STORY OF THE DAY - PLACE BY THE SEA

He kept a piece of algae behind his ear
to remind him of his roots. A million
years ago every place was a little place
by the sea, he would say & my mind
would go blank & I would swim through
the day without a care in the world & it
all seemed so familiar that I knew I
would go back someday to my own little
place by the sea.


From StoryPeople.

EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF RIO GRANDE ELECTS THE REV. DR.MICHAEL VONO

The Reverend Dr. Michael Louis Vono was chosen bishop-elect of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande. Dr. Vono presently serves as Rector of St. Paul’s Within the Walls, Rome, Italy.

From Dr. Vono's essay at the diocesan website:

"As Rector of St. Paul’s, Rome, I live and work with people of diverse cultures and religious backgrounds. My church is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, ecumenical and interfaith community. Our ministries include the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, a sizable Latin American community, service to the elderly poor of the city as well as displaced youth. At the center of our mission and witness is a profound ministry of radical hospitality. "

H/T to Nicholas Knisely at The Lead.

IT'S NOT JUST A NOVEL

 

From the Telegraph:

I can’t have been the only one taken aback to hear that the apparently cheerful and pragmatic Emma Thompson suffered severe depression after the break-up of her first marriage, and to such a debilitating extent that, in her own words, she “should have sought professional help”.

But her choice of self-medication drew a huge nod of recognition, in this house at least. For Thompson was “saved” not by Prozac, or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, but by immersing herself in Sense and Sensibility, the Jane Austen novel she turned into an Oscar-winning screenplay. “I used to crawl from the bedroom to the computer and just sit and write, and then I was all right, because I was not present,” the actress and screenwriter said. “Sense and Sensibility really saved me from going under, I think, in a very nasty way.”

I would not disagree with the healing power of Jane Austen's novels. I've mentioned before my dysfunctional home life, and I don't bring the matter up again looking for sympathy but simply to put in context what reading meant to me in my childhood and youth. The very first books besides school readers that I remember reading on my own were the Raggedy Ann series of books. I still have the books, and the first is signed as a gift from my father when I was 7 years old. I remember the Peter Rabbit and Alice books. We had a large, beautifully illustrated book of nursery rhymes which I poured over. I read the rhymes, sometimes aloud, just for the sound of them, although I knew them from memory, and I loved looking at the illustrations.

I may have read other books before those mentioned above, because I learned to read at the age of 5 when I was in Primer, which in the ancient days was the equivalent of Kindergarten, except we plunged right into the three R's, reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. I'm almost certain that we had Joe and Jane, rather than Dick and Jane in our reader. Their friends were Mary and Dan, and the dog was Spot. I believe there was a cat character named Muff.

Anyway, as conditions worsened in my home, reading became not only a pleasure, but an escape into another world. I know that I left my physical surroundings, because I did not hear people when they spoke to me. I was told that I had to be addressed three or four times before I would answer. "You're lost in your book again!" Louisa May Alcott's books were favorites along with Nancy Drew. I remember reading the Five Little Peppers and other children's series, Black Beauty and Hans Brinker, which I still have, along with my copy of Eight Cousins, In those days, the libraries would not stock Nancy Drew books because they were not "good literature", so a friend and I cooperated in buying different titles of the books and lending them to each other.

Nancy Drew books may have been formula books, but Nancy was not a bad role model for an impressionable young girl. Her mother had died; her father was a prominent attorney and quite busy; and the housekeeper, Hannah, had not much control over the headstrong Nancy in her sporty blue (or maroon) roadster. She was on her own, a strong-minded girl, who made her boy friend Ned Nickerson look like a wimp in comparison, always cautioning her to be careful, but she paid no mind to him. Nancy's best friends were two cousins, Bess and George, (a girl!).

When I reached high school age, keeping in mind that I had The Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books hanging over my head, I turned to the clean late 18th century and 19th century English novels, which I preferred to American novels, although I read Hawthorne, Twain, Poe, James Fennimore Cooper, (yes, I read all the Leatherstocking tales), Jack London, Melville. Gee, I read more American writers than I thought.

Mixed in were the English novelists, Defoe, Swift's Gulliver (although I did not really "get" the Swiftian satire back then. I read for the story.), Walter Scott, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, the Brontes, Dickens, Hardy, and others, and last but, most certainly not least, Jane Austen, who is my favorite fiction writer in all of English Literature. Henry James, whom I read in college, runs a close second to Austen.

As a 16 year old living in a tumultuous household, Jane was balm to my troubled soul. What sparkling wit! No fiction writer is Austen's equal in writing dialogue. What limpid prose! Reading Jane was sheer delight, not to mention that reading her books took me out of myself and out of my environment. After reading the first of her novels, which happened to be Pride and Prejudice, and which is still my favorite although I dearly love them all, I rushed to read the other five. I wanted to be Elizabeth Bennet. I read Jane's novels, and I read them again, and again, and again, up until now, and when I need cleansing and freshening from the load of drivel in print and on the tee-vee, I plunge into the novels and come away refreshed and renewed.

Jane's gift for irony is, to me, unsurpassed. Disclosure: my alcoholic and verbally abusive father had a gift for irony which was not always inflicted on his wife and daughters, and I learned from him to view our mad world through ironic eyes. I owe him for his gifts of books from an early age and for encouraging me to read by always having books and magazines around the house, even when my mother had to borrow grocery money from extended family. We never lacked for music, either. There's irony for you. To this day, I feel sorry for my poor mother's plight, but, in my heart of hearts, I can't regret that the books and music were present.

Well, I've indulged myself and run on here and strayed away from Jane Austen's part in healing Emma Thompson's depression, but the piece inspired my verbosity here, for good, or for ill. One last thing: I believe that reading Jane Austen's novels in my impressionable teen years contributed for the good to the formation of my moral center, which should give pause to anyone who says, "It's just a novel."

Note: The picture above is of P&P from my favorite of the editions of Austen's novels that I own. I purchased the set new some years ago for the modest price of $55.00 for all six books in the set, which includes her minor works.

Thanks to Lapin for the link to the article.

UPDATE: While I'm on the subject of Jane Austen, I'll give a nod to another new blogger, Penelopepiscopal, who is an admirer and who chose as her blog name (or header?) a quote from Austen's Emma. She is, as you may gather from her name, a fellow member of the Episcopal tribe.

"JOSHU-AH"

Florrie Forde, British music hall's most enduring singer of chorus songs, is joined here by Harry Fay in the 1912 hit, 'Joshu-ah!'


Lapin sent me the link to the video, because I have a grandson named Joshua. What can I say? Shall I show the video to my grandson? What will HE say?

Those were simpler times, indeed.


The chorus:

JOSHUA

Joshua, Joshua,
Why don't you call and see Mama,
She'll be pleased to know
You are my best beau.
Joshua, Joshua,
Sweeter than lemon squash you are.
Yes, by gosh you are,
Joshu-oshu-a."

DARK WAY

I'm not sure if the world's all that
serious, she said, or if it just has a really
dark way of having a good time.


Wow!

From StoryPeople.

LETTER TO HISPANICS FROM BISHOP KIRK SMITH OF ARIZONA

From Bishop Kirk S. Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona:

Today I have sent the following letter to our Spanish-speaking Arizona Episcopalians:

My Dear Spanish-Speaking Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
photos from around the Diocese

Today is a sad day in the struggle to see all God's people treated in a humane and compassionate manner. I had hoped that our Governor and law-makers would listen to their consciences and not be swayed by the voices of bigotry and racism. With the Governor's signing of SB 1070, it seems that for now the advocates of fear and hatred have won over those of charity and love. Arizona claims to be a Golden Rule State. We have not lived up to that claim.

I know that the passage of this law is deeply troubling to many of you, especially those of undocumented status. I know that many of you fear for your jobs, your families, and your future in this state and in this country.

You are not the only ones affected. According to this law, anyone giving food or even water to an undocumented person in need could be subject to arrest. What would Jesus say?

I am writing to encourage you not to loose heart.

First, there is no need for panic. This law does not take effect for 90 days. During that time there will be many court challenges, including those coming from the federal government. The law might be tied up for months or years in litigation, and I believe that there is a good possibility it will never go into effect.

In the meantime, know that the majority of us in the Episcopal Church, and in many other churches and faith communities, stand with you in support and solidarity. We will continue to work as hard as we can to defeat this law and to work toward just and fair laws that protect the rights of all human beings. We all know that our immigration system is broken, but it cannot be fixed by scape-goating the most vulnerable of those among us.

Finally, know that God is with you in this struggle. Jesus always stands with the oppressed. You therefore have our concern, our prayers, and our support.Kirk Smith

Faithfully,

+Kirk

Episcopal Church bishops are doing us proud today: First Bishop Benhase and now Bishop Smith.

H/T to Andrew Gerns at The Lead.

HOPE FADES FOR MISSING RIG CREW

From NOLA.com:

Barring an overnight miracle, the search for 11 workers missing for more than 48 hours after an oil rig explosion was expected to be called off early today as two drilling companies and the federal government marshal resources to contain leaking oil after the burning rig sank Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico, creating what an industry official said "has the potential to be a major spill."

Hope for survivors dimmed Thursday as some of the 115 rescued crew members said the missing workers may have been near the Tuesday night explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig about 45 miles southeast of the Mississippi River's mouth, said Rear Adm. Mary Landry, commander of the Coast Guard's 8th District.

With a water temperature of 67 degrees, the probability of finding survivors had diminished to almost zero by Thursday afternoon, Landry said.

Working on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico or any offshore waters is not for the faint of heart. The potential for a dangerous accident is quite high. The Gulf provides around 25% of the US oil supply.

Please pray for the missing workers and for their families and friends.

Pray also that the leaks in the sunken rig can be contained and not lead to a major oil spill.

LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF GEORGIA TO THE MEMBERS OF THE DIOCESE

Bishop Scott Benhase sent a letter to the members of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia outlining his reasons for voting to give consent to the election of Canon Mary Glasspool as Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles.


21 April 2010

To the People of the Diocese of Georgia:

A few of our colleagues in the Diocese asked me if I gave my consent to the Reverend Canon Mary Glasspool's election as Bishop Suffragan of Los Angeles. I did. While it is not usual for bishops to report on individual consents, I realize that for some people this is different, so I will try to explain how I came to give my consent. I cannot do so in a sound bite or even in a few sentences. Thus, you might wish to read this when you are not in a hurry.

1. Prior to my election as the 10th Bishop of Georgia, my theology and practice on the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the Church was well-known. I do not understand homosexuality to be a barrier to any of the four orders of ministry in the Church. I have been quite clear in that theology and practice. So, my consent to Canon Glasspool's election was consistent with what you had already known about me.

2. I would not have given my consent if I knew of any theology or practice of Canon Glasspool that was contrary to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Episcopal Church. Canon Glasspool has been a faithful priest of the Church for decades leading parishes to a renewed sense of their baptismal identity and purpose. More recently, she has served quite effectively as Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of Maryland. From my perspective, we need more bishops like Canon Glasspool who have had extensive experience in the leadership of parishes so they are better able to be strategic partners with congregational leaders for the growth and mission of our parishes.

3. I am aware of some concern about the so-called moratorium. The House of Bishops did agree to a moratorium a number of years ago. That moratorium, however, was not one-sided. It was accepted in the context that certain of our Anglican brothers would refrain from crossing diocesan boundaries. While the House of Bishops exercised the restraint of the moratorium for seven years, others did not practice such restraint even for a year. So, in my judgment, the moratorium was no longing a compelling consideration.

4. I, of course, recognize that some in the Diocese of Georgia disagree with my consent. I welcome that. Disagreement in the Church is hardly new. In some ways, Anglicanism was forged out of an unresolved disagreement in the Elizabethean Settlement. After Queen Elizabeth, Protestants and Catholics within Anglicanism did not somehow see their differences go away, but they were committed to living with one another and serving Jesus together in the church. They were willing to live with what they perceived as significant differences. In many ways, the challenge we face today is not new.

5. I believe that this current dilemma we face needs to be seen and understood in the larger context and truthfulness of Church history and tradition. The catholic faith has always lived with differences while holding fast to the Nicene faith. For example, the post-Constantinian Church has lived with difference in how we interpret the Sixth Commandment. Some have insisted that all killing is wrong all the time. This is the so-called pacifist position. Others have insisted that there are times when violating the Sixth Commandment is the lesser of two evils. From this came the Just War constructs of St Augustine that provided ethical boundaries for the violation of the Sixth Commandment. We have had both positions held faithfully in this Church (with many nuances in between) and neither has insisted that the other is not welcome or that the other is not orthodox.

6. More recently in my lifetime, we have had disagreement about violating Jesus' teaching on divorce. Jesus is clear: If one marries after divorce one commits adultery. That seems to be the plain sense of Scripture. Yet, many have recognized that while divorce is never a "good," sometimes it is the lesser of two evils for all parties. Others, however, still insist that Jesus' words must be interpreted plainly. There are still others in our Church that hold even more nuanced understandings about this that fit somewhere in between the two extremes. Yet, in all these, we remain together in the same Church and receiving God's gracious sacrament from the same
altar.

7. I understand our current dilemma in a similar historical context. Faithful people will disagree about this. I do not understand such disagreement as a problem to be solved, but a dilemma God is asking us to live with for the time being. There are faithful people in the Diocese of Georgia who are anxious for a definitive resolution. I do not believe that is possible right now and may not be in my lifetime on this earth. If that is true, how are we to live together with this dilemma? I think the answer to that question is this: We will live together just like the saints who have gone before us who heeded Blessed Paul's admonitions. We will love and honor one another. We will bear one another's burdens. We will not have a higher opinion of ourselves than we ought. We will not look only to our own concerns, but the concerns of others. We will forgive one another as we have been forgiven.

8. There is a prayer in the Marriage Rite that has always touched me deeply. When praying for the newly married couple, the Church hopes that "their life together" may be "a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, that forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair." I see this as an image of our relationship together. I have been Bishop of this Diocese for three months now. In that sense, we are newlyweds together. Like in any relationship that is not worked at and nurtured, we can fall into patterns that lead to estrangement, guilt, and despair. You and I will work hard not to let that happen. We will seek unity, forgiveness, and joy. We will seek to make our life together as bishop and people "a sign of Christ's love for this sinful and broken world." Of course, we will not always achieve such virtues, but I know we will constantly seek them and commit ourselves to practicing them.

As your Bishop, I am committed to leading this Diocese faithfully and effectively. I want those who have differences on the issue of human sexuality to know that I will not play favorites by rewarding those who agree with me or seeking to punish those who do not. All of us share in the mission of Jesus Christ together. All have an important role to play in that mission. I pray that we not allow whatever differences we have to distract us from taking the saving Gospel of Jesus to the world.

+Scott

Thanks to Ann.

"A CANTERBURY TALE"

Jane Kramer's long essay in the New Yorker, titled "A Canterbury Tale", on the Church of England and its internal battle over women bishops is now available online in its entirety. I read the piece earlier because, although I didn't yet have my copy of the magazine, as a subscriber, I have access to the full contents of the online version of the magazine. I still don't have my copy. The New Yorker takes forever to get to my house ever since Katrina, and I don't know if it's the magazine or the Postal Service that is responsible for the delay. Back to the article. It's worth a read.

Here's my comment at The Lead to its first post on the article when only the abstract was available:

Since I don't yet have my copy of the New Yorker, I read the entire article online, and I thought it was excellent. Kramer did her homework before writing. I now understand the Church of England much better than I ever did, and I see how the situation in England drives a good many of the statements of the ABC.

I also understand Rowan Williams a little better after reading Kramer's piece, which does not lead me to further agreement with him. You don't throw certain people under the bus for the sake of saving the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England.

Still, with all Kramer's good work, she doesn't get the difference between the adjective "Episcopal" and the noun "Episcopalian". Why is it so difficult to get that right? Sorry. The mistake grates.

The first words of Kramer's article drew me in like the invitation of a gracious host:

Remember the Church of England, that mythically placid community of Sunday Christians and beaming vicars whom you met in Austen and possibly came to loathe in Trollope?

Moving on, I'll highlight several quotes entice you to read the essay.

It took seventeen years of wrenching Synod debate for women to be ordained, and when they were, some five hundred male priests fled in protest—two-thirds of them, as the saying goes, “to Rome.” The prospect of women’s elevation to the House of Bishops has been even more divisive. This isn’t a question of High Church and Low Church differences. England’s church has always been (the common word) “inclusive.” It grew as an uneasy accommodation between the traditionalists of the Apostolic Creed and Catholic ritual and devotions now known as Anglo-Catholics and the brimstone-and-Bible Protestants born in the chapels of the Reformation, making common cause against the Church of Rome. Today, it covers a sliding scale of beliefs and practices, with the majority of England’s Anglican parishes somewhere in the middle. But the argument about women bishops cuts across all the old divisions. Thousands of conservative Anglicans—priests and laymen—on both sides of the High Church–Low Church divide still refuse to take Communion from a female priest, and would certainly refuse to take it from any priest ordained by a female bishop.

The wenches cause such distress to the advocates of patriarchy in the Church of England, forcing them to make wrenching decisions. How cruel of the wenches!

“How do you eat an elephant?” he [Rowan Williams] said, with something between a chuckle and a sigh, when I asked how he hoped to hold his church together, given that the demands of Anglican women were so completely at odds with the demands of Anglican men whose own inclusion specifically involved excluding those women from episcopal service. “I suppose it’s by using as best I can the existing consultative mechanisms to create a climate—and I think that’s often the best, to create a climate,” he told me. “There’s a phrase which has struck me very much: that you can actually ruin a good cause by pushing it at the wrong moment and not allowing the process of discernment and consent to go on, and that’s part of my view.” He thought that with time, patience, and enough discussion within the Church you could temper the opposition to female bishops—despite the fact that three synods since 1994 have tried to address the issue, and the opposition remains intractable. His friends call this “Rowan’s Obama syndrome”: the persistence of a commendable but not very realistic belief in the power of reason to turn your enemies into allies.

Perhaps if someone walked the ABC through a realistic appraisal of the climate he has created, he'd come to see that his climate plan is not working well, and following "the process of discernment and consent" as he envisages it, women could wait decades for their opportunity to become bishops.

With respect to "Rowan's Obama syndrome", Obama seems to have learned the lesson that his original plan to work with the opposition wasn't working, and he changed his plan. May we hope that the ABC will see that all is not sunny in the climate that he's created and consider a change of plan? I guess not.

The words of a member of the opposition to women bishops in the Church of England:

Geoffrey Kirk, an unabashedly misogynist London vicar who is the national secretary of Forward in Faith, told me that, for him, the tipping point was the Episcopalian bishops’ election of Jefferts Schori as their presiding bishop. He called it “a fundamental scandal” and added, “I think Mrs. Jefferts Schori is a layperson. It’s not my doing. They decided.” He said that a shoplifter was “more qualified, per se,” to be a bishop than a woman was, so long as the shoplifter didn’t say that shoplifting was good, or that he was a Marxist spreading the wealth around.

Does the ABC see any hope of creating an amicable climate between the members of the Church of England who favor the ordination of women as bishops, especially the women in the church, and the likes of Vicar Geoffrey Kirk with his insulting comments? I don't.

Conservative evangelicals—which is to say fundamentalist and, as often as not, charismatic—are one of the only expanding groups in England’s otherwise dwindling church. Vaughan Roberts, the rector of an evangelical church in Oxford called St. Ebbes, told me that his own congregation had spilled over into three other locations, outside the parish structure, in five years and now amounted to nine Sunday congregations, with a total of eleven hundred people.
....

He has been “encouraged” in his mission, he says, by the example of London’s Holy Trinity Brompton, the closest thing to a megachurch in the Church of England. Holy Trinity Brompton was once a tranquil and quite traditional church. Today, as often as not, it is in full charismatic swing. It serves four thousand people, many of them twenty-somethings, at staggered Sunday services, and is said to be the wealthiest parish church in England—even without taking into account the worldwide distribution of its “Alpha Program,” which, like Vaughan’s program, leads you up a smooth path to Jesus, truth, and a cheerful Christian life.

Therein lies a mega-problem for the Archbishop of Canterbury. If enough of the Anglo-Catholics accept Rome's offer to jump the Tiber, then the numbers in the Church of England will weigh heavily on the side of the conservative evangelical, fundamentalist, sometimes charismatic church communities.

There's much more that I'd like to quote, but I've probably gone beyond fair use already. Perhaps the powers at the New Yorker will not take note of my humble blog. I urge you to take the time to read the essay. I've admired Jane Kramer's previous writing, and my admiration increases with this example of her diligent research and her graceful prose style.

H/T to The Lead for the link to the entire piece.

GOOD-BYE ACADIA PLANTATION

Pictured above is Acadia Plantation just outside Thibodaux, Louisiana. Ormonde Plater, who took the picture, spent his boyhood at Acadia Plantation. A mega-developer, Jake Giardina, bought the property and, demolition of the old plantation house began yesterday. Read Ormonde's account of his visit yesterday and the history of the house at his blog Through the Dust.

UPDATE: From the comments to Ormonde at Through the Dust:

DeeDee DiBenedetto, the Baton Rouge genealogist and historian, asked me to post the following in her name:

"Owning historical property, especially a historic home in a community, makes the owner a part of the community. Note the root word commune. Just as your right to swing your fist ends when you threaten to swing it into my nose, a property owner’s right to do as he pleases with his historical property ends when it threatens the history of the community. Historical preservation areas preserve a look and feel of a community, and the owners in these areas should consider the entire community."

DeeDee is right.