​April 30, 2022

Dear PJ's Community,

This week, I marched with fellow Yale graduate students and supporters up Hillhouse Avenue as we expressed our support for the formation of a graduate student union. We were joined by our partners UNITE HERE Local 217, Local 34, Local 35, Yale Unions Retirees Association, Students Union Now, and New Haven Rising, as well as workers from the Graduate Hotel in downtown New Haven who are also in the process of forming a union.

As a graduate student, I feel like I straddle a strange line between being a student and being a worker. While my grad student colleagues and I are getting an education, we are also doing invaluable work for the university, including performing cutting edge research, writing and applying for grants, and teaching classes. Graduate workers across the country are mobilizing to form unions, saying that the work we do matters and is essential to our universities and should be treated as such. 

I share this with you all this week, because while in the United States we celebrate Labor Day in September, International Labor Day is this Sunday, May 1st. Across the globe, workers are getting days of rest, organizing marches, and standing up for the rights of all who work.

As I was walking up tree-lined Hillhouse Avenue with my fellow graduate students, I wondered what Jesus would think of all of this, and how it fits with my identity and beliefs as a Christian. While pondering this, one of the lines from my baptismal covenant popped into my mind: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” 

Remembering this, I felt proud to be a part of a larger labor movement across the United States, where workers are standing up against wealthy and powerful corporations and institutions to demand a living wage, basic rights, and dignity. 

This week, I invite you to think of ways in your lives to live into your baptismal covenants – seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving your neighbors, striving for justice and peace, and respecting the dignity of every human being.

Peace and blessings,

Claire Cody
Co-warden

A reflection from Sally Fleming, long-time parishioner, and Loaves and Fishes and Sunrise Cafe volunteer

Dear People of St Paul St James,

Prior to our weekly discussions about faith, I had often thought about my faith and what it is and how I demonstrate it. I am not a proselytizer, and don’t easily use faith talk. However I have long known that what I believe is summarized by Jesus’’ words in the Gospel of Matthew:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me…..Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”.

At a point of transition in my life, I needed to find a church that devoted its resources to the community –that looked beyond its walls.  The first time I visited then St. Paul’s, the priest’s sermon railed against the war in Viet Nam.   I soon learned that this was a church that stretched beyond the walls into the community and the world. So it is here that I have worshipped and worked since the last 40 years.

For those of you who are newer --and we are so glad you are here!, Loaves and Fishes began in the early 80s when Hanne Howard, our beloved elder, took $10.00 of her own money and bought canned food to give to those hungry people who knocked on our door. Her small beginning became a bona fide mission of the church and more recently its own 501C3, and now fills up to 1000 bags of food a week for those who come to our doors and for those in our community.

It has been a perfect place for me to demonstrate my faith. I am a Martha, the one in the kitchen preparing a meal for Jesus, not Mary, who sat at his feet listening. For all these years, I have helped prepare for Saturdays, leading and helping the busy Saturday welcoming of those who need clothes and food. Since Covid, I have mostly been in the Clothes Closet, finding trousers and coats for those who come to our door. It often takes patience and forces me to remember that those who come are children of God, no matter how they are dressed or how noisy their need is exhibited.

PJs has also opened me up to the spiritual side –surrounded by those who read and pray and who can articulate their faith in words that don’t easily come to me. This is my church and my community and it is here that I will continue to follow Jesus’ commandments.

Sally Fleming