Finding community at Grace Episcopal Church
by Clare Boerigter

I started attending Grace Episcopal Church in the spring of 2023 because I was curious about the kind of faith community that hangs prayer flags from its trees, offers food and books to its neighbors in sidewalk libraries, and honors those who have died with a garden. I was also searching. Like so many others, I was trying to understand what my life was meant to look like after the isolation of covid, the murder of George Floyd, the protests that followed, and the questions all these events provoked within me. What was this country all about? Who was I, a person benefiting from countless privileges, a U.S. citizen, a neighbor, a person of faith, a friend? Where was my life taking me?

I was looking for a place where I could ask big, hard questions alongside others who were asking their own – and I found that community at Grace. In the last 2.5 years, I’ve gotten to spend dark winter evenings singing alongside familiar and new faces at Taizé. As part of the team writing elder profiles, I’ve been generously welcomed into the homes – and life stories – of the Junnilas and Krakowskis. I’ve helped feed goats, tended apple trees, and prayed in the worship silo at Good Courage Farm with friends from Grace and other (or no) churches. I’ve been able to share meals with my Dinner of Seven group and at gatherings with the under-forties. And many Wednesday afternoons, I’ve sat in the quiet with the Centering Prayer group as the light fades in the sanctuary. I have felt incredibly lucky to belong to this community.

In January, I’m starting a new journey. After 7.5 years in Minneapolis, I’m moving to Missoula, Montana, to begin a graduate program in Forestry at the University of Montana. There, I’ll get to continue working on research projects that support the restoration of fire to public lands through prescribed burning. Fire has been an immense part of my life since 2012, the summer I drove across the country from Iowa to Utah to join a Forest Service crew of wildland firefighters.

As excited as I am for this next step, I’m going to miss the people and places that have filled this chapter of my life – and I want to take this moment to thank the Grace community for being such an important part of these last few years. I can’t claim to have found answers to any of the big, hard questions I came to Grace asking, but it has been deeply meaningful to me to have the support of this community while asking them.

In gratitude,
Clare

P.S. For those interested, I’ve written about my seasons as a firefighter in a memoir forthcoming from Beacon Press. My editor hasn’t set a publication date yet, but if you’re interested in hearing when that happens, you can sign up for updates here or look for them on my website at clareboerigter.com.

Tags: community, welcome