My Friend (?) The Barred Owl

Remember the owl that I've talked about seeing on my walk? Tonight the bird swooped down and was flying head-on toward me. When the bird was three or four feet away from my face, I screamed, and the owl turned and flew up onto a tree branch. On the way back, I saw the owl fly low to the ground a few yards in front of me, apparently after prey. You can believe that I moved past quickly. I searched on the internet to see if the birds attacked humans, and apparently they do, but not deliberately, according to Canada.com. They see something on humans that looks like prey, like a pony tail swinging. "Anything dangly could draw an attack if the owl mistakes it for a smaller bird or a rodent." I didn't have anything dangly, but that owl was coming for me. The solution: wear a cap, which I will certainly do until the season is over. September is the time when most attacks occur.

UPDATE: Image from Wiki

Myron's Day On 9/1 - From Sue

Hello Everyone,

Myron had another busy day yesterday with chest x-rays and a CAT scan of his chest. His pneumonia still has not resolved and he continues with a productive cough.

He had his eyes open and was able t blink when asked, and was moving his right hand and arm and was able to squeeze ones hand.

He was fitted with his back brace, and to do that he had to get out of bed and sat in a recliner. He didn't seem to be any more alert in the recliner than in bed, but doing physical exercises like that are exhausting, so I'm not too surprised. His pain medication has been changed and when he yawned a couple of times Mary and Stephanie noticed that his front 2 teeth (which are caps from a childhood accident) were missing and a tooth was broken, so there will be dentistry in his future also.

There is some new progress made each day, and that is perfect.

I'll be in touch later on,

Sue

Sue, I'm pleased that you were able to visit Myron. Sue is still not able to visit. That's why she said "squeeze ones hand". It was not her hand.

Speaking Of Superior Wisdom....

"Seven diocesans meeting with Rowan Williams"

The headline is from a story in The Lead. At his blog, Fr. Dan Martins states that seven bishops of the Episcopal Church are presently meeting with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. The bishops are all members of the Communion Partners, and all signed the Anaheim Statement, which was read at GC09 of the Episcopal Church after the vote on C056 (on blessing faithful, same-sex unions), and which says in part:

* We reaffirm our constituent membership in the Anglican Communion, our communion with the See of Canterbury and our commitment to preserving these relationships.

* We reaffirm our commitment to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this church has received them (BCP 526, 538)

* We reaffirm our commitment to the three moratoria requested of us by the instruments of Communion.

* We reaffirm our commitment to the Anglican Communion Covenant process currently underway, with the hope of working toward its implementation across the Communion once a Covenant is completed.

Archbishop Williams, in his reflection on GC09, states the following about his two-track system idea for those provinces who sign the Covenant and those who do not:

25. It is my strong hope that all the provinces will respond favourably to the invitation to Covenant. But in the current context, the question is becoming more sharply defined of whether, if a province declines such an invitation, any elements within it will be free (granted the explicit provision that the Covenant does not purport to alter the Constitution or internal polity of any province) to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with other parts of the Communion. It is important that there should be a clear answer to this question.

In my humble opinion, the ABC opened up a huge can of worms with the statement, not just for the Episcopal Church, but for other provinces in the Anglican Communion, including his own Church of England.

What promises, encouraging words, etc., etc., etc. will the seven bishops take away from their meeting with the ABC? I have no idea. I said in a similar vein in my previous post on President Obama and health care reform, perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury is operating on superior wisdom that's not obvious to me.

UPDATE: Too good to be hidden in the comments:

Lapinbizarre said...

Could it be that one of these days he'll balance his continuing meddling in the internal matters of TEC and, as an example, look into the extent of Nigerian Anglican complicity in the Yelwa massacre. While obviously this does not compare with the abomination of homosexuality - and slaughtering ones enemies is unquestionably Biblical - maybe, as a "communion" thing, it merits a little attention. Have no doubt that Akinola and his lackeys would welcome the inquiry with open arms and cooperate to the fullest.

UPDATE 2: According to Fr. Martin in the comments to his post, the seven bishops are Little, Lawrence, McPherson, Stanton, Lillibridge, Smith (N.D.), and Love.

Obama Will Speak On Health Care Reform

From TPM:

President Barack Obama plans to tell the country, in more precise terms, what it is he wants to see in a health care reform bill. According to White House adviser David Axelrod, Obama will not put anything new on the table, but will be more specific about his key goals.

That means that Obama will, again, not be insisting on a public option--a development (or a non-development) that's sure to give his progressive base some heartburn.

According to the Associated Press, Obama may give a speech in the next week or two as part of an effort to regain control of the health care reform debate, after losing it during a month of grueling politics.

It's about time. It's past time. But perhaps President Obama is operating on superior wisdom that's not obvious to me. The bully pulpit, Mr. President! You stand at the bully pulpit.

The link within the story, which I included, goes to Politico, which a good many folks say is a right-leaning source, so take it with a grain of salt. However, I think it's probably correct that Obama will not insist on the public option. And that will give Mary Landrieu and her Blue Dog companions great cover.

The crunch may still come if the more progressive members of Congress refuse to yield ground and a bill which includes the public option comes to a vote. If, by some miracle, such a bill makes its way through the Congress to the president's desk, he will surely sign it into law.

However, I'm losing hope that a bill with a "robust" public option will make it through Congress. I'm pleased to see that Democrats, for the most part, have given up on the idea of a bi-partisan bill. The Republicans don't want to play. They want to stop, delay, or do anything to keep any sort of health care reform from happening now, in the hope that it will never happen.

When Obama takes to the bully pulpit, I'd suggest that he use story after story of real people who suffer from the present chaotic system that we call health care, which, for too many, means no care until it's too late. The stories, Mr. President! Bring to the fore the tragic stories of real people who are denied health care.

Story Of The Day

I say go ahead and build stuff anywhere
you want. If I want nature, I'll watch
Discovery Channel.

From Storypeople.

Waxing Gibbous Moon

Waxing gibbous moon
The words themselves a poem
Turning full moon soon

Grandmère Mimi - 2005

This is what I saw when I walked tonight.

A Word From Richard Rohr

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). Wow! If Jesus said this, he was surely not expecting the religion of niceness, of pretty words and feel-good experiences that we have become. He knew that Big Truth always divides before it can unite a few at a deeper level. I think most of the thousands of sermons I've heard in my life have been about “being nice” in one way or another. That's how domesticated the gospel has become--as if Jesus were a Divine Miss Manners, and the Church existed to maintain proper social order and class. Yet many are entirely content at the level, and Church has not usually been a passionate search for God. The word nice isn't found anywhere in the Bible, to my knowledge.

There's nothing more dangerous to true religious thinking than conventional thinking, easy conformity, being like everybody else in our social group. There's no depth or power at that level. Mass consciousness is never going to be ready for anything that asks them to “die” or that does not make them feel secure and superior. So we have settled largely for civil religion and cultural Christianity. It's so much more comforting to be nice and “moral” at a small level--than to be faithful to Big Truth—which cuts us all open like a sword.

Adapted from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction

From Center For Action and Contemplation.

How Congressional Legislation Happens

From TPM:

As Senate leaders begin work on a Democrat-only health care bill, they're finding themselves confronted with an unexpected irony: Though the caucus has reached an uneasy consensus around a public option that's modeled in many ways after a private insurer, it may be necessary to make the public option more liberal, and thus, more politically radioactive, if it's to overcome a number of unique procedural hurdles.

This is the needle Democrats may have to thread if they want a public option, and at the same time, want to bypass a Republican filibuster. And the key for them will be keeping conservative Democrats on board.

"A very robust public option that scores significant savings would presumably be easy to justify doing through reconciliation," says a Senate Democratic aide. "But it is still being studied whether other, more moderate versions of a public option could pass parliamentary muster."

According to Martin Paone, a legislative expert who's helping Democrats map out legislative strategy, a more robust public option--one that sets low prices, and provides cheap, subsidized insurance to low- and middle-class consumers--would have an easier time surviving the procedural demands of the so-called reconciliation process. However, he cautions that the cost of subsidies "will have to be offset and if [the health care plan] loses money beyond 2014...it will have to be sunsetted."

And there the irony continues: Some experts, including on Capitol Hill, believe that a more robust public option will generate crucial savings needed to keep health care reform in the black--and thus prevent it from expiring. But though that may solve the procedural problems, conservative Democrats have balked at the idea creating such a momentous government program, and if they defected in great numbers, they could imperil the entire reform package.

Let's see if I have this straight. If Democrats choose the more robust public option, they are more likely to be able to overcome the procedural hurdles and pass the bill on 51 votes without the threat of filibuster by the Republicans. The bill would also save money and perhaps pay for itself.

But the conservative Democrats may not stay on board, because they don't like the idea of a "momentous government program"? On what grounds? Read on. Because the Republicans in their pushback say that the public option would have to be "very aggressive in setting rates, price controls and rationing,". Ah, those are scary words to conservative Democrats.

On the other hand, those with no health insurance know rationing quite well.

So. As the author of the article, Brian Beutler says:

The path of least political resistance is beset by procedural obstacles; and the path of least procedural resistance is beset by political ones.

Got that everyone?

"The Tears Of Our Children.... "

From Bishop Charles Jenkins of The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana:

The generosity of our nation and the world in response to our time of having been brought so low is gratefully acknowledged. Like the Good Samaritan who left silver with the innkeeper to care for the man robbed and beaten on the Jericho Road, we have known the mercy of others in our time of need. Some would say the season for such generosity has passed. Indeed, many of us we are well on the way to recovery, and that which yet needs be healed will be done by God, perhaps through the hands of doctors and nurses. But I find in my own soul a wound so deep that healing seems possible only by grace.

However, not all are at the point where I am on the road to recovery. Demonstrated so plainly time and time again is the indisputable fact that the “least of these” are not able to stand without assistance. Surely, assistance is available for many, but the process to that assistance remains a moving target. Deadlines are arbitrarily set to meet the needs of bureaucracy rather than the needs of our fellow citizens whose lives remain in the roadside gutter.

I remind us that the Good Samaritan bound up the wounds of the man brutalized and then took him to the Inn. He did not simply give him silver coins and tell him to be on his way. As tired as we are, as deep as may be our compassion fatigue, like the Good Samaritan we must gird our loins and pick up the least of these and bring them with dignity to the place of healing. If we just toss a coin to the beggar alongside the path of life, the beggar will die in that spot.

The words of Dr. King must ring loudly in our ears. “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” (From “Beyond Vietnam”.)

We have engaged, in a direct and intentional manner, the work of challenging the edifice that produces beggars. I believe Dr. King to be correct when he calls this “true compassion.” Faith communities and people of good will are the standard bearers in this challenge. This challenge continues to be lived out in New Orleans where the façade of American progress has been washed away. Many would be happy if we could again apply “make-up” to the wound that affects us all, but this is no longer possible here. This wound is evident around our nation, but in New Orleans, it was exposed starkly when the flood washed away the veneer.

Living without this veneer can be trying. Compassion fatigue is a phenomenon I well understand. True compassion as defined by Dr. King seems to me so fundamental to being a person of faith, a Christian, and, in my case, a Bishop, that I think we must persist. When the wound in our society is healed by grace and compassion, the scar will not be an ugly reminder of what was, but a medal of honor reminding all of God’s healing.

Something else I find trying is wondering what our government’s intention is for this city. I do not know if there was a deliberate plan for the social engineering of New Orleans. I observe that, intentional or not, the city is a far different place today than it was four years ago. For some, life is better, while for others, life is at best unchanged or worse. I observe a shift in where political power is vested and a dramatic change in the role that New Orleans plays in state government. I see our schools improved for some but grossly neglected for others. I see children going without special education and the tools that will help those challenged to succeed. So many children remain estranged from their spiritual roots in New Orleans. They have no way to return home and little encouragement to do so. The tears of our children remain a scandal to this city.

The privatization of disaster response has made of us a means to profit. The revolution of values of which Dr. King wrote is a theological revolution. This theological shift has to do with our understanding of God and, thus, our understanding of humanity. Grace and blessing cannot be measured in the rich lifestyles of predatory preachers; rather God’s blessing is seen in the ministry of Jesus whereby dignity has been granted to all. The revolution of values must include recognition of the dignity of every human being. I think such dignity is incarnational and, thus, has to do with what we think of God.

On this fourth anniversary of Katrina, I find myself concerned that the work of the revolution of values is still in the beginning stages. What we do in Louisiana has an impact across the nation and the world. We have an opportunity to give the world a model of Christian compassion. I pray for the continuing generosity of Christian brothers and sisters and friends from around the world that we may continue the task that has been placed before us.

Until today, I missed these powerful and eloquent words from Bishop Jenkins. Thanks to Ann Fontaine at The Lead for directing me to them.

I'll miss Bishop Jenkins when he retires at the end of the year. I hope that he remains in our neighborhood after his retirement.

UPDATE: A more recent picture of Bishop Jenkins than the one above.

"Cure The Sick...."

Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

Luke 10:9

I suppose it's a really far-out and crazy idea to relate the passage above from the Gospel reading today on the feast of David Oakerhater to the health care debate, but I just can't help doing so. The passage seems to say that in the Kingdom of God, you cure the sick. It's the Christians against universal health care that I truly do not understand.