Kansas City Here I Come - Pt. 1

Today I completed my final two APPOINTMENTS in my APPOINTMENT-filled week before we head up to Kansas City. Did I mention that my granddaughter would be accompanying us? Well, she won't. She changed her mind. She does not want to be away from both her parents for a whole week. Her brother had already dropped out much earlier. When they originally said they would go, I bought non-refundable tickets for the flight. I think GD would have a good time, but I won't press her, because if she is unhappy for the week, we will all be unhappy for the week. We had resigned ourselves to wasting one airline ticket, but Grandpère was livid about wasting two. Since, in his superior wisdom, he told me from the beginning that it was not a good idea for us to take the children along, and because I did not listen to him, I bore the brunt of his lividness. We were in the car on the way to the lawyer's office when my GD called, so I could not walk away from him. Besides, IT WAS ALL MY FAULT!

I said I was sorry and took full responsibility for the debacle to no immediate good effect. Then, I preached a mini-sermon about how in the large scheme of things, this was not really a huge tragedy, and that we were both old and might not have too many years left and asked, "Should we really spend them in blame and recriminations?" I offered the hope that all would not be lost, for the airline might make an adjustment for us, and he finally calmed down.

The lawyer spoke in plain English, and not legalese, so my eyes did not glaze over once. We settled the business of updating our wills easily and smoothly and went on our way. When I reached home, I called the airline with my sad story, (I'm sure they've heard them all) and the service rep, who was exceedingly polite and helpful, told me that we would be charged a flight cancellation fee of $50 per ticket, amounting to $100 and that we could get vouchers to fly on the airline for the rest of the cost of the tickets. I'm going to name the airline - ExpressJet - because the young woman handled the matter so well. The first hitch is that ExpressJet does not fly to many cities from New Orleans. The second hitch is that on September 1, 2008, they will stop flying out of New Orleans altogether, so our vouchers must be used before then.

ExpressJet flies to San Antonio, where GP have talked about visiting. GP said maybe, although the trip will be quite soon after the trip to Kansas City, and we would not choose August as the best month to go. Anyone can use the vouchers, so if he doesn't go, I can invite someone else.

My ears are tended to, my hair is cut, and my teeth are clean and need no work, so we are good to go.

Kansas City claims to be the birthplace of jazz.

From Michael, A Young Priest At Canterbury

From our friend Elizabeth Kaeton, who is presently in Canterbury as national President of The Episcopal Women's Caucus, at her blog, Telling Secrets:

The Rev'd Michael Sniffen is in Canterbury, working as a Lambeth Steward. He sent this letter this morning and has graciously allowed me to reprint it here.

Because I liked Michael's letter so much, I asked his permission to publish it here on my blog, and he kindly allowed me to do so.

Greetings from Canterbury!

I am not blogging or sending lengthy e-mails throughout the conference, but I want to keep in touch with those of you on the list while I am here and share a few experiences. Consider this an introduction the Lambeth from behind the curtain. I will say this later on - but, the press have it pretty wrong so far!

The last 8 days have been amazing. We stewards have all enjoyed getting to know one another as we have arrived from around the communion (over 28 countries I believe). We are a diverse group to be sure. Off the top of my head, we are from the US, France, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, The Solomon Islands, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina...and the list goes on. Even within the Episcopal church the stewards are from diverse places. Me (from Newark), one from Virginia, one from North Carolina, one from New Jersey and one from Fort Worth.

We have spent the last week going through a thousand and one briefings with various members of the design team and the ABC's staff (Rowan Cantaur has been SO welcoming and kind to us - more on that later). We have also been at prayer twice a day with the chaplaincy team which is a group of monks and nuns from around the communion (with a large number from the Solomon islands). The spirit of the worship has been deeply moving and the music is out of this world. We have worked together on the intercessory prayers that will be used throughout the conference, which has been a real challenge and a joy to do as well.

Perhaps the most fun briefing was the one regarding our garden party with the Queen, which happens next week. We were told that some of us would have an opportunity to shake hands with the Queen and to chat briefly, but that we are not to reach out for her - she will reach out for us and invite us to speak. We have also been told to call her "Your Majesty" the first time and "M'am" after that (Ma'm as in Ham is what we were told). We were also walked through the appropriate protocol for the lunch at Lambeth Palace.

I must say that the mood here is not what I expected at all. There is a deep sense of contemplation and reflection and very little focus on the politics of schism. There is also a whole lot of joy - and it is not superficial. The program has been designed so well and my hope for some good to come from this conference continues to increase - even more now that the bishops have arrived.

Rather than large plenaries and opportunity for resolutions to be made - the bishops are in bible study groups of six in the morning after Morning Prayer, breakfast and Eucharist. Then they move to their Indaba groups of about 40 to have a guided discussion of a topic - "The Bishop and Evangelism" for example. Then they eat together - then have "self select sessions" in the afternoon followed by dinner and time to visit the marketplace and fringe events ending with Night Prayers. That is the basic shape of each day. There are only three plenary sessions the whole time (all keynote speeches by ecumenical guests).

The bible study is very well written and follows the gospel of John for the whole conference. I will be bringing copies home (Along with Lambeth Praise, the hymnal put together for the conference - and the worship resources)!

The last two days have been pretty crazy - but a lot of fun. All the bishops have arrived with their spouses and we have had the responsibility of making sure all the luggage was tagged appropriately and brought to the right rooms on campus by the Canterbury Volunteers (of which there are 350). I always thought that bishops had a lot of baggage before I arrived, but I had no idea! They have come with hat boxes and all! I did get to check in the PB's luggage as well as +Mark's and +Orris's. (Yes, I did ensure that the bishops I knew got through a little more quickly than others - I will confess that favoritism later!) Bishop Katherine is in great form, had an excellent time in Salisbury with the Sudanese bishops and looked great!

OK. Saved the best for last. I was asked two days ago to assist with the opening Eucharist as one of the only priests on the stewarding team. I of course said YES! - and assumed I would be off the the side somewhere shuffling things. As it turned out, I was distributing communion with the dean of Canterbury Cathedral and Ian Douglas from EDS. I had a seat in the front row at the top of the steps beside the altar looking out at 650 bishops and their spouses for the whole Eucharist. It was unreal. Then at the end after chatting with the dean, he asked if I would like to say mass at the Cathedral once a week during the rest of my stay...I almost fell over!!! I managed a "yes, I would be extremely honored." So, I will be saying mass sometime in the next few days. Of course all of you will be in my prayers!

Please pray for me as I continue my ministry of support for the bishops and spouses during their conference. Don't buy what the press has been saying about schism looming over the conference strongly. Schism seems very far from the conference as someone who is directly involved with it. Of course, the Lambeth Conference is not going to solve the current issues in the communion, but I do think it will help the center to hold through building relationships and deepening the sense of connection bishop to bishop - through bible studies that cut across the provinces provinces. I have met (albeit momentarily) almost every bishop at the conference and it seems to me that there is an enormous amount of grace around in Canterbury. More than I ever imagined possible.

I hope you all are well. I look forward to seeing you when I get back. Yes, I am sure I will still be floating!

Peace and Love,
Michael+

P.S. We had a wonderful tour of the Cathedral the other night after it had closed to the public and really had time to soak in the place. What a space! The stewards will be on retreat for 3 days after the conference with the Archbishop of Canterbury. He has even invited us to his palace beside the cathedral! It really is all too much!! I continue to just soak it in and be thankful - between all the thoughts of "why me?!" Thoughts and prayers.

What a wonderful opportunity for all the young people working as stewards at the Lambeth conference. As someone said, they are the future of the Anglican Communion. May God bless them in their time there.

Governor Bobby Jindal's Style

From the August issue of Details, which is a magazine about men's style, comes an article on our governor.

The 37-year-old governor of Louisiana is out to reinvent the Republican Party in his own slick, telegenic image. And if that means purging the GOP of its Dubya-era demons, no matter—he likes a good exorcism, too.

The first thing you notice about Bobby Jindal—everyone says this—is how damn young he looks. Stick him next to John McCain, however, and his appearance skews toward the pubescent. It's a sun-blasted, sweat-stained late-April day in New Orleans, and Jindal—102 days into his term as the governor of Louisiana, and just 36 years into a life that's looking increasingly politically charmed—is walking beside McCain down Caffin Avenue in the city's blighted Lower Ninth Ward.

The neighborhood's few remaining residents—easily outnumbered by the hordes of National Guardsmen and political aides and the reporters sequestered in the flatbeds of two National Guard trucks—are out on their porches, with arms folded, observing this odd promenade. McCain's giant, gleaming bus ("the Straight," as his aides call it) looks like an alien spacecraft idling beside the scruffy Caffin Avenue median.

How 'bout that bus name, "the Straight"? Just so we all know, it's completely hetero? See. I made a poem.

What an anomaly he is for a Louisiana politician. He doesn't care much about food, he likes FM rock or whatever is playing, he doesn't drink alcohol. Why he doesn't even drink coffee! I ask you. Does he represent me? Whom does he represent? Perhaps a few of the straighter-laced folks from the Nawth - nawth Louisiana, that is.

Is his a "telegenic image"? I'll just say that I've seen better looking men, especially Indian men. Some of them are the-stuff-dreams-are-made-of handsome. Just sayin'.

The whole article is worth reading. Rush right out to your newsstand and buy a copy, or read it at the link.

Thanks to Jim at JindalWatch for the alert.

Feast Day Of William White

William White was consecrated bishop, along with Samuel Provoost, in England, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Bishop of Peterborough, as the second and third US bishops after the first American bishop, Samuel Seabury.

White was largely responsible for the Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. At his suggestion, the system of church government was established more or less as we have it today.

The words below, William White's own, are as timely today as when he wrote them. I'd like to see them printed and passed around at Lambeth for all the bishops in the Anglican Communion to read.

The power of electing a superior order of ministers ought to be in the clergy and laity together, they being both interested in the choice. In England, the bishops are appointed by the civil authority, which was a usurpation of the crown at the Norman conquest, but since confirmed by acts of parliament. The primitive churches were generally supplied by popular elections; even in the city of Rome, the privilege of electing the bishop continued with the people to the tenth or eleventh century, and near those times there are resolves of councils, that none should be promoted to ecclesiastical dignities, but by election of the clergy and people. It cannot be denied that this right vested in numerous bodies, occasioned great disorders; which it is expected will be avoided, when the people shall exercise the right by representation.

Let us next take a view of the grounds on which the authority of episcopacy is asserted.

The advocates for this form maintain, that there having been an episcopal power originally lodged by Jesus Christ with his apostles, and by them generally exercised in person, but sometimes by delegation (as in the instances of Timothy and Titus) the same was conveyed by them before their decease to one pastor in each church, which generally comprehended all the Christians in a city and a convenient surrounding district. Thus were created the apostolic successors, who on account of their settled residence are called bishops by restraint; whereas the apostles themselves were bishops at large, exercising episcopal power over all the churches, except in the case of St James, who from the beginning was bishop of Jerusalem. From this time the word "episcopos," used in the New Testament indiscriminately with the word "presbyteros" (particularly in the 20th chapter of the Acts where the same persons are called "episcopoi" and "presbyteroi"), became appropriated to the superior order of ministers. That the apostles were thus succeeded by an order of ministers superior to pastors in general, episcopalians think they prove by the testimonies of the ancient fathers, and from the improbability that so great an innovation (as some conceive it) could have found general and peaceable possession in the 2d or 3d century, when epicopacy is on both sides acknowledged to have been prevalent. The argument is here concisely stated, but (as is believed) impartially.

Readings:

Psalm 92:1-4,11-14 or 84:7-12
Jeremiah 1:4-10
John 21:15-17

PRAYER

O Lord, who in a time of turmoil and confusion raised up your servant William White, and endowed him with wisdom, patience, and a reconciling temper, that he might lead your Church into ways of stability and peace: Hear our prayer, and give us wise and faithful leaders, that through their ministry your people may be blessed and your will be done; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Quotes from James Kiefer at the Lectionary.

Image from Wiki.

Girlie Wisdom!

Women over 50 don't have babies because they would put them down and forget where they left them.

A friend of mine confused her Valium with her birth control pills... she has 14 kids but doesn't really care.

One of life's mysteries is how a 2-pound box of chocolates can make a woman gain 5 lbs.

My mind not only wanders, it sometimes leaves completely.

The best way to forget your troubles is to wear tight shoes.

The nice part about living in a small town is that when you don't know what you are doing, someone else does.

The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight because by then, your body and your fat are really good friends.

Just when I was getting used to yesterday, along came today.

Sometimes I think I understand everything, and then I regain consciousness.

I gave up jogging for my health when my thighs kept rubbing together and setting fire to my knicker's.

Amazing! You hang something in your closet for a while and it shrinks 2 sizes!

Skinny people irritate me! Especially when they say things like...'You know sometimes I forget to eat!' ......Now I've forgotten my address, my mother's maiden name and my keys, but I have never forgotten to eat. You have to be a special kind of stupid to forget to eat!

The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing and then they marry him.

I read this article that said the typical symptoms of stress are eating too much, impulse buying, and driving too fast. Are they kidding? That's my idea of a perfect day!

From the darling daughter.

Cajun Hurricane Survival Kit

Toilet Paper..................................check

Bud Light...........................................check

Keystone Ice........................................check

Budweiser.........................................check

Red Dog.............................................check

Misc. other bottles of alcohol......................check

Piece of plywood to float your old lady and booze on ...... check


God love dem Cajuns!

Please! Don't tell me this is not PC. I am a Cajun, so it's OK for me to post jokes like this. I can also post demeaning jokes about the French, the English, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the Germans, because I am all of those, too.

Obama's Faith

From Jon Meacham in Newsweek:

The tradition of which Obama is a part is best exemplified by another of his heroes: Lincoln. "Probably it is my lot to go on in a twilight, feeling and reasoning my way through life, as questioning, doubting Thomas did," Lincoln, who belonged to no church, said. "But in my poor, maimed way, I bear with me as I go on seeking a spirit of desire for a faith that was with him of olden time, who, in his need, as I in mine, exclaimed, 'Help thou my unbelief'." He added: "I doubt the possibility, or propriety, of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made creeds and dogmas … I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and catechisms."
....

Asked about what he has learned from Lincoln's spiritual journey, Obama tells NEWSWEEK: "My religious influences extend to the Founding Fathers, and I would include Lincoln in that category. Because these were men driven by reason and were full of skepticism and doubt. So much so that some of them considered themselves deists as opposed to strict Christians as we'd call them. But look at somebody like Lincoln: [he] starts off, as far as we can tell, a deeply skeptical but powerfully moral person who, as he finds himself in the midst of history and potential cataclysm, feels it necessary to hang on to a more explicit belief in providence and faith. And so that resonates with me. I think that there's a place where, the more seriously you take the world and the more you find yourself struggling with good and evil and war and the great moral questions of the day, the more you have to fall back on some sort of north star. Or you get lost. The kinds of issues that might get confronted are so difficult that the weight you carry was so great, that the possibilities of paralysis are—Lincoln himself acknowledged are—sometimes too present. What gets him out of bed, that's powerful stuff."

Powerful stuff is right. Obama's models in the spiritual journey are Lincoln and the Founding Fathers. Not bad at all. But can the majority of citizens in the US, which is fast hurtling toward becoming a theocracy, stand this sort of honesty and ambiguity?

After reading the articles in Newsweek on Obama's faith, my estimation of the magazine has risen a few notches.

Here's the link to the longer article on Obama and faith. He sounds thoughtful and intelligent. What a breath of fresh air compared to the man who presently "serves" in the office of the president. I'm shedding tears that we've had someone like Bush as president for seven and one half years. I pray for relief and someone of a completely different type, next time around. Lord, have mercy upon us.

The Word From Friends At Lambeth

Our young friend Allie, who is "doing the Lambeth walk" as a steward, gives us the scoop on the colour coded lanyards at Lambeth - who wears which colour. As you will see, Allie has already been infected by the English spelling, and - Alas! - I seem to have caught the virus, too. Poor baby is having technical difficulties. Let's hope she gets that fixed soon.

Our other friend, the ever young-at-heart, Elizabeth Kaeton, has a great story from Lambeth 10 years ago when she was a famous first.

The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai

With thanks to Ann.

La Vie En Rose

For those of you who have seen "WALL-E" and anyone else who wants to listen.