President's Message
 

Dear Fellow Rotarians,
 
     Three things. One is fun and upbeat. The second is in the interest of full participation and transparency. And the last, is a reprise of something I put in the Trumpet almost three years ago when I was the editor as the Second Vice-president and which now seems good to look at again.
 
      First, let's have some fun and raise money to help pay for the food we need to buy soon to fill the bags we are giving out weekly to students and families in the East Penn School District who are facing food insecurity and h u n g e r.  Our first-ever, Superbowl LV lottery pop-up fundraiser is detailed in this issue of the Trumpet.  It is a chance too good to miss. Buy a $55 square (or two!) to join the excitement. Yes, you may put in for other family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. We need to sell all 100 squares to be able to give out cash-out prizes and to raise just over $3000 for our Feeding Program.
 
      Second, next Thursday, January 28th, there will be a Board meeting following our regular meeting on Vox Tandem.  Everyone is welcome to the board meeting.  The agenda is currently being built. Please let me know if you have any items or concerns to be addressed.  Committee chairs are welcome to send along a written- email report. 
 
     Third, as our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion group (DEI) was being formed, one of the first things we talked about was our opening Invocations for meetings.  We talked about thinking more of the invocation as an inspirational thought for the day rather than as a prayer. So, if you would like to know some of my thoughts, just use the "read more" feature. I hope you find what I say useful and as always, email, text, or phone me if questions come up.
 
     Stay well. Keep out of the nasty Covid19 virus's path.  We are learning that several members of our Rotary community and their family members have positive test results. Please let us know what you need. How can we help? Be assured all of you have my sincerest best wishes and prayers. There will be post-pandemic time and we will see each other again, face to face. 
 
Yours in Rotary,
Lexa Shallcross
Emmaus Rotary President 2020-2021
      
 
     

April 2018--

     Thanks for asking. I will be glad to answer the question “how can we honor the diversity of faiths and beliefs represented in Rotary when offering an Invocation?” Perhaps, my classification as “clergy” makes me uniquely qualified to answer. I have thought about this question from time to time as our club has had members who are  Christian, Jewish, Muslim as well as agnostic, atheist, seeker, humanist, and “other”. Frankly, anyone at any time may find him or herself lapsed or questioning the faith of family or personal history. Research also tells us that young people, who know themselves as spiritual people, do not want to be part of any institutional, historical, organized religion.

     As  I do not find this to be problematic for our club, I was surprised to read in the letters to the April 2018 the Rotarian magazine, one Jewish Rotarian who expressed his discomfort because “the invocation at my Rotary club meeting every week...invariably is given in the name of “Jesus Christ, our Lord.”” (“A club for all faiths”, page 6)

    My answer, in a nutshell, is that our best practice is to offer our invocations the same way that porcupines make love: carefully!

     Rotary International serves, grows and thrives because of the diversity of people and nations and traditions among its membership. We honor each other by taking time to prepare when it is our turn to begin our meeting with a prayer. Everyone should feel comfortable to pray from his or her own tradition and practice. There is no prior constraint unless it comes from consideration of the Four-Way Test: is it the TRUTH, FAIR to all concerned, will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS, will it be BENEFICIAL to all who listen? 

    All the major world faiths have a version of the Golden Rule: do to others the good that you yourself hope to receive. This means that if you do not want another to proselytize and push their faith on you, that you don’t do it either. When I meet someone whose faith is different from mine I try to begin a conversation with the goals of offering hospitality and building understanding. 

     If there is a danger to this practice of asking our gracious, loving, creator God to draw near,  it is in allowing ourselves to be complacent, overly busy people who are lackadaisical or indifferent.  I do not think this is an issue for our club, as I see members offering words from scripts on papers held in their hands as we bow our heads. They have thumbed through their prayer books, surfed the internet and looked in books of poetry for words of inspiration. 

     To help you stay both fresh and clear when it is your turn to offer our prayer, consider the three basic prayer forms described by the spiritual writer Anne Lamott. She says they are:  Help!! Thank you, thank you! and Wow!!!!

      Please know that I am very willing to talk with anyone who has questions about this article or wants more help in crafting an invocation.