"Let There Be Light!"

Our anticipated 17kW solar panel installation will provide for 100% of our current electrical usage, reducing our annual CO2 emissions by 13.7 tons (17%), and saving us more than $2200 per year. The simple payback period for the panels is 17 years. And that's on panels with a 25 year warranty, and an expected lifespan of over 40 years without significant production loss. In addition to providing 100% of our electricity, they are also 100% sacramental. Sacraments are "outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace," and the inward spiritual grace in this case is a further reconciliation of our own lives with the entirety of a sustainable, sustaining, verdant creation.

 A prayer from Laudato Si by Pope Francis:

Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction. Touch the hearts of those who look only for gain at the expense of the poor and the Earth. Teach us to discover the worth of each thing, to be filled with awe and contemplation, to recognize that we are profoundly united with every creature as we journey towards your infinite light.

An Update about the Organ

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.   Psalm 104:33

Organ News: In October 2019, local master organ builder David Moore evaluated St. Andrew’s instrument, and concluded saying, “The present organ has been altered, almost beyond recognition, from what it was in 1874.” The many stop-gap alterations did not make for a more beautiful sound. Every organist to play at St. Andrew’s steeled themselves before taking their seat on the organ bench to navigate the narrow repertoire and other challenges of this instrument. As Fate would have it, by the day the nave ceiling dropped almost precisely onto our organ, the Organ Committee’s search for an affordable replacement organ had already led to Moore’s extraordinary workshop in North Pomfret, Vermont, and the timing could not have been better.

 Flash forward to Spring 2022: Mr. Moore confirms he has kept the renovated instrument so admired by the St. Andrew’s task force, a wonderfully restored Hook and Hastings organ, confident that we will claim it when we can. And thus, “Organ Music Expansion” is a highlight of the exciting projects that make up St. Andrew’s 2022 Capital Campaign!

 Lord, may the gift of our music move with the work of your Holy Spirit!

An Updated Total

Hooray! We are thrilled to announce that all of our Vestry and Capital Campaign committee members have been visited and have committed to Renewing the Gift. To date our pledge total is $421,100.

 The committee is continuing to make personal visits to parishioners throughout the summer.

A prayer attributed to St. Frances

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where this is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.