A new member

At the 9:00am service this Sunday, Saint Philip’s will welcome a new member into the Body of Christ: Stanley Thomas Ettenger (known as "Stash" and pronounced “Stosh”).

Left to right: “Stash,” Kerry, Helen (baptized at Saint Philip’s on November 1, 2020), and Kolb

Stash's godparents are Stash Rowley and Jet Marnell. His grandparents are longtime parishioners Molly and Allen Ettenger.

Stash will be wearing the gown that his great-great-grandfather, Linn Smith Steiger, wore at his baptism in 1886. The gown was stored in an attic for almost 100 years and was brought out again for Kolb's cousin in 1983. Since then, all great- and great-great-grandchildren of Linn Steiger have been christened in this same gown. Stash will be the tenth in the family to wear the gown, and the second to wear it in 2022. It is a well-traveled gown, having been worn at baptisms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Montana, Utah, and Arizona.

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God - 

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside 

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope 

it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe. 

Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early (2004)