Introduction

This series on Chinese calligraphy for Lent comes from Rev. Elyn MacInnis in Shanghai, China.  Elyn, her husband Peter, and two daughters, Mika and Charlotte, have lived in China for the past nineteen years during its explosive period of modernization and economic growth.  She has pastored two international congregations, at Saint Paul’s Church in Nanjing, and later at the Congregation of the Good Shepherd in Beijing.  Her work with service projects supported by her congregations has taken her throughout the country and given her a rich understanding of China and the Eastern way of thinking.   In 2004, Harvard Divinity School awarded her the Katzenstein Award, “honoring among its graduates one who exhibits a passionate and helpful interest in the lives of other people, an informed and realistic faithfulness, an embodiment of the idea that love is not so much a way of feeling as a way of acting, and a reliable sense of humor.” 

She is delighted to share with you the deep spiritual wisdom and understanding that she has discovered in the roots of Chinese characters.