The Pathfinder: June 4th, 2026
Rooting in Space and Time
Last Sunday, many of you experienced the new shape of our summer services: church in-the-round, with pews facing inward and the altar on the courtyard side. This was my first time seeing this layout; we haven’t changed the space this way in my three years at All Souls.
But it’s not my first experience of rearranged church spaces. During seminary at Yale Divinity School, I worked as a student minister in Marquand Chapel, the ecumenical church at the heart of campus. The space had no pews. Instead, we used two hundred or so wooden chairs, arranged in various configurations: in lines and diamonds and concentric circles and ovals and blocks and almost every shape you could imagine.
And every day, someone– a team of students–had to do this rearranging. We called ourselves the Chair Ministers. We’d stay behind for an hour or so after chapel, dismantling one shape and setting the space for the following day.
At first, I hated it. I didn’t mind the physical labor. What irked me was that the job seemed, in a way, never-ending. No matter how quickly we worked, how meticulously we arranged the chairs, the fruits of our labor lasted just twenty-four hours. The next morning, we’d have to dismantle the arrangement and start all over again!
But over time, I began to realize that the work was teaching me something. The task of chair-moving felt uncomfortable precisely because it was counter-cultural. It challenged the way we usually think about “accomplishment” and “productivity” in other areas of life. I’d spent many years in school, where there’s a sense that you can “get ahead” of your readings and assignments. The harder you push now, the easier next week might be… (or so you hope!). In many jobs, we’re trained for efficiency. The quicker we check things off a to-do list, the sooner we’ll be “done.” We live our lives as though we’re constantly headed somewhere, pushing toward a destination. Our work is a means to an end.
Chair Ministry was different. There was no final “destination,” and no way to rush toward an outcome. Every day, the task renewed itself. It invited a kind of discipline: a practice of greeting exactly what was in front of me every day, no more and no less. As the hours and weeks passed, I began to value the peace and presence that the task invited. I was learning to slow down, pay attention. There was value in each day’s outcome, yes. It was satisfying to watch the space transform as a result of our work. But the work itself–the actual moving, stacking, lifting, lining up–had value in and of itself.
Chair Ministry reminds me of a lesson that my time at All Souls has taught me. In my years with the parish, I’ve learned about a kind of meaning that can’t be rushed toward–a kind of truth that emerges only through the slow unfolding of linear time. Our liturgical life is measured and cyclical; it resists reduction or efficiency. For example, we can’t “think” our way to the outcome of Easter. We must travel through Lent, letting the practices of silence and fasting and gathering and meditation work on our bodies and souls until we’re ready to receive the joy of Resurrection. We don’t ever “arrive,” once and for all, at the fullness of the gift of Eucharist. We return every week to taste and eat again, letting the presence of Christ re-enter our finite, evolving human bodies. And so many of the deepest gifts of our church community emerge through the linear unfolding of human lives: marriages and baptisms and deathbeds and memorials and all of the ways we mark the movement from beginning to end.
These actions– finite, embodied, conditional, never-finished– aren’t a distraction from meaning. They aren’t simply things to be “gotten through” on the way toward the real destination of our lives. They are our lives. These finite acts are the way that we experience the presence of God among us and embody the love of God in this world.
And so as we continue to gather in our newly-arranged nave and enter the months of Ordinary Time, I invite you to be present to life as it presents itself– without rushing, without efficiency, without striving to be done. Cherish the eating, praying, kneeling, singing, hand-holding, and all of the other ways we make church.
-The Rev. Emily Boring
Affirmed & Celebrated: Mark's Story
Happy Pride month! I could not think of a more appropriate place to share my story than with the community of All Souls, a place where I feel completely supported in expressing exactly who I am.
On Good Friday I had the opportunity to deliver a reflection on the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking his Father to “let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” Reading this passage from the book of Matthew brought me back to years and years of asking God to take my particular cup from me, that is to change me, to just make me normal. If I was normal - and could date and marry women and have children with a woman - then I would be more acceptable to family, to society and to myself. That was my will, and forget what God’s will was. I realize now that I was practicing a fair amount of self-hate, and if you spent time around me back then, it was likely palpable.
After many years of wandering in that state of non-acceptance, I was fortunate enough to find a place where I felt safe for maybe the first time in my life: the Episcopal Church. And through that community in Central Phoenix, God’s Spirit prompted me to explore what God’s will might be in all of this (not just mine or my family’s or society’s). And as I did, I found a community that accepted me for who I was, began to build my chosen family - and finally started accepting myself.
Part of this exciting journey was also searching for someone to share my life with. Through many twists and turns I can now reflect on the past 10 years with my husband Leo, and see God’s hand in it all. This month in particular, I think about our first date in Los Angeles after the LA Pride festival, sadly also the same day as the attack on the LGBTQ+ community at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Thinking about our beginning will always provide a perspective on whatever we are facing. Since that fateful day, we have navigated big moves, job changes, challenges with family, the adoption of our poorly behaved terrier mixes, our current journey with surrogacy (not finished) - and through all our adventures together, I have seen a flowering of my connection with the Spirit of God, for which I am grateful.
And for these last 5-6 years of adventures, I am particularly grateful for the role of All Souls in my spiritual journey. Even after finding the Episcopal Church in my twenties, not every community I lived in had a place where I felt comfortable spiritually. That is, until Leo and I moved to the Bay Area - and upon recommendation of a former priest who had seminaried (is that a word?) in Berkeley, I walked into All Souls. I immediately knew that this was what I had been searching for the last few years: To come to a place where you could revel in the Divine. And this Divine was made up of all kinds of people with different stories and backgrounds, but united in a loving, welcoming, feisty & accepting spirit.
I often talk about how I am slow to warm up to people and communities (especially church communities), and I am grateful for the people of All Souls for their patience, kindness, and unwavering support of who I truly am.
–Mark Mattek
Healing Through Art and Relationship
The Center for ArtEsteem (“ArtEsteem”), one of our four Isaiah Project grantees, will be joining us this Sunday, June 7, at 9:15 am in the Common Room. I encourage you to attend and learn more about (a) ArtEsteem’s remarkable work and (b) the workings of the Spirit in the budding relationship between ArtEsteem and our congregation.
Each Isaiah Project grantee is receiving a grant of $100,000, disbursed over three years. These grants are the embodiment of our decision to commit 10 percent of the Living Waters Capital Campaign towards community impact projects. The hope was that these grants might, in some small measure, promote repair of the harms caused by the history of racism in our local communities.
ArtEsteem (formerly known as Attitudinal Healing Connection) provides opportunities for creative expression and healing through art to children and youth in the East Bay. ArtEsteem also provides education on environmental justice, particularly the history of injustice experienced by people of color in Oakland. During its more than 35-year-old existence, the program has served over 75 at-risk schools, reaching thousands of children, youth, and families in the East Bay.
ArtEsteem holds an annual art fair at StudioOne. Each painting, drawing, photograph, or print shown is accompanied by a statement from the student about their lives and what came up for them in creating this work of art. Many parishioners attended the 2025 and 2026 art fairs and directly experienced the healing power of this artwork.
The impact that ArtEsteem makes, for an organization of its relatively small size, is indeed impressive. ArtEsteem is now engaged in a capital campaign to expand its facilities and serve even more kids. What has been equally striking to me, however, has been the growth of our relationship with ArtEsteem through the emotional –dare I say, spiritual – ties that now connect us. I offer three examples of these ties, all of which have occurred in the relatively short space of 18 months.
We first met ArtEsteem in January 2025, when they joined us at an Adult Formation session to talk about their work. Amana Harris, the executive director, spoke lovingly about her mother, Aeeshah Clottey, and the work she had done to start and nurture the organization. At the time, her mother was quite ill, and she was devoting much time to being with and caring for her. A member of the congregation shared that he had participated in some ArtEsteem events many years ago and that he had been profoundly affected by the experience. The emotion was palpable, and tears were shed by a number of us.
A second example occurred in late June 2025 when we organized a visit to ArtEsteem to deliver the first grant check and see their space in West Oakland. As many of you know, three of our parishioners – Margaret Sparks, Janet Chisholm, and the Rev. Mark Richardson – were broadsided on their way to the meeting and suffered serious injuries. Thus, this visit had a particular emotional impact on all of us. The most important aspect of the visit for me was the care that Amana Harris and Adam Menter, another staff member, extended to us as we struggled with the news of the accident (which we learned about via a phone call from Mark Richardson from Highland) and the accompanying shock and uncertainty about the condition of our friends. They took us to a quiet room, offered us water, and engaged in a form of prayer circle with us. On Sunday, Adam brought flowers and a note to the congregation on behalf of ArtEsteem, which only reaffirmed the deepening of our relationship.
A third instance occurred in November 2025. When Amana’s mother died, we learned that Amana was having difficulty finding the right space for the memorial service. All Souls offered our space, and it was held here on November 15. Several All Soulsians attended and we learned much about the remarkable life of Aeeshah Clottey, who was born in Louisiana during the Jim Crow era, was the valedictorian of her high school, and received a full scholarship to UC Berkeley. Amana told me that she felt it was very appropriate to have the memorial service in Berkeley since this is where her mom landed upon arrival in California.
The French philosopher and activist, Simone Weil, once said that attention to another “is the purest and rarest form of generosity.” ArtEsteem’s healing work with Oakland youth, to my mind, is a form of that radical attention. All Souls’ relationship with ArtEsteem has also been a form of mutual attention and care. It has been a beautiful and perhaps somewhat surprising experience for both entities. I am curious to see where the Spirit leads us. Please join us on Sunday to learn more.
–Lewis Maldonado
Thank You from the Youth!
Thank you so much for supporting our youth work party last week! Thanks to your generosity, we exceeded our fundraising goal for our San Diego immersion trip this summer.
This means that we will be able to give more abundantly to the community organizations that we’re visiting (Border Angels, The Border Church, St. Francis Migrant Resource Center, and more).
Next time you walk past the nave windows on the courtyard side, take a moment to admire how much cleaner they are. We washed away about a decade’s worth of dust and grime. (We’ll get to the Cedar St. windows next time!). We also picked up trash, organized the acolyte closet, and cleaned out the youth room and Sunday School supplies.
We really appreciate your help!
Peace,
-Emily+
Announcements & Events
Thursday (TONIGHT)
5:30 pm, Reading Between the Lines Bible Study in the Common Room.
Saturday
10 am, Emily Hansen Curran’s Ordination at Grace Cathedral. See below for the carpool sign-up sheet.
Sunday
7 am, Reading Between the Lines Bible Study in the Common Room or click here to join by Zoom.
8 am, Holy Eucharist in the Chapel. Please enter through the copper doors downstairs on Cedar Street.
9:15 am, Adult Formation classes in the Parish Hall.
10:30 am, Sung Eucharist in the Nave. Join us via livestream here.
12 noon, Justice & Peace Meeting in the Common Room and Coffee Hour in the Courtyard.
5 pm, Being With Group in the Common Room.
Wednesday
9 am, Holy Eucharist in the Chapel. Please enter through the copper doors downstairs on Cedar Street.
Gather With Us
EMILY HANSEN CURRAN’S ORDINATION - Saturday, June 6th at 10 am
Everyone is invited to Grace Cathedral for Emily Hansen Curran’s ordination. Click here to see your invitation! There will be a reception immediately following the service. Interested in carpooling? Click here to sign up. To join remotely, click here to get to the Grace Cathedral website. Once there, click on the Watch & Listen tab at the top of the homepage.
PARISH PICNIC - June 21st
Just after the 10:30 am service, we’ll all head up to Tilden Park for a church potluck and picnic! We’ll have a BBQ fired up with burgers and hot dogs, and maybe even play a favorite pastime of ours: a corn hole tournament. If you can help out with the picnic, please see Jeannie Koops. No RSVP necessary.
ALL SOULS PARISH ANNUAL CAMPING TRIP - July 17th–19th
Registration is now open! Join us for a weekend of togetherness at our private spot on the river behind the Big Sur River Inn. Whether you want to float downstream, let the kids splash in the swimming hole, or chat under the stars, it’s a sweet time for all.
Where? Santa Lucia Campground, Big Sur
Everyone is welcome: Invite a friend and get your tent ready!
Early Bird Option: Limited spots are available to arrive one day early (July 16th).
Sign Up: Click here to register on REALM or on the sheet in the narthex.
Volunteer: We need help with campfires and activities! Click here to email Mother Rachel and to lend a hand.
BEING WITH GROUPS
Being With is for anyone who’s curious about faith or wondering if Christianity has something meaningful to offer them. In this 10-week small group, we seek out the sacred simply by paying attention to our lives — and the lives of those around us.
What happens during Being With?
Every 90-minute group begins with a question. For example, I wonder where in your life you find the most meaning? Then we listen to a brief teaching and move on to a group conversation. Participants are encouraged to listen to and openly receive what each person shares. Together, we’ll come to see how our stories are interconnected.
Our pilot Being With group began on May 17th, 2026. Groups are kept to 12 people. The class meets at 5 pm in the Common Room. Questions? Click here to email Mother Rachel.
Learn With Us
ADULT FORMATION
Isaiah Project / The Center for Art Esteem - June 7th
Please join us at 9:15 am in the Common Room this coming Sunday for a conversation with another one of our amazing Isaiah Project grantees, the Center for ArtEsteem. The Center offers healing from trauma by empowering East Bay children and youth to be self-aware and inspired through art, creativity, and education. Please read the article above for more details.
COMING UP IN ADULT FORMATION
Summer Book Groups 2026
June 14, 21, and 28
Join Jack Shoemaker in June as he leads a discussion of Elaine Pagels’ book Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus. As the description of her book says, Pagels “sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.” She explores her most ambitious subject, the life of Jesus himself. The book is a historical mystery with each chapter addressing a fascinating question. Why a virgin birth? What did it mean for him to rise from the dead? Did miracles really happen? We will roughly follow this outline:
June 14: Intro, Chapters 1-2
June 21: Chapters 3-4
June 28: Chapters 5-7 and Conclusion.
Classes meet in the Common Room at 9:15 am. If you have to miss a class, feel free to attend the others.
July 12, 19, and 26
Mark Richardson and Anne Yardley will lead a discussion of Angela Buchdahl's book Heart of a Stranger. “From the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi, a stirring account of one woman’s journey from feeling like an outsider to becoming one of the most admired religious leaders in the world.”
August 2, 9, and 16
Jane Vandenburgh and Jenny Kern will lead a discussion of Glenn Jordan and Pádraig Ó Tuam's book Borders and Belonging: The Book of Ruth: A Story for our Times. “A leading poet and a theologian reflect on the Old Testament story of Ruth, a tale that resonates deeply in today's world with its themes of migration, the stranger, mixed cultures and religions, law and leadership, women in public life, kindness, generosity and fear.”
Any questions, please contact Anne Yardley at ayardley@drew.edu.
BIBLE STUDY GROUPS
All Souls hosts two weekly Bible Study Classes each week. In addition to our Sunday morning group (meets from 7-8 am), we are now offering another group on Thursday evenings from 5:30-6:30 pm. Both groups meet in our Common Room and use the Reading Between the Lines curriculum. Join us! Drop-ins are always welcome, too!
Serve With Us
LETTER WRITING SESSION in SUPPORT of IMMIGRANTS - 6/13
Our next letter-writing event is on Saturday, June 13th from 2-4 pm. Join with All Soulsians in the Common Room to engage in this important work. Please RSVP to Pam Maffei (pamelamaffei@icloud.com) or Cindy Townsend (hikinpsyd@gmail.com).
Coffee hour isn’t just about coffee and cookies—it’s about community. After worship, we gather not only to enjoy a bite to eat but also to welcome newcomers, catch up with friends, and strengthen the bonds that make our parish family so special. To keep this ministry thriving, we invite everyone to take part, as they are able.
Each week, we ask a few parishioners to bring refreshments—homemade treats, fruit, or simple snacks—to share. Your contributions help make our hospitality warm and abundant. Please click the Coffee Hour Sign-Up link to support this ministry. We ask for someone to lend a hand (literally) as “host” in support of Scott, and folks to provide some treats (enough to feed 10-15).
Your help will make coffee hour a joyful expression of Christian community and welcome!
Open Door Dinner makes a warm jambalaya meal on the second Sunday of every month for anyone who is hungry. Teams of All Soulsians and friends take turns cooking and delivering. Email Jennifer A. (akiyama.jennifer@gmail.com) if you’d like to help!
Food Bank collection is active for the Good Shepherd Food Pantry. Please bring non-perishable food on Sundays and use the baskets in the Narthex. We also need drivers to deliver food. If you want to help, click here to e-mail Cathy G.
Meal Train delivers food to others. If you are in need of meals or if you’d like to join this team to deliver to others, click here to email Sarah O.
Undergraduate Street Medicine Outreach (USMO) is a Cal student group that organizes outreach events every Saturday to bring food and resources to homeless encampments in Berkeley. They are especially seeking donations of the following items:
Waterproof tarps
Bottled water, or water filtration devices
Clothing, particularly large shoes, socks, and jackets/sweaters
Hygiene supplies and toiletries, particularly wet wipes, toothbrushes, soap
Menstrual pads and diapers
Please bring these donations to the red bin in the Narthex. Click here to email Beth Christensen for donation and other direct volunteer opportunities with USMO.
Worship With Us
CELEBRATE PRIDE SUNDAY AT ALL SOULS - June 14th
Come celebrate Pride with us on Sunday, June 14th, at the 8 am & 10:30 am services! On this Sunday, our prayers will center on how God created humankind in all our diversity, in God's own image, and declared us good. Wear your rainbows, bring a friend, and join the celebration.
All Souls fully affirms and welcomes LGBTQIA+ people. Everyone is invited to participate fully in our worship and programs—always.
DIOCESAN JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION - June 20th
Mark your calendars for Saturday, June 20, at 11:00 AM. Our parish has been asked to host the official Diocese of California Juneteenth Celebration this year. It is a huge honor for All Souls, and a beautiful opportunity for us to open our doors and welcome a wider diocesan family into our space for worship, reflection, and celebration. Please consider bringing food to share for our potluck reception afterward. And, contact Mother Rachel if you would like to serve in the liturgy.
TAIZE TUESDAYS
These services will be on hiatus during the summer months. Check back in the Fall for information on a potential new series of services.
CHILDREN & FAMILIES
Sunday School (for kids pre-K through 5th grade) is currently on hiatus for the summer. Typically, we gather weekly during the 10:30 am service. We follow Godly Play, an approach to spiritual formation that features storytelling, hands-on learning, and wondering. Shortly after the service starts, children follow a teacher, carrying a cross, downstairs to the classroom and return to church at the “Peace.” Check back in the Fall for futher information or email Emily B+ with any questions.
To join our Children and Family mailing list, email Emily B+ (emilyb@allsoulsparish.org).
YOUTH
We are currently on a summer hiatus. Check back in the Fall for a new schedule.
Youth Group (for grades 6-12) generally happens each Sunday from 7-8:30 pm during the school year. All youth are welcome to join us for games, art, reflection, and prayer. We alternate between a middle and high school group with some all-grades events.
To join the weekly youth mailing list, email Emily B+ (emilyb@allsoulsparish.org).
