The church piano arrival

This week, Joshua Reinke continue his one-month aspirant visit.

On Tuesday, our long-awaited electronic piano for the church arrived. Thank you to all our generous donors. We collected enough to upgrade to an even better piano than we had set our sight on. This one sounds lovely. For the moment, it will live in the side aisle when not in use, but we may decide to store it in the unused church entrance between uses. Br. Ephrem enthusiastically tried the new instrument with Br. Raphael turning the music pages and Br. Jacob snapping the pictures.

The new electric piano. From top left, clockwise: Br. Ephrem trying the new piano: Br. Raphael turning the music pages for Br. Ephrem in the side aisle, just off the chancel: Bros. Ephrem and Raphael enjoying the sound of the piano: the ambulatory (red brick wrap-around) the chancel and belltower of St Augustine's churh in rhe rising sun; the new piano in its current storage space.

We have decided to assign the cleaning of each of the four cars we own to a different monk. Br. Raphael thoroughly cleaned our silver Prius plug-in hybrid car. It is a joy to enter a clean car for a ride. Thank you, Brothers for your cleaning.

Br. Raphael doing an inside cleaning of our Prius plug-in hybrid car (3 pictures). Bottom picture: through and ambulatory arch, the arches of our enclosure porches.

This weekend, Br. Jacob's interfaith group of transmen called G*d Talk met in person at the monastery. They have been meeting monthly on Zoom for two years. This was the first time they were together in the same place. Their ages range from 21 to 73 and besides NYC and locals, guys came from Massachussetts, Maryland, Oklahoma, Colorado and California. Along with one they picked up at our Guesthouse who just happened to be on retreat with us this weekend. All in all there were 11 of them and they greatly appreciated gathering in a safe welcoming place to share on their journeys with G*d.

Peace and every blessing to you.