"A response to the murder of David Kato" by Stephen Neill at Paddy Anglican
Thoughts for a sermon, 4 Epiphany, by Ann Fontaine at What the Tide Brings In
A sermon at St. Mary Magdalene by Neal at Conscientisation
A sermon by it's margaret at Leave It Lay Where Jesus Flang It
Don't know if I mentioned it before - but I now have a new pet - Roxie. She was a stray hanging out behind the police station for the past six months - and they convinced me to adopt her - now that Zoe is gone. She was named by one of the female officers. She now has a repertoire of four tricks - all performed without benefit of commands - sleep, eat, poop and pee. She is extremely proficient at all four - especially the sleeping - during the day on my desk, at night on an upholstered chair in the living room.
Frank
i meant to save the world today.....then i saw something sparkly.....................
An ELDERLY British couple is recovering today after a faulty GPS system led them to crash into a 19th-century German church, causing $37,000 worth of damage.
The couple, who cannot be named under German data protection laws, were traveling Friday from Austria to France guided by their GPS system. The 76-year-old husband, who was driving, followed instructions to "turn right" but ended up hitting the chapel near Freundpolz, Bavaria.
The man and his 78-year-old wife were taken to the hospital suffering from shock and bruises, before returning by train to Britain.
....
Karl-Heinz Krueger, a passing motorist, told a local radio station, "The old man was more confused than the woman. He kept saying, It's the machine - it told me to turn this way, but I suddenly ran out of road."
beloved Giants
i'd ask your prayers please for my cherished cousin Frank out in Brittish Columbia struggling with the effects of his long fight with lukemia.
dear Mam received a call from Carol this afternoon, and in the process also got to speak to Frank for a very short while.
able to control the spread of the fungus in his lungs, but unable to beat it with his immune system so seriously compromised by the most recent gene therapy transfer, they have sent him home from the hospital. not fully mobile, my cousin is a robust fellow and Carol is going to have to get help for handling him.apparently he spends much of the time sleeping at present.
as he is still intubated there will be medical staff going in daily to maintain it, and Frank will be returning to the hospital weekly for as long as he is able.
so i'd ask your prayers for both Frank and Carol, knowing that through the unfailing grace of that 'Love beyond our wildest imagining' they will be given what they need.
i'd also ask your prayer for dear Mam, his godmother, who at eighty-nine is finding it challenging, the possibility that her beloved godson/nephew could be dying before her.
in other quarters, i'd ask your prayers for the people of Tunisia, Egypt and Sanaa; that they indeed are able to claim that 'life more abundantly'. prayers particularly please for our Coptic brothers and sisters in Egypt- for their protection and safety. prayers please for the repose of David Kato, the gay Ugandan martyr, and for our LGBT brothers and sisters at risk wherever they might be.
prayers for the Great +Katherine and her brother primates in Dublin. prayers for Gabby and Mark and for all those struggling to heal in Tucson.
thank-you beloveds
love always-always Love
I've been doing these Chinese stretches
that are supposed to make you live
longer, he told me. I just hope I'm not
this sore the whole time.
Ten miles from a Ugandan blood-stained home, 300 friends, fellow activists from the LGBT community, his mourning mother and family joined foreign dignitaries and embassy staff to pay their respects to David Kato.
Since Kato was an Anglican, the local parish church of Nagojje was responsible for his funeral rites to be read from the Book of Common Prayer. Although tributes have been pouring into the Kato family from President Barack Obama and other international leaders, the Church of Uganda sent no priest, no bishop, but a Lay Reader to conduct the service.
Bishop Christopher Senyonjo arrived in his purple cassock accompanied by his wife Mary and let the master of ceremonies know he would like to say a few words at some point in the service. He was going to read a message from Frank Mughisu of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) where David worked tirelessly since 2004.
As an excommunicated bishop of the Church of Uganda, Christopher has no standing in the official hierarchy of the church. The Lay Reader began to make inappropriate remarks condemning homosexuality quite graphically and stating the Church of Uganda’s position that homosexuality was a sin and against the Bible.
The Church of Uganda, a member of the Anglican family of churches to which I belong, took a pastoral opportunity for healing and reconciliation with family members and LGBT people and allies and turned the event into an anti-gay political rally. Following this horrific incident with the Lay Reader who condemned the LGBT community, Bishop Christopher, as a bishop of the church and wearing his purple cassock, walked behind the coffin carried by David’s friends and family to the graveside. There, although he was disinvited by the Church to speak at the funeral, he found a way to bring words of comfort to the mourners and said the final blessing over David’s battered remains.
In this one sad occasion, we can see there are two churches in Uganda and indeed elsewhere. The bishop was horrified by what he witnessed from his fellow Christians. Yet, it was good that Christopher was there. He told me he was honored to be there and though was not welcomed to speak to the whole assembly, had the final word of love and peace for David. May he rest in peace.
As regular readers will know, I’ve spent quite a lot of time on this site, and elsewhere, arguing for a rather extreme sort of liberal Christianity. I started off fulminating against the establishment of the Church of England, and went on to argue that all major forms of church were full of illiberal assumptions. Really liberal Christians must try to develop a new, anarchic, post-ecclesial Christian culture, I said.
I have changed my mind in an important respect. I now feel that organized religion might not be such a bad idea. Its various authoritarian forms might be avoidable. It might be redeemable.
Two things have led me to this re-think. First, I have admitted that, after a few years of looking, I have failed to find any significant manifestations of a new, post-institutional Christian culture. Second, I have encountered a form of church that does not offend me.
....
It was a catch-22. Organised religion was intolerably illiberal, but only organised religion seemed able to organise Christian ritual – without which Christianity is just a bunch of vague ideas. My desire was for ritual to be liberated from the institutions but, frankly, I didn't know how this could happen. After a few years staring at this question, I was no nearer to answering it.
Then last year, I moved to New York. I wanted to see if there was a stronger post-institutional Christian culture here, a more substantial ‘emerging church’ movement. There is, but I’m not sure what I make of it yet. I was also curious to see what I would make of the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism. It is proudly disestablished, and has broken with the homophobic legalism of the rest of the Communion, so would I find it a model of liberalism, or still complicit in the various ills of organized religion? I was assuming the latter. But, to my surprise, a taste of Episcopalian worship got me asking: what’s not to like?
Looking back at the crisis in the Anglican Communion, I find that I am impressed by the boldness of the Americans. Instead of backing down over Gene Robinson’s consecration, they insisted that a basic Christian principle was at stake: the need to oppose moral legalism, and open the good news to everyone. This was Paul’s project – which is why it is so ironic that Paul also supplies the conservatives with their main ammunition. You could say that the crisis is an argument within the mind of Paul.
....
The air is fresher here. The American branch of Anglicanism has emerged over the last decade as the global pioneer of liberal Christianity. It has persuaded me not to give up on church just yet."
The awkward fact, it seemed, was that only institutionally rooted Christians understood the primacy of ritual. Only they were committed to the ritual worship of a certain ancient Palestinian chap. And, away from such a commitment, there is surely no Christianity worth speaking of.
