"...WE MOURN THE SUFFERING AND DESTRUCTION...."

Click on the images to enlarge.

LORD, HAVE MERCY
CHRIST, HAVE MERCY
LORD, HAVE MERCY

From i-church.

Thanks to Ann.

UPDATE: Oh my goodness! Go read the post and see the picture at Jesus in Love. Both picture and post are strong stuff.

STORY OF THE DAY - KNEES

 

These knees have stories, she said, but
they'd have to be a mouth to tell you.


Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!!!!


From StoryPeople.

THE MORITORIUM WILL HURT LOUISIANA - BADLY

From NOLA:

With three shuttered oil rigs preparing to leave the Gulf of Mexico for foreign waters, Gov. Bobby Jindal ratcheted up the rhetoric Thursday against the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater drilling, saying the White House still doesn't understand the economic pain the forced stoppage is causing Louisiana workers.

Jindal said he had a conference call with President Barack Obama's senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, and appealed to her to shorten the six-month moratorium, arguing that a half-year pause would force oil companies to move drilling operations overseas for years and that the federal government could easily impose new safety standards and monitoring in a shorter time frame.

"She asked again why the rigs simply wouldn't come back after six months," Jindal said. "What worries me is I fear they think these rigs can just flip a switch on and off."

The economy of south Louisiana will take a bad hit from the six-month moritorium. Due to the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, fishermen, shrimpers, seafood processors, marinas, bait shops, and other small businesses are already suffering. With the drilling moratorium, a good many more folks who work for oil companies, oil service companies, and marine construction companies will likely lose their jobs, perhaps as many as 38,000.

In addition, the state budget has a large hole in it, and with the additional job losses from the moratorium and oil business moving out, tax revenue will decline, and further lay-offs from state jobs are inevitable. Along with the ripple effect on other businesses, such as retail sales, car dealerships, etc, which will lose out because, those who are laid off will not have money to spend, the losses to our economy could be catastrophic.

I doubt that deepwater drilling can be made safe. It can be made safer than BP's operations, surely, because the company culture was to value production over safety, and we've discovered that over the years, BP cut many safety corners in the name of increasing production and profits. Even with the weakened regulations that the US was left with after Cheney and his oil company cronies loosened things up, BP broke several rules on the Horizon rig that, had they been followed, might have prevented the explosion.

That Louisiana has not diversified and is so very dependent on a single industry, the oil and gas companies and the oil service companies is our own doing, and we should have gone in a different direction, but we didn't, and now here we are. Remember that we do not use all the oil and gas produced here in Louisiana. The bulk is shipped out to keep other parts of the country humming. We have not kicked our addiction to oil, so what we don't get from our own wells in the US or US waters, we will need to buy elsewhere. Jobs will go elsewhere.

Since I'm nearly as distrustful of government agencies as I am of large corporations, I wonder whether the agencies will achieve the goal of actually making deepwater drilling safer. If we must suffer here in Louisiana, I want us, at least, to suffer for a good cause, and I'm not sure that the end result will be safer drilling.

As a country, we are not yet serious about conservation of energy. We are not yet serious about weaning ourselves off our dependence on oil and other polluting and declining sources of energy, nor are we serious about finding alternative, clean sources of energy. And Louisiana must get in on the action of developing and producing clean energy, because when the oil and gas run out, we'll be in an even sorrier state than we are now.

ADOBE PHOTO SHOP - LITERALLY

Thanks to that rascal, Paul (A.)

PRESIDING BISHOP KATHARINE AT SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL

Thinking Anglicans posted the entire text of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's sermon at Southwark Cathedral in south London this morning.

That woman who wanders into Simon’s house comes with her hair uncovered – “oh, scandal! She’s clearly a woman of the street!” And she starts to act in profoundly embarrassing ways, crying all over Jesus’ feet and cleaning up the tears with her hair. And, “oh Lord, now she’s covering him with perfume! We can’t have this in a proper house – what will people think? And I guess now we know just what sort of person this fellow is!”

The scorn that some are willing to heap on others because we think they’ve loved excessively or inappropriately is still pretty well known. Yet it is this woman’s loving response to Jesus that brings her pardon, and Jesus’ celebration of her right relationship with God. She doesn’t even have to ask. Jesus seems to say that evidence of her pardon has already been given – full measure, pressed down, and overflowing – just like her tears and hair and cask of nard.

It’s the same message Jesus offers over and over: “perfect love casts out fear” (1Jn 4:18). It’s actually our fear of the wretchedness within our own souls that pushes us away from our sisters and brothers. Fear is the only thing that keeps us from knowing God’s love – and we most often discover it in the people around us. Jesus wasn’t afraid to eat with sinners, either Simon or the other dinner guests, and he wasn’t afraid of what the woman of the city was going to do to his reputation.

Read the rest of the sermon at TA.

Photo from LondonSE1 whence cometh news of this sour note:

15 evangelical clergy from the Diocese of Southwark signed a letter to The Times criticising the Dean's decision to invite Dr Jefferts Schori to preach in the cathedral.

"We, the undersigned clergy of Southwark diocese, distance ourselves from Bishop Schori’s teaching and presiding in our cathedral.

"We seriously question the judgment of those who have not withdrawn their invitation to her after her recent consecration of Mary Glasspool."

The list of signees is at the Times.

"THE OILY BIRD CATCHES THE FIRM"

 

DAVID GRUNFELD / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE A Northern Gannet which is normally white was found covered in oil in the Gulf of Mexico resting at a recovery center in Boothville, LA.


Wise Dr Christian Troll, in a post at GAFCON, alerted me to the words below from a statement by the Director of Business Ethics at BP, Stewart Broome, titled Raising the bar: business ethics in practice:

“ Well at BP we have chosen to put ethics high on our agenda. It's not because we have more ethical problems than most large companies. It's not because we're unusually high-minded.......

Rather it's because we think it's the right place to be -for our employees around the world, for our partners, for our industry, for the communities in which we do business, for our reputation and performance today, and for our future tomorrow.

Why it matters: What does a company like BP mean by "being ethical"? Well, our definition has a practical focus but it's underpinned by a belief in honesty, respect for others, integrity and transparency - moral values in other words.”

Of course, Mr. Broome made the statement back in 2003. Perhaps he has since been swept away from BP's higher echelons for his rash words. A corporation which practices both ethics and moral values risks its very survival.

SILLIES OVERHEARD ON NPR

In the news: President Barack Obama spoke by phone with the new Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, and the president does not blame the PM for BP's oil spill.

Prairie Home Companion - one man to another: "I quickly lose respect for any woman who is attracted to me."

LETTER FROM INCLUSIVE CHURCH TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

From Giles Goddard of Inclusive Church in England:

Dear Archbishop

We are writing to express our grave concern about the contents of your Pentecost letter and its consequences applied with such speed by the Anglican Communion Office.

Your letter opens with a reminder of the joy of Pentecost, when "we celebrate the gift God gives us of being able to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ in the various languages of the whole human world”. But the result of your proposals - to summarily remove from those Communion bodies to which you directly appoint, those provinces which are in your view in breach of the moratoria - is a diminishing of the diversity of the Anglican Communion and a silencing of the different languages in which we are called to speak.

Our concerns are three-fold.

First, it is clear from the actions of the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion that the application of the sanctions is one-sided and disproportionate. The Anglican Church of North America may now provide cover for the Bishops previously ordained by Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya but these provinces remain committed to them and the actions which made the emergence of ACNA possible, actions carried out in direct violation of the moratorium that you asked for. It would be farcical to suggest they are no longer breaking the moratoria just because they have been successful in generating a breakaway body to provide local cover for the result of their acts.

The Secretary-General is "seeking clarification” regarding the Southern Cone and Canada. However, without consultation, he has proceeded in removing members of The Episcopal Church from Communion bodies. This kind of punitive exclusion will do nothing to promote the "path of mutual respect and thankfulness that will hold us in union and help us grow in that truth.”

Second, by proposing these actions you are not strengthening but diminishing the distinctiveness and the contribution of the Anglican voice to our ecumenical dialogue. It is clear that all the major churches are engaged in the struggle to acknowledge and include LGBT Christians. The Anglican Communion has been more open than most about its struggle, and has earned the respect of many of our partners in this. By excluding those provinces which have been able, despite deep controversy and through profound study and prayer, to include both those who welcome LGBT Christians and those who do not, you are empowering the Anglican Communion to speak with a voice which does not reflect its truth; it is, in short, inauthentic. Further, it fails to acknowledge the terrible persecution which is experienced by LGBT Christians, and those who uphold human rights as reflecting crucial Gospel values, in many of those provinces which are at the forefront of opposition to TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. Your previous statements opposing homophobia and seeking generosity from (among others) the Church of Uganda are undermined by these actions.

Third, the actions proposed and taken appear to pre-empt the consequences of the draft Covenant. You reiterate that "the Covenant is not envisaged as an instrument of control”. And yet, by these sanctions you are prefiguring the life of the Covenant by already excluding from Anglican dialogue those who do not have majority support - creating, by default, track 2 churches. It is increasingly clear, as discussions about the Covenant continue, that whatever its original intentions it is already becoming an instrument of control, an additional "instrument of unity” which will achieve precisely the opposite.

By excluding TEC and possibly the ACoC in this way, the voices are also silenced of the thousands of members of the Church of England for whom the life of TEC and the ACoC is a source of joy and thanksgiving - for whom the full inclusion of LGBT Christians within our parishes is already a reality, even though the structures and senior hierarchy of the Church of England are unable to acknowledge this reality.

You stress the urgency of mission. The result of these actions is further to undermine the mission of the Church of England, and to cause despair amongst those who are trying to enable all to understand the love of God. Supporters of Inclusive Church have spoken with you on a number of occasions about the vital urgency of speaking generously about the breadth of Christian experience. Unless we do, we will be unable to re-engage with the communities we seek to serve in this country and who are bemused by the Church of England's continuing rejection of LGBT Christians.

The period of engagement for which you call will not be served by putting in place further exclusionary structures. It is only the conservative extreme of the Anglican Communion which appears to support - indeed, to encourage - further division. We are profoundly supportive of the sort of frank and open conversations for which you too hope. Therefore, a question - how do you anticipate these conversations being fruitful when decisions have already been taken which further reduce the status of LGBT Christians and those who welcome them?

Yours sincerely

Canon Giles Goddard

Chair, IC

Another good letter from Giles Goddard. I believe it's vital that Archbishop Williams hear from members of the Church of England. The members of his own church do not speak with one voice, and yet, the Archbishop wants the entire Anglican Communion to speak with a common voice. That the Archbishop of Canterbury sent out such a letter in the season of Pentecost continues to amaze me.

With a good many others, I ask what need is there now for an Anglican Covenant? The Archbishop seems to think he already possesses the powers of discipline in Part 4, the most questionable section of the Covenant for many of us, and we have a preview of how the powers will be used.

BISHOP ROBINSON TO ARCHBISHOP BROGLIO

From The Huffington Post:

Archbishop for the Military Services USA Timothy Broglio released a statement earlier this month arguing that the federal government should not repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which prevents gay and lesbian men and women from serving openly in the military. He claims that doing so would compromise the faith and role of Roman Catholic military chaplains. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. His arguments are so spurious and misguided it is hard to find a place to begin in refuting them.

The separation of church and state is not threatened by a change in the DADT policy, despite the archbishop's claims. No Roman Catholic chaplain, nor any other chaplain with negative views of homosexuality, will be required to teach, preach, or counsel anything outside their own beliefs. No gay or lesbian serving in the military would expect to go to such a chaplain and receive a blessing on his or her sexual orientation.

The archbishop restates in his letter what everyone knows: The Roman Catholic Church believes and teaches that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and "are contrary to the natural law" and that "Homosexual persons are called to chastity." If you go to a chaplain with those beliefs under a repealed DADT, that's still what you're going to get in the way of counsel. What you won't get under the repeal is a dishonorable discharge to boot!
....

The archbishop inexplicably goes on to drag alcoholics into the debate: "For years, those struggling with alcoholism have benefitted [sic] from Alcoholics Anonymous. Like homosexuality, there is rarely a cure. There is a control through a process, which is guarded by absolute secrecy. It is an equivalent to 'Don't ask don't tell'. The process has worked well for some time without the charge that it is discriminatory."

I can say as a recovering alcoholic and a gay man that there is no end to the problems with this analogy. No one would argue with the reality of the havoc created by an addiction to alcohol--a toll of pain and trouble visited on the individual, families, and society alike. No such social toll is caused by men and women proudly saying to the world, "I'm gay." Saying that there is no cure for homosexuality, as for alcoholism, is to say that there is something that needs curing. The archbishop is welcome to his opinion, but he must admit that it flies in the face of contrary judgments by every reputable psychiatric association in the world.

Archbishop Broglio's analogy of homosexuality with alcoholism is mind-boggling in its ignorance. Perhaps the archbishop should cease commenting in that vein, if he wishes to convince anyone with a brain of the rightness of letting DADT stand. DADT is a policy right out of the Bizarro world of hypocrisy, where up is down, black is white, and nothing is as it seems. That anyone advocates hiding and lying about one's sexual orientation under threat of expulsion as the proper way to run the military today is beyond belief.

Of course, read the rest of Bishop Gene's commentary at HP.

STORY OF THE DAY - BODY STUFF

This is a box filled with things that make
your body tingle & she's saving it for
some time when she's in a long-term
relationship & can make better use of it.


Oh yeah! Me, too! We've only had 49 years together. I'm talking REAL long-term.

From StoryPeople.