STORY OF THE DAY

finally stretching out into his life
because it doesn't look like there are any
real alternatives

From StoryPeople.

THE BAVARIAN LUTHERAN CHURCH SHOWS HOW IT'S DONE

From The Christian Century:

BERLIN (RNS) Gay and lesbian Lutheran ministers in the conservative German state of Bavaria may live with their partners in parish parsonages, but only if they enter into a state-sanctioned civil union.

Although the move may seem bold for what is generally considered one of Germany's most traditional states, Bishop Johannes Friedrich of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria said it was no great departure from existing policies.

He noted that the church had already welcomed openly gay ministers and same-sex unions. "We had only left out that a couple could live in a civil union in the parsonage," he said.

H/T to Box Turtle Bulletin.

WAXING GIBBOUS MOON

This is what I saw when I walked tonight.

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

Grandmère Mimi - 2005

Reposted from last year, but true tonight.

HOW CAN THIS BE?

Rmj at Adventus on the millions Sarah Palin has made from resentment and discontent:

It's an interesting, perplexing, and finally sad kind of resentment that while not particularly American, certainly seems peculiarly American. Sarah Palin has achieved more in less time than most of us will achieve in a lifetime. I understand she's made $12 million since she left the governorship of Alaska. She's famous. Her tweets and Facebook posting makes national, if not international, news. And still, apparently, she is not happy. Or, at least, she's not content.

Sarah Palin embodies the Zeitgeist in a way that is amazing to me. The longer the Sarah Show runs, the more I am astonished. Have I been transported and plunked down in alien territory without at all being aware of the transition?

Photo from Stand Up For Our Nation.

TRANSGENDER AWARENESS WEEK - NOVEMBER 14-20

According to Religious Dispatches:

The Human Rights Campaign estimates that transsexuals represent approximately .25 to 1 percent of the US population. That number does not include the transgender people who haven’t undergone sex reassignment surgery (a process many people call “the transition”), so the number of transgender-identified people is likely much higher. The term “transgender” encompasses anyone with a gender identity that is different from his or her birth sex. A transgender person could be someone who just cross-dresses from time to time in private; someone who identifies as gender-queer (that is, neither male nor female); someone who is just taking hormones but not undergoing any surgical modifications; or someone who is undergoing or will undergo full sex reassignment surgery, including genital modification. Such differences vary according to socioeconomic status, age, and cultural context, but, in general, transgender people are sprinkled across every color and creed.

Transgender people, though, are much less likely to take part in an organized religion than non-transgender people, according to researchers. In their article “Understanding Spirituality and Religiosity in the Transgender Community: Implications for Aging,” authors Jeremy Kidd and Tarynn Witten posit a reason:

“The tendency not to identify with a formal religion may reflect an affirmation of one’s own dignity that these religions fail to honor, an expression of protest against certain religious tenets, and/or a refusal to align oneself with institutions contributing to the marginalization of gender and sexual minorities. The difference in religious identification appears to reflect thoughts and feelings toward religious institutions more than it does spiritual behavior or beliefs.”

Of the groups included in LGTB, it seems to me that transgendered persons receive the least attention in promotion of awareness and understanding. The statement below by Pope Benedict demonstrates awareness but not understanding.

Shortly before Christmas in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said in a speech to the Curia (the administrative arm of the Catholic Church) that our gender was a gift from the creator and denounced those who would try to change it. “It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation,” he said, “the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God.” In other words, he threw down a transgender gauntlet.

For the Pope and many others, it all comes down to a literal reading of the Bible’s book of Genesis which says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” They say that means God created man and woman, separate and distinct.

So then, a cleft palate or a club foot is also a gift from the creator, and to have surgery to correct either condition would be self-destructive. Do I have that right, Your Holiness?

Lynn Walker is a transgender priest in the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America. In photos, she sports her priest’s collar, but in her day-to-day work at a transitional housing program for transgender sex workers, she’s all jeans, T-shirts, and blond hair pushed back. She says she doesn’t push her religion on anybody. Just like she doesn’t mention her transgendered status unless she wants to.

Walker looks at it this way. Being transgender is not a sin or a pathology; it’s about variety. “Based on science, this is uncommon, but normal and natural,” she said. “Somewhere in the Book of Job, it say all things come of thee, oh Lord.” Walker said that yes, transgender people take advantage of scientific advancements to change their bodies. But she doesn’t see why that should be wrong or controversial or an abomination in the eyes of God. “If science is a gift from God,” she asked. “Why don’t we listen?”

I prefer Lynn's take on God, creation, and transgender to the pope's. How about you?

Ann Fontaine at The Lead posted a video featuring Dee Ellen Dressler, who made the transition to a transwoman, along with several links to other sources of information, including suicide-prevention amongst transgendered youths and Day of Remembrance events.

JERICHO ROAD TREE PLANTING DAY

 

 

You, my readers, helped Jericho Road win the fruit orchard by voting for them online. If you are in or near New Orleans, you may wish to help with the planting the fruit trees.

MISSION STATEMENT

Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative of New Orleans is a neighborhood-based nonprofit homebuilder that provides families with healthy and energy-efficient affordable housing opportunities. We partnerwith neighborhood residents, organizations and businesses to create and maintain a stable and thriving community.

Donations to Jericho Road, which is sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, may be made here.

ANGLICAN COVENANT = A DYSFUNCTIONAL ANGLICAN FAMILY

Graham Kings writes at the Guardian in support of the Anglican Daft Covenant. Dr Kings is Bishop of Sherborne and theological secretary of Fulcrum. Below is my comment at the Guardian:

Dr Kings says:

The model of the covenant is drawn from family ties and kinship and bounded by mutually agreed norms of behaviour which benefit everyone.

From the text of the covenant:

The Standing Committee may request a Church to defer a controversial action. If a Church declines to defer such action, the Standing Committee may recommend to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences which may specify a provisional limitation of participation in, or suspension from, that Instrument until the completion of the process set out below.

So then, once the covenant is adopted, we will all be one happy family. But wait! Family members may suffer relational consequences or even be suspended if they don't follow the straight and narrow as laid out in the covenant. In other words, they may be thrown out of the family! The covenant appears to be a recipe for a seriously dysfunctional family, full of tattlers and busybodies trying to get other family members with whom they disagree excluded.

The author's implication that Armageddon will be upon the Anglican Communion if the covenant is not adopted is sheer nonsense. The negative, if unintended, consequences of adopting the ill-conceived document will boggle the mind. Rather than bringing the member provinces of the Anglican Communion together, the mess of pottage that we call the covenant will result in further splitting apart. Yeats' line, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold", is a glimpse of the future of the Anglican Communion with the adoption of the Anglican Covenant.

As posted at the Guardian with minor editing.

IF YOU'D LIKE TO HELP ST. MATTHEW'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN HOUMA, LA

I bumped up my post on St. Matthew's in Houma to include the information below for those who may want to contribute.

A relief fund has been established at South Louisiana Bank. Donations may be mailed to:
St. Matthew's Relief Fund
c/o S. Louisiana Bank
PO Box 1718
Houma, LA 70361
Please include the account number
in the memo section of the check: 02-0195-2.

Watch the slide show at WDSU.

Historic Church Destroyed In Morning Fire - Photos - WDSU New Orleans

Almighty God, we give thanks for the gift to the parishioners of St. Matthew's of many years of fellowship and worship in their beautiful church building. We ask you to give your people comfort, consolation, and the peace that passes understanding as they grieve the loss of their building. May the people of St. Matthew's remain bound together in love and obedience to you, ever mindful that a church is the gathering of its people to give you praise, honor, and glory. Give them strength and courage to continue in worship and fellowship, as they move forward to rebuild their building. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

"SUGAR AND SPICE, OR STRYCHNINE"

Alan Wilson, the Bishop of Buckingham in England, is a treasure beyond measure for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. In his latest column in Guardian, titled "Sugar and spice, or strychnine", he says:

General Synod is scheduled to vote the covenant through on the nod next Wednesday, but amid low rumbling in the ranks. Every week around 200 readers of the Church Times opine on an issue of the day. Last week almost a thousand did, 83% of them against the covenant. Three years ago, Canon David Bayne from Scotland, where covenants have been salami slicing the kirk for donkey's years, described it (I hope in the rolling Scots associated with the late lamented Dr Finlay) as "95% sugar and 5% strychnine."

Since the Anglican Covenant has four sections, three of which some of us could live with, but the fourth which we view as a poison pill, I'd set the percentages at 75% sugar (although I'd like another metaphor, one not so sweet) and 25% strychnine.

And about that poll, although it's not scientific, I believe it's significant. A normal average of around 200 responses that jumped to nearly 1000 demonstrates a certain interest in the subject of the covenant and, at least amongst the respondents, an overwhelmingly negative view of the adoption of the document.

Such a process (The Anglican Covenant) represents a more developed system than archbishop Geoffrey Fisher knew. In 1951 he said: "We have no doctrine of our own – we only possess the Catholic doctrine of the Catholic church enshrined in the Catholic creeds, and those creeds we hold without addition or diminution." Fisher was no woolly liberal. Why is his doctrinal standground no longer adequate? (My emphasis)

Why, indeed?!! Why, why, why?

Just a short time ago, the Anglican Covenant was considered a quick shoe-in at General Synod involving little debate, because the thinking was that the members would not want to embarrass the Archbishop of Canterbury by voting the covenant down. The vote may yet go in favor of the covenant by a large margin, but, at least, there will be discussion at GS - a discussion which will continue if the motion in favor of the covenant passes and goes to the Church of England dioceses to ratify.

Of course, I urge you to read Bishop Alan's entire commentary.

Again, I wish to go on record in favor of No Anglican Covenant. Check out the website, which now includes a blog titled Comprehensive Unity.

IONA ABBEY AND NUNNERY

 

The Abbey at Iona

Click on the pictures for the larger view.

Quotes are taken from the Official Souvenir Guide for the Abbey.

Iona, of all the sacred places in Scotland, is an enduring symbol of Christianity. St Columba arrived on the island with twelve companions in AD 563 and founded a monastery that was to become the heart of the Scottish Church during its early years. One of the most important monasteries in early medieval Europe, it was a renowned center of learning and artistic excellence with extensive international contacts.

On the day before, the three of us, Cathy, MadChauffer, and I, attempted to take the ferry to Iona from the Isle of Mull, but, to our surprise and disappointment, the ferry was not running that day. The weather was lovely, and we went instead by boat to visit the Isle of Staffa and the Tresnish Isles.

On the next day, the weather turned rainy and stayed wet nearly all day. But if we wanted to visit Iona, we had to go in spite of the dreary weather, because we were leaving the Isle of Mull the following day. After we arrived on the island by ferry, we had lunch, and, from then on, we went our separate ways.

 

The nunnery ruins at Iona

The great building enterprises of around 1200 included the nunnery. Earl Reginald, its founder installed his own sister, Bethoe (Beatrice), as the first prioress. Although ruined, the nunnery is one of the best preserved in Britain. Such houses were common in Ireland, and it is likely that many of Iona's first nuns were Irish.

 

More nunnery ruins

The ruins of the nunnery are breathtakingly lovely. Cathy and I hung about the ruins for quite some time, Cathy longer than I, because she was photographing the birdies (and beasties?). I moved on toward the Abbey.



St Oran's Chapel

St Oran's Chapel, restored in 1957, was probably built as a family burial chapel either by Somerled, 'king' of the Isles, who died in 1164, or by his son Reginald.
....

Irish influence can be seen in both the architecture and the decorative doorway of this fine building. Inside is an elegant tomb-recess, built in the late fiftenth century, perhaps by John, the last Lord of the Isles.

 

Tomb-recess in St Oran's

Small, ancient churches like St Oran's are amongst my very favorite of old structures. I waited behind a man and a woman to light candles for our group of three travelers. Once their candles were lit, instead of moving away, they began a kiss that went on, and on, and on, and on, all the while blocking the way and preventing me from lighting my candles. Only the couple and I were in the chapel, and I waited, and waited, and waited for the pair to stop kissing and move aside. When I became tired of standing, I sat on one of the seats in the chapel to wait for them to be done. They must have kissed for five minutes or longer. I've never seen anything like it, but perhaps I've led a sheltered life.

When the kissing pair finally moved away and left the chapel, I lit my three candles and sat down again to have the chapel to myself for a while in peace and quiet.



The nave of the Abbey church

On the way to the Abbey church, the rain fell heavily, but nothing to do but to continue on, because I would not have another day. The shelter of the church was quite welcome.

Always the most public part of the church, the nave is a simple rectangular space without aisles. Two processional doorways lead north out to the cloister.

The Choir

The choir is beautiful, indeed. The carvings on the capitals of the columns are wonderfully done, with each capital having a unique design. Unfortunately, the detail cannot be seen in the photo, nor could I find a good link online to close-up pictures of the capitals.

 

The Baptismal font

I did not want the man in the kilt in the picture, but he wouldn't move away from the font. How about that calf? I cropped the rest of him. I expect he may not want to be in a picture on my blog any more than I want him here.

With the rain still falling, I was a bit reluctant to leave the church, but there was more to see, the Cloister, the Bishop's House, the Abbot's House, and the Abbey Museum.

 

The Cloister

The lean-to of the cloister is supported on an arcade formed of paurs of otagonal columns with moulded bases and capitals decorated mainly with scalloped and water-leaf ornament. Numerous original fragments are preserved, but only a few were in good enough condition to reuse during the restoration of 1958-59. Many of the new column capitals are carved with bird and foliage designs.

Indeed, the old carvings on columns, crosses, archways, tombstones, and elsewhere throughout the Iona complex of structures are amazing.

As I entered the Cloister area, a large group of German tourists, which included a shouting tour guide, was assembled, but fortunately, the leader was winding down his noisy spiel, and the group soon left, only for me to run smack up against the kissing couple, once again engaged in what seemed to be their favorite pleasure of the day. Since I was not confined to a small, enclosed space with them, I moved on and didn't clock the length of the kiss.




In the center court of the Cloister stands the wonderful bronze sculpture of Mary and the Trinity by sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.

 

St John's Cross

The cross stands in the Abbey Museum.

A particular highlight of the museum is the reconstructed St John's Cross that formerly stood close to St Columba's Shrine, together with the surviving fragments from Iona's two other ancient high crosses, St Matthew's Cross and St Oran's Cross.

On the way back to the ferry landing from the Abbey church area, my feet gave out, and I stopped for tea, for shelter from the rain, and to rest my feet. The tea and biscuits were some of the most enjoyable of my life.

After tea, I continued back toward the ferry landing, arriving more than an hour before our assigned departure time on the next-to-last ferry. There were Cathy, who had arrived about 10 minutes before me, and MadChauffeur waiting. Cathy and I had visited all the same places, but we never once ran into each other. MadChauffeur said he had been standing in the rain "for hours", which made me wonder why he hadn't gone into the pub and had a beer instead. He said he thought I was lost, that I had gone the wrong way. I don't see how I could have gone the wrong way, because the tower of the Abbey church was visible from the nunnery, where we started out.

Also, we all three had cell phones. I offered my number to MadChauffeur before we separated, but he was not interested, and he didn't offer to give me his number. Cathy and I had exchanged numbers early in the trip, so we could have been in touch at any time. The hours-long wait in the rain was not at all necessary.

When we went to board the ferry, which was about to leave, Cathy went first, and MadChauffeur and I tried to board together, but I could not find my return ticket. We stood there in the rain while I searched all my many pockets and my purse without success, and MadChauffeur went on and boarded the ferry. I thought it would be "Bye-bye, friends", but the ticket-collector allowed me to board without a ticket. Of course, once I was on the ferry, I found my ticket.

My readers, I have only scratched the surface in picturing and describing our visit to Iona, which is an extraordinary and holy place, where the prayers of many over centuries echo and linger. I may do another post on Iona, at least a photo essay, for I have lots more pictures. I've been working on this post for days, off and on, and I wouldn't want to know how much time went into putting the pieces together. But for St John's Cross, I didn't touch on the treasures in the Abbey Museum, the old crosses, the carved gravestones, and much more, including places visited but not described in my post.