Friday, 5 June 2026 - Friday after Trinity Sunday

Dear friends,

It’s Pride month! I hope you’ll join us after church this Sunday as we head to Jackson Heights to march in the Queens Pride Parade alongside other Episcopal congregations.

Sometimes people ask me why the Episcopal Church affirms and celebrates queer folks. And if they give me a chance, this is what I say: we celebrate queer life and love because our LGBTQIA+ siblings show us what God’s dream looks like—for everyone.

The Episcopal Church is made up of queer folks and people who know queer folks and love queer folks. And we have seen that when people are affirmed and celebrated in the way they are called to be in the world—when their gifts are cherished and their hurts are tended to—that people flourish. 

Jesus talked a lot about the Kingdom of God and he showed us what it could look like in the community he gathered around himself. And it looked like people flourishing. It looked like people being relieved of their burdens and their debts, people being healed of chronic ailments, people kicked to the margins being restored to dignity and brought into the center. It looked like a community of people who were OUT: lit up with a life that the world had tried to squash. 

So much of our world pushes us to conform to singular, punitive standards enforced by shame and violence—especially around gender and sexuality. And the church has played a big part in that, and we have ongoing repentance to do.

Speaking for myself, and speaking as a priest—when someone comes out, or comes out in a new space, or claims their pronouns, or transitions, when the gifts and dreams of queer people are lifted up—I see those as signs that the Kingdom of God has come near.

Happy Pride—
carl+

As a community, we take turns giving and receiving—spending time in the spotlight, and doing work behind the scenes.

Can you help out this week? Or in the Sundays to come? Sign up here!

RAGMAG writes of Caroline’s solo album Be Something, “it brings together elements of Indie pop, Americana, classic and vintage folk, and so much more in a very unique way that creates a youthful tonality and an atmosphere that lets you forget about your surroundings....” Can’t wait to sing with her!

We will have a "Community Check-in" NEXT Sunday, June 14 during Coffee Hour.

Our leadership will share some of the things that are unfolding in our mission. Even more importantly, this will be a chance to hear from all of you what's resonating, what's not quite right, what opportunities and challenges you see ahead of us. How can we better cultivate integrity as a faith community? How else can we show this neighborhood that "things which have been cast down being raised up, and things which have grown old are being made new?"

We’re thrilled to be partnering with Ari and Cristina of Citation Needed to offer afterschool art classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, beginning September 22. We’ve been so blessed by this partnership since we began hosting monthly Process Art gatherings in the fall of 2024, and we’re excited to pilot a new program—exploring what it might look like to offer a full-fledged afterschool program beginning in September 2027.

You can learn more here—and if you have questions feel free to reach out to Ari or Fr. Carl. But the basics are…

Tuesdays and Thursdays: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (extended day available 5-5:30 PM)

K-5th Grade

Full school year coverage, following the DOE calendar. Starting September 22, 2026 and ending June 17, 2027…

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In the coming weeks, we’ll have even more news to share about new and exciting things happening this fall…stay tuned!

Looking for ways to protect this community from ICE?

The neighborhood ICE Watch “Office Hours” meets every Saturday from 2-3 pm in the sanctuary. This is a great way to get connected to the work of protecting our neighbors and building power. All are welcome.

Cristina Ferrigno
Tabula Rasa

Cristina Ferrigno is a Colombian-born, Brooklyn-raised artist based in Sunnyside. Her work explores cultural “in-betweenness” as a transnational adoptee through combined-media practices and ongoing community-based projects. She loves all kinds of prints and printmaking, photography and image-making processes, as well as working with personal and visual archives.

This work grew out of experiments using leftover paper pulp from an intergenerational workshop she led in the church garden in August 2025. This lovely, messy, hot event was an epic collaboration between the Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside and Citation Needed, a community-based press and workshop series where Cristina has served as Studio Director since 2025. So this work invites the question…

What's something you’re working on that feels like a soggy, smelly mess?

Here are two responses we’ve received so far:

My own sense of self, in bad moments, can feel like a soggy smelly mess.

Sometimes it feels this way as I endeavor to be a good husband, a good mentor, a good friend, a good son. I’m navigating my mom’s cognitive decline and the mortality of my family, while trying to heal a shoulder injury and finding a new job. I navigate it by staying focused and in the present moment, by staying for hope.

Let us know what YOU think on the Little Window Gallery website! We’ll anonymously post all the responses there, and on the LWG’s Instagram page. And in a few weeks we’ll randomly select one of the people who responded and they’ll get to keep a print of Cristina’s paper pulp poem—a local work of art for their very own!

Thanks to Cristina for sharing this tender reflection on grief—and for sharing her practice with us in so many ways, and in ways yet to come!

Please—if you're yearning for something that you haven't seen here, reach out start a conversation. This new mission in Sunnyside is made up of...US. So it gets to be what we want it to be...