At its January retreat, Saint Michael’s Vestry approved a policy change that highlights the importance of our church grounds to the congregation. Traditionally the care of our buildings and grounds has been entrusted to the much over-worked Junior Warden. The policy change puts two separate vestry representatives in charge of our facilities, one for buildings and one for grounds, and neither of them will be the Junior Warden. This year’s liaison for the grounds is Markus Cross, the vestry member in charge of our buildings is David Weatherly. In addition to this change in organizational structure, the Buildings and Grounds committee is being resurrected to help with decision-making and occasionally lend a hand for needed repairs and maintenance. All parishioners are invited to join the committee.
What a blessing! Thank you Vestry! And thank you Markus and David for serving in these roles!
In late January, our city was hit by a serious ice storm, the third in less than 20 years. Our grounds survived well, thanks, I would like to believe, to good maintenance over the years. We have made a consistent effort to keep our trees pruned, and we reaped the benefit by avoiding major damage. Mark and Mary Eclov cut up the branches that fell to the ground and piled them up along the curb for collection by the city.
In May of 2008 the Earth Ministry Group planted native flowers and grasses in our detention basin, and this spring we will plant more on the remaining slopes. There are a number of reasons for making this change to our landscaping. First of all, our ugly detention basin will become a beautiful wildflower garden. Secondly, the basin has been very difficult to mow, a task which is now eliminated. And thirdly, with these new plantings the basin takes on the function of a rain garden: the grasses and flowers in its bottom will help retain rain water and prevent some of our parking lot run off from ending up in the storm sewer system. Lexington, as most residents know by now, is facing an environmental crisis, because far too much rain water ends up in the city’s storm sewers and creeks. The fact that this run off picks up contaminants on its way across parking lots and driveways adds to the environmental degradation. The new plantings in our detention basin will help mediate that problem.
We have placed a stone bench in a shady spot under a tree from where the basin can be viewed in a leisurely or contemplative moment. We also plan to build a path through the bottom of the basin so that everybody can get a close view of the life that will take shape there. For our goals go beyond the aesthetic and the practical: we hope to create an environment where all of God’s creatures, and especially those who like to huddle inside of buildings, can take a step or two - or a few wing flaps - toward reconnecting themselves with God’s original creation, the creation whose stewards we claim to be.
