Relations offers multiple resources and action steps on these topics.

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Land, Water, and Biodiversity

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Caring for creation means caring for other species and recognizing their role in a healthy and flourishing ecosystem. The Episcopal Church has historically supported policies like the Endangered Species Act as a part of this call. Biodiversity loss is a major component of our changing climate, and we advocate for its protection. Nature-based solutions help reduce our carbon emissions, improve biodiversity, protect and maintain clean water, land, and air, and help local communities both nationally and internationally.

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News

Pantry

As of September 30, St. John’s pantry has been gifted more than $10,000 worth of donated food. We received approximately $4,000 in food from the LDS charities food program. The groceries are basic shelf-stable food that our visitors enjoy having available. Additionally, when the Seventh Day Adventist church closed their pantry due to health issues, they donated about $4,000 worth of food that remained after they closed. Deb Ross spent time cultivating a relationship with them and it paid off for both parties.

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Shoshone River Farm continues  to donate garden fresh vegetables to our visitors. There are also several other local gardeners that have donated vegetables to us as well. The pantry community absolutely loves having vegetables available as they are out of their price range at the grocery store. Thanks to everyone for considering St. John’s when they have excess produce to shared.

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We have befriended AmeriCorp interns Sophia and Isabelle, who are working for Powell Economic Partnership. Check out the pictures of the produce they brought to the pantry! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DX3nLx6gH/

 

Annual Convention

Each year, Episcopal diocesan conventions bring together clergy and lay delegates from across the diocese for a unique gathering of prayer, fellowship, and decision-making. This year, our delegates were Jessica and Mark Smith, who were elected at annual meeting. They and our and clergy Susan McEvoy, and Megan Nickles made the trip over the mountain to Sheridan, where convention will be hosted by St. Peter’s. One of the resolutions convention passed is linked in the Almanac below.

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Almanac

October 12 is both Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day, a chance to honor and mourn the brokenness and beauty of the world. On one hand, we can honor the courage and hope that led Europeans to cross the Atlantic — even as we mourn, condemn, and/or repent of the genocide and enslavement that followed. And on the other hand, we can honor indigenous peoples in North American and all over the world, renewing our collective commitment to justice and dignity — even as we celebrate the ways in which indigenous peoples continue to thrive today, and in many respects are helping show the world the way forward into the twenty-first century.

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The Annual Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming passed a resolution affirming that the sacred ceremonies, languages, songs, and spiritual traditions of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho peoples are living expressions of these peoples’ relationship with the Creator, worthy of honor and protection. The resolution rejects any claim that these traditions stand opposed to the Christian faith or that following Jesus requires their surrender; and acknowledge that the Church has too often presumed to judge Indigenous traditions rather than approach them with humility and respect.

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Here is the complete resolution.

 

Leafing Through Pages

Joy Harjo is an American poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States poet laureate from 2019 to 2022, the first Native American to hold that honor. Harjo is a seventh-generation descendant of Monahwee (also known as Menawa) of the Muscogee people.

To listen to the author read this work, click here.

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.