Internationally renowned multimedia broadcaster Paul Berry will be the special guest for the service season opening meeting of Talbot Association of Clergy and Laity (TACL), at noon next Tuesday, September 16, in the parish hall of Christ Church Episcopal in St. Michaels. The hall is at Talbot and Willow Streets, just around the corner from the historic church. The meeting is free and open to congregants of any faith or denomination, and other persons of good will. All are invited to bring a brown bag lunch. Prospective new members are especially invited.
“I am so pleased that Paul will be with us, to motivate us,” said Bishop Joel Marcus Johnson, incoming TACL president. “TACL this year is taking a greater community leadership role in all of Talbot County and the Shore, of inclusiveness with more faith communities, and being socially and civilly more proactive. For many years, I have known Paul as a man of great compassion, a friend and guide who will inspire us in these works.”
TACL’s theme for this year is for all to learn to greet and depart one another with the ancient, scriptural phrase, “Peace be with you.”
“We are urging this traditional ‘Giving of the Peace’ not as a political statement,” the bishop said, “but as the spiritual gift endowed to all people of good will. We hope it catches on and, who knows, becomes a minor revolution and custom in this weary world.”
Bishop Joel also spoke of program goals for the new service year.
“I am especially warmed by the social and spiritual progress which TACL has promoted in recent years,” he said. “Among these are Talbot Interfaith Shelter, and Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center, which began as seeds cultivated at our regular monthly meetings in years past, which spun off into their own local non-profit boards as community charities.”
“Our next work,” Bishop Joel said, “is the Good Samaritan Fund, which aids people in lease and utility cutoffs, a program already successful for some decades, and now to become its own service organization.”
These works, the bishop adds, have all in-turn been sponsored by the Mid-Shore Community Foundation, the Good Samaritan Fund being next.
Among other goals for this year are the creation of a for-credit Continuing Education Unit (CEU) program for clergy and laity, and a quarterly “happy think tank hour” reception for TACL membership and Shore non-profits to deepen their networking and common goals.
“TACL is now beyond 60 years of service,” Bishop Joel said, “and we have a great deal of archival material to prove it.” He added that TACL needs a volunteer historian-archivist to sift through the binders, to create its portrait of service.
“One thing is clear,” Bishop Joel said. “Over the decades, our TACL community has striven to be both ecumenical and interfaith, not only to break down barriers, but to raise up the forgotten, and to elevate those without a voice.”
For more information, write to [email protected].
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