Desert's Child

The Simon Chronicles

2009-11-23T18:36:00.036-06:00

My name is Simon.

I am The Cat.

I have asked my staff to help record this chronicle, because I feel I have been much misunderstood.

I am a very spiritual being.

I do Yoga.

I meditate.

I enhance the beauty of the space around me.

And yet, the calumny persists that I spend all my time sleeping.

It is a perfidy of dogs.

These dogs among them. Do you see the injustice of the accusation?

Each night I do my best to instruct my dogs in the ways of wisdom.

It is a waste of my time.

They just keep looking for my Chief of Staff to appear with treats.

So I repair to one of the many retreats my staff has thoughtfully provided for me, where I muse on the ways of humans and dogs.

My Chief of Staff has provided many venues designed to enhance my natural catly beauty.

Note how carefully I position myself to best advantage.
It is an art known to even the tiniest kitten.

I am awaiting my Chief of Staff. It's time to go work in my garden.

She works.

I supervise.

I helpfully point out a weed she has overlooked.

I check the place for evidence of lizards.

I visit the fat toad who lives among these pots.

There are many squirrels to chase. I oblige them.

I work out to keep in shape.

I put up with a blue joy scolding me. Idiot bird.

Molly waits for me to move so she can go past.

It gives me hope that she is finally learning the natural order of things

-- cats, then staff, then dogs.

Mike and I head out for our respective patrols each day.

Mike is the least lazy of the dogs.
A high compliment, don't you think?

I often allow my staff to dine with me.

I show them how to keep up with current events.

I sit next to them as they read to encourage their efforts at improving themselves.

I rearrange the cushions for them.

I spread beauty all around me.

Wait! Is she calling me?

Yes, she is.

Yawn.

My Chief of Staff's assistant advises me to do what she tells me to do.

Have you been drinking?

After all, I keep her computer warm for her.

I inspect the kitchen.

And the cupboards.

And the bathroom.

I stand guard.

I am amazingly kind to those human kittens she adores.

I share my room with them when they are here. I even allow them to think it is their room.

I allow them to commit all sorts of indignities upon my person.

I attempt to instruct them in catly strategies on their game thingy.

It is futile.

So when they go home, I rest,

and offer my Chief of Staff a chance to rub my belly.

Am I not fabulous?

Birth pangs

2009-11-19T07:22:00.004-06:00

My friend, Bruce Coggin, is one of the band of heroic retired priests of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth who have stepped in to take care of the Episcopalians displaced temporarily from their buildings by people who have left the Episcopal Church but want to keep using Episcopal Church property.

Among those parishes he serves is a bunch of happy Episcopalians up in Wichita Falls led by the fabulous Owanah Anderson, senior warden and spiritual mother of the entire Diocese of Fort Worth. Owanah really liked this sermon, as did the rest of the Saints, and asked Bruce to write it down, something he almost never does with his sermons.

But when Owanah asks one to do something, one does it. That's how I came to read it. I agreed with Owanah, and wanted you all to see it too. Here it is.

----------------------------------------------------

A Sermon Preached at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Wichita Falls
November 15, 2009

Did you notice that today’s lessons from Daniel and Mark are all about something that’s all over television these days? Did you notice too that the collect for today thanks God for the scriptures, urges us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them? and then tosses us a couple of really knotty, gristly chunks to gnaw on! All that in Daniel about the time of troubles and the end of time and all that secret, and then Jesus talking about the temple falling down and wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and birthpangs? Daniel’s one of the scariest books in the Old Testament, just as full of booghers as an old root cellar. Mark is long on predictions about the end of the world. And they’re both smooth in synch with what’s on the public’s mind these days, if you can judge from television, because you can’t turn it on these days without hearing something about A.D. 2012—Nostradamus predicted it would be calamitous, and the Maya calender flat ups and ends there. Just check out the History Channel or Discovery or maybe even National Geographic, and you get 2012. And now there’s a movie about it all. Evidently in 2012 the earth and the sun and the center of the Milky Way get all lined up, and that’s going to make fierce and terrible things happen, none of it any fun. Astonishing how the lectionary today really hooks us into what’s going on outside the church. And inside us.

Lessons like today’s make sense in our liturgical cycle where we tell out the story of Jesus’ life every year, and since this is the next to last Sunday of this liturgical year, it’s natural the lessons turn to the Last Things, all of which are kind of scary. Next Sunday, the feast of Christ the King at least puts a triumphant face on it all. Before we got the prayer book we use now, the season just sort of petered out on a ledge over the abyss. At least now our prayers make it all good—but not so much in the popular culture. The End is Near! Brace yourself!

As you know, I grew up in Montague County in the Methodist Church, and we didn’t pay all that mess much attention. Oh, every now and then we’d be eating breakfast with the radio tuned in to KWFT, and after the Stamps-Baxter Quartet, Martin Agronsky would come on with the news and tell us about some bunch that had wadded up on a hilltop outside Waco somewhere to wait for the end of the world. And then the day would come and nothing happened, and we’d all have a good laugh about it. But sometimes it wasn’t funny. When the Koresh bunch tried it, the whole thing ended in a holocaust, and there wasn’t a thing funny about it.

As a young priest, I got more aware of all that one day in a “Christian” bookstore in Dallas. On the wall, and for sale, was a big oil painting, not a very good one, but a mighty arresting one. It was a cityscape of the intersection of Stemmons and I-30, the viewpoint somewhere about where the Anatole is now. And it was just Hell on earth! The Trinity was flooding, trains derailing, cars piling into each other on the freeway, airplanes crashing in mid-air, one slamming into the Republic National Bank tower, the tallest building in town back then. And the sky was full of people being swooped off up into Heaven, while the maw of Hell flamed below, sucking down others less fortunate. Well, of course, it was the rapture, an event the charismatic tumult of the 1980s dwelt on and that still fuels sales of that Left Behind series. And the kicker: there in the middle of the sky was Jesus, arms open wide, taking in all the mayhem below—and grinning like a worm eating wire! I didn’t think that was very becoming of Jesus myself.

There’s a world of I’m in but you’re out in all that, a real need for self-vindication and the assurance of punishment for everybody I don’t like. Not a bit pretty.

It’s all pretty unsettling, all that talk about wars and earthquakes and Katrinas and lots of destruction and punishment, but it’s not necessarily a Christian monopoly. Lots of religions include stuff like that in their make-up, and even not very religious people are way into it. This kind of writing, the stuff we get today in Daniel and in Mark, is called apocalyptic literature, and that’s Greek for telling secrets, showing it all, finding out what’s behind Door Number Three. Revelation, the New Testament calls it, and it’s not just a religious phenomenon at all but rather a religious projection of a pretty universal human concern: How much time do I have? Isn’t that one of the basic human questions, like Where did I come from? Where am I going? What am I supposed to do? What’s going to happen to me? How much time do I have? I think we all ponder those things if we get a chance, and it’s no surprise such universal human curiosities—or are they anxieties?—find their way into our religious constructions. And they get more acute at very specific times. We all know we’re going to die one day, but when we’re young we don’t really believe it, and sometimes we get a pretty long way down the road before we come face to face with our own mortality; and on that day—say we get an execution date or a bad medical report—all at once the scope of our vision, previously so wide and ambitious and grand, shrinks right up, willy nilly. Sometimes the walls close in so fast, we can all but see the corner we’re marching into right in front of our noses. The same happens with nations and societies. When we en masse are in our prime and our pride, in the full bloom of our vigor and urgency, we think the future is all ours. And then all at once things change, history starts those walls moving inward—and apocalyptic yearnings surge. Where are we going? Who’s in charge? How much time do we have? It’s all very human, very natural, and very unsettling. And none of it looks like much fun. As my Mamaw Yeager said when she saw herself heading straight into the knothole, “You know, I’m not so much afraid of being dead. I just don’t look forward to doing it.”

Well, well. As I get older I think about those things too for myself, and I sure can’t avoid the public hooraw, the 2012 boom, and so I ponder it. And I think I know something about it, namely that there’s a sin at the bottom of all the anxiety and the hooraw and the wicked profiteering about what’s gonna happen to us. That sin, as is often the case, is pride and specifically the pride of certainty. I mean that panicky, aggressive rush to know and to know without any shadow of doubt or turning. I don’t know about you, but I run into people all the time who are absolutely certain about things, no options, this way or no way—and they know it. They’re certain. And they scare me to death, most of them. Think back to the Garden. What was it that made Adam and Eve just break a leg to disobey the only rule they had, which was to leave all that good and evil stuff up to God? Nope, they wanted to know. Well, they found out, and it didn’t work out so well for them. Or us.

Yet we seem to have an overweening need to know, to be certain, to leave nothing to chance. Or to God, for that matter. We fight off ambiguity with both hands and a chisel. Yet . . . if we’re certain, if we know, how do we ever learn to trust? How do we ever learn to dare? How do we ever learn humility? All those qualities—trust, daring, humility—vanish in the face of certainty. If we’re certain, why do we need to trust? If we’re certain, nothing is particularly daring. And if we’re certain, we sure ain’t humble! Our old buddy pride engines our need to know and to know when others don’t and to lord it over them because we do, to do things to them we shouldn’t because we know better than they do. And you know and I know where all that gets us. Just switch off the History Channel and turn on the news.

Certainty set us up to fail. I recall a woman in a town where I was rector. She flirted with the Episcopal Church, but she just couldn’t handle our ambiguities. She was certain about things—until the day came when the doctor told her about the cancer in her. I remember her saying to me one sad day, “God promised me that if I obeyed him, he would give me a long life. And he hasn’t done it!” The poor thing, I think she died a miserable soul, and somehow I don’t think anybody deserves a miserable death. The need for certainty, though, it did her in. Well, she’s happy now anyway, and thank God for that.

So, how should we think about those things?—because we’re going to think about them. Seems to me that question applies to us both as individual people, as humans, and as Christians. We all know the end is coming, both our end and one of these days the End of It All—or at least the end of it all as we know it. How should we think and pray about that? Judgment Day. The End. That dreadful day when the secrets of all hearts are disclosed. Does it have to be scary like that? Or can it be something wonderful?

I’m glad to report that there’s at least one feller, an expert in pre-Columbian cultures and myths, works a lot down in Oaxaca and Chiapas, who says the Maya calendar ends in 2012 but that it’s not a horror show. Rather he says it’s just part of the Mayan concept that time is cyclical, and in 2012 everything starts over. That’s not much scarier than New Year’s Day, actually. So there’s at least one hopeful voice among all the doomsayers. But I think we get even better advice from Jesus about All That.

When All That came up to Jesus, he usually did one of three things: he fudged, he said it was none of our business, or he told us to lift up our heads and rejoice. He fudges in today’s gospel lesson. The disciples got him off into it when he made light of their awe at seeing the temple. “Just you wait,” he says, “the day’s a-comin’ when all this will be dust.” Naturally, they want to know just when and how and what, so he fudges. “Oh, wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes. Stuff like that. You know.” Well, when haven’t there been wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and stuff like that? He fudges. In a good many other places, when people get pushy about the what and the when and the who and the where, he’s testy: “Yours is not to know,” which is a nice way of saying Nunna yer beeswax, Bub. But just as often he tells the anxious to “lift up your heads and rejoice.” Goodness. Is it not gonna be as bad as we thought? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at the experience, and in today’s gospel we get a pointer: “These are the beginnings of the birthpangs.”

Now. That’s a help in my book. Just like we all got born through our mother’s birth canal—and I don’t think foetuses much enjoy all that—we’re all going to have a similar experience—except this time the birth canal is God’s way, about which we know very little at all, of pulling us from the womb of this life into the larger life Jesus promises we’re all going to share with him for eternity. Foetuses in the uterus don’t know what’s happening, and neither do we really as death approches, despite all our need for certainty. Death—the end of my time anyway—is another birth that requires just what certainty denies: trust, daring, humility. And there is absolutely no way on God’s good green earth to be certain about what’s on the other side. What we have rather is Jesus’ promise that where he is, we will also be, and no matter if we die in our beds surrounded by our progeny and friends or alone and cold and busted up, when we have come through the birthpangs, things are going to be . . . well, like God promises.

So in the light of all the scary stuff, past and present and no doubt future, Christians can lift up their heads and rejoice—and just give up on certainty, give it up, let it go, fling it away from us—so trust and daring and humility can grease the chute for us, help us pupate, become, get born into whatever glory God has in store for us. That’s a way I’ve been given to think about it, and for me at least, it helps. I recommend it to you.

Ready to convert?

2009-11-16T18:26:00.002-06:00

Here is the response of the ecumenical officer of the Episcopal Church to the overtures by the Roman Catholic Church to unhappy Anglicans and Episcopalians.

As a former Roman Catholic I have only one thing to add to his comments -- let those who have ears to hear, hear.

------------------------

The Episcopal Church
Office of Public Affairs

Episcopal Bishop Christopher Epting
comments on the Vatican’s Apostolic Constitution

[November 16, 2009] Bishop Christopher Epting, Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations of The Episcopal Church, has issued the following:

Now that the full text of the Vatican's "Apostolic Constitution" dealing with certain former Anglicans who wish to become Roman Catholics has been released, it is clear that what is being touted by some as an 'ecumenical gesture' may be understood as 'pastoral' but is not necessarily very ecumenical. Even though Cardinal Walter Kasper has now given one newspaper interview, there has otherwise been a noticeable silence on the part of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on this matter. This appears to be a unilateral action on the part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which flies in the face of the slow, but steady progress made in the real ecumenical dialogue of over forty years.

This is "come home to Rome" with absolute clarity. Any former Anglican who has been ordained will not only have to be re-ordained as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, not only re-ordained as a transitional deacon, but even re-confirmed as an adult member of the Body of Christ! Any one who does make this move is not an Anglican, nor an Anglo-Catholic, but a Roman Catholic convert.

As we have said on numerous occasions, we commend with our blessing any Anglican who in good conscience wishes to become a Roman Catholic just as we welcome any Roman Catholic who in good conscience wishes to enter into full communion with the Anglican Communion. But these decisions are to be made as individuals not as communities of persons. The Vatican may rest assured that we will never create "Roman Catholic Ordinariates" within the Anglican Communion for former, disaffected Roman Catholic converts. We will continue to welcome individuals, from the Roman Catholic Church or any other Christian communion, who desire to be in full communion with the See of Canterbury, and therefore with the Anglican Communion.

For our part, The Episcopal Church remains committed to genuine, ecumenical dialogue both on the national (Anglican - Roman Catholic Consultation in the USA) and international (Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission) levels. We are encouraged by Cardinal Walter Kasper's comment in Osservatore Romano on November 15 that these will, of course, continue. The recent "Apostolic Constitution" is a distraction, but likely only a minor one, from the real goal of ecumenical conversation between the largest (Roman Catholic) and third largest (Anglican) Christian communion in the world.

Bishop Christopher EptingDeputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious RelationsThe Episcopal Church

November 16, 2009
__________

The Episcopal Church welcomes all who worship Jesus Christ in 109 dioceses and three regional areas in 16 nations. The Episcopal Church is a member province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

An outward and visible sign

2009-11-15T08:42:00.003-06:00

I awoke smiling this morning.

Today we ordain Susan Slaughter to the priesthood and install her as rector of St. Luke's in the Meadow.

This is a joyous but not extraordinary event in most of the Episcopal Church. Here, in the Diocese of Fort Worth, it is historic.

Thirty-three years after the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood, our diocese is finally achieving that milestone. It's been a long hard weary road to get this point, and in the midst of my joy, I grieve for those we lost along the way.

There are so many women and men and girls and boys who just left the Episcopal Church, driven away by the negativity of so many of our former leaders. Some joined other denominations, but many if not most simply stopped going to church anywhere. They had found it too spiritually abusive.

We are seeing some come back, tentatively checking to see if things have really changed. I say to them all, yes, things are changing. We're not there yet, but we are moving in the right direction.

I said to some people at our diocesan convention yesterday that one reason this ordination is so important is that it is a outward and visible sign of the inward grace that is blossoming here.

Much of that grace is the result of the clergy who remained with us -- all male of course. These men have worked themselves into exhaustion taking care of displaced parishes. Those clergy in our intact parishes offered themselves and their buildings to the displaced. These priests were joined almost immediately by the Rev. Maurine Lewis, who retired here from the Diocese of Milwaukee. They welcomed her wholeheartedly into their midst, as they have the Rev. Melanie Barbarito, who was hired in August by All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Worth as parochial associate for evangelism and engagement. She came to Fort Worth from the Diocese of Missouri.

These men have suffered wounds themselves, and one of the most important things Bishop Ted Gulick has done is to care for them pastorally. For some, it was their first experience of a bishop who ministered to them, a bishop who delighted in them instead of seeking to discipline them.

Because there are so few of them, however, the rebirth of this diocese has been accomplished largely by lay people. In saying that, I mean to take nothing away from our clergy. But they themselves acknowledge this fact.

This has been a lay-run resurrection.

Today we all, clergy and laypeople, unite in our joy as we come together as the people of God to ordain Susan, one of our own, a sheep of our flock, to the priesthood. Today, we all embrace joy.

Today, together with Bishops Ted Gulick and Wallis Ohl, we will wrap ourselves in the grace and promise of this moment.

". . . let the whole world see and know that things which were being 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; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Celebrate with us

2009-10-30T13:19:00.000-05:00

The ordination of Susan Slaughter to the priesthood is an historic moment for the Diocese of Fort Worth and has occasioned great rejoicing in the diocese. St. Luke’s in the Meadow is a small parish that is working hard to accommodate this big event in the life of their parish and of the diocese.

Many people have inquired about how they might help St. Luke’s as it prepares for the Nov. 15 event, or contribute to a gift for Susan, or both.

People wishing to assist with the expenses of the reception and flowers can send a check to St. Luke’s in the Meadow, 4301 Meadowbrook Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76103. Please indicate “Women of St. Luke” in the memo line, as that is the organization in charge of arrangements.

If you would like to send a card or a letter to Susan, please send them to her via St. Luke’s in the Meadow at the address above.

Many of you know that St. Luke’s recently purchased a whole new set of lovely vestments, but a gift of a new chasuble just for Susan in celebration of this event has already been made.

Additionally a gift of a set of stoles in all the liturgical colors is being prepared. If you would like to be part of this historic occasion in making the gift of stoles, please send a check made out to the Diocese of Fort Worth, with “Susan Slaughter gift” in the memo line and mail it to the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, 3550 Southwest Loop 820, Fort Worth, TX 76133.

Any funds left over from the purchase of the stoles will be donated to Susan’s discretionary fund.

For more information, please contact Margaret Mieuli at mmieuli@charter.net .

Colbert and the pope

2009-10-28T09:53:00.002-05:00

I am a former Roman Catholic. I left because passive acquiesence to patriarchy was not the spiritual experience I was seeking. I wanted to love God as I was commanded, with my whole heart, my whole soul, AND my whole mind. That's why I was attracted to the Episcopal Church.

And here's the best explanation I've heard as to why the pope's recent invitation to disgruntled Angllicans is not attractive. It takes about 6 minutes to watch.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Holy Water Under the Bridge - Randall Balmer

http://www.colbertnation.com/

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

Religion

With Great Rejoicing!

2009-10-27T19:04:00.002-05:00

It is with great rejoicing that we make the following announcement.

Thirty-three years after the Episcopal Church approved the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate, the first woman will be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.

At 5:00 P.M. on Sunday Nov. 15 in St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Fort Worth, the Rt. Rev. Edwin F. [Ted] Gulick Jr. will ordain Deacon Susan Slaughter to the priesthood.

She will be the first woman ordained to the priesthood in the history of the Fort Worth diocese, which was founded in 1983. The Rev. Ms. Slaughter also will be the first woman rector of a parish in the diocese. The Episcopal Church approved women’s ordination to the priesthood and episcopate in 1976 and the first women were ordained priests in January 1977.

Susan Slaughter

When Susan Slaughter was 8 years old, two friends, independently of each other, invited her to go to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Houston, TX.

“I loved the liturgy, joined the junior choir and was confirmed at age 12. I was the first in my family to attend and be confirmed in the Episcopal Church,” she said. She soon brought her parents and brothers into the church with her.
She graduated from Bellaire High School and received a Bachelor of Arts in Teaching in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX. She married Jerry Slaughter and then went on to get a Master of Education in Guidance and Counseling from North Texas State University in Denton, TX. Susan and Jerry each had two children when they married. When Jerry died in 2007 they had been married for 28 years. Susan has seven grandchildren.
She completed seminary training at the Anglican School of Theology, Dallas, TX and is currently enrolled in the Master of Theological Studies at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX. For the past several years, she has served as deacon at St. Luke’s in the Meadow. Her leadership and ministry helped stabilize that parish through the rocky time prior to the departure of the former bishop and other diocesan leaders and in the transition time after their departure in November 2008 and before the diocese was reorganized in February 2009.

She began sensing a call to the ordained ministry in the 1980s when she became actively involved in lay ministry at her home parish of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, TX.

“Before initiating Stephen Ministry in my parish, I began noticing an internal struggle regarding my possible call to ordination,” she said. The Stephen Ministry trains and organizes lay people to provide one-to-one Christian care to hurting people in and around their congregations.

She talked with her rector. But no matter how supportive her rector may have been neither Bishop A. Donald Davies nor his successors Clarence Pope and Jack Iker would ordain women to the priesthood. So she developed the Stephen Ministry program, served as lay reader and server, led women’s Bible studies and taught adult Christian Education.

“Believing I was particularly suited to coordinate, train and supervise Stephen Ministry, I attempted to rationalize my not pursuing ordination. When I could no longer deny the persistent drawing, I met with Bishop Pope. In my particular diocese women were not candidates for ordination to the priesthood. Once again, I tried to push aside the sense of call,” she said.

After eleven years of taking seminary courses for her own edification and continuing her discernment process, she met with Jack Iker, the newly consecrated bishop.

“He pointed me in the direction of another diocese. Circumstances prevented me from entertaining the possibility of relocating,” she said.

When she learned women could be ordained deacons in the Fort Worth diocese, she again tried to discern the nature of her ministry. Eventually she returned to Iker believing that her call must be to the diaconate. She was ordained a deacon on Oct. 12, 2002. But over time the realization grew that her call was to the priesthood. After Bp. Gulick was elected, she visited with him and he and the Commission on Ministry agreed she was called to the priesthood.

“It is with a deep sense of awe in the mysterious ways of our Lord that I arrive at this moment. I am filled with gratitude toward those persons, lay and clergy, who have encouraged and supported me over the years. St. Luke’s in the Meadow has been especially supportive and has helped me discern more clearly my true vocation,” she said.

This day was a long time coming. Indeed, had the Rev. Ms. Slaughter lived in any other diocese, she would most likely have been ordained a priest years ago. The long awaited fulfillment of her call adds a deep sweetness to the day.

History of women’s ordination in diocese

The Diocese of Fort Worth was formed from the western part of the Diocese of Dallas, in part out of opposition to the ordination of women to the priesthood. The founding bishop, A. Donald Davies, and both his successors, Clarence C. Pope and Jack L. Iker, all left the Episcopal Church over women’s ordination. Under those bishops, women feeling called to the priesthood either had to give up their call or leave the diocese to be ordained elsewhere. At least fifteen women have done so—and all have been invited “home” for the ordination.

The diocese reorganized after Iker’s departure and elected Bishop Gulick as provisional bishop in February. Under his leadership two women priests have been licensed to serve in the diocese—the Rev. Ms. Maurine Lewis who retired to Fort Worth from the Diocese of Milwaukee in 2008 and does supply work among the displaced parishes; and the Rev. Ms. Melanie R. Barbarito, who was hired in August by All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Worth as parochial associate for evangelism and engagement. She came to Fort Worth from the Diocese of Missouri. She is the first woman to be hired on the staff of a parish here.

But the Rev. Ms. Slaughter is the first woman from this diocese to be ordained a priest, an event that marks a historic turning point in the life of diocese and perhaps more than any other one event, signals what a new day it is in the Diocese of Fort Worth.

A second woman, Deacon ClayOla Gitane, will be ordained on Dec. 5 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Fort Worth by the Rt. Rev. Bavi Edna "Nedi" Rivera of the Diocese of Olympia. The Rev. Ms. Gitane began the process while Jack Iker was bishop. He refused to ordain women to the priesthood and so she had to leave the diocese to pursue her call. This will be the first time a female bishop has performed an episcopal act in the Diocese of Fort Worth.

Shield the joyous.

David Letterman, creep

2009-10-02T07:31:00.003-05:00

David Letterman admits on his show that he has had sex with women who work for him -- and the audience laughs.

He told about this on the air because someone was apparently trying to extort money from him by threatening to tell about the sex with staffers unless Letterman paid him off.

Letterman claims he was admitting the sex because he "has to protect these people." The audience applauds.

What a great guy! Right.

Well, no.

Yes, extortion is wrong.

But a boss sleeping with women on his staff also is wrong. One also assumes it's against the policies of CBS for a boss to have sex with people who work for him or her. What will CBS do now? You can bet that women all over the network are watching this carefully, because if they do nothing, any protection these women have from sexual harassment becomes meaningless. Any supervisor accused of harassing an employee for sex will be able to point to Letterman and HR suddenly can't do much.

Let's talk about sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is all about imbalance of power. It's about women [and yes, men too] feeling pressured to have sex with the boss because, well, he's the boss and could have them fired.

It's about "creating a hostile work environment." That doesn't just mean having to face demands for sex every day at the office -- although that is terrible enough.

Let's imagine how all the women on the staff of the Letterman show feel now? Every one of them now is being looked at -- did he sleep with her? Or her? Is that why she got that raise? Did that one refuse and that's why she's now working weekends? What about the one who was fired? Was it because she said no?

Men in the office are probably wondering if that's why they got passed over for an assignment they wanted. Will their resentment be aimed at Letterman? Not a chance. They will resent the women for "using" sex to get what the men thought they deserved.

Yes, indeed, it will do wonders for the morale of the staff.

Letterman said it himself. He's a creep. But he's also a creep who very likely violated company policies that could get people fired.

Let's hope the policies work and do exactly that.

Covenant matters and Iker update

2009-10-01T10:33:00.004-05:00

The Living Church reports that the Archbishop of Canterbury has written to the Diocese of Central Florida to the effect that only provinces may sign onto the proposed Anglican Covenant.

Dioceses and parishes can vote to "endorse" the Covenant, but it will have no "institutional effect."

Some of us have been saying this for a long time, so it's nice to have Canterbury finally write something that is fairly straightforward and unambiguous on the matter.

Episcopal Cafe and Mark Harris both offer good commentary on this, and Mark also points his readers to an excellent blog on why the covenant is a bad idea for Anglicans.

[If you are not already reading the Cafe and Mark on a regular basis, you should be, because both sites do an excellent job of keeping up with developments in the Anglican world.]

World Anglican Forum is the blog of Bruce Kaye, who describes himself as an "Anglican theologian, Foundation editor of the Journal of Anglican Studies. Currently a Visiting Research Fellow in History at the University of New South Wales and a Professorial Associate in Theology at Charles Sturt University . Web site http://www.brucekaye.net".

He writes:

"There are four reasons why this covenant is not a good idea for Anglicans.

1. It is against the grain of Anglican ecclesiology (what we think the church is)

2. It is an inadequate response to the conflict in the Anglican Communion

3. In practical terms it will create immense and complicating confusion about institutional relationships and financial obligations.

4. It does not address the key fundamental issue in this conflict, how to act in a particular context which is relevant to that context and also faithful to the gospel."

The whole article, as well as previous ones, are well worth your time.

The Cafe also offers these observations on items posted on the website of our former bishop:

[A week after the Sept. 16 hearing] "Iker's diocese filed a 'Motion for reconsideration of Court’s Sept. 16 decision.' Evidently, upon reflection, the September 16th decision was no victory.

"Most recently, on September 29th, he wrote:

"'I am inviting everyone in the Diocese to join me in a morning of fasting and prayer this Friday, Oct. 2nd, as Judge John Chupp considers three motions we have put before him in the 141st District Court. The hearing begins at 9 a.m. on the fourth floor of the Family Law Center, located at 200 E. Weatherford Street (one block east of the old court house, on the south side of the street)....The last motion requests that the Court correct its Rule 12 ruling of Sept. 16 so that it will permit the local Plaintiff attorneys, Jonathan D. F. Nelson and Kathleen Wells, to represent only the people who have hired them, not the Diocese [Iker's group] and the Diocesan Corporation.'

"I'm no lawyer, but isn't that what the judge ruled on September 16th?

"Food is not allowed in most courtrooms in the United States.

"In a not so unrelated development, Iker's standing committee is also reassessing its relationships with ACNA and the South Cone and put forth the following resolution for the group's November convention:
WHEREAS, this Diocese continues to desire to maintain the highest degree of communion possible with other Anglicans in North America and throughout the world,
AND WHEREAS, this Diocese recognizes that certain theological differences exist among the constituent membership of the newly constituted Anglican Church in North America, as well as in the wider Anglican Communion,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, meeting in its 27th Annual Convention, does hereby commit to continued participation in the development of the Anglican Church in North America, acceding to the Constitution and Canons thereof during this process,
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that this Diocese maintains its status as a member diocese in the Province of the Southern Cone while the formal process of recognition of this new province continues in the Anglican Communion.

"Emphasis added. The constitution of Iker's group asserts it is part of the Anglican Communion, in communion with the See of Canterbury. Legal risks are sufficient to justify the logic of this resolution. The second whereas is in there because there are chronic divisions in ACNA even at this early point in its existence."

Read it all at the Cafe.
-----------------------------------------

I can't help wondering if the Iker folks' commitment to "continued participation in the development of the Anglican Church in North America, acceding to the Constitution and Canons thereof during this process" will be any more meaningful than their earlier promise to accede to the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church.

I don't know if they've also promised to accede to the Constitution and Canons of the Southern Cone, which do not have ANY provision for a diocese outside of those listed. The Constitution of the Southern Cone defines membership:
--------------------------------
2. MEMBERSHIP
The Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, which shall henceforth be called The Province, is
composed of the Anglican Dioceses that exist or which may be formed in the Republics of
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay and which voluntary declare themselves
as integral Diocesan members of the Province.
--------------------------------

Note there is no provision for dioceses such as San Joaquin or Fort Worth to legally be part of this province.

Apparently when you are creating a reality in your own image, laws and vows become very elastic things.

Roman Polanski's crime

2009-09-30T10:52:00.003-05:00

I simply cannot get my head around the outrage some very prominent people in the film industry and some politicians in France are expressing about the arrest of filmmaker Roman Polanski as he arrived in Switzerland to attend a film festival.

Let's review.

These are the facts that Polanski himself has admitted:

In March 1977 Roman Polanski invited a 13-year-old girl to come to Jack Nicholson's house, where Polanski was staying. Nicholson was not there.

Polanski, who then 46, told the girl he wanted her to pose for photos for a magazine for which he was acting as a guest editor. He gave her Champagne and a Quaalude.

He knew she was only 13. He even called the child's mother to tell her they were delayed. The frightened girl asked to leave. Polanski photographed her naked in a hot tub. He then had oral and vaginal sex with the girl. Later he penetrated her anally.

The girl testified before a grand jury that she repeatedly asked him to stop, that she was afraid and that they were alone in the house.

Polanski pled guilty to sex with a minor in a plea bargain that was struck to spare the girl public exposure. The plea bargain dropped the rape and sodomy charges, something I find outrageous still. But Polanski feared he might have to spend time in jail. Even though he had pled guilty to a felony, he was allowed to remain free pending sentencing. During that time, a judge gave permission for him to travel abroad for some film work, and so in 1977, he left the country and never came back.

He has been living in France since then, traveling the world, getting on with his nice life, continuing his film work, winning awards and accolades.

The girl, now a woman, has long since identified herself -- her name is Samatha Griemer -- and has said that she has forgiven Polanski and that she wants the criminal case to go away.

"I have survived , indeed prevailed, against whatever harm Mr. Polanski may have caused me as a child."

I applaud her for that. But while she may have prevailed over Polanski, he has not paid for his crime against her.

Let's be clear what that crime was. A grown man lured a child to a house with lies, drugged her, photographed her naked, and then raped and sodomized her. Then he fled the country to avoid punishment.

I don't care how rich he is, how famous he is, how talented he is, this is despicable behavior. What's more, it's criminal behavior.

And it gets worse. Soon after Polanski's arrest, his lawyer, Douglas Dalton, according to the New York Times, said "he wanted to explore the 13-year-old's sexual history."

Dalton said, "We want to know who was involved, when; we want to know why those other people were not prosecuted."

You know, if other people were involved in sexually molesting this child, they should be prosecuted. But let's explore THEIR sexual history, not her's.

Exploring her "sexual history" smacks of the old "blame the victim" defense in rape cases. According to this reasoning, if a girl or woman ever said yes to ANY man, she can never say no again. She is fair game to any man who decides he wants her.

See anything wrong with that reasoning?

What Polanski did was not about sex. Rape never is. It's a crime, not of passion, but of power and control. When it's an adult raping a child, it is even more so a crime of power and control.

The passage of time and Polanski's career do not mitigate the horror of his crime. It's time he paid for it.

Drawing a circle to bring us all in

2009-09-16T12:24:00.003-05:00

Here is a great sermon from a priest in Mississippi.

As I read it, I wondered how many priests in Fort Worth would have the courage to stand in the pulpit and say this. Sadly, I can think of only three.

Here's an excerpt:

Forty-six years ago this week (August 28, 1963), Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest orators and leaders of the twentieth century delivered his “I Have a dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His words inspire me to this day. I also have a dream: a dream about full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life, ministry and worship of the churches I serve and the Episcopal churches in Mississippi.

Why am I moved to state my dream now? Our bishop, Duncan Gray, is on record as stating that exclusionary practices toward ordination of homosexual persons will not change during his episcopacy. There are no changes on the horizon, unless the Holy Spirit moves us, as a church, to change. I felt the call to share my hopes and dreams about the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church before, but I kept waiting until “the time was right.”

The immediate catalyst for this vision arrived at the Fourth Annual Retreat of Ministry with Gays and Lesbians in Canton, Mississippi, this weekend. The retreat leader, The Rev. Dr. Ruthanna Hooke, opened our session by assuring us that we are all in “a safe place.” I realized through comments made by gays and lesbians in attendance that there were many places where they did not feel safe. I thought, “that’s what the church should be: a safe place, where all can experience the love of God with peace and acceptance. That’s what the churches in Belzoni (St.Thomas) and Rolling Fork (Chapel of the Cross) are, ‘safe places’ where all are welcome.”
My dream emerges from personal experience and deeply held beliefs, which I will set forth. I realize, however, that others have experiences and beliefs which differ from mine, so I share this dream to invite conversations in the quest for Christ’s love in the midst of disagreement and dissent.

I want to establish the perspective on inclusion of gays and lesbians through a poem by Edwin Markham* (see endnote):

He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.

-------------
Again, go here to read it all.

Note that his bishop has stated that exclusionary practices toward gays and lesbians will continue under his episcopacy. That alone would be enough to cow most priests into silence on the topic. It certainly would around here, because even though we have made great progress in this diocese on inclusion, talk of full inclusion for our LGBT brothers and sisters in Christ remains the third-rail of the church here for many clergy.

Sermons like this give one hope that things can and will change.

Obama's speech to the children

2009-09-14T12:13:00.003-05:00

How many of you adults out there have taken the time to listen to what President Barack Obama actually said in his address to the school children of America?

You can read a transcript and watch a video of the speech here. It's about 19 minutes long, including a introduction by a young student that is itself pretty inspiring.

I would like for you to watch it and tell me anything in it you might find remotely offensive.

My grandsons saw it at their school on Thursday. They saw it on Thursday because the principal wanted to watch it first. The school sent home slips for parents to sign if they did not want their children to see it. I don't know how many opted out, but after watching the video, I'm sorry for their children.

When I picked up the boys after school on Thursday, my 5-year-old grandson came running up to me, eyes shining, and said, 'Mom! Do you know who came to our classroom today? Orock Obama!!"

[Not only do I love the way he pronounces the president's name, I suspect the president would like it too. Gavin used to call him Orock Orama, but he's learned to pronounce the last name.]

I said,"Really! What did he say?"

"He told us to work hard and stay in school and learn a lot. Don't tell Curran. I want to surprise him!"

I said, "Ok." But as we walked over to pick up Curran from the second-graders' line, he also came running up and said, 'Mom, the president talked to us today!"

Gavin said, 'He talked to us too!" and suddenly both boys were talking at once, telling each other about the speech.

I asked Curran, "What did you like best about it?"

He thought for a moment, and then said, "He said that if we give up on school, we're giving up on our country."

He was quiet for a moment and then said, "That would be a really bad thing to do."

I said, "Well, you have a lot of people who will help you work hard. You've got Mommy and Daddy and me and Da and all your teachers."

And Gavin piped up, saying stoutly, "And we already work hard, don't we, Curran."

I have to say, doing homework that afternoon was much easier than usual. The boys had been inspired and it showed.

I am baffled as to why having the president of the United States inspire school children to work hard is considered a bad thing by some Americans.

Falling like grace upon us all

2009-09-13T08:44:00.008-05:00

It's been raining in Fort Worth -- blessed rain that has come down in sheets at times but more often has fallen gently on an appreciative thirsty earth. It has fallen on all of us too, the worthy and the unworthy, not unlike God's love and grace.

This Sunday morning, I sit at the table upon which my cat Simon is reclining -- he helps me read the paper while I drink my coffee -

and listen to the tiny snores of contented dogs sleeping on the couch and floor nearby.

It's a sleepy day, with the raindrops patting the roof and blurring the windows. It's that last that makes me feel as if I'm in Giverny, living in the middle of a Claude Monet painting. At long last, my Texas garden looks like an impressionist's garden in France -- all soft lines and blurry colors.

The front porch even looks romantic.

And the walk outside the front window looks all soft and dreamy.

It would be easy to just sit here for most of the day, sunk in daydreams and thoughts of how easily worked the earth will be when the rain finally stops and I can be in the garden again.

But it's time to get ready for church, to join my friends in giving thanks and praise to the loving God who brings us rain, sweet cats, and contented dogs.

Where am I?

2009-09-10T09:44:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I wonder what nation I'm living in.

I watched the president's speech last night during which a U.S. Congressman called the president a liar.

Jaws dropped all over the chamber. Jaws dropped in our living room.

My husband said, "I hope that's somebody's guest and not an elected official who did that."

Well, it was an elected official -- South Carolina Republican Representative Joe Wilson -- who yelled, "You lie!" at the president when Obama said the health care reform would not cover people who are here illegally.

What is happening in America? People are disrupting public meetings, shouting down their elected officials when they try to speak and intimidating other citizens who try to ask questions. One man even showed up at a meeting at which the president was speaking with a gun strapped to his leg.

People are willing to believe Barack Obama wants to put old people to sleep, like old dogs who are in pain. They are willing to believe the U.S. Congress -- their elected representatives -- would approve "death panels." Some people who don't even know that the Medicare they are so happy with is a "government-run" program are happy to speak out against "government run health care." This includes veterans who rely on a "government-run health care system" called the VA.

Between Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, well over half of Americans are already in a "government-run health care system." Not many of them call this socialism.

The president of the United States wants to talk with our schoolchildren about staying in school and working hard and some parents go into hysterics that the president will "indoctrinate" them and turn them into socialists. They carry signs saying to the president, "Stay away from our children."

Anybody remember what George Bush was doing when he was told about the 9/11 attacks? Right. He was in a classroom reading to children. And in fact, the Arlington, Texas school district -- which declined to show Obama's speech to its students because it would "disrupt the school day" -- is going to bus fifth grade students to Cowboys Stadium to hear a speech from former president George Bush and his wife, Laura.

What will the kids hear? Knowing Laura's passion for literacy, I suspect it will be a speech about staying in school and working hard. And I'll bet we won't have parents picketing the stadium with signs telling Bush to stay away from our children.

So why the uproar over Obama's every move?

Someone asked, "Have aliens landed and sucked out people's brains?"

Had major stupidity broken out in our nation? No, but some political leaders and many commentators in the media -- on both the left and the right, but particularly on the right -- have been cynically ratcheting up the volume and pumping fear and resentment out like fire hoses.

And because these people occupy positions of trust in the government and in the media, people who are already worried and scared tend to believe them.

Not that this absolves people of the responsibility to think for themselves. The problem is, after listening to some of these folks being interviewed, I do wonder if they ever even tried to think things through for themselves.

It's not elitist to expect grown people to take some responsibility for finding out the facts about a situation before they go ballistic over it. It's not elitist to expect adults to be able to act in a civil manner in public hearings. It's not elitist to expect adults to show common courtesy to elected officials -- respect the office even if you can't respect the officeholder.

I'm not saying we can't disagree and I'm not saying we can't poke fun at our leaders -- that's a proud American tradition and one I engage in with gusto at times. But there's a difference between making jokes about Obama's ears and calling him a liar while he's addressing a joint session of Congress. There's a difference between pointing out inconsistencies, inaccuracies and outright lies in a civil debate and in screaming curses at an elected official.

Listen, I am not a fan of George W. Bush. I disagreed with just about everything he ever did except maybe his common sense approach to immigration reform. But I never "hoped he would fail" as Rush Limbaugh has said he hopes Obama will fail.

I wrote about my disagreement with Bush on many occasions. But if he were to walk in a room where I was, I would stand up and show respect to him. He was my president.

And that's the thing. He was my president. So was Bill Clinton. So was the first President Bush. So was Carter and Reagan and all the others all the way back to the late 40s when I was born. Democrat or Republican, they were my president.

Obama is my president. And he's the president of Rush Limbaugh and the hecklers too. Not that they seem to know that. They seem to know almost nothing about how our system of government works. They seem to think "civics" is a bunch of small Hondas and that "civility" is a a group of non-military people.

I suspect Joe Wilson, Rush Limbaugh and all those hecklers would assert that they "support our troops." But if I were one of the soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan watching all this, I'd wonder exactly what it is I'm fighting for.

Once we lose the ability to have civil discussion about our differences, our democracy is in grave danger. And that scares me.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

2009-09-09T12:52:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Mad Priest for this.

Meanwhile in a bunker deep beneath the Fox Nework newsroom . . .

Sound, sunlight, and Serra

2009-08-19T18:50:00.011-05:00

School starts Monday, and so my two grandsons and I are doing our best to enjoy this last week of freedom.

This afternoon we went to the Kimbell Museum to see Butchers, Dragons, Gods and Skeletons, film installations by Phillip Haas inspired by works in the collection. I don't know if the exhibit's title was specifically designed to attract little boys, but it worked. They were enthralled by the installations.

We viewed one [inspired by James Ensor's Skeletons Warming Themselves]while sitting on the floor inside a room-sized skull; another [inspired by Apollo and the Continents] while stretched out flat on the floor while amazing images floated across the ceiling overhead, and another [inspired by Annibale Carracci's The Butcher Shop] seated on a bench in a room where we watched the artist on one wall and his subjects on another. At times, images moved from one side of the room to another, a process that fascinated all three of us.

We didn't see all the installations, leaving some for another day. It was time to let off some energy so we crossed the street to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, my grandsons' favorite museum in a city full of museums.

One reason they love it is Richard Serra's Vortex, a 67 feet, 10-inch high sculpture of Cor-ten steel.

When you walk inside this amazing piece of art, sound changes. The sculpture is a giant sounding board, turning steps into soft booms, taps into sharp little darts of sounds, sighs into breezes, and giggles into full blown laughter.

Gavin, 5, thinks it is just about the best place in the whole city. What's more, the openings in the bottom of the sculpture create a nice little wind tunnel, making its shaded interior about ten degrees cooler than outside.

Looking up at the opening at the top is not unlike being inside a cathedral.

Curran, 7, likes leaning on the walls in various places, seeing how the sound changes as he moves.

And if you hop and leap about, your feet make wonderful musical sounds.

Rubbing your hands on the walls, raising your voice, tapping your toes -- all make interesting and varied noises.

And of course, yelling makes great BIG echoes.

Gavin wraps himself in sound and sunlight inside the Serra.

Then we head home where popsicles, cool tile floors, and happy dogs await us.

Lazy Summer Day

2009-08-18T20:50:00.003-05:00

Today was a hot August day in Texas.

My two grandsons and I did not want to spend the day inside, so we went to Oakland Lake Park to feed the ducks. [see photo]

Then we went to Trinity Park to a shaded play area, where the 7-year-old proceeded -- without being asked or told -- to clean up the litter that someone had strewn in front of the slide in the play area. He started carrying dirty paper plates, water and Coke bottles, napkins, etc., to the trash barrel. Then his 5-year-old brother began helping.

Next the other children in the play area began helping, and pretty soon, all the litter was cleaned up. Then they all resumed playing.

On the way home, I told them how proud I was of them, that they had been good citizens.

The 7-year-old said, "If we don't clean it up, who will?"

Science and Religion

2009-08-18T17:37:00.005-05:00

[Education is a stained-glass window at Yale commissioned from the Tiffany Glass Company]

I am one of the panelists for the Texas Faith blog of the Dallas Morning News. The question posed to us last week was "How would you make a case for mutual engagement between science and religion?"

But here is how the question was given in the newspaper today:

"How would you make the case to scientists for mutual engagement between science and religion?"

Those are two very different questions. I would have framed my answer differently if I had known I was addressing scientists instead of a more general audience. So please take that into consideration as you read my response and those of the other panelists.

Here is what I said:

KATIE SHERROD, Episcopal lay activist, Diocese of Fort Worth:

Nowhere is the conversation between science and religion more important than at the intersection of what science teaches us we can do with what we know and what religion teaches us we should do with what we know.

When we separate science and religion we are left with two of the most frightening images in our modern world--that of a scientist operating without any moral anchor and that of a religious leader operating without any respect for scientific revelations. Both can do immense and long lasting harm to innocent people.

We shudder today at the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, a clinical study done by the U.S. Public Health Service between 1932 and 1972 in which 399 poor black sharecroppers suffering from syphilis were left untreated in order to observe the "natural progression of the untreated disease."

Even though by 1947 penicillin was known to cure syphilis, doctors withheld it from the infected black men. The study ended only when a leak to the press resulted in public outrage. But by then many of the men had died from syphilis, many of their wives had contracted the disease and many had children born with congenital syphilis.

The Catholic Church at one time declared left-handed people servants of the Devil. Islam declares the left hand and everything associated with it unclean. But science knows that left-handedness has nothing to do with evil. Sonograms reveal that babies in the womb will exhibit a preference for their right or left hand. The odds of a child being born left-handed are not the work of the Devil, but of genetics, a fact confirmed by scientists in 2007.

Using left-handedness as evidence of a "sinister" nature strikes many religious people today as slightly ludicrous. But the harm done to generations of children by efforts to undo their left-handedness -- such as stuttering -- lasted a lifetime.

And what are we to do with the growing body of data showing that human sexuality is much more complex than ever envisioned by the writers of Genesis 1 and 2? Some humans are born "intersexed," i.e.: born with chromosomal or other biological characteristics of both male and female. Scientists have concluded that this is a normal, if rare, form of human biology. How does this fit in with Genesis 1.27: "male and female he created them in the image of God?"

What about the growing body of scientific evidence that homosexuality is innate, not a "lifestyle choice?" Given that homosexuality occurs in humans at about the rate that left-handedness does, one wonders how long it will be before we look back at religious declarations about homosexuality with the same chagrin we do declarations about left-handedness.

Our intellects are gifts from God. Separating science from religion or religion from science impoverishes both and leaves humanity and all God's creation vulnerable to terrible abuses.

Doubts about ACNA?

2009-08-12T14:27:00.003-05:00

Interesting post at Fr. Jake Stops the World. It is about a recent sermon given by the rector of St. Gregory's in Mansfield.

Check it out.

Texas Faith on the role of play

2009-08-10T16:19:00.003-05:00

I am one of the panelists for the Dallas Morning News' Texas Faith blog. Each week we get asked a religion-related question:
---------------------------
This week's question comes from our own Texas Faith panelist Amy Martin, and it certainly is appropriate given that we're still enjoying summer, a time many of us associate with play. Here it is:
We live in society where so much attention is devoted to work. But we're headed into August, the vacation month. What do your spiritual paths say about the role of play?
-------------------------
Well, if God could create Leviathan for the sport of it -- to say nothing of giraffes, koalas and other creatures of which the mere sight is enough to make us smile -- and we are made in the image of God, it seems to me a playful spirit is part of that.

Indeed, Christians and Jews are commanded to "keep the Sabbath," a day of rest and recreation. The Puritans tried to turn the Sabbath into a day of dourness and boring inactivity, and many adults have bad memories of Sundays as days to dread.

I think that is very sad. Our Jewish brothers and sisters seem to have a much healthier view of Sabbath as a day for family, good food, lovemaking, playing, and enjoying one another. The Episcopal Church has a very healthy view of play, and indeed has a whole curriculum called "Godly Play" built around the idea that we learn best when we are happy and enjoying ourselves.

Think about what happens when we play. Time is altered. Space becomes pliable as we travel in our minds to all sorts of other places. If we are playing actively, our bodies are working and oxygen and blood are pulsing through our bodies at high speed. We are changed physically as well as mentally. All of this sharpens our minds, heightens our senses and makes us more aware of and in tune with the world around us -- and for me, brings me closer to God.

I 'play" in my garden, which is also where I do most of my praying. I'm not talking about the hard physical work of gardening, although that is enjoyable to me. I am talking about wandering through the garden in the cool of the day, deadheading here, pulling up a stray weed there, praising a lazy bougainvillea for finally catching up to her sister in blooms, righting a pot knocked over by a squirrel using it as a springboard, and generally letting my mind and body relax into the sensuous pleasure of the scents of the plants, the caress of the breeze, the sounds of the fountains.

Note that "play" and "pray" are separated by only one letter. I believe it is in playing that we are most open to hearing God's voice. That's why play is a vital part of my spiritual life.
-------------------------------
Click on the link above to read what the other panelists had to say.

Transfiguration

2009-08-06T17:30:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Scott Gunn for pointing me to this meditation by Bosco Peters on today -- the Feast of the Transfiguration AND the anniversary of our dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Here is an excerpt:

We read the story of the Transfiguration on this day with some ambivalence. Before the fifteenth century, a few Christian communities had been keeping the feast of the Transfiguration on August 6. But we would probably not be celebrating that date if it wasn't for a terrible battle. On the sixth of August 1456 news was announced in Rome that John Hunyady had overcome the Turks near Belgrade and the bells of many countries still ring at midday to commemorate the slaughter. Pope Callistus ordered the whole church to commemorate the victory by celebrating the feast of the Transfiguration.

But the ambivalence of August 6 is highlighted, because on this day in 1945, someone climbed not a holy mountain, but into the cockpit of a plane - a machine of war. There had been a lull of a week in the fighting between America and Japan. The Americans had a new secret weapon and they wanted to use it with the maximum psychological effect. They had prepared three atomic bombs. On the 16th of July, one had been tested in New Mexico. Now on August 6 one was dropped on Hiroshima, and three days later the last one wad dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb had more than 2,000 times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" till then the largest bomb ever used in the history of warfare. 150,000 people lay dead. Other people later died from the effects of atomic radiation. 75,000 buildings were destroyed. Two cities were devastated. The world will never be the same.

Here we have a new voice booming from heaven. Here too was brightness, brilliant as burning magnesium. Here too is a cloud that has come and has covered us all with shadow. Truly, under the shadow of this new cloud, we are right to feel afraid. The shape of that cloud hangs now forever in our sky. Look at the shape of that cloud. It is the new tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have eaten of its fruit and we shall never be the same again.

Read it all here. And if you are not familiar with his site, you are in for a treat.

Jake is back!

2009-08-06T15:11:00.003-05:00

Father Jake Stops the World
The musings of an eccentric and sometimes heretical Episcopal priest

Jake is back and stopping the world here.

And that noise you hear is Episcopalians and Anglicans around the world rejoicing.

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

Our beamish boy is back and while he hasn't slain the dread Jabberwock, he will certainly once again strike deep into the heart of the lies and misinformation being spewed like water from a fire hose by those who would undermine - indeed destroy -- the Episcopal Church.

I can tell you there are MANY folks in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth who are overjoyed at the news.

In the dark days before our former leadership left the Episcopal Church, his blog was a lifeline thrown to us from the wider church. Jake's World was a source of news, information, and hope to more people here than he ever knew or could imagine.

There's a reason a community grew up around that blog. It's because people are drawn to truth telling and honest dialogue -- the hallmark of Jake's place.

So while I am sorry his other job disappeared, I am glad he's back doing this.

Welcome back, Jake. We missed you.

Man kills three, self, at gym

2009-08-05T11:26:00.007-05:00

Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie, PA.
Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Pittsburgh, PA.
Jody Billingsley, 38, of Mount Lebanon, PA.

How many times have we seen variations on this headline -- "Man Kills [insert number], Self at [insert location]?"

The only thing different about this story is that the man killed random women instead of family members.

Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie, PA.
Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Pittsburgh, PA.
Jody Billingsley, 38, of Mount Lebanon, PA.

These women died because they went to work out at a fitness center at the same time a man decided some women had to die to pay for his injured ego.

A man who feels he has been rejected by women deals with the problem by killing women. And after he kills as many as he can, the big brave gunman kills himself.

Let's compare that with the news story that the 24-hour-a-day news cycle had so much fun with just yesterday-- the story of the four women [one of which was his wife] who repaid an unfaithful man by gluing his penis to his stomach.

Stupid and illegal of course, and terribly painful for the guy no doubt, but not lethal.

News reports says the women face punishment, perhaps six years in prison, and at least one said in a Monday news report that "the story has gotten twisted and she's embarrassed. 'I am disturbed. I am upset. I am having a hard time handling life; an emotional wreck,' Wendy Sewell, 43, of Kaukauna, said in a telephone interview from her home. 'I am ashamed.'

The women did a stupid criminal thing, and they will most likely spend time in prison because of it. They are reaping the consequences of their actions.

George Sodini, on the other hand, joined the hundreds of men each year who kill a woman or women and then kill themselves.

The Associated Press reported that George Sodini apparently kept a "Web page in which he wrote about years of rejection by women and an earlier plan for violence at the gym in which he said he 'chickened out.'

"He also complained of not having a girlfriend since 1984, not having a date since May 2008 and not having sex for 19 years. 'Women just don't like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one,' he wrote."

It appears from news reports about his blog that he had been planning the killings for nine months. The New York Times reported that he recorded his frustrations in his online dairy:

“I actually look good,' Mr. Sodini wrote in an entry dated Dec. 29, 2008. I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me — over an 18 or 25-year period. That is how I see it. Thirty million is my rough guesstimate of how many desirable single women there are."

Get that? All 30 million of the "desirable single women" in the world rejected him. Can you say meglomania?

The Times reports that he wrote, “A man needs a woman for confidence. He gets a boost on the job, career, with other men, and everywhere else when he knows inside he has someone to spend the night with and who is also a friend.”

He wanted a woman for confidence, to get a boost with other men. The phrase "who is also a friend" is an afterthought.

This man, for whatever reason, believed that "Women just don't like me." So the problem had to be with women, not with him, right? The lack of self-examination seems pretty astonishing, but sadly, pretty typical of a type of man who believes women exist solely for his pleasure and to serve his needs.

I'm thinking that if he was as attractive, financially stable and as smart as he portrays himself, then there must have been something seriously "off" about him that set off warning signals to women. Like perhaps the fact that he saw women as personal accessories that exist solely to serve as evidence of his manly success, the same way a fast car or a big house might.

Women aren't accessories. Women aren't status symbols. Women can't make everything better in your life if you're not willing to do some work on yourself, like for instance, trying to understand why you think using violence to solve problems is a good idea. Like, why women had to die because your ego was hurt.

These women:
Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie, PA.
Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Pittsburgh, PA.
Jody Billingsley, 38, of Mount Lebanon, PA.

May they rest in peace and rise in glory. And may all the men who are as horrified about this as women are join us in speaking up and speaking out.

Where are the voices of women?

2009-08-03T18:48:00.004-05:00

Rowan Williams' essay in response to the actions of General Convention has been analyzed all over the web, quite nicely both at Episcopal Cafe and by Mark Harris.

So I am just going to say this about it. He lost all credibility for me at the "lifestyle choice" statement and with his comparison to faithful monogamous lifelong unions to adultery. Oh please.

I'm really really tired of churchMEN outside and inside the Episcopal Church trying to force an institutional solution onto what is a relational problem in the Anglican Communion.

Yes indeed, we don't all agree on how issues of human sexuality should be handled theologically and we don't all agree on how faithful Anglicans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender should be included in the life and ministry of the church. We've lived for centuries with many other differences more significant than this one without splitting.

So what solution have these men come up with? Destroy classic Anglicanism and replace it with a centralized, top down, clergy-in-charge system complete with power to punish those [read the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada] who get out of the narrowly-drawn-lines these men will put into place.

It is, as we say in Texas, like using dynamite to kill an ant.

This whole tempest over sexuality has been the product of men. For the most part, it's been ostensibly straight white men who have been screaming that the inclusion of LGBT folk in the life and ministry of the church is the worst sin of all because they are the worst sinners of all. [I keep wanting to hear Rowan Williams talk about the theological danger of singling out one group of sinners as worse than the rest of us but he's too busy scolding us to have time to do that.]

When these disgruntled men couldn't get their way in the US, they recruited African and Asian bishops to help stir things up.

The amount of male hysteria they have stoked up has been amazing to see. These men are clearly not only willing to split the church, they are willing to do so at the cost of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc. And those primates who don't agree with them are apparently willing to sit by in silence, thereby rendering themselves useless to stop people who are willing to destroy this church to 'save" it and make it pure enough for their precious little selves.

Where are the voices of women in all this?

Yes, our own Katharine Jefferts Schori has been a voice of sanity, but she's only one Primate among many.

Here's what the Anglican Consultative Council’s International Anglican Women’s Network had to say when they gathered at the March 2007 session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women [emphasis added]:

"The IAWN reaffirms its commitment to unity in Christ:We remain resolute in our solidarity with one another and in our commitment, above all else, to pursue and fulfil God’s mission in all we say and do. Given the global tensions so evident in our church today, we do not accept that there is any one issue of difference or contention which can, or indeed would, ever cause us to break the unity as represented by our common baptism. Neither would we ever consider severing the deep and abiding bonds of affection which characterize our relationships as Anglican women."

From the Statement made by the Anglican Women gathered at the 51st Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 3 March 2007
----------------------------

This amazing statement got virtually no attention amid all the male-generated noise and threats of splitting the church. Still small voices often get ignored by the men in charge.

So here's a modest proposal.

Before giving up totally on the Anglican Communion, let's have all the men -- Rowan Williams, all the male Primates, all the male bishops, all the male priests, all the male laymen -- take a vow of silence on this issue for a year and let the women of the Anglican Communion work on reconciling us to one another.

Let's let the people -- women -- who really DO make up the largest numbers of Anglicans in the world work on finding a way we can all live together in love despite our differences.

Let's make IAWN the instrument of Communion.

Let's do what Jesus did time and again. Empower these women. And then listen to them.

Wonderful things could result.

Choices have consequences

2009-08-02T10:03:00.003-05:00

From Episcopal Cafe:
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A voice for the voiceless in the Anglican Province of Central Africa
Saturday 1st August:

The election took place today for a new bishop of Upper Shire Diocese, Malawi vacant since the resignation of Bishop Christopher Boyle now working as an Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Leicester, U.K. The elected candidate was the Revd Fr Leslie Mtekateka of St Timothys, Chitipa.

Previously, the then only candidate, the Revd J. Scott Wilson, SSC, formerly of the Diocese of Fort Worth in the United States had withdrawn his candidacy. His active membership of a breakaway faction from the Episcopal Church known as the Anglican Church of North America (A.C.N.A) had ensured that even if elected he could not become a bishop in the Central African Province because he does not belong to a province in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The divisions in the Anglican Communion which have so plagued North America in particular and which have insidiously damaged parts of the Anglican Communion in Africa have had their logical outworking in this manifestation of schism.
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Note of importance for those who followed former Bishop Jack Iker out of the Episcopal Church and into ACNA: See the second paragraph above, especially this statement:

"His active membership of a breakaway faction from the Episcopal Church known as the Anglican Church of North America (A.C.N.A.) has ensured that even if elected he could not become a bishop in the Central African Province because he does not belong to a province in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury."

As has been pointed out before, despite what Bishop Iker and your priests may be telling you, not only are you no longer Episcopalians, you are not Anglicans either, since the definition of Anglican is being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Aligning with the Southern Cone does not provide Anglican "cover" either, because the canons and constitution of that Province do not allow for extra-territorial dioceses such as Fort Worth or San Joaquin. It didn't become legal just because Gregory Venables said it did. Even Primates are supposed to follow their own canons and constitutions.

As always, my hope is that those who left the Episcopal Church are finding the spiritual home they desire. But if part of that desire is to remain Anglican, neither the Southern Cone nor ACNA is looking like the place they want to be.

Choices have consequences. The consequences of the decisions made in November 2008 are still playing out.