ELDERLY BATS

I don't know about y'all, but I needed a couple of laughs.

Thanks to my brother-in-law.

JESUS AND MO

Click on the strip for the larger view.

From Jesus and Mo.

WOT THEMETHATISME WROTE TO THE NEWSPAPERS

From the comments:

themethatisme said...
I have forwarded a brief missive to the newspapers covering this...

Sir,
The Bishop of St. Asaph in comparing opposition to the covenant to an ecclesiastical BNP, can only indicate just how abstracted episcopal thought is from reality, it's clergy and parishioners. As one of the designers of this expensive, punitive, bureaucratic and prejudicial piece of legislation, it is incredible that he can make such a suggstion about those among us who promote inclusivity. Opposition is not solely rooted here in England but is a growing multi-national body of opinion which is determined to showcase this nonsense for what it is.

Whilst the covenant is touted as a document which will prevent splits in the communion, it is in fact a document which legitimises splitting on the terms of the powerful, centralising authority in the few, increasing costs to the whole church not least through boosting the episcopal Airmiles tally. If the bishop believes that name-calling is a positive premise upon which to conduct debate, then he was probably a good choice for the design of such a document.

NT.(Non-ecclesiastical caucus.)

Excellent, TheMe. I could not have said it so well myself. Isn't it about time to post again on your blog?

I remind you once again of No Anglican Covenant, where you can sign up to join the group in its opposition to to the covenant. Your comments are welcome at the web site.

UPDATE: Themethatisme heeded my advice and posted on his blog the fine sermon on the Anglican Covenant, which he preached today.

Still, as I am preaching in the morning, I have thought to include my sermon here as I would usually do, but it will be noted that my sermon this morning although taking an askance look at the mornings gospel, is principally in order to announce to my parish church my thoughts and feelings on this here covenant thingy. I am delighted to see the launch earlier this week of NO ANGLICAN COVENANT, and am pleased to add what I may to the argument against its adoption. The following reworks some bits and pieces that I previously have shared with trying to awaken a local consciousness to a global matter.

2 Thess. 2:1-5,13-end; Luke 20:27-38

St. Mary Magdalene, 7th November 2010.

TheMe's sermon is well worth a read.

FR JAKE ANSWERS BISHOP CAMERON

You must read Fr Jake's riposte to Bishop Cameron's letter. Fr Jake doesn't write often on his blog these days, but when he writes, his words are always worth reading.

Jake takes apart the worst of Section 4 of the Anglican Covenant, the objectionable, punitive section, piece by piece, and demonstrates why adopting the covenant will not be a good thing, despite Bishop Cameron's advice to all of us to please calm down and stop the scaremongering.

Says Jake:

Use whatever snarky names you can imagine, Bishop Cameron, but, regarding the signing of any current or future Anglican Covenant, this is one Anglican whose response must echo that of Bartleby the Scrivener; "I would prefer not to."

And they all said, "Amen"!

And while I have your attention, why not go vote on the Church Times Question Of the Week,: "Should the Church of England reject the Anglican Covenant?" Look for the link to the question in the upper left hand corner.

LAND OF THE FREE

From Elizabeth Wurtzel, who is American, but the article is in the Guardian, which, last I heard, was a newspaper in England:

Hard to say precisely what it is that people – "folks", as President Obama likes to call them – are so darn exercised about, but they say things that show that their command of any words with more than two syllables is completely questionable, like: "The president is a socialist", or "healthcare reform is unconstitutional". Of course, what they want to say, and what they should say, is something to the effect that they hate this man that those people elected president and they want to kill him – but only people like me, elitists with Ivy League degrees – people who actually have read Das Kapital and who have studied constitutional law – talk trash like that.
....

Look, America is a very sad place right now, which is what the Tea Party movement and the midterm elections are about. I could analyse the particulars, but then I would be no better than the whole 24-hour media machine – which, given that unemployment is at 9.6%, is lucky that no one has noticed that they don't exactly do their job. If the news outlets were actually reporting, they would tell us the honest and awful truth: the United States is a post-industrial empire in decline, like England or Belgium or worse (is there worse?). There is no next. We are at next.

And truthfully, it would not be so bad, if we could only come to terms with who we are: we are an amazing country still, but not in the way we believe. We are, in fact, kind of nerdy. We decry elitism, and yet it is precisely the high-falutin' stuff that we are good at. We still have the best research universities on the planet – every world survey puts Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford at the top – and we still have companies like Apple and Google that no one else on earth can come up with. And, of course, our creative industries – movies and music – are still our biggest import, even if piracy is deflating their value.
....

Yes, the United States is still the great meritocracy it's always been; but now, if you aren't brilliant or beautiful or both, there isn't much to do, because they can do it cheaper in Shanghai or Mumbai. The Tea Party people should enjoy their rallies, because the rest of it is, indeed, quite bleak.

For the first time in American history, then, social mobility has been replaced with class struggle. Europeans have always been mystified that poor people in this country don't rise up and throw potatoes at Donald Trump – instead, they make him a reality TV star. But that's because everyone here us sure they are going to be rich like him someday, too. Maybe tomorrow.

And yes, you should read Wurtzel's piece in its entirety, despite the fact that it's published in a foreign newspaper. She's mostly right. I wonder if she could be published in a major newspaper here in the US. Her truth-telling may paint far too bleak a picture for consumers of the "news" over here. In truth, not a few of Wurtzel's fellow citizens might label her as downright un-American.

Disclosure: I say "folks", too.

Thanks to Cathy for the link.

WHAT GOD WANTS

Tobias Haller had his own lovely post exclusively for three days, but today I had to have it.

"LITTLE ENGLANDERS"

Bishop Gregory Cameron (left), and Archbishop Derxel (sic) Gomez brief the press on a draft text of the Anglican Covenant, in May this year

Pictured above are two completely non-partisan bishops, well one bishop and one archbishop, who played major roles in drafting the Anglican Covenant, Bishop Gregory Cameron of the Diocese of St Asaph in the Church in Wales and Lord Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of the Church of the West Indies & Bishop of the Diocese Of Nassau & The Bahamas (Including the Turks & Caicos Islands).

A BISHOP has compared two groups opposing the Anglican Covenant to “an ecclesiastical BNP”. They are “latter-day Little Englanders”, he says.

The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt Revd Gregory Cameron, formerly secretary to the Anglican Com­munion Covenant Design Group, was responding to the full-page advertise ment placed in the Church Times last week by Inclusive Church and Modern Church (formerly the Modern Churchpeople’s Union).

In a letter to this paper, he accuses them of using tactics of “misinformation and scaremongering about foreigners and outside influences”.

Bishop Cameron compares IC and MCU to the British National Party, the facist political party in England, even as he accuses them of scaremongering.
...............................

Sorry, I suffered a momentary brain disconnection. I'm all right now.

The Anglican Covenant was prompted in 2004 by the election of a gay bishop in the United States, the Rt Revd Gene Robinson. It attempts to define the relationship between the provinces of the Anglican Com munion, holding them to mutual accountability and consensus.

Yes!!! The Church Times gets it right. No matter what folderol you hear about how the Anglican Daft Covenant came to be, it was originally conceived to exclude member churches which approve the ordination of lesbian and gay bishops and allow same-sex blessings or marriages. And which member church(es) would that be? Well, there was only one church with a partnered gay bishop at the beginning of the process to draft the covenant, namely the Episcopal Church in the US. And the Episcopal Church has been naughty again and ordained a partnered lesbian bishop and now permits same-sex blessings.

The Revd Jonathan Clatworthy, general secretary of Modern Church, said this week that the Covenant had come out of the debate in the Communion over gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, but this had been “played down by the Covenant’s proponents”.

He denied the charge of scare mongering. Conservative bishops “have made it quite clear the whole point of the Covenant is to exclude the United States”, he said.

See? What did I say?

The former Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, told The Church of Ireland Gazette that the Covenant was the only means of keeping the Anglican Communion together, and provided “a framework within which you can have the discussion in a way which tries to keep all parties at the table”.

And I have this bridge....

Is it possible for former colonists to be Little Englanders? I suppose not.

BRAVO BISHOP BUCHANAN!

Nice alliteration.

Lesley Fellows gives us the text of Bishop Colin Buchanan's letter from last week in the Church Times.

Sir, — I have read your account of the Bishop of Fulham’s statement about his future (News, 22 October), and have heard him interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday programme. Am I right in my understanding of his position as follows?

He believes himself to be a true apostolic bishop ministering in the Church of England, and giving absolute assurance about the validity and efficacy of the sacramental ministrations he offers, which assurance, being of top priority for the life of the people of God, is guaranteed by the historic succession from the apostles, the preservation of that succession in the Anglican passage through the Reformation period, and in latter days the ensuring that the succession is sustained by male bishops only.

This assurance has not only been the key to all eucharistic celebrations by the Forward in Faith (FiF) constituency: it has also been visibly expressed in ordination by the Bishop of Fulham, in that in September he ordained a deacon (announced on another page) and, presumably, assured him that he was being truly ordained. All that is how I have read his present position.

At the end of the year, however, he will resign, and, in joining the Church of Rome, will acknowledge he has never been ordained, that his sacramental ministrations have been open to the highest level of doubt, and that the orders he has conferred (mostly, presumably, within the FiF constituency) have been fictitious. Does he in fact say this now, or is it simply that he will say it in two months’ time?

If I have got it wrong, I would be the first to acknowledge it and apologise for misrepresenting the position that I think I read. But I still have the dilemma that, if Rome is right, we have to go today; where as, if it is wrong, nothing that happens in the Church of England can make Rome right. Surely logic has some part to play in relation to integrity?

COLIN BUCHANAN

Splendid! I couldn't leave out a word. Thank you, Lesley!

The bishops and clergy in the Church of England who cross over to join the Roman Catholic ordinariates will be no more than mere seminarians, once they've made their swim across the Tiber. Fast-track seminarians, perhaps, but their Holy Orders once held by them to be precious, pristine, and unbesmirched by contamination from the likes of a woman bishop, will, in an instant, be declared, not only null and void, but never to have existed at all. What about the poor deacon? What about all the other deacons and priests the bishop ordained? What about the Eucharistic celebrations in which he presided?

What say you, Bishop Broadhurst?

Here's the link to the story of Bishop John Broadhurst's resignation in the Catholic Herald.

UPDATE: Earlier I pondered in the comments:

I wonder if (shall I call him Bishop?) Broadhurst presides at the Eucharist at the present time under his here-today-gone-tomorrow orders.

Bishop Broadhurst answered my wonderings in his pastoral letter:

My final act as a Bishop will be to celebrate the Mass at Gordon Square on the eve of Christ the King, Saturday 20th November at 12 noon. I hope to see many of you there.

Where is the logic here? How can Bishop(?) Broadhurst believe in the validity of his orders one day and believe them to be null and void the next day?

THANK HEAVEN FOR SMALL FAVORS

Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell were not elected.

Bye-bye, ladies. Perhaps you'll find seats on the Tea Party bus. Or, with Sarah Palin, you may consider grouping into the Republican Women Ex-Candidates Party. The name is only a suggestion. I'm sure you'll want to name yourselves.

BARBIE AND GI JOE

Wicked Paul the BB sent me the following joke from his equally wicked friend Kathy saying:

Clearly not blog material, but it is naughty and might make you chuckle.

The joke is naughty, and I responded with more than a chuckle on first reading, and second, and third. I've been pondering the joke for several days, because I was not quite so clear as Paul that the joke was not blog material. Today, following my discovery of the video for the Nissan commercial, I decided that my blog would not be child-friendly just for this one day - just this one day, you understand!

Here is the naughty joke:

A little girl clambered aboard Santa's lap and mumbled charmingly around a finger: "I wanna...I wanna a Barbie Doll and a...um...a GI Joe."

Santa was startled. "Well, honey, you know, GI Joe's are kind of for boys more than girls. Barbie comes with a Ken, not a GI Joe."

"No," she said firmly, pulling out her finger. "She only fakes it with Ken. She comes with GI Joe."

Paul's further commentary:

Kathy is very naughty this time and I told her I do not wish to think about how a little girl would know so much so soon.

Disclosure: My son works for Nissan.

UPDATE: Grandpère was rather shocked that I posted the joke. He said, "It's like something you'd find in Playboy." He could be right. I wouldn't know, because I never read Playboy.

"MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS COOKIE RECIPE"

This recipe calls for Absolut vodka but if you don't have that, any vodka will do (I prefer Skyy). If the cookies come out as I expect them to, please mail me some. Trust me, read this all the way through....

Ingredients:

1 bottle Absolut vodka
1 cup water
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 cup brown sugar
lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups dried fruit
4 cups flour

Sample the Absolut to check quality. Take a large bowl. Check the Absolut again to be sure it is of the highest quality. Pour 1 level cup and drink. Turn on the electric mixer. Beat 1 cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon of sugar; beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the Absolut is still OK. Try another cup, just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy, break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in 1 cup of dried fruit. Pick the frigging fruit off floor... mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers, just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the Absolut to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift 2 cups of salt or something. Who giveshz a sheet. Check the Absolut.

Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add 1 table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven.

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to beat off the turners. Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Absolut and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

CHERRY MISTMAS!!!!!!

Thanks to the notorious woman known around the internets as Suzanne. It doesn't hurt to start gathering your Christmas recipes early.

IF I'M WRONG, I'M WRIGHT

From the Church of Ireland Gazette:

Speaking to the Gazette editor in an interview while visiting Ireland, Bishop Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and now a Research Professor at the University of St Andrews, has said that the Church of England should not proceed to the consecration of women as Bishops if the move were to create a large division.

He said: "my own position is quite clear on this, that I have supported women Bishops in print and in person. I’ve spoken in Synod in favour of going that route, but I don’t think it’s something that ought to be done at the cost of a major division in the Church."

Bishop Wright warned that if the Church of England were not able to resolve the matter "a ‘quick fix’ resolution" would be "a recipe for long-term disaster".

If Bishop Wright's "position is quite clear on" women bishops, why would he pull the rug from under them when controversy develops? Abandoning women when the going gets tough is hardly supportive. What good are empty words? And 30 16 years after the first women priests is a quick fix?

Asked to comment on what would happen if the Church of England rejected the Covenant proposal, Bishop Wright said: "That is always a possibility, and if that happens, then I suppose the thing would be dead in the water. but that’s a notional possibility which I don’t actually see as realistic."

That "the thing would be dead in the water" is my fondest hope. We can but try to shed light on the possible negative consequences for the Anglican Communion if the Daft Covenant is adopted. If Bishop Wright thinks "the kind of unstructured mess that we’ve had" is bad, then, very likely, he faces a far grander mess if his wish for a covenant comes to pass.

Bishop Wright is often good copy.

MY HOME LAST NIGHT

Pictured above is my room at the Sully Mansion in the Garden District in New Orleans. The gracious hosts at the Sully Mansion made me welcome and more than comfortable during my stay.

I attended a lovely reception and later a wonderful dinner, both in honor of Susan Russell and her wife, Louise Brooks. Both events were held in homes in the Garden District, one of my favorite places in New Orleans. At the reception, I spent a good bit of time talking to our friend Ormonde and his lovely wife, Kay.

I'd adore to live in the Garden District, but I'd have to give up my husband, my home, and living near two of my children. A house in the Garden District is, to me, a pearl of great price, but, in the end, I'm not willing to pay the price. But I can dream. If my dream came true, I'd wish to have a house like the one pictured below.



I'd met Susan at GC09, but I met Louise for the first time last night. Usually, I'm very bad at remembering names, but I'll have no trouble with Louise's name, because she shares the name of the famous silent film actor. Louise joked that Louise, the actor, was her grandmother.

I told Susan that she was a rock star in the Episcopal Church, and she demurred. I don't know what Susan's voice is like, but she rocks, and that makes her a rock star to me. Anyway, I had a fine time in such sparkling and stimulating company. Once again, our hosts in both houses were welcoming and gracious.

Apropos of quite a thin connection, below is a YouTube video tribute to Louise Brooks, with Josephine Baker singing "Bye-bye Blackbird".




Tomorrow evening, I'll be back in New Orleans to hear Susan speak.

COMMON GROUND AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

AN EVENING WITH THE REV. CANON SUSAN RUSSELL

Thursday, November 4, 2010
7:15 p.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church
Bishop Polk Hall

ANGLICANS AROUND THE WORLD OPPOSE COVENANT

IT'S HERE!


From No Anglican Covenant:

Anglican churches are being asked to adopt a so-called Anglican Covenant that seeks to bind them more tightly to one another and to codify procedures by which future disputes within the Anglican Communion will be resolved.

We believe that this covenant is ill-conceived. In response to the reputed “crisis” in the Communion, drafters of the covenant have favoured coercion over the hard work of reconciliation. The covenant seeks to narrow the range of acceptable belief within Anglicanism and to prevent further development of Anglican thought. Rather than bringing peace to the Communion, we predict that the covenant text itself could become the cause of future bickering and that its centralized dispute-resolution mechanisms could beget interminable quarrels and resentments.

I'm June Butler, and I approve this message. No good will come of the covenant.

General Synod of the Church of England will meet on 23 and 24 November 2010 and debate and vote on the Anglican Covenant.

This site is the work of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition. The Coalition comprises dedicated Christians, many of them bloggers, from around the worldwide Anglican Communion who believe that the proposed Anglican Covenant our churches are being asked to endorse is, at best, redundant, but, more likely, will do irreparable harm to our churches and to our Communion.

In particular, the members of the Coalition believe that the covenant is likely to change forever the fundamental nature of not only the Anglican Communion, but also of Anglicanism itself. Out of a fellowship of mutually supportive yet diverse regional and national churches tracing their historical and liturgical traditions to the Church of England, there threatens to emerge a monolithic, worldwide church unresponsive to local needs, narrow in its theological outlook, and governed exclusively by bishops most of us will never see.

For me to have been asked to be part of a group which includes such worthies is quite an honor. I hasten to add that my contribution to the hard work of putting the web site together was quite small. Others worked long and heroically, and I believe the result is splendid.

November 3rd is an ideal day to launch a new international organization resisting the proposed Anglican Covenant because it is the day Anglicans commemorate the sixteenth-century theologian Richard Hooker. Hooker argued that the Church should use the full range of reasoning faculties in matters of faith and should develop in light of changing circumstances. New ideas and differences of opinion, therefore, have a proper place within the Church. It is this openness and tolerance that we, the No Anglican Covenant Coalition, wish to defend today against an Anglican Covenant that would suppress differences of opinion.

Click on the link and explore the No Anglican Covenant web site. You'll find all you've ever wanted to know about the covenant and more.



Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

The statue of Richard Hooker stands before Exeter Cathedral in England. Photo courtesy of Ann Fontaine.

BLESSINGS AND CONGRATULATIONS, BISHOP GENE

On this date 7 years ago, Bishop Gene Robinson became a bishop in the Episcopal Church. Susan Russell was there. Read her lovely account of the great day at An Inch At a Time.

Susan says in her post:

I'm writing this between flights (thanks for the free wifi, McCarren Airport!) ... and I'm honored and excited to have been invited to come to New Orleans to preach a bit, speak a bit, meet-and-greet a bit ... to talk about "Common Ground & Social Justice" in the Diocese of Louisiana.

I will be in that number when Susan speaks on Thursday evening.

COMMON GROUND AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

AN EVENING WITH THE REV. CANON SUSAN RUSSELL

Thursday, November 4, 2010
7:15 p.m.

Trinity Episcopal Church
Bishop Polk Hall

ON Wednesday evening, Susan+ will preach at Holy Eucharist at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit on Broadway, near Tulane/Loyola Universities. Outreach to LGBTQ youth is the focus of that evening.

If you live in or near New Orleans, I urge you to attend one or both of the events if at all possible.

"NO LONGER CAN"

From the The New York Times:

The spokesman for the arch-conservative leader of Belgium's Roman Catholic Church has resigned after his boss defended priests accused of pedophilia and criticized AIDS patients.

Spokesman Juergen Mettepenningen told reporters that he "no longer can" work for Archbishop Andre Leonard.

Still, one wonders what took Mettepenningen so long, but better late than never. I expect that Archbishop Leonard's words were the last straw for a good many Roman Catholics in Belgium and around the world.

Thanks to Lapin for the link

VOTE AND VOTE SMART

KIRSTIN NEEDS TRAVEL COMPANIONS

Kirstin is undergoing chemotherapy for melanoma, and she needs people to travel with her and stay with her when she has her treatments.

If you’ve gotten this far: We need more people to come to Riverside with me. I hate to be this blunt—I loathe the position it puts me in, even to ask—but my life depends on it. They won’t admit me if I don’t have a companion. My roommate Andee has exhausted her vacation time. I need someone to fly down and back with me, and be in the hospital with me while I’m there and awake. I need emotional and physical support. And even if I didn’t, they wouldn’t treat me if I went on my own. You are helping save a life, if you go.

Kaiser pays for lodging and travel expenses from Northern California. (If you’re not in Northern California, but would otherwise be available, don’t rule yourself out. A friend who has lots of frequent flier miles has put them at my disposal.)

Read the rest of Kirstin's post at Barefoot and Laughing. If you can help, her email address is on her profile page.

A CROWD OF WITNESSES

Eastern Orthodox icon of All Saints. Christ is enthroned in heaven surrounded by the ranks of angels and saints. At the bottom is Paradise with the bosom of Abraham (left), and the Good Thief (right).

2 Esdras 2:42-47 (NRSV)

I, Ezra, saw on Mount Zion a crowd too large to count, all singing hymns of praise to the Lord. In the middle stood a very tall young man, taller than all the rest, who was setting a crown on the head of each one of them; he stood out above them all. I was enthralled at the sight, and asked the angel, "Sir, who are these?" He replied, "They are those who have laid aside their mortal dress and put on the immortal, those who acknowledged the name of God. Now they are being given crowns and palms." And I asked again, "Who is the young man setting crowns on their heads and giving them palms?", and the angel replied, "He is the Son of God, whom they acknowledged in this mortal life." I began to praise those who had stood so valiantly for the Lord's name. Then the angel said to me, "Go and tell my people all the great and wonderful acts of the Lord God that you have seen."

Hebrews 12:1-2 (NRSV)

As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. Let us rid ourselves, then, of everything that gets in the way, and the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and is now seated at the right hand of God's throne.

The saints from the ages stand with us in our witness. Thanks be to God.

Image from Wikipedia

OCTOPI

Finally, a use for that bad plural form of octupus.

From Pharyngula.

Thanks to Paul (A.)

OUR FRIEND IT REPORTS FROM THE SCENE ON THE RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY

Do you see us? Two lesbians under the pink arrow waving! (Photo from CBS, arrow added by IT)

IT at The Friends of Jake posted an eye-witness account from the Stewart/Colbert Rally To Restore Sanity.

We started to realize it would be a Big Thing on the plane, when about 1/3 of the passengers raised their hands when asked who was going to the rally. One woman behind us said friends of hers from New York were on the train and said everyone else on their train was also going. We got to our hotel (in Crystal City, where BP lived about 25 years ago) by 8pm and had a reasonably early night, since we wanted to get to the Mall early in the AM for some sightseeing before the rally. I'll blog later about that.

The same company that estimated 87,000 for the Glenn Beck rally estimated 215,000 for this one.

How wonderful to see sane people in the US highlighted, which almost never happens. For the most part, the BIG Media did not at all understand why the sane amongst us should receive attention. Hey, guys, here it is again from Jon Stewart's closing speech:

"The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen," he said. "Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire. And then, perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous ant-fire epidemic."

Jon's first statement is what you are to be about if you do your job properly.

DVD TO ART, BUT DON'T MAKE WAVES

"The Wave" by Lucinda Naylor in collaboration with 2,000 households

From Jesus in Love:

An inclusive sculpture made from anti-gay DVDs was unveiled Friday in Minneapolis.

Artist Lucinda Naylor showed off “The Wave,” which she created out of 2,000 DVDs that were originally sent by the Catholic Church to oppose same-sex marriage.

Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt.sent 400,000 of the DVDs to Minnesota Catholics, urging them to seek a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. Naylor responded by asking people to give her their DVDs for recycling into art with an inclusive theme of hope.

Naylor’s project made waves in the church and led authorities to fire her from her job as artist-in-residence at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis.

And there you have it. If you work for the Roman Catholic Church, you must not make waves, not in art...and perhaps not even in the water? Who can tell us?

Lucinda, your sculpture is wonderful. You laid your job on the line for what you believe in - hope for inclusion. Thank you for standing up for justice and equality.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8)

STORY OF THE DAY

1: trying on new looks because the old
ones take too long in the morning &
everyone just thinks "O, she's wearing
that old thing again" anyway

2: really small mirror so she doesn't
have to take the shock all at once

From StoryPeople.

ALL SAINTS DAY

St. Louie swings with his band and the dancing lady.