A Letter from Guatemala

Could someone ask a telling question about climate change and migration?  See below.  Climate change fuels pressures to migrate, and it's only going to get worse.

Ila,

from Guatemala, where all is more or less well, given that it's an election year, and Guatemala remains near the bottom on social indicators, and la roya continues to destroy the coffee cash crop in many areas, and the other great cash crop for small farmers, cardamom, is now afflicted with thripp [climate change definitely has contributed to the la roya problem, don't know about thripp].  We are trying to get an appointment with US AID for Group 2, as climate change is one of their priorities.

Fifty-eight bus drivers, ayudantes, and passengers have been killed by extortionists on public buses in the central corridor since last October, according to Prensa Libre.  As Team 1 traveled from Guate to El Quiche, there were armed national police front and back on the bus.  Very uneventful.

Otherwise, hospitals are without supplies, the people are rising peacefully in the streets against corruption, demanding election reform and immediate resignation of the present president, Otto Perez Molina, but they don't seem to have a clear idea of how to improve the situation.  The health situation in the high-risk Ixil Area where we go seems actually a bit better than we thought, though we don't know what Team 2 will find when they visit three communities where health extension services are no longer functioning.

We seem to be having "un poco verano" in the middle of what should be the rainy season, after significant rains earlier (especially the night before Team 1 had to do the longest, toughest walk through mountains, rocks, tree roots and mud -- they were champs).

I don't have my best project lists here.  Please pass to anyone you like.

General Convention News

The 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church
June 25 - July 3, 2015
Salt Lake City, Utah

The governing body of The Episcopal Church, known as the General Convention, is a bicameral legislature that includes the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops. It meets every three years - and this is one of those years.

During its triennial meeting, the Convention's work is carried out by deputies and bishops representing each diocese. They consider a wide range of important issues. For more information on the Convention, as well as videos about the four nominees for Presiding Bishop, check out the General Convention website, articles about Convention on The Episcopal Cafe website. Thanks to Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis for the info!

Transition Report 4 and Other Announcements

Casa Maria sandwich-making is Friday, June 26. WE NEED YOUR HELP! No school students to help until September! Bring family & friends!

Kitchen opens at 5pm. Please bring 1 OR 2 dozen hard boiled, peeled eggs. You will be glad you helped with this good service to others. Join us in the COOL Parish Center.
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Adult Education continues each Wednesday at 10:00 am in the Womble library. We are studying Great Courses - “The New Jerusalem Revisited”, with lively discussion and facilitated by Peter Schmidt.  All are invited to attend and we are looking forward to meeting you.

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Contemplative Prayer Group Summer Schedule ~ Saturday, June 27 ~ 9:30 am ~ House of Prayer ~ Our group has been meeting now for close to 3 years.     You are invited to join us; all are welcome!
           We continue to practice meditation, trying to grow in living our lives in a more contemplative manner.  We normally meet weekly, but we've altered the schedule for the summer. Meetings will be the 2nd & 4th Saturdays June through August, with dates of June 27,  July 11 & 25, August 8 & 22.  As usual, the group meets at 9:30 AM in the House of Prayer.  We meditate for 25 minutes, then have a brief program on a particular spiritual theme.  Over the summer we'll look at the practice of mindfulness, Quaker style of worship, and teachings by Richard Rohr and John O'Donohue among others.

         For a complete summer schedule, see the group's flyer at the back of the church and take one home.  For more information contact Jim Reiter at 749-7950 or sjtucson@aol.com

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Vestry’s Report on Transition: #4 ~ 21 June 2015

First and foremost, please attend mass at 9:30 next Sunday, 28 June, when Rector, Fr. John will celebrate his last Eucharist with us. It is also your chance to thank him in person for his 20 years of tireless and caring service for us.

Last Sunday, our Nominating Committee was commissioned to fulfill its responsibility in 1) conduct a parish-wide self-study, 2) produce a parish profile and portfolio based on the self-study, 3) send the parish profile and portfolio to our Bishop’s Office for opening up the search for the new rector, and 4) process all applications, including interviews, to recommend 3 candidates to the Vestry for its final selection and Bishop’s approval.  This committee has 8 members selected by the Vestry from 18 dedicated parishioners either volunteered or nominated for consideration, plus 2 from the Vestry.

They are:
Debbi D’Amore  ~  Grahame Davis ~ Bonnie Edwards ~ Ohia Hodges
Mike Leeming ~ Lori Lewis ~ Jeanette Renouf ~ Jim Steinman ~
and from the Vestry: Alec Kennedy and Katrina Noble

Please keep them in your prayers as they carry out their duties. A bishop-appointed Transition Consultant will assist them throughout the process.

Finally, the Vestry is preparing the Letter of Agreement to the appointed Transition Consultant and the Letter of Agreement to the candidate for our Interim Rector. Nothing is final, however, until the letters are signed and with Bishop’s approval. Please keep on praying and trust God.

All will happen in God’s good time.

Announcements Through June 20th 2015

• Please remember there is just ONE MASS on Sunday, June 14th. It is at 9:30 AM. During this mass, the Senior Warden and Vestry will introduce the newly-formed Nominating Commitee, which will assist the parish in the search for our next Rector. Please plan to attend.


• WM/ECW will be meeting on Wednesday, June 17th at 10:30am in the Parish Center. This will be our last meeting until September. Come and help us plan next year's events and speakers.  Let's share some ideas. Also, Women of the parish, please join us for our “Traditional June Potluck." Bring your favorite dish to share.


• You are invited to join us for Taizé Service, this Tuesday, June 16, 2015 in church.  What a wonderful way to end the day, in quiet, reading, meditation, and music.  The service begins at 6:45 pm.


• ADULT BIBLE STUDY continues each Wednesday at 10:00 am in the Womble library. We are studying Great Courses - “The New Jersalem Revisited”, with lively discussion and facilitated by Peter Schmidt.  All are invited to attend and we are looking forward to meeting you.


• BACKPACKS AND SCHOOL SUPPLIES NEEDED FOR “GIFTS OF LOVE” PROGRAM: We need your help! Interfaith Community Services is collecting school supplies through Monday, July 20 to help children go back to school with the supplies they need. Our families are struggling to provide the basics of food and shelter for their children; paying for school supplies can be a challenge. Place items in the green box in the back of church. As always, your generosity is greatly appreciated.


• Please join us for a Mexican Brunch after the service-donations please-and fellowship in the Parish Center!

Jimmye Hillman

On Jun 4, 2015, at 4:44 PM, Ke Chiang Hsieh  wrote:
Dear friends,

Our beloved Jimmye passed away early this morning with his family around him. Helen and her children take the advantage of their being assemble here to have Jimmye’s requiem at 11 AM on Monday, 8 June, at his and our home parish.  I encourage you to spread the word and be present at the appointed hour.  Thank you!

I would also remind you that at 8:30 AM on Saturday, 6 June, we will have the requiem for beloved Jack Fey (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tucson/obituary.aspx?pid=174878810 ), a long-time parishioner.  Please also honor him with your presence.

Peace,

Your Senile Warden,

John

Here is Jimmye's obituary:

Jimmye Hillman Jimmye S. Hillman, a much-loved member of the St. Michael’s parish, long-time professor at the U of A, one of the most influential international economists of his generation, and late in life a literary memoirist, passed away of complications from a stroke June 4, 2015.  Hillman was born in 1923 and grew up on a subsistence farm in Greene County, Mississippi. His parents were schoolteachers who homed to the family farm in the depths of the depression and sent their precocious son off to the university at the age of sixteen. After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1942, Hillman served in the United States Army in 1942-45, after which he obtained his Masters Degree from Texas A & M University, and received his doctorate in agricultural economics from University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Rockefeller Scholar from 1948-50.  Hillman arrived at the U of A in 1950, became department chair in 1961, and served in that role until his retirement in 1990. He trained generations of agricultural economists and made the U of A an important center for study in the field. His special themes were the convergence of the green revolution and the globalization of trade. In two books, technical and prescient, Nontariff Agricultural Trade Barriers (1978) and Technical Barriers to Agricultural Trade (1991) and in numerous articles, he examined the globalization of food production and consumption, the proliferation of new food technologies (anticipating the emergence of GMO’s), and the ways agribusiness and technology were outstripping the capacity of institutions, locally and globally, to develop a consensus on standards to protect the environment and human health and promote social justice.  In his role as an activist economist, he served as economist for the U. S. Agency for International Development in Brazil from 1957-59, developed USAID Green Revolution projects in the Cape Verde Islands, and served as an advisor on agricultural policy to the government of Portugal when that country was preparing to enter the European Union. In 1966-67, he was Executive Director of the President’s National Advisory Commission on Food and Fiber, appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, and in 1983-84, chaired the agricultural study group assisting the President’s Commission on United States-Japanese Relations, under President Ronald Reagan.  Hillman served a President of the American Agricultural Economics Association in 1970-71 having been President of the Western Farm Economics Association, 1966-67. He was a member of the Western States Manpower Advisory Committee established by the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights.  In 1972-73, Professor Hillman was a Visiting Research Fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford and was a visiting distinguished professor of economics at Lincoln University in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1995-96 and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ceará, Brazil in 1999.  In his retirement, Hillman turned to creative non-fiction and the memoir. His account of his childhood, good times and hard times in the Depression years, when his family bartered with the town store for groceries by raising semi-feral hogs in the pine woods of rural Mississippi, is called Hogs, Mules and Yellow Dogs. It was published by University of Arizona Press in 2012. One reviewer described it as “destined to become a classic of the local literature of Mississippi, alongside Eudora Welty and William Faulkner.” Hillman established a graduate fellowship program for foreign students in the department of Agricultural Economics at the University, established in his wife’s name a collection and research fellowships in the Texas Collection at Baylor University, and was an member of the board and benefactor of the University of Arizona Poetry Center. He also established the Agnes Butler Endowment at Saint Mary’s College in California.  He is survived by his wife Helen, children Brent, Brenda and Bradley Hillman and their partners Susan McNabb, Robert Hass and Valerie Werstler. The couple have three grandchildren, Elizabeth Camber, Thomas Hillman, and Louisa Michaels as well as two great-grandchildren Leon Legere and Simon Camber. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in his name either the to Saint Michaels and All Angels Church or to University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Transition Update #3

Transition Updates from the Vestry of St. Michael and All Angels    Vestry’s Report on Transition #3 from the Vestry of St. Michael and All Angels 1 June 2015 On 14 June, there will be only ONE Sunday service, a Low Mass with hymns, starting at 9:30 AM. This will be the unique moment for the timely presentation and commissioning of the Nominating Committee in YOUR presence, i.e. that of St. Michael’s entire congregation. The Nominating Committee will be composed of 8 parishioners selected by the Vestry from 18 nominees (after 9 declined their nomination), plus two Vestry members. The Senior Warden will be an ex officio without vote. This body, with its own chairperson, will be charged with the responsibility to 1) conduct a parish-wide self-study, 2) produce a parish profile and portfolio based on the self-study, 3) send the parish profile and portfolio to our Bishop’s Office for opening up the search for the new rector, and 4) process all applications, including interviews, to recommend 3 candidates to the Vestry for its final selection and Bishop’s approval. Even with the help of a paid Search Consultant from the Bishop’s Office, this is a daunting challenge to the chosen ten. YOUR presence on 14 June, YOUR participation in the self-study, and YOUR prayers throughout the search process are essential for the future of St. Michael’s, OUR spiritual family and home in Tucson. After the Eucharist, our Misión San Miguel will provide a special Mexican lunch with entertainment to raise funds to help one of our parishioners with her mortgage payments after the prolonged illness of a loved one. Please join us to enjoy the company and to share what God has given us. Come one, come all! Your Vestry John Hsieh, Senior Warden Lisa Sharp, Junior Warden Jo Leeming, Treasurer Carolyn Schlager, Clerk Andy Harris Reed Karaim Alec Kennedy Marjorie King Chris Lewis Linda Morrison Katrina Noble Todd Vick Joel Williams