Like a three legged stool

Dear friends,

In the Episcopal Church, our authority is seen to come from three sources: The Bible (Holy Scripture of Hebrew, Greek, and Apocryphal texts), the Tradition (Book of Common Prayer and Constitution and Canons of the church), and reason (our personal experience that we bring to the table). These are seen to work together, as Anglican Divine Richard Hooker said, like a three-legged stool. No one outweighs the other, but all work together to shape our common life.

Our mission, “To be a welcoming, inclusive community of faith grounded in the Episcopal tradition that looks to the future where Christ’s transformational love inspires every generation to care for one another and serve the wider world,” gives a nod to this notion of being grounded in this Episcopal tradition. And that tradition honors many things:

• Embracing a world-affirming stance to an early, enfleshed spiritual practice, in that God became flesh: We are incarnational, embodied, sacramental, and daily practitioners. 

• Giving ourselves over to joy, wonder, and awe: in worship/liturgy, in all of our relationships, and as the way we see the world.

• Living a healthy, balanced life with God and in relation to others

• Exploring beauty as a doorway to God

• Experiencing and protecting God’s creation

• Being in community with God and others, where community comes first: through communal prayer, engaging our neighbors, in our own togetherness, and in communal study of God’s word

• Loving the questions and helping others love the questions too: about God, the spiritual life, and life itself.

• Living richly and prayerfully in the creative tension between polarities/opposites: mind/heart; sacred/secular; God’s transcendence/God’s intimate closeness

  
  

This is not an exhaustive list of what it means to be grounded in the Episcopal Tradition, but it’s meant to get the imagination flowing. What would you add to the list of what it means to be grounded in this tradition?

I continue to be grateful to be among you, to walk with you during this season, friends. 

In peace,