The bear facts

Look at these little fellers.

Go here for the full story of the spring Maine bear monitoring.

Snippets from the conference on the Anglican Covenant, Friday night

Other luminaries will have more astute comments but here are some snippets from the conference. I offer these without much commentary.

First off, Friday night — these are merely my notes from Archbishop Drexel Gomez's keynote.

The polity of Anglican Communion is one of a family of churches. We are not bound together by a central legislative executive authority but by mutual loyalty. We have autonomy in communion. ¶71-86 of Windsor Report (WR) mentions our diversity within communion. ¶76: a body is autonomous only in relations to others. The autonomous entity forms a part. It has a wider obligation to others. Freedom is held within interdependence. Autonomy lies within the context of the global communion. There are legitimate limits on substantive and procedure, the exercise of autonomy. Communion is the fundamental limit to autonomy. Each church and the exercise of its autonomy should consider, promote and respect the common good of Anglican Communion and maintain communion and avoid jeopardizing it by bringing potentially divisive issues before communal discernment.

The crisis continues because we understand that TEC refuses to accept that advice. The present crisis could have been avoided had TEC adopted ¶82 of WR. That course of action was not perceived and the entire Anglican Communion is being negatively impacted. Bonds of affection are strained or are broken. It is perceived that TEC is engaging in theological innovation, trying to impose a bold agenda on gay marriage and toleration of it across the communion. Others say the primates are imposing a papacy.

Positions have become polarized since publication of WR. Everyone claims to have real spirit of Anglicanism that is truthful, orthodox etc.

The covenant proposal to restore mutuality. It is not to define new Anglicanism or peddle a narrow or exclusive view of Anglicanism but to state the faith that we have all inherited together so that there can be a new confidence that we are all about the same mission. A covenant is the most appropriate mechanism of holding us together. Anglican Covenant proposal is to rebuild trust so that we will be able to reaffirm that we do believe the same thing and we can live in a trusted community.

WR would articulate the bonds of affection and would make explicit what is implicit.

The St Andrew's draft provides clarity on faith and the commitments that should accompany that faith. The covenant process provides Anglicans an opportunity to see covenants in the ecumenical realm.

A covenant is a visible foundation around which Anglicans can gather to protect their identity and mission and provide a resource for our ecumenical partners. A covenant reasserts our Anglican identity. It is impossible to say what Anglicanism is about right now. There is confusion on what we are meant to be. The present crisis has seriously damaged our relationship with Roman Catholic partners. The prresent draft covenant seeks to provide an answer.

A church [within the Anglican Communion] cannot proceed unilaterally. A covenant is opportunity not reaction. While other Christian world communions are growing together and turning to a model of interdependence, we in the Anglican Communion are being tempted to pursue a course of self-destruction. There is a choice between the catholic view of the church and a protestant model of the church. ‘We know what is right and we don’t care what other churches do.’ Do we want to be an Anglican Covenant or do we want to disintegrate? We have a choice between being a communion or a federation of churches. If we do not survive as a communion, there will not be the trust to survive as a federation. A covenant is the only mechanism capable of holding us together as a communion if the communion embraces the opportunity.

A covenant would symbolize the trust. Some parts would be susceptible to development. Parties can adjust the disputes. The proposed Anglican Covenant is not intended to calcify the church but to move away from disputes. The Anglican Communion has invested huge resources to address the presenting issue. These resources could have been available to mission.

Are you willing to engage with a process that seeks to find a common basis for the provinces of the Anglican Communion to move forward together as a communion? We covenant to walk in a shared faith in a shared hope in a communion that God intends us to be.

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In the questions and answers, Christopher Seitz said he was unsure that any covenant in the context that it is currently being considered, no matter how well intentioned, would actually be able to be effective in managing our disagreements either currently or in the future or be able to give us adequate processes for mutual accountability. Why don’t we actually talk about inter-anglican canon law? I don’t know how the covenant can do what it wants to do.

There is the question that Susan Russell referenced in her posting [ Keynote #1: The Case for an Anglican Covenant], coming from a student at Toronto who signalled Ab Gomez's participation in the recent consecrations in Kenya: I need coherence and this action goes against it..

Ab Gomez answered: I preached at consecration and saw to fulfill a pastoral need and they could no longer be part of TEC and were seeking some part. I was not representing my province; I was preaching as friend. It was a public event. Q: That goes against WR.
A: I have never participated in any act of crossing boundaries. Several dioceses are seeking refuge in the Southern Cone. I have consistently opposed that.

Another question was: A sign of trust can be seen in a province’s willingness to participate in a covenant. Canada's General Synod has disagreements with parts in it. The questionner was puzzled by lack of response to draft 1. Why is there a lack of engagement from the Global South?

DG: I raised it with leadership of Global South. I chided them over their lack of engagement. At the Tigali meeting, I got a firm commitment to engaging with the process.

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I think the line that got me the most was the one about TEC 'trying to impose a bold agenda on gay marriage' and the usual bit about not consulting with the rest of the communion about that which was never explicitly mentioned by name, the election and consecration of the Bishop of New Hampshire, despite the fact that he was sitting in the very room where this conference was going on!

A propos of whom, I am now headed off to a clergy/spice/parish leader evening with Gene Robinson, sponsored by the Diocese of Vermont.

So more will come later.

And yet another....

On a day that always makes me grumpy, income tax day, I add in another ICHC photo to make us laugh.

I approve of this message

Thanks to Lisa for sending the link from the usual ICHC.

I just hope that the sound wasn't on when the photo was taken!

Good for them!

BRAZIL: Bishops protest Southern Cone archbishop's unauthorized visit, violation of Windsor Report
April 09, 2008

[Episcopal News Service] The bishops of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil issued an open statement April 9 expressing their "strong repudiation" of a recent unauthorized visit by Southern Cone Archbishop Gregory Venables to Recife "where he took part in and celebrated at official occasions outside his Province without the knowledge and consent of the Archbishop of the Province of Brazil and this House of Bishops."

The full text of the statement, dated April 3 and released on April 9, follows.

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil gathered in Curitiba unanimously express their strong repudiation of the recent visit by the Archbishop of the Southern Cone to the city of Recife, where he took part in and celebrated at official occasions outside his Province without the knowledge and consent of the Archbishop of the Province of Brazil and this House of Bishops.

This disrespectful and arrogant attitude against the Province of Brazil, is another element of discord caused by the Archbishop of the Province of the Southern Cone since the ecclesiastical court hearing and deposition of Robinson Cavalcanti. As it is known by all the Anglican Communion, Mr. Cavalcanti was deposed through a lawful and canonical process due to his breaking of ordination vows.

The action of the Primate of the Southern Cone represents an attack on the pillars of the Anglican tradition, which include respect to Provincial autonomy and collegiality among the Primates of the Communion. Equally, this attitude, unheard of in the Communion, clearly contradicts the Windsor Report and the resolution by the last Primates meeting in Tanzania in February 2007.

The Primate of the Southern Cone has repeatedly violated those boundaries through official acts as he invites, receives and cares pastorally for the dissident clergy, bishops, communities and dioceses from other Provinces. This is also exemplified by what has been happening recently with our sister provinces of the United States and Canada.

What at the beginning of those regrettable events of the schism in Recife was seen as a pastoral care provision for the deposed bishop and those who followed him, has become a formal primatial reception of those deposed. It has also been transformed into unacceptable acts of primatial nature within the jurisdiction of our province.

We appeal to His Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Primates of the Anglican Communion to consider this vehement protest by the Province of Brazil in order to avoid a serious rupture with our Anglican tradition.

The consequences of such unilateral and disrespectful gesture of Archbishop Gregory Venables to a sister Province represents a serious breach of the bonds of affection and loyalty, respect and interdependence in the Anglican Communion. Let us remember that arrogance has never been, and will never be, a wise companion for relationships!

Yours ever in Christ,

++ Maurício Andrade

Easter 4A

Smack in the middle of the Chelsea, New York City block of the General Theological Seminary lies the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. Charles, Scott and I all attended that seminary — as did the son of the first bishop of Vermont, John Henry Hopkins, Jr. Our lives were informed by that chapel, whose presence dominates the block between 9th and 10th Avenues and 21st and 20th Streets, a block which seminarians call ‘the Close’ and it can get that way sometimes.

The chapel is a beautiful example of late 19th-century Gothic architecture, compact in footprint but impressive in stature. The stained glass windows, wood-carvings of the stalls and rood screen, marble altar, and mosaic floors delight the eye and provide a worshipper in that space imagery to accompany the music and words heard within. If one so desires, one can go to Morning Prayer, Eucharist, Evensong (Rite I) and Compline every day. That regular Benedictine rhythm of worship becomes a critical piece of formation and, in my case, has carried me, at least in memory, for 15 years of ordained ministry.

Above the altar is a reredos in whose centre is a statue of the Good Shepherd, Jesus. He tenderly looks down at the lamb in his arms who looks back up at him. In his left hand, he holds a brass staff, clearly a bishop’s crozier in feeling. At his right side sits a lamb looking out to the congregation. During my days at General, a small statue of the Virgin Mary was tucked behind the large statue, a reminder of another important person in the story (!).

Oddly, despite having a book completely devoted to the history of the chapel, Through the Gates, Into the City: A Metropolis, a Seminary and a Chapel, by Timothy Boggs, I couldn’t find the answer I wanted for this sermon: Why did the visionary Dean Eugene Hoffman who was responsible for the great plan that created the seminary we know today call the worship space, ‘Chapel of the Good Shepherd’? Did he want the future priests to see themselves as shepherds, to lead their congregations, their ‘flock,’ as Jesus leads us? Probably.

Oddly, too, I never really asked myself these questions as I went in and out of that chapel for three years but they arose this week since I was back at the seminary at a conference. Just as the chimes of the seminary bells have a lot of overtones (some almost out of tune), so does the reference to ‘the Good Shepherd,’ whom we remember today.

In the readings of this morning, we have overtone references to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, bishops and even the blessing we use at the burial office. It is a lot to tackle but I want to consider Jesus calling us by name and how we respond to that charge.

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Every Fourth Sunday of Easter — whether it is year A, B, or C in our lectionary — we hear some portion from the gospel of John’s description of the Good Shepherd. This year’s gospel reading can be summed up in this one verse: The Good Shepherd knows his sheep, calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

In Jesus’ time, a honourable shepherd was a contradiction in terms. All shepherds were viewed as thieves, as men who exposed their women to shame by leaving them uncared for while they pastured their sheep. They were considered immoral men because they spent more time around their sheep than their wives.

But Jesus draws a picture of a shepherd who is good and noble and honourable. He enters the door instead of sneaking in some other way. The gatekeeper recognises him as the genuine shepherd of the flock and permits him to enter. All others would be barred. If one takes into consideration that often times families would share a common sheep pen with other members of their extended family, one kinsperson—who knew all the shepherds—would be the designated gatekeeper.

The good shepherd leads the sheep in and out. This characteristic is a little more difficult to appreciate because people who raise sheep might insist that shepherds do not lead sheep, they follow them. However, in the Middle East, some shepherds walk before the sheep and call them with a peculiar cry. It is this special cry that guides the sheep.

Jesus is merely expanding upon the image of the good shepherd as presented in the Hebrew Scriptures. Moses is urged to find someone who can lead the congregation. Joshua was likened to a shepherd. But then Jesus takes the image one step further and calls himself the gate through which the sheep must pass to gain life — that is, salvation. Sheep who find pasture through Jesus find life in abundance. Immediately following what we have heard, Jesus will clearly state in one of the six, I AM sayings of John’s Gospel, ‘I am the Good Shepherd.’ Jesus, then, is the gate and the shepherd: the way to life and the one who preserves it.

What about those whom Jesus calls? Think about all the people with whom Jesus spoke and those to whom he particularly paid attention. The Samaritan woman at the well. The blind man. The lame man. Lazarus, dead four days. Nicodemus. The tax collectors. Women and children. The widowed and poor. The outcasts. The outsiders. Those were the sheep Jesus called. He called to the rich, the Pharisees, the Saducees, too — he knew they needed to hear his cry, but he paid special attention to all the outsiders of the system.

Perhaps that reason is deep down inside why the image of the good shepherd is so strong for us. Deep down in hearts, somewhere, some time, we know what it is like to be an outsider, an outcast. I also think honestly we know what it is like when we reduce someone to the status of outsider or outcast, when we call someone by a name other than the one which was given them at their birth. Not calling someone by their name reduces their humanity; it diminishes them. We’ve been there, on both sides of the coin.

So, even though we may have warm fuzzy images of sheep and their shepherd, what lies behind them is a harder truth: as those called by Jesus, our great shepherd of the sheep, we must respect and find him in each other. That takes a lot more work. However, as those marked and sealed as Christ’s own, there is no choice.

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I return in thought back to the seminary chapel I love. For, even though earlier theology of priesthood and the episcopacy point to the ordained person leading the ‘flock’ and being in charge with all the answers, things have mercifully changed. (My jaw fairly dropped when a priest in a panel discussion said in all earnestness, ‘I protected my people from that divisive subject.’) Somehow, treating all of you like sheep is not my vision of priesthood. It is not how I see living out a life based in Christ’s teachings.

Even as I worshipped looking at that statue of Jesus this week, I also made sure that I sat in front of the word, ‘Humilitas,’ that is one of the seven virtues that are inscribed on the chapel floor in mosaic tile, for it is with humility that we all walk together in our life in Christ.

And part of that humilitas is knowing that, even as God through Jesus calls each one of us by name, so we tenderly call one another by name, the name given us in baptism, our given name and then, ‘beloved child of God.’ Whether a bishop, priest or deacon, fundamentally our name is ‘beloved child of God.’ You and are I are linked together through the waters of baptism and strengthened by this holy meal to find God in others and to call them by name. You don’t have to have gone to seminary to find or live that knowledge out!

One last detail to know is that on the top step are inscribed these words, Blessed are they that enter in through the gates into the City. If we take the image of Jesus as the gate-keeper, he is also the one who leads us back into the world to do the work God has given us. And so we come together, share in the meal Jesus has given us and then go out into our town to bear witness to God’s love. And you don’t have to have gone to seminary to know that either!

It's Sunday!

And I rest, too. I am beat after my trip to NYC.

[from ICHC of course]

Friday cat blogging

Even though I am in NYC, overlooking Tenth Avenue in Chelsea, here are two photos to maintain my Friday cat blogging tradition.


Young Guy looks sooo pleased with his find, an open box on wheels with a freshly clean black wool skirt on which he can nap.


And here's my parent's cat asleep in the sun on the wonderful perch my father made for her. She's now 18 but is in better health than when I was visiting my parents in January.

The Anglican Covenant conference has been good but it has utterly emptied my brain of any intelligence or capacity to do much of anything.

Why am I inside on a Friday night in Chelsea? Dunno but here I am.

Other New York City scenes

Though I am now tied up at the conference at the Tutu Center at the General Theological Center (go see Susan Russell's Inch at a Time for other photos), I did do a little wandering around NYC beforehand on a glorious spring day when the temperatures were in the 70s.

This post toward the end leans heavily on scenes from GTS of what it looks like now which is basically a disaster zone.


I didn't have time to walk all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge, just up to the wooden sidewalk part on the New York City side. It was such a wonderful day out that there were tons of people out crossing it.


The front building, Sherril Hall, at GTS, literally started to fall down so the Board of Trustees decided to take it down and build something better. It was an ugly building that looked like a cross between a post office and a RC seminary (sorry, that is what someone said to me), a drab form of 1960s architecture. It housed the library, guest rooms, faculty apartments, dean's residence, offices and conference room. (It also once upon a time had a bowling alley in the basement.)


My first summer at GTS a bunch of us climbed up on the roof of the building (I can't remember exactly how except it involved climbing up the top of the elevator housing and being hoisted up by an EMT/seminarian) in order to watch the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks that are fired off over the East River.


The grounds of the seminary are called the Close but the Ninth Avenue side doesn't look terribly attractive right now. However, note the flowering trees.


I took this shot of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd from 20th Street. The Chapel is at the middle of the Close. I don't know what the scaffolding is about by it. I will take a better shot that doesn't chop off the top of the tower.


The most bizarre part of all this is staying at the Tutu Center, what used to be a student dorm and faculty apartments (Eigenbrodt and Chelsea 1). I know that the room in which I am staying used to be part of a professor's apartment. I look out on Tenth Avenue and over the drilling for the continued geothermal heating/cooling system the seminary is installing. The Tutu conference center is online with geothermal heating/cooling and eventually the entire seminary will be.

So I return to GTS fifteen years after I graduated. One can never really go back but it is good to visit.

As a postscript, Susan has already posted comments on tonight's presentation by Archbishop Drexel Gomez. For some reason, I can't make the specific link but maybe tomorrow I can.

Saint Paul's Chapel

Once again I am back in NYC and once again I took off downtown. I wandered into Saint Paul's Chapel where there was a high school choir singing. The acoustics are lovely and the song they started, a spiritual, seemed appropriate background for a little walking tour of Saint Paul's. Mind you, this little video is neither high fidelity or high resolution; it is done with a 5 megapixel camera but you can get the gist.

It starts out at a bank of votives (one of which I had just lit), moves to one of the cots on which people working on the pile (the ruins of the World Trade Center) would nap, then looks at the chancel of the church and the choir; it shows a helmet, you can sort of make out a banner up above on the balcony that came from Oklahoma, and one of the remaining pews where people would sleep (I saw all this in December 2001). Then I wander around the back of the church stopping at a site where one can look up names, and then end up at a chasuble that is utterly covered with patches from units all over the place. There is a small photo of a priest wearing the chasuble. And there is someone's identity badge for gaining access to the pile (I believe).



The church still looks so naked to me six almost seven years later without all the postings from people all around the world. There were banners on every square inch of that building. And the pews were filled with notes and blankets, pillows and even teddy bears. The other big difference is that when I first saw it in 2001, it was utterly silent so that people could sleep. To see it now as a chapel/museum with all the activity is good but also so different.

At the close of day...

all I can do is remember in prayer the following:

Dean, 41 years old, who died this afternoon from a short journey with melanoma that got him. He died in the presence of his parents and soon afterward was commended to God by a brother priest...

Naomi, who has had the door of hope cracked a little bit open because she has realised that some doctors just don't know how to communicate tough news to patients. She is not yet 'terminal' but rather has a small chance of 'cure,' nor has she reached the end of the road of treatments.... It's too bad that whoever spoke to her yanked her around for three weeks. Oh, she's not out of the woods yet, but as she wrote on her blog, ' We are not even ready to throw in the towel so get those rosaries back out and start the amens and prayers because we need everyone more then ever!'

Emilee, a 13 year-old whom I only know through the internet, who has been lingering for the past week, thereby giving her mother and sisters some extra time before she dies from Ewings cancer....

Esther, one of our saints, the other surviving Belle of the parish who fell Sunday and broke her pelvis. She will turn 90 on the 18th and, of course, her family had arranged for a big party for her....

my own spiritual well-being as I travel to NYC to the General Theological Seminary (my alma mater) and the Tutu Center for the conference on the draft Anglican Covenant. They've packed so many people into the schedule that I am going to need a caffeine IV to survive.

[photo: zillions of votives lit by pilgrims (including myself) at the start of the Via Podiensis, Chemin de Saint Jacques, Le Puy-en-Velay (Lo Puèi de Velai in the Auvergnat dialect of the Occitan language), France, May 2005. The Virgin of Le Puy is one of the rare Vierge Noires out there.]

Incroyable

An amazing photograph of a day that went awry as far as the planners of the Olympic torch process are concerned. Ce sont des gens qui ont grimpé la Tour Eiffel pour y mettre ce panneau (a bunch of people who climbed up the Eiffel Tower to put this banner there).

Quant à moi, je dis, bravo pour la communauté française.

Tibet libre!

Give it 4 Good

From Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation:

Because I take seriously Christ's admonition that 'where your treasure is, there will your heart be also' (Matthew 6:31), and...

Because I believe reaching out in compassion to the extreme poor around the world is more important than propping up an economy based on unsustainable consumption...

I am donating all or part of my 2008 tax rebate/economic stimulus check (or all or part of the amount I would be receiving if I qualified for a check) to not-for-profit organizations that support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Instead of spending it. I am Giving It For Good.

Go to the above website and take the pledge.

Easter 3A

The ‘Road to Emmaus’ story is another one of the Easter accounts that is so familiar that one almost doesn’t need to say anything about it. (I could stop right here.) It tells from another gospel (Luke rather than John) the disciples’ inability to see Jesus until he reveals himself in a known action, the blessing and breaking of the bread.

Perhaps I smile when this story crops up in the lectionary because it is one of the few stories recounted in our stained glass windows. It is such a wonderful window with its yellows and oranges that light up the corner of the church by the Mary altar, especially in the middle of the winter when it can be rather gloomy. It is a remarkable window for the pelican that is in the upper centre part (which has its own story). It is a window that we see week in and week out and perhaps ignore.

[Our choir director] three years ago pointed out something I hadn’t ever really paid attention to but ever since do: in the upper right-hand corner, in the grey building, on its second storey, is a balcony. In the doorway, stands a man next to a sitting bare-chested man. It’s hard to know who the two men are but one of the two disciples whom Jesus meets seems to point to the house where the men are.

It makes you wonder: are the men the hosts of where Jesus will have dinner with the disciples and through the breaking of bread reveal to them who he is? Can the two men in the balcony overhear the discussion of the disciples with Jesus? Who are they? One properly clothed, the other looking hurt and marginal? The artist and someone else? You and me overhearing the story? Why did the artist include them in this window?


What if we put ourselves into that balcony and listen to the conversation and watch what happens? For this well-known story from Luke’s gospel is one into which we can place our own life and discover Jesus on our life journey.

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This story carries many elements that have popped up again and again throughout Luke’s gospel: there is the importance of accompaniment and breaking of bread; there’s table fellowship; there’s a journey. Most important, this story fulfils Luke’s over-riding theme of recognition (epignosis), set out at the beginning of the gospel. Luke tells Theophilus [lover of God] to whom he is writing the gospel that he is doing so that he may recognize this Jesus. Such recognition of Jesus’ presence — one of those deep ‘aha’ moments — is what the road to Emmaus story is about. Recognition of Jesus and how we respond is what the post-Easter journey is about. And recognition of Jesus and how we respond is what our entire life journey is about.

Just as last week’s gospel narrative is very well known, so is today’s. The two disciples, one named, the other not, are walking away from Jerusalem to Emmaus, another place historically associated with terrible defeat and trauma. Though Jesus had commanded the disciples earlier to stay in the city of Jerusalem, they have abandoned it.

So, on the road to Emmaus, these two disciples are fleeing the pain of Jesus' execution and the city in which it happened. A stranger approaches and accompanies them along the way, walking with them, even as they go in the wrong direction in more ways than one. A dialogue ensues over the afternoon and evening that transposes an oppressive story into a liberating one. Then all becomes clear when Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them. He teaches them and as soon as the disciples get it, he disappears from their midst. With their new understanding, they take off back to Jerusalem, pounding those seven or eight miles under their feet.

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I want to go back to our stained glass window and look at this gospel story from a slightly different angle than I have in previous years. I want us to imagine that we are the disciples who exclaim to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ Further, I want us to picture ourselves on the road, with the two men in the balcony overhearing and watching us as we figure it out and think about how we’d respond to them.

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Have you ever been deep in conversation when a stranger interrupts you? And this stranger then asks you what you’ve been talking about? Has this ever happened while you were talking about your faith, God, Jesus, church, communion, or prayer? (I am assuming that you sometimes talk about these matters!) And has this happened in a context other than here?

A couple of occasions come to mind. There was the time that five of us were having dinner at the Chef’s Table in Montpelier (I was a guest). Three of us were very involved in General Convention and, therefore, The Episcopal Church governance. The other two were not but as our conversation rambled along, it evolved into a larger discussion about faith, religion, teaching, politics, and more. Finally our waitperson could no longer stand it and, as discretely as possible (which wasn’t), asked, ‘What are you all anyway?’

Another time, three years ago in France on the Chemin, in a little bitty café that sat about a dozen people, I started talking en français with the man at the table next to me. It started out the usual pilgrim conversation: ‘Where are you from? How far have you walked? How far are you going? Why are you walking? What has the pilgrimage meant to you thus far?’ But then it got into deeper waters. My conversation partner admitted he was a lapsed Catholic, a ‘spiritual but not religious’ person. We delved into some pretty deep theology: ecclesiology, the incarnation, sin, redemption, suffering, and more. As we continued on, I noticed that the other conversations in the restaurant had stopped and we had a small crowd listening in on our conversation.

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So, what if our hearts burned with Christ’s instruction and we were to convey that energy and passion to others in a place other than here? What would it take for us to open not just the scriptures but also our faith to others in a non-traditional setting? How would we respond if someone interrupted us with the question: Just what are you anyway?

We don’t have to have all the answers to life’s mysteries or those of our faith in order to be able to talk with others about our spiritual journey or the church or God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. We can bring our passion and love to bear to these moments. We needn’t be afraid of those people in the balcony eavesdropping on our conversations. For all we know, they might want to know more.

And, if they do, there is one more step that has to come from us: We have to invite them to come and see. Come and see why we drag ourselves out of bed on a minus-ten-degree morning to come to church for fifty minutes (8.00)/an hour and a half (10.00). Come and see why this meal we share matters so much to us. Come and see that, though the pews may be squeaky and may pinch us on occasion, the sweet fellowship and safety we find here — to be, to weep, to smile, to pray, to let go of all pretenses — are more important than cushiony seats. Come and see what it means to enter into mystery through our music, our worship and our prayers. Come and see this community of prayer. Most of all, invite them to come and see what it is that sets our hearts on fire, what makes them burn, what gives us meaning to life.

Come, gracious God, and speak to us in your still voice.
Come, risen Jesus, and be known to us in the breaking of bread.
Come, Holy Spirit, and set our hearts on fire.

And help us to make you known to others as you have been made known to us.

Spring is trying to come

After spending the morning fussing with Flat Stanley, sent to us by Compa's great-niece and our God-daughter, after taking him to the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge, a local farm and a sugar bush,


we came back to survey our own place.


We went snowshoeing to see the winter damage, mostly that wrought by the beavers. They chomped down several birch trees that had been protected by cages only the snow is so deep (three feet still in places) that they were able to gnaw the trees down. Zut alors.

In my brief tour outside, look what I found!


These day lilies are right up against the house on a southern exposure. It will be a while before the snowdrops can come up because there still is way too much white stuff on the ground.

This entry is total fluff because it's a Saturday night and I need to polish my sermon and get to bed at a decent hour. More intellectual thoughts must await another time (if there ever be any here....!).

Meanwhile, iTunes shuffle gives me a little Tinariwen to close up the night.

Friday cat blogging

This the scene downstairs and upstairs.



I don't normally string them along like this but for your edification, I did drag out the breakfast prep. Besides, it's hard to prepare food with only one hand (which explains all the crashing noises in the background; the little microphone on the camera really magnifies noise). Turn the volume on — you'll hear a little bit of commentary from them (and none from me!) and get a good idea of Miss Agatha's purr that comes through even as she meows.

The routine is that La Doyenne circles round and round the kitchen island and as she goes by Orange Guy, she either whacks him or he her. So that is the two rounds of fighting. Meanwhile, Young Guy keeps jumping up on the counter. I took this sequence standing in the corner of the kitchen, next to the stove on my right (where YG jumps) with their food bowls on my left. La Doyenne is like a shark as she goes around. And OG looks as bewildered in this sequence as he often is in life.

Caption this!

For more photos from the summit, go to Mock, Paper, Scissors.

Whaddya think?

Is this what the bishop of the Southern Cone (and I suppose a few others) wakes up to in the morning, an upside-down mitre?

Many apologies to any cat or dog that has had to endure an Elizabethan collar and to their people who are torn between laughing and crying at seeing their poor animal try to escape (my cats back up thinking they can worm their way out of it in reverse) being in a lampshare out of which they can't see anything.

Frankly, between the news of the Church of Wales' clergy choking on the possibility of women bishops and the recent thread of comments chez Fr Jake Stops the World, my heart is so dispirited and grumpy that a photo from I Can Haz Cheezburger is about all I can muster.

No links because I think the crowd (?) that reads this blog already has them.

End of day prayers

'To you before the close of day....'

No great thoughts tonight because it has been a long day. I just ask your prayers for Naomi and also for

• Emilee, a 13 year-old in her last hours, dying from Ewings cancer (same cancer as Naomi's) — the photo currently on her page is a shot of her, taken from the back, showing off her bald head and she points to the logo on the back of her t-shirt which says it all: 'Cancer sucks.'

• Seth, a 10 year-old, suffering from medicine-induced seizures that are related to his treatment for leukemia.

I don't know these children (Naomi received notes from their families and has directed us to pray for them, too) but their sites are also part of the 'Caring Bridge' network which is a free website service for critically ill patients and their families. The respective hospitals help sponsor it but donations are also accepted.

Pray for them and for their families.

'Guide us waking, O Lord,
and guard us sleeping
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.'

Poisson d'avril!

Some of you will know where this photo was taken (circa 1991 or 1992).

Happy April Fools.