I TAKE IT ALL BACK...

...the snark about the royal wedding. I just finished watching the entire ceremony in Westminster Abbey, uninterrupted, no fits and starts, no commentary. It was beautiful. The Anglican liturgy, the music, the sermon, the prayer composed by the royal pair, the Abbey, the deportment of the bride and groom, all of it was too lovely for words.

And, Leonardo, the Queen's dress was, too, mellow yellow in the softer lighting in the Abbey. I first saw the dress in bright sunlight on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in one of my earlier, disjointed viewings of the celebration.

In the scenes showing the trees decorating the Abbey, as the camera zoomed closer to the gorgeous Gothic stained glass window, the setting seemed to be the outdoors. The pans of the architectural elements of the Abbey and the shots from on high were breathtaking.

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Photo by John Stillwell/AFP/Getty Images

SEE DOUG'S ART! SEE DOUG'S STUDIO!

"Orpheus" by Doug Blanchard

From Doug aka Counterlight:

Dear Friends,

I will participating in the Artists Alliance Open Studios, together with the CSV Center, part of the New Museum's Festival of Ideas for the New City. The event will take place Saturday May 7 from 5 - 9PM, and Sunday, May 8 from 12 - 6PM at the CSV Center, 107 Suffolk, at the corner of Suffolk and Rivington on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The nearest subway station is Delancey-Essex on the F, M, J, and Z lines. (My emphasis)

My studio will be open to all, as will the studios of scores of other artists in the building. This will be our 15th annual open studio event.

I hope to see you there.

http://aai-nyc.org/

--Doug Blanchard

Pictured above is one of my favorites of Doug's paintings. Details of the painting may be seen here.

Doug's "Gay Passion of Christ" series is now featured, along with commentary by Kittredge Cherry and passages from Scripture, at the Jesus in Love Blog during the Lenten and Easter season.

Last time I was in New York, Doug promised to take me to his studio to show me his etchings, but he never did. We lingered too long at lunch after church with his friends from St Luke in the Fields.

ADS YOU WON'T SEE TODAY

The ad above was published in Life magazine in 1943. It's genuine, one of a series of six that the Cannon Towel Co. placed on the inside back cover of Life during 1943 and 1944.

We subscribed to the magazine at the time, and even as a child of nine and ten, I enjoyed reading Life and looking at the pictures. I must have seen the ad, but I don't remember. Here's a link to another of the ads. Ebay has more. The picture above is the most "graphic" of the ads I've seen.

I read what I could of the description, and the picture shows Pacific Islander boys demonstrating to the GIs how to bathe safely in crocodile-infested waters using nets to keep the crocs out. There you have it. Cannon towels - "Durable for the duration".

Thanks to Lapin for the picture.

UPDATE ON GÖRAN

From Md.Hasibul Hassan Habib:

He needs to stay in hospital more 1 or 2 weeks more. pray for him.

Yes, please continue to pray for Göran.

Thanks to Ann Fontaine for letting me know.

THE ROYAL WEDDING

THE VOWS



The language of the Church of England liturgy of the marriage vows is beautiful. In the splendid surroundings of Westminster Abbey, the ceremony was, indeed, impressive. The Archbishop of Canterbury's vestments were on the splendid side, too. Lapin informs me that the maker is Watts & Co. Unfortunately, the archbishop had hat hair when he removed his mitre.

THE BALCONY KISS



Kate looked lovely. Her dress and veil, designed by Sarah Burton of British designer Andrew McQueen's fashion house, were traditional, simple (for a royal bride), and beautiful. William looked....colorful. Queen Elizabeth, whom I admire for performing her duties with grace and dignity, wore an outfit the color of which I can only describe as ghastly yellow. Ow! My eyes! Sorry about the sour note, but that was my reaction. Further sour note: Camilla's hat looked as if it were swallowing her. What is it with the mostly unattractive hats worn by the ladies?

I've not seen the entire coverage of the royal wedding, only these two videos. I'll watch Barbara Walters wrap-up on "60 Minutes" this evening at a more reasonable hour.

The best commentary on the wedding so far is Fr Christian's on-the-scene live-blogging of the event at GAFCON, which starts here.

PRAY FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES

From Yahoo News:

Firefighters searched one splintered pile after another for survivors Thursday, combing the remains of houses and neighborhoods pulverized by the nation's deadliest tornado outbreak in almost four decades. At least 290 people were killed across six states — more than two-thirds of them in Alabama, where large cities bore the half-mile-wide scars the twisters left behind.

The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.

"These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen," said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

I was at a meeting for most of the evening, and I had no idea such loss of life and devastation had taken place. Lord have mercy!

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks prayer in response to natural disaster. (Edited)

Adon ha-olamim, Sovereign of the universe,

We join our prayers to the prayers of others, for the victims of the the tornadoes in the Southeast, which have brought destruction and disaster to many lives.

Almighty God, we pray You, send healing to the injured, comfort to the bereaved, and news to those who sit and wait. May You be with those who even now are engaged in the work of rescue. May You send Your strength to those who are striving to heal the injured, give shelter to the homeless, and bring food and water to those in need. May You bless the work of their hands, and may they merit to save lives.

Almighty God, we recognise how small we are, and how powerless in the face of nature when its full power is unleashed. Therefore, open our hearts in prayer and our hands in generosity, so that our words may bring comfort and our gifts bring aid. Be with us now and with all humanity as we strive to mend what has been injured and rebuild what has been destroyed.

Ken Yehi Ratzon, ve-nomar Amen.
May it be Your will, and let us say Amen.

From Beliefnet.

UPDATE: If you'd like to help, Episcopal Relief and Development is working with churches and dioceses in the areas affected. I know from past experience with hurricanes that the Salvation Army is quite often amongst the first of the large organizations on the spot to give help.

PLEASE PRAY FOR GÖRAN

From Jane Redmont at Facebook:

Friends of Göran Koch-Swahne: Göran was away from FB for 10-12 days. Turns out he was in hospital w/ combination of very bad flu & double(-sided) pneumonia. He lost 12 kilos & he was already pretty skinny to begin with. Spoke w/him via msg last night but now he has been taken back to hospital early this a.m. It doesn't sound good. Please send prayers & healing thoughts.

Göran is quite thin. 12 kilos is a lot of weight loss for him.

O God, the strength of the weak and the comfort of sufferers: Mercifully accept our prayers, and grant to your servant Göran the help of your power, that his sickness may be turned into health, and our sorrow into joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Thanks to susan s. for letting me know.

WAR - WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

From ABCNews:

An Afghan Air Corps pilot, angered by an argument with nine American trainers at Kabul airport, pulled a gun on the Americans, disarmed them and methodically killed them, officials said today.

The shooter then apparently shot and killed himself.

The Afghan military said the gunman was a 20 year veteran of the Afghan Air Corps who had gotten in an argument with the American trainers during a meeting in a conference room at the Afghan Air Force headquarters.
....

The dead included eight U.S military personnel and one American contractor. Five Afghan soldiers were also injured in the shooting, said Bahader.

It was the deadliest incident so far of an Afghan ally turning against his coalition partners, officials said. This is the seventh time this year that coalition soldiers or Afghan security forces have been killed by either members of the Afghan security force or insurgents impersonating them.

What the hell is the goal of the US and its coalition partners in Afghanistan? We are engaged in a war seemingly without end at great expense in lives and money. The British tried to get control of Afghanistan and failed. The Russians tried and failed, at the expense of the collapse of their empire. Why can't we learn from history? We should have destroyed the Taliban's training camps after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center and then left the country.

Here we are 10 years later having lost 2436 lives, probably not counting those mentioned above, with numbers more wounded, and having spent a total of $455.4 billion, and what have we gained?

DIOCESE OF MICHIGAN SAYS NO TO ANGLICAN COVENANT

Response to the Anglican Covenant

General Convention Deputation

Diocese of Michigan

The Deputies and Alternates to the 77th General Convention met on March 10 to consider the Anglican Covenant and the accompanying Study Guide. Our response to the proposed Covenant comes in seven parts:

Our first response to the Anglican Covenant is to affirm fellowship and communion.

Such unity as these words imply is our highest good and perhaps our greatest blessing. We uphold, stand for, honor and thank God for communion.

Our second response is to ask how we can newly enter into a relationship in which we already stand and have been enjoying for some time. Just as one would not ask people long married to enter into a newly-written contract of marriage, nor ask members of a family suddenly to enter into a contract of kinship, neither can we understand why or how we could suddenly attempt to do so among our sister and brother Anglicans around the world. We believe the effort is redundant, and indeed, perhaps even dishonors the reality in which we live.

Our third response is to question the appropriateness of “Covenant” as a model for eccelesial relations. To quote from materials prepared by the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, “’Covenant” implies a superior who offers the covenant and a subordinate who accepts it. So God extends the covenant to Israel and Israel is bound to the terms of God's covenant. As applied to the relationship between God and Israel and between Christ and the Church this implication is foundational.” Because “Covenant” implies a hierarchical relationship, the term is inappropriate when used to describe the network of relationships between co-equal and autonomous national churches.

Our fourth response is to suggest that the Covenant document creates an international bureaucratic superstructure whose existence is at odds with the longstanding autonomy of national churches. To give juridical, disciplinary authority to super-national bodies contradicts the foundational impulses that led to the establishment of the Church of England in the sixteenth century. We believe that the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council already serves as a warrant for fellowship, communion, and ministry between the churches of the Anglican Communion.

Our fifth response is to affirm the vocation of the Episcopal Church in the full inclusion of all its members in all orders of ministry and the full access of all its members to its sacramental rites. Since 1979, the Episcopal Church’s baptismal covenant has included a promise to, among other things, “respect the dignity of every human being.”

Our sixth response is to express our fervent hope that the Anglican Covenant process may be an occasion to refocus our national and international energies on mission and ministry. The challenges facing us together and severally are profound. We believe that energy expended on the disciplinary processes outlined in section four would be better spent in proactive ministry to the poor, the oppressed, and those who have yet to hear the Gospel.

Our seventh and final response is to reaffirm that we are in relationship already with one another, quite apart from signing or not signing a document. Are we not the Body of Christ, and individually members of it? As the eye cannot say to the ear, "I have no need of you", nor the hand to the foot, neither can we deny what is our heritage, reality, hope, and destiny. The Covenant that binds us together is the mutuality of our ministry and accountability conferred in Baptism. The Baptismal Covenant that binds us together is no imperfect human creation. The Baptismal Covenant by which we are bound one to another is the one, perfect, eternal covenant given us by God in Christ. On that covenant we delight to stand; in that communion, second to none, we are proud to serve.

For these and other reasons, we recommend against adoption of the Anglican Covenant by the Episcopal Church.

Whoo-hoo! Keep them noes a-comin'. I especially like that the deputation called attention to the fact that relationships already exist and their analogies to asking married couples and family members to enter into a contract when bonds are already present. The proposed Anglican Covenant is daft in so many ways.

Note: As of today, the statement is not yet posted at the website of the Diocese of Michigan.

GAYLE - FIVE YEARS GONE

The picture of my sister Gayle was taken on the grounds of the Tower of London during our trip to England in the 1990s. We were headed to visit the Norman chapel inside the White Tower. I stopped to take a picture, and Gayle walked on. Today is the fifth anniversary of my sister's passing. With courage, she fought off lymphoma 17 years before she died from pancreatic cancer. I still miss her. For me, the picture is a stunning metaphor for Gayle's walk away from all of us who love her.

Please pray for her husband, Frank and her three children, two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Please pray for me and for her many friends who still miss her. She was a wonderful person. She loved to joke and laugh, and she loved a good party. She was a good wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. She was a good sister and a good friend to me.

This past Holy Week, I've been unusually sad, and I've wondered why. I take the week to heart, but usually not as much as this year. Then, on Monday, it dawned on me that in the days before the anniversary of Gayle's passing, I grieve each year, even when I'm not consciously aware that the anniversary approaches. Holy Week coincided with the period before the anniversary. Aha!

Why Couldn't You Stay?

You walked away; you left us
Bereft, bereaved.
How could you go?
It wasn't your doing,
I know, I know.
Yet, how could you go?

Two years passed and gone,
Slipped away.
After you left, I'd think
I'll call her; I'll email.
Oh no! None of that!
You won't answer.

Now I know you're gone.
No thoughts of visits to come,
Seeing your face, hearing your voice,
The sound of your laughter.
Sadness lingers, emptiness remains.
Why couldn't you stay?

June Butler - 04-27-08

Note: Reposted from last year with editing.