SEE THE PRETTY TRUCKS

That's Duarte Square, where Occupy Wall Street tried to settle after the group was forcibly removed from Zucotti Park by the not-so-gentle police.  Alas, OWS was forcibly removed from the barren Duarte Square, too.  Trinity Church Wall Street owns both places.

I must admit that the square is much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye with trucks parked there than with riff-raff in tents parked in the area.  Plus, the church gets paid for allowing the trucks to park in the square, whereas the protestors wanted the space for free.  Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.


From 'New York Magazine'.

Thanks to Ann for the link.

EVERY DOG NEEDS A CAT

I agree, but my Diana thinks differently.  I want a cat badly, badly.

Thanks to Doug.

'OMAR KHAYYAM ON FORGIVENESS AND FALLING OFF THE WAGON'

I singlehandedly keep
this bar afloat.
My heart has bled
with repentance
a couple thousand times.
But if I don’t go on sinning,
what would divine mercy do?
He can’t bestow forgiveness
unless I keep falling
off the wagon.

 Translated by Juan Cole
from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 130

Oh, do I like this. What would God do with godself without sinners in need of forgiveness? Khayyam is such a rogue, but a thinking rogue, and he often makes me smile. (as I said at Juan's blog)

OUR MAN MALCOLM IN THE ANGLICAN JOURNAL

The Rev Malcolm French, Moderator of NACC

From the Anglican Journal in Canada:

An international coalition of Anglicans [No Anglican Covenant Coalition] hopes a model resolution to reject the Anglican Communion Covenant will be accepted by The U.S. Episcopal Church at its General Convention in Indianapolis in July.

The covenant was intended to be an agreement to bind the global Anglican Communion together despite differences about the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of bishops in same-sex relationships.

The coalition's resolution declines to approve the covenant and claims there are better ways to unify the Anglican Communion. It calls on the church to “at every level to seek opportunities to reach out to strengthen and restore relationships between this church and sister churches of the Communion.”

The covenant was never intended to bind the churches in the Anglican Communion together, but rather to discipline the churches in the Communion which strayed from the straight and narrow path by extending equality to all members of the church without exclusions because of sexual orientation.

The resolution submitted to the TEC General Convention 2012 is numbered D007.  "French here.  Malcolm French."

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

The world would be a fine place, were it not for the people.

(But for me and thee!)

BREAKING THE RULES OF CIVILITY

Here's the book: Rules of Civility.  My friend, to whom I lend many books, insisted that I read her copy, because she liked it so much.  My books are always returned in the same condition they go out to her, even the old, yellowed paperback mysteries, which she is now reading, as she finds my choices of fiction not cheery enough.



One evening, as I read the very first book that I ever borrowed from my friend, I spilled half a glass of wine on it...my one and only glass of wine, I hasten to add, which I did not even get to finish.  I take care of  books, my own and especially those that belong to others, but the book is ruined, though not for reading, as I went on to finish the story.  I will buy another copy to return to my friend. 

 See?  The book is quite a mess.  The jacket came through the wine spill best of all.  From the front, except for a bit of stickiness, you'd never know the accident happened.  The inside is another story.

What about the contents of the book?  Spoiler alert!  I enjoyed it in a quick-read sort of way.  The author, Amor Towles, "is a principal at an investment firm in Manhattan", and this is his first novel.   He writes in the voice of the narrator, who is a young woman in her twenties throughout the book, except for fast-forwards in the beginning and end.

The real story begins in the late 1930s, with the young people crashing parties at grand mansions on Long Island, and my first thought was, "Ah, here we are in Gatsby land," and we were, but the author is not Fitzgerald.  Towles writes well enough, but, curiously to me, he often uses British spelling and expressions, which perhaps is the way people from the right families and the right schools and universities spoke and wrote in the 1930s.  The protagonist, Kate (Katya), who is from an immigrant family in Brooklyn, and did not attend the right schools, works her way up from the secretarial pool to a high-powered job at a glossy magazine and marries a man from the right family, schools, etc.  The reviewer at the New York Times, Liesl Schillinger, liked the book better than I did.  I once read a good many books of this sort, but time is short, and now when I read, I want to sink my teeth into something more solid.

And now off to order another copy of the book.

'ROMNEY MITT, THE DEMON BARBER OF WALL STREET'

The latest from Roy Zimmerman.  The make-up....




Thanks to Paul (A.).

SORRY STUDENTS - NO HEALTH INSURANCE FOR YOU

From Laura Bassett at Huff Post Politics:

Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic institution in Ohio, has decided to drop its entire student health insurance plan as of the fall semester 2012 because of the new federal rule requiring contraception coverage under most employee and student health policies.
....

The announcement is somewhat misleading. Under the new rule, Franciscan University would not have to pay for any student's contraception. The administration carved out an exemption for religious organizations, including Catholic schools, that would require the insurance company itself to pay for the insured's birth control coverage "directly and separately." Nonprofit schools that don't currently cover birth control can also qualify for a one-year transition period to comply with the new requirement. 

Will the university provide health insurance for their employees?  Or are all the university employees celibate and not in need of coverage for contraceptives?   I checked the website, and not all the faculty are Franciscans.

You'd think the administration would be forced to hand out the contraceptives themselves, but there are so many degrees of separation between the powers of the institution and the actual dispensing of the contraceptives that they appear ridiculous.  They strive for a kind of purity which is impossible to achieve and live in the world.  This from a church that found it acceptable to have a policy of covering up child abuse for decades.  It is a puzzlement.

Let's get this straight: That the students at Franciscan University will not have health insurance is not the doing of the president but rather of the authorities in the Roman Catholic Church.

NACC RESOLUTION FILED AT TEC GENERAL CONVENTION 2012

D007 TOPIC:

Response to the Anglican Covenant

PROPOSER
Russell, The Rev. Cn. Susan
 

ENDORSED BY

Hopkins, The Very Rev. Michael; Lee, Ms. Lelanda

SPONSORED BY

Buchanan, The Rev. Susan; Engstrom, The Very Rev. Marilyn; Gracey, Mr. R. Stephen; Hart, Mr. Christopher; Kandt, Mrs. Pamela; Leigh , Ms. Robyn; Moore, The Rev. Stephen; Russell, The Rev.Michael; Shaw, The Rev. Lee; Williams, Ms.Sandra; Bronson Sweigert, The Rev. Cynthia

RESOLUTION TEXT

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 77th General Conventiongive thanks to all who have worked to increase understanding and strengthen relationships among the churches of the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention reaffirm the commitment of this church to the fellowship of autonomous national and regional churches that is the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention recognizes that sister churches of the Anglican Communion are properly drawn together by bonds of affection,  in the common mission of the gospel, and by consultation withoutcoercion or intimidation; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention, having prayerfully considered the merits of the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant and believing said agreement to be contrary to Anglican ecclesiology and tradition and to the best interests of the Anglican Communion, respectfully decline to adopt the same; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention call upon the leaders of The Episcopal Church at every level to seek opportunities to reach out to strengthen and restore relationships between this church and sister churches of the Communion.

EXPLANATION

Churches of the Anglican Communion have been asked to adopt the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant. The suggestion for such an agreement was made in the 2004 Windsor Report, which recommended "theadoption by the churches of the Communion of a common Anglican Covenant which would make explicit andforceful the loyalty and bonds of affection which govern the relationships between churches of the Communion."

The Windsor Report was produced at the request of Primates upset with the impending consecration of GeneRobinson as Bishop of New Hampshire and the promulgation of a liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions bythe Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada.

Archbishop Drexel Gomez, of the Anglican Province of the West Indies, was entrusted with leading thedevelopment of the first draft of a covenant. This same Archbishop Gomez was one of the editors of "To Mendthe Net", a collection of essays dating from 2001 and advocating enhancing the power of the Anglican Primates to deter, inter alia, the ordination of women and "active homosexuals," as well as the blessing of same-sexunions. Archbishop Gomez's punitive agenda remains evident in the final draft of the proposed Covenant.

Despite protestations to the contrary, the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant attempts to create acentralized authority that would constrain the self-governance of The Episcopal Church and other churches of the Communion. This unacceptable inhibits Communion churches from pursuing the gospel mission as they discern it.

The Church of England has already declined to adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines has indicated that they will not support the Covenant, andthe rejection of the Covenant by the Tikanga Maori of the Anglican Church in Aoteroa, New Zealand andPolynesia renders it virtually certain that those churches will also decline to adopt.

The deficiencies of the proposed Covenant would lead to an Anglican Communion further divided rather thanmore unified. Declining to adopt the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant not only avoids permanent,institutionalized division, it opens the way for new opportunites to build relationships across differencesthrough bonds of affection, by participation in the common mission of the gospel, and by consultation without coercion or intimidation.

GOD'S JUDGMENT IS LOVE

We have already been judged by God, and the nature of that judgment is that it is a judgment of love. In God’s judgment we need saving and we are worth saving, and we cannot do it ourselves. In God’s judgment we need to be rescued.

-Br. David Vryhof
Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Bro John Anthony posted in St. Cuthbert's Cottage