ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILL RESIGN AT THE END OF 2012

Anglican Communion News Service:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has today revealed that he is to step down from his role at the end of the year.

His decision comes after 10 years in the post and after accepting the position of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
.... 

The Archbishop is the Focus of Unity for the Anglican Communion. He is convener and host of the Lambeth Conference, President of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and Chair of the Primates' meeting.

Hmm.  I thought our focus of unity was Jesus Christ.  Archbishop Rowan has not been a focus of any sort of unity for me for a very long time.  

Dr John Sentamu: "The last decade has been a challenging time for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Thankfully, Archbishop Rowan is a remarkable and gifted leader who has strengthened the bonds of affection."

 Lay Anglicana:

It is interesting to speculate what effect the resignation of  the Archbishop of Canterbury is likely to have on the outcome. On the one hand, people might feel that they owe him a ‘yes’ vote as evidence of their loyalty. On the other hand, they may feel that if he is not to remain in office during the period when it will need to be implemented, it is not necessary to follow his lead and they will be free to vote according to their own views.

Five diocesan synods in the Church of England will meet tomorrow and vote on the adoption of the Anglican Covenant.  Pray for wisdom for the members as they cast their votes.

Chester
Ely
Liverpool
Norwich
St Albans

Bishop Alan Wilson on the Anglican Covenant:

I shall listen carefully to the debate in our diocese. I can only vote for the covenant if those who support it can produce something very much better than tendentious waffle spiced by emotional blackmail to explain it.

The row that produced this document has, mercifully, moved on fundamentally from the night of the long knives to the night of the long trousers. I don’t want to go back to where we were on the gay issue, and I don’t want to have a two-speed Church, and I don’t want to add to the burdens on colleagues abroad, and I don’t want to collude with childish attempts to punish the Americans for being children of the Enlightenment, if such they are. Neither do I think a healthy family should roll over in a supine way and pretend to believe in something it doesn’t just because Daddy will be upset if it doesn’t.

The whole thing is foolish, and founded on a damaging control fantasy. Best give it a decent Christian burial and move on.

POPE ORDERS CUSTOM EAU DE COLOGNE

From the Guardian:

He is picky about his robes and his red shoes are tailor-made, but Pope Benedict has taken the meaning of bespoke to a whole new level by ordering a custom-blended eau de cologne just for him.

The fragrance, which mixes hints of lime tree, verbena and grass, was concocted by the Italian boutique perfume maker Silvana Casoli, who has previously created scents for customers including Madonna, Sting and King Juan Carlos of Spain.

Casoli said she had a "pact of secrecy" with her most illustrious client to date, and refused to release the full list of ingredients that had gone into his scent – but she did reveal that she had created a delicate smelling eau de cologne "based on his love of nature".

The story leaves me wordless - nearly.  Obviously the "pact of secrecy" applied only to the ingredients of the cologne and not to the very fact that the pope placed an order for a custom cologne.

Thanks to Ann V for the link.

UPDATE: I thought of something else to say: You can't make this stuff up.

ALTERNATE MEANINGS FOR COMMON WORDS

1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
 
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
 
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
 
4. esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
 
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
 
6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
 
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
 
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
 
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
 
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
 
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
 
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
 
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
 
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
 
16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

Don't blame me.  Blame Frank.

J F MILLET - BUCKWHEAT HARVEST: SUMMER - POEM

Buckwheat Harvest: Summer - 1868-74 - Oil on canvas,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 Buckwheat Harvest

The ground is Norman - windswept coastal soil
As thin as seed-and-harvest time is short.
Too poor for oxen trampling out the grain
And yet a place where hardy buckwheat grows.

In stubble, bent-backed women bind and tie
The pink-white flower-heads in shocks,
Then shoulder them or push square-basket sleds
Toward circled threshers raising up dead limbs.

Like some archaic pagan sacrifice,
Men thrash split stalks and chaff to free the seed.
On with a pitchfork tosses straw on fire
Whose winnowed smoke spreads high in cirrus skies.

The church in distant Gruchy's barely seen
Between these gatherings of germ and cloud,
Its steeple pitched, a shock of headed stone
To rocky backs that bow toward toil alone.

David Middleton - The Habitual Peacefulness of Gruchy: Poems After Pictures by Jean-François Millet

Used with permission of the author.  I wrote to Louisiana State University Press for their permission, but they never responded, so I post the poem under the assumption that I've stayed within the bounds of fair use.

David is a member of my church, and I've long admired his poetry.  He writes with an earthiness and an economy of words that evoke the images in Millet's painting wonderfully well and then moves us beyond the paintings to reflect further on the deeper meaning in his words.  Amongst his several books of poetry, I also highly recommend Beyond the Chandeleurs.

 Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

CONFESSIONAL

An Irishman goes into the confessional box after years of being away from the Church. He is amazed to find a fully equipped bar with Guinness on tap. On the other wall is a dazzling array of the finest cigars and chocolates in the world.

When the priest comes in, the Irishman excitedly begins..."Father, forgive me, for it's been a very long time since I've been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be."

The priest replies, "Get out. You're on my side."

 Don't blame me.  Blame Ann.

JEFFREY JOHN - C OF E LAST REFUGE OF PREJUDICE

From the Telegraph:

Dr Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans, claimed that the Church’s mishandling of the gay issue was at the root of an increasingly secular society.

The 59-year-old was pressured by the Archbishop of Canterbury to stand down as Bishop of Reading following revelations that he was in a gay, but celibate, relationship.

His remarks are likely to further provoke a damaging split within the Church as the Government seeks to launch its consultation on same-sex marriage later this week.

Dr John told The Times: “Exactly the same love and commitment are possible between two people of the same sex as between two people of different sexes, and it is not immediately clear why the Church should regard such a relationship as ethically or spiritually inferior to a heterosexual marriage.

“The fact that fifty years on [after the decriminalisation of homosexuality] the Church is seen as enemy No 1 of gay people is a disaster, both for our own morale and for our mission to the country. We have become the last refuge of prejudice.”  (My emphasis)

The Church as the 'last refuge of prejudice' is so very sad to read...sad but all too true. Jeffrey John knows, since he's twice been on the receiving end of prejudice.  I doubt that John's words will worsen the split within the Church of England, which is obviously gaping, but more people in England are likely to dismiss the Church as unworthy of their attention.
UPDATE: Simon Sarmiento at Thinking Anglicans has more from an interview with Jeffery John by Ruth Gledhill in the Times, behind the paywall. 

2. What are your views generally on gay marriage?

I have always believed that the only possible Christian model for a same-sex relationship is monogamy. I wrote a booklet about it in 1991 called ‘Permanent Faithful Stable’ which will be republished later this year. At that time I took the view that it didn’t matter whether we call it a marriage or not – what really matters is the nature of the relationship and the commitment on which it rests. In a sense that is still true. But of course the obvious, natural term for monogamy is marriage, and most people instinctively refer to civil partnerships as marriages anyway. So I think ‘marriage’ probably is the best term to use for same-sex as well as well as heterosexual monogamy, and it also has the great advantage of making clear that both should be given equal respect.

....

5. What do you think of what George Carey has been saying and his new Coalition 4 Marriage?

They seem to ignore the fact that the ten other countries which have already legalised same sex marriage have not experienced any of the horrors that they keep predicting. Marriage and family life in those countries have not been harmed in any way. The ‘slippery slope’ argument that same-sex marriage will somehow lead to polygamy or incest or increased debauchery is particularly illogical and rather insulting. Nor am I impressed by the argument that we should not use the law to bring about social change. If we had not made changes in the law discrimination against women, ethnic minorities and the disabled would still be firmly in place.

Read the rest at Thinking Anglicans.

SPRING NEWSLETTER - NO ANGLICAN COVENANT COALITION

Spring Newsletter

March 14, 2012

Dear Supporters,

Since I last wrote to you, developments in the progress on the development of the Covenant have been fast and (occasionally) furious. We had previously assumed that adoption of the Covenant would come before General Synod in York this July, and we were concerned that it might be overshadowed by the – hopefully final – debate on the appointment of women bishops. But this has almost certainly been overtaken by events.

Voting has been continuing in the dioceses, the surprise being that the current state of play is 17 against the adoption of the Covenant, with only 10 in favour of it. If a simple majority of the dioceses vote to reject it, the Covenant will not after all be brought before General Synod. There are 44 dioceses, which means that the pro-Covenanters need 23 to be in favour. Thus to defeat it, we only need to have 22 dioceses reject it. The Covenant could not be brought before General Synod again in this quinquennium, i.e. not before July 2015 (and it is hard to see how it could be revived then).

On 17 March, this coming Saturday, Norwich, Liverpool, St Albans, Chester and Ely will vote; and on the following Saturday, 24 March, they will be followed by Lincoln, Exeter, Blackburn, Oxford, Guildford and Peterborough. You can follow the results on the Thinking Anglicans website and also at Modern Church.

Our experience in the last few months has been that, wherever members of the diocesan synods are briefed on both sides of the question, they have tended to vote against the Covenant. In several cases, synods have refused to allow briefing papers on both sides to be circulated. In Sodor and Man, Bishop Gregory Cameron of St Asaph debated with Jonathan Clatworthy of Modern Church before the diocesan synod: despite an address by the Bishop of Sodor and Man strongly in favour of the Covenant, it was rejected.

Our team in the Coalition has been strengthened by the recruitment of 5 more patrons: from England, the Revd Dr Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of Church History at Oxford University, and the Revd Canon Sarah Coakley, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University; from the USA the Revd Dr Marilyn McCord Adams, Professor of Philosophy at University of North Carolina and formerly Regius Professor at Oxford University; from Australia, Dr Muriel Porter, OAM, a senior Anglican and correspondent for ‘The Church Times’; and from New Zealand the Rt Revd James White, Assistant Bishop of Auckland.

Concentration remains, for the moment, on the Church of England. Professor MacCulloch was interviewed with Bishop Graham Kings of Sherborne by Edward Stourton last Sunday. You can hear it on YouTube, and you can also hear his general comments on the Covenant here. This video was fortuitously uploaded to YouTube the day after the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rather rambling piece - and appeared to be in response to it.

So, to summarise, it is possible that by the end of March we will have defeated the Anglican Covenant, at least in its present form. I never imagined, when we started the No Anglican Covenant Coalition in 2010, that we could conceivably achieve this result. It has not happened yet, so for now our efforts are concentrated on getting at least 5 more dioceses voting our way. If we succeed, the next task will be to keep a close eye on what the Anglican Communion Office do next. Will they try to rescue it in some way or other, or will we have a part to play in more constructive dialogue about the future of the Anglican Communion?

Thank-you to so many people who have been working hard at the local level to enable both sides of the debate to be heard. Please continue your efforts, we still need your help.

With very best wishes,


(Coalition Moderator, the Revd Dr Lesley Crawley)

STORY OF THE DAY - NO WORDS

I read once that the ancient Egyptians 
had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos 
had a hundred words for snow. I wish I 
had a thousand words for love, but all 
that comes to mind is the way you move 
against me while you sleep & there are 
no words for that.

From StoryPeople.

RELIGIOUS HUMOR - OLDIES AND NEWBIES

Why Go to Church?

     One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, "I'm not going."

     "Why not?" she asked.

     “I'll give you two good reasons," he said. "One, they don't like me, and two, I don't like them."

     His mother replied, "I'll give you two good reasons why you WILL go to church, “One, you're 59-years-old, and two, you're the pastor!"
                     

The Picnic

     A Jewish Rabbi and a Catholic Priest met at the town's annual 4th of July picnic.  Being old friends, they began their usual banter.

     "This baked ham is really delicious," the priest teased the rabbi.  "You really ought to try it.  I know it's against your religion, but I can't understand why such a wonderful food should be forbidden!  You don't know what you're missing.  You just haven't lived until you've tried Mrs. Hall's prized Virginia Baked Ham.  Tell me, Rabbi, when are you going to break down and try it?"

     The rabbi looked at the priest with a big grin and said, "At your wedding."

The Twenty and the One

     A well-worn one-dollar bill and a similarly distressed twenty-dollar bill arrived at a Federal Reserve Bank to be retired.  As they moved along the conveyor belt to be burned, they struck up a conversation.

     The twenty-dollar bill reminisced about its travels all over the country.  "I've had a pretty good life," the twenty proclaimed.  "Why, I've been to Las Vegas and Atlantic City; I’ve been to the finest restaurants in New York, performances on Broadway, and even a cruise to the Caribbean."

     "Wow!" said the one-dollar bill.  "You've really had an exciting life!"

     "So, tell me," says the twenty, "where have you been throughout your lifetime?"

     The one-dollar bill replies, "Oh, I've been on the collection plates at the Methodist Church, the Baptist Church, the Catholic Church and several other Churches across the country.”

     The twenty-dollar bill interrupts, "What's a church?"

Thanks to Ann.

"WHO TOUCHED ME?"

Catacombes of Rome

Over 1500 years old art

Mark 5:24-34
  

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

The Gospel passage above is one of my favorites from amongst my rather large collection of favorites of stories from the Gospels.  In the account, Jesus knew that healing power had gone out from him, but he did not know who was healed.  What a delightful paradox which, to me, shows that Jesus was fully human, just like us, and he did not posses all knowledge.  At the same time, the passage also demonstrates how how closely Jesus was tuned in to the movement of the Holy Spirit, as we perhaps could also be if we were more attentive.

The woman was unclean, an outcast, for 12 years, and when she touched Jesus, he became unclean, too, unfit for company and unfit to enter the synagogue.  Yet, Jesus calls her daughter; he welcomes her as a member of his family.  We see Jesus, in the spirit of love and compassion, once again break through the barriers of the law. 
 
Image from Wikipedia.
Source: http://campus.belmont.edu/honors/CatPix/womanblood.jpg