Late Summer 2021 Newsletter
From Your President
Dear Colleagues:
Grace and peace to you in this summer season as we find new and different ways to enjoy the warmth of these sunny days. Unfortunately, in the midst of that enjoyment, we are also confronted with the pain that results from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and also with the various and often devastating effects of natural disasters. The fires, storms and floods too often speak of humanity’s lack of care and even abuse of nature and they are sober reminders when we think (fool ourselves) that we are the ones in control, that God is still in the midst.
That sobering realization was actualized recently during the summer meeting of the AC. Prior to that meeting, we had made what I thought was a secondary decision, in addition to confirming among ourselves that there WOULD BE an annual meeting in 2023, that the format would be hybrid. Our concern then and still was to find a way for all members to be accommodated.
Well, the reality is that while we will indeed meet in some way, because of the uncertainty cause by the resurgent spread of COVID-19 due to the Delta variant, and also because of the exorbitant cost of doing a hybrid meeting, we were unable to come to a decision as to the form or even the location of our annual meeting.
As you might well understand, the ramifications of this delay are great, but it is where we are. Be assured, we WILL meet. I think we would like it to be in-person, but we are also aware that there are many among our membership who are not ready to do airline travel, particularly to another country. Add to that the restrictions that have been in place in Canada, regarding permitting non-nationals entry into the country, and the possibility that those restrictions may be re-instituted if the new spread continues, puts the actuality of meeting at our planned location, Toronto, Canada in question.
With respect to using a hybrid format, assuming some of us we can be present in body, the cost of putting in place the required communications structure would be significant enough to deplete all our financial reserves. At this point it does not seem a viable option, but we have not determined as yet that it is not worth considering.
As to having a fully on-line meeting, although that option was rejected last year, we are all in a different place having lived through more than a year using Zoom and other such protocols to engage with one other. We all know, I believe, that it is not the ideal for inter-personal communication, but it does provide a way for us to meet if necessary.
The bottom line is that we do not have the answer to the format of our gathering, but we are working on it. Courtney is working diligently to put in place the best options, given our hotel commitments. We are continuing to prepare in all the ways required for us to meet from January 2 -5, 2022.
The AC will meet again at the end of the summer and by God’s grace, we will be able to finalize the plans for our meeting. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available. In the meantime, please take every care and precaution to preserve your health and well-being. And please remember your academy and the AC in your prayers, as together we participate in this ministry of care for the life and work of the church.
Blessings to you all.
Gennifer Brooks, President
president@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Treasurer
With the cancellation of the 2021 meeting, our budget for the current fiscal year (FY21) has sought to maintain our ongoing operations, appropriately fund any activities approved by the Academy Committee, and preserve our current, positive financial position in preparation for the 2022 annual meeting.
With these important goals in view, and regardless of how our meeting takes place in 2022, membership dues will be more essential than ever to maintaining the financial health of the NAAL.
Many of us renew our memberships and pay our annual dues when we register for the annual meeting. Though we do not yet have a registration process to announce, please take a moment now to visit the website and renew your membership for 2022 or set up your account for auto-renewal.
And if you have questions about either of these, please do not hesitate to contact me for assistance.
Nathaniel Marx, Treasurer
treasurer@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Delegate for Membership
Inviting New NAAL Membership Applications
Fall is approaching fast and that means it’s the time to prepare and submit new membership applications for those NAAL visitors who are now eligible to apply for full membership. Over the last year we paused the membership application and review process due to the pandemic. There is still quite a bit of uncertainty about the upcoming 2022 Annual Meeting but we will nevertheless move forward with membership application review even as the Academy Committee is working on finalizing the details about the meeting in January 2022.
All those who have participated in at least two previous NAAL annual meetings in the status of visitor and have the necessary qualifications for full membership are cordially invited to consider becoming NAAL members. The initiate the application process, please visit our new website where you can find application and recommendation forms.
To make sure your application is reviewed in time for the vote at the 2022 Annual Meeting, please complete and submit your application form and the two required recommendation forms by your seminar convener and one other full member of NAAL by September 15, 2021. Please note that it is the responsibility of the applicant to contact the colleagues who will write recommendations for them and ensure that they have the required forms as well as information about the application deadline. All forms are available for electronic submission (preferred) or download on NAAL website. Membership Committee will ordinarily reach out to the applicants on November 1 to inform them about the outcome of their applications. If I can help with questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me using the email link on NAAL Membership site!
In hope of seeing many of you at our next meeting,
Kristine Suna-Koro
membership@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Delegate for Seminars
Kimberly Belcher, Delegate for Seminars
seminars@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Secretary and New Webmaster
As has already been alluded to in several of our reports above, we now have a new website! With many thanks to Troy Messenger, Micah Boon, our Academy Committee, and our new webmaster, Layla Karst, the fully revised and updated NAAL website has gone live in the past two weeks. We encourage you to check it out, try out its new navigation system, click on the links, and start to become familiar with this new and much improved tool for communication within the Academy and about the work of the Academy to the wider world.
As we launch the new website and now have a dedicated webmaster, I want you to be aware of changes in who will receive what information going forward.
1. Continue to send memorial notices of our colleagues to me (secretary@naal-liturgy.org). While we are also now hosting these on our website, I will continue to create the memorials and distribute them first through our Neon email system. After they are created and distributed, our webmaster will post them to the website.
2. Also, continue to send job opportunity notices to me (secretary@naal-liturgy.org). I will review them, edit them for our website, and then send them to our webmaster for posting.
For all other inquiries about the website, information about new articles or books you have had published, any errors or glitches you may find, or other content you would like to see updated, revised, or presented in a different way, please contact our webmaster, Layla Karst.
Taylor W. Burton-Edwards, Secretary
secretary@naal-liturgy.org
Layla Karst, Webmaster
webmaster@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Coordinator of Sponsors and Donors
Though how we are meeting in 2022 is still being discerned, we are always looking for sponsors and donors, and our Oral History project is ongoing.
Donations and Sponsorships. If you can suggest institutions and individuals we can approach to ask them to be a sponsor of our annual meeting, please send me those suggestions (dlasalle@nd.edu)! Please remember our Scholarship Fund when you register for the annual meeting. Every dollar you contribute to the Scholarship Fund helps to encourage the participation of future and present NAAL members. All donations large and small are appreciated.
NAAL Oral History: Founding Stories. If you are a charter member of the NAAL, or if you have stories from the early years, I will available be at the Atlanta meeting to record those stories. This is part of an effort to develop an oral history of the founding of NAAL. If you have heard stories from Story Corps you have an idea of the kind of stories we are seeking. Individuals and pairs of people who want to share a story are welcome.
Don LaSalle, Sponsorship Coordinator
From Ed Foley, Co-Convener of Emerging Scholars
We continue to seek submissions from other presenters, as well as other members of the academy. Instructions for submission are also available here.
From Gail Ramshaw: Lauding the North American Academy of Liturgy
Perhaps there are other members of the North American Academy of Liturgy who, like me, owe an immeasurable debt to the organization.
I have never been professionally employed in the field of liturgy. Yet I have faithfully attended forty-two Academy meetings in a row, receiving each January my assignments for the coming year.
The NAAL has granted to me hundreds of colleagues, a dozen treasured friends, interdenominational collaboration, conversation with a dear Jewish comrade, consultations with editors, Lutheran get-togethers, seminar members who respectfully listened and responded to my presentations – whether insightful or ill-conceived – as well as the pleasure of serving as Academy president in 2001 and the gift of a Berakah Award in 2010.
Where else could I, a laywoman, have encountered this microcosm of the Christian church, annually instructing me in an updated vocabulary and an enhanced picture of liturgical needs, encouraging me toward more luminous religious speech?
It seems to me that without the North American Academy of Liturgy, I could have offered far less of value to the church’s repository of prayers and to the academic study of liturgical language.
Thank you, North American Academy of Liturgy.
Late Summer 2021 Newsletter Addendum
From Your Past President
To date, the Past President has received eleven applications and accepted ten First Time Visitors for the January 2022 Annual Meeting. First-Time Visitor acceptance is based on the qualifications for membership, found on the Academy’s website. The deadline for visitor status and scholarships is November 1st.
Application for Visitor Status
Application for Scholarship
Bruce Morrill, Past President
pastpresident@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Webmaster
New Email Addresses
I am glad to report we now have three new NAAL email addresses available for the work of the Academy:
webmaster@naal-liturgy.org (which will direct to me);
subscriptions@naal-liturgy.org (for our Proceedings subscription manager, David Turnbloom), and
exhibits@naal-liturgy.org (for our exhibits manager, Michael Prendergast)
New Job Opportunities Form
Now, as an alternative to sending job opportunity postings to your secretary (which you may still do), you may post them through an online form on our website. Your secretary and webmaster will receive a copy, your secretary will approve the final posting, and I will post it to the website.
Layla Karst, Webmaster
webmaster@naal-liturgy.org
Contact Us
All Academy officers email and other contact information is available on the NAAL Leadership page of our website.
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Late Fall 2020 Newsletter
From the President.jpg)
Dear Colleagues:
Hope, love, joy and peace to each of you in this season of Advent.
For me, Advent always speaks of hope above all things. And certainly, as we continue to be caught in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we see lack of integrity demonstrated by those (not simply the one) at the top of our society as a nation, as we continue to hear reports of inequality and injustice to individuals and groups, and as we continue to be starved for the close embraces of those we hold dear, hope is not simply a good thing, it’s a necessary thing.
I live in hope because regardless of the distance that separates us from one another, Christ, in whom I hope and in whom I put my trust, is never distant but always present.
As we come to the closing of one and the opening of a new year, I hope and pray for an end to the death-dealing scourge called COVID-19.
I hope and pray for a turn or return to civility, integrity, compassion and care for one another; and that we can find in each other common ground, common hopes and dreams that transcend the boundaries of race and gender, of politics and doctrines, of class and clan.
I hope that the deep fissures gouged in the fabric and perhaps even the foundation of our communities and cities and states and nation, and the earthquake-like split that promises to tear us apart for all time be eliminated by an outward show of love from people like we are, who hear and respond to the divine call to love God and neighbor in all that we do.
I hope that we can find our way or our way back to being for each other the friend that is ready to give and not count the cost, to labor for the good of all and not ask for any reward as the sage of old taught us.
I hope also that the lessons learned in this time may move us to do better, be better, live and love better as the people of God.
So what is your hope for these days?
As the celebrations of Advent, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa swirl around us, may the lights connected with each lighten the darkness that has tried, though unsuccessfully (thank God) to overtake our world.
May hope love, joy and peace be yours in your season and always.
Gennifer Brooks, President
president@naal-liturgy.org
Announcement: An Online Gathering to Worship, Remember, and Celebrate
On Thursday, January 7, we will gather from 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. (Central) to worship together as we would have done at the annual meeting. We will remember and celebrate the lives of those members who have been called home during this year. This naming of our honored dead will not be in place of a fuller memorial when we meet together in 2022 (DV) but will be in recognition of their continued place in our lives. Together, though apart, we will give thanks and celebrate God who has brought us thus far along the way. A Zoom link will be sent at the beginning of January. Come and join us in worship and praise.
Announcement: Call for Papers from Ed Foley, Convener of the Emerging Scholars
A Special Issue of the peer reviewed journal Religion
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions/special_issues/worship_pandemic
“Worship in a time of Pandemic: Fresh Possibilities and Troubling Inequalities”
The global pandemic of 2020 has triggered drastic changes across a wide swath of arenas: from education to business, from health care to politics. No less affected is the practice of worship in the midst of this health crisis and the parallel theologizing about evolving liturgical practices across world religions and in local faith communities. Not surprisingly, the rapidly evolving array of in-person as well as digital responses to Covid-19 have both opened access to many worship events while simultaneously exacerbating existing inequities in worship. This special issue of Religion will examine the upheaval in worship practices sparked by this pandemic as well as the theologizing about these evolving practices. Based on the presupposition that worship itself is to be a just act, authors will give special attention to the ethical implications of such emerging liturgical practices in pondering how liturgy and the allied field of liturgical studies might contribute to distributive, racial, gender, and other forms of justice.
Deadline: December 2021
Edward Foley, Editor
Announcement: Call for Papers Extended from Societas Liturgica
Societas Liturgica Congress 2021 – Liturgy and the Arts
CALL FOR PAPERS – Deadline extended to 14 December
Societas Liturgica is due to meet in July 2021 at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. The plan is for a hybrid congress, with keynote and other papers presented either in person (when possible) or online, either “live” or in recorded formats. We will provide support for those whose papers are accepted for the Congress to enable such participate.
The call for papers has been extended to 14 December, 2020. Details of the congress theme and research areas can be found on the Societas website at https://www.societas-
E. Byron (Ron) Anderson
ron.anderson@garrett.edu
Seminars
Participants in the Emerging Scholars have been notified of the plans for their upcoming online gathering in January. Papers and presentations will focus on the effects of the pandemic on liturgical practice and liturgical studies, the effects of the pandemic on justice and equality, and how liturgical studies as a discipline can address these matters. Presentations will be recorded in advance, with live Q&A sessions following each.
Kimberly Belcher, Delegate for Seminars
seminars@naal-liturgy.org
From the Secretary
We look forward to the announcement of our new website from our webmaster, Layla Karst.
I, as your secretary, remain your primary link for posting and editing material on our current website (http://www.naal-liturgy.org).
I want to call your attention to three features of our current website that will be continued in a similar way on our new site.
1. A Donate to NAAL button is available at the upper right corner of most pages on our website (http://www.naal-liturgy.org). Your contributions may support our scholarship funds, sponsorships, or other donations to help offset meeting expenses. You may also reach our PayPal donations page directly here. We encourage your generous, tax-deductible contributions.
2. If you have published articles or books during the past 2 years and would like biographical information and a brief description posted on our website, write to me at secretary@naal-liturgy.org.
3. We also regularly post job openings in liturgical studies and related fields on our Job Opportunities page. Send your posting requests here.
Taylor W. Burton-Edwards, Secretary
secretary@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Past President
As your past president, I have already received and am glad to receive applications for visitor status. Those received to date have been notified they may be welcomed when we meet again in 2022 in Toronto.
Though the deadline to receive visitor applications is November 1 of the year prior to the next meeting, I am always glad to receive applications at well before the deadline.
To qualify as a visitor, one needs to qualify as a member or be close to meeting the academic qualifications.
Typically, members of the Academy meet two of the following criteria:
- hold a doctorate in some aspect of liturgical studies or the equivalent academic or professional degree
- hold a professional position through which they contribute to liturgical formation, publishing and speaking
- hold a prominent professional appointment with their respective religious bodies and actively contribute to the development of liturgy
- demonstrate a steady and on-going commitment to the field of liturgy, or have contributed to it through work in the allied arts and disciplines
Graduate students are eligible to apply to attend the Annual Meeting when they have moved to the end of their doctoral or equivalent terminal degree programs.
If you are aware of persons you believe should consider being part of the Academy, we encourage you to invite them to apply for visitor status. The application form is here: http://www.naal-liturgy.org/membership/visitor-status/78-membership/94-visitor-status-application
Bruce Morrill, Past President
pastpresident@naal-liturgy.org
From Your Coordinator of Sponsors and Donors
Though we are not meeting in 2021, we are always looking for sponsors and donors, and our Oral History project is ongoing.
Donations and Sponsorships. If you can suggest institutions and individuals we can approach to ask them to be a sponsor of our annual meeting, please send me those suggestions (dlasalle@nd.edu)! Please remember our Scholarship Fund when you register for the annual meeting. Every dollar you contribute to the Scholarship Fund helps to encourage the participation of future and present NAAL members. All donations large and small are appreciated.
NAAL Oral History: Founding Stories. If you are a charter member of the NAAL, or if you have stories from the early years, I will available be at the Atlanta meeting to record those stories. This is part of an effort to develop an oral history of the founding of NAAL. If you have heard stories from Story Corps you have an idea of the kind of stories we are seeking. Individuals and pairs of people who want to share a story are welcome.
Don LaSalle, Sponsorship Coordinator
Contact Us
All Academy officers email and other contact information is available on the officers page of our website.
Newsletters are distributed to all Academy Members via email. To update your contact information, visit MyNAAL.