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A New England contingent of 19 people from the Episcopal dioceses of Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine traveled to Washington, D.C., in December for "Love God, Love Neighbor: Advocacy in Action"--a two-day training and advocacy initiative focused on how to engage with lawmakers about refugee and immigration policy reform.

Entering into the new decade, the Life Together fellowship program in the Diocese of Massachusetts is marking the completion of its first 10 years and looking forward to what comes next. Though it's been 10 years in its current "Life Together" configuration, the program's origins go back even further to 1999 when the diocese's 10-month residential internship program, The Micah Project, was founded to offer young adults the opportunity to live in community, serve through urban ministry and justice work, and reflect upon their life work and purpose.

Aja Jackson has joined the diocesan staff in the position of accountant in the Treasurer's Office.

After a 30-year postulancy that may well be among the longest on record, and with a vocational commitment "long in the making and long in the testing," as a seminary advisor once described it, the Rev. Gayle Pershouse Vaughan was at last ordained a transitional deacon on Nov. 10 of this year at the Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, her home parish for the past 15 years.

"At Christmas we greet the very heart of God made flesh.  Born 2,000 years ago.  Born again every time the vulnerability of human love fills the rocky trough of human cruelty.  It is in the very nature of love to be vulnerable. Precisely because God loves us was Jesus born, vulnerable to the needs of every helpless infant.  He grew, dependent upon the care of loving parents.  He preached and taught, vulnerable to the resentment of the religious establishment.  And he died, vulnerable to the cruelty of the Roman occupation.  He died every bit as vulnerable as the victims of warfare in Syria and Yemen; as vulnerable as the victims of terror in New Zealand and Sri Lanka, of massacres in Pittsburgh, El Paso and Jersey City.  He died as vulnerable as me and you."