The NEXT Level

Case Statement

“Next Level” Accessibility Project

Every Sunday some members of our St. Martin’s community cannot attend services and classes because they find accessing the Sanctuary and Parish House simply too difficult.  Although they want to share the beauty of God’s presence in worship, fellowship, and service, they are unable to climb the stairs or fear an unreliable wheelchair lift. These are not just those who use wheelchairs, walkers, or canes; they are also those with small children in strollers. Our community is diminished by their absence.

We cannot say “All Are Welcome!” until we are accessible to everyone who wishes to partake in our dynamic and diverse community.  The “Next Level” Accessibility Project will build on what has already been done and bring our campus one step closer to 100% accessibility. 

The “Next Level” Accessibility Project will create easy and dignified access to worship, fellowship, learning, and service on the St. Martin’s campus.  People who in the past have been unable to navigate independently into our Sanctuary and Parish House will now be able to do so with ease.

An elegant ramp of Wissahickon Schist will curve up to the Willow Grove Avenue door, its profile so integrated into the building as to appear part of the original design.  

Willow Grove ramp rendering by McEwen Architects.

Dangerous steps will be replaced on the Willow Grove Terrace by gentle slopes and curb cuts so all levels are accessible and tripping hazards are removed. Handrails will be rearranged for the ease and safety of all.

Handicapped parking spots will be clearly demarcated on Willow Grove Avenue close to the accessible entrance and protected from traffic by set-backs from the street. 

The Willow Grove Terrace will be expanded and smoothed for safety, for liturgical gatherings on Palm Sunday and Easter Vigil and for hospitality before and after worship.

The Parish House Door will be rearranged to make it more easily operable. A friendly and welcoming glass door will be installed inside the existing wood doors that many find heavy and difficult to maneuver.  The beautiful wood doors will be hinged open during the day like shutters and closed at night. 

New lighting will be installed in the project area to illuminate the church and grounds at night for the comfort and safety of our members, visitors, and guests. 

Construction on the Next Level Project is planned for summer 2014, beginning in June and completed by September.  Fundraising will begin in February of this year after a public presentation of the project on February 9.  We will need to raise approximately $200,000 to fund the project.

When Jesus preached the Kingdom, all people – no matter their status or ability – had room by his side.  The “Next Level” Accessibility Project is about the Gospel, the Good News that reaches out and includes all in God’s unconditional love.  Together we will make the renovations necessary to support our mission to Welcome All People as Christ welcomes us.

A Door to Inner Life

For a long time I struggled to understand what my inner life or soul-life is about. Part of the challenge was setting aside the time to cultivate and tend to my interior life. My usual routine of praying the Daily Office and attending Sunday services was just not enough; I needed time to be engaged by God in silence. But part of me feared the unknown and was afraid to take risks.

There came a time, however, when God’s invitation to “come and see” became more persistent and louder, and I was no longer able to ignore it. So I mustered the courage I needed to accept the invitation. And that is how I came to enter my inner life--taking one little step at a time.

In the mid-90’s I participated in a facilitators training conference on a program called Women of Vision, a leadership curriculum that was developed by women in the Episcopal Church to raise women leaders in the church (and beyond) and to affirm their gifts. One of the gifts I received from this training is the question “WHAT STANDS OUT FOR YOU?” From that time on this question has become a very practical tool for reflection. It has become my regular practice to ask myself this question.

I have been making literal and mental notes of words and quotes that jump out from my readings or sermons I hear from others; of thoughts and feelings that arise from activities like gardening, knitting and cooking; and, images that arise in my dreams and elsewhere. I have come to see and understand these occasions as invitations from God to look within. I have found a home for these thoughts, feelings, and images in my heart. And I have found that I may return to them there from time to time. Surprisingly, each time I turn within in this way, I discover how my life has changed and in so changing, these thoughts, feelings, and images reveal new and deeper meaning. I become aware of the differences they have made and continue to make in the way that I relate with God, others, myself and the rest of creation.

- The Rev. Harriet Kollin

What's a post about ice cream doing here?

I posted a request to our Facebook page the other day - did anyone have any questions about us, even silly ones? The folks over at DioPA Youth wanted to know how the staff would answer, "The best ice cream flavor in the world is…" So, I took a poll at our staff meeting yesterday. 

The first person to respond was Harriet. "Ben & Jerry's Pistachio," she answered quickly. Carol went next with Bryers' Mint Chocolate Chip - a classic. Jarrett then responded that he was having a hard time deciding but chose Thomas Sweet's Vanilla-Strawberry-Banana Blend-In. Callie chose a local small batch producer/food truck - Zsa's Salted Caramel (a flavor, by the way, that always sells out quickly at the twice-annual Food Truck-a-Thon at my local Co-op in Swarthmore). Connie didn't know the brand of hers, but the flavor for sure - Mocha Chip.  I named Ciao Bella's Key Lime Graham.  It turns out that both Erik and Angelique aren't big ice cream eaters so they had trouble with this. Erik finally named a banana milkshake and Angelique chose simple strawberry.  Just as we were closing out, Jarrett changed his mind. "No, not the blend-in. Change mine to chocolate soft serve from…what's it called...that gross roadside place…" (laughter around the table).

We had a great time talking about our small distraction from regular business. It got me thinking some more about ice cream. A few years ago I embarked upon making my own ice cream. My husband had bought me a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer for a birthday and there was a special deal where it came with a bonus attachment of his choosing. Smart man, he chose for me the ice cream maker attachment.  However, I had let a couple years pass before giving the ice cream making a try. I imagined it would be complicated. I thought I'd try what seemed a simple enough French Vanilla from the accompanying recipe book. The custard base was involved, and though I got through it and even tried again to make a few variations - it was more than I'd bargained for, especially on my own, and the results were only okay.

Then my co-op offered an ice cream making class. I signed up and that's when I met Philadelphia-style ice cream. Much less cooking required. Very simple recipes. Now this was going to be a lot easier! I can do this regularly! And I can play around too!  I was excited to jump in and soon I was even creating my own flavors with my new found methods - Blueberry Buckle ice cream. Strawberry-Basil-Balsamic ice cream. The fantastic thing about Philadelphia-style ice cream is that it starts off with only 3 key ingredients: Cream, sugar, and your flavoring (you add an acid if you're using non-citrus fruit as the flavor). To make Strawberry-Basil-Balsamic, for example, my total list of ingredients was: Fresh strawberries, fresh basil, balsamic vinegar (my acid), sugar and cream. Simple. Fresh. Cold, creamy wonderfulness.

It was a revelation to find that I could do this myself. We're told in so many ways by our current society that we're too dumb to make or do things ourselves. I've become much more interested in making my own food from scratch since reading the following quote by a friend of chef Michael Ruhlman, "Americans are being taught we’re too stupid to cook and it’s simply not true."(from his blog post: America: Too Stupid to Cook).  

It has changed my thinking about food, for sure, but other things too. What else have I been taught is more difficult than it really is? Praying? Reading and understanding the Bible? Talking to others about what I understand things to mean, and what that means for my faith and my life. All of those for sure. 

I have a hard time starting a prayer. Where to begin? Well with ice cream it is cream, sugar, flavor. With prayer, you can start with thanks, confession, and asking (actually, prayer can be even simpler - you could just do one piece to start with!) Reading the Bible? Well, with ice cream I started with a recipe. Take it from the top. Just open it up and start in. Or, even better like I did - find a class. Some other people to read the recipe over with and ask questions, someone else who's done it before to guide the way. Before you know it, you're reading on your own! 

It turns out that it doesn't have to be as hard as it might at first seem. Start off slowly, get your feet under you, and you'll be making ice cream with ease and enjoying an enriched faith life you weren't sure you could have. And you can always move up to custard-style ice creams later when it feels right. ;-)

~ Natalee Hill  

PS: I didn't intend it this way when I came up with my blog post idea, but this post feels like a good plug for our Biblical Studies at St. Martin's. So, I'll just mention that we currently have three sessions running. NO experience with the bible and NO homework is required for any of them. This is your ice cream class!

PPS: Some ice cream recipes to get you started
1: The absolutely most-simple ice cream recipe ever - perfect for kids! (NO maker necessary!)
2: When you're ready to commit to an ice-cream freezing device. (There's a link for how to make it if you don't have the ice cream maker too - it will take longer, but it can be done!)
3: Custard-style for the truly committed. (From Food & Wine Magazine, so it must be good, right?)

The Severed Wasp

During my third year of Divinity School, I served as the interim Chaplain at the Cathedral School of St. John the Divine in New York City. Each week I led classes of elementary-aged children into the cavernous Gothic/Romanesque Cathedral for chapel. The ceiling was so high that on the gloomier days it would be lost to sight. Each week we would try out a new chapel among the chantry chapels radiating out from the chancel, each ‘chapel’ as large as most churches I had known up to that point.

At the Cathedral I had the pleasure of attending a class with Madeleine L’Engle a favorite author from my childhood who wrote A Wrinkle in Time and the The Wind at the Door among other highly mystical novels for children. The fact that she was an Episcopalian only confirmed my love for her. 

L’Engle - with her tongue firmly in her cheek - lovingly referred to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine as the ‘Severed Wasp.’ The Cathedral is famously unfinished, with a gap in construction in the area of the transepts where the great central tower should rise over the crossing. Founded in last years of the 19th century the Cathedral was intended to be a celebration of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) cultural dominance in the United States. Hence the ironic double meaning of ‘Severed Wasp.’

Built on the highest outcropping of stone on the Island of Manhattan, this grandiose seat for the Bishop of New York was a direct response to the completion of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral on 5th Avenue. The charter of the Cathedral clearly envisions the structure as an assertion of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant hegemony in the face of surging immigration. The cathedral was even to have its own militia to protect the right order of things. 

Then the ruling classes went bankrupt in the stock market crash of 1929. 

The work on the Cathedral stopped, just as hundreds of ambitious Episcopal building projects stopped.  Some stopped in mid-span like St. Luke’s in Evanston, Illinois and others never got started like a proposed Cathedral in Chicago, and a gigantic Cathedral in Baltimore (the current very large church was to be the chapel). Our own aborted Cathedral in Andorra is another example of a grandiose project on a towering high point cut down first by market forces and then by fading interest. 

You see, we lost. We lost the battle for dominance in our society and had to learn to share with immigrants and people of many races, classes, ethnicities etc. Some folks are still fighting and some are still pretending that by dint of our heritage, family trees and taste we are still a special breed apart and above the rest. 

The fact is, we lost, and that is the best thing that ever happened to the Episcopal Church, in my opinion. 

We mistook a warped amalgam of class, ethnicity, and white supremacy and made it an animating principal of gross and grandiose assertion of privilege. These temples were raised to the wrong glory. Losing is humbling and humility is the right position to give God glory in fellowship with all our neighbors, as equals in God's sight.

Jesus said, “We must lose our life to find our true life.” As a church, I believe we are in a very exciting time. Dying has brought tremendous opportunity for discovering new life set free from old identifications and dead ends. Dying teaches us to keep Christ at the center and to resist all substitutes. Christ is the glory of God we seek and the Gospel of John always reminds us that this Glory is Cross-Shaped in our hearts, in our communities, but maybe not in the stone of grandiose buildings. 

The good news is that enlightened leadership made St. John the Divine a center of job creation and job training for the people of Harlem during the 1970s, wrapping up this story on the happy note of redemption. One never knows where the new life of Christ may arise, old stones, old stumps, old churches too. 

- The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel