Parents of all students who are entering 6th or 7th grade in the fall are invited to this meeting about the Confirmation class beginning in September. We anticipate that this will be a monthly class meeting on Sunday evenings, beginning in September 2012 and concluding with confirmations at Grace Cathedral on Saturday, May 25, 2013. This meeting will provide an overview of the curriculum, expectations, and calendar. The classes will be led by the Rector, the Rev. John Kirkley, and Youth Minister, Katie Canton. A light breakfast will be provided as part of the meeting. Please RSVP to Fr. John or Katie.

Christians are often referred to as "people of the book" because of the centrality of the Bible. Yet, much of our theology and practice is shaped by two other important books: The Book of Common Prayer and The Hymnal. This brief series, led by our Rector, the Rev. John Kirkley, and Music Director, Fred Goff, will provide an overview of the content of all three of these important books, and their role in worship and in life.

Laura Tam, Sustainable Development Policy Director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), will be speaking on the impact of global climate change on the Bay Area. Under her leadership, SPUR has published major reports on Bay Area climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as a study on the future of Ocean Beach in light of rising sea levels. Join us to learn more about these important studies and proposed policy recommendations. This is a free, public forum sponsored by St. James.

Our brother and friend, Jon Owens, was sponsored by our parish for Holy Orders and will be ordained in June. Please join us at Grace Cathedral to witness and celebrate his new vocation in the Church.

Join us for our annual celebration of our graduates at every level of education (preschool, elementary, middle, high school, and college) during worship and coffee hour on June 3. If you have a graduate(s) in your family, please let us know so that we can acknowledge them. Contact Erazm in the church office at (415) 751-1198 x2 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Mark your calendars for our annual St. James Gourmet Family Camping Trip. This is camping like you've never experienced before! Join us for the weekend, a night, or just for the day, but be sure to stay for dinner because the food is the real reason this trip is gourmet! This year's theme is a "Taste of the Caribbean." The sign-up sheet is on the bulletin board in the Parish Hall. If you have questions or would like to be a part of the planning team please call Doreen Canton at (415) 722-4596.

Green Apple Books and St. James Episcopal Church welcome Colin Dickey reading from and discussing his latest book. In Afterlives of the Saints, Dickey— author of Cranioklepty—presents us with a history of faith as told through some of the strangest stories of the saints. These are saints who murder, saints who gouge out their own eyes and hold them out for inspection, saints who minister to the petty and the bizarre and the maligned. These are saints who, when visited in a contemporary context—as saints in the cities—actually enlarge our concept of faith.

With a lively intellect and fresh insight, Dickey reveals that we can no longer experience the world as did the saints who once walked amongst us. Today, such ascetics, pushing their bodies to the edges of experience, would be labeled with all manner of clinical diagnoses: masochism, anorexia, schizophrenia. The old pathways to sainthood are clearly incompatible with modern life. In our world, such practices are pathologies.

And yet, these saints have become a creative engine by which we can tap into the rich attraction of excess, while safely observing a kind of superhuman insanity. Colin Dickey retells their stories, not as a theologian, but as someone trying to understand the ways of the world.