Efforts in ecumenism honored

"He was a man I admired greatly," she said. "He was like an E.F. Hutton: When he spoke, people listened."

Mrs. Lipscomb, a parishioner of St. Patrick's Church in Ravena, was honored for her own ecumenical work, including her efforts as chair of the diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, and her membership in CREO (the Capital Region Ecumenical Organization). The award was given recently by the Capital Area Council of Churches.

Ecumenical efforts

In fact, Mrs. Lipscomb has done much more. She got involved in ecumenical work in 1971, joining a group called Christians United in Mission (CUM), which was hosting roundtable discussions between Catholics and Protestants.

Back then, she said, Catholics were considered "the big guys on the block" because they represented a large number of believers in the Capital District. But other denominations gradually added their numbers to the group. Today, Mrs. Lipscomb said, dialogue groups are "very gifted in having our Jewish brothers and sisters. That was a big breakthrough to me."

She joked that when she got into ecumenism, "all of the Catholics sat on one side of the table and all of the Protestants sat on the other side -- and then all of a sudden, all of that was forgotten about."

Involvement

What helps all these efforts along, she noted, is that "we realize we serve the same God, live by the same Scriptures."

The volunteer has spent 15 years on the Ecumenical Commission, five of them as chair. She spoke highly of the group's work, including the Sidney Alpert interfaith lecture series at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, prayer services, a trip to the Holocaust Museum and dialogue with the Muslim community in which members of each faith visited the other's church or mosque.

More to do

Issues like sexuality and abortion can still be sticking points among different faiths; but Mrs. Lipscomb said that when people value each other's beliefs, it makes it easier to "open up to what comes across the table" in discussions.

Receiving an award for her work, she said, simply means that "I have been gifted with a lot of good people in my life. I received it in the names of a lot of very good people, and I'm honored because it says they're okay in the Diocese. I tip my hat to the Diocese and the people that sponsored my journey."

(10-10-02) [[In-content Ad]]