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Greetings, my friends,

The hospitality you’ve extended has been reassuring and gratifying—I thank you for helping me feel so comfortable in my new community. Since my arrival, I’ve had the privilege of conversation—and breaking bread—with a number of you, and in some cases have engaged in real “work” for and among the members of the congregation. What a delight!

Although I have scheduled a couple of essential conversations next week, I ask that you honor my start date of August 1, and give me this last week to get as much unpacked, etc., as possible. As we begin planning for worship during August, and anticipating other aspects of our life together, there are, inevitably, many necessary conversations, but other than those I hope to have most of the week free to nest. I also will need extra time for prayer and solitude in these last days before we take the big plunge!

That said, I am available for godly conversation and pastoral concerns as your needs dictate. I will likely be in Candi’s office now and then during the next week checking email. Finally, I will be in and out of the Rector’s study in the church—please feel free to come in and say hello if I’m there.

It is a joy to be among you. Thank you for the ways you are already a blessing in my life. I bid your prayer for me; you are in mine daily.

In Christ,

Mother Robin

Oh, if you could see my house today…decades of omnium-gatherum strewn in a catawampus jumble from room to room. This goes in that box—this goes to the giveaway pile at the curb—this goes to the Community Action Center. … bending and lifting and pulling and twisting. I’m discovering muscles I’d forgotten lay under my skin.

After Ben and the Vestry called last week and invited me to serve among you, I couldn’t get going soon enough. I’ve made my share of moves over the years, but there hasn’t been a one that held the sense of eagerness that this one has. If I could be there now I would be. I tried, to no avail, to figure out how to do like the crew of the Enterprise and say, “Beam me up, Scotty!”

Thank you for praying the prayers, taking the time, and having the conversations needed to discern, in our lives in Christ, this new relationship. Although I don’t officially begin to serve until August 1st, I hope to be among you sometime around July 12th or 13th, even though my stuff won’t be there until some unspecified time after that. But I want to Be. There. Now.

The work to which God calls us is our vocation. In the Church there is no individual vocation—we are all in this together. My vocation among you is the place where my gifts and the congregation’s needs intersect. Your vocation with me is the place where your gifts and the congregation’s needs intersect. Our work together is not about “me” and it is not about “you”—it is about Us, about church, about how we “live and move and have our being” in our Lord as we intersect with the needs of the world. What an adventure! We have our work cut out for us, don’t we? But we the gifts of the Spirit to give us the wherewithal and we have one another to give us strength and heart on the journey.

When we begin to unpack our lives together, we will do a lot of bending and lifting and pulling and twisting; we will be called upon to use—in new ways—the muscles of Spirit and tendons of Community.  We know that stretching makes us more nimble and flexible in the long run—in short, it’s good for us.

Your sister and servant in Christ,

Robin+

The Rev. Robin Biffle, a recent graduate of the School of Theology at the University of South, will be the next rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Bishop James Waggoner has given his approval to the call. “We look forward with excitement to having the Rev. Robin join our congregation,” Senior Warden Ben Jenness said.

The Vestry voted unanimously June 24 to call Ms. Biffle as rector, effective Aug. 1. Her first Sunday worship service will be Aug. 3 at 9:30 a.m. Ms. Biffle expects to move to Moscow in late July.

Ms. Biffle was ordained a deacon June 1 in Helena, Mont., by the Rt. Rev. Franklin Brookhart, bishop of Montana. She will serve in the transitional diaconate until her ordination to the priesthood later this year.

The first of three finalists to visit St. Mark’s this spring, Ms. Biffle was strongly endorsed by the Search Committee. “Reviewers consistently noted the Rev. Biffle’s energy, enthusiasm deep spirituality and pastoral talent,” Cynthia Mika, the committee’s chair, wrote in a letter to the Vestry.

Ms. Biffle received a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Whitman College in Walla Walla in 1974. She was a journalist for 12 years, including time as an investigative reporter specializing in issues relating to at-risk and marginalized women and children. She then spent 17 years in law enforcement, working as an administrator, supervisor and field worker for the Port Townsend Police Department and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

After leaving law enforcement, she spent three years in the discernment process for the ordained ministry, including time as manager of the Episcopal Retreat Center for the Diocese of Montana. While attending the University of the South, she has been a seminary intern at Grace Fellowship Church, an Appalachian community church in Sewanee, Tenn.

Ms. Biffle is a mountain-bike rider, hiker, jogger and sometimes long-distance runner.

Susan Cleveley (second from right) was ordained to the sacred order of deacons by Bishop James Waggoner June 7 at St. John’s Cathedral in Spokane. Others pictured are, from left: David Marshall, ordained a priest; Danae Ashley, deacon; Bishop Waggoner, and Gaye Lagana, deacon.  Clevely, a long-time member of St. Mark’s, will continue to serve at St. Mark’s as she awaits ordination to the priesthood.