Bartholomew Fair

Alexander Pope’s 1728 Dunciad begins:

Books and the man I sing, the first who brings
The Smithfield muses to the ears of kings.

In his notes to these lines in the Dunciad Variorum, 1729, the learned Scriblerus tells us that

“Smithfield is the place where Bartholomew Fair was kept, whose Shews, Machines, and Dramatical Entertainments, formerly agreeable only to the taste of the Rabble, were, by the Hero of this Poem and others of equal Genius, brought to the Theatres of Covent-Garden, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and the Hay-Market, to be the reigning Pleasures of the Court and Town.”

There’s quite a bit of information about Bartholomew Fair available on the internet – I don’t particularly like to do research for blog entries anywhere else. A 1614 play by Ben Jonson called Bartholomew Fair takes place at the fair and gives us a glimpse of what the fair was like about a century before Pope’s reference to it. By Jonson’s time, the fair was already centuries old. It started (according to Wikipedia) in 1133 and continued until it was suppressed in 1855, at which time the Smithfield Market was built on the site of the fair. The fair took place annually for three or more days beginning on August 24th, the Feast of St. Bartholomew, in an area adjacent to the Priory of St. Bartholomew and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. The hospital, the priory, and the fair are all said to have been founded by Rahere, a courtier of Henry I who is reported to have had a religious conversion after the disastrous shipwreck of the White Ship in November. 1120. (The loss of the White Ship and it’s aftermath provide the historical background for Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth – a book, by the way, that I do not find compelling enough to finish.)

At the dissolution of the monasteries, much of the priory was pulled down and the hospital lost its funding. Henry VIII therefore provided the hospital with its own foundation – and it continues to this day. We know that the hospital was referred to as “Bart’s” in the nineteenth century because the noted Dr. Watson tells us that he was connected with Bart’s before his service in Afghanistan and that after he was invalided back to England, Stamford, a younger associate from his hospital days, took him back to Bart’s to meet a man who was looking for someone to share lodgings. That man was Sherlock Holmes.

Along with the hospital, two churches called St. Bartholomew’s remain from the days of the priory. St. Bartholomew the Less is located within the hospital grounds and is called “the less” to distinguish it from its larger neighbor, the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great (often called Great St. Bart's) which contains the tomb of the founder, Rahere.

Recently an event involving two men less well known than Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but this time real persons, put Great St. Bart’s in the news. That event was the blessing of a civil union of two Anglican priests (both male) that closely resembled a wedding. The news broke two weeks after the ceremony itself – here’s a link to the first mention at Thinking Anglicans and another to The Lead at Episcopal Café. Both of those sites have posted followup stories. There has also been quite a bit of comment elsewhere in the blogosphere and in the press.

In the Dunciad, Pope lamented what he saw as a decline of taste, as popular entertainment, the taste of “the rabble,” spread from Smithfield to London's West End and to Westminster. He called it “the Progress of Dulness.” These days something else is emanating from Smithfield. I am hopeful that the emblematic ceremony at Great St. Bart’s on the Feast of the Visitation will prove to be another step in the right direction for the Anglican churches – and, of course, for the Church of England.

The Political Compass

Economic Left/Right: -8.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.72

Thanks to Tobias (and ultimately to Mimi) I discovered The Political Compass.
I took the test and found myself way down towards the corner in the third quadrant.

Over at Mimi's, I found that I was in the company of johnnieb and pj, both of whom were at the MadPriest gathering last fall. Most of the folks were in the same quadrant, but rather closer to the origin (center.)

This was my introduction to the two-dimensional Cartesian approach to political analysis, and I am impressed by the approach. Unlike most of the tests found on websites, this one is non-trivial.

There's darn little information on the website to identify the originators -- which I think is a shame -- and also nothing to clearly identify how the center is defined. The website has a reading list of writers in each of the four quadrants -- I would like to know where each of the writers falls on the graph.

In my local situation (Morningside Gardens, my housing coop,) I am involved in governance, and thus in a political situation. I am keenly aware of the distinction between the desirable and the achievable -- and probably few of my acquaintances know just how far to the bottom left I am.

Jerusalem, dearest

Fifty years ago, I graduated from Hamilton College. Hamilton was a small school then – our class totaled about 130 men at graduation. I certainly didn’t know everybody, but I knew who everybody was – and not just for my class – we all knew who most of the other students were.

This past weekend I attended my first reunion – the fiftieth. I had given some thought to attending other reunions – and now I regret that I never did. One reason I stayed away was that I was not in a fraternity – and not by choice – nobody wanted me. I was in a select group – 10% of my class – who were so-called “independents.” It was not until I had been out of college for ten or more years that I articulated to myself the anger at Hamilton that I felt because I had not received a bid to a fraternity. I hope to reflect more on that topic later – for now I’ll turn the page.

During my fifteen years with Rex, the occasion never arose to return to College Hill -- from 1961 to 1973 I used up all of my vacation time in annual trips to Europe. Shortly after Liz and I were married in 1975 we visited upstate New York and as part of the trip we drove through the Hamilton campus. Liz tells me she doesn’t remember that quasi-visit and I have no clear memory of it myself, so that flyby visit doesn’t really count. On June 5, 2008, I returned to College Hill for the first time in fifty years. As we pulled into the parking lot beside Emerson Hall for registration, I teared up. It really was a homecoming – I’ve not finished processing the emotions I felt and still feel about the visit.

On occasion I have observed that talking about experiences and feelings is like peeling an onion all the way down to the center. In this case, I’ll start with the most recent impressions – the end of reunion weekend –and then I expect to work backwards.

Before the class dinner Saturday evening, Liz and I went to the rehearsal of the mixed voice reunion choir – the choir sang two anthems during the Service of Remembrance on Sunday morning. I never sang while I was at Hamilton – I’m really sorry, because I might have been a better singer if I had. Sunday morning after breakfast we rehearsed again, and then came the service. My uncle Chuck, class of ‘46, came up from Binghamton for a special breakfast and the memorial service, and he and Nancy came into the chapel while we were rehearsing. Liz and I went downstairs from the gallery to greet them in the brief interval between the rehearsal and the service, spoke to them again after the service, and then joined them and two of Chuck’s contemporaries for the closing lunch. We got our money’s worth at that lunch – we both ate enough for both lunch and dinner. We did not need to eat again after we got to Heart Lake.

It was fun connecting with Chuck and Nance on the campus and at the reunion. Chuck is only 12 years older than I and I have memories of him from about the time I was 5 and he was 17 – he of course remembers me from even earlier – I was his first nephew and we have always had a special tie – which has become stronger in recent years.

When we got to the chapel for our rehearsal, the Baldwin choir – named for John Baldwin, the choir director of my time – was finishing their rehearsal of music for the choral prelude to the service. Suddenly they sang Parry’s Jerusalem (the original, with Blake’s words.) My first post on this blog in November 2006 included a story about Jerusalem at St. Mary's. That song gets to me – both the tune and the hokey Blake words – replete with English nationalism and Glastonbury legend.

The Service of Remembrance was structured like a generic Protestant worship service – complete with scripture readings – the New Testament reading was from Matthew, the beatitudes (5:1 - 12) and the light of the world (5:14 - 16.) There were psalms, prayers, and a sermon by one of my classmates. The service managed to be both worshipful and almost completely devoid of explicit Christian content. The main part of the service was the reading of the names of members of the reunion classes who had died in the past five years.

After the blessing and dismissal we all sang Carissima, Hamilton’s alma mater, written by Melancthon Woolsey Stryker, class of 1872, who was a Presbyterian Minister and President of Hamilton College from 1892 to 1917. Carissima is sung to a tune by the Italian composer Fabio Campana. (Using only internet resources, I have not found any information about the tune – Campana was a composer of operas and songs and lived from 1819 to 1882.)

As we were driving to the college, I sang Carissima to Liz, then on the Hill we sang it twice – the first time was at the Annual Meeting of the Alumni Association on Saturday. Both times I was briefly moved to tears. I cry easily, but I was surprised at my reaction to Carissima. I did notice Chuck with a handkerchief at the same point I cried.

That was the first layer of the onion of feelings and impressions about my return to Hamilton.

Tiles and Open Market

Open market was defeated. Now Liz's and my attention can turn to other things.

We went to Heart Lake on Friday and found Brad and his son just wrapping up in the kitchen. We were fairly wiped out when we got there and didn't do very much Friday night -- oh, I almost forgot about the water. Brad had turned on the water for us, but had discovered that the bathtub wouldn't shut off -- and I don't have shut off valves just for the tub, so he turned the water o.ff at the tank. I took a look late Friday to see if there was anything I could do. There wasn't, so we in effect camped out, but at least we had water to fill pails. My main task Saturday was mowing the lawn -- it's a big lawn, the grass was very high -- and it took me four or more hours. After that I didn't feel like tackling the water system.

We decided to leave the tiles as they are for now -- so we have ten extra tiles.


For several reasons we did not stay at Heart Lake for the entire weekend. We drove back to NY early Sunday morning so as to get to church for the 10 AM service. Earl preached and Luis Barrios celebrated.

Now it's Tuesday so I'll post this.

Open Market and Tiles

Liz was very caught up in the campaign to defeat the proposal to go to open market pricing here at Morningside Gardens. I supported that effort, but there were a couple of reasons that I felt unable to take an active role in the campaign.

On Wednesday, the day before the vote, however, I did help in flyering one of the buildings -- I doubt whether the flyers distributed that late had much of an effect on the vote -- and they certainly didn't change the outcome.

I'm not saying what the outcome was, because I am writing this before the results have been officially released.

On Thursday evening, as I was looking at my calendar as the Personnel Committee tried to select a date for our next meeting, I realized that once again I had missed the Wednesday night Bible study.

This morning, Liz and I are going to Heart Lake for part of the Memorial Day weekend. We have not yet decided when we will return, but it will probably be on Monday -- in part it depends on what we find there and in part on how anxious we are to get back home.

The campaign against open market pricing has had a significant effect on our domestic life -- things have bee n put of that we are eager to get back to. Also, we are leaving for Vermont and then Hamilton in just over a week, so there is pressure to be here in New York and not off in the country.

We have been having work done at the cottage. One of the biggest pieces was tiling the kitchen -- we used tles that had been left over from our kitchen at home. There is no clear demarcation between the kitchen and a downstairs study, but we want one more row of tiles to make the kitchen area a lttle larger. Both on Monday and yesterday, we went looking for more tiles that would blend in with those already on the floor. Finally, we found some and we will be taking them with us for the contractor to use in the next few weeks.

I have no idea what state the kitchen will be in when we get there -- we expect it at least to be usable for cooking -- and we will probably be able to start putting things away -- that is, if the countertops are installed. We'll see.

I'm posting this even though i have more to say.

Trinity Eve

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was running for the Board of Directors here at Morningside Gardens. Well, I was elected as I foresaw and there was also an effort on the part of some board members to persuade me to run for president of the coop. Luckily for me, there weren't enough votes to elect me, so I escaped. I was nominated at the organizational meeting, but I declined. If it had come toa vote and if I had voted for myself the result would have been a five-five tie, which would have launched the year on a note that I think would have been singularly unfortunate.

In addition to real life, which we have had a little time for, Liz and I have been very engaged in the current debate here at Morningside Gardens over open market pricing. I hope it is voted down and I have been helping those who are actively campaigning for its defeat. I have not felt able to actually campaign publicly against it myself -- for a number of reasons I won't go into here. But my opposition is no secret.

The engagement with Morningside Gardens affairs has been enormously absorbing and even distracting. For example, this past Wednesday I completely forgot to go to the next to last session of a Bible study series using Crossan's God and Empire as a basis. Oh well, there's one more session -- I hope nothing keeps me from that.

My 50th college reunion is coming up in three weeks. Liz and I are going to Vermont to visit Amanda and her parents Jane and Scott at the beginning of that week and then we'll drive to Clinton on the Thursday for the reunion.

I think I have only been on campus once since 1958, and that was only to drive through without stopping shortly after Liz and I were married. My memories of college life are not entirely happy -- but I am glad to be going back this year. So far, none my particular friends from that time have indicated they will be there --- I haven't kept up with anyone, so I have to check the alumni web pages to see who's coming. Anyway, it will be interesting.

Also this spring, Liz and I are having work done on our Heart Lake cottage kitchen, and we have visited the cottage twice -- each time was a day trip. We'll have to get up there next week to mow the lawn.

Video

The April editon of Focus at Episcopal Life Online includes a segment on St' Mary's and friends chanting the Great Litany in Procession at the Isiah Wall in Ralph Bunche Park across from the UN. Thanks to Father Jake for pointing to this. The procession shown in the segment was on the fourth Friday in Lent, when I was unable to join them. (Liz and I were in Vermont, visiting Jane, Scott and Amanda.) Several persons I have mentioned on this blog can be seen in the video including of course our rector, Earl Kooperkamp. The thurifer was Miguel, the crucifer was Sarah, the cantor was Ishmael, and there is also a good shot of Janet.
Janet and Ishmael (and Earl) can also be seen in the photo I posted here from the fifth Friday.

Babble

Today was my 72nd birthday. I had a Finance Committee meeting at St. Mary’s at 10 AM. Then Liz and I went to the 1 PM showing of Body of War in Greenwich Village. That was the extent of the celebration.

It’s been a while since I posted anything here. Just for my own sake, I’ve decided to try to account for that.

The first and short answer is that I have been filling my free time reading – and doing light reading at that. I have just finished rereading most of the Orson Scott Card’s Ender and Ender Universe stories – I lost my copy of Children of the Mind in a copy store last week and have ordered a used copy from BetterWorld.com. Now I am reading Martha Gtrimes’ latest, Dakota. And still waiting is Robert B. Parker’s Stranger in Paradise. I’ll soon be saturated and sated with light fiction.

A good deal of my attention has been devoted to matters here at Morningside Gardens where I live. We are preparing for a vote in May as to whether we will cease being a voluntarily limited equity cooperative and simply go to open market pricing. My own position is complicated – I don’t want to go to open market, but I have worked hard on the required amendments to our bylaws and lease to bring us to open market. At the same time, Liz is actively campaigning for a NO vote.

I am also running for the board of directors here. If I am elected it will be the sixth time I have served on the board. There are ten candidates for four spots and I have no idea what my chances are.

So Morningside Gardens and light fiction have occupied far too much of my attention recently. And if I am elected to the board, Morningside Gardens will continue to occupy much of my attention. Many people want me to be president of the coop again – I have already been president twice before. I have said – and I mean it – that I am not running to be president. We have a president who has strengths that I do not have and I am not going to challenge her. But if a sufficient number of board members want to replace her, and if I am indeed elected to the board, then it’s possible that I will be “drafted.” I have no idea whether that is likely or not. I do know that if the board does elect me as president, then I will have to devote a lot of time to the job. Last time I was president I carried much of the burden alone and made some decisions that I later regretted – but I’ve already said enough about Morningside Gardens.

Late last summer I decided to publish on the web my Master’s Essay on Alexander Pope’s 1728 Dunciad. I have moved that project to a back burner for a number of reasons, but it is still bubbling along quietly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been steadily reading the major works of John Dominic Crossan. Here at last I have found a way to read scripture that is both intelligent and faithful. Right now I am somewhere in The Birth of Christianity. It’s slow going, because Crossan makes his argument both carefully and thoroughly.

So for all of these reasons and maybe more I’ve slacked off on blog reading, and on blog posting. I’ll get back to it though.

Bob Castle

I learned this evening that there was a video of Bob Castle on YouTube:

Not so Low Sunday

Yesterday morning at St. Mary’s, Manhattanville, we were joined by friends old and new. I’ll just mention three with national reputations.

First, the Gospeller was the Rev. Patricia (Patty) Ackerman, who was at St. Mary’s as a seminarian in 1991 when our Rector was arrested for sitting in at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Patty has been active in Integrity, Code Pink, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She can be seen with Cindy Sheehan here.

Then the sermon was given by our former rector, the Rev. Robert (Cousin Bobby) Castle. Bobby’s cousin Jonathan Demme, the film director, was in the congregation. Bob Castle has appeared in several movies directed by his cousin, including an uncredited appearance at the end of The Silence of the Lambs.

Bob’s sermon was in large part about the evils of the wars the US is involved in. He lives now in northern Vermont and serves four small churches in the Diocese of Quebec where they pray for the Queen. The withdrawal of Prince Harry from Afghanistan led him to note that every soldier is a prince or princess in their own family and every prince and every princess deserves to come home to be taken out of harm’s way.



Bob spoke about his love for the Episcopal Church and its support both of women and of gay and lesbian people. He also had kind words for the United Church of Christ, home to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

At the end of his sermon Bob reminded us that Jesus is alive (Christ is arisen!) And that we Episcopalians can learn from our evangelical and pentecostal brothers and sisters how to live with an awareness of the closeness of God.

After church I was talking with a friend who works at 815. Speaking about recent and future events in the Episcopal Church I said that one of the problems of people on our side is that many of us are too nice to the opposition. My friend knew exactly what I meant and said Bishop Katharine does not have that fault. Let the church say "Amen1"

Here Come Da Judge

This past Tuesday, the adoption of our granddaughter Amanda was completed. As you can see, Amanda was in charge.

Here is the happy family, Scott, Jane, and Amanda:

Five Years of Praying for Peace

Every Lent for the past five years, some of us at St. Mary's, Manhattanville, along with some of our friends, have been singing the Great Litany in procession at the Isaiah Wall in Ralph Bunche Park opposite the United Nations. We are praying for an end to the war in Iraq. This year we did it on the two Fridays preceding Holy Week, and also on Wednesday in Holy Week, the fifth anniversary of the invasion.


The picture shows most of us who processed on March 14, with a banner which we hung on the fence while we processed. The banner was made by Nathanael Kooperkamp, the son of our rector Earl Kooperkamp, and says "The Episcopal Church: Praying for Peace Since 1789." I don't know the names of three of the people in the picture, so I won't identify anyone except me -- I'm the guy in the brown jacket standing next to the banner.

I was not able to get to the procession on either March 7 or March 19. Today is Holy Saturday and I hope to observe it by joining at noon in River to River -- people joining hands across 14th Street to protest the Iraq war.

Forty years ago the United States was engaged in another war -- in Vietnam. I was not politically conscious then. At St. Mary's we talked about the civil rights movement, but we didn't talk about the war.

I was very interested in what was going on at the Metroplitan Opera. For example, on April 1, 1967, the Met broadcast the new opera "Mourning Becomes Electra;" on April 4, Martin Luther King delivered his speech "A Time to Break Silence" at Riverside Church. I was excited by the opera and completely unconscious of the speech.

Even the events of the spring of 1968 didn't wake me up. I was shocked by the assassinations of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968 and of Robert F. Kennedy on June 6 the same year. But while I remained strongly stirred by the civil rights movements, I still held to the unexamined belief that we live in a good country. We don't do bad things. We don't engage in unjust wars. So the war could not be a wrong thing. I don't think like that any more.

---------

St. Mary's is a small church and we haven't done a full fledged Easter Vigil in a few years. But we will do a vigil at 6 AM on Easter, complete with new fire, Exsultet, and Paschal candle. I'm going to try to be there.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

Good Friday

When I first started going to St. Mary’s, Manhattanville, we did not have a three hour service on Good Friday. Rex and I used to go to one of the larger churches in Manhattan to hear some outstanding preaching of the passion.

Then, around 1970, we started doing the three hours at St. Mary’s, usually with meditations by several persons. On three or four Good Friday’s in the past four decades I have given one of the meditations. This afternoon, Liz will be giving a meditation. I’m looking forward to it.

For many years, both Liz and I sang in the choir at St. Mary’s. This year we have been recruited to assist in singing Randall Thompson’s Alleluia on Easter. On both Wednesday and Thursday we were there for rehearsals preceding the Tenebrae and Maundy Thursday services, and we added our voices to the choir for those services (in which the choir didn’t vest but sat in the congregation.)

I read at both services. At Tenebrae on Wednesday I read from “The Treatise of Saint Augustine the Bishop on the Psalms” and at the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday I read the lesson from Exodus. I am not a great fan of foot washing. Since we have begun doing the foot washing ceremony at St. Mary’s, I have had various responses. Some years I enter into it – other years I sit it out. This happened to be a year that I sat it out. I think part of my problem with it is that in a culture and at a time of year when everyone wears shoes – it being too cold for sandals or flip flops – the artificiality of foot washing overrides the symbolism, so it just seems strange.

As I mentioned on Palm Sunday, I have been doing a lot of reading in the works of John Dominic Crossan. Following Crossan (and many other Christian scholars and theologians), I fully believe that it is a mistake to read the passion narratives as history. They are stories that contain truth – not historical truth but truth nonetheless. I pity people whose faith is so weak that they have to believe in the literal truth of the Bible.

Was there a man called Jesus? Yes. Was he executed under Pontius Pilate? Yes. Do we know the particulars of his arrest? No. Was there a trial? It’s not likely. Was he crucified? Almost certainly. How was he buried? Most likely not in a new tomb; perhaps not at all.

What about the resurrection? Historically, we have no idea . We do have the testimony of Paul that Jesus appeared, first to others and then to him. As a Christian, I believe in the resurrection, not as a metaphor but as something that was actually experienced by the first Christians. But that is a topic for Easter. Today is the day we re-experience the tremendous loss when Jesus was taken from us, humiliated, tortured, and brutally killed.

Ah! Holy Jesus. How hast thou offended?

Palm Sunday

Wow! It's been almost two months since I posted anything!

This morning I read the role of the Evangelist in Matthew's passion narrative at St. Mary's (Manhattanville) and then cut out to head down to Cooper Union for the final afternoon of the Left Forum. In the nearly 20 years I have been attending Left Forum and its predecessor the Socialist Scholars Conference, this is the second time, I think, that it has coincided with Palm Sunday. (Once it began on Good Friday and concluded on Easter!) But this is also the first time there were three panels dealing with religion in a serious manner. I attended all three and I hope to write about them in the coming days.

There are a number of reasons I haven't written. First, I have been amazingly busy. A few days before my last post (which was January 26, 2008) I both agreed to run once adain for the Board of Directors of Morningside gardens (my housing coop) and to serve as chair of the Open Market Design Committee. I want to say more about both of these matters later.

Second, while there have been significant developments in Anglicanland during the past seven weeks, I have been to busy to make timely intelligent comments on them.

Third, Liz and I went to Binghamton and Heart Lake for an overnight trip which took more time and energy than the actual trip would suggest was likely. (That trip, by the way, meant that we were not able to meet with Mimi (who we have recently joined in the grandparent business) during her recent trip to New York -- I'm so jealous of those who got to spend time with her -- Tobias, QFC, Rev Boy, and all. Goddammit, I'm gay too!!!

Fourth, Liz and I spent a week in Vermont with our daughter Jane, son-in-law Scott, and granddaughter the adorable Amanda.

And then I was reading. I read the blogs and even some of the comment threads pretty faithfully. (I mean on our side.) And I am embarked on a serious reading of John Dominic Crossan. I'm almost finished with Who Killed Jesus?, the last book of his Jesus trilogy. I'm in the middle of The Birth of Christianity. Without Crossan, I would just go through the motions of affirming the tenets of the Christian faith. Crossan, who seems more orthodox than, say, Matt Kennedy or any other in that camp, provides a way that I can square the parabolic truths of faith with the fruits of a 1950's liberal education. I had to wait until I was almost 72 years old before I could resolve some of the issues. But that could become another digression. I do want to acknowledge, however, that I am just a little obsessed with Matt Kennedy. By chance, about three weeks ago I drove past the church he has wrested from the Diocese of Central New York. Good Shepherd was once a truly Anglo Catholic parish, an oddity in those parts, but in a genuine part of Anglicanism. When my father was warden of Christ Church, I heard a bit about Good Shepherd. There are plenty of solidly evangelical churches around Binghamton -- some more conservative than others. My brother Curtis attended the Community Baptist Church in Port Dickinson -- my sister-in-law and my nephew still go there -- my maternal grandparents were married there -- I went there as a child. The cottage next ours at Heart Lake was bought about six years ago by James Baker, the music director at WPEL, a Christian radio station in Montrose, PA. (After the confirmation by General Convention of the election of Gene Robinson, Liz and I gave Jim a wonderful book for evangelicals by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott and Letha Scanzoni, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? I don't know what he made of it.) But let that topic lie for the moment.

Anyway, I'm back and I hope I can keep in touch.

NOTE: I'll upload this tonight, while it's still Palm Sunday, but I'll add some links tomorrow.
FURTHER NOTE: Here it is Tuesday, and I haven't added links. I'll let it go and not add them.

You Can't Have It Both Ways

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has taken another clarifying step in relation to the Diocese of San Joaquin. She has informed the eight members of the Standing Committee that she no longer recognizes them as the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin.

Part of their offense was acting "in support of an attempt to take the diocese out of the Episcopal Church and into affiliation with the Province of the Southern Cone." Another part was "attempting to organize as the Standing Committee of an entity that identifies itself as an Anglican Diocese of the Province of the Southern Cone."

In short, you must be one or the other, you cannot be both. Now that the Standing Committee is vacant, it only remains for the Bishop to be deposed for the process of reorganizing the diocese to begin.

As has been noted elsewhere, the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church do not contemplate the secession of a diocese.

I paid a visit to SFiF and found that as usual neither the headline writers nor many of the commenters understand what's going on. They claim that Bishop Katharine has somehow acted to dismiss the Standing Committee. In any case, six of them were already dismissed by Bishop Schofield and thus are not members of the Standing Committee of the new Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin (if that is its name.) Whether the six members who were dismissed by Bishop Schofield ultimately choose to stay in the Episcopal Church or leave it, they have forfeited their right to be recognized as members of the standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin. That's not firing by the Presiding Bishop, it's a recognition that they have ceased to act within the Episcopal Church. Why on earth do the so-called "reasserters" object?

Another thing I picked up on SFiF was a piece about a post on MadPriest's blog. In my view, Jonathan passed the bounds of good taste on that one, and so did some of the commenters. But Sarah also crossed a line, which is SOP for that blog.

MadPriest's post and the comments seem to have centered around Matt Kennedy, the former Episcopal priest in Binghamton. I don't know what provoked the ruckus -- I haven't paid that close attention to OCICBW in the past couple of weeks.

I do, on and off, pay attention to what Matt Kennedy has to say. He uses the term orthodox Anglicanism, which to me suggests Cranmer, Hooker, Laud and the other Caroline Divines and a long tradition of comprehensiveness, but to him seems to suggest something else. On SFiF, if you hover over the word orthodox, you learn that they think it means "holding to long-held beliefs." As I see it, one of the long held beliefs that Matt Kennedy and others like him seem to hold to is the notion that the Bible consists of God's instructions to us -- but only on certain matters. I don't have time right now to expand on this thought.

A Big Week

Let’s see. On Sunday I saw for the third time a play about the last days of Socrates. It was put on by our local Morningside Players and I have promised to write a review of it for our local Morningside Gardens News.

Then on Tuesday morning I was urged to run for the Board of Directors of our co-op. After discussing it with Liz, I decided that I would indeed run.

Tuesday was indeed a big day. Right after lunch I headed up to the Columbia Dental School where I had two more dental implants – that makes a total of seven so far. These two went very easily.

Tuesday evening I attended the meeting of the Board of Directors in my capacity as a member of the Bylaws Committee. Our committee was reporting to the board on a plan to go to open market sales – the complete background to this would constitute too long a digression at this point so you’ll have to bear with me. At the board meeting, the board in effect took over the process of designing the plan to be voted on by the stockholders and established an ad hoc committee to design a complete proposal for stockholder approval. It was suggested that I be the chair of the new committee and I accepted. So now I have taken on a big responsibility – chairing the process of producing a viable plan to go to open market.

Thursday I went to the MGCA (Morningside Gardens Cooperators Assembly) meeting because of the open market question. I ended up being the major presenter on the board action -- in part because I've been around and know a lot, and in part because I play it absolutely straight -- I treat all questions, even hostile ones, as serious.

I don’t know how much time I am going to have for fun things like the blogs. I will pay attention to events in Anglicanland, but maybe only the high profile ones. We'll see.

Unihinhibited Abandonment -- Part 2

Sunday afternoon

Well, I didn't get back to this topic for four whole day and in the meantime Bishop Wimberly has come clean about his reasons. I was right -- he is applying a criterion that appears to me to go beyond the facts.

This morning after church I asked my friend at 815 pointblank if s/he knew anything about the Iker situation and s/he said s/he didn't. Even if s/he had known, I didn't expect s/he would be able to tell me. But I'm done speculating on that one -- I'll just watch.

Uninhibited Abandonment

Wednesday morning.

Last night I came home late from a meeting and checked my email. There was the ENS report that the Title IV Review Committee had determined that Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh had abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church, but that the three senior bishops had not consented to his inhibition.
I decided to post this blog entry this morning in real time, as it were. First, I am writing it directly into the Blogger editor rather than offline. Second, I am writing it before I have checked to see what any of the "usual suspects" have to say on the subject.
My intiial reaction is that I am impressed that Bishop Katharine sent the matter to the Title IV Review Committee at this stage. As I wrote earlier, I think it is clear that Bishop Duncan has in fact openly renounced the discipline of the Episcopal Church and that in itself that renunciation constitutes abandonment of the communion of the Episcopal Church. I can only speculate as to why the senior bishops do not agree, but I suspect that at least one of the three senior bishops is applying a criterion that goes beyond the actual facts -- it's like "reasonable doubt" when you're on a jury -- the judge says that reasonable doubt is doubt that you can give a reason for, but then if you vote to acquit no one forces you to give the reason.

Renunciation and Adultery

Friday afternoon, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori inhibited the Bishop of San Joaquin, John-David Schofield.

Bishop Schofield was inhibited according to the canons of the Episcopal Church. First, the Title IV Review Committee certified that he has abandoned the communion of the Episcopal Church. The review committee met on Wednesday and then notified the Presiding Bishop that a majority of the committee agreed that the documentation provided to them "demonstrated that Bishop Schofield has abandoned the communion of this Church by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of this Church." Then on Friday, the three senior bishops with jurisdiction gave their consent for the inhibition and without delay the inhibition was issued.

Now the practical effect of the inhibition, as I see it, is simply to prepare the way for the House of Bishops to vote at their March meeting to depose Bishop Schofield, which will open the way for an interim Bishop to be appointed and for the governance of the Diocese to be reconstituted.

There are undoubtedly practical issues relating to pensions and possibly insurance to be resolved. Most of the clergy in the diocese voted to sever ties with the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the Province of the Southern Cone. It is also true that there will then be litigation over property. Since Bishop Schofield and the other leadership in the Diocese of San Joaquin claim that they are no longer subject to the discipline of the Episcopal Church, nothing much will change on the ground until Bishop Schofield is deposed. Moreover, the inhibition specifically exempts acts relating to “the administration of the temporal affairs of the Diocese of San Joaquin.”

Over a year ago, Bishop Schofield openly declared his intention to renounce the Discipline of the Church. Everybody knew it was coming – all we were waiting for was the act. He had, you might say, already committed renunciation in his heart.

In the Gospel of Matthew (5:27-28) Jesus says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.” But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (NRSV)

It is clear to me that there are at least two other diocesan bishops who have already in their hearts committed “open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or Worship of this Church.” It seems to me that any reasonable person would conclude that both Bishop Duncan and Bishop Iker should be inhibited on the strength of their declared intentions to leave as soon as their dioceses (improperly) vote to go with them.

UPDATE

Father Jake has posted on the Diocese of Fort Worth and in the comments the question of an inhibition of Bishop Iker has been raised (not by me.) In response, I went further there than I did above --- as I see it, Bishop Iker has already openly renounced the discipline of hte Episcopal Church and is thus subject to inhibiton and deposition. Of course, those canonically responsible would have to agree for this to happen, and I strongly suspect that Bishop Katharine will not move unless she is certain that there is agreement at least on inhibition.

Can we hold truths lightly?

Grandmère Mimi left the following comment on my post "Still More Questions." I found my reply was getting so long that I wanted to bring it into a post of its own. Then as I was writing it, I decided to cut it way back.


Allen, I would ask Bishop Katharine which truths we are to hold lightly. Are we to hold lightly that it's not permissible to have a two-tiered membership in the church? Are we to hold lightly that it's not right that certain of the baptized members are not allowed full participation?

If I come to see full inclusion as a matter of justice, then how can I hold that belief lightly? I can regulate what actions I take, but I don't understand what she means by holding this sort of truth lightly..One of the reasons I began to write on my blog is that I did not want to be causing a stir in my church by talking about the subject often.

I use my blog as an outlet, or I would explode. Members of my church know who I am now, and a few read my blog. I'm sure some of them don't much care for what they read there, but they don't have to visit. It's not as though I'm standing next to them haranguing them constantly.

We can curb our words and our actions, but hold our truths lightly? I don't think so,

Dear Mimi,

I don’t know why I am so bent on defending Bishop Katharine – or maybe I do. She’s in an impossible situation. Well, not impossible, but very difficult. I can relate to that, for over the past twenty eight years I have served on the board of my housing co-op three times (five of those years as president) and I have had to preside and try to keep peace during some very contentious times.

I still think that you, Jonathan the MadPriest, the folks at Stand Firm, and lots of others are taking Bishop Katharine's words in too wide a sense and maybe also in too literal a sense.

I don’t think she is asking anyone to hold truths lightly in the sense you mean, at least I don’t want to believe that she is.

People on our side believe that we are called by the gospel to the truths you name – our hermeneutic is such that we are forced to interpret scriptural texts in a particular way. We read scripture through the lens of what we see as God’s desire for distributive justice. But there are sincere, faithful people in the church who don’t see it that way – they have a different hermeneutic.

Just as it is true for us that in Christ there is no distinction among persons (male nor female, straight nor gay, and more,) it is true for those on the other side that Scripture unequivocally condemns same-sex behavior.

How can those on either side hold their truths lightly, if “lightly” means something like saying “This is true, but it doesn’t matter much if you don’t agree “ For those on both sides, it matters a great deal.

Some of us hold our truths tightly and wield them like clubs. I think that is what Bishop Katharine is referring to when she speaks of holding truths more lightly.

There's a lot more I could say -- indeed I have it in draft form, but I'll leave it there.

Let me close with this thought. On Sunday we heard a reading from Jeremiah: 23 that started with these words: Woe to the shepherds who have destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! Says the Lord. ... It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.

I think that Bishop Katharine is doing her best not the scatter the flock.

Peace,
Allen

Still More Questions

For the past week I have been trying to put together a post about some statements by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori that I first saw mentioned at Susan Russell’s An Inch At A Time. The statements were reported in an article in the Los Angeles Times with the curious title “Episcopal leader seeks to mend church rift.”

I was struck by the strength of the responses in the blogs to one remark in particular: “Perhaps, if all sides in the current debate over sexuality and Scripture could hold their truths more lightly, they might yet find a way forward – together.” [In the article, only the words “hold their truths more lightly” are directly attributed to Bishop Katharine.] People on both sides were offended by that remark. MadPriest called it “stupid,” and several others were even more unkind.

I think Bishop Katharine is uttering the hope that we will all take to heart the advice given in James 1:19b-20a. Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. But Bishop Katharine is fully aware how difficult that advice is. “I think the center of the church has heard the message,” she said. “But it’s more of a struggle for people on the edge of the progressive part and the edge of the more conservative part. Both believe in utter faithfulness that they’re right ... and there’s less patience that God will work all things out in the end.”

At her blog Telling Secrets, Elizabeth Kaeton considers “the Great Divide” in our church “between Evangelical Episcopalians/Anglicans and the rest of us in North America.” She was particularly probing to find reasons that account for the “harsh, often violent rhetoric” coming from the “right” and she proposes that part of the answer may lie in class.

Referring both to her own experience growing up and to an essay called “Not My Father’s Religion” by Doug Muder, a Unitarian Universalist pastor, Elizabeth Kaeton points out that many working class people have no time for the luxuries of discernment and asking critical questions and in fact these particular luxuries can often be perceive as dangerous to survival. Life is harsh for many working class people – people who don’t have much room to make mistakes tend to see life in black and white terms. Elizabeth suggests that this may account for “Evangelical resistance – no, repulsion, actually – to ambiguity and paradox, which, for me, are two of the compelling parts which form the nexus of the Spirit of Anglicanism.”

I think both Doug Muder and Elizabeth Kaeton are on to something. Understanding class issues is important in trying to understand what is going on both in our church and in other churches.

Yet I find “harsh, often violent rhetoric” coming from people on the progressive side of this struggle as well as from people on the conservative side. It’s my experience that harsh and violent rhetoric and indeed actual violence usually comes from a place of pain (or remembered pain, or fear of pain.) Class issues can account for some of the pain, but there is also pain that stems from actual personal injuries. That means there are injured people in this struggle who are in need of healing.

So when Bishop Katharine says “it’s a struggle for those at the edges of both the progressive and the conservative parts of the church,” she’s absolutely correct, but when she continues “because both sets of people believe with utter faithfulness that they are right,” she’s only partly right. There’s a lot more to it besides believing we are right. Now I can speak only from the progressive side, and only from a small place on this side. From here I see faithful lesbian and gay sisters and brothers bearing witness to the truth that LGBT folk are God’s children just like everyone else and that no one chooses to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or “queer.” Of course, “the current debate over sexuality and Scripture” is mostly about how LGBT people live, not about who we are. (The sad Jeffrey John episode in the Church of England indicates that it is not really as simple as that.)

I suggest that Bishop Katharine is speaking mostly to and about the “center”of the Episcopal Church. It is in relation to that center that she is suggesting that a way forward together might be found if all sides in the current debate over sexuality and Scripture could hold their truths more lightly. I see the “current debate over sexuality and Scripture” as mostly about authority – authority in the church, authority in the Anglican communion, and the authority of the Bible. But it is also about hermeneutics and about enculturation. Some on the right also see improper accommodation to secular society or even syncretism. It is a debate in which, to use Elizabeth Kaeton’s words, ambiguity and paradox play a major role. Or to use the formulation of John Dominic Crossan, it is a debate about choosing between the radicality of God’s distributive justice and the normalcy of civilization’s retributive justice.

The first chapter of James’s Epistle concludes: If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1: 26-27.

Paul, at end of chapter 12 of 1st Corinthians says “I will show you a still more excellent way.” That way is the way of love. Bridling our tongues, and holding our truths lightly are not the same as ceasing to bear witness to the truth, but are rather part of the way that we can beat witness in a loving manner.

I am not completely satisfied with what I have written here and I put it forward as a kind of thinking out loud, much as Elizabeth Kaeton did with her piece quoted above.

Hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them.

The collect for yesterday (and indeed for most of the whole week) was composed for the second Sunday in Advent for first English Prayer Book in 1549:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. (Spelling and punctuation from the English Book of Common Prayer.)

At his sermon blog, Ekklesiastes, Tobias Haller posted a sermon for this Sunday last year. The lessons were different (it was year B: Daniel 12:1-4a[5-13]; Hebrews 10: 31 - 39; Mark 13: 14 - 23) but the sermon makes sense even without having heard (or read) the lessons. Tobias began with a reflection on the perception that Episcopalians don’t generally know the Bible as well as we might. He went on to explicate the famous phrase in this collect, often misstated as “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” but actually “hear ..., read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.”

We Episcopalians do get to hear a good deal more Scripture in church than many of our Protestant brothers and sisters. But that is hearing. As for reading, Tobias commends “regular daily Bible reading, especially through the church’s Daily Office, which is laid out in the Book of Common Prayer starting on page 936 — a program of daily prayer and Scripture. The Daily Office will lead you through all the most important parts of the Bible over a two-year period — and not only you, but the thousands of people throughout the church who will be reading the same passages each day — as if we we’re all part of a huge church without walls — which, if you think of it, we are!”

This Collect was somewhat tendentious in its day. Massey H. Shepherd reminds us, in The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary, that the refeference to “all holy Scriptures” recalls Archbishop Cranmer’s criticism “in the Preface of the 1549 book that in the old medieval service books all the scriptures were not read.” That preface is reprinted on pages 866-867 of the 1979 American Prayer Book.

Shepherd also points out that “the Prayer Book set forth an orderly schedule for the reading of the entire Bible during the course of every year.” In his Commentary on the American Prayer Book, Marion J. Hatchett says more correctly that the first Prayer Book provided for the reading of “almost the whole of the Scriptures” in a year. In the word of the first Prayer Book itself:

The old Testament is appointed for the first Lesson, at Matins and Evensong, and shall be read through every year once, except certain books and chapters, which be least edifying, and might best be spared, and therefore are left unread.
Similarly,
the new Testament is appointed for the second Lesson, at Matins and Evensong, and shall be read over orderly every year thrice, beside the Epistles and Gospels: except the Apocalypse, out of which there be only certain Lessons appointed upon diverse proper feasts. (Everyman edition, spelling modernized.)

I have to admit that I have not kept up the discipline of reading the Daily Office in recent years. Oremus provides a Daily Office either online or by email and has links to other offices, including one that follows the Episcopal Church’s two year lectionary commended by Tobias.

Today is thirteen days before the start of the new liturgical year and I decided to try again to read the office regularly – particularly so as to read scripture. Perhaps I can keep it up.

I presented the collect above in its “traditional”form because of the phrase “by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word.” Both Massey Shepherd and Marion Hatchett remind us that this 16th century phrase means “by steadfastness and by the encouragement (or strengthening) of the Scriptures.”

Reading and understanding Scripture is hard work, But it is also rewarding work. Reading and understanding 16th century English is also hard work. So hard, in fact, that the talented people on the Standing Liturgical Commission in the 1970's were unable to find a euphonious modernisation of the words "by patience, and comfort of thy holy Word," so they left the phrase out.

In the hymn below, I take Coverdale’s words “comforted me” to mean something like “bucked me up” rather than “soothed me.”

I call on thee, Lord Jesus Christ,
I have none other help but thee.
My heart is never set at rest
till thy sweet word have comforted me.
And steadfast faith grant me therefore,
to hold by thy word evermore,
above all thing,
never resisting
but to increase in faith more and more.

Miles Coverdale
(Hymn 634 in The Hymnal 1982)

This hymn comes from Coverdale's "Ghostly Psalms and Spiritual Songs," published in the late 1530's and is the first verse of what appears to me to be in part a paraphrase of Johann Agricola's 1530 hymn which Bach set as the text of Cantata BWV 177.

More Questions

Last Wednesday evening, Liz and I attended the inaugural Graymoor Lecture in a new series sponsored by the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute (GEII) here in New York. GEII is a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. The Friary is located at Graymoor, in Garrison, NY, about 40 miles north of New York City, but the GEII is appropriately located in the Interchurch Center, a few blocks from where Liz and I live. For about ten years, Liz was an Associate Director of the Institute.

Wednesday’s lecture was by Paul Knitter, a distinguished lay Roman Catholic theologian who since last January has been the Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions, and Culture at Union Theological Seminary. His topic was The Religions Today: Their Challenge to the Ecumenical Movement. What follows are some of the points I took from Knitter’s talk – I have not done justice to the coherence of his presentation and I have almost certainly distorted some of his points. One thing I have certainly left out is the consciously tentative manner in which Knitter was putting these ideas and questions forward.

In the ecumenical movement today, Christians by and large focus on the things we in the different traditions have in common rather than the things that divide us. Using the metaphor of we Christians living in a large ecclesial apartment house in a neighborhood with other religions, Knitter set out the proposition that if we want to get along with the other religions in our neighborhood, we Christians need to work out some internal issues.

Knitter presents three questions that other religions might ask us. Each of the three questions raises additional questions for us Christians.

First, can we be fellow neighbors? To truly answer this as Christians we need to ask are the many religions God’s will? Is religious pluralism more than just a matter of fact? Is it that diversity will not go away because it is not supposed to go away?

Second, can we be fellow peacemakers?
Both the violence of 9/11 and the violence after 9/11 are connected to religion. Religion is the match or the fuel that feeds violence. Can we Christians renounce both physical and religious violence?

People use violence to exploit or to defend against exploitation. It helps both the President of the United States and the Ayatollah to have God on their side.

There seems to be a direct link between claims to religious superiority and religious violence. We have to ask does the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus exclude other incarnations. Knitter says that Aquinas does not exclude other incarnations, although he did not affirm that there were any other incarnations either. This is particularly important in our intraChristian dialogue with evangelicals. Any questioning of the absoluteness of the revelation in Jesus Christ must be done in a way that does not diminish our witness to the universality of Jesus

Third, can we be fellow spiritual pilgrims? Can we engage in a communication in sacredness with other religions?

Is there a religious reality that transcends our own religious tradition? When we take religious pluralism seriously we are being offered an opportunity to learn more about God than we can in our Christian tradition alone. Edward Schillebeeckx has said that there is more truth in all religions than in one (including Christianity.)

If the uniqueness of Christ does not exclude the uniqueness of (say) Buddha, how do we listen? A relevant book is John S. Dunne’s 1978 book The Way of All the Earth. Can a Christian (or indeed any person) draw spiritual water from two different religious wells? How do we do that without diluting our own identity?

Knitter thinks the Holy Spirit can be of help here and notes that the Orthodox, “not encumbered by the filioque,” seem to have an easier time with this. The Incarnation can be thought of as specific and local. Thus the kenosis [Jesus' emptying of himself] means that Jesus forewent the transcendent, that is, anything but the limited and finite. A kenosis of the transcendent leaves open the possibility of another kenosis. (We do need to use our judgement and distinguish between good and bad elements in religion.)

The point about the Orthodox was confirmed by Metropolitan Mykhayil of the Ukranian Autocephalous Orthodox Church of North and South America and the Diaspora (UAOC). Another account of the lecture can be found at the UAOC website. Here is a picture there of Liz and me listening to Dr. Knitter answering Metropolitan Mykhayil.


Now that I've gone personal, let me add that I had a chance to see some friends whom I haven't seen in a few years -- both Friars and Sisters of the Atonement.

Liz and I expect to hear Paul Knitter again in a couple of weeks when he addresses the Friends of the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, and then again in February at his installation.

Remembrance

Note: I began writing this on Sunday, November 11th, but I didn’t finish it until Monday. I decided not to change the time frame.

Yesterday I posted about John Dominic Crossan’s God & Empire and the question he poses, “How is it possible to be a faithful Christian in an American Empire facilitated by a violent Christian Bible?

I woke up before dawn this morning, and as is my wont I signed on to the internet. Generally while I compute I listen to BBC Radio 3. I wrote yesterday without consciously thinking that today would be Veteran’s Day, but this morning when I heard the bells of Big Ben on the BBC at 6 AM, I realized immediately that it was Remembrance Sunday at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

(And I didn’t have a white poppy or even a red one, but then we don’t do that very much here anymore and according to the Veterans Administration ”The wearing of poppies in honor of America's war dead is traditionally done on Memorial Day, not Veterans Day.“ So much for Flanders Field.

When Liz and I are at Heart Lake, we usually attend the Heart Lake United Methodist Church – in part because we can walk to church, in part because over the past 20 years we have become part of the church family, and in part because since the organist died early last year Liz plays the piano when she’s there, to the delight of all but especially of Judy, who is very musical but doesn’t really play the piano, though she tries – she’s a great guitar player, though.

The Heart Lake Church is quite small – this morning there were 15 of us. The ministers in the conference (or at least those we know of) moved around this past July, so the pastor has only been there about four months. Today, he was away, and one of the lay leaders conducted the service. There were also special speakers from the Gideons, both at Heart Lake and at the larger New Milford church which is part of the same UM charge.

Anyway, we walked to church – it’s about half a mile – and I was roped into sight singing the bass part of “We Gather Together.” By the third verse I almost had it right.

Andy, the lay leader, has a habit of reading sentimental poems about the faith to us, usually at the beginning of the service. But today Andy interpolated “The American's Creed” into the middle of the service:

"I believe in the United States of America as a Government of the people by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a Republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my Country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies."

When I first heard it this morning, I thought it blasphemous and jingoistic. It certainly has no place in Christian worship. Now that I have found it on the web and had a chance to read it again, I still think it has no place in Christian worship but I recognize that the first paragraph is a powerful statement of the belief American’s have about ourselves – I’ll call it the American mythos, using the Greek word to try to avoid the negative connotations attached to the word “myth.”
In August and September 2005, six of the 92 soldiers in the local National Guard unit were killed in two separate incidents in Iraq. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell was quoted by the Associated Press as saying "I've yet to meet a Pennsylvania soldier on a welcome-home ceremony who said, 'This is a waste of time, we're endangering our young people, we ought to get out now. Everyone believed we were making progress and believed we were there for the right reasons and that's what I try to tell the parents to offer them some consolation."

It’s hard and it’s painful for people to question the truth of the American mythos. Most of us still believe that we live in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” and it’s a wrenching thing to come to even suspect that we are wrong. It’s hard to suspect that the story we tell about ourselves is false. It’s painful to contemplate the possibility that the United States of America is not “a Government of the people by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed” nor “a democracy in a Republic;” but rather an Empire, both within and outside its borders.

In the 1979 Prayer Book of The Episcopal Church, several “new” canticles were provided for the Daily Office. (Of course, these were introduced just as Morning Prayer was disappearing from our regular liturgical life.) Canticle 11, from Isaiah, contains the line “Violence shall no more be heard in your land.” I pray that it may be so.

More to come.

Questions

Last Monday evening, I attended a talk by John Dominic (Dom) Crossan at Union Theological Seminary. The topic was Crossan’s recent book God & Empire and the evening was a preview to a consultation "New Testament and Roman Empire: Resistance and Reimagination," scheduled for April 2008. But it wasn’t that much of a preview of the more general scholarly conference upcoming in April – the evening belonged to Crossan. On the way in, I decided not to buy Crossan’s book, but after hearing him I decided to buy it.

In the epilogue to the book, Crossan has written:
I have spent the last thirty-five years thinking about earliest Christianity – from the historical Jesus, through the birth of Christianity, and on to the apostle Paul – and attempting to live within its visionary program for our world. Earliest Christianity arose within the Old Roman Empire, and America, we are told, is the New Roman Empire. Three questions are then obvious for anyone who is both Christian and American today:

How is it possible to be a faithful Christian in the American Empire?
But then another question appears beneath that one:
How is it possible to be a nonviolent Christian within a violent Christianity based on a violent Christian Bible?
Chapter 5 brought those two questions together into a third question:
How is it possible to be a faithful Christian in an American Empire facilitated by a violent Christian Bible?
In this book, I have attempted to answer that last question on the deepest level possible – on the level where the radicality of God‘s nonviolence constantly challenges the normalcy of civilization’s violence and where the normalcy of civilization constantly negates the radicality of God.

I have only barely begun to read God & Empire, but in his talk on Monday, Crossan pointed out that there are two strands in the Bible – the God of vengeance and the God of love, or to state it another way, the Gods of retributive justice and the God of distributive justice.. How do we choose between the two? Crossan provides a way forward through that thorny problem – a way that resonates with me.

In a recent comment on her blog, Wounded Bird, Grandmère Mimi wrote “In a sense, I think that I make my faith up as I go along. I am neither a theologian nor a Scripture scholar, therefore, I see mine as more of a simple faith.” I’m not a Bible scholar either nor am I a theologian except insofar as all of us are theologians if we think about God at all. But that’s a pretty significant exception – or maybe I mean we all have a theology, whether or not we consider ourselves theologians and especially whether or not we are members of the guild of theologians.

Our theology affects how we approach the world as well as how we approach the Bible. Mimi gives us an account of a faith journey from trying to achieve holiness – closeness to God – by pleasing God through “being good” to the recognition that holiness has nothing to do with “being good.” God’s presence in our lives in unconditional. There’s a good bit more to Mimi’s post and I recommend it.

Of course, not all “who profess and call themselves Christians” share the same vision of God. Mimi writes being “drawn more and more to reading the Gospels with closer attention to the words and actions of Jesus,” and of “another spiritual awakening that I believe has drawn me even closer to God, with a stronger desire to follow the way laid out by Our Lord Jesus Christ, sinner though I am.” I resonate strongly with that testimony.

To my mind, Dom Crossan, along with many other New Testament scholars, helps us to confirm that what we see in the words and actions of Jesus is really there – that this is a Way worth following. It is a Way that is profoundly counter-cultural – and if Dom Crossan is correct, it is counter to civilization. Crossan quotes Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress:

Civilizations are a specific kind of culture: large, complex societies based on the domestication of plants, animals, and human beings. Civilizations vary in their makeup but typically have towns, cities, governments, social classes, and specialized professions. All civilizations are cultures, or conglomerates of cultures, but not all cultures are civilizations.

Our culture is indeed a civilization – with domesticated plants, animals, and human beings and with towns, cities, governments, social classes and specialized professions. Our culture is institutionally both cruel and violent and our culture also sanctions cruelty and violence by individuals. I’m not going to expand on that – it’s obvious enough to me and I hope to you.

Blogs

A few weeks back, on one of the comment threads at Father Jake’s, Luiz Coelho, The Wandering Christian, announced that he was taking a break in part because he was bothered by the tone of comments in recent threads there.

I think the rhetoric gets heated because of the pain of what we’re going through in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. As I write this, I am about forty five minutes away from the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York, once the center of unabashed Anglo-Catholicism in my hometown, but now a center of neo-orthodoxy, pastored by Anne and Matt Kennedy. For those who don’t know, Matt Kennedy is a very talented blogger at Stand Firm – one of the websites of the self-styled reasserters. Matt Kennedy generally writes well, but I will say that he his writing seems to me to me to be too tendentious to be taken really seriously. I may expand on that last statement in a future post, and to be fair, I should say there are some on the “liberal” side who are also far too tendentious.

More on this later.

Eucharistic Theology

I took this test when I first saw it and didn't like the results. For now I'm experimenting with the answers to see if I can determine what the criteria are.

Eucharistic theology created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Orthodox You are Orthodox, worshiping the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the great liturgy whereby Jesus is present through the Spirit in a real yet mysterious way, a meal that is also a sacrifice. Orthodox 94% Calvin 88% Zwingli 75% Catholic 69% Luther 56% Unitarian 25%

Alfred the Great

Some people are delighted to discover they are descended from Charlemagne, but I was more thrilled when I discovered that King Alfred the Cakes was my 32nd great grandfather, or so it appears.

Anyhow, when I discovered this morning that today is King Alfred’s day, I decided I had to take the time to write another post. This one might well be titled “Random Thoughts from All Over.”

Now that Mimi’s back in town, and June is bustin’ out back in Thibodaux, all seems well in blogland. It’s really hard to keep up with all the blogs that I want to read, what with all the threads. Especially because I have a life to lead away from the computer screen.

Liz and I are in the process of closing our cottage for the season. A hard freeze is predicted for this Sunday evening, when we will back in New York, so I have to drain the water Sunday before we leave. We’re going to come back here one more time (in about two weeks) – before Liz starts radiation – in order to clean the gutters. We hope the leaves will have completely (or mostly) fallen by then. It will be cold and we will be without running water, but we’ll certainly be able to sleep here for one night.

I’m looking forward to being in New York more or less permanently from now until next spring – among other things, going back and forth means loss of momentum on things I want to do, including keeping up with blogs.


Well, I didn’t get this up on King Alfred’s day, but I’ll put it up now and start again.

Meanwhile the world goes on

I was sorry not to have gone to St James, Fordham, with the other bloggers this past Sunday, but it was important for Liz and me to be at St Mary’s and not just for the 8 AM service. The real locus of church is in the local congregation, and St Mary’s is my local congregation. St Mary’s is like home to me – the people are family and the buildings are truly homelike. Also, we are a small congregation – so our presence makes a difference. So, much as part of me would like to visit other churches on a Sunday morning, I go to St. Mary’s.

On Monday, the OCICBINY crew went to Solemn Evensong in the chapel at General Theological Seminary. Mimi and Liz and I were among the last of our group to be seated, because Liz had waited while Mimi changed a shoelace, and had waited for both of them. When we got inside, Liz and I sat with, I think, Shel, who had already scoped out the books we needed to go through the service. There was the GTS looseleaf binder, the GTS psalter, The Hymnal 1980 and the LEVAS hymnal. All of the Prayer Book stuff was in the GTS looseleaf or the printed service sheet we got on the way in. Others have commented about the service. I myslef enjoyed the service – part of the enjoyment I must confess was being able to keep up. But I do have to admit that in some ways it is simply good theater. In another way, it was the ritual of an in group, the GTS community (or part of it,) at which we were outsiders. The officiant was Bob Wright – Liz knows him moderately well and spoke to him after the service. The propers observed the Eve of St. James of Jerusalem.

Perhaps I should interject here that shortly after I first met Rex on election night in 1958, he took me to Evensong at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. It was my first experience of the Episcopal Church and it was very strange, for grafted on to the straight 1928 Evening Prayer was the annual service of the Knights of something or other, complete with a bagpipe procession in the enormous nave of the cathedral. Ever since, I have had an affection for the silly side of Anglican worship, and have even at times taken the silliness seriously. Anyway, before the month was out, I attending St Mary’s on Sunday mornings. We were fairly low church then – Morning Prayer first, third and fifth Sundays, Holy Communion second and fourth – sung canticles but spoken psalms, preces, etc, never incense (we still don’t own a censer,) cassock, surplice and stole, not eucharistic vestments, and so on. But I digress.

There has been a flurry of activity in the Anglican world in the past several days. On our side, a few dioceses in North America have adopted resolutions favoring same-sex blessings. On the other side, a few dioceses are preparing to declare their independence of The Episcopal Church and affiliate with another province. It remains to be seen how all this will play out.

It’s been obvious for months that will be more moves towards schism – the only thing being, no one knows exactly what they will be and exactly what the response will be. Meanwhile a lot of silly things are being said. If I ever get time, I’ll write about some of them.

Gotta go now – it’s a bright, sunny, Thursday morning at Heart Lake and we have some outdoor work to do to prepare the cottage for winter. More later.

St James of Jerusalem

Last evening a group of us gathered in Chelsea for a little get together of bloggers, commenters and lurkers. Many of us fist met in cyberspace at MadPriest’s blog and I think I am correct that most of us frequent that blog regularly, which of course makes us quite mad too.

I was very happy to meet Mimi, Tobias, Jake and Elizabeth in person, as well as many others including Dennis the instigator, David (Dennis’ partner), Allie, Eileen, Shel (Pseudopiskie), Paul (A), Catherine (Paul’s wife), David (ReverendBoy), Dan, JohnieB, Doug (blame him) , PJ, Kathy (Klady), and Joan (Jersyjo). Also Gabe who graciously stood in for Terry (QueerforChrist). (I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone. Liz enjoyed being there too and meeting all of the folks.

This morning we drove back to Heart Lake for a final few days of the season. I hope to have more to say tomorrow, but I have to go to bed -- I'm tired.


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St Luke's Day

This afternoon and early evening our coop housing development Morningside Gardens will hold a party to celebrate our 50th anniversary. The party is at the Interchurch Center, just a few blocks from our apartments. Liz and I haven't been here 50 years -- she's been here a few years longer than I -- but we've been here together for just under 34 years which is a long time

Yesterday Liz and I were at the Interchurch Center twice -- at noon for a short service of dedication of a new organ and then at six for the inaugural organ recital. Liz is a member of the Interchurch Center Chorus and sang at the service. In between we went to Roosevelt Hospital where Liz had a simulation session in preparation for her upcoming radiation therapy.

Tomorrow I have two meetings in the morning -- at 8 AM a Bylaws Committee meeting here at Morningside Gardens and at 9 AM a Finance Committee meeting at St. Mary's. After that our granddaughter Amanda is coming to visit, along with her parents Jane and Scott. We haven't seen Amanda in almost two months, which is half of her life, so we are very eager to see her (and her parents, of course.)

On Sunday we'll go to St. Mary's for the first time since the end of August. (I'm tempted to go the St. Mary's at 8 and then make the trek up to Fordham Road to St. James at 11, but I may well not do that. Our main service at St. Mary's is at 10.)

Monday I have a dentist's appointment, and then the blog fans of MP will meet at GTS in the afternoon for a gathering, evensong and dinner. I'm really looking forward to that.

This past Sunday a cousin of Jane's father Bronson Dudley left a comment on my Palm Sunday post. I've responded to him and I'll have a chance to talk to Jane about this tomorrow. This comment also prompted me to put a link to my gmail address in my blogger profile. We'll see what kind of mail that brings me.

On Tuesday, after dinner the previous evening with a number of friends from cyberspace, Liz and I will go back to Heart Lake for our final stay of the season.

Sooner or later I'll find the time to post something reflective, but for now this will have to do.

St. Francis Day

I’ve been doing a good deal more reading than writing recently and so I decided to post just a few brief remarks on a number of topics.

First and most significant to me.
The pathology report indicated that Liz’s lumpectomy was successful and that the cancer had not spread. Next week we find out what additional treatment she will have, including the schedule for a six week course of radiation.

Update on my Dunciad project.
For now, I’m concentrating on background reading, so visible progress will beslow.

Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion
Last week the House of Bishops(HOB) issued a response to the Primates’ request. I commented on more than one blog to the effect that the HOB’s response was predictable, nothing new, and not a cause for dismay. But mostly I don’t recall making the point that HOB missed an opportunity to acknowledge the cognitive dissonance between their reaffirmation of B033 and their pledge not to authorize rites for public same sex blessings on the one hand and on the other hand their professed proclamation of the Gospel that all persons including gay and lesbian persons are full and equal participants in Christ’s Church.

What I just called cognitive dissonance, others whom I respect have referred to in harsher terms.

This week the Joint Standing Committee (JSC) of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council reported to the Archbishop of Canterbury on the HOB’s response the Primates. The JSC reported that the HOB’s response was satisfactory. More important, to my mind, they made a remarkably strong statement against the recent consecrations by African Provinces of bishops for North America.
Is all of this simply Anglican fudge or is it a shrewd political move? Or neither (my vote.)

St Francis

It’s technically too late, but a happy St. Francis day to the Mad Priest of High Heaton.

Breast Cancer

Last Thursday Liz had a lumpectomy to remove two small tumors from one of her breasts, In addition, she had a “sentinel” lymph node removed for biopsy. One of the tumors had previously tested positive for cancer. The other was so small that it could not be tested. I am happy to report that the sentinel node was clean.

It has been more of a strain than we realized until the procedure was over – a strain on Liz of course but also a strain on me. Now there is an undercurrent of anxiety as we wait a week for the results of the biopsy on the removed tissue.

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble. -- Psalm 46.

UPDATE
Liz and I thank all of you for your prayers and kind thoughts. I also especially thank the MadPriest of High Heaton for linking to this post.

Meeting KJS

For at least the past two weeks I have been trying to do a blog post. I won’t describe here the number of things in Liz’s and my life – some serious and some trivial – that have claimed my attention. For now I want to talk about an event we attended this past Wednesday – the 172nd Convocation of Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. We went primarily because the address was given by Katharine Jefferts Schori and I’ll say something about her in a moment.

There is an excellent four minute video clip of a few highlights of the service, including some of Bp. Katharine’s remarks, here.

My connection to Union is through Liz – she is an alum, as were her father, her uncle and her brother. I’m simply a spouse and a neighbor. Union is in our neighborhood and there were quite a few Morningside Gardens neighbors at the event – we were greeted at the door by Marie, who is on the steering committee of the new Metropolitan Friends of Union. Then we saw Kevin, who is on the staff at Union. Inside the chapel we saw Bob, who is both a neighbor and a retired professor at Union, Jim, who retired from the staff at Union last year, Sarah from our building and Tom who also has an apartment in our building but currently does not live there full time.

There were also a number of current and former St. Mary’s folks there – David Callard, the current chair of Union’s board attended St. Mary’s several years ago. Jim Morton is a trustee and a current member of St. Mary’s. We also saw Emily, whom we are sponsoring for ordination, and Charlotte, who used to be at St. Mary’s and is now at St. Michael’s (from which we spun off in 1823.) Earl, Elizabeth, and Sarah (our rector, his wife, and one of their daughters who happens to be a student at Union) were also there. We also saw Ethan, of FOR, a friend of but not a member of St. Mary’s. Finally, there was Miguel, who as a member of Bishop Katharine’s staff, was on duty.

As the video clip shows, the scripture reading was Isaiah 61: 1 - 9. After the recital of the passage by two students, Bishop Katharine told us that this was the text she chose when she had to select a passage for her first seminary course – one in methods of exegesis. She said she picked the passage because it sums up what God wants. It is, of course, the passage that Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus read in the synagogue at Nazareth. To Bishop Katharine, the passage reminds us of “God’s overwhelming yearning for a healed world.” She said the dream of Isaiah is global, but also local. “We have to be both prophet and priest.” Our task is to look for woundedness, even within ourselves, and work to bind up the wounds of all the world.

Union is of course a “liberal” seminary, and I’m sure many on the conservative side would find Bishop Katharine’s address, indeed the whole Convocation, lacking and “not Christian.” On the other hand, I and many others found it inspiring. Although it was addressed in particular to seminary students and faculty, it spoke to all of us there. A United Methodist minister friend remarked afterwards, “Your Presiding Bishop could almost make me an Episcopalian.”

At the reception I had a chance to speak briefly with Bishop Katharine. I deliberately refrained from mentioning any of the things on her plate. Instead I told her I was a member of St. Mary’s and that Miguel, a member of her staff, is one of our parishioners. We also spoke about missing the wildness of the country while living in New York and I described a touch of country (although not wildness) that Liz and I had recently experienced on Morningside Drive, about three blocks away from where we were standing in Union’s Social Hall. On the sidewalk, just next to both the park and a school, we saw a chicken. We know there is a wild turkey in the park, but a chicken is an unusual sight in New York City. It was nice to chat with her about nothing.

To conclude, now that I’ve heard her in person and even spoken to her, I’m still glad that TEC has KJS for PB.

AMANDA

Here’s a picture of me with my new granddaughter Amanda.





Here’s Liz and me with Amanda.



And here’s Jane and Scott with Amanda.



I never thought I’d be a grandfather.

An Update

What a spring and summer – there have been at least four big changes in my life.

First, since last December I have been on a trajectory towards getting dental implants for my upper teeth. The first major step in this process was the extraction of the remains of my upper teeth in April. The most recent step was the elevation a week ago of a sinus on my right side along with two implants. In a little more than a week, I’m scheduled to have the sinus elevated on the other side and three more implants. While all is healing, I cannot wear the denture, so that affects what I can eat.

Second, on April 26 my mother died at age 90. Because my brother Curtis died in September 2003, I am the sole executor. Liz and I have assumed the responsibility of emptying the house of my mother’s possessions and overseeing the distribution of the contents to her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. My nephew Brian and his wife Tina are buying the house and that simplifies the process of preparing for the formal sale. But it’s still a lot of work and we have spent more of our days this summer cleaning out the house than we have spent at our Heart Lake cottage.

Third, about May 18, which coincidentally was the 279th anniversary of the first publication of the Dunciad, I decided to publish my Master’s Essay on the Dunciad on the web. That project has grown into something larger that I initially anticipated, and it occupies a good deal of my time and intellectual energy. Still, the work on the house, the dental procedures, and the frequent trips back and forth between New York and Heart Lake have meant that I have less time to spend on that project than I wish I did.

Fourth, and most exciting, our daughter Jane and her husband Scott have just adopted a baby girl. Amanda Elizabeth was born a month ago in Texas. Jane and Scott went to Texas and picked her up when she was two weeks old. Five days later Liz and I met them at the airport in Hartford Connecticut and spent an hour with Amanda and her parents. Then Jane and Scott drove Amanda to their home in Vermont and we drove to Heart Lake.

I began this blog last October in part because of the interesting things that are going on in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion generally. At the time I had been reading blogs pretty regularly, following developments and occasionally commenting. I kept this up until I began the Dunciad project at which point I slacked off a little in my attention to the blogosphere. Then for about the past six weeks I’ve been thoroughly engaged and have had scant time for reading blogs and almost no time for blogging myself. This post for example, slight as it is, has taken me a week of snatched time to write.

But I sense that I’ll be getting back into the swing of things again as the days and weeks go on.