Feast Day Of Julian Norwich

"The Lady Juliana was born about 1342, and when she was thirty years old, she became gravely ill and was expected to die. Then, on the seventh day, the medical crisis passed, and she had a series of fifteen visions, or "showings," in which she was led to contemplate the Passion of Christ. These brought her great peace and joy. She became an anchoress, living in a small hut near to the church in Norwich, where she devoted the rest of her life to prayer and contemplation of the meaning of her visions. The results of her meditations she wrote in a book called Revelations of Divine Love, available in modern English in a Penguin Paperback edition. During her lifetime, she became known as a counselor, whose advice combined spiritual insight with common sense, and many persons came to speak with her. Since her death, many more have found help in her writings."

James Kiefer at the Lectionary.

Readings:

Psalm 27:5-11 or 103:1-4,13-18
Hebrews 10:19-24
John 4:23-26

Preface of the Epiphany

PRAYER

Lord God, who in your compassion granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

From Julian's writings:

Faith is
nothing else but
a right understanding
of our being -
trusting
and allowing things to be;

A right understanding
that we are in God
and God
whom we do not see
is in us.

And this:

God feels great delight
to be our Father
and God feels great delight
to be our Mother
and God feels great delight
to be our true Spouse
and our soul the loved Wife.

Christ feels great delight
that He is our Brother
and Jesus feels great delight
that He is our Liberator.

These are five great joys
that God wants us to enjoy.

From Meditations With Julian of Norwich by Brendan Doyle.

UPDATE: The painting above is "Portrait of a Woman" by Rogier van der Weyden, c. 1430. It is very likely not Julian of Norwich, but it's a lovely painting. Since we have no portrait from life, why not? I've always been intrigued by the woman's headdress in the picture. Also, I have flipped it to the correct facing. A scholar I'm not, but I do try to tell the truth, when I know it. Thanks to a knowledgeable friend for the help in this.

Image from Wiki.

From Kirstin

I'm scared.

I’m writing this out now, before I sleep, so that I might not have to wake up still wrapped in these fears.

After my CT was clear, I was so relieved and elated that I stopped believing this cancer could hurt me. Sometime in the past few days, that fear crept back. My PET scan is Monday. Surgery is the 15th. I know that the worst that could happen, would be to be admitted for a neck dissection. I’d wake up every morning with a puffy half of my face, after that; it would recede in a few hours. After a few years, your body figures out what to do minus some lymph nodes. (Right now, we have no evidence of lymph involvement.)

I’m not afraid of a smaller left ear. Nor of scars on my neck, if it comes to that. I’m not physically afraid of the flu, knowing there’s an end date. I want to experience this—I also want to be able to put it in the past tense. If there is lymph involvement, I’ll never be able to fully trust my body again. I’ll never know that they got it all.

I’ve caught myself trying to feel my own lymph nodes. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I could tell if something was strikingly swollen—but not just sleepily incubating. And health-wise, other than exhausted and anxious, I feel fine.

My body, and I, need so much love. I need to be gentle with it; to not attack it for being vulnerable to cancer cells. But I have this alien growing on my ear, that could start firing any time it wants to. I just want it off of me. My body didn’t choose this. Without my brain, it isn’t sentient. My body didn’t betray me. Biology, happened. Many, many people are sicker than I.

This isn’t the initial fear of not knowing—and of still being innocent enough to think and hope you’ll be okay. This is the heavy, twisty fear you could get sick on. It’s, “Oh, fuck. This isn’t just about now—I’ll have to be aware of it forever.” It could never come back. It could come back like it is now. It could come back and go metastatic. It could come back, when I don’t have health insurance.

How many people have I met, who have to ask those same questions? I’m caught up in this sleeplessness --> anxiety cycle. I know that many people are praying for me. I know God is present. I’ve lost track of where.

I’d slipped off the chapel prayer list, this morning—and I could still hear people all around me, whispering my name. That, was powerful. If you love me, if you’re praying for me, please tell me. Even if you know you did, yesterday. People tell me all the time that I'm doing well--I take strength from my community. Right now I don’t know how to pray for myself. I put up a brave front, when I need to, and sometimes I really do feel sure and strong. Other times, that’s about as real as the man behind the curtain.

Kirstin's blog is Barefoot and Laughing. Tell her that you are praying for her. Tell her that you care. I know what it's like to be too distraught or too sick to pray for myself or my loved ones. Jesus calls us, his followers, to lift each other up, to bear each other's burdens. That's a powerful ministry. I have experienced that power, the power of the prayers of many for me and mine, when I could not pray myself. It's real, and it's true.

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Philippians 4:6-8

Happy Birthday To Paul!

Feliz Cumpleaños Pablito, el Byzigenous Buddhapalian!

Paul, may you have a blessed and joyful day!

O God, our times are in your hand: Look with favor, we pray, on your servant Paul as he begins another year. Grant that he may grow in wisdom and grace, and strengthen his trust in your goodness all the days of his life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. BCP

HUMOR FOR LEXOPHILES (LOVERS OF WORDS)

1. I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

2. Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.

3. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

4. The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

5. A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months

6. When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A

7. The math professor went crazy with the blackboard. He did a number on it!

8. The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.

9. The dead batteries were given out free of charge.

10. A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.

11. A bicycle can't stand alone; it is just two-tired.

12. A will is a dead giveaway.

13. A backward poet writes inverse.

14. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

15. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulting in linoleum blownapart.

16. He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

17. A calendar's days are numbered.

18. A boiled egg is hard to beat.

19. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

20. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.

21. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Doug, I culled a few, because certain of my readers have short attention spans, and I knew they would not read them all. I chose those that made ME laugh. I await the groans from the hard to please folks.

To Help The People Of Myanmar

Those of you, Episcopalians or otherwise, who may want to help the people of Myanmar, I direct you to the Episcopal Development and Relief Fund. Other denominations and organizations are also providing relief aid.

The death toll has now reached 22,000. That is simply an unimaginable number. The grief, misery, and devastation are catastrophic.

O gracious God, we will never understand the sorrows of the world, but by your grace we will not turn away from them. Renew and sustain in us the spirit of love that crosses miles. Cheer and encourage those who labor to help the injured, the homeless, the hungry and those in despair. Bless and soften the hearts of those who would take advantage of tragedy for their own profit, that they may come to know where true joy is to be found. Unite us in prayer with all those who look for help, and use us to come speedily to them with the things that they need. We ask these things in your own most holy Name. Amen.

Barbara Crafton, Episcopal priest

Prayer from Beliefnet.

UPDATE: CNN is now reporting 100,000 dead.

Happy Birthday To Jane R.!

Happy Birthday to Jane R. at Acts of Hope!

Love and joy and peace to you, dear Jane, on this your blessed day of birth.

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26

"Shinto And The Life Of A Dog Man"

From the Washington Post:

Each spring in the snow country of Japan there’s an ancient custom of hiking to the top of a mountain as soon as the trails are passable. It’s called O-Yama-biraki or Open Mountain Day. What began as a ritual of the pre-Buddhist days of Japan, when the animistic folk religion of Shinto was practiced, endures. You hike to the summit to greet the spirit of the mountain as it wakes from the long winter. From the Shinto perspective, the natural world is sacred. Mountains are sacred. Trees are sacred. Kami or nature spirits dwell there.
....

For sixty years, since Morie [Sawataishi] rescued the Akita breed from extinction during World War II – when they were being eaten, and their luxurious pelts used by the Japanese military to line winter coats -- his dogs have led him into the wild. Together, they have traveled to a deeper place, a world of instinct and survival. They have encountered growling beasts and dead carcasses, poisonous mushrooms, flying pheasants and lost hikers.
....

Like most Japanese, Morie finds it hard to say exactly what is Shinto, what is Japanese, and what is simply “life.” The belief system is so old, and its basic values and patterns of behavior so ingrained in Japanese culture, Shinto doesn’t often appear to be a formalized set of beliefs as much as a way of living, a way of seeing, a way of thinking about the world and nature and our place in it.

Simplicity and restraint are Shinto. Natural beauty is Shinto – and the reverence not just for nature, but for things kept natural. Unpainted and unvarnished wood is Shinto. The passing of the seasons, the melting snow on the ground, the whisper of the wind in the trees. A dignified old tree can be declared a kami, or natural spirit, and blessed by a priest and then festooned, and protected, by an elegant twisted rice straw rope. A wild forest is Shinto. And the path of a dog, too.

In her new book, "Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain", Martha Sherrill tells the story of Morie Sawataishi, a 92 year old Shinto, and his Akitas.

Photo from the Midwest Akita Rescue Society.

Dueling Signs

Who's the idiot?

Nuns Turned Away By "Fellow Bride"

From the Associated Press:

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow bride of Christ because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow sisters at Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

Uppity old girls, aren't they? I guess the "fellow bride" couldn't cut 'em any slack. Rules are rules.

Brazilian Bishops' Letter

From Father Francisco Silva at KANTINHO DO REV in Brazil:

"Segunda-feira, Abril 28, 2008
Brazilian Bishops responds to the St Andrews's Draft of the Covenant

During its last meeting in Curitiba, the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil generated an official response to the Anglican Covenant - St. Andrew's Draft. Such draft was sent to all Anglican Communion provinces, so they would examine it and send suggestions to it.

After a consultation process leaded by the Primatial Advisor group, a letter was presented before the Bishop's House and discussed and unanimously agreed.

Bellow you can read the full text. The original letter also could be found at www.ieab.org.br in the documents section.":

LIFE IN COMMUNION AND THE COMMUNION OF LIFE

At our meeting of the House of Bishops , we, the bishops of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil, , wish to say that we are following with great interest the work of the Commission, which is proposing to the Anglican Communion a Covenant whose objective would be to help overcome the current tensions within the church.

We appreciate the effort and sincere concern of this group and we recognize how their work has brought about important reflections on our nature as communion.

However, although acknowledging that commendable effort, we believe that our Communion does not need new instruments of consensus beyond those that historically have been our benchmarks in terms of identity.

We have diligently studied the second draft of the Covenant, known as the St Andrew’s Draft, and despite some new insights shown from the first reactions to the proposal coming from various parts of the Communion, according to our view, the proposition is still problematic.

Sections 05 and 06 in the new proposal focus on elements that we believe are unnecessary and inapplicable to our Communion. In the manner in which they are presented, they constitute a serious setback in the understanding of what is Communion, prioritising the juridical dimension more and less so the ecclesiological and affective dimensions that have been the historical mark of our mutual interdependence.

The Covenant continues to be a mistaken proposal for the resolution of conflicts through the creation of curial instances absolutely alien to our ethos.

We are fully convinced that the time in which we live is marked by symptoms that value highly the building up of networks and other manifestations of communion in a spontaneous way in the various aspects of human life. Insisting on a formal and juridical Covenant, with the logic of discipline and exercise of power, means to move in the opposite direction, thus returning to the days of Modernity, with its Confessions, Covenants, Diets and other rational instruments of theological consensus.

The nature of the Anglican Communion already has sufficient elements that both characterize and nurture it. This is the richness of our cultural and hermeneutical diversity that always creates the challenge of positive tension for us, which experienced in the exercise of dispersed and shared authority. We can not, however, allow it to be replaced by a legal, circumstantial instrument of political control.

Communion is never created and developed by the letter. The true communion is nurtured by the Spirit. The true communion is life. The paschal mystery that we live in this liturgical season is an unmistakable demonstration of what we need to re-affirm. Faith in the Risen Christ does not presuppose text, but rather an open heart and a humble faith. It was the event of the Resurrection and the affective perception of it that generated a Community, a Communion.

Thus, inspired by this liturgical season and aware of the richness of our Communion, we manifest the conviction that the Covenant is not an essential element to maintain or strengthen our Communion; on the contrary, it risks defacing it. Our history and the instruments we have are already sufficient to build unity from the richness of our diversity, in a continuous process of listening and mutual respect.

Curitiba, 04 April 2008.

The Most Revd. Maurício Andrade, Primate and Brasília

The Rt. Revd Almir dos Santos, Oeste

The Rt. Revd. Pereira Neves, Santa Maria-RS

The Rt.Revd. Orlando Santos de Oliveira, Porto Alegre, RS

The Rt. Revd. Celso Franco, Rio de Janeiro, RJ

The Rt. Revd. Naudal Alves Gomes, Curitiba, PR

The Rt. Revd. Sebastião Armando Gameleira Soares, Recife, PE

The Rt. Revd. Filadelfo de Oliveira Neto, Recife, PE

The Rt. Revd. Saulo Maurício de Barros, Belém, PA

The Rt. Revd. Renato da Cruz Raatz, Pelotas, RS

The Rt. Revd. Roger Bird-São Paulo, SP

The Rt. Revd. Clovis Erly Rodrigues, House of Bishop

The Rt. Revd. Luiz Osório Pires Prado, House of Bishop

The Rt. Revd. Glauco Soares de Lima, House of Bishop

Amen, and amen, and amen!

The emphases in bold type are my choices of words that especially resonated with me in a positive way from what I consider an excellent response to the covenant draft for the Anglican Communion.

Thanks to Paul at Byzigenous Buddhapalian for the logo and permission to use it.