St. Luke's Lutheran Church

Stained glass window at St. Luke's

Doorman-Priest serves at St. Luke's as a Candidate Pastor and Lay Minister. On my first Sunday in England, I attended DP's church. It was my first time to attend a Lutheran service. That's hard even for me to believe, but it's true. That Sunday was a Communion Sunday, and the service seemed somewhat like a cross between an Anglican service and a Roman Catholic service, but similar to both. I felt quite at home. The congregation is diverse. You can see by the schedule of services just how diverse. Along with members from European countries, there were those from African countries and perhaps the Caribbean.

In Estonian Contact: *****
In German Second sunday at 4:00pm
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In Latvian Contact: *****
In Polish First sunday at 9:30am
Contact: *****
For Lutheran Students Contact: *****

The church is quite near my hotel, but I managed to get lost, as seems to happen much too often, and I took the long way there.



Our man Doorman-Priest in his alb

DP preached that Sunday, and a lovely sermon it was. You can find it at his blog, The World of Doorman-Priest. I thought it was so good that I wanted to applaud, but I didn't, being a visitor and all. I expect that he'll make a wonderful priest.

That Sunday was Mothering Sunday, and members of the congregation were invited to go forward and take a flower, name their mothers, speak a descriptive phrase about them, and place the flower in the vases near the altar.

After taking Communion, the communicants remain standing in place as the priest (well, a bishop that day) prays a blessing before they return to their places. It's a lovely moment in the liturgy.



Window near the entrance at St. Luke's

The church is next door to the bishop's house, and was once the stables to the house, but a lovely job of renovation made it into a small, but quite pleasant church building.

Forgive me, but I'm rather proud of my pictures posted here.

After church, DP drove me to his house, where I met the whole family, Mrs DP and their two lovely daughters, and we dined on Mrs DP's delicious lunch. After lunch we chatted and later watched "Lavender Ladies" with the marvelous actors, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. I'd seen the movie before, and they had, too, but we all love it, and it was a joy to watch it again.

Sunday was the worst day of my English cold, and I was sneezing and sniffling all afternoon. Mrs DP gave me my very own large box of tissues with a healing component embedded in them to use there and take back to the hotel with me. I needed them badly.

The dears knew I needed a quiet day. God bless them.

Haley's Hotel - Leeds, UK

My arrangement titled "Still Life With Flowers Card And Apple". Is it art?



As I walked into my home away from home, I was greeted with flowers and a card which had been left by Mrs Doorman-Priest. Unfortunately, I missed meeting her then, because I was out buying my cell phone, or mobile phone, as they say "over there". The card read:

"Welcome to Leeds, June!

We are all looking forward to meeting you."

What a lovely gesture of welcome!

The two pictures below show my room at Haley's. DP must have spoken up for me to get this bright and spacious room. I had what amounted to a bed-sitting room, and I did not feel cramped into a small hotel room. Since I was there for an extended stay, it was good to walk into a room like this when I returned to the hotel dead tired in the evening. The curtains were closed when I took the picture, so you don't get the full effect of how bright and cheerful the room actually was.

The bathroom was lovely, too, equipped with one of those wonderful deep English bathtubs, which - alas! - I could not use. If I had got in and sat down, I would not have been able to get up due to my ruined knees.





Below is a picture of the gift bag from the staff of the hotel, which included Thornton chocolates and good strong Yorkshire tea. We're already into the second layer of the chocolates, and they are delicious, and I've been drinking the tea every morning with great enjoyment. I've never had anything more than a chocolate on the pillow at night from hotel staff. I was overwhelmed!

The staff was unfailingly kind and helpful, especially during the lost wallet episode. They could not have been nicer. Their card read:

"June,

We hope you have enjoyed your stay here at Haley's.

With love from

All the team

XXXX"

Can you believe this? It's hard for me to believe that it wasn't all a dream, but I have the evidence. I had to take the tea out of the box and put it into a plastic bag, because I couldn't fit the box into my suitcase.





I believe the folks "over there" love me more than the folks here at home. Of course, they only had to put up with me for a few days. Those here have to live with me, which is a whole other thing.

"No Them Only Us"

The artwork pictured above, a double-sided print by Mark Titchner, is from the exhibit described below at the Leeds Art Gallery.

Rank: Picturing The Social Order 1615-2009

This fascinating and unusual exhibition, which looks at how artists have pictured the shape of society from Renaissance times to the present, opens its UK tour at Leeds Art Gallery. A society without stratification is barely imaginable, but how do we picture our own system of hierarchies, of difference? British writers, political theorists and artists have used numerous images to picture ‘who we are’: describing us through ‘orders’, ‘estates’, ‘classes’, ‘stations’, ‘degrees’, or ‘ranks’. But only this latter term has kept the same meaning over six centuries. With over 100 exhibits, new work from leading contemporary artists and the presentation of new social research from academics and government agencies.

The words on the painting were suggested by Bill Clinton's acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic Convention.

And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other - all of us - we need each other. We don’t have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what’s really wrong with America is the rest of us - them.

Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays.

We’ve gotten to where we’ve nearly them'ed ourselves to death. Them, and them, and them.

But, this is America. There is no them. There is only us.

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Well, we're not there yet, are we?

I was intrigued by the sculpture/painting the moment I read the words. It is a large block with all sides painted, taller and wider than it is thick, like a domino. At first, I thought the words were quite satisfying - if only the world was like that - but, as I thought about them more, I realized that more than one meaning was applicable.

What does it say to you?

The poster below, titled "Pyramid of Capitalist System", was included in the exhibit, also. It is dated 1911, and was published by the Industrial Worker then out of Spokane, Washington, which describes itself as the "Foremost Exponent of Revolutionary Industrial Unionism".


To read the words, click on the picture to enlarge. See what the caption for the church says. Sadly, it's too often true. The whole pyramid looks just about right for today.

A blogger in the UK, Good As Dead doesn't like the exhibit at all.

There is a faint smell of some thing gone off wafting through the cherished halls of the Leeds City Art Gallery. It is the careers of the curators of the latest installment in the continuously disappointing gallery programme. Not that this Blog wishes to make any enemies within the Leeds arts intellgensia (who us?!), but the current show Rank: Picturing The Social Order 1615-2009 is so SHOCKINGLY BAD that the curators should soon be meeting their P45s in a dark Leeds alley.

Whew! The writer should tell us what he/she really thinks.

Another blogger from San Francisco, r+d, panned the show, too, but with less vitriol, saying that it was not an art show, but an educational exhibit, and that there was good art in the mix, but the art was overwhelmed by charts and graphs and educational tools.

A blow-up of the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes book, Leviathan, was part of the exhibit.

My thought? Ah, what do I know? However, I engaged with the show on quite a high level. It's possible that the educational material overwhelmed the art, but, on the whole, I felt both pleasure and excitement as I walked through the exhibit the first time and again with Erika and Susan on the day of our gathering for lunch at the Tiled Hall Café in the Leeds Art Gallery.

As to "Rank", the subject of the exhibit, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose".

Bad Notre Dame!

From the Times-Picayune:

New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes on Thursday joined a growing chorus of Catholic bishops deploring the University of Notre Dame's decision to award President Barack Obama an honorary degree at graduation exercises next month.
....

"He feels as though this is not just an issue for Notre Dame. This is an issue on which Catholics everywhere are expressing disappointment. It clearly goes against Catholic policy against honoring pro-choice politicians. He's just making the point that Catholics should be standing up for life everywhere," Comiskey said.

Archbishop Hughes, you who learned how to be a bishop under the infamous Cardinal Bernard Law in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boston, who is now hiding in his basilica in Rome to escape possible prosecution for covering up child abuse by priests under his authority, you who had to travel to Boston to testify concerning the abuse that took place while you were a bishop there, what moral authority do you posses to chide the leadership at Notre Dame for conferring an honorary degree on President Obama?

Your spokesman said that you stand up for life everywhere. What about the Roman Catholic Church's policy to forbid the use of condoms by members of the flock to protect themselves and others from serious STDs like HIV? How is that standing up for life? It's no less than a policy to insure sickness and death. In Africa, where AIDS is rampant, where your church denies married couples in which one party is HIV positive, the right to use condoms to protect the other party, how do you twist this counsel to represent standing up for life, when, as a result, many will sicken and die because of it?

I'm sorry, Archbishop Hughes, but the moral ground crumbles beneath you. Why in heaven's name would anyone look to you and your brother bishops in the RCC for moral guidance? Spare me the hypocrisy of your criticism of the leadership at Notre Dame University. Physician, heal thyself.

On campus, however, where the invitation increasingly dominates other issues, more than 600 letters to the independent student newspaper, "The Observer," are about evenly split for and against the invitation, editor Jenn Metz said.

She noted a sharp difference in sentiment between alumni, 70 percent of whom oppose the invitation, and students, 73 percent of whom favor it.

It seems that Notre Dame students are getting smarter.

UPDATE: At OCICBW, MadPriest published an exchange between Paul Pease, AKA TheraP, and Fr. Michael F. Patella, O.S.B., S.S.D., an associate professor of New Testament at the School of Theology Seminary and the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, who writes the “Seers’ Corner” for The Bible Today, published by Liturgical Press.

Paul writes:

Now to the query: If someone is convinced that using a condom will prevent the infection of his partner, that is his intention and the fact that his partner (wife, we suppose) will not get pregnant is a secondary effect.

It seems to me that the Principle of a Double Effect, which we covered thoroughly in Moral Theology, would allow condom use when the first (intended) effect is prophylaxis, while the second and unintended effect is non-conception.

If this reasoning still represents the teaching of the Magisterium, please let me know; if not, please tell me what has replaced the thinking behind legitimately removing an ectopic fetus from a place where it will endanger the life of the mother.

Fr. Patella answered:

Dear Mr. Pease,

The principle of double-effect is still very much part of Catholic moral theology and is still held by the Magisterium, and the cases you give here are perfect examples of it. I hope this information is helpful.

(Emphasis mine)

My question: Why haven't the pope and the majority of RC cardinals and bishops thought the question through in a rational manner and come up with the same logical and compassionate answer as Paul and Fr. Patella?

Which Reminds Me...

Saintly Ramblings' comment to the post below, which, by the way, goes on my top ten list of cleverest and funniest comments, reminded me of a story that Grandpère told me. He was at my son's house and saw on the counter an offer for a Victoria's Secret credit card. He looked at it and said, "What's this?" My 13-year-old granddaughter told him, and as he continued to gaze at the scantily-clad model pictured on the offer, she said, "Grandpère, you're old enough to be her grandfather!"

Quick deflation.

Aaaahhh...

That's a sigh of relief. My grandson is off to school. Grandpère drove him and will wait in line to drop him off, thanks be to God.

My granddaughter, his sister, is in Baton Rouge competing in the state Geography Bee. I wanted very much to be there, but I would have had to get up at around 4:00 AM to get to Baton Rouge on time, and there are times that I must admit to myself and to everyone else that there are things that I just can't do. I'm there with her in spirit, and I pray that she will do well.

My grandson slept at our house because his dad and sister had to leave so early. I would not want to have to get young children off to school every day. My technique is mostly nagging. "Get dressed. Eat your breakfast. Brush your teeth. Brush your hair." All of them repeated more than once.

Mission accomplished.

Delius' "A Mass Of Life" Starring Doorman-Priest

Back in Leeds from the Yorkshire Moors and on to the performance of Frederick Delius' "A Mass of Life" performed by the Leeds Philharmonic and Leeds Festival Choruses, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and four soloists at Leeds Town Hall. The picture above shows the group and the hall in all their splendor. The ladies wore red and the men black tie. DP was the best-looking gray-haired man in the chorus, quite elegant in his formal suit. He's in the second row of the chorus near the center, a little to the left. What? You can't make him out? Well, that's too bad, because he looked quite handsome.

I'd never heard this work before, but it is splendid, and all performed beautifully. If you won't take my word for it, you can read a review by a real music critic in the Wharfedale & Airdale Observer.

The hall itself is a sight to behold, and the singers and orchestra in their contrasting red and black - well you can see for yourself in the picture that it was a colorful feast for the eyes.

Now comes confession time. I was about five minutes late for the concert, and the group started RIGHT ON TIME! In New Orleans and even at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, performances almost never start promptly, but this one did, and because of my habitual tardiness, I had the misfortune of not being allowed in, and I had to listen to the first part of the piece on TV in a room on the side of the main hall. Of course, I would not have wanted to go in and make a disturbance, even if I had been allowed.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the performance after the intermission or interval, as they say "over there", was longer than the first part. In the hall, all was grand and glorious sound. Hearing the music on TV was not at all the same.

I hoped to sneak into my seat without DP ever knowing that I didn't get into the hall for the first part of the concert, but I ran right smack into him and was caught out in my delinquency. He was quite the gentleman about it. How could he not be looking so handsome in his formal clothes?

After the concert, we headed to DP's favorite pub to meet his friends. We had our drinks and chatted. I told the group that I had met DP on an online dating service. I hope his bishop doesn't read my blog, because he could start off on the wrong foot in his ministry before he even starts his ministry.

Calling the work a "Mass" is a broad use of the term, because the text is taken from Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, which is in no sense Christian. I asked DP if the pope knew about this. He said that some church authorities will not permit the work to be performed in a church building.

DP gave me the program for the concert as a souvenir. Inside is the entire text of the piece with German on one side of the page and English on the other. The English translation is hilarious. It was obviously done by someone with little command of the English language. I wanted to show it to our blog friend Erika while she was in Leeds. She does English-German and German-English translations and would have thought it a hoot. Unfortunately, I forgot.

Altogether a lovely evening, even if I didn't get to hear the first part of the "Mass" from the hall. See. I'm still playing Pollyanna's "Glad Game".

Animal Funnies From Doug

Remember Her?

Thanks to a reader.

Don't Blame Me, Blame Another Blogger

The coach had put together the perfect team for the Detroit Lions. The only thing that was missing was a good quarterback. He had scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues, but he couldn't find a ringer who could ensure a Super Bowl win.

Then one night while watching CNN he saw a war-zone scene in Afghanistan. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Afghan Muslim soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand-grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away.
KABOOM!

He threw another hand-grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney.
KA-BLOOEY!

Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph.
BULLS-EYE!

"I've got to get this guy!" Coach said to himself. "He has the perfect arm!"

So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football. And the Lions go on to win the Super Bowl. The young Afghan is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.

"Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl!"

"I don't want to talk to you, the old Muslim woman says. "You deserted us. You are not my son!"

"I don't think you understand, Mother," the young man pleads

"I've won the greatest sporting event in the world. I'm here among thousands of my adoring fans."

"No! Let me tell you!" his mother retorts. "At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!"

The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says, "I will never forgive you for making us move to Detroit!"