Douglas Cornman – Easter Reflection 2020

Douglas Cornman – Easter Reflection 2020

Island Outreach Director/Chaplain Douglas Cornman

Happy Easter! I hope that you are healthy, safe, and managing as best as you possibly can this Easter. It is a strange and unsettling time. I thought that I would share the reflection that I am offering this morning to the residents of the Cranberry Isles, Isle au Haut, Frenchboro, Matinicus and Monhegan. I serve as chaplain to these islands and we’ll be meeting together this morning via Zoom to celebrate Easter.

My reflection is taken from the Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 1-18.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my God.

Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb. Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him, “teacher.”

As I have sat with and opened my heart, mind, and spirit to this passage of scripture, this is the piece of the story that has most resonated with me this Easter. Mary Magdalene and the moment she realizes that she is talking to Jesus.

Prior to COVID-19, I thought my Easter message would focus on the resurrection and what it might mean to live as Christians adhering to the hope that we are resurrection people. Over the past few weeks, as I have experienced the impact of COVID-19 and the fear, anxiety, and uncertainty surrounding it, my attention has been pulled from the concept of resurrection to this moment in the story, when Mary realizes that she’s not talking to a gardener, but to Jesus – the very person for whom she is mourning. The person she thought was taken from her.

As ironic as it may sound at Easter, I am finding the thought of resurrection to be too big – too conceptual. In this moment in time, during this pandemic, I am looking for signs of hope that are more tangible. Signs that I can hold in my hands or into which I can sink my metaphoric teeth. It’s this desire for tangible hope that drew my attention to Mary.

It seems to me that Mary could be any of us. Mary’s world was irrevocably changed with Christ’s crucifixion. I imagine that every aspect of her existence was touched by his death, the events that led to it, and the way it happened. I have no point of reference for a tragedy that is the magnitude of a crucifixion. But I have a gut feeling that parallels can be drawn between Mary’s experience and our experience with this pandemic. Like Mary, every aspect of our existence has been touched by this virus. We are frightened, confused, and weeping. We’ve experienced tremendous loss. We cannot envision a way forward and we have no assurance that our future will resemble our familiar past. We are weeping outside of the tomb; not quite knowing what to do.

Despite how it may feel, my intention for Easter Sunday is not to plummet you into the depths of despair. Instead, it’s to remind you that hope is present if we remain present and open ourselves to its possibility. Mary remained present. Unlike Simon Peter and the other disciple, Mary didn’t leave the tomb when she found it empty. She stayed and she was present. She was also present with her feelings – she wept. She didn’t push her emotions away or act as if she wasn’t sad. She didn’t put on a brave face. She wept. She was present.

I would like to imagine that she took a couple of deep cleansing breaths while she was standing there. However, that little insertion is most definitely me projecting my love of breathing into the story.

My point is, she stayed. Hope presented itself and Mary was available to see it. Hope wasn’t completely clear to her at first. The depth of her emotions caused her to mistake Jesus for a gardener, but clarity came because she remained present.

My Easter message to you is quite simple – be like Mary. In the midst of this horrific, frightening, anxiety producing, and uncertain pandemic, find the strength within to be present. You may experience a sense of presence through meditation, prayer, exercise, or art. You may experience it in the shower or when you take a long hot bath. Regardless of the method you choose, I promise you, if you pause and breathe, you can experience presence. And once there, your breathing will slow, your heart rate will decrease, clarity will emerge, and you may realize that hope is standing, right there, beside you.

Remember, especially today – Easter Sunday – that hope is omnipresent. It has been, it is, and it will be with us, always. Sometimes, we’re just too human to see it.

Amen.

Peace. Happy Easter!!
Douglas Cornman
Director of Island Outreach and Chaplain, Sunbeam V

Easter ‘Sunbeam’ at Isle au Haut: Feeding Body, Mind and Soul

Easter ‘Sunbeam’ at Isle au Haut: Feeding Body, Mind and Soul

ABOARD THE SUNBEAM — “Despite the high southerly winds, sea height and fog, the Sunbeam and crew made it to Isle au Haut on Saturday, April 20th to celebrate Easter.

We had a lively and festive church service on the boat, with Hunt and Allison Smith of Steuben providing music on fiddle and accordion.

Douglas’ Easter message focused on how we can better love one another as God commands us to love through the Gospel, even though doing so is one of our greatest challenges.

Sunbeam Steward Jillian served a delicious dinner of chicken and dumplings and blueberry pie.

It was a delightful evening where all were lovingly fed – body, mind & soul.”

Douglas Cornman, Maine Seacoast Mission Island Outreach Director

Mission President Planting’s Easter Message: What the Sunbeam Cross Means

Mission President Planting’s Easter Message: What the Sunbeam Cross Means

Sunbeam at Matinicus Island, Easter 2018

Sunbeam Easter Trip: March 30-31, 2018
Isle au Haut, Matinicus, Frenchboro
“Mercy Ship”
Draft Easter Sermon by Seacoast Mission president C. Scott Planting

Scripture Lesson: Mark 16. 1-8

  1. Painted on the bow of the Sunbeam is a large white cross. I want to talk with you about what that cross means.

The history of the cross painted on the bow of the Sunbeam is recent in the story of the Seacoast Mission. The cross was painted on the bow of the newly commissioned Sunbeam III in 1940. The world was at war. The cross meant that the Sunbeam was a “mercy ship,” a military designation similar to hospital ships with red crosses painted on their hulls. These were humanitarian ships not to be attacked by enemy vessels.
But the meaning of the cross goes deeper. The Seacoast Mission was founded in 1905 by two brothers, Angus and Alexander McDonald, both congregational ministers. They founded the Seacoast Missionary Society in 1905.

The McDonald brothers were acquainted with island fishing communities, lighthouse stations and life saving stations. They knew from visiting these places directly about hardships of living far out to sea. The first Mission statement — 1906:

To sail a sloop in a parish extending from Kittery Point to Quoddy Head, along the broken coast of Maine, in all kinds of weather, is not a small undertaking. To enter the coves and harbors, to call on the families on isolated islands, to visit the light-keepers and the life saving stations, is a task of greater magnitude.

They knew about difficult living conditions — terrific isolation, no schools or churches, teachers or doctor. A diet of cod and potatoes. From the beginning they understood their mission to address often deplorable living conditions — both physical and spiritual. The cross in this deeper sense was a Christian witness to serve people with a gospel message — that each person was a child of God, made in the image of God worthy of dignity, respect and care.

  1. This particular understanding of the cross painted on the bow runs throughout our Mission’s history. I read the daily logs of ‘mission workers’ – great souls like Alice ‘Ma’ Peasley. A school teacher who joined the Mission staff in 1927. In the Fall of that year the Sunbeam dropped her off on Crowley Island, near Jonesport, and picked her up the following Spring. She organized a school and a church. One of my favorite photographs, taken in 1939 shows Mrs. Peasley walking briskly across “South Sandy Beach” on Matinicus to visit the home of Henriette Ames . “Ma” Peasley had taught island women to hook beautiful rugs.

Arthur Sargent was a lay pastor assigned to Jonesport in the 1930’s-40’s. He was a tall, wiry man, and who loved to walk from house to house, village to village visiting neighbors. In his journal, Sunday, April 1, 1934, he describes Easter at Moose Neck Basin, “Neck attendance 23 offering 64 cents. I walked home to Jonesport and called on 14 families and ate dinner with Helen and William Garnett.”

It’s a bright line from these tireless Mission workers to today’s Sunbeam crew — who bring the boat with the cross on the bow in all kinds of weather, winter and summer, to isolated places, walking with Ma Peasley and Arthur Sargent — not away from this world in search of a better, but precisely the opposite to walk unreservedly towards “the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings” (Albert Schweitzer) with the people they serve.

  1. What I’ve witnessed so many times aboard the Sunbeam is a crew who hold nothing back in their care. I experience this on a midnight trip to Matinicus, when the Sunbeam is trying to get a head of rough weather to make important telemedicine appointments. I’ve watched the crew of Captain Michael Johnson and engineer Storey King work ‘spring lines’ in horrible conditions to bring the boat safely to dock. It’s in this giving without counting the cost where we nourish and bring life to others. This is the example of Jesus, this is the power of Jesus, this is the witness of the Sunbeam that in Christ-like ways the crew of the ‘mercy boat’ has poured out its life over all these years. Boat captains and engineers, stewards and ministers have nourished so many people. I’ve heard so many times from islanders in some needy place in their lives say, “When the Sunbeam comes into the harbor I get a piece of my life back.” The cross on the bow of the boat represents the loving action of the whole boat. When the boat sails into an island harbor it brings hope.

  2. Sixty years ago Neal Bousfield, the great Mission superintendent, talked about the ministry of the Sunbeam.

“This is a ministry made up of little things, time-consuming things with individuals where only the Lord knows the amount accomplished… We trust we have planted seeds, have encouraged growth and will be able to continue to do so. We do not expect great changes to take place immediately but deep changes that will have a lasting effect on the lives now and in generations to come. Our people are the salt of the earth and are very good to us.”

Bousfield says , “Our people are very good to us.” I believe there is a deep sense of gratitude from islanders for the generations of service provided by the Sunbeam. Wherever we go we are so well received. As the boat has cared for people that love is shared with others. I remember a few years ago, aboard the Sunbeam visiting Matinicus. I was mourning the death of a friend, a fisherman invited me over to his home to watch a Patriots game with him. A simple act of kindness. The boat’s life is integrated within the rhythm of giving and receiving.

  1. Mark’s Easter gospel ends with words to women who’ve gone to Jesus tomb early in the morning. They are greeted by a “young man, dressed in a white robe” saying:
    Go, tell Jesus’ disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.

The Easter gospel is simple. The first witnesses to the resurrection are told, “Go back to Galilee where you walked with Jesus, and do as he did, shape your life after his. Live completely in the world as Jesus did. And there in the world with all its duties, problem, and troubles you will receive from the Spirit of the risen Christ the courage of Jesus’ kind of suffering love and you will learn in your own experience who Jesus is.” The cross painted on the bow of the Sunbeam stands for the courage of Jesus’ kind of love that gives life to the world. This love is seen every time the Sunbeam enters the coves and harbors to call on the families of isolated island communities.

  1. Whenever I see the white cross on the bow of the Sunbeam, I think of Easter. Whenever I see the Sunbeam sail out of Northeast Harbor en route to an outer island, I think of the crew on the boat, and all the crews who’ve sailed out of harbors, who’ve gone forth to respectfully ,thoughtfully and joyfully serve their neighbors. I think of islanders like Billy Barter from Isle au Haut who told me, “I get such a good feeling when the Sunbeam comes in.” It’s like whenever the Sunbeam enters a harbor it brings with it the accumulated good will of a century. It’s a palpable feeling that all will be well. The Sunbeam is a mercy ship that sails with Easter hope. Amen.
Downeast Table of Plenty, Easter Sunday, April 16, Hosted by Assabet Valley Regional Tech HS

Downeast Table of Plenty, Easter Sunday, April 16, Hosted by Assabet Valley Regional Tech HS

Downeast Table of Penty Sign

Thank you, Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, MA, for hosting Easter Sunday’s Downeast Table of Plenty. The culinary arts students will cook a traditional Easter Dinner with ham and scallop potatoes.

Cherryfield, ME — Sunday afternoons, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. at our Downeast Table of Plenty, everyone is welcome to share satisfying, home-cooked meals.

People age two to ninety, from every segment of the community attend. Music, conversation, and laughter preside. Hunger and loneliness are nowhere in sight.

The Table of Plenty takes place in the EdGE building on our Downeast Campus every Sunday, 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. Meals are provided by volunteers.

Are you or your group interested in providing a meal in 2017? Please email Downeast Campus Director Wendy Harrington.

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