SISTER SARAH SAYS THINGS ARE AFOOT IN HAITI

old pavilion worship space with the beginnings of construction for the new

Things are afoot at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  We have been worshiping under a pavilion in the former cathedral parking lot, located between the old cathedral and the old convent.

However, we have a big event coming up later this month: the consecration of the Diocese of Haiti's first suffragan bishop. After 150 years, this is a big deal.  We are the biggest diocese numerically in the Episcopal Church, so there is a lot of territory to be covered.  The cathedral already needed a more solid worship space, something with doors and walls (I heartily concur as I listen to the downpour outside), and Holy Trinity Music School needs a place to hold concerts since the destruction of the Salle Ste Cecile two years ago.  With the upcoming consecration and the need for space for the guests, this new, much larger pavilion is going to be a real blessing.  If I understand correctly, the sides of the building will not go on until afterwards, which will leave more space around the building open for the congregation.

Canon Oge Beauvoir is the suffragan bishop-elect who will soon make history in the Diocese of Haiti.  Read Sarah's entire post and see the rest of her pictures to find out what else is afoot at the site in Port-au-Prince.

Sarah, a  Sister of St Margaret and an Episcopal priest, is in Haiti to help with the recovery from the earthquake that devastated the country a couple of years ago.

GILES FRASER - THE LOOSE CANON

St Mary's, Newington

Giles Fraser in the Guardian:

The first impression of my new parish is of feeling loved and wanted by a whole group of people and for what seems like no reason whatsoever. On a stormy Tuesday night they came to my putting-in service, having prepared mountains of Jambalaya rice and patties, all togged up in their Sunday best and ready to sing their hearts out. Bottles of champagne appeared on the doorstep. Afterwards, the party in the church lasted until midnight. Wonderful.

I didn't invite anyone to my induction service at St Mary's, Newington. I've had my fill of polite rejections since resigning from St Paul's – too many unconvincing smiles in the street by former friends and colleagues who suddenly wouldn't break step to say hello. It is a miserable thing to have to face but, as I went through the long list of people I invited to my induction at St Paul's in 2009, I just couldn't work out who among them were still my friends. And I didn't have the emotional strength to decode all those nicely written excuses that middle-class people would come up with for not attending.

Grandpère and I had a similar experience in the groves of academe when he was a somewhat unwilling whistle-blower for telling the truth upon being asked. Some folks wouldn't even look at us. Others gave us a cold greeting and made it clear that no conversation would follow.   The shunning hurt, but, since I never thought of any of those people as friends anyway, it was not as painful as if friends suddenly stopped speaking to us.  GP suffered more than I, because he worked at the university and was demoted.  Had he not been tenured, he probably would have been fired.  Two of his co-workers without tenure were terminated.

I laughed at Giles' references to 'the pathologies of the English boarding school system', Philip Larkin's poem 'This Be the Verse' on 'mum and dad', and the establishment.  One way or another, 'they' get us all.

Read Giles' entire column.  It is excellent.

Giles' series on his life in the new parish is titled Loose Canon.  And why not?

UPDATE: From it's margaret in the comments - Psalm 55 ( a portion thereof)

For had it been an adversary who taunted me,
then I could have borne it; *
or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me,
then I could have hidden from him.
But it was you, a man after my own heart, *
my companion, my own familiar friend.
We took sweet counsel together, *
and walked with the throng in the house of God.

VEEP JOE BIDEN FAVORS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE - GEAUX JOE!

Joe Biden comes out in favor of same-sex marriage on Meet the Press:

GREGORY: Have your views evolved?

BIDEN: The good news is that as more and more Americans come to understand what this is all about is a simple proposition. Who do you love? Who do you love and will you be loyal to the person you love? And that’s what people are finding out what all marriages at their root are about. Whether they are marriages of lesbians or gay men or heterosexuals. [...]

GREGORY: You’re comfortable with same-sex marriage now?

BIDEN: Look, I am Vice President of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights. All the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that. [...] I think Will & Grace probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has done so far. People fear that is different and now they’re beginning to understand.

Joe is probably right about the influence of the TV show Will & Grace.  Well, well.  Meet the Press is good for something besides giving cash and air time to tired, aging pundits with views left over from the 20th century.

Watch him.



H/T to Athenae at First Draft.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR - THE CONSEQUENCES OF OPPRESSION

Thanks to Juan Cole at Informed Comment.

ABOUT WENDY...AND STORMY AND BADUT

Pictured above are my son's cats, Stormy and Wendy.  Stormy, the male, looks very much like a Russian blue.  Wendy, the female, is a brown and gray tabby, who has been having intestinal problems lately, in that she doesn't hold her food down.  She's been thoroughly examined and tested by the vets, and they can find nothing wrong.  She's lost weight, but not a dangerous amount, and is now on a special diet of expensive cat food, which did not immediately solve the problem.

Some of what Wendy regurgitates includes hair balls.  My son told the vet the story of Stormy and Wendy.  A stray female tuxedo kitten came to my son's house, and the family took her in, as much as they could, because she was and is half feral.  Turns out the 'kitten' was pregnant.  She was so small that she had to have been impregnated the first time she came into heat and, from the appearances of the 5 kittens in the litter, possibly by more than one male.   Badut (Don't ask about the name.  I have no idea.) stayed in the house when she had her litter and until the kittens were weaned, but now she prefers outside, except in very cold weather.

Badut was quite conscientious about feeding her litter, but Wendy was the nanny who did the cleaning and grooming, since the mother cat showed no interest in those chores.  My son found good homes for all the kittens but Stormy, whom they kept in the family.  Stormy is a very large cat, although you can't tell from the picture.  Wendy is a normal-sized female, but she still grooms Stormy as she's done since he was born.  The vets finally concluded that Wendy was ingesting too much hair by grooming herself and the huge Stormy, and her digestive system could not handle all the hair.  They've put her on an anxiety medication to try to keep her from vomiting, and it seems to be working.

In addition to her compulsion to groom Stormy, Wendy has to put up with his attempts to mount her.  Once he gets her down, she's so much smaller, she doesn't have a chance, and when my son goes to rescue her, Stormy gets a crazed look in his eyes as though to say, 'I'll tear you limb from limb, if you disturb me!'  All the more need for anxiety medication for poor Wendy.

And that's not all.  Whenever Badut decides to spend time in the house, Stormy still tries to nurse from his tiny Mama.  What a sight!  He's about twice her size.   He's never forgotten, but his Mama wants none of it, which may be one reason why she spends so much time outside.

Stormy is seemingly a large cat with a small brain, who yet manages to rule like a king.  Such is life with the feline members of the household.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY - MEISTER ECKHART

Man’s last and highest leave-taking is leaving God for God.

UPDATE:  The thought above in a broader context:

I will put into plain words what St. Paul means by wishing to depart from God. Man’s last and highest leave-taking is leaving God for God. St. Paul left God for God: he left everything he could give or take of God, every concept of God. In leaving these, he left God for God since God remained to him in his essential self, not as a concept of himself, or as an acquired thing, but God in his essential actuality.

From An Introduction to Meister Eckhart

H/T to Windhorse in the comments at Adventus.

EL CINCO DE MAYO - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GAYLE!

Today is my beloved sister Gayle's birthday. She died six years ago on April 27. We celebrated her life in a memorial service on her birthday, May 5, 2006. After the service, we had a quiet gathering of friends and family. Later that evening, we had a not-so-quiet gathering, in other words, a party. Gayle loved parties, so it was fitting.

She also loved that she shared her birthday with the Mexican celebration. Of course! Another occasion for a party.

¡Viva México! ¡Viva El Cinco de Mayo!

Viva Gayle! May we meet in the kingdom!

Friends of Gayle set up The Dillenkoffer Endowment to provide scholarship grants to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teens.  We know that it's not easy to come out as a teenager. The consequences, at worst, can be nothing less than deadly. I greatly admire all the young men and women who have the courage to step forward and claim their identities in the face of the difficulties.

If you would like to make a donation, here's the link.

(Reposted from last year with slight editing.)

CHRIST'S PRESENCE

Bro John Anthony

10:28am May 4

Knowing Christ to be present and active within us is the true reward. Our service to others, our generosity, are the manifestation of the life of God, the love of God, the generosity of God active within us. What could be a better reward than God within us?

-Br. Mark Brown
Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Bro John Anthony posted in St. Cuthbert's Cottage

HE HAD A RIGHT TO BE THERE

Occupied Bishop George Packard was arrested again.

I said to Brook on that long march from Union Square to Veterans’ Plaza, “It would be a relief to be arrested just to sit down.” We’re not that out-of-shape; it was the stop and go, creep along, that the NYPD made us do to keep order that wore us out. Truth be told, the crowd—though hefty at fifty thousand strong—was docile. 
....


Despite the fatigue the traverse past Trinity Church brought a wave of continuous and universal disdain. Sad, really, because that parish/corporation—true to the Gospel--could have brought an moment of magnanimity to the Occupy Movement by granting refuge on their vacant Duarte property back on December 17th. What had been an esoteric argument over using church property wasn’t wasted on this endless parade of protesters. They got it.

Very sad, indeed.

So, we wended our way down past the infamous bull on lower Broadway with a surprising left turn toward Water Street. My legs were yearning for the benches around Bowling Green but sometimes the inscrutability of places like Trinity can only be matched by the likes of my young friends of Occupy. Where we were going? Enroute we all received this text message: “New Occupation Assembly at Veterans’ Plaza.”

....

Once there, you can’t help but think of the young men with whom you served. In those days I was an Army platoon leader.

....

I’m probably at the end of God’s list of coincidental places from which to be arrested: church property on December 17th and now the Memorial for my fallen brothers and sisters on May 1st....and so I ignored the police instructions to leave the park.

Thus George was arrested again, although he had every right to rest and remember in Veterans Plaza.  What to say of a system in which a veteran is not permitted quiet time at a veterans memorial?  Read the entire poignant post.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Since Lawrence O'Donnell suggested that I stay tuned to The Last Word because Alec Baldwin would appear on his show, I have not watched the news on the tee vee.