WOUNDED BIRD

WHAT STEPHEN SAYS...

2012-01-29T19:50:00.001-06:00

I report. You decide.

Click on the picture for the larger view.

'THE BLESSED COMPANY...'

2012-01-29T15:10:00.000-06:00

From Donald Schell's essay titled 'The Blessed Company of All Faithful People', Part II at the Daily Episcopalian:

Just what do Episcopalians mean by “salvation?” A lot of different things, of course. I think salvation has little to do with “where we end up” and everything to do with God’s work reconciling us to each other and to God, moving closer to our embrace of one another in God now and forever.

Amen! Read the rest of Schell's essay, which is excellent, along with the commentary, which is quite good.

STORY OF THE DAY - GODDESS

2012-01-29T11:34:00.000-06:00

I do much better as a goddess, she said,
since my secretarial skills have always
been limited

Oh yes. Quite true.

From StoryPeople.

LORD CAREY, PLEASE ENJOY A QUIET RETIREMENT

2012-01-29T09:47:00.003-06:00

From the Telegraph:

Lesley Pilkington was effectively barred from her professional register after attempting to convert a homosexual man in a therapy session at her home.

Her patient turned out to be a gay rights journalist, who had secretly recorded the sessions and then reported her to her professional body. Mrs Pilkington, a committed Christian, was subsequently found guilty of professional misconduct.

The therapy practised by Mrs Pilkington had been described as "absurd" by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and roundly condemned by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

But ahead of her appeal against the BACP ruling, Mrs Pilkington has received backing from the Rt Rev Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

In a letter to her professional body, Lord Carey – along with a number of senior figures – suggests Mrs Pilkington is herself a victim of entrapment whose therapy should be supported.

So now Mrs Pilkington is the victim and wants professional recognition and approval to practice her brand of psychotherapy, which has been shown to be destructive in some cases and ineffective over all.

Amongst the co-signers of the letter are Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester and the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, the Bishop of Lewes. You may recall that Bishop Benn compared the campaign for women bishops in the Church of England to the storm clouds gathering over Europe in 1939.

In the course of the type of psychotherapy practiced by Mrs Pilkington and her cohorts:

Homosexual men are sent on weekends away with heterosexual men to "encourage their masculinity" and "in time to develop healthy relationships with women", said Mrs Pilkington.

When will Lord Carey cease his foolishness and fade away into the quiet retirement he so justly deserves?

Picture from Wikipedia.

Thanks to Lapin for the the link to the Telegraph.

NEW ORLEANS JAZZ GREATS - 'BUCKET'S GOT A HOLE IN IT'

2012-01-28T22:23:00.001-06:00

Uptown Bumps (1958).... Featuring: Sweet Emma Barrett, Punch Miller, Slow Drag Pavageau, George Guesnon, Paul Barbarin, Peter Bocage, Charlie Love, George Levis, Louis Nelson

When Preservation Hall opened in 1961, it was my great pleasure to hear music played by the New Orleans jazz musician greats featured in the video.

WINTER FLOWERS

2012-01-28T20:06:00.000-06:00

The dwarf azaleas in front and on the side of our house are in bloom once again after showing their colors around Christmas. We never know when the azaleas will burst into bloom, so they're always a pleasant surprise.

JONATHAN CLATWORTHY ON THE PAPER DOLL

2012-01-28T12:24:00.003-06:00

At Modern Church, Jonathan Clatworthy, General Secretary to the organization, wrote an excellent response to Peter Doll's inaccurate and downright insulting essay on the Episcopal Church in the United States and its relationship to the Anglican Communion and to the proposed Anglican Covenant. Doll is originally from the US, but he has served in the Church of England since his ordination. Still, Doll claims to know the church which he says nurtured him well. Peter Doll is Canon Librarian at Norwich Cathedral in England, therefore one would expect the fruits of his personal knowledge and research to exhibit a result that paints an accurate and evenhanded picture of the Episcopal Church, rather than the biased views expressed in the essay.

Keep in mind that Clatworthy is English and that it is entirely possible to arrive at a more realistic and balanced view of the Episcopal Church from across the big pond in the Green and Pleasant Land. That Doll's paper was sent to all the bishops in the Church of England with the stamp of approval from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is astounding to me.

Wait! On second thought, as I remember certain of Rowan's statements about the Episcopal Church, I am not so surprised, because Doll and Rowan come to seem more like birds of a feather, which makes me even more grateful for Clatworthy's admirable rebuttal.

I met Jonathan when I was in England, and we had a wonderful, long, chatty lunch in London between his trains, and I speak from personal knowledge when I say that he's all right.

Disclosure: Jonathan and I are both members of the No Anglican Covenant Coalition.

Jonathan Clatworthy lives in Liverpool and is Modern Church General Secretary. He has worked as a parish priest, university chaplain and lecturer in Ethics.

APHORISM OF THE DAY - A BETTER WORLD

2012-01-28T09:13:00.000-06:00

I dream of that better world, too. Poor chickens.

Thanks to MM for my first laugh of the day.

WAXING CRESCENT MOON

2012-01-27T21:03:00.003-06:00

Bright hornéd crescent
Suspended in darkened sky
Upward facing points

SATURDAY UPDATE: Tonight at twilight, the sky was a beautiful, clear midnight blue, with the very bright crescent somewhat larger than last night, again poised between the shining planets, Venus and Jupiter, with Orion overhead, slightly to the east. Lovely.

STORY OF THE DAY - QUIET PRIDE

2012-01-27T15:15:00.001-06:00

There has never been a day when I have
not been proud of you, I said, though
some days I'm louder about other stuff
so it's easy to miss that.

From StoryPeople.

The story is for Grandpère as a late birthday gift. I'm sad to say the story applies, more often than I'd like.

SOUL REBELS BRASS BAND - LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL 2010

2012-01-27T14:12:00.004-06:00

Oh, I love this video of the Soul Rebels marching and playing their way across the Golden Jubilee Bridge, a pedestrian bridge which crosses the River Thames, linking the Embankment with the Royal Festival Hall. Now if this group had been marching in New Orleans, a number of folks would have joined the band and made the march a parade. Ah, but the Londoners heading across the bridge were in a hurry to get on with their very important business. I can read their thoughts, 'Who are these black dudes on our bridge playing jazz and blocking our way?' What can I say? I kinda like it that the band 'took the bridge', so to speak, but then, I am from New Orleans, and I have the soul of a rebel. Since applause is audible at the end of the video, I gather some folks 'got it'. The comments at YouTube are...um...interesting.

Last summer I heard the Soul Rebels play at the music festival at the Sage in Newcastle upon Tyne, fronting for Soul Queen, Irma Thomas, and they were terrific, a taste of home upon the River Tyne.

When I was in London last summer, after a bit of difficulty in finding the stairs, with help from my friend Cathy by cell phone, I walked the London Millenium Footbridge from the Bankside to meet Cathy on the City side to view the Miró exhibit at the Tate Modern, which was fantastic.

Oh dear! I feel a wave of nostalgia coming on.

WOUNDED BIRD IS FIVE YEARS OLD...

2012-01-26T21:40:00.001-06:00

...and a few days. My first post was on January 22, 2007. I meant to mark the anniversary, but the day slipped past me. Anyway, it's been a good run.

No. of posts: 5869
No. of visits: 858,629 (plus a few lost when my counter went down for a couple of days)

To everyone who visits, reads, and comments, thank you. To my stringers who send me links and material to post, another thank you. My life would be much the poorer without the friends I've made online, many of whom I've met in real life. I can say, in all truth, that those I've met face to face were as I expected, but for two. I thought Tobias Haller would be an introvert, and I expected Fr Jake to be an extrovert, and the two were just the opposite, which was a surprise. If I liked you online, I liked you when I met you. As George W said:

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

The old saying is in Louisiana now, too.

These here intertubes are a wonder, indeed. Hugs and kisses all around.

IF LOOKS COULD KILL...

2012-01-26T19:21:00.002-06:00

Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Presov Slovakia
Lukáš Kmiť plays the viola
by Milan Ferencik/Greatmilan & Jakub Hasko/CTZ Films

Thanks to Paul (A.).

DAVID KATO - 1964-2011 - WE REMEMBER...

2012-01-26T14:24:00.000-06:00

David Kato, Ugandan LGBT rights activist, was beaten to death one year ago today (Jan. 26). He is considered a father of Uganda’s gay rights movement.

Some blame religious rhetoric for his death. American evangelicals helped stir up the hostility that led to Kato’s death because they promoted a law imposing the death penalty for homosexuality. Shortly before his murder Kato won a lawsuit against a Ugandan magazine for identifying him as gay and calling for his execution.

More at Jesus in Love.

Blessed are you, gracious God,
creator of heaven and earth;
you are glorified in the assembly of your saints.
David Kato and all your martyrs bless you and praise you,
confessing before the powers of this world
the great name of your only Son.
Therefore we join our voices with theirs,
and with all who have served you in every age,
to proclaim the glory of your name.

(Preface of a Martyr, Book of Alternative Services, Canada)

THE NEW BOSS

2012-01-25T23:21:00.000-06:00

If you've ever worked for a boss who reacts before getting the facts and thinking things through, you will love this!

Hamson Metal-Steel, feeling it was time for a shakeup, hired a new CEO. The new boss was determined to rid the company of all slackers.

On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning against a wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted to let them know that he meant business. He asked the guy, "How much money do you make a week?"

A little surprised, the young man looked at him and said, "I make $400 a week. Why?"

The CEO said, "Wait right here." He walked back to his office, came back in two minutes, and handed the guy $1,600 in cash and said, "Here's four weeks' pay. Now GET OUT and don't come back."

Feeling pretty good about himself the CEO looked around the room and asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-ball did here?"

From across the room a voice said, "Pizza delivery guy.”

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

PREJUDICE IS PREJUDICE IS PREJUDICE

2012-01-25T21:06:00.004-06:00

Andrew Brown in the Guardian:

The Church of England's House of Bishops – for which, read the archbishops of Canterbury and York – has explained how they hope to mollify the opponents of female clergy. The proposals are breathtaking.

From the Code of Practice suggested by the two archbishops:

The House of Bishops does not wish to see any outcome that would entrench radical division or give any impression of a 'two-tier‘ episcopate. Because of their commitment both to this principle and to the most adequate and sustainable provision for theological dissent over the ordination of women, they are seeking a balanced provision within the overall framework that will allow all members of the Church of England to flourish and to pursue the mission to our nation and society that we share.

We are aware as bishops that there are very difficult decisions ahead for many of our clergy and faithful; we want to honour the desire of all who wish to remain loyal Anglicans, fully engaged in this mission. And we are not thinking in terms of a time-limited provision, mindful that such a suggestion was rejected at the Revision stage of amending the legislation under discussion.

Despite the statement above, in the suggested 'Code of Practice' the two archbishops in the Church of England are quite determined to enable prejudice against women bishops and, further, to assure that prejudicial attitudes and practices remain entrenched in the church.

Andrew Brown:

The archbishops envisage that the Church of England, once it has female bishops, will continue ordaining men who do not accept these women, finding them jobs they will deign to accept, and promoting some of them to be bishops who will work to ensure the continued supply of male priests who refuse to accept female clergy. In fact, the church will pay three bishops (the formerly "flying" sees of Ebbsfleet, Richborough, and Beverley) to work full time against their female colleagues, and to nourish the resistance.

Funds are scarce, and yet the CofE will support three bishops to continue to ordain priests who would not consider ordination by a female bishop as valid, because, not only would the women not be real bishops, but they were never even real priests in the first place. How is the support of bishops to prevent candidates for ordination from besmirchment by the laying on of hands by a woman bishop not entrenchment of division?

Code of Practice

In the light of our discussion, the House will continue to uphold these three principles:

• Bishops will continue not to discriminate in selecting candidates for ordination on the grounds of their theological convictions regarding the admission of women to Holy Orders;

• In choosing bishops to provide episcopal ministry under diocesan schemes for parishes requesting this provision, diocesan bishops will seek to identify those whose ministry will be consistent with the theological convictions concerning the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate underlying the Letter of Request;

• The archbishops and bishops commit themselves to seeking to maintain a supply of bishops able to minister on this basis. This will obviously have a bearing on decisions about appointments and on the role of bishops occupying the sees of Beverley, Ebbsfleet and Richborough (which will, as a matter of law, continue to exist even after the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod has been rescinded).

Andrew Brown

Despite all these concessions, there will be female bishops, as there are already female priests, and these will be treated exactly the same as male ones – except by the men who don't want to treat them equally and who believe that God has called them to undermine women's authority wherever it appears.

This is apparently Rowan Williams's idea of justice.

The two archbishops could not get their desired legislation through the previous General Synod and are aware that church members, bishops, and clergy are embarrassed and weary of efforts to cater to the prejudicial "theological convictions" of the squeamish, so now they attempt a new tactic by calling the effort to prolong discrimination against women by a different name, a 'Code of Practice'. Do the archbishops think that by this blatant attempt at subterfuge through name change, they will get the code passed? Perhaps they will. I hope not.

UPDATE: The official title is 'The Illustrative Draft Code of Practice'. I was tempted to omit the letter 'r' from one of the words in the title. The word starts with 'D'.

STORY OF THE DAY - RESET BUTTON

2012-01-25T12:27:00.000-06:00

He discovered his reset button early on
& there were not many things that
bothered him all the rest of his days just
because of that.

From StoryPeople.

Like.

ROMNEY WISHES HE WAS POORER...

2012-01-25T09:22:00.004-06:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

If elected president, Mitt Romney might consider ending a tax break that helped the former Massachusetts governor accumulate his fortune, an aide suggested Tuesday.

The comments came as the Romney campaign made available more than 500 pages of tax-return data for 2010 and 2011 amid signs the issue was hurting him with some voters.

No, wait! He's happy to be richer.

Later in the day, in a signal of how the tax issue is roiling the GOP campaign, the Romney camp tried to step back from the aide's remarks, underscoring that the former Massachusetts governor didn't want to raise anyone's taxes.

Romney closed down his Swiss bank account but retains accounts in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens.

How rich is Romney?

Also from the WSJ.

So rich, that he makes the one percenters look like the 99 percent.

According to a calculation from Emmanuel Saez, the economist at the University of California at Berkley, who has become the top expert on top incomes, Mitt Romney’s income of $21.7 million puts him well above the 1%.

In fact, his income puts him in about the 99.9975% income bracket. Put another way, Mitt is in the top 0.0025%.

Whoa! That IS rich. But we all knew Romney was extremely wealthy. He should have released the tax returns early on and not shown such reluctance. Who did he think he was kidding?

Picture from Wikipedia.

UPDATE: And further, I hear complaints that the Occupy Wall Street folks have no coherent message. Well, at least one coherent message seems to have been sent out that even the Wall Street Journal understood: the 1% compared to the 99%. I don't remember seeing the percentages mentioned in the media before the OWS movement. "We are the 99%," is brief, pithy, and quite easy to understand. Yo, everyone! OWS has a coherent message.

H/T to Charles Pierce, who sees evidence that President Obama also understands the message.

PONDERISMS - PART 4

2012-01-24T20:59:00.003-06:00

11 * Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.

12 * The second mouse gets the cheese.

13 * When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

14 * Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

16 * Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.

17 * We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box

18 * A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

19 * Have an awesome day and know that someone has thought about you today.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY

20 *Save the earth..... It's the only planet with chocolate !*

More ponderisms from my brother-in-law, Frank.

See No. 18? I did that. My plan was to go by train from Manchester to Leeds in the UK, and I took the wrong train. The train stopped seemingly at every village along the way, some of them quite pretty, with interesting old train stations. The views of the Pennines were gorgeous. I thought I had mistakenly taken a commuter train to Leeds, but I ended up in Sheffield at the end of the line. When I told the conductor where I'd intended to go, he said, "Oh, there's a train for Leeds in 5 minutes on the next track over." How about that? I didn't even have to buy another ticket. Although, I was twice as long reaching my destination, I would not, for the world, have missed my wonderful detour.

I traveled southeast instead of northeast on, I believe, the Hope Valley Line, which passes right through the Peak District National Park. A mistake? Maybe, but a mistake that I would not have wanted corrected.

THEY HAVE NAMES

2012-01-24T11:43:00.003-06:00

Total Coalition War Deaths: 7678

Iraq: 4802
-no casualties this past week

Afghanistan: 2876

BATEMAN, Jon-Luke, 22, CPL, USMC, Tulsa, OK, I Marine Expeditionary Force
COCHRAN, Kenneth E., 20, LCPL, USMC, Wilder, ID, III Marine Expeditionary Force
WISE, Benjamin B., 34, Seaman, US Army, Little Rock, AR, 1st Special Forces Group
BENSON, Keith D., 27, SPEC, US Army, Brockton, MA, 172nd Infantry Brigade
McGEATH, Phillip D., 25, CPL, USMC, Glendale, AZ, II Marine Expeditionary Force
LOGAN, Joseph D., 22, CPL, USMC, Willis, TX, III Marine Expeditionary Force
McHONE, Nathan R., 29, CAPT, USMC, Crystal Lake, IL, III Marine Expeditionary Force
STITES, Jesse W., 23, CPL, USMC, North Beach, MD, III Marine Expeditionary Force
BARTLE, Daniel B., 27, CAPT, USMC, Ferndale, WA, III Marine Expeditionary Force
REINHARD, Kevin, 25, CPL, USMC, (home not reported), III Marine Expeditionary Force
RIDDICK, Travis, 40, MSGT, USMC, Centerville, IA, III Marine Expeditionary Force

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

May God give comfort, consolation, and the peace that passes understanding to those who love the service members who died.

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

List from The Daily Office.

Source: iCasualties.org

THE FRAT BOYS OF WALL STREET

2012-01-23T23:31:00.002-06:00

From the New York Times::

The chandelier-filled ballroom was teeming with 200 men in tuxedos — and a smattering of women — whose daily decisions can collectively make or break the global financial markets. Most were picking over a lavish dinner that included rack of lamb and crème brûlée. Others were preparing to sing bawdy show tunes.

Kappa Beta Phi, an exclusive Wall Street fraternity whose members include big-name bankers, hedge fund billionaires and private equity titans, met at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan on Thursday night for its 80th annual black-tie dinner and induction ceremony.

As always, the event was held in strict secrecy, with members being told that “what happens at the St. Regis stays at the St. Regis.”

But wait!

A reporter, however, was able to walk in unquestioned and observe the proceedings.

At least this year the secret is not so well kept. The name of the fraternity is the reverse of Phi Beta Kappa. Once a year, the merry band of hard-working rich men and a "smattering" of rich women let off steam at a jolly party which includes performances by the members. According to the report, most of the jokes are at the expense of the members themselves, but they also move out of their own circle to find humor.

The Occupy movement was fodder for several after-dinner skits. In one, a documentary filmed during the protests, James Lebenthal, a bond specialist, joked with a protester whose face was appeared to be tattooed.

“Go home, wash that off your face, and get back to work,” Mr. Lebenthal told the protester.

Several anonymous members did not attend the gala, because they feared to appear insensitive to those adversely affected by the dismal state of the economy, and one admitted that he found the skits offensive. Why not resign? I guess it counts for something to be able to mingle with the likes of "Ace" Greenberg, formerly of Bear Stearns, and Robert H. Benmosche, chairman of AIG.

Fellas and "smattering" of gals, you've had your "lavish dinner" and your fun, but I hope you feel a little ashamed now that your fun time is exposed to the light. You raise my ire when you mock the Occupy Wall Street folks who put themselves out there to awaken the rest of the citizenry, the 99%, to the mess you and the politicians who are indebted to you have made of our country. Shame on you.

H/T to Occupied Bishop George Packard for the the link posted on Facebook.

GATHERING UP THE CHICKENS

2012-01-23T13:40:00.001-06:00

The farmer's son was returning from the market with a crate of chickens his father had entrusted to him, when all of a sudden the box fell and broke open.

Chickens scurried off in all different directions, but the determined boy walked all over the neighborhood scooping up the wayward birds and returning them to the repaired crate.

Hoping he had found them all, the boy reluctantly returned home an hour late, expecting the worst. "Pa, the chickens got loose," the boy confessed sadly, "but I managed to find all twelve of them."

"Well, you did real good, son," the farmer beamed. "We only had seven to begin with."

Cheers,

Paul (A.)

Does the farmer keep the extra chickens? THAT is the question. Never mind, "To be or not to be..."

Picture from Wikipedia.

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER - 'THERE IS A HAPPY LAND'

2012-01-23T11:44:00.002-06:00

Today Ormonde Plater remembers the anniversary of the death of Yona Kanamuzeyi, deacon and martyr, killed in Rwanda on 23 January 1964. Yona walked to his death singing the 1938 Scottish hymn “There Is a Happy Land”.

There is a happy land, far, far away,
Where saints in glory stand, bright, bright as day.
Oh, how they sweetly sing, worthy is our Savior King,
Loud let His praises ring, praise, praise for aye.

Come to that happy land, come, come away;
Why will ye doubting stand, why still delay?
Oh, we shall happy be, when from sin and sorrow free,
Lord, we shall live with Thee, blest, blest for aye.

Bright, in that happy land, beams every eye;
Kept by a Father’s hand, love cannot die.
Oh, then to glory run; be a crown and kingdom won;
And, bright, above the sun, we reign for aye.

[Source: Proposition Sound Track] [Original Source: There Is a Happy Land" 1850] [Music by Leonard P. Breedlove (1850)] [Words by Andrew Young (1838)]

After I read the lyrics of the hymn, I looked on YouTube to see if here was a version of the hymn and found the video above. The hymn, along with other sad and haunting music, which was composed (except for the hymn) and performed by Nick Cave and violinist Warren Ellis, is on the soundtrack album of the movie "The Proposition".

UPDATE: Sadly, the soundtrack album includes only an instrumental version of the hymn.

TWO STORIES OF THE DAY

2012-01-22T21:10:00.000-06:00

seems to be digging a really deep hole
for himself, but, really, he doesn't like to
get dirty, so he'll probably stop & clean it
all up pretty soon now

GOOD TRICK

this is a special balancing trick that
requires a small child to stay completely
still (so it's still only theoretical)

From StoryPeople here and here.

DEACON SERVES AS PASTORAL PRESENCE

2012-01-22T16:13:00.004-06:00

From The Advocate in Baton Rouge:

At 60, Camille Carpenter Wood answered a calling to become a deacon in the Episcopal church.

“I come from generations of Episcopalians,” Wood said. “The church has always been important to me. I wanted to be sure that my children were always involved with the church.”
....

The journey to her ordination on Dec. 4, 2010, was both intense and lengthy.“It was a very gradual process,” Wood said. It began about 2007 at Baton Rouge’s Trinity Episcopal Church.
....

She joined the altar guild, became a Eucharistic minister, did readings as a lector and even served as senior warden for a while.

“The more I got involved, the more I just sort of had a passion to do more,” she said. “It led to other things. I truly felt a call. It’s hard to explain, but it’s something that kind of grabs you and takes over. You can’t deny it, really.”
....

After her ordination, Wood stayed at Trinity for almost a year as director of lay ministry, a position she had held even before she was ordained.

She was in Seattle at her niece’s wedding when Bishop Morris Thompson called her to serve as a pastoral presence at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Clinton.
....

Wood immediately accepted the bishop’s call. “I didn’t have to think about it,” she said. “It was not only something I needed to do but something I wanted to do.”

She has served the church since the first Sunday in September. She appreciates St. Andrew’s history of support for the local community, its history of serving the needs of the community.

The article about Deacon Camille Wood was featured on the front page of the Religion section of the Advocate, along with an article on the history of St Andrew's Church in Clinton, Louisiana.

Two retired priests, the Rev. Maggie Dennis, who is originally from Liberia, and the Rev. Don Brown, conduct services at St. Andrew’s three Sundays a month.

One Sunday a month, Wood leads morning prayer the way services were done at Trinity Episcopal Church, in Natchez, Miss., where Wood grew up.

“I grew up having morning prayer three time a month and Eucharist once a month,” she said. “We have morning prayer with hymns and sing canticles (songs taken from Biblical passages), and I give a homily. There is just no Eucharist because a deacon cannot consecrate the bread and wine.”

I expect we may see deacons acting as the permanent pastoral presence in Episcopal parishes more and more often. St Andrew's is blessed to have the service of Deacon Camille Wood and fortunate to have the same two priests presiding at the Eucharist, rather than an ever-changing roster of priests.

I've heard folks who are long-time members of the Episcopal Church and remember the period before the Eucharist became the norm for Sunday worship say they miss Morning Prayer. I love the Eucharist, and one reason I chose to attend the Episcopal Church after I left the Roman Catholic Church was because of the frequent eucharistic services. Recently, I've heard and read a good many discussions about the pros and cons of communion before baptism. I know that the Canons of the church say all baptized Christians are welcome to receive communion, but I also know that some Episcopal churches welcome everyone to communion, baptized or not.

Whether communion should or should not be available to all is not my point, but I wonder whether it might be a good thing to have a service of Morning Prayer at least once a month. All are welcome to participate in the entire service without question. No one is excluded. Especially when we've been between rectors and without a priest, I've wondered why we don't have Morning Prayer in my church, led by one of the two members of our congregation who are qualified to lead the prayers, rather than having a supply priest for every service.

PONDERISMS - PART 3

2012-01-21T22:49:00.001-06:00

1 * Accept the fact that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue!

2 * Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

3 * Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

4 * Drive carefully... It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.

5 * If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

6 * If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

7 * It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

8 * Never buy a car you can't push.

9 * Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.

10 * Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

More ponderisms from my brother-in-law. This time I name and shame...don't blame me, blame Frank.

JUST STOP IT!

2012-01-21T13:01:00.002-06:00

From NPR:

Despite a furious lobbying effort by the Catholic Church, the Obama administration today said it won't weaken new rules that will require most health insurance plans to offer women prescription contraceptives at no additional out-of-pocket cost.

The final version of the rules will give religious-based hospitals, universities, charities, and other organizations whose primary purpose is not religious, an additional year to come into compliance with the contraceptive requirement. Churches are exempt.

But even a face-to-face meeting in the Oval Office last November between President Obama and the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops failed to change the administration's position to allow a broader exemption.

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan's response:

The Catholic bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today's announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable.It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty."

Cardinal-designate Dolan, if you want fewer abortions, in the name of heaven, stop complaining about persecution, follow the law, and allow employees of the Roman Catholic Church to have access to birth control in health insurance plans and RC hospitals.

Besides, from another article at NPR:

But while some insist that the rules, which spring from last year's health law, break new ground, many states as well as federal civil rights law already require most religious employers to cover prescription contraceptives if they provide coverage of other prescription drugs.

While some religious employers take advantage of loopholes or religious exemptions, the fact remains that dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities currently offer contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance packages.

"We've always had contraceptive birth control included in our health care benefits," said Michelle Michaud, a labor and delivery nurse at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif. "It's something that we've come to expect for ourselves and our family."

Cardinal-designate Dolan conveniently fails to acknowledge that access to contraceptives is already available in Roman Catholic health plans and hospitals. As to the descriptive 'unconscionable', it depends upon whose conscience is being violated. The decision by the Obama administration has nothing to do with religious liberty, but rather concerns women's equal treatment in health care. Roman Catholics and anyone else are completely at liberty to avoid the use of contraceptives. The issue is that the US will now insist on non-discriminatory rules for health care coverage. What Cardinal Dolan and the RC College of Bishops attempt is to impose their religious views on people who do not share their beliefs, and they need to stop or be stopped.

ONE MORE FAVORITE IN MEMORY OF ETTA JAMES

2012-01-21T09:44:00.001-06:00

'Seven Day Fool'

MadPriest posted a terrific selection of songs by Etta and Jimmy Castor, aka Omar Sharriff, etc., who died earlier this month.

ETTA JAMES - R. I. P.

2012-01-20T15:30:00.001-06:00

'AT LAST'

Etta aged like a fine wine.

'IT'S A MAN'S WORLD'

In younger days, a wonderful song by a fabulous singer. It's still a man's world, but Etta made her mark as one of the greats.

'CHURCH OF ENGLAND REPORTS ON ACNA'

2012-01-20T13:23:00.002-06:00

From Thinking Anglicans:

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

18. We would, therefore, encourage an open-ended engagement with ACNA on the part of the Church of England and the Communion, while recognising that the outcome is unlikely to be clear for some time yet, especially given the strong feelings on all sides of the debate in North America.

19. The Church of England remains fully committed to the Anglican Communion and to being in communion both with the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church (TEC). In addition, the Synod motion has given Church of England affirmation to the desire of ACNA to remain in some sense within the Anglican famil

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

There you have it. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I AM THRILLED!

2012-01-20T11:27:00.001-06:00

Every single day, or whenever I want to have another look, even several times a day, I am able to gaze upon the preserved body of Kim Jong Il through the wonders of the internet.

Kim joins a group of illustrious, preserved dictators: Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

From the Washington Post.

PETS!

2012-01-19T22:13:00.001-06:00

More thanks to Doug.

STILL MORE ON JEFFREY JOHN

2012-01-19T15:14:00.002-06:00

From Martin Reynolds in the comments to the post at Thinking Anglicans titled "Discrimination alleged in the Church of England". (What?! Can it be?! Say it isn't so!) The commentary was posted in several sequences because the number of words in a single comment is limited. I included a question by Colin Coward in the sequence, along with Martin Reynolds' answer.

There was once a Welshman and a Welshman and a Welshman ........

This increasingly acrimonious and hugely damaging story has emerged from where? And this very private letter was released by who and to what effect?

Nowhere can I find a reference to the supposed quote in the Mail on Sunday headline, and as the letter is from a lawyer, when is Jeffrey supposed to have said this? Isn't that rather key information to the story?

And who, on this Commission, would leak a legal letter - surely this is yet another breach aimed at damaging John? Did the last secret enquiry throw up a culprit who revealed the names on the shortlist for Southwark?

What seems to emerge from all this is that these letters changed hands some time ago, after the Southwark fiasco where Rowan was discovered browbeating the Commission members to reject Jeffrey. bullying some to tears.

The legal exchange must be seen in this context, the aftermath of the Southwark fiasco when it now seems clear a conservative evangelical member of the Commission revealed that John and Holtam were on the shortlist - probably the same person who has now revealed this letter. Jeffrey John would have discovered that although clearing with Rowan Williams that he was OK to allow his name to go forward for Southwark he was then stabbed firmly in the back and ruled out. This despite having be assured by Lambeth that a few years after Reading he would be acceptable as a bishop.

Cont.
Posted by: Martin Reynolds on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at 3:24pm GMT

So, contrary to George Pitcher's vicious little piece in the Mail, John was not saying "make me a bishop- or else!" ....He was saying: "start telling the truth, or else..." - rather a different way of looking at the facts.

Pitcher's unnecessarily nasty account does, I believe, reveal the Rowanesque spin that Lambeth has put on this whole tawdry affair. An affair that has nothing to do with "gay rights" - Jeffrey has assiduously avoided being "tainted" with any support for LGBT causes and has for ever been willing to tow the CofE party line on gay issues even to the point of giving up sex with his life-long partner! In fact Rowan has a much higher profile as a gay campaigner. But everything to do with - Misleading and duping a rather nice, devoted and faithful Churchman and Christian into believing that what bishops and archbishops say can be believed.

Jeffrey has not once given an interview or acted anyway disloyally to the Church of England - he was right to question what underpinned the appalling treatment his candidacy had in the secret dealing of the Commission - the mauling his supporters had was unsupportable, approaching abuse. That this close questioning of the actions of Rowan Williams - combined with the opprobrium rightly heaped on his shoulders when he forced John to resign from Reading and then failed to acknowledge messages from John rescinding his withdrawl - makes the Archbishop and his staff uncomfortable - indeed uncomfortable enough to attack Jeffrey - is perverse in the extreme.

What we now know is that as soon as Jeffrey (through his lawyers) started to question the actions of the appointment commission then the third Welshman in this miserable joke, the lawyer John Rees sought to justify what had already happened by writing that awful document misnamed a legal opinion claiming gay people had to repent if they wanted preferment.

It was another evil and malicious step from Rowan in his dealings with gay people since he took office.

George Pitcher says that Jeffrey's actions in questioning the duplicity of Lambeth Palace and its occupants would throw the rights of gay people back decades.

George completely fails to see that Jeffrey has never been interested in being a "gay bishop" any more than he has ever had an genuine interest in "gay rights" in the Church - Jeffrey is an advocate for honesty, faithfulness and trusting people at their word - he believes they are the mark of a true Church - that is what he is chasing.

Cont:
Posted by: Martin Reynolds on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at 3:52pm GMT

Jeffrey didn't get Southwark as there was a "better man" - because of Colin Slee we all now know the truth and George Pitcher can't spin that Lambeth Palace line and expect to be believed. That's not what happened.

Now we have ended up with the horrendous "legal opinion" from Welsh lawyer John Rees - I do wonder what the future holds for the Church of England after three three Welshmen have done their worst/best.

George Pitcher mistakes who has been responsible for throwing back the place of gay people in the Church - it is not careful, diligent, cautious, courteous almost obsequious Jeffrey John - it is ambitious and determined Rowan Williams who has savaged us and demeaned us in his failing attempt at keeping the communion united and keeping ecumenical dialogue open. It is cruel, but a common characteristic, that abusers blame their victims.
Posted by: Martin Reynolds on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at 4:10pm GMT
....

Martin, the quote in the headline that you open your comment with is 'I'll sue Church of England if it bars me from being bishop' - is that correct?

Your analysis and theory makes perfect sense and fits all the evidence. It explains why people were phoning me on Sunday and Monday in a fruitless chase for inside information, which I certainly don't have. But someone inside Church House or someone with an axe to grind and access to the correspondence certainly would have access.

This places responsibility yet again on the practice and culture inside Church House where devious tactics are being employed to block any progress towards a re-examination on church policy, let alone real change leading to the full inclusion of LGB&T people. It feels a bit like war!
Posted by: Colin Coward on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at 6:19pm GMT

Yes Colin, that's the "quote" I can't find except in the headline. Perhaps I missed something?

One does wonder, Colin what the CofE is doing. Take the appointment of Robert Paterson as the chair of the group looking into Civil Partnerships, he was one of only two English bishops to vote AGAINST giving civil partners pension parity.
Posted by: Martin Reynolds on Tuesday, 17 January 2012 at 6:59pm GMT

In his commentary, Reynolds brings together information which I knew from various sources and includes information of which I was not previously aware. He sheds far more light on the treatment of Jeffrey John by the leadership in the Church of England than any of the press accounts.

Martin Reynolds is a retired south Wales priest who is an adviser to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement headquartered in the UK.

And I've already been called out for excessive use of exclamation points. So sue me!

UPDATE: The Church Times has further information and commentary on the question of the legality of the actions by the Church of England in barring Jefffrey John from being a bishop.

STORY OF THE DAY - HANGING ON TIGHT

2012-01-19T11:38:00.000-06:00

Of course I hang on tight, she said. You
can't believe the kind of stuff that
happens when you let go.

From StoryPeople.

OUR LOT IN LIFE

2012-01-19T11:31:00.000-06:00

That is our call in life, servants to our canine and/or feline masters.

Thanks to Doug.

THEY HAVE BABIES!

2012-01-18T17:52:00.003-06:00

From Vatican Insider:

The story of a former Anglican priest who converted to Roman Catholicism and thanks to new regulations, can keep his marital bond

How kind that the Vatican does not ask the priests to abandon wife and children.

“Be fruitful and multiply”. There is one man in England who has taken this old biblical call too seriously. His name is Ian Hellyer and together with his wife Margaret is raising not one but nine children. He is also more than well acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, being a Roman Catholic pastor. Yes, that is right, he is both a father and a priest, and yet there is no excommunication on the horizon for him. The story appeared a few days ago in English daily newspaper The Guardian. Beware though, the Fr. Ian affair is no theological trick. The 45 year father of nine was an Anglican priest until last year and following a spiritual journey and a course of study, he decided to convert to Catholicism.

The Rev Hellyer and his wife have done their part to increase and multiply. What about the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops? Why haven't the prelates taken the old biblical call to increase and multiply more seriously and set the example for the flock under their care?

I wish the Hellyers well now that the family is in the right church, and I'm pleased that the authorities in Our Lady of Walsingham ordinariate placed Fr Hellyer as chaplain at Plymouth University and gave the family a five bedroom house in which to live. I'm sure there will be a period of adjustment on both sides.

The article in the Guardian which is mentioned above says:

In the past, Anglican priests who made the switch to Catholicism could only become priests if they weren't married, but two years ago, the Vatican changed the rules and established a new organisation – the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham – into which married Anglican priests could be ordained as Catholics after converting.

Perhaps in England, but not in the US. The Vatican has ordained married Episcopal clergy since 1980.

From the Q&A at EWTN:

Pope John Paul II, through the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a clear although brief statement in June 1980.
....

Finally, concerning married Episcopalian clergy becoming Catholic priests, "the Holy See has specified that this exception to the rule of celibacy is granted in favor of these individual persons, and should not be understood as implying any change in the Church's conviction of the value of priestly celibacy, which will remain the rule for future candidates for the priesthood from this group."

Thanks to Ann V for the link to the Vatican Insider.

NO SOPA/PIPA - CONTACT YOUR REPPRESENTATIVES

2012-01-18T16:31:00.001-06:00

Wikipedia is blacked out today, and I miss them. Click here to learn about the blackout and for contact information on your representatives.

Watch the video.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

H/Y to Ann Fontaine fore the video.

'DEATH COMES TO PEMBERLEY'

2012-01-18T12:53:00.002-06:00

In her latest novel, P. D. James carries forward the story of Elizabeth and Darcy six years into their life together after their marriage in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. And, of course, since James is a writer of mysteries, the tale includes a murder. James writes in the style of the late 18th/early 19th century, but, of course, she does not write like Jane Austen. No one writes like Jane Austen. Her sparkling wit, her great gift for creating comic characters and writing dialogue, the thread of irony that runs through all her work...no one can duplicate, and I'm quite certain the object of James' effort was not to copy, but was rather to write an homage to Jane, whose books she greatly admires.

While largely remaining faithful to the characters as Austen created them, James cleverly takes them through rather surprising twists and turns as she continues their story. The book was an enjoyable read, but, in the end, P D James, writing in the style of the turn of the 18th to the 19th century is not James writing at her best. I've read all of her mystery novels, and I think she ranks amongst the best, thus my mild disappointment. At one point, the author hit a real clinker with the word 'lifestyle', which I was pretty certain was not in use in the period in which the mystery is set. It turns out I was right: the first known use of the word dates to 1929.

Since I don't want to write a spoiler review, I won't say more, except that James held me in suspense with the identity of the murderer until the mystery was solved, taking me completely by surprise. Never would I have thought...

'BIG TROUBLE FOR ROMNEY'

2012-01-18T12:34:00.001-06:00

Romney Under Pressure to Prove He Was Manufactured in US

Rivals Demand He Produce Label

Read the rest at Borowitz Report.

I don't know about you, but I want to see Romney's long-form birth certificate with the official stamp, that is, if he's not a Ken doll in disguise.

JESUS AND MO - NO OFFENSE

2012-01-18T11:19:00.000-06:00

Click on the cartoon for the larger view.

From Jesus and Mo.

FACE THE DAY

2012-01-17T22:41:00.000-06:00

My eyes only see stuff I believe in
already, she said. I couldn't face the day
otherwise.

From StoryPeople.

HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY BETTY WHITE!

2012-01-17T14:18:00.001-06:00

Thanks to Crooks and Liars.

THE SIGN OF THE BOW IN THE CLOUDS

2012-01-17T12:50:00.002-06:00

From the Lectionary:

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, ‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’

Genesis 9:8-17

The rainbow in the clouds signs to us God's everlasting covenant with every living thing, not just egocentric humans, the plants, the fish, the birds, the animals, the whole earth that teems with life we cannot see. God will never again destroy the whole earth with a flood, but what have we egocentric humans done with God's great gift of the whole earth? And what will we do in days to come?

Picture from Wikipedia.

GRATITUDE!

2012-01-17T12:48:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Doug.

MORE ON DR JEFFREY JOHN AND HIS ALLEGED LITIGATION AGAINST THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

2012-01-16T11:54:00.003-06:00

Thus far The Independent seems to have the most reliable coverage of the alleged litigation being prepared by Dr John and his legal advisers against the Church of England.

Under current equality laws religious organisations are are given dispensation to discriminate against those who do not comply with their teachings, allowing clerics like Dr John to be passed over, and mosques to only have male imams, for example. Were the Church's current stance on homosexuality to be tested in court the Church would almost certainly win, for if it didn't the very existence of many faiths would be under threat. But by forcing the issue those at the top would be forced to confront some embarrassing - and extremely divisive - issues.

Some of those who know him expressed surprise that he would take such a step. "Jeffrey's always wanted to do things within the church," said one. "He's not the litigious type."

Others questioned where the leak came from. "It's so obviously deeply counter-productive to Jeffrey," said another colleague. "It makes him look like he's saying promote or I'll sue. It's a rather good way of smearing him."

The newspaper report includes a photo of a nasty sign, which I don't see as necessary, but I admit the sign is the reality for some who oppose the appointment of gay bishops.

The Independent also understands Dr John was not even long-listed for the currently vacant post of Bishop of Edinburgh, meaning no church leader was willing to put him forward for another key diocese with liberal leanings.

More's the pity. I expect Jeffrey John will not be a bishop, which is very much the Church of England's loss.

Read the article which reminds us of what conservatives happily label "The Jeffrey John clause", in which gay persons are asked to repent of their "physically homosexual past", whereas such repentance is not asked of heterosexual candidates, a Catch-22, which is about as blatantly discriminatory as one can imagine.

UPDATE: Andrew Brown in the Guardian thinks it is unlikely that Jeffrey John will sue the Church of England because he keeps his personal life private, which he could not do in the midst of litigation, and because he will lose the case anyway.

Last year the Church of England published a legal opinion that makes it quite clear that it believes it is legal to discriminate against John, not because he is gay, since he is also celibate, but because he is not in the least bit ashamed of being gay. That is what sticks in the craw of the conservative evangelicals who oppose him. They have moved on from supposing that it is absolutely wrong to be gay. They now believe that it is OK to be gay providing that you are very unhappy about it.
....

Look at the small print of its legal opinion on civil partnerships, transparently designed to prevent John from being able to sue for discrimination. No selection committee would ask straight candidates for a job whether they had ever had pre-marital sex, and, if they had, whether they were jolly sorry for it. Yet the Church of England believes that it is legally and morally OK to ask the equivalent questions of gay men: "Whether the candidate had always complied with the church's teachings on sexual activity being solely within matrimony; whether he had expressed repentance for any previous pre-marital sexual activity."

As the late, great Molly Ivins said so often, you can't make this stuff up.

UPDATE 2 from Jim Naughton at The Lead:

Articles appeared in several British newspapers over the weekend suggesting that Dean Jeffrey John of St. Alban's Cathedral was going to sue the Church of England for discrimination unless he is made a bishop. We don't think these stories were quite right.

It is our understanding, after some extensive conversations, that what John has done is hire a lawyer to inform the Church of England that provisions which prohibit anyone in a civil partnership--be they gay or straight, celibate or sexually active--from becoming a bishop exceed even the generous exemptions provided for religious organizations in the Equality Act of 2010.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR - 'A KNOCK AT MIDNIGHT'

2012-01-16T10:52:00.004-06:00

Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, "Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him"?
Luke 11:5-6, rsv

Although this parable is concerned with the power of persistent prayer, it may also serve as a basis for our thought concerning many contemporary problems and the role of the church in grappling with them. It is midnight in the parable; it is also midnight in our world, and the darkness is so deep that we can hardly see which way to turn.
....

It is also midnight within the moral order. At midnight colours lose their distinctiveness and become a sullen shade of grey. Moral principles have lost their distinctiveness. For modern man, absolute right and wrong are a matter of what the majority is doing. Right and wrong are relative to likes and dislikes and the customs of a particular community. We have unconsciously applied Einstein's theory of relativity, which properly described the physical universe, to the moral and ethical realm.
....

The traveller asks for three loaves of bread. He wants the bread of faith. In a generation of so many colossal disappointments, men have lost faith in God, faith in man, and faith in the future. Many feel as did William Wilberforce, who in 1801 said, "I dare not marry---for the future is so unsettled," or as did William Pitt, who in 1806 said, "There is scarcely anything round us but ruin and despair." In the midst of staggering disillusionment, many cry for the bread of faith.

There is also a deep longing for the bread of hope. In the early years of this century many people did not hunger for this bread. The days of the first telephones, automobiles, and aeroplanes gave them a radiant optimism. They worshipped at the shrine of inevitable progress. They believed that every new scientific achievement lifted man to higher levels of perfection. But then a series of tragic developments, revealing the selfishness and corruption of man, illustrated with frightening clarity the truth of Lord Acton's dictum, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This awful discovery led to one of the most colossal breakdowns of optimism in history. For so many people, young and old, the light of hope went out, and they roamed wearily in the dark chambers of pessimism. Many concluded that life has no meaning. Some agreed with the philosopher Schopenhauer that life is an endless pain with a painful end, and that life is a tragicomedy played over and over again with only slight changes in costume and scenery. Others cried out with Shakespeare's Macbeth that life

is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

But even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in agonizing desperation they cry for the bread of hope.

And there is the deep longing for the bread of love. Everybody wishes to love and be loved. He who feels that he is not loved feels that he does not count. Much has happened in the modern world to make men feel that they do not belong. Living in a world which has become oppressively impersonal, many of us have come to feel that we are little more than numbers.
....

When the man in the parable knocked on his friend's door and asked for the three loaves of bread, he received the impatient retort, "Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything."....

Millions of Africans, patiently knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never.
....

In the terrible midnight of war men have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed them. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war?
....

And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic privation. In many instances the church has so aligned itself with the privileged classes and so defended the status quo that it has been unwilling to answer the knock at midnight.
....

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travellers at midnight.
....

Midnight is a confusing hour when it is difficult to be faithful. The most inspiring word that the church must speak is that no midnight long remains. The weary traveller by midnight who asks for bread is really seeking the dawn. Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come. Our slave foreparents realized this. They were never unmindful of the fact of midnight, for always there was the rawhide whip of the overseer and the auction block where families were torn asunder to remind them of its reality. When they thought of the agonizing darkness of midnight, they sang:

Oh, nobody knows de trouble I've seen,

Glory Hallelujah!

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down,

Oh, yes, Lord,Sometimes I'm almost to de groun'
....

Faith in the dawn arises from the faith that God is good and just. When one believes this, he knows that the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate. He can walk through the dark night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for good for those that love God. Even the most starless midnight may herald the dawn of some great fulfillment.

Read the entire speech.

Choosing excerpts from MLK's sermons and speeches is difficult, and my post, of necessity, runs long. With adjustments of references to the situation in the present day, the Rev King's words appear cutting edge, though the sermon was delivered on June 11, 1967.

Picture from Wikipedia.

PLEASE PRAY...

2012-01-16T09:46:00.003-06:00

...for retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, James Brown, who is in the hospital ill with pneumonia.

O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servant James the help of your power, that his sickness may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

Update from Ann Fontaine:

And for Bishop Gene Robinson - whose mother is dying and who broke his foot.

Lord, hear our prayers.

STORY OF THE DAY - REAL NAME

2012-01-16T09:40:00.000-06:00

I can remember walking down the
street, saying my name over & over,
until all of a sudden, it didn't sound like
my name anymore. It didn't even sound
like a word at all & then I stopped & the
silence rushed in & whispered words
that sounded more like my real name &
I smiled & thought to myself how
surprised my parents would be when
they found out what a mistake they had
made.

From StoryPeople.

EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF PITTSBURGH ANNOUNCES PRELIMINARY SLATE FOR BISHOP ELECTION

2012-01-15T23:00:00.002-06:00

From the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh:

The Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh takes great joy in presenting its preliminary slate of four priests who will stand for election in April to become the next Bishop of Pittsburgh.

The slate is preliminary because the diocese now enters a short period during which names may be added to the ballot by petition.

The preliminary slate was unanimously recommended by the Nominating Committee and unanimously accepted by the Standing Committee. The candidates, in alphabetical order, are:
The Rev. Canon Michael N. Ambler, Jr.
Rector of Grace Episcopal Church
Bath, Maine

The Rev. Dorsey W. M. McConnell
Rector of Church of the Redeemer
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

The Rev. R. Stanley Runnels
Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Kansas City, Missouri

The Rev. Ruth Woodliff-Stanley
Rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church
Denver, Colorado
The four were selected from an initial field of 125 names submitted to the Nominating Committee last year. Of those, 62 agreed to enter the discernment process. The committee then narrowed the selection over the course of several months through a review of submitted documents, telephone interviews and face-to-face meetings.

"The Nominating Committee involved itself in a prayerful and intense scrutiny of all the candidates. We then carefully listened and discussed with them whom they chose and how they went about doing so. We are all in agreement about this slate and that the committee did an extraordinary job," said the Very Rev. George L. W. Werner, speaking on behalf of the Standing Committee as its president.

Further details at the diocesan website.

Almighty God, giver of every good gift: Look graciously on your Church, and so guide the minds of those who shall choose a bishop for the Diocese of Pittsburgh that they may receive a faithful pastor, who will care for your people and equip them for their ministries; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

RUTH ETTING - "AMERICA'S SWEETHEART OF SONG"

2012-01-15T16:48:00.000-06:00

"If I Could Be With You"

Ruth's voice was lovely; she was beautiful; and she had a great singing style, which was ahead of its time, the 1920s and 1930s. The sound in the video is poor, but you can see her perform and compare her style to that of her accompanist, who sings the song straight.

Below is another video of Ruth singing with better sound quality.

MadPriest is such an inspiration...well, about music, anyway. A few days ago, he posted a podcast of Ruth singing "The Right Kind of Man", which shows off wonderfully well her lovely voice and great style. The first time around, Ruth did not choose the right kind of man, but rather a gangster. Read all about her at Wikipedia.

WHEN I DIE...

2012-01-15T14:03:00.000-06:00

Omar Khayyam (5)

When I die,
prepare my body in wine,
and in place of a eulogy
lift a glass!
On Resurrection Day
you’ll find my dust
stirring beneath
the threshold
of the bar.

translated by Juan Cole
From Whinfield 6

Lovely. I'd like such a sendoff.

Image from Wikipedia.

JEFFREY JOHN V. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND?

2012-01-15T13:38:00.000-06:00

From the Guardian:

The Church of England's most senior openly gay cleric is understood to be considering suing his employers for discrimination unless he is made a bishop.

I doubt that Jeffrey John will pursue litigation on the basis of what is stated above. The article includes words such as, "Reports on Sunday suggested..." and "It is thought..." Jeffrey John, along with his reported legal representative, have refused to comment. The Church of England also refuses comment. Much is yet to be known about what's really happening, thus the wording that indicates much less than certainty about the situation by the writer of the article.

A source close to John told the Sunday Times: "This is not a case of demanding something he is not entitled to but a way of resolving the flawed voting process that prevented him being made the bishop of Southwark."

If possible litigation is pending, then the above statement would more likely be the basis for John to pursue legal action against the Church of England, rather than his demanding that he be made a bishop. The Guardian usually does a better job of reporting.

PRAYER FLOWCHART

2012-01-15T09:20:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Ann.

A GOOD LETTER TO THE CHURCH TIMES FROM TWO CHURCH OF ENGLAND BISHOPS

2012-01-14T20:01:00.006-06:00

From the Church Times:

From the Rt Revd Dr John Saxbee and the Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby

Sir, — Whichever side of the argument you are on there are grounds for real concern about the way the debate about it is progressing. It cannot be good to learn, as we do, that many bishops who are against the Anglican Covenant don’t want to say for fear of seeming disloyal, that diocesan synods are “debating” the issue without hearing both sides of the argument equally presented, and that there is so much boredom and weariness about the whole issue.

This is a major proposal with potentially serious consequences for this and future generations of Anglican Christians, and for those ecumenical partners with whom we are in conversation. Nothing will be worse than for the Covenant to be yawned through at a July Synod preoccupied with debating the ordination of women as bishops, passed and then put in a drawer — only for us to discover that those who now brand it “toothless” then use it and propel the Communion into a litigious and factious future.

The Archbishop of Canterbury made it clear in his Advent letter that such is not his purpose. But the proposed Covenant cannot now escape the identity it has acquired as an instrument of exclusion. He also asks what is the alternative; we respond that the alternative to having a Covenant is not having one, and this is a time to hold fast to Anglicanism’s inherited culture of inclusion and respectful debate which is our way of dealing with difference rather than require assent to procedures and words that have already shown themselves to be divisive.

In short, if we can agree it we don’t need it and if we need it we won’t agree it. We believe that the Covenant is to be resisted. But, above all, our plea is for a debate that is candid, even-handed, and open. If it comes to the General Synod, it should do so as its seriousness deserves, as the principal business.

JOHN SAXBEE
PETER SELBY

The Archbishop of Canterbury is trying to railroad the Anglican Covenant through the Church of England General Synod quickly, before too many people in the church have a chance to study the document closely and note what harm may result for the Anglican Communion and for the Church of England if the covenant is adopted. The Anglican Communion Office sends out only pro-covenant materials, which is not right and not fair, because the members of Synod need to hear from both proponents and opponents of the document in order to vote wisely.

Thank you, Bishops Saxbee and Selby for speaking out. Isn't it time for the other bishops who doubt the wisdom of adopting the covenant to lend their voices to the debate? I like very much the answer the bishops give to Archbishop Rowan's statement that there is no alternative to the covenant:

...we respond that the alternative to having a covenant is not having one and this is the time to hold fast to Anglicanism's inherited culture of inclusion and respectful debate....

Amen and amen!

Thanks to my English friend, Neal Terry (aka themethatisme), who sent me the letter which can now be viewed on the website of the Church Times.

STORY OF THE DAY - OLD SPIRIT

2012-01-14T13:47:00.000-06:00

The feel of his spirit was too old for most
people to understand & when he walked
by they would look up & say O, the sun
went behind a cloud, or, the moon must
be full & so he walked for a long time by
himself with no one to talk to.

From StoryPeople.

PONDERISMS - PART 2

2012-01-14T09:41:00.000-06:00

11. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

12. Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, 'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things and drink whatever comes out'?

13. If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?

14. Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

15. If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

16. If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

17. Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

18. Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

19. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

20. Do you ever wonder why you gave me your email address?

If you remember, my brother-in-law sent me twenty ponderisms, but I know some of you have short attention spans, so I divided them to post in two parts.

♫ THOSE CLERGY WIVES ARE BREAKING UP THAT OLD GANG OF MINE ♫

2012-01-13T14:24:00.003-06:00

From Sara Ritchey at the New York Times:

On Sunday, the Vatican announced the creation of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, a special division of the Roman Catholic Church that former Episcopal congregations and priests — including, notably, married priests — can enter together en masse.
....

Nonetheless, the Roman Catholic Church is prepared to house married priests in numbers perhaps not seen since the years before 1123, when the First Lateran Council adopted canon 21, prohibiting clerical marriage.
....

By the time of the First Lateran Council, the priest’s wife had become a symbol of wantonness and defilement. The reason was that during this period the nature of the host consecrated at Mass received greater theological scrutiny. Medieval theologians were in the process of determining that bread and wine, at the moment of consecration in the hands of an ordained priest at the altar, truly became the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The priest who handled the body and blood of Christ should therefore be uncontaminated lest he defile the sacred corpus.

Damn! You know, having grown up in the Roman Catholic Church, I knew this, but to see it spelled out again is revoltingly shocking. Remind me about the Incarnation. Did it really happen? Did Jesus really defile himself and become human like us? Did he truly hang around with contaminated women? Did Jesus allow the woman who was a known sinner wash his feet and dry them with her hair?

The medieval theologians may have been at the moment of deciding that the bread and wine became the true body and blood of Jesus, but they seemed to have forgotten the Gospel in the process.

The priest’s wife was an obvious danger. Her wanton desire, suggested the 11th-century monk Peter Damian, threatened the efficacy of consecration. He chastised priests’ wives as “furious vipers who out of ardor of impatient lust decapitate Christ, the head of clerics,” with their lovers. According to the historian Dyan Elliott, priests’ wives were perceived as raping the altar, a perpetration not only of the priest but also of the whole Christian community.

Whoa! Methinks Peter Damian needed to take a look inside himself. The psychological concept of projection was not known at the time, but Jesus surely gave warning in the Gospel, when he said that we must remove the planks from our own eyes before we judge the peccadilloes of others.

In my lifetime, I remember certain priests recoiling from me during an ordinary conversation. I could see the panic in their expressions, as they thought, "I gotta get away!" Mind you, I was not coming on to them. I promise. But back in the day, the priests were taught in seminary, some of them entering at the tender age of 13, that women were living, breathing, walking, talking occasions of sin. While some priests were clever enough to shed the harmful, nonsensical teachings once they matured, others bought it hook, line, and sinker and hung on.

Pray for the priests and their wives who become part of the RC ordinariate. Pray for all who enter there. The converts may be in for some surprises.

From Wikipedia:

Petrus Cardinal Damiani is a saint and was made a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Leo XII in 1828, with a feast day of February 23. His body has been moved six times, each time to a more splendid resting-place. Since 1898, Damian has rested in a chapel dedicated to the saint in the cathedral of Faenza. No formal canonization ever took place, but his cult has existed since his death at Faenza, at Fonte-Avellana, at Monte Cassino, and at Cluny. His feast has since been moved February 21.

The saint is represented in art as a cardinal bearing a knotted rope (the disciplina) in his hand; also sometimes he is depicted as a pilgrim holding a papal Bull, to signify his many legations.

Image from Wikipedia.

OYSTERS RIGHT AND LEFT AND BUBBLES

2012-01-13T11:40:00.000-06:00

Pictured above is President Franklin Roosevelt dining at Antoine's Restaurant during a visit to New Orleans in 1937. Seated to the right of FDR is Governor Richard Leche and to his left is New Orleans Mayor Robert Maestri. After the the diners finished the appetizer course of Oysters Rockefeller, Mayor Maestri leaned over to FDR and said, "How ya like dem erstuhs, Chief?" I've always loved the story, which I remember hearing from my father when I was quite young. Though Maestri never went beyond the third grade in school, he was no dumb bunny and played the game of politics skillfully.

All of the above is a lead-in to tell you that the present crop of Louisiana oysters is to die for. I've eaten more than my share of outstandingly tasty raw oysters this year, before Grandpère has a chance to cook them. He now knows to stand guard, because the first taste of an oyster is addictive, and once I start eating, I can't stop. We've had oysters fried (perfectly!), broiled, oyster spaghetti, and oysters in tomato sauce over pasta. All the dishes were delicious, but oysters in tomato sauce was a mistake. The taste of the tomato sauce overwhelmed the taste of the oysters, and why would anyone want to do that? GP admitted that when oysters are as divine tasting as this year's crop, tomato sauce is not the way to go.

Although I've eaten oysters from several different waters, I've yet to to be served bivalves as tasty as the Louisiana variety. The two varieties that came closest in quality, though the flavors were quite different, were from Long Island Sound and the waters off the northwest coast of Scotland.

Read in NOLA.com what New Orleans chefs say about the local oysters as compared to those from elsewhere. They know because for six months after the BP oil spill, Louisiana oysters were unavailable.

Photo (minus the thought bubble) from Wikipedia. The bubble comes courtesy of MadPriest, master bubble maker.

Below is the same photo with an unrequested speech bubble inserted, because I sent wrong instructions to the master bubble maker about which gentleman with FDR should have the thought bubble, which necessitated a redo by MadPriest. The problem is that I have difficulty knowing my left hand from my right. It's true. I have to stop and think if I hear, "Turn left here," and, at times, once I've thought, it's too late to turn. Over the years, I've learned to compensate to a degree, but I still don't always get right and left right...if you know what I mean.

How could I possibly know FDR's (or the master bubble maker's) right hand from his left, when I don't even know my own?

'HOPES FADE FOR CANADIAN ANGLICAN ORDINARIATE'

2012-01-12T12:08:00.003-06:00

From The Catholic Register in Canada:

As hopeful Anglo-Catholic parishes across Canada completed two months of catechetical study Dec. 18, dreams of a Canadian Catholic ordinariate for ex-Anglicans are fading.
"We had hoped, of course, we would have our own Canadian ordinariate, but we realize our numbers may not warrant it," Bishop Carl Reid, Anglican Catholic Church of Canada auxiliary bishop, told The Catholic Register.
....

The number of Canadian break-away Anglicans seeking a place in the Catholic Church has declined in the two years since Pope Benedict XVI issued Anglicanorum Coetibus, an apostolic constitution intended to provide for groups of Anglicans entering the Catholic Church but retaining significant elements of Anglican liturgy.
....

"A number of our people who weren't clear when they joined us of our intention to seek unity — even though it is in our foundational documents, our constitution — when unity became not only a possibility but a reality they just sort of left," said Reid. "That reduced our numbers from what they were two years ago."

So. It seems for now that the Canadian breakaways may have to make do with being part of the US ordinariate, since numbers of their people decided that they were not comfortable becoming Roman Catholic converts.

Among the issues being worked out are the final resting place of ACCC clergy. Where 67 Anglican priests in the United States have submitted dossiers seeking Catholic ordination and 35 have received a nulla osta, or initial approval, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, none of the Canadian Anglican clergy who have applied have heard back from Rome.

When I read the initial sentence in the paragraph above, I assumed that the final resting place referred to where the clergy would be buried, and I wondered why there was such concern about the location of graves, but I was wrong. The 'final resting place' refers to the decision about the clergy's 'place' of ministry in the church of Rome while they are yet alive, which seems to be coming slowly in Canada.

The article in the Catholic Register is dated December 20, 2011, so perhaps there has been movement forward since then, but I have not found more recent news.

I wish those who departed the Anglican Church of Canada well, and I hope the people and parishes find a place where they will be at peace in their worship and practice of the faith.

The photo is of Bishop Carl Reid, Anglican Catholic Church of Canada auxiliary bishop.

Thanks to Ann V who pointed me to the article in The Catholic Register via Anglicans Ablaze.

TWO THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

2012-01-11T14:39:00.002-06:00

Newt Gingrich: "If I have idols," Newt told the crowd, "it's Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher."

Charles Pierce: On, lads! On to the Falklands! Or, perhaps, to the Oscars. Go get 'em, Meryl!

If you're not reading Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog at Esquire, you're missing a lot, and I mean A LOT. He writes like 20 posts a day, and it's hard to keep up, but certainly worth a try.

UPDATE: Thanks to Lapin for the poster.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT HUMAN SEXUALITY THAT SANTORUM DOESN'T KNOW..

2012-01-11T12:23:00.000-06:00

...and doesn't want to know.

From Psychology Today:

Santorum has argued that contraception is morally wrong because, “It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” But human beings happily experience, witness, imagine, and lament a cornicopia of erotic encounters that couldn’t possibly result in conception. Leaving aside the many “perversions” happily practiced by humans the world over, the human female is available even for Vatican-approved missionary position intercourse—at least theoretically—when she’s menstruating, already pregnant, post-menopausal, or otherwise precluded from conceiving. Is this, too, an abomination? Even Santorum and his wife, who have had more children than most couples, have certainly had a lot more non-reproductive than reproductive sex over the years.

Read the entire article. Santorum's brain seems not to be able to absorb the rudimentary realities of human sexuality (and those of our cousins the chimps and bonobos!). Nothing anyone says shakes his rock-solid conviction that the talking points straight out of the Vatican are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Thanks to Paul (A.) for the link. See? Paul (A.)'s contributions to Wounded Bird are not confined to jokes. He also contributes stimulating intellectual content.

STORY OF THE DAY - GETAWAY WEEKEND

2012-01-11T11:30:00.000-06:00

escaping as quickly as they can from a
getaway weekend gone bad

From StoryPeople.

Heh, heh. It's the only thing to do.

ASBO JESUS ON HUMANS AND ELEPHANTS

2012-01-11T11:22:00.000-06:00

From ASBO Jesus.

I must tell you that the cartoon brought tears to my eyes. The best cartoons are perhaps those that make us think, rather than make us laugh.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH'S - 'PRIMATE CRISIS'

2012-01-10T16:01:00.000-06:00

Don't blame me. Blame David Attenborough and Bosco Peters.

MORE ON THE ROMAN CATHOLIC ORDINARIATE

2012-01-10T14:42:00.001-06:00

Read Bosco Peters' excellent post at Liturgy on the Roman Catholic ordinariate. Bosco points out that the ordinariate is not the only option or 'flavour' for discontented Episcopalians/Anglicans. He posted an entire list, which he admits may not be all-inclusive, but he wants a diagram to help him get up to speed. I would not mind a diagram, as I cannot keep the options straight in my head, either. Of course, the diagram would need updating from time to time, as groups continue to merge and divide.

While you're at Bosco's website, don't fail to watch the video by David Attenborough titled 'Primate Crisis'.

WISDOM FROM AN OLD JEWISH MAN

2012-01-10T13:37:00.000-06:00

A CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.

So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.

She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him for an interview.

"Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What's your name?

"Morris Feinberg," he replied.

"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"

"For about 60 years."

"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims."

"I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop."

"I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man."

"I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."

"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"

"Like I'm talking to a wall."

:-) Thanks to susan s.

BULLYING...WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

2012-01-10T11:07:00.000-06:00

Please read the excellent post at Dirty Sexy Ministry on bullying.

Bullies don't exist.

At least that's the viewpoint held by some who think that the intentional harm they cause to others is just what happens in the course of a day's work or in the course of human relationships. And yes, we who live in community together do things to each other through thought and word and deed that hurt others.

Bullying, however, is another matter. Bullying by adults covers a range of behaviors from teasing which gets out of control (i.e. the person being teased has said or indicated that it's troubling, but the person doing the teasing refuses to stop) to serious criminal activity like verbal threats and physical assault.

I know adult teasers who don't get it that enough is enough. "Oh, it's just teasing," is the excuse. There is no excuse. When a person asks you to stop, just stop.

Bullies are a magnified example of how our own hurts and wounds can hurt and wound others. Most bullies don't see their actions as bullying; they may not even be aware of just how damaging their personal actions are to others. Perhaps a first step to healing may be admitting that there are bullies in both clergy and laity and, even more difficult, admitting that all of us are capable of bullying others. I've yet to meet a person that didn't have places in our self-image that were sensitive and lacking. I've yet to meet a person that didn't, on some level, have issues with authority and issues with misuing it at times. I've yet to meet a person who didn't crave acceptance and attention, and who didn't coerce someone to salve that craving.

I absolutely agree that we all need to examine ourselves for 'subtle and covert' signs of bullying, which is far easier to recognize in others than in ourselves. And yes, there's no denying that bullying happens in the church, at times with catastrophic consequences.

Read the entire post.

STORY OF THE DAY - OUTSIDER

2012-01-10T08:01:00.000-06:00

I'm an outsider by choice, she said, but
I'm hoping that won't be my choice
forever.

From StoryPeople.

PRAYER FOR 2012

2012-01-09T22:32:00.000-06:00

My prayer for 2012 is for
A fat bank account & a thin body.
Please don't mix these up like you did last year.
AMEN!

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

BOROWITZ REPORTS...

2012-01-09T21:39:00.000-06:00

January 9, 2012

Other Republicans Agree Not to Tell Rick Perry Where Next Debate Is

‘Only Humane Thing,’ Candidates Say

Read the rest at The Borowitz Report.

GLASS ORGAN - BACH'S TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D-MINOR

2012-01-09T21:14:00.001-06:00

More lovely sounds from the Glass Duo, thanks to Paul (A.).

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY FROM RICK SANTORUM

2012-01-09T09:49:00.001-06:00

If you can take one part out, if it's not for the purpose of procreation, that's not one of the reasons you diminish this very special bond between men and women. So why can't you take other parts of it out? It becomes deconstructed to the point where it's simply pleasure.

Rick's on a roll! The statement is from an interview, which is posted on YouTube. The conversation is nearly 45 minutes long. Watch if you care to. I didn't.

How would you like such thoughts thrust upon you for four years?

Read more from Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog at Esquire.

UPDATE: I watched approximately 20 minutes of the video, (It was difficult!) and Rick did, indeed, say the words above.

PONDERISMS - PART 1

2012-01-08T20:45:00.001-06:00

1. I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.

2. There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

3. Life is sexually transmitted.

4. Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

5. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

6. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

7. Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

8. Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

9· All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

10. In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

My brother-in-law sent me twenty ponderisms, but I know some of you have short attention spans, so I divided them to post in two parts.

THE FACE OF OCCUPY NEW HAMPSHIRE

2012-01-08T17:26:00.001-06:00

Occupy New Hampshire

Every now and then, as Kathy Thorndike stood on the curb near the park where the Occupy The New Hampshire Primary encampment is located, and as she waved her signs demanding that big money be excised from our politics, a car would drive by and someone would blow their horn and a sleek young voice would tell her to get a job.

As it happens, Kathy Thorndike has a job. She's a health-care administrator overseeing a geriatric care unit near her home in the lakes region around Laconia. As it happens, her husband has a job, too. He's a contractor who built his business after starting out as a laborer and then becoming a carpenter. As it happens, her parents had jobs, too. Her father was a podiatrist, her mother a nurse. As it happens, her children have jobs, too. Two of them are nurses. One of them is a contractor. As it happens, one of her daughters is underwater on her mortgage. Another one of her children has to work overtime at two jobs in order to provide for Kathy's grandchildren. The notion that Occupy is made up of unemployable layabouts is one of the things that makes Kathy Thorndike as angry as an otherwise mild person can get. The other is what she calls the "propaganda" that Occupy has no coherent message. Her message, she says, is the facts of her own life.

"People are really struggling in the middle class," she said here on Saturday afternoon, as a man in a long red robe carrying a sign saying "Fight American Imperialism" rang a cowbell not two feet down the sidewalk. "I was raised in the middle class. I raised my children in the middle class. My children are not middle class. They're all professionals — they're nurses and carpenters — but they're not able to be middle class anymore.

"I got to stay home with my children, and we were middle class, and my husband was a laborer, for goodness sake."

What an amazing change in a generation. Nurses and carpenters are no longer assured of a place in the middle class. I'm reminded of my friend who was laid off his job in computer technology at age 62 and has not found a job three years later. He and his wife may yet lose their home. Companies are not falling over each other to hire folks in their late 50s and early 60s, even highly-skilled people with excellent references and experience. Many of the 'layabouts' are just such people as my friend.

Read more by Charles Pierce at Esquire's The Politics Blog.

I HAVEN'T DONE IT EITHER :-(

2012-01-08T09:08:00.002-06:00

Click on the cartoon for the larger view.

From ASBO Jesus.

STORY OF THE DAY - HOSPITALITY SMILE

2012-01-07T23:42:00.000-06:00

not sure whether to smile too much
because someone might put them on the
hospitality committee

From StoryPeople.

LOUISIANA MAN - FOR THE SAINTS

2012-01-07T23:41:00.000-06:00

Dave Edmunds is a Welshman, but he does a damned good job with Doug Kershaw's 'Louisiana Man'.

H/T to Adrastos at First Draft.

WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN: SAINTS - 45 TO LIONS - 28

2012-01-07T22:20:00.005-06:00

The Saints did it again! Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat?

Update from Susan Russell on Facebook:

So the Saints beat the Lions. Is that payback for that Coliseum unpleasantness back in the day?

Good one, Susan!

A COUNTRY TALE

2012-01-07T20:30:00.001-06:00

A clergyman was walking down a country lane one warm summer day and encountered a young farmer struggling to load hay back onto a cart after it had fallen off.

"You look hot, my son," said the parson. "Why don't you rest a moment, and then I'll give you a hand."

"No, thanks," said the young man, continuing to work away. "My father wouldn't like it."

"Don't be silly," the minister said. "Everyone is entitled to a break. Come have a drink of water."

Again the young man protested that his father would be upset. Losing his patience, the clergyman said, "Your father must be a real slave driver. Tell me where I can find him and I'll give him a piece of my mind!"

"Well," replied the young farmer, "right now he's under this load of hay."

Regards,

Paul (A.)

This one really ticked my funnybone. I'm guessing Paul (A.) didn't sign off with his usual, 'Cheers', because he knew the joke would cheer me.

CARDINAL FRANCIS GEORGE APOLOGIZES (SORT OF)

2012-01-07T13:31:00.002-06:00

From the Chicago Tribune:

Chicago's Cardinal Francis George apologized Friday for remarks aired on Christmas Day comparing the gay pride parade to the Ku Klux Klan.

"I am truly sorry for the hurt my remarks have caused," George said in an interview with the Tribune. "Particularly because we all have friends or family members who are gay and lesbian. This has evidently wounded a good number of people. I have family members myself who are gay and lesbian, so it's part of our lives. So I'm sorry for the hurt."

But is the cardinal sorry for his words?

"When I was talking, I was speaking out of fear that I have for the church's liberty and I was reaching for an analogy which was very inappropriate, for which I'm sorry," George said. "I didn't realize the impact of what I was saying. ... Sometimes fear is a bad motivation."

Come now, Cardinal George, fear for the liberty of your church? Visit the Middle East, where, in certain countries, Christians are being killed for the faith, and perhaps you'll gain a bit of perspective about the threat to your church in the US.

George said he didn't expect the public uproar over the comments.

Well, now he knows.

Photo from Wikipedia.

UPDATE: Oops, I forgot. H/T to Ann Fontaine at The Lead.

A NEW IDEA TO INCREASE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

2012-01-07T12:30:00.002-06:00

Video from WNEM-TV.

From Salon:

A Michigan pastor who says he’s doing everything he can to reach out to people who don’t feel comfortable at a traditional house of worship has opened a tattoo parlor inside his church.

Rev. Steve Bentley of The Bridge, a church located inside a Flint Township shopping center, said his ministry is built on the belief that mainstream religion has become ineffective and irrelevant to most people. To that end, he opened Serenity Tattoo.

Tattoo artists Ryan Brown and Drew Blaisdell work by appointment or from noon until 8 p.m., Monday-Saturday, at the county-licensed tattoo shop that sits not far from Bentley’s office as well as the watering trough that he uses for baptisms.

Bentley, who has two tattoos, said he understands some don’t like the idea of Serenity Tattoo inside the church, but the pastor considers tattooing a “morally neutral” practice that he likens to getting one’s ears pierced.

“We are about doing church in a different way and being relevant to people,” Bentley told The Flint Journal. “You can get a tattoo in a clean environment. You can do it while still sticking to your moral code.”

Somehow, I don't think a suggestion for a tattoo parlor in the church or the parish hall would gain traction at my church or any Episcopal church that I know of, although there may be churches out there who would be willing to implement the idea.

On the church website, Pastor Steven Bentley's says:

Wow!!! Front page article about The Bridge having a Tattoo Parlor in our building has turned into quite the media frenzy. Few things about this - We did not open Serenity Tattoo for publicity, rather to change lives beginning with the artists, their clients and apprentices and spreading from there. Many positive posts from all walks of life - love to see some "getting it." Some negative posts that fall into 3 categories - 1 being Leviticus 19:28 which says not to cut yourselves or make permanent marks - 2 being Jesus clearing the temple in Matthew and 3 being the church is a place for worship not tattoos or other stuff.

The first one is really simple - Lev 19:27 also says to not cut the hair at your temples or trim your beards and that chapter contains many cultural/ceremonial prohibitions based on what the local idolaters were doing and trying to make sure the Israelites were distinguishing themselves from them. Anyone that wants to say that one verse is a prohibition on tattoos must also condemn ear piercing, shaving, and many other currently acceptable practices. Using that verse to condemn tattooing is pure ignorance of good bible study.

Pastor Bentley is spot on about the passage in Leviticus. The book is chock full of laws that both Jews and Christians consider cultural norms for the times, rather than laws to be obeyed today.

Read the rest of Pastor Bentley's statement, which also addresses objections to the tattoo parlor based on passages in the Christian Testament, the cleansing of the temple and the church as a house of worship. His defenses are not all that persuasive to me. In all honesty, I found the toll booths in York Minster to be offensive. I question charging a fee to visit a church. It's fine to suggest an amount for a donation, but to charge an admission fee seems wrong. No one should be kept out of a church because of an inability or even an unwillingness to pay.

I wonder if the experience of getting tattooed is serene at Serenity Tattoo. I was rather tense while getting tattooed several years ago, and I wanted the session to be over as quickly as possible.

T S ELIOT READS 'JOURNEY OF THE MAGI'

2012-01-06T19:16:00.004-06:00

A rare recording taken from a live interview T. S. Eliot did for the BBC, broadcast during World War II. The original audio was pretty bad, but I cleaned it up as best I could. The thing that comes through most clearly is that nobody reads Eliot like Eliot.

Uploaded to YouTube by bobtoomey on Sep 15, 2009

The Journey of the Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

What a treasure! Thanks to Bob Toomey for the find and the fix.

Thanks to Katie Sherrod via Ann Fontaine on Facebook.

OH DEAR!

2012-01-06T12:24:00.000-06:00

FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY

2012-01-06T11:38:00.000-06:00

ANGELICO, Fra - Adoration of the Magi - 1423-24
Abegg-Stiftung, Bern

Collect

O God, who by the leading of a star manifested your only Son to the Peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Isaiah 60:1-6,9

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

Lift up your eyes and look around;
they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from far away,
and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.
Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and rejoice,
because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
For the coastlands shall wait for me,
the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your children from far away,
their silver and gold with them,
for the name of the Lord your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has glorified you.

Psalm 72

Of Solomon.
Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to a king’s son.
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness.
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor.

May he live while the sun endures,
and as long as the moon, throughout all generations.
May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth.
In his days may righteousness flourish
and peace abound, until the moon is no more.

May he have dominion from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
May his foes bow down before him,
and his enemies lick the dust.
May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles
render him tribute,
may the kings of Sheba and Seba
bring gifts.
May all kings fall down before him,
all nations give him service.

For he delivers the needy when they call,
the poor and those who have no helper.
He has pity on the weak and the needy,
and saves the lives of the needy.
From oppression and violence he redeems their life;
and precious is their blood in his sight.

Long may he live!
May gold of Sheba be given to him.
May prayer be made for him continually,
and blessings invoked for him all day long.
May there be abundance of grain in the land;
may it wave on the tops of the mountains;
may its fruit be like Lebanon;
and may people blossom in the cities
like the grass of the field.
May his name endure for ever,
his fame continue as long as the sun.
May all nations be blessed in him;
may they pronounce him happy.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
who alone does wondrous things.
Blessed be his glorious name for ever;
may his glory fill the whole earth.Amen and Amen.

The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended.

Ephesians 3:1-12

This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given to me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given to me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”’

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’ When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The painting by Fra Angelico is breathtakingly beautiful. The art of the holy monk places high in my list of favorites.

The choice of the well-known traditional hymn for the day may seem rather pedestrian, but the performance by the Kings College Choir is truly lovely.

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

A FREAKY, FREAK ACCIDENT

2012-01-05T12:48:00.000-06:00

Yesterday afternoon, Grandpère opened a can of Mountain Dew in the back yard, took a swig and put the can down briefly to do a chore. A few minutes later, he took another swig, and a bee flew out of the can, but not before stinging him on the lip.

GP seems to have more than his share of odd and freaky accidents, most of them resulting in only minor injuries, thank heavens. He came inside and said, "Guess what happened."

I said, "How did you hurt yourself this time?" with the big one in mind, although I could see that he was in one piece and not obviously bleeding.

Apparently, the bee was thirsty and was attracted to the soda can by the sweet smell and decided to have a swig, too.

"Take a Benadryl," says I.

"No, I don't like taking medicine," says he.

Before long, GP was back in the house with a bulbous bottom lip. Of course! I gave him a short anatomy lesson, telling him that the lips were not far from the throat (like the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone), and that he would not want his throat swollen so he couldn't breathe, and that I would rather avoid a trip to the ER. He took the Benadryl. About a half hour later, I suggested he take another, which he did. By the evening, the swelling had gone down quite a bit.

It's not easy being right all the time when dealing with a stubborn man.

WHO SHOULD MAKE THE COFFEE?

2012-01-05T11:48:00.000-06:00

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew
the coffee each morning.

The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we won't have to wait so long to get our coffee".

The husband said, "I disagree: You are in charge of the cooking around here and so you should do it, because that is your job. I can just wait for my coffee."

Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."

Husband replies, " I can't believe that, show me."

So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says:

"HEBREWS"

Cheers (and Happy New Year!),

Paul (A.)

But I drink tea!

I wonder if Paul's lovely wife hears these stories every single day.

JESUS AND MO - MANY

2012-01-05T08:13:00.000-06:00

From Jesus and Mo.

STORY OF THE DAY - BUTTERFLIES

2012-01-04T14:54:00.000-06:00

He told me that the night his mother
died, there were storms & far away he
saw purple lightning & someone left the
window open & the room filled with a
swirl of butterflies & she slipped out
quietly without anyone noticing & I'm
sure the grief was softer because of that.

From StoryPeople.

GOOD-BYE, HENRY

2012-01-04T12:05:00.001-06:00

Henry to MadPriest:

I'll meet you round the bend, my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...

MadPriest lost his best friend, Henry, the Cat. I'm proud to have met Henry, who was a good cat. The small black spot on Henry's chin gave him the sweetest expression.

O Lord our God, we come before You this day in sadness. Henry, who brought MadPriest and his family so much joy in life, has now died. His happy times in their family's embrace have come to an end. They miss Henry already.

Help them, O God, to remember the good times with Henry.

Remind them to rejoice in the happy times he brought to their home.

Let us be thankful for the good life they were blessed to give to him.

We are grateful to You, God, for creating Henry, for entrusting him to their care, and for sustaining him in their love for a measure of time.

We understand that all that lives must die. They knew that this day would come. And yet, O God, they would have wanted one more day of play, one more evening of love with Henry.

O God, as they have taken care of Henry in life, we ask that You watch over him in death.

You entrusted Henry to their care; now, they give him back to You. May Henry find a happy new home in Your loving embrace.

As we remember Henry, may we love each other more dearly.

May we care for all Your creatures, for every living thing, as they protected the blessed life of Henry.

May Henry's memory bless their lives with love and caring forever.

Amen.

The words quoted above are from Riverbend, the Baghdad Blogger.

The prayer is by Rabbi Barry Block.

STORY OF THE DAY - BUSY LIFE

2012-01-03T22:38:00.000-06:00

Everyone sang Happy Birthday except
Max who claimed he didn't know the
words. I was busy that day, he said, & it
really hasn't let up since.

From StoryPeople.

ABOUT THE NEW ROMAN CATHOLIC ORDINARIATE...

2012-01-03T19:12:00.002-06:00

The Personal Ordinariate in the United States of the Chair of St Peter under the protection of Our Lady of Walsingham

From the National Catholic Reporter:

Pope Benedict XVI established a new nationwide U.S. ordinariate Jan. 1 for U.S. Anglicans (Episcopalians) who wish to become Catholic. He named Fr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, a Catholic theology professor in Houston and former Episcopal bishop, as its first head.

The new Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter will be based in Houston, according to Jan. 1 announcements released in Rome and Washington.

In a news release on its new Web site the ordinariate said that more than 100 Anglican priests in the United States and nearly 1,400 individuals from 22 communities are seeking to enter the Catholic Church as part of the ordinariate. Two of those communities entered into full communion with the Catholic Church this past fall after a period of preparation.

After 28 years of ministry in the Church of England and the U.S. Episcopal Church, in 2007 Steenson and his wife became Catholic. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 2009 and was instrumental in establishing the formation program for Anglican priests applying for Catholic priesthood as part of the ordinariate, which has been in the planning stages for the past two years.

Fr. Steenson is currently a professor of patristics, the study of the early Christian theologians known as the Fathers of the Church, at the University of St. Thomas and St. Mary's Seminary in Houston.

A sampling from the comments at NCR is below.

The largest and by far the most flourishing Anglican Use Parish in the US, Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio/TX has many members, probably the majority, who were never Anglicans, but came to them from other Latin Rite parishes, or who entered the Catholic Church through Our Lady of the Atonement.
....

WWJD comes to mind about the reason for their conversion to Catholicism? Is there a Catholic Church we women can join because we do not like the male clergy only of the Catholic Church? Would the Pope mind appointing such a church ordinariate so that we women can feel more fulfilled as fully formed in the image of God? I personally will welcome the day when there is a woman priest in the area where I live, so that I may attend a liturgy to help me heal from the injustice of the Roman Catholic Church.
....

100 priests and 1,400 people already have asked to join? That's great, 1 priest for every 14 members! This has to be the best priest to member ratio in the entire world. No, "I can't get the priest to answer my call" in those parishes.
....

Submitted by whiteycat (not verified) on Jan. 02, 2012. (yes, our whiteycat)

I guess the Vatican needs to bolster its anti-woman, anti-gay membership since American RCs appear to be going in the other direction.

At least those who don't like the new Roman missal will have an alternative!
....

Submitted by Grandmère Mimi (not verified) on Jan. 03, 2012.

What's with the members of the ordinariate calling themselves Anglicans? They may use an Anglo-Catholic (Sarum) rite, but they are converts to the Roman Catholic Church, no more, no less.

And I'm pleased to see someone noted upthread that a good many of these folks had already left the Episcopal Church or were never part of it.

The new ordinary, the Rev Jeffrey Steenson, was received into the RCC by the recently retired Cardinal Bernard Law.

How the ordinariate brings about any sort of reconciliation with the Episcopal Church is a mystery to me.

Correction: Rather than being received into the RCC by Cardinal Law, the Rev Steenson was ordained to the diaconate by the cardinal.

Not just anyone will be permitted to join a parish in the ordinariate. One must have been Anglican/Episcopal or enter through marriage or family relationship. Some might say that the ordinariate fails the inclusive test.

And yes, I'm late to the US ordinariate party which started on New Year's Day, but not for lack of notification by my trusty stringers. I simply wanted to let the excitement die down first.

The office of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter is located on Shadyvilla Lane in Houston, Texas.

THREE CHEERS FOR JUSTICE JAMES C NELSON OF THE MONTANA SUPREME COURT!

2012-01-03T10:40:00.001-06:00

"While, as a member of this Court, I am bound to follow Citizens United, I do not have to agree with the [U.S.] Supreme Court’s decision," wrote Justice James C. Nelson, in his dissent. "And, to be absolutely clear, I do not agree with it. For starters, the notion that corporations are disadvantaged in the political realm is unbelievable. Indeed, it has astounded most Americans. The truth is that corporations wield enormous power in Congress and in state legislatures. It is hard to tell where government ends and corporate America begins: the transition is seamless and overlapping."

The photo of me taken at Occupy New Orleans is a fright, and my enemies may well use it against me, but I sacrifice for the cause.

H/T to Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog at Esquire, who urges us to send flowers to the justice.

POINTS TO PONDER IN THE NEW YEAR

2012-01-02T20:29:00.000-06:00

WARNING: Not 100% PC.

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Is Santa so jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live?

I went to a bookstore and asked the sales woman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

If a deaf person swears in sign language, does his mother wash his hands with soap?

If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

Is there another word for synonym?

Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"

What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?

If a parsley farmer is sued can they garnish his wages?

Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?

If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?

Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?

If the police arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?

Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?

How do they get deer to cross the road only at those yellow road signs?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

One nice thing about egotists: They don't talk about other people.

Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

How is it possible to have a civil war?

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown, too?

If you ate both pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?

Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have "S" in it?

Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?

Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?

If you spin an oriental man in a circle three times does he become disoriented?

Can an atheist get insurance against acts of God?

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year!

Cheers,

Paul (A.)

Don't blame me. Blame him up there.

IOWA: A MICROCOSM OF THE US - NOT!

2012-01-02T17:30:00.000-06:00

The graphs below, which were posted by Juan Cole at Informed Comment, show the percentages of the various ethnic voters in the State of Iowa as compared to the percentages of the entire US. The crowd of Republican candidates, which consists of five white men and one white woman, is scrambling for votes in tomorrow's VERY IMPORTANT IOWA CAUCUSES, which Cole labels "Conservative White People’s Primary".

The candidates:

Michele Bachmann
Newt Gingrich
Ron Paul
Rick Perry
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum

Who will win? From Washington Post Politics:

Over the past few months, Iowa has embraced and then rejected four charismatic front-runners: Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Perry, Gingrich and pizza executive Herman Cain.

Fickle, fickle Iowans.

FOR MY FRIEND MARGARET

2012-01-02T15:09:00.002-06:00

Margaret and Joel are doing what needs to be done before heading out to their new home in the Episcopal Mission on the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota, home to Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. Today at her blog, leave it lay where Jesus flang it, margaret speaks of the move and about leaving Richmond, Virginia:

I have loved it here. Truly loved it. The people. The foods. The worship. It hurts to pull on these roots....

Perhaps I can braid them, clean them off and make them strong, and carry them with me as an unexpected gift. One body. One Spirit. One calling. One Lord. One faith. One baptism. One God. Through all and in all.

To the big sky country, big wind country, sight equal only to the horizon... a new river to come to know.

I am so ready. Got so much to do. Amen.

From the wonderful book, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, by Kathleen Norris, who now spends half her time in South Dakota and the other half in Hawaii:

Communal worship is something I need; that it is an experience, not a philosophy or even theology. Whatever the pitch of my religious doubts, it is available to me for the asking. It seems a wonder to me that in our dull little town we can gather together to sing some great hymns, reflect on our lives, hear some astonishing scriptures (and maybe a boring sermon; you take your chances), offer some prayers and receive a blessing....

We all know that margaret needs communal worship, because she urges us each week, "G'wan. Go to church!" And nearly every Sunday, I follow her advice, because I, too, need communal worship, which is, indeed, a wonder. Margaret will preside and preach at the services in her churches. I have never heard margaret preach, but I have read her sermons, and I've read her blog for a number of years, and I have never been bored by what margaret writes. I rather doubt that the flocks in her new churches will be bored by her sermons. I just don't see it happening.

Almighty and everlasting God, from whom comes every good and perfect gift: Send down upon our dear margaret, and upon the congregations committed to her care, the healthful Spirit of your grace: and, that they may truly please you, pour upon them the continual dew of your blessing. Grant this, O Lord, for the honor of our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The picture is lifted from margaret's blog.

STORY OF THE DAY - FASHION ANGEL

2012-01-01T17:44:00.000-06:00

these are multi-purpose wings & when
she's not flying they accessorize nicely
with almost anything she wears

From StoryPeople.

Nice.

LET THE JOY AND HAPPINESS BEGIN!

2012-01-01T12:50:00.001-06:00

I borrowed the image from my friend Dan at Facebook, and I promise to return it at the end of 2012.

And the Peanuts gang from Doug and me.

If you think I'm watching football today, think again. I will have a bowl of Grandpère's delicious vegetable soup, with cheese and crackers and a glass of wine, and then I will chill.

Last night we attended a very nice, low-key party, with good food and good company, and almost, but not quite, made it to the turn of the New Year, as we made our departure at around 11:25 PM in 2011.

UPDATE: I found an old piece of paper with this quote from the New York Review of Books copied in May of 1998 in my KJV, which I used for the Bible readings today.

A poem of Goethe's describes a quiet scholar returning from a party. "How was it?" he was asked.

"If the people there were books, I would not read them."

Not my party!

A BLESSED AND JOYOUS NEW YEAR!

2011-12-31T18:20:00.002-06:00

Stonehaven Fireballs Ceremony 2003

Celebrating the New Year in the Scottish style:

HOGMANAY

WE are come to the door,
To see if we be the better of our visit,
To tell the generous women of the townland
That to-morrow is Calendae Day.

May God bless the dwelling,
Each stone, and beam, and stave,
All food, and drink, and clothing,
May health of men be always there.

Should the guisers be inhospitably treated, they file round the fire withershins and walk out, and raise a cairn in or near the door, called 'carnan mollachd,' cairn of malison, 'carnan cronachd,' scaith cairn.

They tramp loudly, shaking the dust of the place off their feet, and intoning with a deep voice the following and other malediction.

The malison of God and of Hogmanay be on you,
And the scath of the plaintive buzzard,
Of the hen-harrier, of the raven, of the eagle,
And the scath of the sneaking fox.

The scath of the dog and of the cat be on you,
Of the boar, of the badger, and of the 'brugha,'
Of the hipped bear and of the wild wolf,
And the scath of the foul foumart.

THE BLESSING OF THE NEW YEAR

GOD, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before;
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Bless Thou to me mine eye,
May mine eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbour,
May my neighbour bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of Thine eye;
Bless to me my children and my wife,
And bless to me my means and my cattle.

Benedictions and maledictions from Carmina Gadelica here and here.

Robert Burns - "Auld Lang Syne"

A lovely version sung by Dougie MacLean from the album "Tribute".

Click on the snowflake for the snow effect.

New Year's Prayer

Dear Lord, please give me…
A few friends who understand me and remain my friends;
A work to do which has real value,
without which the world would be the poorer;
A mind unafraid to travel, even though the trail be not blazed;
An understanding heart;
A sense of humor;
Time for quiet, silent meditation;
A feeling of the presence of God;
The patience to wait for the coming of these things,
With the wisdom to recognize them when they come. Amen.

New Year prayer from Appleseed.

THE TRAVELS OF IZZIE AND AMELIA

2011-12-31T15:46:00.000-06:00

My friend Amelia is driving cross-country with Princess Izzie. Amelia and Izzie stopped for lunch at my franchise in Arizona, pictured above. I told her I hoped she had been well-served by the staff, and if not, I would be after them. Amelia assured me:

June, the staff was friendly and efficient. No need to hassle them. Between all the Mimi and June franchises you are one busy woman. :-)

I'm glad to hear it. The employees in all my franchises are well-trained in the art of serving well.

I'm told the little princess, pictured below, did not want to get up and on the road this morning.

Izzie luv, you will never reach your destination, if you lounge around in bed all morning.

FOR THE EARLY BIRDS WHO ARE ALREADY IN THE YEAR 2012

2011-12-31T13:41:00.000-06:00

A friend at Facebook posted the greeting, with the comment, "Well, it IS French ...," and I could not resist.