​Ariane Smith, of Thyme Café, will provide a tasting event on June 18, following the 10 am service, in the Narthex. Ariane is creating a Farmers Market with area vendors that will take place in the CHS parking lot from 3-7:30 on three dates over the summer (July, August, September), TBD.
 
The tasting will provide a sampling of the types of foods Ariane will have to offer during the three Farmers Markets. Following the September Market, the Vestry will meet to review how the Markets went and consider expanding the Market to more frequent Market Days in the Fall and Spring.
​Find her on FaceBook >

Alexei will be presenting a concert at Merkin Hall* in New York City on Friday, June 9. The concert is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Nina Lelchuk, who Alexei has described as “the single greatest influence on my formation as a person and musician.” Tickets are $15 and can be purchased through the Box Office (212 501 3330) or online at https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/alexei-tartakovsky-piano/
The concert program:

• LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN - Symphony in F Major “Pastoral,” Op. 68
  (transcribed for piano by Franz Liszt)
• ROBERT SCHUMANN - Theme and Variations in E-flat Major, WoO 24
• SERGEI RACHMANINOFF - Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33

*MERKIN HALL
Kaufman Music Center
Abraham Goodman House
129 West 67th Street
(btw Broadway and Amsterdam)
New York, NY 10023
​

CALLING ALL PARADE ENTHUSIASTS! We are meeting this Sunday (5/28/23) at noon at Vans Self Storage in Whitehouse to decorate the CHS float. All are welcome. Come help decorate, even if you cannot march during the parade.

Parade marchers will be meeting at 10 am in the Kings parking lot, where the parade begins. The parade is scheduled to step off at 10:30 am. The Parade route will be the same as years past, from King's Plaza Shopping Center to the Municipal Building. Right after the Parade & the Ceremony at the Municipal Building, refreshments & music will be available at Pickell Park for participants and spectators.

You can park your car Kings before the parade. James Ryan will park his car at Pickell Park and will provide shuttle service after the parade, to bring CHS members back to their cars at Kings.

ECS-NJ is a diocesan initiative that focuses on proactively addressing human needs and relentlessly working against both social and racial injustice.  CHS is one of the founding members/supporters of ECF.
 
Get engaged and make a difference! If you or someone you know has a skill or talent and a few hours a month to give, we need you! For more information, contact us: info@ecs-nj.org.
 
We would like to express our deepest gratitude. We are blessed with the congregations, individuals, and organizations, without whose kind generosity, none of this would ever have been possible. We are committed to working to achieve a more just and equitable world. Together, we’re able to do so much more. Let’s ignite an epidemic of compassion, donate today at www.dioceseofnj.org/donate-to-ecs.

In April, Episcopal Community Services of the Diocese of New Jersey (ECS–NJ) issued $111K in ECS–NJ Grants to fund Nine projects in seven counties in New Jersey.
The ECS–NJ grants are designed to expand existing compassion and justice ministries of congregations or make new ones possible. Projects address one or more of the following:

• To meet human need in underserved and marginalized communities, especially communities of color.
• To engage, collaborate and partner with other organizations, including faith-based, secular, community, governmental, etc.
• To encourage advocacy for issues relating to social justice, including spearheading new advocacy efforts.

CHRIST CHURCH, TOMS RIVER
Community Outreach to the Homeless
Project focus: Housing Insecurity
Grant amount: $15,000

ST. MARK’S, PLAINFIELD
The Out of the Box Club: A Math & Science Club to Develop STEM Skills Using Experiential Learning
Grant amount: $8,000
Project focus: Education

ST. PETER’S, FREEHOLD
Community Housing Clearinghouse
Grant amount: $15,000
Project focus: Housing Insecurity

ST. PAUL’S CAMDEN
Feed My Sheep
Grant amount: $15,000
Project focus: Food Insecurity

ST. MARY’S STONE HARBOR
Branches After School Instruction and Inspirational Care (aka BASIICS)
Grant amount: $10,000
Project focus: Youth After School Program

ST. JAMES, BRADLEY BEACH
Fresh is Best
Grant amount: $8,000
Project focus: Food Insecurity

HOLY TRINITY, SOUTH RIVER
Casa Amistad (Friendship House)
Grant amount: $15,000
Project focus: Hispanic Ministry

TRINITY, ASBURY PARK
Trinity Radical Well-being Program
Grant amount: $15,000
Project focus: Wrap-around services for people at risk in the community

TRINITY CATHEDRAL, TRENTON
ServSafe and Life Skills for Ex-Offenders
Grant amount: $10,000
Project focus: Ex-Offender Rehabilitation and Mentoring

Theology on Tap will meet from 7-8:30 pm at Chelseas Restaurant and Pub 22, on 5 Tuesday evenings beginning June 6 through July 11 (no meeting on July 4). We will be studying Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, by Walter Brueggemann. Phil handed out copies of this book to everyone at Christmas services. On June 6, we will discuss the Preface and Chapter 1. Notice there is a study guide for each chapter, beginning on page 91.

Poetry class will resume this summer on selected Thursday in May through July 7-8:30 pm.

• May 4, 25
• June 1, 15, 29
• July 6

This is a Live Only event and as much as the weather allows, we will meet on the porch, steps, apron, outside the main door of the building. When the weather is uncooperative, we will meet in the St Francis music room.

When: Monday, June 26, 2023 @ 10:00am
Where: Fiddler’s Elbow Country Club
811 Rattlesnake Bridge Road  Bedminster Township, NJ 07921

Full Brochure HERE
Sponsorship Opportunities
The 2023 Larry Grantham Charity Golf Classic is Freedom House’s largest fundraising event supporting the organization’s residential and outpatient addiction recovery programs and ensuring that no one is turned away due to a lack of financial resources. This year’s event will reach even more individuals struggling with opioid and other drug addictions as Freedom House continues to expand in 2023.

What difference would it make to you if you knew your soul was immortal?
 
               A reasonable and healthy trend in contemporary spirituality is to live in the moment.  Call it mindfulness; stop and smell the coffee, sniff the roses, and take one day at a time.  That consciousness is a welcome antidote to the frenzy of tomorrow’s worries, tomorrow’s threat, and tomorrow’s unknown. Yet, there is an aspect about living into the future that is as valuable, as healthy, and as liberating.  Maybe even more so.
               The great author Victor Hugo observed:  For half a century I have been writing my thoughts in prose and verse; history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode and song; I have tried all.  But I feel I have not said the thousandth part of what is in me.  When I go down to the grave,  I can say, like many others, “I have finished my day’s work.”  But I cannot say, “I have finished my life.”  My day’s work will begin again the next morning.  The tomb is not a blind alley but a thoroughfare.  It closes on the twilight, opens on the dawn

​                We believe in immortality because it is promised in our faith and celebrated in the Resurrection of our Lord.   And equally, we have experienced a deep encounter within our own souls - a thing too precious to be cast into the void.  Surely, if there is any higher power at all, such a precious gift as a soul could not be jettisoned at the conclusion of a material and finite existence.   We are unique, unrepeatable and irreplaceable.  We all live different lives.  And most certainly, the quality of our lives is not determined by length.   A care letter written by a grade schooler to a soldier overseas concluded, “I hope you will live all your life.”  Ah.  Do we live all our lives?   Or do we, too simply, think of life chiefly by its length?  Consider our Savior.  Jesus had thirty-three years and his public ministry was but three.
A former and rather eccentric parishioner, who now lives in the Perfection of God, was a man of deep and serious conviction.  I observed him spending a great deal of time with another parishioner whom I happened to know he disliked with some vigor.  I queried him as to this sudden shift in behavior.  “I realized I would be spending eternity with her and thought I better try to get along now, maybe I can help her be more pleasant before we get there.”    A more powerful eternal motivation is expressed in the martyrs Oscar Romero of El Salvador and Martin Luther King Jr. who knew their protests would risk everything while never completing their cause.  Through eyes of infinite continuity we can bring about more peace, justice, meaning, and love. 

The “everlasting” vision offers concrete inspiration for greater living in our moment, and not merely propelling us to care for those who rub us the wrong way.  Eternity empowers us to bravely endure sufferings, insist on justice for the oppressed,  find grace and grant forgiveness, claim power over the overwhelming, discover new beginnings in old endings, uncover triumph where all is doubt and darkness, walk in tranquility and peace where all is strife, stand with the troubled, and befriend the friendless.
 
This is why we believe in immortality, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and why we shout with all our being, ​

Back by popular demand!!   Somerset Patriots Ball Game and Fireworks night!  Saturday July 8.  Please pay the Group rate of $10 via the PayPal link.  Please meet at the ballpark and  pick your tickets up at the Will Call window the night of the game!   Let them know you are with the Church of the Holy Spirit!    Maybe we will see some CHS action on the field again!  :) 
Go to the online sign-up form > (don't forget to come back and pay!)

Come see some amazing and unique art! We will be carpooling from a designated area in Flemington at  9 am to head down to Hamilton NJ.   We will arrive at Grounds for Sculpture at approx. 10 am and head home at approximately 2/2:30 pm.  (Of course you can stay later if you desire!)   

Dale Dabour will be organizing a car pool (Please let her (daledabour@gmail.com)know if you are able to drive, how many people you can transport or if you yourself need a ride).  We can also run a carpool from CHS for anyone not able to get to Flemington on their own. 

NO outside food is permitted in the park. There are two establishments for dining purposes.  Rats Restaurant (Reservations are required), and The Cafe (also good food!)   

If you plan to attend, please pay the group rate in advance via the following PayPal link,  
$18 / Adult 18+,   $15 / Senior 65+,  $10/ student 6-17 (credit card fees will be added)

Good Friday 2023 Update:
Thank you to all that helped us to make our CHS Good Friday Day of Service a memorable one.  We had over 85 volunteers turn out for this special day.  We completed work at 13 houses as part of the Mr. Fixit project of Hunterdon County.  We helped Good News Home for Women clean out storage areas on their property.   Meals on Wheels gratefully distributed the 90 wreaths that we made for their clients.   We helped the Sunday School finish the 8 blankets that were made for the Linus Project.  The Flemington Food Bank received about 90 personal hygiene kits for their clients, along with handmade notes created by folks at CHS that day.  The Clinton Food Pantry received 440 lbs of food and cleaning supplies collected during the few weeks leading up to Good Friday.   Several caps were knitted and crocheted for the Seaman’s Institute’s Christmas at Sea program.  Several projects were completed around CHS including, outside pruning, Altar Guild room cleanup, electrical rewiring, and Parish Hall renovation work.  Our newly formed Publicity group sent out information to several publications and we had a few new folks join us that day due to this outreach.
A special thank you to those parishioners who spearheaded the projects and those that organized and contributed food for breakfast and dinner that day.
Sally Bird

Here is the letter that went to the Open Cupboard Food Pantry with the 440 pounds of donations!

​Mark Your Calendar for Sunday, June 25 for the CHS Picnic at Pickell Park, 515 Main Street, Whitehouse Station at noon after Church Services.

We are trying another venue closer to church, with a pavilion and easy access from Rt. 523. 

Grill Master James will be back to cook up burgers and hot dogs!  We will provide beverages too!  We’ll have a sign-up sheet for salads and desserts.

Although we won’t have the same long venue for biking, there will be a one mile loop that anyone can ride and an obstacle course set up for kids on bikes to test their skills. Father John can bless the bikes and feet!   Stay tuned for details...

Come and relax, enjoy picnic food, and good conversation and camaraderie with CHS friends!

Please contact Dale Dabour (daledabour@gmail.com) or Janet Matts (janetmatts@gmail.com)  with questions or additional ideas.

​ K&C will resume January 9, 2023.
Time will be: 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Mondays.