Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

The following is a promo for a PBS show scheduled to air on February 20th.

Okay, so you're asking why it is that this priest in affluent, Republican, lily-white Chatham, NJ is concerned about this video?

Well, because Hip Hop Nation is not just about music. Music is the vehicle for the expression of a cultural identity which appeals to people of all ethnicities, all races and cultures.

I've heard Hip Hop played in the barios of Newark, the clubs in Manhattan, and on the streets in Ohio, California, England, Dubai in the Emerits, Lagos, Nigeria and Kumasi, Ghana.

I would guess that 80% of the music I hear coming from the kids in my Chatham Youth Group is Hip Hop.

I admit that there is much about Hip Hop music that I like (Janet Jackson totally ROCKS). That being said, I am still very concerned because much the new Hip Hop - like that from 50 Cent and Nellie - is violent.

And, hear this clearly: that violence is directly aimed at women.

Here's just one of the statements made in the film: "Violent masculinity is at the heart of American identity."

If that were a true or false statement, I would have to say, "True." In the promo, at least, this is used to justify the violence in Hip Hop. See? It doesn't promote violence. It's just an accurate reflection, the implication seems to be, of what already is.

At one point, a young African American woman is asked if she is disturbed because women are constantly refered to as "bitches and ho's" in Hip Hop. "No," she responds, "I know they aint' talkin' about me."

The narrator says, "Yo, they ARE talkin' about you, girl! If President Bush used the 'N' word to describe you, you wouldn't be like, 'Oh, he ain't talkin' 'bout me.' Yeah, he is."

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking, "Stockholm Syndrome."

There are many complex and varied issues raised by this on many levels with a variety of applications.

I think this is "one to watch." And, talk about with your kids.

Word to yo mutha!

A Girl Like Me

If you haven't already, you absolutely MUST see this short video "A Girl Like Me" which is a seven minute clip from a critically important documentary that has re-ignited the controversy about race relations in this country.

The young African American woman who is the videographer of this film is 17 years old. You can purchase the entire documentary online.

Be prepared to be stunned. Please do watch this.

And then we have to get a grip, get up, get going, and start all over again.

If the above link is not hot, you may purase the film at http://www.reelworks.org/watch.php

"In memory of her"

The following story was posted at one of my favorite Blogsites “Of course I could be wrong” , which had appeared in a British newspaper (unfortunately, the source is neither named nor linked).

It is the advanced notice of a BBC broadcast about a young man in a Roman Catholic hospice whose wish is to experience sex before he dies.

Now, I can tell you from my medical and pastoral background and experience that this sort of thing goes on all the time. This is not a novel situation, folks. You know it as well as I do.

Given the discussion about the ethics of divorce and homosexuality, a few questions arise:

What does the church (that’s us, folks, the Body of Christ) have to say about sexual ethics and morality in this situation? What would Jesus have us do for this young man? Did Sr. Frances Dominica make the correct moral decision? What would any of us do were we in the position of Sr. Frances Dominica?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A young disabled man who receives care for his life-limiting illness at a hospice run by a nun spoke yesterday of his decision to use a prostitute to experience sex before he dies.

Sister Frances Dominica gave her support to 22-year-old Nick Wallis, who was born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Sufferers usually die by their thirties.

Mr Wallis told staff at the Douglas House hospice in Oxford that he wanted to experience sexual intercourse. He explained that he had hoped to form an intimate and loving relationship with a woman, but his disability had acted as a barrier.

He told The Daily Telegraph: "It was a decision two years in the making and I discussed it with my carers and my parents. Telling my mother and father was the hardest part, but in the end they gave me their support."

"There are many aspects of life that an able-bodied person takes for granted but from which I am excluded.

"I had hoped to form a relationship when I went to university, but it didn't happen. I had to recognise that if was to experience sex I would have to pay for it out of my savings. My mind was made up before I discussed it with anyone else."

The hospice staff, after taking advice from a solicitor, the clergy and health care professionals, decided to help him.

"I found an advert from a sex worker in a magazine for the disabled," said Mr Wallis. "The initial contact was by email and then by phone."

It was arranged for the prostitute to visit his home in Northampton. "My parents went out," he said.

"It was not emotionally fulfilling, but the lady was very pleasant and very understanding. I do not know whether I would do it again. I would much rather find a girlfriend, but I have to be realistic."

Mr Wallis has decided to talk in public about his decision as part of the BBC documentary series about life inside Douglas House and its associated hospice for children, Helen House.

"I have done so in order that people may understand the issues that face people in my situation. I suppose some people may be judgmental."

He said he did not discuss his decision directly with Sister Frances, who founded the two hospices. "But I know she gave me her support."

Sister Frances described Mr Wallis as "delightful, intelligent and aware young man".

"I know that some people will say 'You are a Christian foundation. What are you thinking about?'. But we are here for all faiths and none," she said.

"It is not our job to make moral decisions for our guests. We came to the conclusion that it was our duty of care to support Nick emotionally and to help ensure his physical safety."

Mr Wallis's story can be seen on The Children of Helen House, BBC2, 10pm Tuesday.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
All I can tell you is that I can hear Jesus saying, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her?” (Mark 14:6a) “Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.” (Matthew 26:13).

"Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

"And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.'" (Luke 7:50)

Madonna Live To Tell NBC

I am a HUGE Madonna fan. Always have been. Always will be.

Yes, I am a self-avowed, practicing and unrepentant fan of Madonna.

Yes, this is a controversial performance, but the real controversy is in the stories it tells, for these are the real lives which hang on modern, cultural crosses of our own making.

These are the tales that need to be told - as well as the modern stories of our participation in the ever-unfolding divine drama of salvation.

Take 10 minutes and experience the controversies of our modern lives of faith.

Then, take 10 more minutes and think about the tales you need to tell.

Or, perhaps, the tales you need to hear and see and know.

And, then, consider the salvific, forgiving, redemptive work you are called to do.

Today. In your lifetime. In the shadow of the cross. In the hope of salvation.

Congratulations, Sandye

Sunday, January 28, 2007, marks the 25th Anniversary of the Ordination to the Priesthood of the Rev'd Sandye Wilson, rector of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church of St. Andrew and Holy Communion in South Orange, New Jersey.

I understand that the community of people of SAHC put on quite a celebration for Sandye - as well they might. Her enthusiastic embrace of the gospel, translated into compelling preaching, creative liturgy, social justice and committed pastoral care has earned her the love and respect of the people she serves and the neighborhood and community where she lives.

You have been a blessing of the church and to the church, my sister.

I am reminded that your mentor and my hero, the Rev'd Dr. Pauli Murray, once wrote: "Hope is a song in a weary throat."

Thank you for every verse which the past twenty five years of your ministry has brought to the Song of Hope which Jesus first sang to us from the cross of our salvation.

May you sing out hope in a weary voice for another twenty five years, my sister, knowing that God loves you and continues to expect a mighty work from you, that all who see what you have done in the Name of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, may bring honor and glory to God.

Eddie Izzard - Easter and Christmas

Okay, last one. Well, for today, anyway.

I love Eddie Izzard. Can you tell?

No, he's not gay. As he himself says, "I fancy girls. I also fancy their shoes, is all."

Sometimes, it's just important to have a laugh and a half at the end of the day is all.

Anyone who takes their religion too seriously deserves exactly what they get.

And, I suppose, anyone who takes their religion too lightly has also recieved their reward.

But, the one who loves Jesus and can have a bit of an outrageous laugh at organized religion in general and the Anglican Church in particular, now it is s/he who has come very near to the Realm of God.

Somebody say, "Amen."

Religion ala Eddie Izzard

Eileen had posted this on her blog and I refered to it, but now that I've learned how to do this, I want it on MY Blog.

It's hilarious, in that tweaking, outrageous, British sort of way.

And, it's not that far from the truth, either.

A Sermon for Epiphany III

“When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.”Luke 4:21-30
Epiphany IV – January 28, 2007
The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham, NJ
(the Rev’d) Elizabeth Kaeton, rector and pastor

Well, now we know. Eventually, the pieces of the story are woven together and we get to see the entire scriptural picture.

Remember two weeks ago? Remember our Senior Warden, Jim’s Mollo’s sermon on the story of the Wedding at Cana? Remember how sassy Jesus was with his mother? Jim’s mother and my mother must have graduated from the same parenting class. Had I spoken to my mother that way, calling her ‘Woman,’ I would have been beaten into next week. (Actually, her threat was, “I’ll beat some sense into you.” Which makes great sense, eh?)

Remember the response Jesus gave to his mother when she asked him to get more wine? “Woman, my time has not yet come.”

Now we know. Now we understand his hesitancy in making public the divinity of his humanity. Now the pieces fit.

The people of the town have just heard Jesus read scripture in the Temple. You may recall that: Galileans, in their day, were not allowed read scripture publicly. Galilee was considered a ‘backwater’ – a hick town – and the people there spoke with a distinctive accent.

I suppose we might compare it to the accent of someone from the Ozarks or Appalachia. Here comes Jesus, Joseph’s son – someone everybody knew from birth – reading from the Torah and “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

Imagine that! A Galilean who can actually read publicly and sound gracious!

(Hey, isn’t that Joseph’s kid?!?)

Jesus is onto them. He tells them that he expects them to ask for something more. We all know this dynamic, don’t we? Who among us doesn’t cringe to recall a long-ago memory, hearing one of our parents say, “Go ahead, dance for Grandma. Play the piano for your Aunt Ruth. Sing that song you learned in class the other day for my garden club.”

Jesus, anticipating this, reminds them that Elijah cared for the widow Zarephath in Sidon even though everyone was affected by the famine. And, even though there were many lepers in Israel, Elisha cleansed only Naaman the Syrian.

Jesus is not about to ‘perform.’ That’s simply not how it works with the miracles of God. Moreover, it is simply not good leadership. I have heard it said that a good leader will take you where you want to go. A great leader, however, will take you places you’ve never dreamed you would go. Jesus isn’t going to just do a “miracle on demand.” He’s got greater lessons to teach.

Which gets EVERYONE enraged. I mean, if he’s not the carpenter’s son, carrying on his father’s trade, and he’s going to do something really different, then show us what you CAN do. When Jesus won’t, the people get so angry that they “got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.”

So, we get it now. This is why Jesus was so hesitant to declare the start of his ministry. This is why he told his mother, “My time has not yet come.” Jesus knew the cost of this all too well.

Whenever I read this story, I’m reminded of the story my grandmother often told about how and why she came to America. She was the youngest and the only daughter of a family with seven sons. When she was 13 years old, her mother died and, even in her grief, she could read the handwriting on the wall. As the only girl, she would have to stay at home and care for her father and her brothers. That would be her life. Until, of course, she married a man and became his wife and cared for their children.

Still, if that were her lot in life, she’d rather have it be her own. So, she feigned exhaustion from her grief and convinced her father’s sister to have her sent away to America to visit relatives – just for a visit. A couple of months. Just to get her bearings. Earn a wee bit of money and then return home to care for her father and brothers.

Except, at age 15, she married my grandfather and together, they had 22 children, raising 15 to adulthood. My grandmother reports that her father and brothers were so angry at her for not returning home that they never forgave her. Indeed, she was never allowed to return to her native land of Portugal, and never saw her father or brothers again.

There was much more to that story she never told, but the fullness of her untold story haunted her. A look of sadness would come into her eyes that almost broke your heart. There was no denying that her heart – and something in her spirit – was broken by whatever had happened to her in her decision to declare her independence and start her life on the path of her own choosing.

I suppose this is why, in the mid-1950’s she made certain to sit me down and show me a pictorial essay in LIFE Magazine. It was about the Red Foxes of Holmes, County Ohio which first appeared in 1944. She had saved the magazine which contained that pictorial essay. She had carefully wrapped it in tissue paper and then in wax paper, placing it in the bottom of her dresser drawer, preserving it as an opportunity to teach her children and grandchildren a hard lesson about human nature which she had learned.

It has come to be, for me, a modern parable.

It appears that the good people of Holmes County, Ohio, hated the Red Foxes that lived in the corn fields of their county. They hated them because they thought they were the ones who were killing their sheep and their pigs. What they didn’t know was that the Red Fox only eats rodents, rabbits, insects and fruit – but mostly, very small prey - not sheep or pigs.

Ironically, it was their predatory expertise, not doubt, which kept the population of the field mice from raiding their granaries or from getting into the farm house cupboards.

No matter. The good people of Holmes County, Ohio, needed to feel that they were doing something to rid themselves of the threat of the Red Foxes. In folklore, the Red Fox is often a wily villain who triumphs over those who would attempt to control or destroy it. In the Uncle Remus folktales, Br’er Fox is a fictional character who is often outwitted by Br’er Rabbit.

So, in the Spring of every year the good people of Holmes County, wanting, I suppose, to feel better about themselves by outwitting the Red Fox, would gather at the edge of the corn field – men and women, their children and grandchildren (to teach them well) – where they knew the Red Fox had their boroughs.

They would begin to beat spoons and ladles onto the backs of the pots and pans they had brought from their kitchens, making a terrible noise to frighten the Red Foxes out of their underground homes.

The Red Foxes would emerge from their boroughs, frightened and scared, and run into the middle of the circle of humans, which would grow smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter, until they were all huddled together with no place else left to go.

Some, out of fear, snarled at the humans around them. Others, out of an uncanny but senseless appeal to the humanity of their captors, tried to lick the hands of those who cornered them. It did no good. Because the good people of Holmes County, Ohio, had a job to do.

At the command of one of the town leaders, they would beat those Red Foxes – beat the mothers and the fathers and the baby Red Foxes – senseless, until they were beaten unconscious and died.

Of course, the killing of the sheep and chickens would go on. Everyone knew that it was the coyotes who were the culprit. But, killing the coyotes took skill – something the good people of Holmes County did not have.

It was much easier to kill the Red Foxes and feel as if they had done something to protect themselves. The pictorial essay in that 1944 issue of Life Magazine reported that they did this every year.

My grandmother showed me this photo essay and said, “People can be mean and cruel. They can be very mistaken about you, and blame you for things that you would never in a million years even consider doing. Still, they will hunt you down and try to kill you – or your spirit. Don’t let them. Be true to who you are. Be what God made you. Be what God wants you to be – not what other people think you are.”

I have seen this happen in families. You have too. I have seen families cut off a sibling or an adult child because a marriage – predicted from the outset to be troubled – finally ended in failure. Or, I’ve seen families cut off and banish another family member who was addicted to alcohol or drugs. Or, a son or daughter who was gay. Or, a child who did not do well at college. Or, who took a path in life that was not part of the parent’s plan for them. Or, a child who did as his parents asked and grew up to be a most unhappy – indeed, miserable – adult.

We’ve seen this on the national and international level as well. We’ve seen it in Palestine and Israel with the Hamas and the Hezbullah. In Afghanistani tension between the Kurds and the Christians. In Iraq between the Shiite and the Sunni’s. In Northern Ireland between the Protestants and the Catholics. In Rwanda between the Tutsi and the Hutu. In the genocide in Dufar in the Sudan. And, ‘lest we forget, in the prison cells of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay..

Last week, Jim Mollo, inspired by the Gospel and by the words of Desmond Tutu, encouraged us to be who we are. To be who God made us to be. Today’s lessons continue that theme. The first lesson was from the Prophet Jeremiah.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,” God says to him; “and before you were born I consecrated you.” Jeremiah responds, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am a boy.” And God says, “Do not be afraid.”

Paul’s eloquent letter to the Church in Corinth reminds us that port of the rite of passage into adulthood is to make a choose. Choose faith. Choose hope. But, most importantly, choose love.

Today’s gospel lesson is a reminder – a frighteningly stark reminder – that integrity and authenticity come at a very high cost. Jeremiah, even as a young boy, knew it. Jesus, in his time, knew it too. And, in our time, so do we. It happens when all the pieces of the story of our life fit together. When we know it is our time. When we understand that we only have one life and it is our life, anyway, and the time has come to put that belief into action.

Sadly, what happened to Jesus happens to many of us, too. We know this. We know this well. So, some of us compromise. Some sell ourselves short. We tell ourselves little lies that haunt us and break our hearts – and, eventually, our wills. This led Henry David Thoreau to say, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

Which probably led him to say, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

There are also many of us who have taken that different step to the different drummer. Believe it or not, we are called Christian. Yes, Christian. Being a Christian makes you a decidedly counter-cultural person. Let’s be honest: that’s a bit of a difficult pill for most Episcopalians to swallow, isn’t it?

Yesterday, as part of the service of ordination and consecration of Mark Beckwith as the 10th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, we were treated to the reading of excerpts of MLK’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail which was read by Newark Mayor, Corey Booker.

I was reminded of the quote in which Dr. King says that the church has become a thermometer for society, giving us indications of how to conform to the cultural climate. He asked, “Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world?” Dr. King said that rather than be a thermometer, the church needs to be a thermostat for our culture, our nation, our world, turning up the heat, when necessary, to meet the challenge of the struggle for freedom and an end to war and torture, poverty and hunger, epidemic and oppression.

Yet, this very act puts us outside the culture. It gives us an identity that will engender such hatred that some will want to run us out of town, hurling us headlong over a cliff, or, like the Red Foxes who are perceived as a threat, circle us up and beat our spirit to death.

Like Jesus, we know what it means to sit in church, listening to the call of the prophets. And, some of us know, deep in our places of knowing, that if we actually acted upon those words, what might happen. And, it makes us very afraid. So we do nothing.

Poet William Blake once said, “All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for good men – good people – to do nothing.” That is true on a personal level, as well as in our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our nation and the world.

Yesterday, at the end of the service of consecration of our new bishop, Mark Beckwith, gave a very powerful benediction. I suspect we’ll be hearing it at the end of every service we share with him. It is one I wish to leave with you today as inspiration and hope,

“May God give you the grace to never sell yourself short; grace to risk something big for something good; grace to remember that the world is too dangerous now for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love. And the blessing of God Almighty – the God who creates us, the Son who sets us free, and the Spirit who promises to be with us – even to the end of the age, be with us all evermore.”
Amen.

And the Award for the 'Quote of the week' goes to . . . . . .

... . . . .The Rev'd Liz Zivanov, rector of The Episcopal Church of St. Clement Honolulu, Hawaii, and deputy extraordinnaire to General Convention.


"The Windsor Report is a plowshare that's been beaten into a sword."

Scenes from a Consecration

Please do enjoy these photos taken by Steve Boston and Nina Nicholson of the Ordination and Consecration of Mark Beckwith as the 10th Bishop of the Episcopal (Anglican) Diocese of Newark.

The High Altar at NJPAC (New Jersey Performing Arts Center) in Newark. Isn't that Red Rose, Carnation and Heather Cross simply stunning?


The changing of the guard. Bishop Croneberger hands off the staff to newly ordained Bishop Beckwith.


More than 3,000 people attended the Service of Ordination and Consecration.

(Oh, yes, hadn't you heard? The Episcopal Church is dying, and the Diocese of Newark is going right down the hopper. These headlines brought to you by Chicken Little).




Tracey Lind, Dean of the Cathedral in Cleveland, OH and dear friend of +Mark, was one of the concelebrants of the Eucharist. I am so proud to call Tracey my good friend as well.

Keep your eye on Tracey. The solid money is that she will be the first ordained woman who also just happens to be lesbian to be elected a bishop.

I can't think of better company for +Gene in the House of Bishops.

More importantly, I can't imagine a more qualified person to be Bishop.

Note to MadPriest: I'm wearing a red suede coat, darling, with red fringes. The word had gone forth from the Office of the Bishop that all in attendance were to wear the color red.

I had thought of wearing my red zip-up leather jacket, but it looks a bit too, well, 'randy' I think is the word. My beloved Ms. Conroy, my partner of 30+ years, said that this red coat made me look a bit more like an 'crunchy-granola' type priest, with just a bit of an 'edge' to cause a stir.

I wore it, of course, thinking of you and basking in the wonder of your completely unearned and undeserved love for me.

Pink- Dear Mr President - Live

I'm not a big fan of PINK, but this is outstanding.

Louie Crew offers a first look at today's consecration

Here's Louie with our Presiding Bishop Katharine at NJPAC after today's most amazing service.

He has graciously sent around this note, which offers us a first look at today's consecration.

I'm quite certain that there will be more pictures as well as the Presiding Bishop's sermon on our diocesan website before too long. I'll direct you there as soon as I read the announcement.

BTW, I have been told that the "official" count was over 3,000 people in attendance.

You may now join the heavenly hosts in the post modern chant, "Go head, be goin'".

At http://bishopsearch.dioceseofnewark.org/pics_consecration you may
view the pictures which I took at the consecration today.

As you will quickly discover, I am not a professional photographer.
Nevertheless, I hope they capture some of the splendor and joy that we
experienced.

Share these freely with anyone who would like to see them.

Louie
Clerk of the Vestry of Grace Church

Almost heaven.

After an absolutely amazing service of ordination and consecration of our new bishop, Mark Beckwith, I thought that perhaps, just perhaps, I had died and done gone to heaven.

The NJ Performing Arts Center may not have been designed for liturgical functions, but you would never have known it from today's service. I couldn't have imagined a more perfect place to ordain and consecrate a bishop.

The house was packed. If the Episcopal Church is dying, you'd never have been able to tell from the amount of people and the incredible energy in that theater. I'm going to make a wild guess and say that there were well over 2,500 people there. Easy.

The 260 member choir was magnificent! The heavenly hosts and choirs of angels must have been so proud! Bishop Beckwith's daughter was one of the featured soloists and sang like a very angel for her father. The psalm and gospel alleluia's were set by our own James McGregor of Grace Church, Newark.

The readings (a passage from Jeremiah 1:4-10 and Luke's version of the Ascension 24:44-49a) - including excerpts from Dr. King's "Letter from the Birmingham Jail" read with passion and conviction by Mayor Corey Booker - were perfectly chosen.

Our Bishop Katharine preached a powerful sermon on the tensions of our faith as embodied in the office and ministry of a bishop of the church, on this the feast of St. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople.

Bishop Katharine spoke of the tension of the commandment of Jesus to "stay in the city" and King's prophetic question of the church being "too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world."

She told Mark that, when he got his "new hat" she would have him name one of the tails "stay" (and pray) and the other "go" (and make disciples of all nations). She urged him to forge his episcopacy in the tension of those two commandments of Jesus.

Bishop Mark sent us out with this blessing: May God give you the grace to never sell yourself short; grace to risk something big for something good; grace to remember that the world is too dangerous now for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love. And the blessing of God Almighty - the God who creates us, the Son who sets us free, and the Spirit who promises to be with us - even to the end of the ages, be with us all evermore.


If the world doesn't hear that there is a new Spirit blowing in the church - and in this diocese - they must be comatose or just not paying attention. I understand the excitement of the early disciples who dropped everything to follow Jesus. That's precisely the kind of energy that was in church . . .um . . . that theater . . no, it was CHURCH . . . today.

I couldn't have been happier.

And then, the mail came, and with it the CD I had ordered almost two weeks ago.

"Too Close" by Bishop Perry Tillis, founder of the Savior Lord Jesus Pentecostal Holiness Church out of Samson, Alabama, was lying there amidst the bills and letters and advertisements. (Birdman Recording Group, Inc.)

The good bishop is singing to me even now - and to all "Whiskey-palians". GOD DON'T LIKE IT: "Now, they said you cut out whiskey. Said they not let you drink that wine. Now, you preachers, deacons and teachers, you getting all drunk up in that moonshine. You know, God don't like it. God knows, you know he don't like it. You know God don't like it. I know God don't like you up in that sin and shame."

Now he's singing, DO YOU KNOW THE MAN? "Do you know the man from Galilee? Do you know Mary's Baby? Do you know that man's a mighty good doctor? The man woke me up this morning . . . the man from Galilee. He walked on out on the water (Oh, oh, oh), and he calmed the raging sea (Lord, have mercy), I said, Do you know that man from Galilee?"

But, it's when he sings the title track TOO CLOSE that he blows the roof off the church: "I'm too close not to get my goal. I'm savin' my soul. I can't turn around. Oh, no, I can't turn around. I'm too close, I can see my old mother and friends. Let me run home till I make it in. Oh, I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey right now. I'm too close that I can grab God's hand. Don't want to miss my final chance to the Promised Land. I can't turn round."

No siree, as hard as it has been, as difficult as is the road ahead, I wouldn't take nothin' for my journey right now.

Some days - not every day - but every once a while, I swear, it's almost heaven.

Mdimi Mhogolo, Archbishop of Tanganyika, bids TEC welcome

Anglican Diocese of Central Tanganyika
P. O. Box 15, Dodoma, Tanzania
26 January 2007

Dear Friends in Christ.

Grace and Peace from our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

In our times, everybody is called to define himself/herself and the faith one holds. It is a time of great confusion. For those who wish to know our position on matters of our faith, here are our reflections as we try to prepared all the time to answer anyone who questions the integrity of our faith.

Our salvation comes from God through Jesus Christ, the only one of grace and truth. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that draws us to God the grace we receive unconditionally.

As we received grace, we too try to live according to His grace and become gracious in holding the truth, in how we treat other people and as we relate with one another.

The grace of Jesus Christ has called us not only to renounce evil [the expression of the Mosaic Law] but more so to bear the fruit of the Spirit of God which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.

Our new life is not characterized so much by avoiding or renouncing evil and sin, but actively doing what is good a reflection of our new life in Jesus Christ. As notorious sinners used to run to Jesus for help, the Church too should become a safe place of refuge, a gracious space where sinners come. If sinners continue to reject and run away from the Church, we will soon know that Jesus is no longer there - in the Church!

Our mission statement expresses it well:

To communicate in word and deed the love of God to everyone in the Diocese, whatever their conditions might be, so that they may know him as Savior; Be committed to him as Lord;

Rejoice together in the fellowship of the Spirit; Worship him as Father, And go out with this message of Jesus Christ love to others.

We show our faith with our neighbors by our words, lives and deeds. The Church keeps on growing because of the witness of Christians expressed in their daily living. We firmly believe in the growth of the Church. If we stop growing, we will soon die. For us the growth of the Church is our life and service to the world.

Worship is also the life of our mission. The Church is there to give God the glory through worship and service. We are known by others as a worshipping community. We come together to worship and give thanks to God through Jesus Christ, by the power and fellowship of the Holy Spirit, for who God is and the way God has become in our lives. God receives our worship and renews us, comfort us and sends us into the world to live and worship God through lives of service and mission. Our lives become our daily offerings to God.

We are here not for ourselves, but for others. Our mission is to make God known in people lives and to show them how God creates, upholds and nourishes each person. We try to express Jesus Christ in the sufferings and challenges of our communities. We cry with those who cry and bring hope for a better future to those who suffer. We share the sufferings and hurts with the people we serve and become a prayerful sign before God on behalf of them all.

We also work for the hope of glory in trying to transform the lives of our people regardless of their color, gender, religion, sexual orientation and social status.
In this effort, we have friends who work with us in health and medical work, primary and secondary schools, HIV/AIDS programs, Water, Food security, Agriculture and livestock, Christian education and TEE.

We have friendly governments who work with us, such as the governments of UK, Australia, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, France, Holland, and the US.

We also have friends from secular organizations, such as Oxfam, Care International, Intermon, VSO, Peace Corps, Water Aid, the French ADEN and Resource Center.

We have friends in Christian organisations working with us, from such as CMS UK, CMSA, NZ CMS, Crosslinks, CBM, and NZ Board of Missions, ECUSA, USPG, The Anglican Church of Canada, and German Christians to Many Lands, DU, EED, Bread for the World, Christian Aid, ERD, the Diocese of New York and the Diocese of Atlanta.

We have societies of friends such as Friends of Mvumi Hospital, Friends of Buigiri School for the Blind, Friends of Mvumi Secondary School, Friends of Msalato Theological College and Friends of DCT.

In addition, we are approached by friends through the internet who come to work with us in our schools, development work and in our hospitals.

We work together with all the above organisations, governments and people in
trying to realise the Millennium Development Goals and transform the lives of our people for God's sake.

We see God working in peoples lives using all our partnerships to realise His reign in our world. We believe God works outside the Church as much as in the Church. For this reason we too have widened our partnership to work with all people with good will for God's mission in the world.

In this we value and cherish our independence and interdependence. We are a Church with all the rights, privileges and grace we have in Jesus Christ. We are an African Church that has come from Western Christian exploitation through slavery, colonialism and paternalism.

We know how the Bible has been used in the past to terrorize our people, our cultures and the values we hold dear; questioning the dignity of our being and our faith in God, as though we were made a little less than in the image and likeness of God. We still know how the Bible is used selectively to affirm people's intrinsic understanding on the place of women in the society, the Church and Christian families; and Women's ministries and ordination, in the Church.

We value our freedom in Jesus Christ and protect it with all the power of the Holy Spirit. We will not relapse into being held captive again by anybody, even by a brother or sister in Christ. We are responsible and accountable to God in Jesus Christ as much as any other diocese or individual.

It is in this confidence that we also express our interdependence with others as equals. In our interdependence, we can share our lives with others, learn from others, and share our people skills, knowledge and resources with them. We are very open to working and living together as brothers and sisters of the Faith, and with those of other faiths.

Respect, love, freedom and dignity for all are values we hold dear in our interdependence and partnership. As much as we do not choose friends for our partners, we too hold dearly our freedom to choose our friends.

We too don't choose our friends lightly. We do not work with racist Christians, be they Southerners or Northerners, Easterners or Westerners; whether they are Bible believing or Liberals, Evangelicals or Charismatics, Orthodox or Conservatives, Black
or White, Yellow or Purple.

We will not work with anyone who questions our dignity, our intelligence, our spirituality and the integrity of our faith in, and the freedom we have in, Jesus Christ.

We also do not work with those who put strings to their skills, money or knowledge, those who tell us to sing their songs instead of singing ours; those who give help and demand our support and those who wish to propagate their agendas instead of standing for ours.

Insisting that we behave this way is another form of slavery and Christian colonialism.

It is only in our mutual respect and love that we come together and work together for the benefit of the society we serve under the overarching mission of God. We have partners from different backgrounds: Roman Catholic, Baptists,Methodists, Pentecostal churches, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, House Churches and Charismatic Churches.

We also have people of other faiths such as Moslems, Hindus and African Traditional Religions who work in our schools and hospitals.

So it is from this context that our response to ECUSA is expressed.

The way we do God's mission is to strategize our mission and then look for resources for the mission. The recruitment of people, both within and outside the country becomes part of our efforts in realising God's mission.

The material funding for God's mission impacts our goal to see God's mission is well resourced. ECUSA with its relief and development agencies is only a small part of our funding and partnership organizations.

The issue of homosexuality with its various understandings is not only an ECUSA issue, but involves all of our development and mission partners. If one is realistic, the issue of homosexuality and their money affects all our partner organisations, Churches, missionary agencies, governments and secular organisations.

We then ask ourselves, why should we single out ECUSA and treat it differently?

We know that a substational amount of money and funding that governments,=20
Churches, and missionary societies, comes from gay and lesbian people.

We live in our cultural context where gay and lesbians are regarded as criminals punishable to long term imprisonments. We also live in a country where gay and lesbians are violently persecuted, mistreated, hated and ostracised.

We as Black Africans know the hurts and permanent damage caused by our past experiences which still linger on to the present. We have gone through all that and we know how it hurts.

Once we were regarded like animals to be shot at, less than humans, to be turned into slaves and without God, to be taught the Western Christian gods. We have gone through that and we don't want to go that way again.

We hold the Gospel of grace and love where all people are welcomed, loved, cared for and treated with dignity. We preach a Gospel of restoration, reconciliation, love, peace, grace and healing. Many people are already feeling bad, hurt, disoriented, frustrated and bitter.

We do not want to make life worse for them; instead we provide spaces for grace, love, and care to grow, and healing to take place for all.

For this reason, we will continue to welcome all our true brothers and sisters, children and adults, adolescents and mature, black and white, African American and White Americans to work and have fellowship with us; as much as we also welcome all Christians from the rest of the Christian world, both Anglicans and non-Anglicans; Christians and non-Christians.

If Episcopalians visit us, we ask them to honor and respect our Faith, our cultures, our traditions and our way of life in Jesus Christ. People or mission partners do not come to change us. They come to appreciate, share and learn of our faith, our Christian culture we have developed and our way of life as we work together for the kingdom of God on earth.

We are not a closed Church where we reject some and welcome others. We are an open Church where even our enemies can find food, love, care and shelter. We always try to become like Jesus Christ our master, to everyone who comes into our home.

The issue of homosexuality is not fundamental to the Christian faith, although many try to make it that way!! We would have become wiser if we had learned how the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran World Federation, the Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Churches and the Society of Friends are dealing with the issue. We are in a mess because we do not want to learn from other world Christian Communities!!! The source of our faith and mission in God is Jesus Christ.

If someone has a different understanding on the essence of our faith,then we all should be alarmed. But as long as individual Episcopalians hold the one, holy, Apostolic and Catholic Faith, who am I to pass judgment now that they are not my brothers and sisters in Christ?

I wish you every blessing from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

+Mdimi
Epiphany 2007

NB. We are also aware of the statement of the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Tanzania that expresses a severely impaired relationship with ECUSA, and that no money will be received by the Anglican Church of Tanzania from ECUSA from entities that condone homosexual practices.

My understanding is that the statement of the House of Bishops, though it carries a lot of weight, it does not express the will and wishes of the whole Anglican Church of Tanzania. It is only when the other two Houses, namely the House of Laity and the House of Clergy are involved in the thinking and decision making that the statement becomes the whole Anglican Church of Tanzania.

Besides, any statement should reflect the dynamic and real life of the Church concerned. Since the Statement did not express the real life of the Church, i.e. some diocese have had and continue to have links with ECUSA, and others do not; and that some dioceses are sympathetic with the Anglican Network and AMIA, whereas other dioceses have had major disagreements with them over the ordination of women; the statement then equips our Archbishop and the General Secretary to work on our provincial common ventures.

"There's a party goin' on, there's a party up in he-ah"

Rejoice with us as the Episcopal (Anglican) Diocese of Newark ordains, consecrates, invests and flat out celebrates the ministry of Mark Beckwith as our tenth bishop at 11:30 this morning.

We are delighted and honored that our Presiding Bishop and Primate, Katharine Jefferts-Schori, will be with us as chief consecrator and preacher.

Even as I speak, the entire diocese is traveling from the farthest reaches of the North, South, East and West of our borders; from rural, suburban, exurban and urban centers of the great diversity and multi-ethnicity of our congregations; and from places we do not yet know wherein live those who have known and loved and been ministered to by our bishop-elect to gather at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in the hardscrabble but phoenix-like rising "Brick City" of Newark.

The presence of your spirit and prayers are most welcome.

" . . .let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord."

And let the church say, "Amen."

(You can also join the seraphim and cherubim and all the company of heaven in the postmodern chant, "Woo-hoo!" and "Go head, be goin'")

Betrayal

Louie Crew: Publication of Private Email a Betrayal
1/26/2007

The publication of details from a private e-mail message sent by the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Consultative Council to Episcopalian Louie Crew was a betrayal, according to Mr. Crew, a five-time deputy to General Convention from the Diocese of Newark and a former member of Executive Council.

“I shared the message with a limited number of trusted friends, one of whom betrayed me,” Mr. Crew told a reporter for The Living Church. “I have harmed an important leader in the Church and I deeply regret that.”

In the message, details of which were published on the internet by a British weekly newspaper, Church Times, Canon Kearon is quoted saying he shares some of the same concerns that Bethlehem Bishop Paul V. Marshall made public in an open letter sent Jan. 16 to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

“Our relationship to the one who is expected to be first in a world-wide college of bishops is distant, confused, and multiply triangulated,” Bishop Marshall wrote. “We are ceaselessly told by those who would destroy our church that the [Archbishop] endorses this or that crudely divisive action or position. Questions to Lambeth on these occasions are sometimes met with silence and sometimes with stunning equivocation. This distance, confusion, and triangulation ought not to be. Can the Archbishop of Canterbury not come to meet us just once at a regular or special meeting in any city he would care to name?”

In a related development, Anglican Journal, the official source for news about the Anglican Church of Canada, reported that Archbishop Williams will make his first visit to Canada since he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.

Archbishop Williams is scheduled to lead a full-day retreat for the Canadian House of Bishops April 17. Archbishop Williams is scheduled to arrive in Niagara Falls, Ont., in the evening on April 16 and leave after the retreat concludes. The bishops’ April 16-20 spring meeting is significant because they will be choosing candidates for a successor to Archbishop Andrew Hutchison. The election of a new Canadian primate is scheduled for June 22, midway through the Anglican Church of Canada’s triennial General Synod.

“He is a brilliant theological thinker whom we want to have access to,” Archbishop Hutchison told Anglican Journal. “I anticipate he’ll give a series of addresses that the bishops will be reflecting upon.”

Although political subjects won’t be on the agenda for the House of Bishops’ April 17 retreat, Archbishop Hutchison said, “there are mealtimes and coffee breaks” at which such discussions might take place.

Steve Waring

http://livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=2886

An insight from MadPriest (Of course, he could be wrong)

I shamelessly poached this from MadPriest's website, along with his comments posted below which shed some light on the goings on in the office suits at Lambeth Palace.

"When Rowan Wiliams was appointed, I remember there was some disquiet about the staff at Lambeth Palace. Because of the length of time George Carey had spent in office he had managed to replace all the key staff members with people sympathetic to his own view of what the Church should be. The CofE system does not allow an incoming primate to dismiss the existing staff.

Since being in office the Grand Tufti has had no choice other than to rely on George's people for advice and research. A strong willed archbishop like Carey would be able to cope with this situation and make adjustments to the advice given, accordingly. But the Grand Tufti was chosen for his mildness and it seems obvious to me that he has not been able to stand his own ground when faced with unanimous contrary advice from his staff.

The Anglican Communion is being run by a an unelected steering group that is following an agenda set well before the arrival of the present archbishop."

Kearon "Disquieted" at Rowan's attitude

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=32497

Secretary-general hints at `difficulties´ with Dr Williams
by a staff reporter

DISQUIET at the attitude of Dr Williams to the Episcopal Church in the United States (ECUSA) is shared by the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, Canon Kenneth Kearon, it was revealed this week.


Last week, the Bishop of Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, the Rt Revd Paul Marshall, criticised the Archbishop for cold-shouldering the Episcopal Church (News, 19 January). The relationship was "distant, confused, and multiply triangulated", wrote Bishop Marshall.


In an unguarded email to Louis Crewe, who runs the pro-gay Integrity organisation in the US, Canon Kearon writes that he had sent Bishop Marshall´s criticism to Dr Williams.


"Sadly, it´s very accurate, and is almost the script for a very difficult meeting
I had with him last Wednesday," he writes. "We discussed absolute limits of appeasement, and also how a future direction might be identified."


More cryptically, he ends his email: "Advisers (and sadly I´m not one of them) are at the heart of this."

A "Jan-Term" Class: Spin 101

Compare and contrast: The letter from the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion with these words from the President and CEO of the American Anglican Council.

I expect a 2,000 word essay on my desk at 4 PM on Monday.

Class dismissed.


The Anglican Communion Office has issued this statement:

From the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion

In response to a number of queries, and following consultation with The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion has issued the following statement:

“The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) is, to my knowledge, a “mission” of the Church of Nigeria. It is not a branch of the Anglican Communion as such but an organsation which relates to a single province of the Anglican Communion. CANA has not petitioned the Anglican Consultative Council for any official status within the Communion’s structures, nor has the Archbishop of Canterbury indicated any support for its establishment.”’

The Revd Canon Kenneth Kearon

http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/002085.html



January 25, 2007
Press Release: AAC President Clarifies Status of CANA
January 25, 2007
For Immediate Release


Who is really Anglican? Would the real Anglicans please stand up!

A Statement by the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, AAC President and CEO

In recent pronouncements, the Episcopal Bishop of Virginia, the Rt. Rev. Peter Lee, has stated that the new Anglican organization called CANA (Convocation of Anglicans in North America) is not a part of the Anglican Communion. He says this to undermine the credibility of the northern Virginia district of CANA (the Anglican District of Virginia) in the eyes of Virginians and others. This is in part because he feels that he has a franchise right to Anglicanism in his part of the state, much as a medieval lord might have rights to his domain, his serfs, and the property located therein. Bishop Lee feels that in the Anglican world one piece of land can only have one jurisdiction, or at least one Anglican jurisdiction (since the Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists and Roman Catholics seem to have overlapping jurisdiction on land he claims).

There is, as you might guess, more to the story.

First, in the Anglican world there are often anomalies, such as is the case with Europe, where both the Church of England and the Episcopal Church USA (now called TEC) both claim the same territory, and each has churches and bishops overseeing the same geography if not the same churches. This should inform Bishop Lee’s concerns about his singular claim to the Virginia topography: Bishop, it’s time to share.

Second, Bishop Lee and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, which comprises the middle and northern portions of the state, would claim that they are a part of the Anglican Communion, even as they would deny this about CANA. In fact, Bishop Lee’s connection, and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia’s connection, to the Anglican Communion are not direct, but subsequent to being a part of the Episcopal Church USA/TEC. It is the province of TEC that has global membership, and Bishop Lee and his diocese are members through TEC. The only problem is that TEC’s membership is currently in a stand-down mode and is under critical review. Further sanctions may in fact be levied against TEC, and this would weaken Bishop Lee’s standing in the Anglican Communion as well.

CANA, on the other hand is also a part of the Anglican Communion, but through the Anglican Province of Nigeria instead of The Episcopal Church in the United States. CANA was formed legally within the Constitution and Canons of the Nigerian church, and CANA’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns, was consecrated with other Nigerian bishops at a service in the cathedral in Abuja, Nigeria, last summer. Bishop Minns sits in the House of Bishops of Nigeria as a voting member along with the other Nigerian bishops. CANA’s connection to the Anglican Communion is through Nigeria, which is not under any stand-down protocol or critical review within the Anglican Communion. It is, in fact, the largest and fastest growing of all the Anglican provinces.

The irony of Bishop Lee’s remarks is that he gets the exclusive claim wrong. The Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church (of the United States) are both tarnished at present, whereas the Province of Nigeria and her CANA mission in the United States are untarnished and in good standing. Although both the Diocese of Virginia and CANA exist as churches under their representative provinces, the status of the U.S. province is clouded; furthermore, TEC is diminishing numbers, representing just over 2 million individuals on the roles, whereas the Province of Nigeria is rapidly growing and has approximately 20 million in church on Sundays.

It finally becomes quite a study in contrasts; no wonder Bishop Lee is anxious about the future.

The Rev. Canon David C. Anderson
President and CEO, American Anglican Council

http://aacblog.classicalanglican.net/archives/002766.html

Black History Month at St. Paul's, Chatham

The Episcopal Church of St. Paul
200 Main Street – Chatham, NJ
“Your neighborhood church”


All film sessions begin with
Evening Prayer at 6:30 PM in the Church

All films shown in the Parish Hall from 7 – 8 PM
Discussion from 8 – 8:30 PM

Tight work schedule?
Bring your dinner or order something to be delivered to the church!

A GREAT evening at the movies for the entire family!


Tuesday, January 30: "Amazing Grace"
PBS Documentary with Bill Moyers on the roots and wings of this great song

Tuesday, February 6:
“Mine Eyes Have Seen the Savior – Part I”
The National Episcopal Church documentary on the
history of African-Americans in The Episcopal Church

Tuesday, February 13:
“Mine Eyes Have Seen the Savior – Part II”
We continue the journey through the history of African-Americans in
The Episcopal Church

Note: Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper will be held on February 20th
Ash Wednesday, February 21st Holy Eucharist and Imposition of Ashes:
7 AM – 12 Noon- 7 PM.

Come. Grow. Celebrate!

Absolutely EVERYONE is invited!

Gender and the Pulpit

Workplace difficulties can arise for trangendered persons in nearly all professions, but what about those who are called to work for God?By

Lauren McCauley
Special to Newsweek
Updated: 4:42 p.m. ET Jan 23, 2007

Jan. 23, 2007 - In 1973, Eric Karl Swenson was ordained in the Presbyterian Church and went to work doing what he’d always dreamed of: ministering to a congregation of the Southern Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. More than 20 years later, one dream almost ended when another began.

When the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta discovered in 1996 that Swenson had finally fulfilled another lifelong desire—having sex-change surgery to become a woman—it started proceedings to revoke Swenson’s ordination.

At the time of her "transition," Swenson did not resist the church’s questions nor blame its reluctance. "I had been in the closet for 30 years, learning to accept myself," she says. "It is difficult for me to be angry at others for not accepting."

Married with two daughters before her transition, Swenson described her struggle, years later, in a sermon: "I had spent the better part of four decades wrestling secretly with the unreasonable and incorrigible desire to be female."

After almost three years of grueling questions and debate, the Presbytery finally agreed, 181-161, to sustain her ordination, making Swenson the first known Protestant minister to transition from male to female while remaining in office.

Now 59, Swenson is tall and blond, with shoulder-length hair and an assertive manner. Erin, as she’s called, continues to work as a pastoral counselor and, she hopes, as an inspiration for others who find themselves living out, what may be, the last taboo in society, let alone organized religion.

This past weekend, Swenson and her peers gathered in the hills of Berkeley, Calif., for the first National Transgender Religious Summit at the Pacific School of Religion, an ecumenical seminary that prepares students for ordination in the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the Disciples of Christ.

The conference, open to members of all faith traditions, is a joint project of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific School’s own Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS).

Sixty-five religious leaders attended, from Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Quaker, Jewish and Agnostic communities across the country.

On the agenda: denominational policy and outreach to transgender communities.

At the heart of almost every conversation that occurred during the conference was this: how does a person who chooses to live "with permanent gender ambiguity," as one handout put it, also participate as a leader in an institution as traditional as religion?

Conference organizers think the time is right for transgendered persons of faith to come out of the closet.

"Transgendered people are beginning to find their public voice with more advocates and opportunities for protection," explains Justin Tanis, an ordained minister who helped put together the summit—and who was born female.

With the House and Senate now under Democratic control, Tanis says, activists in the transgender community feel that they may finally be heard, and they are working hard to put together legislation on Capitol Hill, especially on the issue of workplace rights.

No one knows how many people in the United States live with an ambiguous gender identity, either because of a firm conviction that they were born in the wrong body or because of a political ideology or youthful experimentation. But the issue has gained great resonance on college campuses of late, as well as in local legislatures and in gay activist circles. Last weekend’s conference was evidence that at least some of these people have strong religious identities as well.

The transgender issue is so new that most religious denominations have not yet made policy statements about it. In 2003, the Roman Catholic Church announced that transsexuals suffer from "mental pathologies" and should be barred from religious orders and the Catholic priesthood.

Often using Biblical language to make their point, conservative Christian groups have treated transsexuals and other people with ambiguous gender as having psychological defects that can be cured with psychotherapy.

Swenson, not surprisingly, objects to this characterization. "To pick out small pieces of Scripture and use them in a hateful way is damaging to me and to the Scripture," she explains. "God says to love one another; should anything else matter?"

Swenson finds evidence of God’s love, for her unique case, in Isaiah: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than songs and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." (Isaiah 56:1-5).

Transgendered people say another difficulty is that many religious denominations reinforce gender stereotypes—conventions about women’s and men’s roles in the life of a church, for example, that pose problems for people who want to live outside those rules.

"The Bible has been used incorrectly throughout history to justify slavery and to oppress women," says Joshua Holiday, a female-to-male pastor at the LIFE (Love Is For EveryBODY) Interfaith Church in Louisville, Ky. A year and a half ago, Holiday organized a gathering of African-American transgendered people, The Transsistahs, Transbrothahs Conference (TSTB), to promote greater acceptance in the black community.

Transgendered clergy say they know that parishioners can become distracted by thoughts about what lies beneath their robes, but they hope that people in the pews can learn to see them as ministers with a holy mission.

Religion, says Tanis, "is about compassion and human dignity"; he hopes the seminar will teach transgendered clergy to embrace their uncommon situation and use it for good.

After going through his own transition, he says: "I had a greater sense of internal peace; I was wiser and could be a better religious leader. It is a gift to be able to see the world through more than one gender’s eyes."

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

One more lesson from the history of Phillips Brooks

Okay, so today the liturgical calendar celebrates the life and ministry of Florence Li-Tim Oi, the first women to be ordained priest in the Anglican Communion, but before I say something about her, let me say this one last thing about Phillips Brooks, who had his day on the Calendar yesterday (January 23).

This essay by R. William Franklin, at the time, at least, associate for education at Trinity Church in Boston and dean emeritus of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, appeared in what I remember to be an early 2004 edition of "The Episcopal Times," the diocesan newspaper of the Diocese of Massachusetts.

As we consider the current "unpleasantness" in the church as well as the controversies now becoming more keenly focused on the consent process of the bishop-elect of South Carolina, it appears that Phillips Brooks, the best preacher of his day, has yet another sermon to preach to us about the church.


Things theological...
The Trials of Phillips Brooks
By R. William Franklin
From Episcopal Times of the Diocese of Massachusetts


A Massachusetts historian tells how conservative opposition to Phillips Brooks election as Bishop broke the heart of the greatest preacher of his time.

The election and consecration of Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire has been treated by many members of the Anglican Communion as an unprecedented controversy. Similarly, Episcopalians in the Diocese of Massachusetts with memories will recall that when Barbara Harris was elected bishop suffragan of Massachusetts in 1988, it was said by some that the Anglican Communion would be fractured forever. Those with very long memories indeed will know that the most controversial confirmation of an Episcopal election in New England was not in 2003 or in 1988 but in 1891, when Phillips Brooks was elected bishop of Massachusetts.

Phillips Brooks, Rector of Trinity Church in Boston, was elected bishop of this diocese by an almost unanimous vote of the Diocesan Convention on April 30, 1891. Brooks was descended from two old and distinguished New England families who had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 17th century. The stories of the Brooks and Phillips families were intertwined with the venerable institutions of this region: with the founding of Andover Academy, with the founding of Andover Divinity School, with Harvard, with the Boston Latin School, with the First Church of Boston and with St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston. Brooks was most famous for moving Trinity Church to Copley Square and for standing behind the building of the current church designed by H. H. Richardson.

He was related through family to Boston leaders in many spheres of activity, and he was beloved by the population of this state, partly because he was the author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and also because he was the greatest preacher of his day. Moreover, he was deeply loved because of his friendship with the leaders and people of many denominations of the region, from Unitarian and Congregationalist to Roman Catholic. When he was elected, the Unitarians and the Congregationalists said, “At last we have a bishop of all of Massachusetts to whom we can look for leadership.”
And that was a problem. Though loved in Massachusetts, the confirmation of Phillips Brooks’s election by the other bishops of the Episcopal Church took longer than any process of confirmation in our church, then or now.

Then, as now, a bishop’s election had to be confirmed by a majority of the standing committees and then a majority of the bishops of the church. Usually this process took only a few weeks. In Brooks’s case, though a majority of the 52 standing committees quickly affirmed his election, the agreements of the 52 bishops took more than two months to come in. After weeks of a vicious campaign in the secular press and the church press, and a pamphlet war between church parties, a majority of bishops finally telegraphed the presiding bishop their positive votes in early July 1891, and on July 11 the presiding bishop announced to the world that Phillips Brooks would be consecrated as bishop of Massachusetts in Boston on October 15, 1891. In the end 30 percent of the bishops of the Episcopal Church voted against Brooks, refused to attend his consecration and were reluctant to acknowledge his authority.

What was the issue that bothered the opposing bishops? It was Brooks’s views on bishops, the apostolic succession and the validity of ministry in the American Christian denominations without bishops. Brooks believed that episcopacy was the best form of church government., but he regarded denominations without bishops as still part of the one church of Jesus Christ. Though he was sure that bishops are the successors of the apostles, he also thought that all Christians, by virtue of their Baptism, are the successors of the apostles, and he was reluctant to pass negative judgment on other denominations that were without the institution of episcopacy. He said, “We know where the Church is. It is not for us to say where the Church is not.”

The Catholic Revival within the Episcopal Church in the 19th century had made the identity of the bishop as successor of the apostles—and the consequent invalidity of non-episcopal churches—a core definition of the Episcopal Church’s identity in the United States. The Anglo-Catholics were convinced that the Episcopal Church possessed an “apostolic order” in its bishops that was key to its mission. To deny this would lead to disaster.

And so it was within the Anglo-Catholic party of the Episcopal Church that opposition to Brooks arose. A campaign to discredit him began, in which both the secular and the church press were willing accomplices. It was said that the Nicene Creed was not recited at Trinity Church, that Brooks had participated in an interdenominational service in a Congregational church on a Good Friday, that he had invited Unitarians to the Lord’s Table, that he himself had not been baptized in the name of the Trinity.

Of Brooks’s election George F. Seymour, the former dean of the General Theological Seminary in New York City, wrote: “Satan has now insinuated himself in the very stronghold of Christianity, and sought to enter into a truce with its leaders and its militant hosts.” An anonymous circular was sent to the bishops saying a crisis had been reached in the history of the church, a fundamental question of maintaining the faith pure and undefiled had been raised and no one could foresee “the horrible consequences if Dr. Brooks were confirmed as a bishop.”

A Roman Catholic priest, formerly a Baptist minister, published a pamphlet that said that by electing Brooks “the Episcopal Church is yielding to the rationalistic and agnostic tendencies of the age to a deplorable extent….the surging tide of infidelity will soon destroy it.”

In fact, Brooks’s views of the apostolic succession and of our relations with other denominations eventually did win the day. They stand behind the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, our key ecumenical charter confirmed by every General Convention of the Episcopal Church since the 1890’s, and formulated by Brooks’s Massachusetts friend William Reed Huntington. Brooks’s regard for the ministerial authenticity of non-episcopal churches has now been realized concretely in our full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Yet Brooks’s victory was won at great personal cost. He was humiliated by the press campaign. He refused to acknowledge it by never uttering one public word of self-defense. Brooks remained consistently silent through the 10 weeks of the negative campaign, explaining nothing, giving no answers to defend his positions, making no apologies, no pledges. But privately he was devastated: “We have talked of the old days of witch trials and torture chambers and patted ourselves on the back and said—those things were in the days of our fathers. But scratch us a little and the medieval temper comes freely back to the surface.”

Worn down, he was dead 14 months after his consecration. As the news of his passing spread, the city of Boston came to a standstill. For in a somber generation, bowed down by the terrible losses of the Civil War, he offered Christian hope, his own enchantment with Scripture and the possibility that people of faith might stand together. It is through such vision, and at such a cost, that Christian progress is made.

R. William Franklin is associate for education at Trinity Church in Boston and dean emeritus of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University.

Phillips Brooks and Helen Keller

This essay was preached as a sermon to Integrity/New York on January 23rd, 1992 and appeared in Outlook March 1992, 3-5. It is re-published at Louie Crew's Website JOY ANYWAY! with the permission of the Rev'd Barbara Crafton the author, and Nick Dowen, the editor of Outlook at that time.


For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man.... Ephesians 3:14-15

Phillips Brooks was the most famous preacher of his generation in America -- an honor few clergy of his Church have been able to claim. His name was synonymous with the fearless and passionate proclamation of the word of God to the people of his time, which was the latter half of the 19th century. His Lectures on Preaching is still one of the best books a person contemplating the practice of that art could read, and it is still assigned in seminaries where the craft of preaching is taken seriously. Which is probably why it's out of print.

He believed that a preacher's entire self needed to be in the preaching event, yet that to preach in order to impress others or in order to butttress a slender ego was a terrible abuse of the pulpit.

He believed that the right to preach was grounded in the faithful relationship a pastor had with his people -- it was only "hims" who preached in those days, but we know what he meant.

He believed that the faithful preacher always pointed to a God of love whose love walked the earth in a form so like God, yet so like us, that we called it "The Son of God." As if God were a father, a parent like we can be parents, love like the most unselfish love we know about.

He believed that the preacher needed to be up and about, walking through his world, part of things, part of the joys and sorrows of human life. Just about the worst thing he could think of to say about a preacher or a pastor would have been that he was "otherworldly."

And so Phillips Brooks did that: traveled, met people, wrote to people, found out about them.

One of his friends was Helen Keller. Blind and deaf from the age of two, she had lived a life of isolation, unable to speak words she could not hear, unable to know what a word was. She was taught to communicate by a dedicated teacher in a process that has inspired people ever since. She learned to speak, to read, to write. She went to college and graduated with honors. She dedicated her entire life to educating the world about its responsibility to its disabled members.

Until her death in 1968, Helen Keller was consistently among the world's most admired women, and her name was always on lists people made of those women.

Helen and Phillips Brooks wrote letters back and forth. The young girl with such a heavy burden and the elderly cleric with so many natural gifts, they were so unlike each other.

Yet Brooks recognized that Helen and he did the same thing. Reaching out of the total darkness of her isolated life, Helen was already touching people's hearts with her courage and noble spirit, already challenging people to look at what could be. She lived in silence. She lived in darkness. But out of her silence the Spirit burst forth with grace and power. And out of her darkness, light shone.

This was what Phillips Brooks had dedicated his life to bringing about: Let the people hear of what can be. Let them know what astonishing good can come from God, even in the face of terrible sorrow.

In one of her letters, Helen told Bishop Brooks that she had always known about God, even before she had any words. Even before she could call God anything, she knew God was there. She didn't know what it was. God had no name for her -- nothing had a name for her. She had no concept of a name. But in her darkness and isolation, she knew she was not alone. Someone was with her. She felt God's love.

And when she received the gift of language and heard about God, she said she already knew.

Phillips Brooks was thrilled by this. This was the God he knew, the God who would come to a lonely child, a frustrated and lonely little girl, and find a way to speak love to her without a word. He wrote a hymn we have loved ever since; I wonder if he had Helen in mind when he wrote:


How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv'n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heav'n.
No ear may hear his coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still
The dear Christ enters in.


Love without words. Love that knows of love even before it knows anything else. God who comes to the meek, to those who are hidden, to those whom the world discounts. The old preacher, famous for his eloquence, was like old Simeon at the temple when he heard this from Helen Keller. It was a confirmation of his ministry of proclamation. It was all true. God was really among us.

What Helen knew proved it.

Phillips Brooks knew something of what it was to be hidden. Few people knew that he knew it, or how he knew it, but he did. Nobody in his Church had words to talk about it -- the topic was outside the Church, something that could not be spoken. Phillips Brooks could not reveal everything about himself, for he knew that to do so would have been to sweep everything away.

Nobody would have listened to him speak of the loving God he knew so well.

Nobody would have thought that God could possibly have loved him if it had been known that he was gay.

I hope that he did not think that way about himself; I hope that the did not build a wall around his sexual orientation in his own soul and say to himself, "Except for this one thing. Except for this."

But he may have.

People did in those days.

They do in these days too.

I cannot help but think of the silence imposed upon this great man of the spoken word by the centuries of prejudice to which he was heir. No wonder Helen Keller moved him so profoundly.

He couldn't speak either, not about this. But he spoke about other things. His silence was not total, although a part of him as basic as any part of ourselves we know about could not speak its name. Love matters. He knew that.

And he must have known how much it matters, even though he could not tell the truth about all the ways in which it had mattered to him. God could still speak through him and did so; spoke in a way so powerful that its equal has not been seen again in this Church.

Perhaps some of that was out of his pain, out of his silence, love denied expression forcing its way into the open in some other way. How much that has flowered among us has flowered from this sad beginning: unable to be who we are and trying, trying, sometimes with brilliant success, to be something else.

It is time to stop, though. Our gifts cannot depend on our true selves being dammed up.

We can manage without the truth, but we're better off with it.

Helen Keller made brilliant use of her gifts under the burden of a terrible handicap, but it still would have been better if she could have seen and heard.

Phillips Brooks was a gift to the ages, but it still would have been better if he could have been accepted and celebrated in the totality of who he was.

That was then.

This is now.

It is time for the truth.

"Strengthened through his might in the inner man," the lesson says.

Let the inner man come forth.

It is time now.

© 1992, 2002 by The Rev. Barbara C. Crafton

BCCRAFTON@AOL.Com

"The Season of Epiphanies"

I love the Season of Epiphany for many reasons, but especially because no one really seems to know what to do with it, much less an entire season of epiphanies.

At St. Paul's, someone - at least once - will insist on changing all the vestments and altar hangings back to green, forgetting that their priest chooses the liturgical option of keeping things white until we have to change to the somber purple of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday.

After a few weeks, someone will say, “Um . . .haven’t we been forgetting the confession?” And, I’ll say, “Soon enough, my friend, soon enough, and we’ll be saying it EVERY Sunday in Lent.”

The Crèche can stay assembled as well as the white candles on the pews because The Season of the Epiphany is also known as the ‘Season of Light’ – Christians know Jesus as the ‘Light of the World.’

Some folk will want to leave up other Christmas decorations while others will grumble, not knowing exactly why they sound so crabby, and ask, “When are we going to take down those wreaths? Isn’t Christmas over YET?” And, their priest answers, “Yes, but it’s the Season of the Epiphany.”

Confused looks will abound, no one knowing quite how to respond.

I’m willing to bet that most people reading this column know about the Season of Christmas. Fewer know about the Season of Advent – that time of preparation immediately before Christmas. Perhaps a few more readers than that will know about The Feast of the Epiphany itself, on January 6th, because of the traditional celebration, especially in the Hispanic culture, of ‘Los Reyes,’ the ‘Feast of the Three Kings’.

Many know the story about the Magi – at the very least from the hymn, “We three kings of Orient are . . .” – who came to Bethlehem by following the Star. The ‘epiphany’ was the glory of God made manifest in the surprising package of the Infant Jesus in that humble manger.

That was just the first of the many surprises God has in store for us in the Incarnation. Which is why there is an entire Season of Epiphany.

The gospel lessons we hear on Sunday are chock-full of ephanies including the story of the Visit of the Magi, the Baptism of Jesus, the time Jesus was ‘lost’ in the Temple, the miracle of the Wedding at Cana, his first sermon in the Temple, his first sermon on the Mount, and a whole raft of healing miracle stories.

In common, every-day parlance, an epiphany has come to mean a realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something. Usually, there is an element of surprise – a moment of “Aha!” that catches us off guard. Unfortunately, this has become the stock and trade of many sitcoms on television – all hokey and sentimental and romantic - which reveals something about the nature of the best of the human enterprise.

The Epiphanies of God reveal something about the nature of God, as revealed in Christ Jesus, whose essence we carry within us but which we can neither fully embody nor completely comprehend. Which is why, I think, we get exasperated if we do not completely comprehend the Season of the Epiphany.

Having an epiphany is never planned. It is always a surprise. It always gives us just a little glimmer, opens a tiny window, into the mystery that is the nature of God. It is never hokey or romantic, but it can be shocking or disturbing.

The Season of the Epiphany is a wondrous time to take in the miracle of God’s creation. In the midst of the ‘bleak midwinter’ when the sky is dark gray, the trees bare and brittle, and the ground is hard and cold, take time to ponder the common, everyday miracles all around you:

The complex simplicity and individuality of a snowflake.

The cloud of vapor that forms at your lips in the midst of the cold – a human smoke signal.

The way sound travels.

The way, as the psalmist says, “One day tells its tale to another, and one night imparts knowledge to another.” (Psalm 19).

“These are the days of miracles and wonders, this is a long distance call.”

At the risk of dating myself, I will identify that for you as a line from Paul Simon’s then-miraculous and highly controversial album from pre-apartheid South Africa. The verse continues in what I have come to know as the best cultural Epiphany hymn:

“The way the camera follows us in slow-mo. The way we look to us all. The way we look to a distant constellation that’s dying in the corner of the sky. These are the days of miracles and wonder and don't cry baby, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.”

We couldn’t imagine, then, the miracle of the end of Apartheid.

Some of us can’t imagine an end to the genocide in Darfur.

Or, the end of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or peace – lasting peace – in modern Jerusalem or Bethlehem, or Northern Ireland, or Pakistan, or between North and South Korea.

Don’t rush through this season. Take your time.

The manifestations of God are all around. Some are just there – waiting to be discovered or uncovered or recovered.

Others are waiting to be prayed into being.

Others need your hands, your feet, your mind, and your heart, your “Yes!” (like Mary’s) in order to be born.

You see, the real gift of the Season of the Epiphany is that which can’t be bought or sold: It is the gift of imagination.

And, human imagination is one of the epiphanies of the miracle of God.

Eileen The Episcopali-fem

Okay, everybody, listen up!

Go now - yes, right now - and visit this brilliant website and meet "Eileen The Episcopali-fem."

She's part of the new wave of Episcopalians, just officially welcomed as a new member of her North Jersey church this past Sunday. (note: Eileen tells me it's CENTRAL Jersey. Whew! I'm glad to know that. I've been wondering why she hasn't poked her nose in this particular Episcopal Tent - just to say 'hello'.)

And, by Jove, she's got it. I wish she could teach a course in The Spirit of Anglicanism to the splinter people at CANA, AMiA and AAC.

Check out the video she has up of THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

You owe it to yourself to have this kind of laugh on us.

It's brilliant. Just brilliant.

Warning: Do not watch this while eating or drinking as you may do damage to your computer screen. And, if you are over 50 you should probably not drink for an hour before watching this as . . . well, those of you over 50 know what I'm talking about.

Go on now, go. You know you need this laugh.

TAGGED! (Twice!)

Brother Causticus issued a challenge a few days ago to play "Seven Things." I got tagged on Saturday by Lisa Fox over at My Manner of Life" and then again today by Susan Russell.

Jeesh! So, I'm posting my answers to Lisa below ... and now (drum roll) ... the tag goes to MadPriest over at "Of course, I could be wrong."

Having just done a childhood photo tribute to him, he can hardly turn me down, now can he? (Of course, I could be wrong, but then, he'd get all embarrassed and he HATES to be embarrassed - see childhood picture of him in wet nappies!)

1. Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving awayy

HOW TO BE YOUR DOG'S BEST FRIEND by the Monks of New Skete. I often use parts of it in spiritual discernment for the priesthood.

2. Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music.

Theonious Monk. I had never heard the themes in Jazz music before. Suddenly, there it was and I was in absolute bliss. I adore Jazz because of TM.

3. Name a film you can watch again and again without getting fatigued.

Oh, there are so many, but I think CASABLANCA would do it. At least, tonight. Second choice: The HBO Series: ANGLES IN AMERICA. Third: Anything by Monty Python's Flying Circus, but especially LIFE OF BRIAN. I make everyone who comes to me for spiritual discernment to priesthood watch it.

4. Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief

No problem: Meryl Streep. Lord, have mercy. She is the best. Well, she and Susan Sarandon. And, Halle Berry. Denzell Washington is amazing. Well, so, if it has to be: Meryl's the one.

5. Name a work of art you'd like to live with.

Anything by Monet or Paul Cezanne. Romantic. Dreamy. Perfectly lovely and beautiful which, as Dorothy Day often reminded us, if you're going to do the work of justice, you need to have beautiful things around you all the time.

6. Name a work of fiction which has penetrated your real life.

Anything by Mark Helprin, but especially my all time favorite: A WINTER'S TALE

7. Name a punchline that always makes you laugh.

"The moon must be in Uranus." This is me, laughing already.

MadPriest: The Early Years

I have long been investigating the background of MadPriest. At first, I thought him a hoax. Then, I discovered he was actually who he claimed to be. Intrigued, I sought out more information, hiring a Private Investigator to learn everything I possibly could about this man I have come to adore.

Last night, round about midnight, the PI appeared at my door, having come into possession of a box of his baby pictures. I can only show a few here, but they provide early evidence of his proclivity to traverse the landscape between the sacred and the profane.

Here he is, pen in hand, having practiced creative arts on the face of one of his younger siblings.


There he is with his Mum. As you can tell, it's washday. You can see the source from whence he inherited his creative traits. His mum certainly employed creative parenting techniques to keep her naughty little lad under control. Quite ingenious, given the apparent humble poverty of his youth. This is also, apparently, where he cultivated a different perspective on life.


Here he is on a walk with his Dad.

MP always hated to have wet nappies, but I'm willing to bet his Dad hated it more! As you can see from the expression on his face, what MP hated more than wet nappies was being seen in wet nappies!


As everyone knows, MP loves animals. Here he is, chomping away on the tail of the family cat. MP, ever precocious, called her "Black Pussy". He's apparently always fancied them, and here we see the origins of that life-long obsession. Later, in the 70s as I recall, he would try to dress them in shiny high-heeled boots. Fortunately, however, he was able to channel that creative energy and learned to chase a pen instead. Thus it was that he capitalized on his natural inclination for the absurd and honed the skill of sarcasm and wit.

Finally, here's the little bugger, sound asleep on his 'Willy' - the family pup. Such a beatific smile, eh? Who knew there was such mischief and mayhem, insanity and chaotic thought all bundled up in that precious little boy?

And thus it is that we have come to a better understanding of the early years of the child who would one day earn the distintive title and vocation: "MadPriest."

There are more pictures - some rather curious, others downright bizarre - which I will share with you at a later date.

This is quite enough for now - I think even MP might agree with me on that.

'Live to Tell': Ordinary Resurrections

I was honored this past week to have been part of a teaching series at the School of Theology at Drew University "Jan Term" on "The Global Church and AIDS."

It's being led by Don Messer, professor of Practical Theology and director of the Center for Global Pastoral Ministries at Iliff Scholl of Theology, Denver.

I commend his book to you, BREAKING THE CONSPIRIACY OF SILENCE; CHRISTIAN CHURCHES AND THE GLOBAL AIDS CRISIS (Donald E. Messer, Prisms, Fortress Press)

Don is teaching a whole new generation of future ministers - baptized and ordained - about the worldwide pandemic of AIDS. To do so, he is, in part, using all of the new technology which appeals to this generation. I must say, he is very, very effective.

If we're going to make any progress in stemming this genocide-by-pandemic,
training a new generation of ministers -baptized and ordained - to think
creatively and effectively as citizens of the global village of Christ is an
absolutely essential part of the strategy.

In one of his classes, he showed the controversial Madonna performance "LIVE TO TELL." You may know that it is controversial because she sings the song while hanging from a cross, wearing a crown of thorns.

I found her message about abuse and violence and the AIDS pandemic most
compelling, and I urge you to watch it. I am certainly planning to use this 5 minute video as part of my Confirmation curriculum, which includes components on Human Sexuality, Global Church, and Millennium Development Goals.

The first dancer, talking about the physical abuse he sustained from his
father, says something like, "My father hit me so hard, I fell to the floor, but I picked myself up. We all fall to the floor but to pick yourself up is the real challenge. Isn't it?"

I immediately thought of the quote by my colleague and fellow priest, Robert
Corbin Morris, quoted by Jonathan Kozol in his book, "Ordinary Resurrections," from whence the book title comes.

Kozol writes that Morris speaks of the commonplace and frequently unnoticed
ways that people rise above their loneliness and fears as "ordinary resurrections." He points out that the origin of "resurrection" is the Greek word anastasis, which, he notes means "standing up again," and, as he puts it
unpretentiously, "We all lie down. We all rise up. We do this every day."

The same word, as Morris notes, is used in Scripture: "I am the resurrection
and the life." But in an afternoon directed possibly at fellow members of
the clergy, he observes, "The Resurrection does not wait for Easter."

This, I think, is the same message this video tries to make about AIDS, and
gang bangers and child abuse. It ends with a quote from Matthew's Great Commission.

May this video also inspire you to consider the MDG's - particularly # 6:
"Combat HIV/ADIS, Malaria and other diseases."

You can find that video here:

(http://shorterlink.co.uk/6645)

Balkinization? It's the new Anglican math!

(See why it can give you a headache?)

Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-UnionJan. 20, 2007


Anglicans raise questions of unity
By JEFF BRUMLEY
The Times-Union

The Anglican conference concluding today in Jacksonville was described as Christian unity in action.

About 1,300 to 1,600 participants of the Anglican Mission in America conference shared a zeal for spreading the gospel and a repulsion from the Episcopal Church's growing acceptance of openly gay clergy and same-sex blessings.

But between workshops on topics like church planting and creating effective children's ministries, the buzz among vendors' tables and coffee kiosks often centered on where the whole Anglican experiment in America is headed.

With about a dozen national organizations representing Anglicans who have quit the Episcopal Church, plus nearly as many foreign bishops overseeing parishes in the U.S., many worry the movement is becoming irreparably fragmented.

"It's all part of the balkanization of the Episcopal Church," said David Virtue of Virtueonline.org, an Internet-based Anglican news and commentary site that boasts 4 million readers.

Theologically conservative Episcopalians left the denomination after 2003 when an openly gay priest was elected the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire. In doing so, they sought oversight from like-minded Anglican bishops in places like Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.

On the First Coast [sic], former Episcopalians from more than a dozen congregations have accepted oversight from bishops in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Brazil.

Meanwhile, at least 10 national Anglican organizations have been formed, including the Anglican Communion Network, the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Province of America and the Anglican Mission in America.

Some fear the longer congregations are led by different foreign dioceses, the harder it will eventually become to draw them together under a common banner.

Anglican parishes are stuck in a "survival mode" as long as that fragmented state exists, said the Rev. Jim McCaslin, a priest who led All Souls in Mandarin out of the Episcopal Church and into a Ugandan diocese in 2006. The church also is one of about 20 in the Anglican Alliance of North Florida, and McCaslin is the leader of Anglican Communion Network congregations in the region.

It is crucial that the communion's world leaders create a new hierarchical structure for Anglicans in the U.S. and Canada - hopefully during their triennial meeting next month in Tanzania, McCaslin said.

"If they don't, that leaves you with a fractured church with unity in the gospel but no structural unity," he said.

Such a new organization could exist beside the Episcopal Church within the Anglican Communion, Virtue and some priests at the convention said.

But some of the overseas archbishops attending the Jacksonville conference hinted that Anglicans in America may have to adjust their expectations.

"To me, structure is the wrong way, the wrong direction," Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, founder of the Anglican Mission in America, told the Times-Union.

Kolini said he believes an important kind of unity already exists - that which unites Christians from different denominations in fighting problems such as AIDS.

The Rev. Sam Pascoe, rector of the Kolini-led Grace Anglican Church in Orange Park, said a new denomination is necessary eventually.

Otherwise "it's just complete disintegration and everyone goes their own way and you end up with hundreds of different jurisdictions," Pascoe said.

http://cgi.jacksonville.com/cgi-bin/printit.cgi?story=ZZNOSTORYZZ

One of my favorite quotes, illustrated . . . .

One of my favorite Christian writers is Annie Lamont and one of my favorite of the many of my favorite of her quotes comes from her book TRAVELING MERCIES: SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH (page 131).

And now, here it is. Sent to me by a friend. Sort of illustrates how I felt as I wrote the reflection on Mathematics.

The Boy Jesus, having heard my awful thoughts.

Illustrated.

For your edification and enjoyment.

"I had such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish."

Violence and God

Please join us on Tuesday, January 23rd at 7:30 PM in the Parish Hall at St. Paul's, Chatham for a fascinating discussion on "Religious Extremism and Violence" presented by the Rev'd Masud Ibn Syedullah, TSSF.

Rev'd Masud directs "Roots and Branches: Programs for Spiritual Growth" and is a professed member of the Third Order of the Society of St. Francis (TSSF). He will talk about the history of violence from the perspective of religious extremism, its association with economic conditions and desire for safety, the root causes in all religions and identify trends and patterns among them all.

The wider community is invited to attend.

An Episcopal priest, musician, and educator, the Rev. Masud I. Syedullah, TSSF integrates resources of the Christian spiritual tradition, the arts, and liturgical worship to create experiences that facilitate spiritual growth. For more than twenty-five years he has designed and led numerous conferences, retreats, and workshops to strengthen the people of God, nationally and internationally.

Born into an interfaith family (Christian and Islamic), and a professed member and pastoral officer of The Third Order, Society of Saint Francis (TSSF -- an international religious community in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion), Father Syedullah has acquired a profound appreciation for the many ways people experience and relate to God. His work invites persons to discover the everywhereness of God – the ways God can be experienced in persons and places beyond ones expectations.

Father Syedullah creates and presents diocesan events for clergy and lay people, retreats for religious orders, and conferences, lectures, workshops, and retreats for parishes and other faith-based organizations. His ministry has taken him throughout the United States, to Canada, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. The General Theological Seminary in New York City, The United States Military Academy at West Point, The School for Ministry of the Diocese of Southwest Florida, and The New York Open Center are representative of the range of organizations and institutions for which he has provided lectures and other programs. He has served as a Field-Site Supervisor for seminarians engaged in Theological Field Education for the General Theological Seminary and has created an Intensive Theological Field Education Program for Ministry among Youth and Young Adults in conjunction with the Ecumenical Community of Taizé, France. Throughout his ministry he has served as a spiritual director for both clergy and lay persons. He has led retreats and workshops on The Spirituality of Work for the Salvation Army, and is a consultant to congregations of several denominations in the fields of music, worship, faith formation, and ministry development.

Pastor of the Church of the Atonement, Bronx, New York, and member of the Liturgical Commission and the Episcopal-Muslim Relations Committee of The Episcopal Diocese of New York, his ministry encompasses the concerns and realities of both the local congregation and the broader faith community.

Joined by a team of gifted associates, he now offers Roots & Branches.

Mathematics is its own reward

Well, numbers have never been my strong suit, so I would imagine that any endeavor whose success is highly dependent upon numbers is just one big migraine threatening to happen.

Consider the evangelicals. They love to count sheep - and I'm not talking about about a solution for insomnia.

Jesus, of course, never said anything about counting sheep. He just talked about loving them and feeding them.

But, evangelicals, it seems, love to count. They count everything - how many members they have. How many members TEC is loosing. How many we have lost. How many we have lost in the past five years. Ten years. Fifteen years. How many people are flocking to the Anglican churches in Africa. How many members they are projected to get when the Archbishop of Canterbury declares them the "true faith" and TEC "apostate."

It's just a mathematical whirl.

Case in point: Mark Lawrence - erstwhile bishop-elect of South Carolina. Apparently, the counting of the consents of Standing Committees, a requirement in the election process, is going a bit, well, slow. Indeed, the "Bakersfield Californian" recently published an article with the fascinating headline:

FLAP KEEPS MAN FROM ASSUMING BISHOP'S POST.

I've posted the article, in its entirety, below.

It was the way the article ended that caught my eye.

It reads: "Claiming roots in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members. The Episcopal Church, whose members have dwindled to about 800,000, oversees more than 7,600 congregations and 111 dioceses."

Well, earlier today, I also posted the article on the House of Bishops and Deputies Listserve, with this preface: "I understand the anger and frustration, truly I do. But, really, when did we go from 2.2 million members to 800,000 members? Three guesses as to the mathematician."

And, right on cue, Kendall Harmon answered.

"Elizabeth, it appears the reporter using the average Sunday attedance figure, in whiuch case he is in the ballpark when speaking of 800,000"

"There were 787,271 in ASA (Average Sunday Attendance) in the domestic dioceses of The Episcopal Church according to the 2007 Annual (based on 2005 parochial reports)."

Gee, I wonder how the reporter got THOSE statistics?

I've been interviewed enough to know that journalists, themselves (especially the good ones) will tell you that they are basically lazy people. They will call the same people over and over - especially those who are good at the refined art of speaking in "sound bite." Oh, of course, they will call the identified leaders of the particular, appropriate group, but they also have their own rolodex files of reliably printable responses.

And, as long as you feed them information they know they can substatiate (which Kendall had at his immediate fingertips), they'll print what you tell them.

I suppose Kendall doesn't realize that I know this. I mean, I'm just a girl.

So, I wrote back:

"Membership is VERY different from attendance, Kendall.

Or, perhaps, for your purposes, it isn't.

This would certainly help explain the fact that when splinter groups like AAC or CANA or AMiA or, for that matter, Mr. Akinola or Mr. Kolini talk about the millions of MEMBERS in their various churches, they are "apparently" talking about ATTENDANCE.

That distinction makes things a great deal more apparent - which is that there is a great deal of difference between the long term commitment of baptism (MEMBERSHIP) and the religious fervor of an evangelical service (ATTENDANCE).

But then again, that kind of stability doesn't help inflame newspaper stories - much less fit into "the spin that you're in."

Kendall wrote back

"Elizabeth, my oh my. I wasn't defending it I was seeking to explain it. It was a guess. I am not interested in spin, but the truth. Comes from my undergraduate chemistry degree, to an extent. Why you went off on other topics I will leave to others to decide. Cheers."

That substance you see dripping off those words is a mixture of patronizing attitude mixed in with a heavy dollop of contempt.

My, oh, my, apparently some people are so stuck in a spin cycle, they can't even tell what direction they had originally directed the conversation.

I have a friend who, even as we speak, is creating a needlpoint sampler which says:

"Many people say I embarrass them with my humility." - +Abuja's (Akinola)

"I am not interested in spin, but the truth. - KSH"

I think it would be absolutely perfect if he were to add:

"I stay in The Episcopal Church because I love a good fight." - DCA (David Anderson)

Well, those who love to count numbers will have a veritible field day as the "count down" to the consent process of Mark Lawrence continues. For some, it will be like Chinese water torture, dripping in one consent at a time.

The speculation is high on both sides of the aisle that, with dioceses choosing not to respond (which counts as a no vote), Lawrence will not achieve the necessary consents.

And that, of course, will open up an entirely new kettle of Anglican fish. I can tell you already, it stinks to high heaven.

I think it was H.L. Menchen who once said, "Opera is its own reward."

Apparently, so is mathematics.

Oye, already I can feel such a headache coming on like you wouldn't believe!


From the "Bakersfield Californian."
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/95217.html


Flap keeps man from assuming bishop's post
BY MARK BARNA, Californian staff writer
e-mail: mbarna@bakersfield.com Thursday, Jan 18 2007 9:50 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jan 18 2007 9:54 PM

The controversies roiling the Episcopal Church are clouding the future of Rev. Mark Lawrence of Bakersfield, who was elected bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina in September.

Rev. Mark J. Lawrence, who grew up in Bakersfield, has been elected Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina. He will be leaving St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bakersfield.

Bureaucracy and objections to his being bishop have kept Lawrence from assuming the post, authorities at the South Carolina diocese said Thursday.

Lawrence represents the conservative values of the San Joaquin diocese, which are at odds with the U.S. Episcopal Church. Though the South Carolina diocese voted him bishop, a majority of other dioceses are questioning his election.

Bishops and committees have requested more information from and personal interviews with Lawrence to nail down his theological views, said Kendall Harmon, canon theologian of the South Carolina diocese.

"It is a very difficult process," Harmon said, "and unfortunately, church conflict is taking its toll on the discernment process."

Meanwhile Lawrence, who was out of town and couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, continues to pastor at St. Paul's Episcopal Parish downtown.

In an open later posted on the church's Web site last Friday, Lawrence says his departure to South Carolina has been postponed twice and, because of delays, he will not be consecrated on Feb. 24 as planned.

"You are in a parish," he writes to the laity, "whose rector has been thrust into the center of a national and, even, international debate within the Anglican Communion."

Officials at St. Paul could not be reached Thursday for comment.

For several decades, the U.S. Episcopal Church has been feuding internally about the authority of Scripture. The majority of American Episcopalians are progressives, believing that God's word is an evolving revelation.

The minority are conservative like Lawrence, holding fast to the inerrancy of Scripture and objecting to the 2003 consecration of a gay Episcopal bishop and the 2006 election of a presiding woman bishop of the national body, Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Further hurting Lawrence's chances, Harmon said, is that the reverend supports the highly conservative San Joaquin diocese, which last June requested to be overseen by someone other than Schori. The diocese, which oversees 50 Central Valley churches, including three in Bakersfield, is one of only three in the country that refuses to ordain women.

If a majority of Episcopal dioceses do not consent to Lawrence's election, he will not be consecrated, deepening the schism within the church, analysts say.

Because Lawrence was voted by a landslide of the clergy and laity of the South Carolina diocese, the holdup is a bitter pill to swallow.

"The South Carolina diocese has made a decision," Harmon said, "and our decision is not being respected but re-evaluated. People here are getting their feelings hurt."

The Rev. Haden McCormick, president of the Standing Committee at the South Carolina diocese, said the deadline for the process has been pushed back to March 9. By mid-March the diocese will know whether Lawrence is the next bishop of South Carolina.

"Mark will be in Bakersfield waiting for his consent process (to be completed)," McCormick said. "We wish everything was faster, but there's nothing we can do about that."

Claiming roots in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church is the U.S. arm of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members. The Episcopal Church, whose members have dwindled to about 800,000, oversees more than 7,600 congregations and 111 dioceses.

This is my brain on overload . . .

Okay, so I've spent the past two days in NYC with my daughter who had oral surgery and needed some serious "Mommy and Me" time (And, truth be told, I needed to be with her).

I drove into NJ at 5:30 this morning to attend diocesan convention which began at 7:45 AM and ended at 5 PM this evening.

At this point it time, all I can do is giggle.

Thankfully, these cartoons were waiting for me, sent by a friend who is a very angel.

Do join me in a wee bit of a giggle.

It's the best I can do at the moment.

Happy are those who are called

Many of you have asked me for more information about the Roman Catholic bishop's statement about Eucharist.

A pdf. copy of the report, "Happy of those who are called to His Supper: On preparing to receive Christ worthily in Eucharist" can be found here"

http://www.usccb.org/dpp/Eucharist.pdf


While I disagree with many of their conclusion, I think the document has enormous integrity. It's a perfect example of how the logic of some theologians can be positively pristine and yet completely miss the mark of the teaching of Christ and the unconditional love of God.

There was a time

The following poem was written by one of the newest members of St. Pauls - yet another refugee from the RC Church, come to us after the statement by the American Bishops meeting in Baltimore who said, essentially, that if you are Roman Catholic and if you believe in your heart in reproductive rights for women, and that homosexual persons are not "intrinsically disordered" and that priests have the right to marry, you should not come to communion.

The "straw that broke the camel's back" is often the very straw that starts an entirely new journey.



There was a time,

When the walk to the altar

Was filled with apprehension

And dread.



Will they ask the Questions?

And how will I handle it?

Will I wither and die before their stares?

Will I lie rather than face the embarrassment?

Will I turn and walk out in defiance?



All choices born of confrontation.

Do I stand and answer?

Do I challenge their right?

Do I fight for my right?



What do I gain by staying or lying, or confronting?

What do I gain by putting them through it –

By putting myself through it.



I believe that they are embarrassed

For what they are made to do.

They follow blindly,

The edicts of Rome.

Although they may be slow to administer,

They never challenge, never question.





In the end, of course, the choice is mine –

It always has been.

The fear to change was fraught

With superstition

They washed my brain,

All those years ago.



The nuns, the priests, the brothers –

Piling on the guilt, the fear

There God is the only God.

There church is the only church.

There way, the only way - -

To salvation and Christ.



I was being crushed, ground under

By guilt, by shame

Don’t you have the guts to stick it out?

Don’t you have the guts to leave?

How can you abandon your church, your God?

What kind of vile scum are you?



And then the moment arrives.

The straw finally breaks the proverbial back

I can’t do - that one - final - thing.

I can’t stand at the altar Of God

And lie.





I see the truth. Finally.

God isn’t asking me to lie

God is asking me to see the truth

God doesn’t ask such things of men

Men do these things in his name.

Men beat you down.

Men pile on the guilt

Men make the rules – to control,

To justify their own actions,

To reinforce their own beliefs.



And so, I move on

To a place of acceptance.

Where there are no questions,

Of my sexual preference

Or whether I think women have a

Right to choose what is best for themselves,

Or whether I think that priests should have a right to marry



And so, I move on

To a place of love

Where I kneel at the altar of God

And profess my love for him,

Just as I know that he loves me.

Where I take Holy Communion.

And no one questions.





And so, I move on

And I speak to people of the congregation

About myself, about my beliefs,

About all those things that define

Who I am. All those things,

That make me human.



And they accept me for who I am

And what I am.

And they love me for who I am

And what I am.

And I in return love them and

For perhaps the first time in my life

I feel truly happy, truly blessed.


Bill Schatzabel - January 17, 2007

Carrying on King's legacy

The Reverend Irene Monroe looks into the past, present, and future of the gay civil rights struggle and suggests a leader for the new era.

By the Reverend Irene Monroe

An Advocate.com exclusive posted January 12, 2007


Who is our Martin Luther King Jr. today?

When King was assassinated in April 1968, the nation believed that another person with his moral conviction and social gospel ethic would not come along.

And in light of today’s queer civil rights struggles with members of King’s own family—like his niece Alveda King saying queer civil rights are special rights, and his daughter Bernice stating that her father did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage—the LGBTQ community must ask: Who is our Martin Luther King Jr. today?

However, much of the reason the question is necessary is because King's vision of justice and moral leadership is often gravely limited by others and misunderstood. As a matter of fact, too many people thought then, and continue to think now, that King's statements regarding justice and moral leadership were only about race and the African-American community. They fail to see how King's vision of justice and moral leadership was far wider and challenging than we might have once imagined.

For King, justice was more than a racial, legal, or moral issue; justice was a human issue and had to be addressed anywhere it was being denied. And this was evident in King's passionate concern about a broad range of concerns. "The revolution for human rights is opening up unhealthy areas in American life and permitting a new and wholesome healing to take place," King once told a racially mixed audience. "Eventually the civil rights movement will have contributed infinitely more to the nation than the eradication of racial injustice."

Moral leadership played a profound role in the justice work that King did. As the nation looks for a new King, the LGBTQ community need not look any further, because he is right among us—the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson.

The tumultuous events surrounding the election and consecration of Robinson are the prism through which we see the Episcopal Church’s long struggle and history with homosexuality. And we also get to see the church’s theological underpinnings upon which homophobia and heterosexism have rested and the continued ecclesiastical power to which it is clamped.

Like King, Robinson’s moral leadership comes at a conservatively recalcitrant time in U.S. history when the nation is once again unabashedly discriminatory toward a segment of its citizenry. And like King, who fought against a broad base of social injustices, Robinson understands that the struggle against homophobia in the Episcopal Church is only legitimate if he is also fighting the racism in the church as well as out in the world.

“King and his era informed me firsthand about race in this country, because I’ll always remember seeing separate water fountains,” Robinson told me. “People thought King was an agitator, and my father called King a communist.”

Today, according to our country’s morality jihadis like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America, in addition to the right-wing faction of the Episcopal Church, Robinson is perceived not only as an agitator but also as the foretold Antichrist.

Setting off an international firestorm of reactions, both positive and negative, that could possibly lead to a schism in the worldwide Anglican Communion, Robinson's consecration is nonetheless a symbol of gay liberation. It not only challenges the church but also this nation’s existing discriminatory laws that truncate our full participation in American democracy.

Elizabeth Adams’s book, Going to Heaven: The Life and Election of Bishop Gene Robinson, depicts a man of quiet dignity and humble beginnings who was born in Kentucky to tobacco sharecropping parents.

Through Robinson’s life, Adams tells a wider story—that of the Episcopal Church’s relevance in a postmodern world that is challenging not just racial but other oppressions that have gone unexamined and unaccounted for too long in this country and that continue to create ongoing cycles of abuse and discrimination for us all.

In his address “Facing the Challenge of a New Age” before the first annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change in 1956, King stated that moral leadership is predicated on doing selfless public service that will not only ameliorate your immediate circumstances but also change the world.

“The hour calls for leaders of wise judgment and sound integrity," King said. "Leaders not in love with money but in love with justice; leaders not in love with publicity but in love with humanity; leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.”

I miss King. The nation misses King. And we all miss the resonance of his voice heard in the inimitable rhetorical style of the African-American tradition of speaking out against American racism.

But today I hear a new voice—Robinson's.

And it is a voice that also resonates with the moral conviction and social gospel ethic of King's, telling us in our ongoing civil rights struggle: “Don’t ever forget the power behind you is greater than the opposing force ahead of you.”


Monroe is a Massachusetts-based religion columnist, public theologian, and motivational speaker.

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid41084.asp

My Confession

This is my confession on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, in which we remembered and honored the life and legacy of the Rev'd Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some of you think you know me, but you don't. Let me introduce myself.

My name is Elizabeth Kaeton, and I am a racist, in recovery.

I hear some of you giggling nervously. You know me as someone who is passionate about justice. Some of you know I was a young teen on the Mall in Washington, D.C. when Dr. King gave his famous, "I Have a Dream" speech.

(I had told a "white lie" (ahem!) to my parents who were opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, thinking it a Communist plot, that I was spending the weekend with a girlfriend - which I was - just not at her home, but with her on a bus with nuns from our church who wanted us to be there.)

I have worked long and hard on my racism, and I have come a long, long way.

Or, so I thought.

In 2000, Barbara and I were attending a conference in Atlanta, GA, and decided to extend our stay to include a Sunday visit to worship at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and a visit to the MLK museum there.

We came down for an early breakfast in the hotel restaurant and, shortly after we settled in, we watched as a family also came in for breakfast: A stately, older African American woman in a wheelchair, being pushed by her beautiful, tall, daughter, and accompanied by a Caucasian woman who was tending to her son.

Barbara and I smiled at each other and whispered how wonderful this was to see - Martin's dream fulfilled. There, in a restaurant in the city of Atlanta, was a fully integrated family, enjoying breakfast together while the men folk were out playing a round of golf before breakfast.

What could be more normal?

I watched as the Caucasian woman brought her small, delightful son with beautiful caramel colored skin, to look over the choices at the breakfast buffet.

"I want strawberries!" he squealed.

"I want strawberries, please, ma'am," she corrected her son in the southern way.

"I want grits!" he said as he clapped his hands with glee.

"I want grits, please, ma'am," she corrected him again.

"Oooooh," he said, "I want biscuits and gravy, please, ma'am," he said.

And, then, the Caucasian woman said something which completely shattered the illusion I had so neatly put together.

She said, "Oh, no, you'll make a mess all over your good shirt, and your Momma will be very, very angry."

It hit me - hard - in the pit of my stomach. This was not his Momma.

This woman - this Caucasian woman - was his Nanny.

My own racism had allowed me to see the possibility for equality.

But, I was blind to the possibility that the roles had reversed. That the Caucasian woman was now working in the role traditionally held by women of color.

I had no trouble imagining, however, that this Caucasian woman was making a far better salary than her African and African-American predecessors.

In that moment, I realized two things:

First, I would never be completely healed from my racism. How could that be? The toxins of racism - like sexism, classism, and heterosexism - are in the ether of our culture. We breathe in the noxious fumes on a daily basis.

I also realized that I had to renew my commitment to fighting against racism - my own as well as that of the church - especially in its more subtle and therefore more difficult forms.

I made a commitment right then and there that if God should ever call me to lead a church as rector and pastor that I would always commemorate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., which is why we have this observance in this church every year.

I am most grateful for this opportunity to keep that commitment and for your enthusiastic participation in all of the events of this week end. Help us to remember the words of Dr. King, who said, "The arc of justice is long, but it bends toward justice."

The Speech that launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott

There are words that inspire and then there are words that launch a movement.

These words are those spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as referenced in Ms. Bradley Jones' sermon, which launched the Montgomery Buss Boycott, which signaled the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

They are written in the book PARTING THE WATERS by Taylor Branch.

"We are here this evening –for serious business. We are here in a general sense, because first and foremost -- we are American citizens – and we are determined to apply our citizenship –to the fullness of its means."

"But we are here in a specific sense – because of the bus situation in Montgomery. The situation is not at all new. The problem has existed over endless years. Just the other day – just last Thursday to be exact – one of the finest citizens in Montgomery – not one of the finest Negro citizens – but one of the finest citizens in Montgomery – was taken from a bus and carried to jail and arrested – because she refused to give up – to give her seat to a white person."

[Then King spoke of the law, saying that the arrest was doubtful even under the segregation ordinances, because reserved Negro and white bus sections were not specified in them.]

"The law has never been clarified at this point. And I think I speak with – with legal authority – not that I have any legal authority – but I think I speak with legal authority behind me – that the law – the ordinance – the city ordinance has never been totally clarified. And since it had to happen, I’m happy it happened to a person like Mrs. Parks, for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. Nobody can doubt the height of her character, nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment. And just because she refused to get up, she was arrested."

"And you know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression."

"There comes a time when people get tired of being thrown across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair."

"There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amidst the piercing chill of an Alpine November."

"There......…We are here – we are here because we are tired now."

"Now let us say that we are not here advocating violence. We have overcome that."

"I want it to be known throughout Montgomery and throughout this nation that we are Christian people. The only weapon that we have in our hands this evening is the weapon of protest."

"If we were incarcerated behind the iron curtains of a communistic nation – we couldn’t do this."

"If we were trapped in the dungeon of a totalitarian regime – we couldn’t do this."

"But the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for right. There will be no crosses burned at any bus stops in Montgomery. There will be no white persons pulled out of their homes and taken out on some distant road and murdered. There will be nobody among us who will stand up and defy the Constitution of this nation."

"My friends, I want it to be known – that we’re going to work with grim and bold determination – to gain justice on the buses in this city. And we are not wrong. We are not wrong in what we are doing."

"If we are wrong – the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong."

"If we are wrong – God Almighty is wrong!"

"If we are wrong – Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer and never came down to earth!"

"If we are wrong – justice is a lie."

"And we are determined here in Montgomery – to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a might stream!"

"And I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love. Love is one of the pinnacle parts of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation."

"Justice is love correcting that which would work against love."

"God is not just the God of love. He’s also the God that standeth before the nations and say, “Be still and know that I am God – and if you don’t obey Me I’m gonna break the backbone of your power – and cast you out of the arms of our international and national relationships."

"Standing beside love is always justice."

"Not only are we using the tools of persuasion – but we’ve got to use the tools of coercion."

"Behave so the sages of the future will look back at the Negroes of Montgomery and say they were a people who had the moral courage to stand up for their rights."

"God grant that we will do it before it’s too late. As we proceed with our program – let us think on these things."

The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand

The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand

Sunday, January 14, 2007
A Sermon preached by Jo Ann Bradley Jones
The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham, NJ


Good Morning

Thanks to Reverend Kaeton for invitation and for her hospitality. I am grateful and humble to have been asked to preach to you today. Know that since receiving the invitation, Saint Paul has been and will continue to be part of my walk

Greetings from The African Episcopal Church of Saint Thomas and from the rector, The Rev. Fr. Martini Shaw who also sends his my greetings on behalf St. Thomas to this congregation as you celebrate the life and ministry of a man certainly worthy of recognition and praise. And his hope that King’s dream will continue to be fulfilled.

Remarks about the weekend activities - viewing Traces of the Trade and other activities reflecting on restorative justice. Strong feelings have emerged, I am sure. Am glad that many parts of the Church have the courage to take on this work and am indebted to the Diocese of Newark for its witness and for bringing forward a resolution on slavery and restorative justice to the past GC.

Let us pray.
Holy God, you raise up prophets, praise and honor do we sing
For you faithful humble servant, Doctor Martin Luther King
Moral conscience of his nation,
Reconciling black and white,
Dreamed he of a just society, we must carry on his fight
Teacher of Christ-like nonviolence
To the outcast, poor and meek
Greater weapon ‘gainst oppression
It to turn the other cheek
Preacher of Christ’s love for neighbor
He won Nobel’s prize for peace
People beat your swords to ploughshares
Wars twixt nations all shall cease

Blessed Martin, pastor, prophet you the mountain top did see
Blessed Martin, holy martyr, pray that we may all be free.
Amen

It strikes me as extraordinarily providential that we come at this time to give thanks and praise for the life, ministry and witness of Martin Luther King. Just 7 weeks ago we celebrated the last Sunday of Pentecost, Christ the King. We proclaimed our total allegiance and loyalty to Christ and to his kingdom, which carries with it political overtones of a subversive nature, in that such a kingdom is an outright challenge to the political structures that we know. This allegiance calls us to turn away from the way things are to the way God intended them to be.

This is a radical shift in our thinking. For this kingdom is like a pearl of great value, a kingdom in which salvation is freedom from all captivity and healing in that all brokenness is made all, all barriers, broken down and all God’s children are one. There is righteousness and justice for the poor, prosperity for all people, deliverance for the needy and oppression is crushed. Peace abounds. In claiming that Christ is the King, we become part of a person who is not of this world and truth seekers at all cost because of our relationship to him.

Then we moved into Advent to prepare our hearts to receive Jesus the Christ –and for His coming again. Then in an abundance of joy we greeted Jesus in the celebration of his birth, God made man Emmanuel – God Be With Us and now we come to Epiphany as Christ is made manifest to the Gentiles, the intention of God that Christ be for all. What a season for us to celebrate Martin Luther King for so it frames the beginning of King’s ministry as prophet to his people.

On the surface it seems entirely unlikely that a civil rights movement should have evolved at all when it did and that Martin Luther King should lead it.

In post WWII Montgomery, more than half of the employed Negroes were laborers and domestic workers. Even the position of sales clerk was too good a job for Negroes. The Negro professional class was very small. The backbone of the Negro middle class was its educators, the faculty at Alabama State and the public school teachers, and they were dependent upon the good will of white politicians who paid their salaries. And bear in mind, Montgomery is the capital of Alabama. Montgomery had its history of violence and injustice towards Negroes.

On July 26, 1948 Pres. Truman issued an executive order ending segregation in the armed forces. This touched Montgomery in a sore spot. The regional economy was heavily dependent on 2 Air Force bases that poured nearly $50 million a year into the economy. While integration may have come to the Air Force bases, the City Council made sure it did not spread to the City.

It was against the law for a white person and a Negro to play checkers on public property or ride together in a taxi. The ordinances governing the buses were tougher in Montgomery than in other places. In Montgomery, bus drivers could impose a “floating line” between the races as they considered necessary to keep a Negro man’s legs from coming too close to a white woman’s knees. The driver could order Negroes to vacate an entire row of seats to make room for one white person or order them to stand up even if there were vacant seats.

Martin Luther King was the grandson of a Baptist minister, Reverend A.D. Williams, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, community leader and first President of Atlanta’s chapter of the NAACP and son of Martin Luther King, Sr. who succeeded his father-in-law as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

While it may seem that King was destined for the ministry, and certainly it was what his father desired, King at one time thought about becoming a lawyer. He certainly gratified his father’s desire that he attend Morehouse College and yet, was not caught up in the campus activity brought on by the returning WWII veterans who were demanding the rights for which they had fought in the war.

Whites resisted their efforts and, in fact, six veterans were lynched in Monroe, reenergizing the NAACP. But King was not involved in this either. What was new for King at Morehouse was a willingness to question the fear that surrounded the race question. His father did not discuss race.

For “Daddy” King, he was right segregation was wrong, and the hatefulness of white people was a mystery best left to God. At Morehouse, people freely took on solving this mystery and King had his first frank discussions on race there. By the time King was 18, he was preaching at Ebenezer.

During King’s senior year at Morehouse Truman became the first President to speak at a NAACP convention. The commission that Truman called upon to investigate the rioting in the south issued its report entitled “To Secure these Rights” introducing the phrase “civil rights” into political parlance and replacing the phrase the “Negro question.”

In contrast, King, who had always been fascinated by words, desired to elevate his ministry beyond fundamentalism. He wanted big ideas for his big words.

King would go on to Crozier Theological Seminary, known as an institution of unorthodox freethinking. In 1948 it was a racial gamble in an isolated pocket of history. There were 11 Negro students out of 33 in King’s class, with 3 Chinese students, one Japanese and a few Indians. There was racial integration and security.

At Crozier King became absorbed in his course work because he wanted to distinguish himself in white culture and as his response to his sense of racial duty. King felt his “twoness: in the DuBois sense: two souls, tow thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings.

Even in graduate school at Boston University, while embracing the school of Personalists, the teaching that there is a rich, empirical meaning in the religious experience, King did not become engaged in anything political, even avoiding race-related topics for papers, theses as if to do so might cheapen their work in the eyes of influential Negroes, as well as whites.

In January 1954 R. D. Nesbitt, chair of the pulpit selection committee at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama approached King about becoming the pastor. In 1867 Negroes left First Baptist Church of Montgomery to found First Baptist Colored. Later, in 1877 a dissident group broke away from First Baptist Colored over renovations desired by the “higher elements” and founded Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.

Now, in 1954, Dexter was the only remaining piece of Negro-owned real estate on the main thoroughfare of Montgomery, just down the street from the state capitol. The pulpit had become vacant at the resignation of Vernon Johns, a brilliant, outspoken preacher, who had challenged the congregation at Dexter on matters of decorum. Dexter wanted an educated and trained pastor, one conventional in dress, manner and behavior and certainly less controversial.

They wanted Martin Luther King, Jr.

On April 14, 1954 Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the call to become the pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. On May 17, 1954, two weeks after King’s first sermon as Pastor designate, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education. There were no celebrations of this landmark decision in the Negro community. Eisenhower informed D.C. that the capitol should set an example. Southern politicians announced they would obey, and then changed their minds.

On March 2, 1955, a few white people boarded a Montgomery bus going up Dexter Avenue. The white section was full and the Negro section and the no man’s land were full of Negroes. The driver demanded that the seats in the middle section in which 4 Negro women sat. Two moved and two ignored the bus driver. One young Negro woman, a high school student, was arrested.

Negroes felt the arrest was humiliating and an injustice to the student and to those who witnessed it. A group of local leaders considered mounting a defense of the student as a means of attacking segregation.

King was drawn into negotiations with police commissioner, but the group abandoned its defense of the student because she did not present the ideal person. The same was true in the second bus incident, but restlessness was growing.

Then, on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks a seamstress and the secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP was seated in the no man’s land section of a bus, refused to yield her seat and was arrested. Despite the huge risk of disgrace her arrest posed, she bravely agreed to allow her case to be the one to take on the challenge to segregation.

The Women’s Political Council, a Negro organization gives its support to Parks and asks Negroes not to use buses on the day of Parks’ trial. They decided to spread the work by producing leaflets on the mimeograph machine at Alabama State that would be distributed at churches in Montgomery.

King agrees after a bit to support this effort and an organizing meeting takes place at Dexter the next day. The leaflet calling for the bus boycott also announced a mass meeting for the evening of the boycott.

The morning of the bus boycott saw MLK and Coretta awake before dawn, watching for the first morning bus. The bus was empty, as were all the morning buses on the South Jackson route that customarily transported Negro domestics to their places of employment. Montgomery Negroes had turned the buses into a ghost fleet.

Rosa Parks was convicted that day and when her attorney entered her appeal there were 500 Negroes in the courthouse in support. At the next planning meeting, King arrived late, but at a moment of tension, when the clergy members had been attacked for not assuming leadership and allowing women to bear the responsibility. Declaring that he was not a coward, King then found himself elected president of what would be called the Montgomery Improvement Association.

At this point the thinking was to suspend the boycott, pending negotiations with the bus company. King had a scant hour before addressing the evening mass meeting. He wondered how he could compose an important speech in such a short period of time when his normal sermon preparation could take 15 hours.

A friend drove him to Holt Street Baptist Church and King and King had a few minutes to think, but as they approached the church there was a terrific traffic jam. The church was surrounded by a crowd of 5,000 people. It took Martin Luther King 15 minutes to push through the crowd. Shortly thereafter, the Holt Street pastor called MLK to the pulpit.

And what took place during those 15 minutes in passing through the crowd to the pulpit? I believe that this word of God came to Martin Luther King, proclaiming to him that the kingdom of heaven is at hand… is near, is imminent, for King gave such a stirring speech that night to thunderous applause and this launched the Montgomery bus boycott, and with it the civil rights movement, leading to sit-ins, demonstrations, Freedom Riders, SCLC, James Meredith, police dogs and hoses, jail, church bombing in Birmingham, the deaths of Medger Evers, Chaney. Goodman and Schwerner, the march in Selma and ultimately the March on Washington.

This powerful movement for justice unleashed and new disciples given the message as Jesus so commissioned his disciples And preach as you go, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And this movement, gave life to other movements on behalf of other ethnic groups, women and gay and lesbian people

So, here we are in the midst of Epiphany, to celebrate what would be King’s 79th birthday, looking to make manifest Christ in the world today, in world where now 37 million people live in poverty in this country, more than the entire population of the state of California; where we debate raising the minimum wage, but instituted tax breaks to leave no millionaire behind; where a war now almost three years old has claimed over 3,000 lives and requires the building of a new hospital for amputees and the cost of healthcare the 22,000 wounded veterans is estimated to be $350 billion.

We seen for ourselves through the days of coverage the ravage of Katrina and that race and class still bitterly divide this country, that the quaint phrase vestiges of slavery are really still forms of oppression. In our own church this week the ministry of women undermined in the Panel of Reference and a questionable process underway for the formation of an Anglican Covenant.

Yet, I say to you I don’t feel no ways tired!

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow! The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Let me close with some words from Evelyn Underhill who wrote, The coming of the kingdom is perpetual. Again and again, freshness, novelty, power from beyond the world break in by unexpected paths bringing unexpected change. Those who cling to tradition and fear all novelty in God’s relation to the world deny the creative authority of the Holy Spirit and forget that what is now tradition was once innovation; that the real Christian is always a revolutionary, belongs to a new race, and has been given a new name and a new song.

We must sing an old song with new words, that we shall overcome, not someday, but in 15 minutes. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, in your hands and in mine.

Preludium: Mark Harris Asks a Question

You have to know that I have been in love with this man, Mark Harris, since 1986. Other than Jesus, he's the only man I've ever loved for such a long time.

An intelligent mind is the best aphrodisiac, no matter how it comes packaged.

1986 is the year I graduated from seminary and was ordained. I had been called as full time chaplain at University of Lowell in Lowell, MA and he was working at the National Church as - oh, I forget the exact title - but coordinating National Campus Ministry. We worked together on NatGatIII - the third national gathering of college students, faculty and staff - in Estes Park, CO.

It was an unforgettable event.

He is a published poet, an activist, a fellow General Convention junkie, as well as being a devoted husband, father, raconteur and bon vivant.

He also has an amazing website PRELUDIUM. Check it out.

This is his latest endeavor: A You Tube piece entitled "A Question."


(If the above link isn't "Hot": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3pCmU7b2d4&eurl)

There are a few annoying breaks in the footage, but it is well worth seeing.

Simple and elegant.

Whenever my devout Roman Catholic grandmother would walk by a "Protestant" Church, she would bless herself three times and then mutter, "Dead wood always splinters."

Go on, now. Go over there and look at it. It will be good for you soul.

Little Christmas with Nana and the Girls

Okay, I know. It's not the most flattering picture but it's the one I got. Besides, how's a girl supposed to look when she's learing how to work the Learning Leap Frog for Ms. Abby?

That's Ms. MacKenna Jane, growing as tall as a weed and just as fast, Ms. Abba-Dabba (in the ADORABLE hat) and Ms. Melina, herself.

Are they not three lovely roses in my Secret Garden of Hope or what?

So, the Award for "Best Line of the Day" goes, of course, to Ms. Mackenna Jane.

We had finished Little Christmas Dinner and were headed into the rectory living room to open presents. Someone asked, "Okay, how are we going to do this?"

One of the adult men answered, "The adults go first and all the kids have to wait."

Gales of giggles from the girls and a deep chortle from our grandson, Maxx.

"No, no, no, you sillies," I said. "It's the children first."

There ensued a hearty chorus of little voices chirping, "Yippee! Hooray! Yahoo!"

"Okay," I said, "we'll start with the eldest first."

"Goodie!" squealed Ms. MacKenna Jane, clapping her hands with glee.

After four months of living with a baby sister, she's just gotten her head wrapped around the fact that being the oldest comes with some benefits: a later bedtime than Abby, certain refridgerator and cupboard privileges, etc.

I looked over at our grandson, tall and handsome and reading quite well to his baby sister, Melina. "Okay, Maxx," I said, "hit it, sweetie."

At which point, Ms. MacKenna Jane stopped dead in her tracks as a momentary glaze of confusion came over her eyes. Suddenly, she realized what had happened. She looked me square in the eyes, and with genuine disappointment dripping off every word said . . . (Are you ready for this? I wasn't.) . . . .

"But, Nana! You LOVE me!"

I quickly pulled her into my arms (so she wouldn't see the expression on my face or that of her mother), and said, "Of course I do, my darling, but fair is fair. Maxx is the oldest of the grandchildren."

She sighed deeply and said, "It's okay, Nana. I understand." And then, went on to watch excitedly as Maxx opened his first present, the anticipation mounting perceptively as she was trying to decide which one of her presents to open first.

Am I not the luckiest Nana in the entire universe?

Just a friendly little reminder

I've been getting some very nasty notes from some of the neo-puritan, so-called orthodox, conservative evangelical crowd who seem to have cornered the market on nastiness.

They are in a particular snit because I won't let them dump their trash here.

Imagine!

They say that when I don't allow them to post their noxious messages in this space, I'm not being 'inclusive'. That's because the world they live in so certain and smug and secure, so black and white without any nuances or shades of gray, they wouln't recognize "discernment" if it stared them in the face.

They have "Jeeeesssssuuuuussss," remember? I don't. My faith is "apostate," "in authentic" and the bible I read is "counterfeit."

But, they don't hate me. Oh, no, no, no! How could they? They are Christian.

Yeah, well, I agree with those commercials on You-Tube. If that's the definition of Christian, count me out. Instead, just call me a "Christ-follower."

I'm not at all convinced they are Episcopalian.

So, a reminder. I wrote about this when I first started this blog in June of 2006.

This is a BLOG - not a discussion group. You may read something here which prompts you to say that you disagree or agree. There is a mechanism for that in the 'Comments' section. I will remind you that the comments here are closely monitored. I read them all, but I discern whether or not to post them.

I often post comments that disagree with my position, but only those that are free of adhominum attacts - on me or anyone else.

Bottom line: This is a Blog. It's MY blog. I get to decide who prints responses here.

If you want to debate someone on points I have made, go find another blog.

If you are searching for information, go to a library. Or, use "google" or any search engine of your choice.

If you "just really want to know more about this from a (fill in the blank) revisionist/lesbian/liberal/_________" it is my position that cyberspace is not the appropriate forum in which to have that kind of conversation.

If you want to "just really want to know more about this" from ME, make an appointment and come and see me. In person. Look me in my eyes. Let me look in your eyes. This is precisely why God chose to come among us in the flesh. Hearts and minds are only fully engaged by the Incarnation of our humanity.

Remember: This is not a forum for discussion. Other progressive blogs may choose to have that feature, but frankly, I simply don't have time to engage in discussion in that way. You may leave your comments here - in agreement or disagreement with me - if they are not snarky, or contain personal attacks.

If you want someone to agree with you, go to a conservative, or orthodox blog.

Thanks.

Now, I'm going out into the world to be about my Mother's business.

We were never meant to survive

So, I got up this morning (January 10th, the Year of our Lord, 2007) at 5:30 AM and discovered that the sky had not fallen.

I walked the dogs and greeted other neighbors as they walked their own dogs, or picked up the daily newspaper at the end of the driveway, or ran to catch the 5:45 train into NYC.

I did my morning ablutions, making my final meditaton on the passages for William Laude, and readied myself for Healing Eucharist at 7 AM.

Still, the world spun on its axis, apparently unaware of yet another tear in the fabric of the rapidly unraveling whole cloth that once was the Anglican Communion.

Later that same day, this quote came in from Susan Russell, President of Integrity and uncontested and reigning Queen of the Sound Bite, which, in fact, won the Award for “Quote of The Week”

"Actually (the Windsor Panel of Reference not interviewing ordained women) all makes such sense -- imagine how much tidier it would have been if we'd just asked the segregationists how the Jim Crow laws were working? Would have saved all that messiness in the 60's!" Susan Russell, President of Integrity.

Which reminded me of this quote by Frederick Douglass:

“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are people who want crops without plowing up the ground.

They want rain without thunder and lightening; they want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.

This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never did and it never will.

Find out what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice which will be imposed upon them.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

I found courage in both of these statements, and the will to persevere.

And, as the day draws nigh, I have come, once again as I most always do, to find comfort and courage in the words of our sisters, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde.

I give them to you this night as bedtime prayer.


This, first, from Alice Walker:

Love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home.
Love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one.



And, finally, this, from my heroine, Audre Lourde

We Were Never Meant to Survive

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone.

For those of us who were
imprinted with fear like a faint
line in the center of our
foreheads learning to be afraid
with our mother's milk.

For by this weapon,
this illusion of some safety to
be found-
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us.

For all of us
this instant and this triumph-
we were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are
afraid
it might not remain.

When the sun set sets we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed.

But when we are silent
we are still afraid.

So it is better to
speak remembering
We were never
meant to survive.

Anglicans 'can reject women priest'

Telegraph - U.K.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/09/uchurch109.xml

Anglicans 'can reject women priests'

By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent

Last Updated: 1:47am GMT 10/01/2007

Traditionalists won a victory against the liberal American branch of Anglicanism yesterday when a panel set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury ruled that they could not be compelled to accept women priests.

The “panel of reference”, a body created by Dr Rowan Williams to adjudicate in international disputes, said that the “non-acceptance” of women’s ministry was a “recognised theological position”.

The panel’s findings followed complaints from an American diocese that does not ordain women that it had been undermined by the national Episcopal Church, which had effectively made female ordination mandatory.

Though the panel’s recommendations have no binding legal authority, its decision to uphold the rights of opponents of women priests will have implications for the whole Church.

The findings will also come as a blow to the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts Schori, the first woman head of an individual Anglican province, and they were angrily condemned by fellow liberals.

But traditionalists said that the panel had recognised that they had a continuing place in the Church.

The panel’s ruling came in response to a 2005 appeal by the Diocese of Forth Worth and its traditionalist Bishop, the Rt Rev Jack Iker. Bishop Iker argued that when the Episcopal Church originally decided to allow women to become priests in 1974, it permitted, but did not require, dioceses to ordain women.

However, in 1997, the Church modified its laws by stating that “no one shall be denied access to the ordination process in any parish or diocese” on account of their gender. Bishop Iker said that as he could not, in good conscience, ordain women, the new laws made him liable to be removed from office and would prevent Fort Worth from electing future bishops opposed to women clergy.

The Bishop argued that the rights of women who sought ordination in his diocese were adequately protected by the “Dallas Plan” he created in 1996, that transferred prospective women clergy to the neighboring Diocese of Dallas.

In its report yesterday, the panel praised the Dallas Plan and asked Dr Williams and Bishop Jefferts Schori to commend it. It also asked the Episcopal Church to clarify its canon laws and protect the right of conscience of opponents of women clergy.

Lambeth Palace had no immediate comment, but Bishop Jefferts Schori offered a muted response to the Daily Telegraph, saying that “we recognise that women do have access to ordination under the Dallas plan at present, which seems to address the intent of the canon.”

But the Rev Elizabeth Kaeton, the Episcopal Women’s Caucus president, said that the panel’s ruling “not only calls for flagrant disobedience of the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church, but also preserves and promotes a system of institutional sexism and misogyny.”

Bishop Iker said that he was “gratified that our conscientious position has been vindicated by this impartial, international body of Church leaders.”

Another leading conservative, the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Rt Rev Robert Duncan, added: “It is clearly up to the leadership of The Episcopal Church to choose either to continue pushing faithful Episcopalians who disagree with the majority on this issue out the door, or to accept the constructive work of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Panel of Reference.”

Fort Worth is one of three Episcopal dioceses which do not ordain women to the priesthood. The worldwide Anglican Church as a whole is committed to “open reception” of women’s ordination.

God Changes People For Good

I found this little patch of blue sky waiting for me, amidst the rain clouds of yesterday, on MADPRIEST's blog

Tuesday, January 09, 2007
God Changes People For Good
(Ah! Now I see what they mean)

From icWALES:

One of the most prominent figures in the campaign against the ordination of women priests a decade ago has admitted he got it wrong. Carl Cooper, the Bishop of St Davids, was a leading light in the "no" camp in the early 1990s, but now admits that view was "inconsistent".

The Church in Wales voted against ordaining women priests in 1994, but the position was later reversed and this weekend sees the 10th anniversary of the ordination of the first female priests in Wales.

Bishop Cooper, then vicar of Dolgellau, was a vocal opponent of the move. But he said it was now appropriate for him to make clear he had changed his views.

He said, "While people who know me realise that I have been not just happy but rejoicing in the fact that I have been able to ordain a number of women, not everybody will know that. It might be appropriate to come clean a little more publicly."

Bishop Cooper, 46, said he now supported the idea of women bishops, currently impossible under the Church in Wales rules.

Perhaps surprisingly, he said it was the initial "no" vote in 1994 (it was reversed two years later) that began to plant doubts in his mind. He said, "I distinctly remember sitting in my seat in the governing body, and you might think that when you have argued for something and when your argument has carried the day you might be quite pleased, but actually the opposite was the case. I distinctly felt deflated, especially because I became acutely aware of the hurt and distress that the no vote caused to the many women in the church who clearly felt they had a vocation to the priesthood."

He came to see there were "inconsistencies" in the arguments against women priests, Bishop Cooper said, adding, "I ought to make quite clear that doesn't mean that any standpoint that I take from now on is faultless."

COMMENT: Sometimes I need to be reminded that it's not only bad people who get things wrong. Good people are just as prone to making mistakes. It seems clear to me that at that first debate, God touched the bishop's heart. He was "man" enough to accept his Lord's correction - I wonder if I would be.

ENS: Analysis of Panel of Reference Recommendations

www.episcopalchurch.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


EPISCOPAL NEWS SERVICE




Panel of Reference tells Episcopal Church it should clarify stance on women's ordination
Wording of canon on availability of ordination process called 'ambiguous'


Episcopal News Service
Issue:
Section:

By: Mary Frances Schjonberg
Posted: Monday, January 08, 2007

The Anglican Communion's Panel of Reference has recommended that the Archbishop of Canterbury discuss with the Presiding Bishop the possibility of clarifying what it called the ambiguous wording of a 1997 amendment to the Episcopal Church's ordination canon "so as to ensure that the permissive nature of the ordination of women is maintained in any diocese."

"At the same time the apparent intention of the amendment to defend the interests of women candidates for postulancy, candidacy and ordination in a diocese that does not ordain women would be underscored," the panel's recommendation said.

The recommendations are part of a report issued by the panel sometime in December and posted on the Anglican Communion Office's website January 8. The panel's report is its response to a submission by the Diocese of Fort Worth which states that the diocese and its bishop, Jack Iker, "are concerned that the action of the General Convention of ECUSA in passing Canons which makes women's ordination mandatory makes it impossible for the Diocese at some future date to receive confirmation of the election as their bishop of a man who disapproves of the ordination of women to the presbyterate and/or episcopate."

The diocese has put in place a procedure known as the Dallas Plan to provide women access to the ordination process and provide for parishes that want to call a woman priest.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said, in response to the report, that "We recognize that women do have access to ordination under the Dallas Plan at present, which seems to address the intent of the canon."

No timeframe has yet been set for consultation during which the Presiding Bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury will take up further discussion of the issues at hand.

The Diocese of Fort Worth has been at odds with the Episcopal Church and was the first of seven dioceses to ask for a relationship with an Anglican Communion primate other than Jefferts Schori, who had been elected the day before Iker and the diocese made its request.

The Panel of Reference also recommended that "the Archbishop of Canterbury continue discussions with the Diocese of Fort Worth and with the Episcopal Church with the aim of securing the place of Fort Worth in the Communion."

"We are gratified that our conscientious position has been vindicated by this impartial, international body of church leaders," Iker said in a statement posted on Forth Worth's website.

"It is clearly up to the leadership of The Episcopal Church to choose either to continue pushing faithful Episcopalians who disagree with the majority on this issue out the door, or to accept the constructive work of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Panel of Reference," Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan said in his capacity as moderator of the Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes.

The panel's report says that "Bishop Iker is concerned that, assuming that a majority of the Diocese of Fort Worth continues to be opposed to the ordination of women, it may not be possible for the Diocese to secure the required number of consents to the election of a bishop who is opposed to the ordination of women, and that the Diocese is therefore under threat of not being able to have a future bishop who holds the same theological position as he does."

The 1997 Convention had made changes to the canons then numbers as III.8.1, III.16.1(d), III.16.2, III.17.3, via Resolution A052, to prevent the denial of the ordination process and subsequent authority and movement of clergy on the basis of gender. The Convention also passed Resolution A053, which states in part that "it is the mind of this Convention that, notwithstanding the legislative history surrounding the passage of those Title III canons relating to the ordination of women, and notwithstanding subsequent actions of the House of Bishops not in General Convention assembled, the provisions of the canons of the General Convention, insofar as they may relate to the ordination of women and the licensing and deployment of women clergy, are mandatory..."

The panel found that "there appears to be an element of ambiguity in relation to the wording of the 1997 amendment." The report said that then-Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold "understands that the amendment did not seek to change the then existing state of affairs by making it mandatory for a bishop actually to ordain a woman."

"Rather, it was simply intended to ensure that women wishing to test their vocation to ordained ministry would not be penalized by virtue of their belonging to a diocese in which the bishop does not ordain women," the report said.

After the 1997 Convention, Iker instituted the Dallas Plan under which he would designate the Bishop of Dallas as the alternative ecclesiastical authority for any parish wishing to engage the services of a woman priest as its parish priest. The Bishop of Dallas would have all episcopal oversight of the congregation.

"In addition, any woman within the Diocese who wished her vocation to the priesthood to be tested would be referred to the Bishop of Dallas," the panel's report explained.

No parish has asked for such oversight and the panel said it understands that women in the Diocese of Fort Worth who feel called to the priesthood have in fact been referred to Dallas and "some have become ordinands."

"Thus the Dallas Plan has cared positively for those who do not share the majority diocesan view," the panel said.

Iker told the panel that 25 percent of Episcopalians in his diocese disagree with his stance.

The panel's report said that Iker "is concerned that the amended canon could now be interpreted to mean, not that 'no one in any parish or diocese shall be denied access to the ordination process nor postulancy, candidacy or ordination on account of his or her sex' but that no one shall be denied access to these things 'in any parish or diocese'."

"Accordingly, Bishop Iker is concerned that under the present canons he may be subject to presentment, trial and deposition for not accepting women priests himself even if he is prepared to arrange for ordination candidates to be handled by the Diocese of Dallas," according to the report.

The panel's report bases its recommendations, in part, on the 1997 report of the Eames Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate to the Lambeth Conference that year, which refers to "an open period of reception" concerning the ordination of women.

"Ideally the Diocese of Fort Worth ought to be able to find a place within ECUSA without a sense of isolation or victimization," the report said.

"One solution would be for General Convention to clarify the wording of the 1997 amended canon so as to make it absolutely clear that it is to be understood in the form which leaves the ordination of women permissive, while ensuring that women postulants and candidates for ordination in a diocese that does not ordain women are not denied access to the process," it continued.

"No diocese should be compelled to elect a bishop who agrees with the ordination of women," the report said, noting that "the church has debated since the beginning what are the standards for giving or withholding consent and adding that a diocese that elects a man as bishop who is opposed to the ordination of women in the future would "need the goodwill of the other dioceses not to block that appointment by withholding consent."

The panel's recommendations are that

1. use of the Dallas Plan continue;

2. "it be made clear that it is legitimate for a diocese to ask of candidates for election as bishop that they abide by the particular policy of the diocese in relation to the ministry of women, and that theological views on the ordination or consecration of women should not be a ground on which consent might be withheld by the Province/House of Bishops;"

3. "the Archbishop of Canterbury should discuss with the Presiding Bishop the possibility of the clarification of the ambiguous wording of the 1997 amendment to the relevant canon so as to ensure that the permissive nature of the ordination of women is maintained in any diocese" while underscoring the "apparent intention of the amendment to defend the interests of women candidates for postulancy, candidacy and ordination in a diocese that does not ordain women;"

4. "the Archbishop of Canterbury continue discussions with the Diocese of Fort Worth and with the Episcopal Church with the aim of securing the place of Fort Worth in the Communion."

The Panel of Reference was appointed in May 2005 at the request of the Primates of the Anglican Communion. It is meant to "enquire into, consider and report" to the Archbishop of Canterbury on situations involving "groups in serious theological dispute with their diocesan bishop, or dioceses in dispute with their Provinces," as well as to make recommendations with his consent and report to him on any responses, according to the mandate Williams gave the panel.




© 2004, The Episcopal Church, USA. Episcopal News Service content may be reprinted without permission as long as credit is given to ENS.

Breaking news from Windsor Panel of Reference: Priestly vocations of Ft. Worth women have no worth

While we here in The Episcopal Church were busy preparing to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Incarnation, it seems that there was a group of Anglican folk 'across the pond' meeting at Lambeth Palace in Canterbury, England, who were making a statement about the Manifestations of the Incarnation - at least in terms of who might appropriately be the ordained representatives of Jesus in the Episcopal Church.

The Panel of Reference, called together by the Windsor Report has made its recommedations on the appeal of the Diocese of Ft. Worth.

You can read the full report here.

You may remember that the Diocese of Ft. Worth appealed to the Panel of Reference even before it had appealed to the Archbishop of Canterbury for "alternate primatial oversite."

The good bishop of Ft. Worth, one Mr. Jack Leo Iker, asked that the Panel of Reference place its imprimatur on "The Dallas Plan," a system wherein those women in Ft. Worth who feel called to ordination to the priesthood or episcopacy, or, in fact, a vocation to be rector of a church in that diocese, would be refered to Mr. James Stanton, bishop of the Diocese of Dallas.

It was a "gentlemen's agreement" between bishops, the stuff of which good Anglican history - as well as the story of Texas horse-trading - is filled.

As President of the Episcopal Women's Caucus, I have issued a first response to the release of the Report. It is appended below. The Caucus board will be meeting later this week for further discussion and deliberation.

I want to suggest to you, dear Blog reader, that this Report has wider implications than just the issue of women and just the Diocese of Ft. Worth.

If the ordination of women is a bellwether issue in The Episcopal Church - and I believe it is - then I think this report sounds an ominous tone for those of us who believe in the radical inclusion of Jesus in all the councils and corridors of power in the church.

Here are some of my questions:

How, in God's name, do any of these good, Anglican folk from around the world who make up the Panel of Reference, have any idea of what is good for the Anglican folk here in The Episcopal Church?

Is this a sort of "neo-colonialism" in reverse?

How can people who do not live in the United States, much less the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth, make a judgement on what "has worked well the past 10 years"?

With whom did they speak to make this judgment? What did they read in preparation for this judgment?

Certainly not anything by historian and author, Pamela Darling!

The journey toward the Realm of God just hit a big bump in the road!

Here's the initial response of The Episcopal Women's Commission:

The Episcopal Women's Caucus receives with deep distress and dismay the decision of the Panel of Reference that, "while the Communion is in a process of reception, no diocese or parish should be compelled to accept the ministry of word or sacrament from an ordained woman."


This decision provides a basis for the reason that a "foreign curia" is antithetical to the Spirit of Anglicanism in general and the Episcopal Church in particular.


What "appears to have worked successfully for ten years" to the distant perspective of an uninvolved few brings a harsh reality more painfully into focus for those Americans who will continue to be denied the sacramental, liturgical, pastoral and prophetic fullness of the ministry of women which is enjoyed in 108 of 111 dioceses.



Even more deeply troubling, the clear recommendation of the Panel of Reference that "it is legitimate for a diocese to ask of candidates that they abide by the particular policy of the diocese in relation to the ministry of women, and that theological views on the ordination or consecration of women should not be ground on which consent might be withheld by the Province/House of Bishops" not only calls for flagrant disobedience of the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church, but also preserves and promotes a system of institutional sexism and misogyny.



The Episcopal Women's Caucus is a justice organization dedicated to Gospel values of equality and liberation and committed to the incarnation of God's unconditional love.

http://episcopalwomenscaucus.org

For further information, contact

(the Rev’d) Elizabeth Kaeton
President, EWC
973 464 8018
EMKaeton@aol.com

(the Rev’d Canon) Carol Cole Flanagan
VP, EWC
201 537 6556
cflanagan@edow.org

Reparations for slavery?

Ms. Jo Ann Bradley Jones will be guest preacher at both the 8 AM and 10 AM Martin Luther King Day services of The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham, on Sunday, January 14.

Ms. Jones will be part of a weekend long awareness program about racism which begins with a viewing, free and open to the public, of the powerful documentary film, TRACES OF THE TRADE, which follows the DeWolfe family's discovery of the history of their participation in the slave trade.


The film will be shown in the Sanctuary on Friday, the 12th from 7:30 - 9 PM. A discussion of the film will follow on Saturday, January 13th, from 9:30 - 11 AM.



On Sunday, January 14 at 9 AM, Ms. Bradley Jones will be joined by members of the Diocese of Newark's Commission on Reparations, which studied the controversial topic of reparations for slavery.



Everyone is invited to attend these important events. Please note that admission to the viewing of TRACES OF THE TRADE is free of charge.



Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Ms. Jones was baptized and confirmed at St. James. She was one of the first African Americans to be admitted to Baltimore Friends School, from which she graduated in 1969. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Swarthmore College in 1973 and her J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1976.



Her first professional position was with the Office of Area (later Regional) Counsel of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Philadelphia. She served that agency for ten years before joining the firm of Pohoryles and Greenstein in Washington, D.C. She returned to Philadelphia, taking a position in the Law Department and then became the General Counsel of the Philadelphia Housing Authority and later the District of Columbia Housing Authority. She served as Assistant General Counsel for Drexel University. Having served on the boards of several non-profits Ms. Jones served briefly as the Executive Director of MANNA, an organization that provides nutrition to persons living with HIV/AIDS. She now is the senior consultant with Paradigm Group Consultants.



An active layperson, Ms Jones has served the Diocese of Pennsylvania as a Church Attorney and member of the Search Committee for the Bishop Coadjutor. She is a member of the Diocesan Committee on Resolutions. She has been an alternate Lay Deputy to General Convention (1997) and Deputy to General Convention (2000, 2003 and 2006). This past year she was Chair from the House of Deputies for the Committee on Social and Urban Affairs. She is a member of the Standing Commission on Structure of the Church. A member of The African Episcopal Church of Saint Thomas, Ms Jones has served on the Vestry, and is active in the Altar Guild, Daughters of the King, lay reader, Chancel and Gospel choirs and chaired the Search Committee for a new rector.


Other volunteer activities include membership on the Boards of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania and Awbury Arboretum and Our Garden Club of Philadelphia. She enjoys reading, cooking, gardening and bridge. Ms. Jones lives in the Germantown section of Philadelphia with her dog, Jake.

Sometimes, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do . . .

Kendall Harmon, the peripatetic theologian for the neo-puritan, so-called orthodox, conservative evangelical movement in The Episcopal Church, posted a note on the House of Bishops and Deputies' LISTSERV (HOB/D)regarding the theology of the so-called “Windsor Bishops” (Those who support or are "in compliance with" the Windsor Report) who met for the second time at Ft. Allen, Texas.

And, I responded to Kendall.

I mean, sometimes, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Let me help you understand the context: Ann Fontaine, the amazing deputy from Wyoming, former member of Executive Council, and present member of the Board of ERD (Episcopal Relief and Development), published a list of those bishops who were currently attending the meeting in Texas. She wrote:

Here are the bishops who attended the Camp Allen 2 meeting -- so-called Windsor bishops - but only as it applies to banning gays and lesbians not the other parts about not crossing boundaries, having "listening sessions" or other parts of the conversation to date.

1. Love
2. Beckwith
3. Parsley
4. Adams (Western Kansas)
5. Howe
6. Salmon
7. Stanton
8. Ackerman
9. Jenkins
10. Wimberly
11. Lillibridge
12. Gray
13. Smith (ND)
14. MacPherson
15. Iker
16. Steenson
17. Little
18. Jacobus
19. Duncan (Pitt.)
20. Herlong
21. Bishop-elect Lawrence (DioSC)

4 new bishops that did not attend the #1 and 5 from #1 who did not attend #2 so even though Bp Wimberley claims according to The Living Church that the group is growing - the numbers do not support this.

Thanks to Stand Firm in Faith for the names.

Then, Richard Mosty, the Deputy from West Texas and Standing Committee member wrote:

It is unfair, untrue, and irresponsible to blanket label all these Bishops as you done. Uninformed extremism on any side is not helpful for reconciliation.

To which Kendall Harmon responded:

Absolutely Richard Mosty and the presenting issue is not "banning gays and lesbians" as Ann has claimed,

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams clarified this very well when he wrote: "This is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people. Instead it is a question, agonisingly difficult for many, as to what kinds of behavior a Church that seeks to be loyal to the Bible can bless, and what kinds of behavior it must warn against."

Notice carefully the question in dispute is not about people but behavior: Is nonmarital sexual activity appropriate for Christian leaders or not? At least the Archbishop of Canterbury understands this even if Ann keeps misidentifying it.

Also for the record it isn't so much extremism as inaccuracy.

And, so I said:

I am remembering a segment of the television program FIRING LINE, wherein the host, William F. Buckley, the conservative Roman Catholic author and journalist, when interviewing his guest Andrew Sullivan, the conservative Roman Catholic gay man with whom he had worked as editor at the conservative magazine NATIONAL REVIEW, obviously impressed by his guest's most obvious intelligence, threw up his hands in frustration and, with no small amount of obvious disgust, said "But, Andrew it’s not who you ARE, it's what you DO!"

That argument may work if, say, you are a Senator and you have taken bribe money. Your identity as an elected official is not the issue. What you have done is. We are all responsible and held accountable for our actions.

But, theologically, this has always been a deeply flawed argument, predicated on several facets of a mind/body dualism which has always tried to make identity and behavior separate and distinct from each other.

It's a form of ascetics that has not served the Roman Church well over the recent years, and is often cited as the root cause of the current scandals in priestly boundary violation.

Living a "compartmentalized life" - with my identity here and my behavior over there - is to live with one foot in and one foot out of the closet. As Andrew Sullivan writes, "The closet corrupts. What the closet does to people - the hypocrisies it fosters, the pathologies it breeds - is brutal."

Interesting, that the argument is made by those who claim that who they are AND what they do, as heterosexuals, is not only NOT separate and distinct, the cohesion of the two, in fact, makes them morally superior. On the other hand, if a homosexual person acts on her/his identity, s/he is immoral - or, at least, morally flawed (if not disgusting).

We know who we are, in part, by those who love us and those with whom we are in relationship.

It's Martin Buber's "I/Thou" relationship.

It's also the South African notion of what Desmond Tutu calls "Unbuntu" - or, roughly translated, the 'interconnectedness of all people.'

The only really surprising, if not disappointing, thing about +++Rowan's quote is that he sometimes sounds more Roman Catholic than the Pope.

At least Ann identifies this correctly even if the good Archbishop doesn't understand it.

And, Kendall, my brother, you cannot say, on the one hand, that LGBT people are sinners because they act on their sexual orientation outside of marriage, and, at the same time, deny marriage to LGBT people because we are sinners because we are physically intimate and express our love outside of a civil right and a liturgical rite which is denied to us.

That's called "blaming the victim." It's also called "crazy-making" - for everyone involved.

I'll let Andrew Sullivan have the last word: "What I do know is that the closet corrupts. The lies it requires and the compartmentalization it demands can lead people to places they never truly wanted to go, and for which they have to take ultimate responsibility."

A Baptismal Love Letter

"You are my . . . beloved; with you I am well pleased."
Luke 3:22
A Baptismal Love letter to Infant "M. A."

I Epiphany - The Baptism of our Lord - January 7, 2007
The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham, NJ

Dearest Roloke,

I'm quite certain you don't understand this yet, but one day, I trust, you will: You are child who has been deeply blessed. You were the day you were born, you are, today, the day you are baptized, and even so, on the day, 12 or 13 years from now when you read this Baptismal Love Letter and prepare to make a public affirmation and declaration of your faith in Confirmation.

Yes, of course, you have been blessed with a wonderful Mommy and Daddy who love you dearly. And, you have an adoring big sister, Morin, who was also baptized here at the Great Vigil of Easter two years ago. You also have loving grandparents and aunts and uncle and cousins in Nigeria and England and a Godmother who lives just across the Passaic River in NY City.

You are dearly loved and wanted in this world and will be cherished and treasured. Of this I have no doubt. You are blessed and you are a blessing to your family, and as such, a manifestation, a 'showing' a little 'epiphany' of God's incarnational and deeply mysterious love.

You are also blessed - and this church with you - because your baptism falls on a very special day. Today is the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord. Of course, the gospel story of the Baptism of Jesus, according to Luke, presents a very different picture of a baptism than what you will experience at your baptism.

Jesus is a full grown man at his baptism, which is performed by his cousin John in the River Jordan. You, of course, are just 4 months old, and although this is not the River Jordan, you will be baptized in the midst - in the very center - of the community, just as it was so for Jesus.

When Jesus had been baptized and was praying, scripture tells us that "the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

Now, if we start hearing voices in this church this morning, I'll begin to worry. Of course, I'm being silly; but you know, if we listen closely enough, we'll be able to hear the soft flutter of the wings of the Holy Spirit, as She visits this place. I've heard it said that one little child, when asked about Love said, "Love is what is in the room at Christmas if you stop opening your presents and just listen."

I suspect that if we take a moment during your baptism to listen, we might also hear Love. I want you to pay close attention to these words. God is always pleased with that which God has created. Irenaeus, one of the great and ancient theologians in the church, taught us that God is most pleased when we are thoroughly, completely human. He said, "The glory of God is (hu)man(kind) fully alive (fully human)."

We, like Jesus, are the delight of God's heart because through Jesus, we have come to know something about the nature of God. Now, this may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but the mystery of the Incarnation is that God is with us. That is the meaning of the name Emmanuel: "God is with us."

In the great mystery that is our God, this means that, through Jesus, not only is God revealed to us, but God has come to know something much more deeply about us. Through God's incarnation in Christ Jesus, God has come to know even more deeply and intimately our joys and our sorrows, our fears and our anxieties, our dreams and the deepest desires of our hearts.

You, Rolake, are one of God's creatures. God delights in you and is well pleased in you. I want you to hear that and learn that and know that deep in your very soul. More important than anything else that happens today, these are the most important words of your baptism - indeed, these are most important words in your life of faith.

As it was so at the time of Jesus, there is bad news and good news today. Like Jesus, you have been born in a time of great distress. As of January 6th, the war in Iraq has claimed the lives of 3,006 American Soldiers - more than the number of Americans who died on 9/11 - and to date, over 100,000 Iraqi men, women and children have lost their lives. Over 500 coalition forces have lost their lives and over 1,000 have been injured in the past five years of war in Afghanistan.

Genocide continues shamefully unabated in Darfur in the Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of children in Africa and the Global South lose their lives to malaria, a completely preventable disease, as any affluent traveler to these countries knows. AIDS continues to leave even more children without parents or families in what has become, effectively, genocide-by-epidemic.

The really bad news is that I have no doubt that, 13 years from now, as you read this letter, there will also be wars and rumors of war. There will be senseless killing and even more senseless and preventable deaths of children around the globe. This is not because God does not love us. It is because we do not love each other as God loves us. Hear this clearly: God's love for us is unconditional and unrestrained.

And, that is the good news, Rolake. God loves us beyond our wildest imagination. Remember that when racism rears its ugly head and you are mistreated because of the beautiful color of your skin, or your talents are neglected because of your gender. Your parents and this church family will try with all our might to prevent that, but it may happen anyway, because the world is still dark and desperate and broken.

I want to leave you with these words of great wisdom. Some attribute them to Mother Theresa. Others say that is a Hindi prayer by a man named Om Vashishth. Still others say this was written by a young college student named Kent Keith. No matter. These words convey the Holy Spirit of God incarnate in Jesus, in whose name you are being baptized. They are a manifestation, an epiphany, of God's Love.

This poem is entitled "Anyway"

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God
It was never between you and them anyway.

Welcome to the household of God, Rolake. You are Beloved of God and with you, God is well pleased.

With all my love,

Rev'd Elizabeth

Shazam! Schism!

The title of this article is "Archbishop fears Church schism" - as if this were a new thing. For goodness sake! We've been dealing with "the threat of schism" in the Anglican Communion since our inception. One might think, from reading this headline, that if the Archbishop of Canterbury says it is so, then it must be so. Well, he hasn't said it, and it still is so. Many people have worked very hard to make this happen. And, it has. We ARE in schism. Shazam! And, get used to it.


Archbishop fears Church schism.
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent

London Daily Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:58am GMT 06/01/2007

The Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted that he fears losing control of the worldwide Anglican Church, which is on the brink of schism over homosexuality.

In a surprisingly frank assessment of the crisis, Dr Rowan Williams said that he feared anything that set Christians more deeply at odds with each other.

"And because I am an ordinary, sinful human being, I fear the situation slipping out of my control, such as it is," he said.

"I fear schism, not because I think it's the worst thing in the world but because, at this particular juncture, it's going to be bad for us. It's going to drive people into recrimination and bitterness."

In a documentary on Canterbury Cathedral to be broadcast on ITV tomorrow, the archbishop added: "We can't take it for granted that the Anglican Communion will go on as it always has been.

"Of course that's unsettling, of course that's painful for everybody, but there's no way of moving on without asking the hard questions."

His comments, which will be leapt on by critics who accuse him of weak leadership, come at a highly sensitive time for the worldwide Church, which is being pulled apart by warring factions.

Next month, Dr Williams will chair a make-or-break summit in Africa with his fellow primates, the archbishops who head the 38 self-governing Churches or provinces that make up the 70 million-strong Communion.

The archbishop is hoping that a compromise will emerge, allowing conservatives and liberals to co-exist relatively peacefully until a more formal split can be worked out over the next decade.

But if his strategy falls apart a large section of the Church could break away and form a rival body, creating bitter divisions across the world, including the Church of England.

The disintegration could accelerate at next month's meeting if conservative archbishops refuse to negotiate with the new female head of the liberal American branch of Anglicanism, which precipitated the crisis by consecrating a gay bishop in 2003.

Meanwhile, the archbishop is facing fresh turmoil in the Church of England following the disclosure that more than 50 gay or -lesbian priests have "married" in civil partnership ceremonies.

A number of them have openly breached official guidelines that allow them to enter into such partnerships only if they have first assured their bishops that they will remain celibate.

So far, however, no bishop has initiated disciplinary action and conservatives will force the issue on to the floor of the General Synod in February when it stages its first debate on homosexuality for a decade.

The Rev George Curry, the chairman of the conservative evangelical Church Society, said it could be a "crunch moment" for the Church.

But a leading liberal, the Rev Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney in west London, urged "fight to keep alive the Anglican project of an inclusive and open Church".

Lesbians of Mass Destruction

The empty case against Mary Cheney.

By William Saletan
Posted Saturday, Dec. 23, 2006, at 7:17 AM ET

Poor Dick Cheney. He was sure we'd find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We searched and searched, but he refused to give up.

Now he's discovering what it's like to be on the other end of such obtuse certainty. The conservative jihad has turned from Saddam to Sodom. Moralists are denouncing Cheney's pregnant daughter, Mary, for disclosing that she and her lesbian partner will raise the baby together. The moralists are confident that having two mommies is bad for kids. And no evidence to the contrary can dissuade them.

The 30-year search for proof that gay parents are destructive looks a lot like the hunt for WMD. The has compiled abstracts of 67 studies. Some are plainly biased, and only the latest two or three have avoided the methodological flaws of earlier investigations.

But after 67 tries, you'd expect the harm of gay parenting to show up somewhere. Yet in study after study, on measure after measure, kids turn out the same.

One study found that straight parents "made a greater effort to provide an opposite-sex role model for their children," but it doesn't say whether this affected the kids. Another says children raised by lesbian couples "were more likely to explore same-sex relationships," but it doesn't say they turned out gay. Other studies say they seldom do.

That's it. That's the evidence against gay parenthood. On the other hand, three studies say lesbians share child care more equally than straight couples do. Others conclude that lesbians are more satisfied with their relationships, that they show more "parenting awareness skills," that nonbiological lesbian moms "played a more active role in daily caretaking than did most fathers," and that their kids are less domineering and experience "greater warmth and interaction with their mother."

Such unwelcome findings haven't chastened the antigay lobby any more than they've chastened the Bush administration. If the direct evidence doesn't bear you out, look for indirect evidence. So conservatives have developed a subtler argument:On average, children do best when raised by their two married, biological parents

Let's take this argument a piece at a time. It's true that two parents are better than one. It's also true that married parents are better than unmarried ones. But those aren't arguments against gay parenthood. They're arguments for gay marriage.

The biological part of the argument is more serious. On average, kids do better with parents than with stepparents. Focus on the Family, a leading moralist group, concludes that gay parenthood is unhealthy because "it is biologically impossible for a child living in a same-sex home to be living with both natural parents."

Actually, that may change. Scientists recently produced a fertile adult mouse by combining, in one embryo, DNA from two females

But a lesbian who wants a genetic bond to her partner's baby doesn't have to wait for such technology. She can simply ask her brother to donate the sperm.

If you believe, as Focus on the Family does, that we should stop creating families in which one parent is biologically unrelated to the child, then gays are the least of your worries.

By professional estimates,40,000 babies are born each year from donated eggs or sperm.

You want to stop nonbiological parenthood? Go chain yourself to a sperm bank.

For that matter, if you want every child to have the benefit of two parents, you're picking on the wrong Cheney. Mary's sister, Liz, just had her fifth kid. All things being equal, Liz's baby will get one-fifth as much parental attention as Mary's will get. But nobody complains about that.

And let's not forget that the case against nonbiological parenthood is based on averages. Averages make bad law. The best critique of gay parenting studies is that because many homosexuals are closeted, those who are found by researchers and who agree to participate are disproportionately white, well-educated, and female.

But that's exactly what Mary Cheney is. She's a vice president of AOL. Her partner's current occupation is renovating their home. Should they abstain from motherhood because they're above average?

The same goes for gender averages. James Dobson, chairman of Focus on
the Family, says Cheney's pregnancy is a bad idea because a father "makes unique contributions to the task of parenting that a mother cannot emulate," such as "a sense of right and wrong and its consequences."

You must be kidding.

Cheney's partner is a former park ranger. They met while playing collegiate hockey. If they want a night out to catch an NHL game, Grandpa Dick can drop by to read bedtime stories about detainee interrogation.

If you're going to base family policy on averages, the chief problem isn't stepparents; it's men. That's what "pro-family" groups keep covering up.

According to Focus on the Family, "Increased risks of physical and sexual child abuse at the hands of non-biological parents are another serious concern for same-sex families."

Nope, not for lesbians. The latest study cited by the group actually concludes that the "key risk factors are living with a stepfather or the mother's boyfriend."

Of 55 child deaths reviewed in the study, zero were caused by a stepmother or by a biological mother in a stepfamily or live-in relationship. Other studies show the same pattern in child abuse generally.

The Family Research Institute says Cheney's child "will disproportionately associate with homosexuals-who are as a class considerably more apt to have STDs and a criminal history [and] be interested in sex with children."

That's hilarious.

Women commit 3.5 percent of single-perpetrator sexual assaults and make up 7 percent of the prison population.

The Family Research Council says lesbians are dangerous parents because of their "high prevalence of life events and behaviors related to mental health problems," particularly rapes and sexual attacks.

But if you look up the study cited by the council, guess who committed virtually all of the rapes and sexual attacks?

Men

You want to protect kids? Here's my proposed constitutional amendment:

"Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union involving at least one woman."

Or you could just let Mary Cheney raise her child in peace.

NOTE: A version of this article also appears in the Outlook section
of the Sunday Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/outlook/ (Where all the links are hot)

William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.

Where did you get that hat???

The Pope appears to be developing a habit of turning heads by arriving for public appearances in unusual hats.

Today Benedict XVI appeared at a Vatican audience sporting a wide-brimmed red hat, known in Italian as a saturno, because its wide lip resembles the rings around the planet Saturn. It is also affectionately known as a platter hat.

Pilgrims in a sun-drenched St Peter’s Square had a splendid view of the pontiff in his new headgear as he stood, waving, in the car driving him to his weekly audience. Possibly made uncomfortable by the heat, the pontiff later took it off.

The last time that Benedict appeared in a new hat was at a Vatican audience in December, when he donned a fur-trimmed number called a camauro, resembling a Father Christmas hat and popular with pontiffs in the 17th century.

The rounded saturno hat that he sported today was last seen in public on the head of Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963. John, a hat fan, was so keen on the camauro that he was buried with one.

Benedict's latest style is in a long tradition of wide-brimmed clerical hats. The strangest is probably the Cardinals' galero, a very large, very flat piece of headgear hung with enormous tassels. This is the famous red hat once presented to new Cardinals and which traditionally hung over their tombs. Even though the galero is no longer presented to new Cardinals by the Pope, some acquire one anyway, just to have something to hang from their cathedral ceiling.

The smaller saturno is sometimes also referred to as a galero (as, for instance, in the old Ceremonial of Bishops), or as a capello romano, or Roman hat.

Times Online Newsdesk
Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 12:58 PM

The Episcopal Church: Ain't Misbehavin'

I think Garrison Keillor is, without a doubt, one of the best "unintended preachers" in or out of the church. He became an Episcopalian when he got married (how familiar is that story?).

I think we who begin as "outsiders" perhaps have some of the best - if not funniest -things to say about our beloved church. To wit - this little ditty.


Tune: Ain't Misbehavin'
Words: Garrison Keillor

I'm slow to anger, don't covet or lust.
No sins of pride except sometimes I really must.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

The theology's easy, the liturgy too.
Just stand up and kneel down and say what the others do.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

I bless myself with a flick of the wrist.
You'd never know I was raised fundamentalist.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

There's white folks and black, and gay and morose,
Some male Anglo Saxons but we watch them pretty close.
Episcopalian, saving my love for you.

"Innocent until proven guilty"

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1328406&secid=1

January 03, 2007
Pastor investigated for misusing funds

Armstrong placed on leave, can't wear habit

By PAUL ASAY, THE GAZETTE

A prominent local pastor has been barred from his parish while his diocese investigates him for misusing church funds.

The Rev. Donald Armstrong, rector for Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, was placed on 90-day paid administrative leave last week by Bishop Robert O’Neill, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado. He’ll be unable to step on church property or wear his habit during that time, and “will not exercise any functions or pastoral responsibilities as a priest,” according to a diocesan release. Armstrong has been with the church for 19 years.

Grace has been the subject of a nine-month financial investigation by the diocese, according to officials at the church. The diocese cautions the investigation is ongoing: Armstrong has been cooperative, according to O’Neill, and he is still presumed to be innocent.

“This is clearly a very difficult time for all who are affected by this investigation,” O’Neill said. Armstrong could not be reached for comment.


Copyright 2007, The Gazette, a division of Freedom Colorado
Information. All rights reserved.

Don Armstrong is also Director of the Anglican Communion Institute

The Worst Christian Album Cover Contest

Okay, so I have some rather strange but delightful and wonderful friends who occasionally send me some very weird things via email.

Why do they do this?

Well, because they know me well and love me still and know what it is that will make me laugh - and, somehow, the exact moment I really need a good laugh.

And, when I got this today, I very much needed a good laugh.

And, I did.

Laugh.

Out loud.

Very loud.

The following are actual Album Covers from Christian Records. Now, some of you children, like, for example, MADPRIEST, may not know what an "album" is, exactly.

If you are too young to know, I don't want to know about it.

Just "google" it on Wikepedia, or something, because otherwise, I'll begin to feel old and then I'll really need another good laugh.

Anyway . . . these are so godawful I simply couldn't decide which one was worse.

They ALL made me laugh hysterically.

So, I've decided to have a little contest.

Send in your vote for the WORST CHRISTIAN ALBUM COVER. I've narrowed the field for you to the following four "worst of the worst."

#1 "I Feel Like Traveling On" by Little David and Family
(extra points for identifying "Little David" and why he feels like traveling on)

#2 "The Reverend in Rhythm" by Father Robert "Whatawaste" White
(extra points if you can name the parish where he last served before his arrest)

#3 "Let Me Touch Him" by The Minister's Quartet
(extra points if you can correctly identify the denomination of these fine, extraordinarily handsome upright and godly Christian men.)

And, last but most certainly not the least . . . . .

#4 Jose Angel in "Madre Soy Cristiano Homosexual" ("Mother, I'm a Christian Homosexual")
(extra points if you did not ruin your computer/laptop screen by spewing)

Okay, now just scroll down to view all four album covers and send in your vote. Balloting closes on the 12th Day of Christmas (That's "The Feast of the Epiphany" . . .January 6th for you serious Protestant free-church types.)

Remember what they say in Chicago: "Vote early and often"

Cartoon Church: A New Year's Resolution

Christmas with Abby and Mackie

I know, I know. I'm going to sound like a Hallmark card, but can Christmas be much better than when there are little children around?

I simply can't resist sharing these few pictures of two of our grandbabies taken early on Christmas morning.

Ms. Abby is now 4 months old and isn't she just the very picture of an Irish Christmas elf? She has a wonderful temperment and is loaded with personality - outgoing and funny and flirtatious. Did I mention that she's Irish?

Ms. MacKenna Jane is 5 years old and, as you can see, is simply delighted that Santa DID, in fact, bring her an EZ Bake Oven (yes, apparently, they still make them).

She loves baking with me when she comes to visit, so she insisted that she "really, really" needed an EZ Bake Oven so that when I visit, we can bake together.

Never mind that cupcakes take three hours to bake under a 100 watt ligtbulb and taste like reconditioned cardboard. It's all about quality time together.

She also "really, really" needed ballet shoes and a leotard. So, as she said to me on the phone, "Nana! Er, um, guess what? Er, um, now that I have ballet shoes and a leotard, er, um, I really, really need ballet lessons."

So, er, um, guess what? Guess who is going to make sure she has ballet lessons?

Our clan will gather, as has become our tradition, on the Feast of the Epiphany, when we exchange gifts. "Little Christmas" as it was called by my grandparents when I was a child.

It's a great, relaxing time, because the REAL gift we have given our adult children is the choice of having their own Christmas celebration in their own home with their own children, making their own Christmas memories.

No pressure to fly around and "make all the stops" which only guarantees exhaustion and crabby, overstimulated kids. We get to celebrate Christmas Day as the religious holiday it is, without all the emphasis on the presents.

That's what happened on the Epiphany, anyway, when the Three Magi came bearing presents to Jesus. (And, oh, by the way, we get to take advantage of shopping for each other at the "after Christmas" sales.)

Merry 8th Day of Christmas!

"See how these Christians love one another"

2nd January 10:0am
Tony Grew
Pink News UK

A group of Christian lawyers are to petition the Queen over new regulations that will outlaw discrimination against gay and lesbian people.

The Christian Concern for Our Nation is affiliated with The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, who claim to have over 2,000 members.

The Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England as well as Head of State.

The pressure group concede that the Queen is powerless to block the introduction of the rules, but have petitioned Her Majesty asking her to raise the concerns of Christians with Tony Blair.

The Queen has a weekly audience with the Prime Minister. The petition reads:

"On November 4th 1952, in your Coronation Oath, your Majesty declared that you would 'to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel'.

"We therefore call upon your Majesty to urgently consider a proposed law, formulated by your Government, known as the Sexual Orientation Regulations which are being introduced by virtue of Section 82 of the Equality Act 2006.

"The Regulations are a serious affront the profession of the Gospel and to the freedom of religion which this country has cherished for many generations.

"The Regulations purport to eliminate discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, but have the consequence of discriminating heavily against Christians of all backgrounds and denominations who hold firm to the very Faith which you pledged to uphold in your coronation oath.

"The Regulations will make it unlawful for a Christian to refuse to promote homosexual practice and will make it unlawful for our children to be taught the importance of marriage in any schools above the importance of practising homosexual relationships. All these activities are contrary to the true profession of the Gospel."

The petition also asks the Queen to confirm their view that gay and lesbian relationships are less valid than those of heterosexuals.

The pressure group are also planning a protest rally outside Parliament on the 9th January.

It is highly unlikely that the Queen will involve herself in any protest against government legislation.

Her constitutional position means that she cannot take part in political activity and as Head of State she is bound to support and decision that her Government makes.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-3396.html

"Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church"

NB: One of the highlights of being in Columbus, OH for General Convention was meeting Lauren Stanley, Missioner from the Diocese of VA to the Diocese of Renk, in The Episcopal Church of Sudan. The lasting impression I have of her (besides chain-smoking cigarettes - Marlboro, as I remember) is that her spirit is as irrepressible as her faith is absolutely unshakable. I think you'll get a sense of that in the following article.


Saturday, December 23, 2006

Church dispute gets in the way of God's love
LAUREN R. STANLEY
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE


For the last year and a half, I have lived in South Sudan, seeing first-hand what it means to be a Christian in that divided land where death is a daily occurrence. I have served with faithful Episcopalians, trying to help the Church there move from the survival mode it endured during 21 years of civil war to self-reliance and care for its people in this time of uneasy peace.

It has not been easy for Episcopalians in Sudan for many, many years. The Church has been clinging by its very fingertips to its existence. War, famine, drought, disease, oppression -- none of those could stop the Church from proclaiming the core of the Gospel: that God loves us, now and forever.

So it has been with a heavy heart that having returned recently to the United States, I see my own Church, the one that has nurtured and nourished me for the last 15 years, the one that sent me forth as a missionary to Sudan, torn apart by arguments over sexuality and so-called biblical inerrancy.

In the week, nine parishes in the Diocese of Virginia alone have decided to leave the Episcopal Church. The leaders of those congregations claim that the national Church has erred and strayed too far from what they claim is the unvarnished and clear truth. After periods of "discernment," these congregations, totaling only 7 percent of the Diocese of Virginia, and a minute number of Episcopalians nationwide, have made big splashes in the media for leaving. Most are claiming to align themselves with African bishops, whom they believe are better, more faithful leaders.

To complicate matters, the parishes that are leaving also want to take all their property with them, some of it quite valuable. It is theirs, they claim, because they are the only ones who being true to the Scriptures.

Church law says otherwise, meaning that long, brutal legal battles in civil courts are in the offing.

Not only do their arguments not make sense, they also miss the core of the Gospel of Jesus Christ they are supposed to be preaching. The departing parishes never talk about God's inclusive love, only their own exclusion of those who disagree with them.
In Sudan, as in much of Africa, we argue over Scriptures with as much vehemence as any American. But those arguments are not the ones that dominate our lives; in Sudan, we worry more -- much more -- about the survival of our people. How are we going to feed them? Educate them? Provide health care? Bring peace to a war-torn land that seems poised on the edge of yet another war?

In Sudan, we are fighting for our very lives.

In the United States, we are fighting over how to interpret words written by mere mortals centuries ago.

In Sudan, people battle hunger, disease, land mines left over from the war, militias and bandits who pull people off buses and shoot them dead in broad daylight.

In the United States, people battle over who knows the mind of Christ the best.

In Sudan, the Church leads the way in breaking down the barriers of tribalism and ethnic hatred.

In the United States, the departing parishes lead the way in throwing up barriers of hatred and homophobism.

To be clear: I know very well what it means to be in disagreement with my Church. I was born and bred to the Roman Catholic faith; even after deciding I would have to leave the Church of my birth, it took years before I had the courage to actually do so. But when I left, I did so cleanly and without attempting to take anything with me. I could not change what Rome promulgated as the faith, so I did the only thing I could to maintain my own integrity: I left behind all I knew and had been taught, even though schism is one of the worst heresies to commit in the Roman Catholic Church.

If the Episcopalians who have voted to leave feel they must do so, I honor their commitment. I know their pain, and pray that they can find holiness in another setting.

But I cannot for the life of me understand why these parishes think they can take everything with them. I cannot understand why these parishes feel it is fine to call into question the salvation of those who remain in the Church.

I cannot find any integrity in filing lawsuits. I cannot understand why those leaving have not heeded the advice of Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, with whom many are aligning and who told them last year that if they were to leave, they were to do so cleanly, forsaking their pay, their pensions and their buildings.

Most of all, I cannot understand how anyone can ignore the truth of what Virginia Bishop Peter James Lee has said all along in this dispute: We could ALL be wrong.

Even the Episcopal Church in Sudan, which disagrees with actions taken in the American Church in the last three years, understands this last part. In January, the Sudanese Church said that although it condemned some actions of the American Church, it wanted both churches to continue to walk together, because we are all sinners. More important to the Sudanese was the fact that the American Church had walked with it throughout the long, deadly national civil war. Now, in its time of need, the Sudanese said, they would walk with us through our own small version of a church civil war. Because there is a chance that indeed, we could all be wrong.

Those leaving the Episcopal Church claim they must do so to survive.

They seem to forget that in many parts of the world, the Church is concerned with REAL survival.

And in those areas where REAL survival is at stake, the Gospel that is preached is one of inclusiveness and love, because only inclusiveness and love can overcome the hatred that has left millions of Sudanese dead in the last 50 years.

Hatred has no place in the Sudanese Church.

It has no place in the American Church either.

God's love -- and how that is lived out -- is the ONLY thing that counts.

The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is an appointed missionary serving in the Diocese of Renk in the Episcopal Church of Sudan. She is temporarily serving in the United States.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B6.

http://www.heraldextra.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=204276&Itemid=0

What many have been wondering . . . .

Published on Saturday, December 30, 2006 by CommonDreams.org


A Formal Intervention with a Dry Drunk President
by Katherine van Wormer


One of the rituals well known to the addiction treatment world is the formal Intervention. The classic Intervention starts with meetings of concerned significant others that are called during a time of crisis. The result is a confrontation of the individual in trouble and an ultimatum of some sort for a drastic change in course (the most famous examples are Interventions of Betty Ford and Elizabeth Taylor for pill use and drinking.)

The long-anticipated report of the Iraq Study Group has been likened in some media reports to the classic treatment Intervention provided to drug users and alcoholics who have "hit bottom." Seething in its criticism, the report (Intervention) made a number of take-it- or-leave-it recommendations. "This is not like fruit salad," the head facilitator later explained; the recommendations must be followed as a whole. Characteristic of a person with an addictive mentality, the president responded in a state of denial as do the "enablers" around him. His supporters are getting fewer and fewer, however. And even his father recently broke into tears. We will return to that later.

The addictive mentality I am talking about is a cognitive impairment that is associated with alcohol-drug use, and may have preceded or followed the addictive behavior. George W. Bush, over his lifetime, has gone from one extreme-extensive and long-term binge drinking and at least some cocaine use-to another-affiliation with religious fundamentalism and authoritarian belief systems that cannot be explained by his religious upbringing. From an elitist background, the junior Bush was able to build a political base from a cultural group that was arguably alien from his own. (See What's the Matter with Kansas?)

For an understanding of this phenomenon of how the drinking and drug use affects patterns of thinking, we need to look at brain research. The most recent brain research, now revolutionized by technological advances in brain imaging, confirms what members of A.A. have known for years, labeled by them, the dry drunk phenomenon. Rigidity, poor impulse control, grandiosity, and all-or-nothing or black and white thinking are the classic characteristics. (See "the dry drunk syndrome" on google.) We now know that once the heavy drinking and/or other drug use stops, a certain amount of cognitive impairment may persist. We also know, however, that the brain can actually be "rewired" through cognitive work.

"You've got to work at it." This is a commonly heard saying of George W. Bush. One thing he has not worked at, however, is what is sometimes called in alcoholism treatment parlance, "the second recovery." Treatment centers specialize in cognitive work, as does A.A., in effect, aiding persons in recovery to replace irrational, grandiose, and self-centered thoughts, with healthier and more moderate ways of thinking.

The kind of intervention that our president needed was a personal intervention, one aimed at the reasons that Bush fool heartedly and dishonestly (pushing for false intelligence assessments of the international situation) led the nation in a fantasy mission that was doomed to failure against "evildoers" in the Middle East. As I described as early as 2002 and as psychiatrist Justin Frank later, in Bush on the Couch, also concluded, to understand the motives behind the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, we have to consider Bush's role in his family, the unique psychological dynamics. As any Bush biography makes clear, the younger Bush was not only named for his father, but he was somehow destined to follow in his father's footsteps most of his life- at Andover, Yale, as a military pilot, in the oil business-only to fail at each juncture until he would enter politics and as commander- in-chief be able to stride triumphant in 2004 and declare "mission accomplished" on the carrier flight deck. Then he would have proven himself to his father and to the world.

In December, 2006, the elder Bush's tears shed at the tribute to his son, Governor Jeb Bush, told it all. "The true measure of a man is how you handle victory, and also defeat"-these were his exact words uttered at the moment that he got too choked up to continue. Though his loss of control was later claimed to be related to his younger son's (Jeb's), earlier defeat in a governor's race in 1994, it seems far more likely that his tears were shed over the disgraced presidency of his elder son and in recognition for the significance of this debacle for the entire Bush dynasty.

In the future, it will be left to psychologists and historians to ponder the real reason for George W. Bush's selection as members of his team, the very men like Cheney, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Rove, who, strikingly, had served under his father. Even Rumsfeld also had a historic relationship with Bush, Sr., albeit a problematic one. Above all, the challenge to psychologists and historians will be to ponder the real reason why the younger Bush was driven to an unnecessary and unbelievably costly war "mission impossible." The Iraq Study Group, which, interestingly, was headed by Bush Sr.'s former secretary of state, James Baker, was summoned in desperation to find a way out of a disastrous course, failed to tackle causality, which, in the final analysis is the most significant issue of all.

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views06/1230-21.htm

Katherine van Wormer (www.katherinevanwormer.com) teaches social work and addiction treatment at the University of Northern Iowa and is the co-author of Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective.