Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0671709445 / Publisher: Simon & Schuster, March 1993
The author records his two years with Rev. Stelk and his parishoners as he observed and studied their experiences and commitment to the Church
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Ordinary Miracles is the story of a group of people bound together by their shared faith. Nick Taylor spent nearly two years with the pastor and congregation of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Mohegan Lake, New York. He attended Sunday church services and weeknight vestry meetings, but he also accompanied members of the parish as they went about their daily lives, and he watched as they put their faith into practice in ways both obvious and subtle. Vividly and intimately, Ordinary Miracles describes the commitment of the people of St. Mary's to their community and to their families.At the center of the book is the Rev. Lincoln Stelk, dedicated to his parish but frustrated by a lack of money and by the vestry's reluctance to endorse his plans for the growing congregation. On a personal level, Stelk and his wife are apprehensive about the prospects for retirement in a community where they can't afford to buy a house.There is Judy Salerno, a dropout from religion who returns to church when she decides she doesn't like herself. When she is recruited to work in St. Mary's community food pantry, her dedication and her unusual skill at shopping transform the food pantry as the chuch begins to feed ever-larger numbers of the poor.There are Caryl and Bill Miller and their teenage son, all struggling to find the faith to help them cope with Caryl's terminal illness.There are Lily and Harold Van Horne, a couple in their nineties whose frailty is a concern to the entire parish; Beverley Taylor, a widow with a son serving in the Persian Gulf War; and Coleman Hill, whose faith in the church and himself is shaken by unemployment and recession.Within the parish is a group that belongs to the Cursillo movement, with the potential to transform - or to split - the church.And finally there is Nick Taylor himself, a lapsed Episcopalian who rediscovers the meaning of religion as he watches others practicing their faith and uses his renewed faith to oversome personal turmoil.At a time when it seems that people are filled with despairsurrounded by stories of violence and indifference to life, castigated for cynicism and lack of values - Ordinary Miracles offers eloquent testimony that faith and commitment can make it possible to meet the challenges of modern life.
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