St. Paul Episcopal welcomes all people

NORWALK — The Rev. Margaret D'Anieri considers it part of "the Holy Spirit's sense of humor" that she is serving a parish in a small town. "I fully expected when I left seminary that I would go back to a parish similar to the one that I had come from, which was in suburban Cleveland," she said. D'Anieri has been the priest at St. Paul Episcopal Church for 17 years, which is a rather long tenure for her denomination. She spends half of her time in Norwalk and the other half as a staff member for the Diocese of Ohio. "The opportunity was here," said D'Anieri, who believed there was something she could learn from serving a parish in a small town. A self-proclaimed "child of the suburbs," she said the biggest difference in serving a church in Norwalk and near Cleveland is the experience of people living in one area for generations. In an Episcopal church, the priest and congregation are together as long as there is a mutual sense of calling, similar to the Lutheran and Presbyterian denominations. "We do have a bishop, but unlike the Methodist and the Roman Catholics, the bishop does not move us around," D'Anieri said. About 30 people attend the Sunday worship service at 10 a.m. Most of the St. Paul congregation is older, with a small amount of young people. Given the amount of widows and widowers, "the family piece is less biological, but it's very definitely generational," D'Anieri said. She has embraced small-town ministry. "What I do like (about) being in a small town is if you're here long enough, you do get to (become) involved in things," said the priest who is on the board of KinderCasa. "There is always ministry that needs to be done, both within in the parish and in the community." As a pastor, D'Anieri experiences many stages in a person or family's lives — from birth through marriage and death. "But there's also grace in the … small-town stuff, like running into someone in the grocery," she said. "We are present at the high points and the low points and we're also present at all the sort of ordinary blessings of life and the ordinary defeats and discouragements of life." A unique aspect of church life "is it's one of the few places where people are in the same space with people they don't necessarily agree with and can go to supper with people who they disagree with on fundamental issues," D'Anieri said. "One of the things that I think the Episcopal church does well is that we are willing to live in tension. People don't like tension, but we are willing to hold … that church is messy and complicated." One of the advantages of coming to St. Paul is "you're going to make some relationships pretty quickly," D'Anieri said. "That's one of the advantages of being small; you're not walking into a place of a thousand people. I think the other thing is that the Episcopal church — inside the big tent that we try to hold — is very welcoming. We are welcoming of the LGBTQ community; we are welcoming to people have been married and divorced. We just feel like everyone has a place in God's house, that God's tent is really big and our job is to model that." For more information about St. Paul Episcopal Church, go to www.stpaulnorwalk.org.