PLEASE PRAY FOR ARKANSAS HILBILLY

Our friend Arkansas Hillbilly is very down today and needs our prayers and encouragement. Pop over and tell him that you care.

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

MORE ON ABP. ROWAN'S RESIGNATION(?) - 'OH, QUEEN ANNE'S DEAD'

Chris Hansen, an American expatriate now living in London, writes from over there on the article in the Telegraph and the rumors floating about regarding the resignation of Abp. Rowan Williams.

My first reaction was "Oh, Queen Anne's dead." (what you say in the UK when someone relates old news to you). Last year Rowan publicly stated that he would not serve until 70, and the current trend is for most bishops, except for those who love the office more than life itself, to retire around the age of 65.
....

One thing that Wynne-Jones got right is that the tenure of an ABC revolves wholly around the Lambeth Conference. In recent times only Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher stayed around for two Lambeths (he had to be told by his secretary in 1961 that the time had come for him to make a graceful, if tardy, exit). Every Archbishop since has been appointed long enough before a Lambeth Conference to do effective planning, and resigned at a time before the next one that would allow his successor to do the same.

Read the rest over there.

'GAME OFF' - BP. NICK ON ABP. ROWAN'S DEPARTURE

 

From Bishop of Bradford, Nick Baines' blog:

The game is on. Journalists have started their game of speculating without reason on the internal workings of the mind of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The whistle has blown, the runners are lined up, and now we’ll get a race to see who can guess the best story. How exciting… er… or maybe not quite.

Perhaps the chatter making its way around 'As the Anglican World Turns' is simply rumor based on wishful thinking. I can accept that.

But wait!

“Bishops are placing themselves under starter’s orders in the race to become next Archbishop of Canterbury”. Er… who and how? I understand the use of the metaphor, but it doesn’t work in this case. There is no race. There is no competition. There is no ‘finishing line’. The horses don’t know that they are running or where the jumps are that they didn’t know they were required to jump.

It simply doesn’t work like this. If any particular bishop was being considered, he probably wouldn’t know. He couldn’t influence the process anyway. Unlike some other Provinces of the Anglican Communion, there is no election to be fought, no lobbying to be done, no one to lobby and no ‘ultimate prize’. One newspaper report speaks of “some apparent jockeying for position among Dr Williams’ potential successors”. How would a potential successor actually do this ‘jockeying’? Just asking.

Although I am a foreigner and perhaps not all that knowledgeable about the inner workings of the Church of England, it beggars belief that Bp. Nick would have us believe that no English bishops, have ambitions and never, ever engage in back room maneuverings in attempts to have this bishop or that bishop or even themselves named to high positions.

Having said that, Bp. Nick may well be correct that the thinly sourced story in the Telegraph by Jonathan Wynne-Jones, which other news organizations seem to be picking up, is mostly rumor.

You’d have to be out of your mind to want to be Archbishop of Canterbury. My guess is that whoever is asked to do it next will have to be dragged to the seat.

Nevertheless, I'd guess that a few bishops may aspire to the position, but whether they're of sound mind, I'm not qualified to say.

Tune in later for the next episode of 'As the Anglican World Turns'.

GAWGEOUS OR WHAT?

 

One dozen lovely golden roses. I'll tell you all about them tomorrow.

HELP!

 

Who will come to my house and help me set up my new computer? I look at the parts to assemble the monitor stand, which are only about three in number, and I already feel defeated.

 

I revise my original question: Who will come to my house to set up my computer for me? If you're going to ask, ask big.

'IN MY BEGINNING IS MY END'

 

Above is the National 9/11 Memorial pool, with the names of all who died in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Below are the beginning and the final verses of the second of T. S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets'.

EAST COKER

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.
....

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

WE REMEMBER

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

HENRY PURCELL'S 'AN EVENING HYMN' - EMMA KIRBY

Emma Kirby 'An Evening Hymn' - Henry Purcell

Now, now that the sun hath veil'd his light
And bid the world goodnight;
To the soft bed my body I dispose,
But where shall my soul repose?
Dear, dear God, even in Thy arms,
And can there be any so sweet security!
Then to thy rest, O my soul!
And singing, praise the mercy
That prolongs thy days.
Alleluia!

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS TO RESIGN?

 

From Jonathan Wynne-Jones at the Telegraph:

Dr Rowan Williams is understood to have told friends he is ready to quit the highest office in the Church of England to pursue a life in academia.

The news will trigger intense plotting behind the scenes over who should succeed the 61-year-old archbishop, who is not required to retire until he is 70.
....

Sources close to the archbishop say he will leave after the Queen's Diamond Jubilee next June and having seen the Church finally pass legislation to allow women to become bishops.

It is understood that Trinity College, Cambridge, is preparing to create a professorship for Dr Williams, who studied theology and was a chaplain at the university.

After Dr Williams rams the Anglican Covenant through General Synod of the Church of England, he will leave the wreckage to be cleaned up by his successor.

The archbishop wants to see through Synod the establishment of women bishops, but will women bishops serve with the same authority as male bishops?

This could allow for John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, to succeed him in a caretaker role as the Ugandan-born cleric is one year older than the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop Chartres has been telling clergy that such a move could be beneficial for the Church, though the Bishop of London would also be one of the front-runners himself.

The word from friends in England on the two names mentioned above is, 'Nooo!'

H/T to Peter Owen at Thinking Anglicans.

FEELING LOST

 

Working on my PC Notebook is just not the same. I'm lost without my desktop PC. My old computer is at the store to have all the material transferred to the new model we purchased yesterday. I feel so scrunched working on the laptop, but it is something and better than nothing.

Added note: The sound is not good.