Feast Day of William Augustus Muhlenburg

From James Kiefer at the Lectionary:

William A. Muhlenberg was born in Philadelphia on 16 September 1796, to a distinguished German Lutheran family. Attracted to the Episcopal Church by its use of English, he was ordained in 1817. He was active in promoting the Sunday School movement, and concerned that the Church should minister to all social groups. He wrote hymns and compiled hymnals, greatly expanding the range of music in Episcopal churches. In 1828 he founded, and for twenty years headed, Flushing Institute (later St Paul's College), a boys' school in Flushing, New York. There he made extensive use of music, flowers, vestments, and an emphasis on the Church year and on sacramental worship, with the weekly reception of the sacrament of Holy Communion, while at the same time preaching with great force and conviction the Reformation doctrines of grace and of justification by faith. Out of his ministry came inspiration for the establishment of Church schools and hospitals, and an outreach to the poor. In 1846 he founded the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City, with a parish school, a parish unemployment fund, and trips to the country for poor city children. He called himself an "Evangelical Catholic," and by his firm stand for Evangelical Faith, Apostolic Order, and Corporal Works of Mercy, he spoke to all parties in the Church while belonging to none. As one writer has said, "There was not a significant area of the Church's life, during his ministry, that he did not elevate and strengthen by the pureness of his life and the vigor of his consecrated imagination."

As the words in bold type (emphasis by me) demonstrate, Muhlenburg was a living example of one person embracing both the catholic and the evangelical strains within the Episcopal Church, with the result that his life bore much fruit. Thanks be to God.

From his obituary in the New York Times (PDF):

At St. Luke's Hospital no day passed that his slender figure was not seen passing through the wards and cheering the sick by his mere presence. Last Winter he never failed to knock at the doors of certain boarders at the hospital and wish them a cheery good-night. Many of the sick who could hear his voice would wait for the sound before they themselves could sleep. From his own private table he used to send wine to certain old ladies; frequently he was known to take meat from his own table to feed the destitute; and doubtless, had he followed his natural impulse, he would have stripped off his coat in the street, like the famous early saint, and covered the rags of beggars.

He sounds like a lovely man.

Readings:

Psalm 84:1-6 or 133
Ephesians 4:11-16
Matthew 21:12-16

PRAYER

Do not let your Church close its eyes, O Lord, to the plight of the poor and neglected, the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick,the lonely and those who have no one to care for them. Give us the vision and compassion with which you so richly endowed your servant William Augustus Muhlenberg, that we may labor tirelessly to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

UPDATE: Here's a picture of the Church of the Holy Communion, which C.W.S., in the comments, tells us was last known as the Limelight Disco

Will John Cleese Write For Barack Obama?

From the Telegraph:

Monty Python comedian John Cleese is to offer his services as a speechwriter to Barack Obama if he wins the Democratic nomination to become US president.

Cleese, who lives in California, told the Western Daily Press newspaper that his jokes could help the Illinois senator get into the White House.

I don't know whether an Obama-Cleese pair-up is a good fit. A few more laugh moments during the loooong campaign season would be most welcome, but I can't quite wrap my head around Obama doing Monty Python humor. Of course, perhaps Cleese is talented enough to tailor his humor to Obama's personality so that the result is Obama humor.

Cleese lives in California because the English winters give him chest infections and diverticulitis.

"Breaking News" Knocks Off Rose-colored Glasses

From Think Progress comes a video from MSNBC of McCain speaking at the VFW National Headquarters in Kansas City, MO, about how wonderfully successful the surge has been in turning things around in Iraq and being interrupted by "breaking News" that seems to contradict his rosy interpretation of the situation there. Of course, I could be wrong.

Oh, please watch.

The Surge Is Working! - Part 2

From the New York Times:

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Suspected Shiite militants lobbed rockets and mortar shells into the U.S.-protected Green Zone and a military base elsewhere in Baghdad on Sunday, killing three American troops and wounding 31, officials said.
....

The U.S. military said separately that an American soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing in the volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad. A U.S. soldier assigned to the division operating south of the capital also died Sunday from non-combat related injuries, according to a statement.

The deaths raised to at least 4,018 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
....

U.S. commanders have blamed what they call Iranian-backed rogue militia groups for launching missiles against American forces.

Is Bush determined to attack Iran before he leaves office? The war drums sound louder to me. Will Congress give him the go ahead? Will Bush even ask the Congress before he moves ahead?

UPDATE: From Juan Cole at Informed Sources:

Shiite guerrillas with at least some relationship to the Mahdi Army have been regularly sending mortar and rocket fire on the so-called Green Zone for some time, but they seldom used to hit anything. One question I hear asked in informed military circles is whether the special groups, which Muqtada al-Sadr considers Iranian puppets and rogues, have been given more accurate rockets by Iran, and maybe some better training in how to use them.

But the Mahdi Army is siphoning off a good $2 bn. a year in embezzled gasoline and kerosene, and it seems to me that with that sort of money you could pretty much buy anything you needed on the international arms black market. If Iran did not exist, would the situation in Iraq really be much different? It is all too convenient for the US to blame continued turmoil in Iraq on Iran, rather than to face up to the real divisions inside Iraq and the Bush administration's role in exacerbating them.

Since You Have Nothing To Do....

Since I'm not blogging, you may want to read Rmj's ruminations at Adventus, titled "The Engine of Hope", on an opinion piece from the New York Times by Taylor Branch.

Supper At Emmaus - Redux

Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, 1601

National Gallery, London

Then he [Jesus] said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over. "So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

Luke 24:25-32

From Rmj in the comments to my Noli Me Tangere post below:

We used to have wonderful discussions in seminary about Jesus after the resurrection. Did he have a body, or not? All the Gospel witnesses are intentional[ly] inconclusive. In Luke, he appears to the disciples, but is only recognized in the breaking of the bread, then he vanishes. In John, he walks through walls and closed doors, but has wounds that can be touched, and eats fish with Peter (to prove he's not a ghost).

Fascinating stuff. Ambiguity is the very warp and woof of life!

Indeed it is! Assuming Jesus had a body of some sort, I wonder what it would have been like to be among the disciples on the road to Emmaus with Jesus and hear him explain the Scriptures. What would it have been like to break bread with Jesus that night? Although they did not know him as they walked with him, there was something about him that made them want to remain in his presence. I put myself in their company.

Come And Eat With Me

Will you come and eat with me?
You can stay the night.
Stay just a while and have a meal.
As we break our bread, we'll talk.
Stay with me; rest a while.

Here, take your bread.
Wait! Who are you?
You are Jesus, the one who died!
You are dead, but here you are alive,
Here you break bread with me.

You made me come alive,
As you spoke to me of the prophets.
You set my heart on fire when you told me
How you had to suffer and to die.
What! You're gone? Just like that?

Grandmère Mimi - 4/9/07

What's above is not blogging but a recycling of a post from last year. Technically, I have not broken my word. My visitors are not here, yet.

No Blogging Today

I must go to church this morning, and this afternoon, my nephew and his wife are in from Missouri to spend a night after whooping it up in New Orleans for a few days. I will be très occupée today and tomorrow morning. Au revoir, mes amis, until then.

Crawfish Capers

From the Daily Comet:

A News Analysis by JEREMY ALFORD, Correspondent

BATON ROUGE -- If a crawfish you personally raised escapes from your pond and decides to set up shop in your neighbor’s ditch and is consequently consumed by that neighbor with a side of corn and potato, is the mudbug still yours?

While perhaps not a question for the ages, it’s among the many crawfish-related topics state lawmakers will be debating during the ongoing regular session.

What do you mean, Jeremy, that this is not a question for the ages? This is crawfish we're talking here. It's a question for the ages here in south Louisiana.

As for that crawfish on the lam, a lawmaker from Lake Charles takes the question quite seriously.

Rep. Brett F. Geymann, a Republican crustacean crusader, has filed House Resolution 7 to request that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries study the issue of "escaped farm-raised crawfish."

Didn't I tell you that our Louisiana legislators take their work seriously? Well, no, I did not.

When this happens, the "crawfish can escape their impoundments into neighboring ditches and other waterways, in much the same manner as livestock at-large," the legislation states.

"Many times, these escaped crawfish are harvested from those neighboring ditches and waterways by people other than the people who had been cultivating the crawfish for commercial purposes in private ponds," the resolution continues, "thereby depriving the farmer of his livestock and the commercial gain from that livestock."

Branding the crawfish is one solution that pops into my mind. What do you think, Rep. Geymann? Or you could order construction of more jail space and lock up the wayward critters.

Good job, Jeremy.

Watch This Wonderful Video

What we all knew instinctively as kids.
These 2 guys reared this lion from a baby in England but the authorities would not allow them to keep it once it reached maturity so they were forced to give it up. They took it back to Africa and placed it in a wildlife sanctuary. A year later they went to see it and were told it would not remember them. Check out the attached video for the lion's reaction when it saw them for the first time...

From Doug.

"Who Is The Real Patriot?"

From the web edition of the Chicago Tribune:

In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.

In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)
....

While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?
....

This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.
....

How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.

While words do count, so do actions.

Can I get an amen here?

Thanks to Doug for the link. You see, my friends, the mysterious Doug has a serious side, too.