This morning's sermon is up over at the church blog.
Wonderful orange, pink purple sunset.
Snow up north but not down here. Some day, some day....
07 February 2010
06 February 2010
Still alive
This time of year is always nuts. I get through my ordination anniversary (16 years last Friday), then it's Candlemas, one year since our celebration of a new season of ministry so that means there are two more years before ostensibly I am made rector of this congregation rather than priest in partnership (even the bishop slipped recently and called me rector of the place), but most important, it's off to read the General Ordination Examinations next week. After that, it's off to Executive Council. Then I can return and settle down until, oh joy, I can hardly wait, I finally go back to El Salvador for the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of San Romero de las Américas.
Sermons will eventually be posted, even if weeks late. And so will there be feline fotos. Suffice to say they all are fine.
The one thing lacking here is snow. Virginia and Washington DC are hogging it all.
Back to work.
[my sibs at my ordination 16 years ago; we are all wearing our tartan.]
28 January 2010
From one of my senators
The U.S. Supreme Court just decided to create a new "constitutional right" for corporations to pour unlimited funds into elections.
President Obama rightly took a few moments to address this misguided decision during his State of the Union address last night, saying, "the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections."
This morning I took some time on the other side of the Capitol to address my Senate colleagues and the American people about the grave implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC.
Corporations have been barred from spending unlimited funds on political races for as long as you and I have lived. For good reason: The typical Fortune 500 company need only spend a small fraction of its profits on political ads to drown out the un-amplified voices of individual citizens.
This Supreme Court decision creates new rights for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.
Corporations are not people. They do not have the same rights, morals, or ideals of individual citizens. Nor do they vote or participate in elections the same way individuals do.
But the conservative activist wing of the Supreme Court -- now large enough to comprise a majority on the bench -- sees things differently. That's why they decided to ignore well-established, commonsense precedent in deciding this case, as well as the wishes of Congress. I am disappointed that these Justices, who as nominees professed their commitment to judicial modesty and restraint, could so brazenly overstep their bounds and override the rule of law.
I was particularly alarmed by Justice Alito during last night's State of the Union address, blurting out "not true" as the President spoke of the decision. It was bad enough when a Congressman from South Carolina pulled that kind of a stunt during last year's address. It is completely and utterly inappropriate for a Supreme Court Justice -- who has sworn to apply the law impartially and rise above partisan politics -- to do the same.
If we are to begin this decade anew and recommit ourselves to achieving a new kind of politics, as President Obama so eloquently urged last night, we must come together -- Democrats and Republicans -- to restore the ability of every individual citizen to be heard and participate in our democracy.
As I work with the White House and my colleagues in Congress to mitigate the harm done by this decision, I hope you will join me in taking meaningful action to help right this terrible wrong.
Thank you for all that you do to defend our democracy.
Patrick Leahy
President Obama rightly took a few moments to address this misguided decision during his State of the Union address last night, saying, "the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections."
This morning I took some time on the other side of the Capitol to address my Senate colleagues and the American people about the grave implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC.
Corporations have been barred from spending unlimited funds on political races for as long as you and I have lived. For good reason: The typical Fortune 500 company need only spend a small fraction of its profits on political ads to drown out the un-amplified voices of individual citizens.
This Supreme Court decision creates new rights for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.
Corporations are not people. They do not have the same rights, morals, or ideals of individual citizens. Nor do they vote or participate in elections the same way individuals do.
But the conservative activist wing of the Supreme Court -- now large enough to comprise a majority on the bench -- sees things differently. That's why they decided to ignore well-established, commonsense precedent in deciding this case, as well as the wishes of Congress. I am disappointed that these Justices, who as nominees professed their commitment to judicial modesty and restraint, could so brazenly overstep their bounds and override the rule of law.
I was particularly alarmed by Justice Alito during last night's State of the Union address, blurting out "not true" as the President spoke of the decision. It was bad enough when a Congressman from South Carolina pulled that kind of a stunt during last year's address. It is completely and utterly inappropriate for a Supreme Court Justice -- who has sworn to apply the law impartially and rise above partisan politics -- to do the same.
If we are to begin this decade anew and recommit ourselves to achieving a new kind of politics, as President Obama so eloquently urged last night, we must come together -- Democrats and Republicans -- to restore the ability of every individual citizen to be heard and participate in our democracy.
As I work with the White House and my colleagues in Congress to mitigate the harm done by this decision, I hope you will join me in taking meaningful action to help right this terrible wrong.
Thank you for all that you do to defend our democracy.
Patrick Leahy
It's that time of year again
Two years ago I blogged in March about the ice jams forming on the Winooski River in Montpelier. When we talk about ice jams, this is what they look like. Evidently Montpelier dodged a close one this week. The restaurant which I frequent when I go up there, Julio's, had the river flood behind it but only as far as the parking lot. Nonetheless, there were areas by the statehouse where the road was flooded... on top of the fact of the interstate being closed because of two milk trucks (i.e., tankers) crashing into a car, killing two people.
Tough stuff.
27 January 2010
POTUS State of the Union
Mostly what I heard was, 'You Senators need to get your act together and start working.' Over and over it was, 'The House passed such and such a bill and I ask the Senate to do likewise.' Sort of chastening a bunch of third-graders.
John Chrysostom
What an irony it would have been had I been ordained on this lesser feast day. From the writings of John Chrysostom we get this:
The divine law indeed has excluded women from this ministry, but they endeavour to thrust themselves into it; and since they can effect nothing of themselves, they do all through the agency of others.… When one is required to preside over the Church, and be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.
Oh well.
And he has such a high esteem of priests:
Hell is paved with priests' skulls.
Never mind his anti-Semitic writings...
Yet we love the prayer attributed to him at the end of the daily office. So what is one to do?
Just some thoughts as I get ready to go to the noon eucharist.
I know that Holy Women and Men have moved or eliminated this feast day... but I grabbed LFF this morning :)
24 January 2010
23 January 2010
All in the life
Some scenes from this week...
I love star gazer lilies and so, when I saw these in the flower arrangement we were about to recycle/pitch, I asked for them to put in my office. What fun! Of course they are a bit overpowering so not everyone can come in (taken with my phone so a bit grainy; the next two photos are, as well).
We worship (at the late service) in the parish hall until Palm Sunday. It's a fairly large space so we have taken over the north wall to create a 'Gratitude Wall.' The poster for this year's stewardship campaign is to the right. Over time, we hope that this wall will be covered with images of the infinite gifts from God for which people are grateful. I put up a few just to get things going. The yellow paper sign reads: What gifts has God given me: and the white paper: our wall of gratitude!
The choir sits at one end and in the foreground is the 100 year-old reed/pump organ we use. The choir director/organist gets quite a workout Sunday mornings playing it!
I love star gazer lilies and so, when I saw these in the flower arrangement we were about to recycle/pitch, I asked for them to put in my office. What fun! Of course they are a bit overpowering so not everyone can come in (taken with my phone so a bit grainy; the next two photos are, as well).
We worship (at the late service) in the parish hall until Palm Sunday. It's a fairly large space so we have taken over the north wall to create a 'Gratitude Wall.' The poster for this year's stewardship campaign is to the right. Over time, we hope that this wall will be covered with images of the infinite gifts from God for which people are grateful. I put up a few just to get things going. The yellow paper sign reads: What gifts has God given me: and the white paper: our wall of gratitude!
The choir sits at one end and in the foreground is the 100 year-old reed/pump organ we use. The choir director/organist gets quite a workout Sunday mornings playing it!
20 January 2010
Interesting
Uploading an update to an iPhone ap of the Hebrew Bible, I get a message saying that portions of this application are objectionable and I need to verify that I am over 17.
Your thoughts?!
Your thoughts?!
Thus spake Eeyore
Compa said it sounds as though Eeyore has taken up residence in my heart. She is right.
Our church oddly gets the Trinity School for Ministry's Seed and Harvest mag. I can't even say what my reaction is to read about most of their graduates going off to be church planters in AMiA or AMiC other than how can they call themselves Episcopalian when they advertise things like Trinity AMiA dinner in Greensboro SC?
Our church oddly gets the Trinity School for Ministry's Seed and Harvest mag. I can't even say what my reaction is to read about most of their graduates going off to be church planters in AMiA or AMiC other than how can they call themselves Episcopalian when they advertise things like Trinity AMiA dinner in Greensboro SC?
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