Welsh singer Mary Hopkins in 1968.
The video is blurry and mostly out of sync, but, if that bothers you, close your eyes and listen and enjoy.
The
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Those Were The Days
Welsh singer Mary Hopkins in 1968.
The video is blurry and mostly out of sync, but, if that bothers you, close your eyes and listen and enjoy.
The
Please Pray - From Fran
I feel a bit stupid doing this as I have been so absent on the blog front of late but I am going to be bold and request your prayers for my friend and for my sister in law.
My sister in law OS has shown evidence of malignant cervical cells. Due to her age, weight and other health conditions her doctor is recommending her to a special surgeon for a hysterectomy. She is very frightened. O is not a woman of particular faith, actually has been quite scarred by it. That said she is wanting to pray and be prayed for. It is in the nature of my husband's family to expect the worst in all things and then actually manipulate things unconsciously to bring the worst forth and "be done with it." Please pray for her health but also for her hope and faith, which is what she really needs.
Although she has not asked me to do this, I am asking for ongoing prayers for less-and-less of a lurker Chris. She has said a few words and I know she has corresponded with at least one of you. She also has reached out to Roseann by phone, she feels so quietly connected to this community. She has had her ongoing health challenges that I have asked for prayer about in the past and these are indeed ongoing. Please support her and hold her in prayer. Chris is often taking care of everyone else, I seek prayers to take care of her!
For those of you who do post prayer lists, if you can post this on your blogs, great. If not, no worries, just thank you from deeply in my heart for the prayers.
And I am fine - presentation at diocesan event went well... so thanks for your prayers on that. Also ongoing thanks for all the amazing help I received and paid the deductible for my car. I send my love, gratitude and prayers to and for all!! I am just too busy this week and actually already late to leave the house which I will not return to until 10pm tonight. That's cool though, all is well, thanks be to God!!! Your collective prayers for me are ever present, well received and appreciated more than words could ever say.
Love,
Fran
My sister in law OS has shown evidence of malignant cervical cells. Due to her age, weight and other health conditions her doctor is recommending her to a special surgeon for a hysterectomy. She is very frightened. O is not a woman of particular faith, actually has been quite scarred by it. That said she is wanting to pray and be prayed for. It is in the nature of my husband's family to expect the worst in all things and then actually manipulate things unconsciously to bring the worst forth and "be done with it." Please pray for her health but also for her hope and faith, which is what she really needs.
Although she has not asked me to do this, I am asking for ongoing prayers for less-and-less of a lurker Chris. She has said a few words and I know she has corresponded with at least one of you. She also has reached out to Roseann by phone, she feels so quietly connected to this community. She has had her ongoing health challenges that I have asked for prayer about in the past and these are indeed ongoing. Please support her and hold her in prayer. Chris is often taking care of everyone else, I seek prayers to take care of her!
For those of you who do post prayer lists, if you can post this on your blogs, great. If not, no worries, just thank you from deeply in my heart for the prayers.
And I am fine - presentation at diocesan event went well... so thanks for your prayers on that. Also ongoing thanks for all the amazing help I received and paid the deductible for my car. I send my love, gratitude and prayers to and for all!! I am just too busy this week and actually already late to leave the house which I will not return to until 10pm tonight. That's cool though, all is well, thanks be to God!!! Your collective prayers for me are ever present, well received and appreciated more than words could ever say.
Love,
Fran
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The ABC Sums Up the ACC Meeting
And I sum up the ABC's summing up by recycling my words in the comments at OCICBW, where I found the link to the Archbishop of Canterbury's summation of the meeting. Why not? They're my words..
From the Anglican Journal:
Archbishop Williams said that Anglican provinces are “a bit reluctant” to engage the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant in greater detail because it “does underline for us that the possibility of division is there, the possibility at least of certain kinds of division.” He said people have spoken of the future of the communion as a federation, “an association within which some groups are more strongly bound to one another and some groups less strongly bound.” He added, “I suspect that will be more inevitable if not all provinces do sign on to the covenant. And I hasten to add that’s not what I hope. It is what I think we have to reflect on as a real possibility.”
Arrgh! Clear as mud.
Archbishop Williams urged Anglicans to think about how the Instruments of Communion – the ACC, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, and the primates’ meeting – “can continue as organs of life-giving exchange” even if other alliances emerge.
And I say:
The ABC goes on to say:
The challenge is, “how can those who share that cost, that sense of profound anxiety about how to make the Gospel credible, how are they to come together for at least some measure of respect to emerge, so that they can recognize the cost that the other bears and also recognize the deep seriousness about Jesus and the Gospel that they share?”
To which I respond:
From the Anglican Journal:
Archbishop Williams said that Anglican provinces are “a bit reluctant” to engage the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant in greater detail because it “does underline for us that the possibility of division is there, the possibility at least of certain kinds of division.” He said people have spoken of the future of the communion as a federation, “an association within which some groups are more strongly bound to one another and some groups less strongly bound.” He added, “I suspect that will be more inevitable if not all provinces do sign on to the covenant. And I hasten to add that’s not what I hope. It is what I think we have to reflect on as a real possibility.”
Arrgh! Clear as mud.
Archbishop Williams urged Anglicans to think about how the Instruments of Communion – the ACC, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, and the primates’ meeting – “can continue as organs of life-giving exchange” even if other alliances emerge.
And I say:
"Tell me how those entities have been life-giving recently. I can't see it. And this man is our leader?
"And he will attend our General Convention. As Paul, the BB, suggested, let's put him in the Exhibit Hall, as he did with Bishop Gene Robinson at Lambeth. He can be Exhibit No. 1, but he will not be allowed into any of the meetings."
The ABC goes on to say:
The challenge is, “how can those who share that cost, that sense of profound anxiety about how to make the Gospel credible, how are they to come together for at least some measure of respect to emerge, so that they can recognize the cost that the other bears and also recognize the deep seriousness about Jesus and the Gospel that they share?”
To which I respond:
"I'm afraid that I can't share the ABC's anxiety about how to make the Gospel credible. The Gospel is credible if it is preached just as it is and lived out. It is not lived out by passing a thrown-together Covenant, which is not a covenant at all, but only an instrument to discipline and punish.
....
"I'm experiencing a wee bit of anger. Every time a group of Anglican Communioners get together, they waste money and burn fuel which fouls the good earth, only to spew forth a load of crap, which further fouls the earth. For what? The so-called covenant which is not a covenant?
"Someone needs to put the covenant out of its misery with un coup de grâce instead of leaving it to die a slow, painful death."
A True Blessing
Ostrich at Head in the Sand is troubled at this time by mental health problems. Pray for her that she heals and gets the proper help from the mental health care givers.
Also, she has a lovely poem of her very own posted, along with a gift of a blessing for those who have prayed for her, in the form of a video of John O'Donohue reciting his poem titled "Beannacht", which is wonderful and which I found to be a true blessing.
I posted a smaller version of the heading of her blog, because her larger version startles me every time I visit - just so you'll be prepared. She's quite benign and non-agressive, so don't be fearful.
Go, Dickie, Go!
From Richard Cohen in the Washington Post in 2006 on the war in Iraq:
We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic.
Let's see. I'm not doing too well today. Who can I beat up on so I'll feel better? I need me some therapeutic violent action on someone else, preferably someone weaker than I am - some bully violence.
Cohen has a regular gig at the Washington Post, the closest we have to a national newspaper besides USA Today.
In his column today, Cohen says:
Blogger Alert: I have written a column in defense of Dick Cheney. I know how upsetting this will be to some Cheney critics, and I count myself as one, who think -- in respectful paraphrase of what Mary McCarthy said about Lillian Hellman -- that everything he says is a lie, including the ands and the thes. Yet I have to wonder whether what he is saying now is the truth -- i.e., torture works.
Is Cohen talking to me? No, surely not. He's talking to the big-name bloggers. Is he losing his mind? That's seems a possibility to me.
Cohen goes on:
Cheney is a one-man credibility gap. In the past, he has said, "We know they [the Iraqis] have biological and chemical weapons," when it turned out we knew nothing of the sort. He insisted that "the evidence is overwhelming" that al-Qaeda had been in high-level contact with Saddam Hussein's regime when the "evidence" was virtually nonexistent. And he repeatedly asserted that Iraq had a menacing nuclear weapons program. As a used-car dealer, he would have no return customers.
Still, every dog has his day, and Cheney is barking up a storm on the efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture.
When Cheney barks Cohen listens. Cheney lies over and over, yet Cohen is still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Go, Dickie, go.
Is Cohen the best that the WP can do to fill the space on their opinion pages? I'll wager his pay is not chickenfeed, either. Is it any wonder that blog readership grows as newspaper readership diminishes?
H/T to Atrios.
We are a good country, attempting to do a good thing. In a post-Sept. 11 world, I thought the prudent use of violence could be therapeutic.
Let's see. I'm not doing too well today. Who can I beat up on so I'll feel better? I need me some therapeutic violent action on someone else, preferably someone weaker than I am - some bully violence.
Cohen has a regular gig at the Washington Post, the closest we have to a national newspaper besides USA Today.
In his column today, Cohen says:
Blogger Alert: I have written a column in defense of Dick Cheney. I know how upsetting this will be to some Cheney critics, and I count myself as one, who think -- in respectful paraphrase of what Mary McCarthy said about Lillian Hellman -- that everything he says is a lie, including the ands and the thes. Yet I have to wonder whether what he is saying now is the truth -- i.e., torture works.
Is Cohen talking to me? No, surely not. He's talking to the big-name bloggers. Is he losing his mind? That's seems a possibility to me.
Cohen goes on:
Cheney is a one-man credibility gap. In the past, he has said, "We know they [the Iraqis] have biological and chemical weapons," when it turned out we knew nothing of the sort. He insisted that "the evidence is overwhelming" that al-Qaeda had been in high-level contact with Saddam Hussein's regime when the "evidence" was virtually nonexistent. And he repeatedly asserted that Iraq had a menacing nuclear weapons program. As a used-car dealer, he would have no return customers.
Still, every dog has his day, and Cheney is barking up a storm on the efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture.
When Cheney barks Cohen listens. Cheney lies over and over, yet Cohen is still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Go, Dickie, go.
Is Cohen the best that the WP can do to fill the space on their opinion pages? I'll wager his pay is not chickenfeed, either. Is it any wonder that blog readership grows as newspaper readership diminishes?
H/T to Atrios.
Pluralist Speaks At The Episcopal Café
From Adrian Worsfold at the Episcopal Café:
If you go back to Tuesday June 27, 2006 and the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments , it was clear that the Anglican Communion Covenant was intended to divide the Anglican Communion into core and association elements, with privileges of participation given to the core in strengthened, centralised, Instruments of Communion making the Anglican Communion more like a worldwide Church.
So strongly was that envisaged, that the difference between being a core member and an associate was like the difference being an Anglican and a Methodist. It was solution by centralisation and organised hiving off, somehow better than a schism.
Whoa! Please read Adrian's entire essay at the Episcopal Café on the ACC meeting and the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant. Adrian is English, but he speaks our common language in a way that I understand perfectly.
There was something distinctly crafty about the RCDC. It would let in non-Canterbury Anglican Churches, and even dioceses of non-signing Canterbury-linked Churches, according to Dr Ephraim Radner. GAFCON theologian Stephen Noll thus urged a speedy signing on to the Covenant of his approved Churches including the Anglican Church of North America on the basis that the entry conditions were biblical and orthodox. While The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada dithered, his Churches could steal a march on them. Gregory Cameron spoke about a weight of Churches that might then mean a difference between core members and associates after all.
Thus the Covenant, more inclusive in its formal text, was a document of manipulation, allowing the kind of result it was intended for by the creative means of joining.
Ouch!
On taking up his job, the present Archbishop of Canterbury ditched his moderate narrative liberalism but retained his Catholicism, because the latter was seen as still legitimate. He used this as an institutional solution for the Anglican problem, but when an institution spins outwards the answer is to loosen up not tighten up. The whole of the Covenant process has been one of impossible expectations, and instead of accepting that there will be more Anglican difference and even competition, the attempt to divide and centralise has just increased the amount of recrimination as expectations of 'disciplining' could not be met. Anglicanism is not and cannot be the Archbishop's vision of a worldwide Church all based around bishops. His policy has been a complete and utter failure, of only half of what makes up Anglicanism, and whereas the previous Archbishop was arguably ineffective and blundering this one has been, I suggest, positively destructive as well as ineffectual in action. It may be that his options have never been very many, but the policy intention and direction was wrong from the beginning. Look at what was said in 2006 and look at the outcome now.
I've said myself that if the Archbishop of Canterbury intended from the beginning to divide the Anglican Communion, I hardly think he could have done a better job of it. In the end, few from either side are buying what he's selling.
And he will be present at General Convention 2009 of the Episcopal Church. Why will he be at our convention? I'd like to see him politely disinvited, if that's possible, or perhaps he could be there, but excluded from the business of the convention, as was Bishop Gene Robinson at Lambeth. He could hang around the fringes.
If you go back to Tuesday June 27, 2006 and the Archbishop of Canterbury's comments , it was clear that the Anglican Communion Covenant was intended to divide the Anglican Communion into core and association elements, with privileges of participation given to the core in strengthened, centralised, Instruments of Communion making the Anglican Communion more like a worldwide Church.
So strongly was that envisaged, that the difference between being a core member and an associate was like the difference being an Anglican and a Methodist. It was solution by centralisation and organised hiving off, somehow better than a schism.
Whoa! Please read Adrian's entire essay at the Episcopal Café on the ACC meeting and the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant. Adrian is English, but he speaks our common language in a way that I understand perfectly.
There was something distinctly crafty about the RCDC. It would let in non-Canterbury Anglican Churches, and even dioceses of non-signing Canterbury-linked Churches, according to Dr Ephraim Radner. GAFCON theologian Stephen Noll thus urged a speedy signing on to the Covenant of his approved Churches including the Anglican Church of North America on the basis that the entry conditions were biblical and orthodox. While The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada dithered, his Churches could steal a march on them. Gregory Cameron spoke about a weight of Churches that might then mean a difference between core members and associates after all.
Thus the Covenant, more inclusive in its formal text, was a document of manipulation, allowing the kind of result it was intended for by the creative means of joining.
Ouch!
On taking up his job, the present Archbishop of Canterbury ditched his moderate narrative liberalism but retained his Catholicism, because the latter was seen as still legitimate. He used this as an institutional solution for the Anglican problem, but when an institution spins outwards the answer is to loosen up not tighten up. The whole of the Covenant process has been one of impossible expectations, and instead of accepting that there will be more Anglican difference and even competition, the attempt to divide and centralise has just increased the amount of recrimination as expectations of 'disciplining' could not be met. Anglicanism is not and cannot be the Archbishop's vision of a worldwide Church all based around bishops. His policy has been a complete and utter failure, of only half of what makes up Anglicanism, and whereas the previous Archbishop was arguably ineffective and blundering this one has been, I suggest, positively destructive as well as ineffectual in action. It may be that his options have never been very many, but the policy intention and direction was wrong from the beginning. Look at what was said in 2006 and look at the outcome now.
I've said myself that if the Archbishop of Canterbury intended from the beginning to divide the Anglican Communion, I hardly think he could have done a better job of it. In the end, few from either side are buying what he's selling.
And he will be present at General Convention 2009 of the Episcopal Church. Why will he be at our convention? I'd like to see him politely disinvited, if that's possible, or perhaps he could be there, but excluded from the business of the convention, as was Bishop Gene Robinson at Lambeth. He could hang around the fringes.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Doug Strikes Again!
Summer In Florida
Irving and Murray were sitting on the park bench one May day. "You know, Murray, I'm going to Miami Beach for the summer this year," Irving said.
"For the summer?" asked Murray. "Where are you going to stay?"
"The Horowitz-Carlton. They have good air conditioning. And it serves only kosher food."
"Sounds good. But is the food glatt kosher?"
"Yes, glatt kosher. I wouldn't eat anywhere else."
So Irving went to Miami Beach. After a few weeks, Murray became bored going to the park by himself, so he decided to surprise his friend by going down unannounced. He walked into the hotel and asked the desk clerk where he might be able to find his friend Irving.
"Right now he's in room 402 at the Sans Souci Hotel across the street," the clerk replied.
Murray hopped into a cab and headed for the Sans Souci. "I'm here to visit the person in room 402," he told the clerk.
"Do you mean Miss Murphy?" asked the clerk. "She's busy now."
"Uh, no, she's expecting me," Murray said, thinking quickly. He rushed up to room 402 and knocked on the door. A sparsely dressed redhead woman with a nice set of knockers opened it. And there was Irving, sitting at the edge of the bed in his underwear, in a bathrobe.
Murray was furious. "I'm shocked and I don't know what to say! A religious man like you! And you insisted you were going to stay at a kosher hotel!"
Irving looked at him as if he was crazy. "Why are you getting so excited? I don't eat here!"
Irving and Murray were sitting on the park bench one May day. "You know, Murray, I'm going to Miami Beach for the summer this year," Irving said.
"For the summer?" asked Murray. "Where are you going to stay?"
"The Horowitz-Carlton. They have good air conditioning. And it serves only kosher food."
"Sounds good. But is the food glatt kosher?"
"Yes, glatt kosher. I wouldn't eat anywhere else."
So Irving went to Miami Beach. After a few weeks, Murray became bored going to the park by himself, so he decided to surprise his friend by going down unannounced. He walked into the hotel and asked the desk clerk where he might be able to find his friend Irving.
"Right now he's in room 402 at the Sans Souci Hotel across the street," the clerk replied.
Murray hopped into a cab and headed for the Sans Souci. "I'm here to visit the person in room 402," he told the clerk.
"Do you mean Miss Murphy?" asked the clerk. "She's busy now."
"Uh, no, she's expecting me," Murray said, thinking quickly. He rushed up to room 402 and knocked on the door. A sparsely dressed redhead woman with a nice set of knockers opened it. And there was Irving, sitting at the edge of the bed in his underwear, in a bathrobe.
Murray was furious. "I'm shocked and I don't know what to say! A religious man like you! And you insisted you were going to stay at a kosher hotel!"
Irving looked at him as if he was crazy. "Why are you getting so excited? I don't eat here!"
Cool Dog
He's like the Fonz. Only a dog. How cool is that?
Thanks to Doug. The caption called for a bit of editing. You know Doug. He can be naughty.
St. Paul Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
On Sunday, I attended the service at St. Paul Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in New Roads. The rector there is a good friend of my rector. I asked him to report back that I did not skip going to church, just because I was out of town. I preserved my reputation for tardiness, but I was not as tardy as some of the parishioners. I feel less guilty about being late, when others are later than I am. Why is that, I wonder?
Below are the stained glass windows on either side of the sanctuary.
ADDED LATER: In New Roads and the nearby town of Livonia, first there was Ma Mama's Kitchen Restaurant in New Roads, and then there was Not Your Mama's Café & Tavern in Livonia. Dueling reataurants? We chose to have our Mothers Day meal out on Saturday evening to avoid the crowds at Sunday lunch. This time we chose Not Your Mama's - for Mothers Day, no less. That don't seem right, do it?
We had an excellent meal with Grandpère, my daughter, my three grandsons, and, of course, me. At first, I was seated in full view of a bloody boxing match on the huge TV. I use "bloody" not as a swear word, but as a true description of what was happening on the screen - surely not what I wanted to watch while eating dinner.
GP saw that I was uncomfortable and offered to change places with me. We did, and GP and the boys enjoyed the bloody match, and I had my back to it and didn't have to see any of it.
Our food was delicious, rich and spicy, with huge portions. We took home several boxes of leftovers, which were more than enough for the adults to have a full meal the next day. The prices were not cheap, but I wonder why the owners, or the chef, or whoever wouldn't serve smaller portions and charge less.
A good time was had by all, once I moved out of view of the TV.
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