New Associate - Rev. Michelle Baker-Wright
What excites you about coming to St. Cross to work? As I have begun to get to know the community of St Cross, I’ve been struck by the energy, the sense of community, and the warmth that characterizes this place. I’m looking forward to learning from you, hearing your stories, and thinking together about what it means to be a community of faith in these complex times.
What is your favorite book of the Bible and why? My favorite book of the Bible is the Psalms. When we pray them, we speak and sing prayers that are thousands of years old. They are deeply intimate and yet profoundly corporate. The Psalms also offer great encouragement that there is no emotion that’s “off-limits” in prayer; they encompass joy, pain, wrath, despair, and the full spectrum of all that we experience. People are often surprised at how much anger and lament there is in the psalms, for example; they offer us reassurance that God can hear anything that we have to say, and that we are not alone in the journey of faith.
What is one of your early memories of church? Church was the first place that I remember being deeply impacted by music; I was three. We went to a Christmas Eve service at Duke University Chapel, and I remember hearing “Angels we Have Heard on High” echoing throughout the space, looking up to the vaulted ceiling, and never wanting it to end. My church growing up was where I first learned to sing and make music with others, and making music became an important way that I came to understand community.
What is one thing you want us to know about you? Music has always been a huge part of my life; I trained as a classical flutist, although I enjoy jazz and improvisation as well. I was first drawn to the Episcopal Church by the musicality of the liturgy, and I love the ways that music brings people together across all kinds of differences.
St. Cross loves a good meal. What is your favorite food? Having spent much of my childhood in the Pacific Northwest, one of my favorite foods is salmon and all things seafood, although it’s a close tie between that and dark chocolate and a good cup of espresso!
