Amy E Richter

With her super-sensitive sense of smell, sixteen-year-old Kaia is used to not fitting in. Add to that the pills she's becoming dependent on, the recent death of both of her parents, and having to live with an aunt with whom she has nothing in common, and Kaia is ready for a change. So when she receives an invitation from Dr. Vadim Grigori to participate in the Grigori Young Scholars Program (GYSP) with its promise that she will meet others like herself, she jumps at the chance. Her leap turns out to be a high-dive into mystery. The faculty of the GYSP exhibits more than an academic interest in the ancient story of the fall of the Watchers from the apocryphal 1 Enoch. Not only are the Grigoris interested in this myth, they're obsessed by an element named in the story: antimony, useful to humans throughout history and now crucial to our everyday existence, but maybe even more vital to the Grigoris. Why are they so interested in it? What lengths will they go to get control of the earth's supply? And what role will GYSP participants like Kaia play in their plans? Antimony means not alone. Togetherness sounds great, but it all depends on whether you join up with the winning side . . .

With her super-sensitive sense of smell, sixteen-year-old Kaia is used to not fitting in. Add to that the pills she's becoming dependent on, the recent death of both of her parents, and having to live with an aunt with whom she has nothing in common, and Kaia is ready for a change. So when she receives an invitation from Dr. Vadim Grigori to participate in the Grigori Young Scholars Program (GYSP) with its promise that she will meet others like herself, she jumps at the chance. Her leap turns out to be a high-dive into mystery. The faculty of the GYSP exhibits more than an academic interest in the ancient story of the fall of the Watchers from the apocryphal 1 Enoch. Not only are the Grigoris interested in this myth, they're obsessed by an element named in the story: antimony, useful to humans throughout history and now crucial to our everyday existence, but maybe even more vital to the Grigoris. Why are they so interested in it? What lengths will they go to get control of the earth's supply? And what role will GYSP participants like Kaia play in their plans? Antimony means not alone. Togetherness sounds great, but it all depends on whether you join up with the winning side . . .

On the weekend of April 22, 2012 the St. Anne's Church website received thousands of visitors. That Sunday, in the New York Times Magazine, an article appeared about the Rev. Dr. Amy E. Richter competing in a physique competition. The strong reactions to the article got Richter and her husband and fellow clergyperson, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Pagano, thinking about the scandal of the Incarnation. The claim that God entered fully into our flesh-and-blood human existence makes some of us squeamish. And yet, this shocking claim is at the heart of the good news that in Christ God is with us no matter what. There is nothing that can happen to us--no pain, no humiliation, no anguish--that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. In sermons for the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, Richter and Pagano proclaim the good news of the scandalous love of God in flesh and bone.

About the Contributor(s): Amy E. Richter is Rector of St. Anne's Episcopal Church and Visiting Instructor at the Ecumenical Institute at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. She is author of Enoch and the Gospel of Matthew. Joseph S. Pagano is Associate Rector of St. Anne's Episcopal Church in Annapolis, Maryland, and Affiliate Professor of Theology at Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland. He is author of The Origins and Development of the Triadic Structure of Faith in H. Richard Niebuhr, and co-author of A Man, A Woman, a Word of Love, with his wife and colleague Amy Richter.