Posts
Monday, December 29, 2008
Stop the fighing in Gaza In the Name of the Prince of Peace
The Episcopal Church Welcomes You
Presiding Bishop joins call for end to Gaza attacks
By Matthew Davies December 29, 2008 [Episcopal News Service] Following a recent upsurge in violence in the Palestinian Territory of Gaza, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and other religious leaders have called for an end to the repeated rocket attacks from Palestinian militants and the continuing Israeli air strikes that are contributing to a severe humanitarian crisis in the world's most densely populated region.
"I urge a comprehensive response to these attacks," said Jefferts Schori, who visited Gaza in March to meet with religious and community leaders and tour the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, one of 37 institutions throughout the Middle East run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. "Since that visit, the situation, which was already devastating, has only worsened, with supplies of food, fuel, power, and medical supplies either cut off or indefinitely delayed. Our hospital must now try to treat the wounded under the most impossible circumstances."
Israel, which has reportedly positioned military tanks along the Gaza border, has said the recent air strikes and the blockade -- enforced since January 17 -- have been necessary to put pressure on militant Palestinians to cease firing rockets into southern Israel. But the Israeli attacks and shortages of essential supplies have created a humanitarian disaster in the region, where the unemployment level stands at 80 percent. According to the Associated Press, the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 320 and at least 1,400 have been injured.
"Innocent lives are being lost throughout the land we all call Holy, and as Christians remember the coming of the Prince of Peace, we ache for the absence of peace in the land of his birth," Jefferts Schori said in her December 29 statement. "Immediate attention should focus on vital humanitarian assistance to the suffocating people of Gaza." Also on December 29, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called on both sides to cease all acts of violence and urged Israel to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The Al Ahli Arab Hospital, which treats Muslims, Christians and anyone in need, dispenses free medical treatment and services. But Jefferts Schori heard in March that it struggles without electricity for several hours a day and it relies on limited fuel supplies to operate its generator. The blockade has also caused difficulties in bringing medicines into Gaza.
Anne K. Lynn, director of the American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, a non-profit organization that supports the mission of the Jerusalem diocese and its institutions, described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as "overwhelming."
"The information we're receiving from the Al Ahli Arab Hospital is heartbreaking and requires immediate response," she said, noting that AFEDJ is in contact with the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the hospital to find out exactly how it can be most effective. Further information about AFEDJ is available here.
Suheila Tarazi, the hospital's director, has called the current situation a "catastrophe." She reported that in the first two hours of Israel's air strikes, the hospital received 45 injured patients, a third of whom were children, and 30 medical operations were performed.
In recent years, AFEDJ and Episcopal Relief and Development have provided critical financial assistance to the hospital as it struggles to serve the predominantly Muslim community in Gaza, where about 80 percent of the population live below the World Health Organization poverty line.
"Our hospital located in the heart of Gaza City is providing essential frontline medical and emergency humanitarian services to those coming or being brought directly to it -- and additionally is receiving patients transferred by UNRWA from the Government Hospital Al Shiffa to our Al Ahli Hospital for emergency, inpatient, and other surgical treatment of the wounded and injured," said Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil Dawani. "As a non-partisan well established hospital, we are receiving patients from all directions." Dawani said that all churches throughout the diocese will on Sunday, January 4 hold special services "for peace and reconciliation for those whose lives has been impacted by the Gaza conflict -- especially the wounded, injured and the families of those innocents who have died."
Maureen Shea, director of Government Relations for the Episcopal Church, traveled to the Middle East in early December with a delegation from Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP). The delegation was not allowed to visit Gaza but heard direct reports from the director of the Al Ahli Arab Hospital, Catholic Relief Services and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the Palestinian territories (OCHA).
"News from the media, in light of reporters not being allowed into Gaza, has understandably concentrated on the lack of humanitarian supplies because of closures at the checkpoints," said Shea, chair of CMEP, noting that a representative of OCHA explained how Gaza had gone from being a poor nation to an internationally supported welfare state with almost 80% of residents living in poverty, and 900,000 of the 1.5 million population as refugees. "The crisis for Gaza is not only immediate but long term, thereby further reducing the hopes of those who live there. Tragically, the ferocious attack of the Israeli Defense Forces is most likely to lead to more violence in the future, not less."
In her statement, Jefferts Schori noted that a demonstration took place in front of the Israeli consulate in New York on December 28. "The demonstrators included orthodox Jews. All were calling for an immediate end to the attacks in Gaza," she said. "I join my voice to theirs and those of many others around the world, challenging the Israeli government to call a halt to this wholly disproportionate escalation of violence. I challenge the Palestinian forces to end their rocket attacks on Israelis."
Jefferts Schori also urged the United States government "to use its influence to get these parties back to the negotiating table and end this senseless killing" and said that President-elect Barack Obama "needs to be part of this initiative, which demands his attention now and is likely to do so through his early months in office."
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa has added his voice to those calling for an immediate end to hostilities in Gaza. "Watching the news, I could not help but join in the tears of Jesus, who wept over the land of his birth, and prayed for peace to reign," Makgoba said.
"Christmas reminds us that God took human form in Jesus Christ, vividly demonstrating the sanctity of all human life. This is not negotiable, and must be respected by all sides through an immediate end to violence," he added. "My prayer is that the tragic events of recent days will spur everyone in the region, and in the international community, to intensify efforts towards establishing a just and lasting peace in the land of our Savior's birth."
Jefferts Schori concluded her statement by asking all people of faith "to join with the Episcopalians in Jerusalem who this Sunday dispensed with their usual worship services and spent their time in prayer for those who are the objects of this violence. I pray for leaders who will seek a just peace for all in the Middle East, knowing that its achievement will only come when they have the courage to act boldly. But they must do so now, before the violence escalates further. It is only through a just and lasting peace that the hope of the ages can be fulfilled, that hope which we mark in the birth of a babe in Bethlehem."
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Bah! Humbug!
I haven't been brave enough to brave the stores since about a week before Christmas, but I was in them enough just before to know that despite official store policies whether WalMart, KMART, Target, etc. there are enough people with the spirit of the season to wish you a Merry Christmas even before you say it to them.
There are many phrases, common sayings we hear around this time of year.
Merry Christmas (Xmas is alright too since that's what the early Christians who were Greek speakers and readers wrote)
Happy Holidays ( a great movie and song and it originally meant Have a blessed Holy Day or days)
For the same reason even Season's Greetings is not as bad as some on the fringe would have us believe.
Happy Kwanza (not a religious observance but it should engender a good feeling)
Jesus is the reason for the season unless it's said in a belligerant way should be understood as a happy, hopeful saying.
I've found a new saying this year that is bound to be a holiday classic. I'm sure many of you have run across it by now.
"Going into Wal-Mart with a gift card is like doing Christmas all over again."
God Bless Us, Every One.
There are many phrases, common sayings we hear around this time of year.
Merry Christmas (Xmas is alright too since that's what the early Christians who were Greek speakers and readers wrote)
Happy Holidays ( a great movie and song and it originally meant Have a blessed Holy Day or days)
For the same reason even Season's Greetings is not as bad as some on the fringe would have us believe.
Happy Kwanza (not a religious observance but it should engender a good feeling)
Jesus is the reason for the season unless it's said in a belligerant way should be understood as a happy, hopeful saying.
I've found a new saying this year that is bound to be a holiday classic. I'm sure many of you have run across it by now.
"Going into Wal-Mart with a gift card is like doing Christmas all over again."
God Bless Us, Every One.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sister Joan Chitester at the Door of the Schlosskirche
As an Episcopalian I know something about a church that goes where the Spirit leads even though other Anglicans in the Anglican Communion cling to old understandings or misunderstandings of holy scripture.
It's only been in the last thirty years that the Episcopal Church USA and the Church of England (part of the reformers that Sister Joan talks about) began ordaining women to the priesthood and as bishops.
And there's been war ever since.
Hopefully for Roman Catholic WomenPriests the time till women in the Roman Catholic Church are accepted as full members of Christ's Body won't be any longer than 30 years more.
In-between is a dangerous place to be
By Joan Chittister
Created Dec 15 2008 - 09:46
| From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB | December 15, 2008 |
 [1] | Vol. 6, No. 13 |
Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois is under threat of excommunication for giving a homily at the unauthorized priestly ordination of a woman sponsored by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests. The question, especially for those who know this priest to be a justice-loving, selfless prophet of peace, is how Fr. Roy's "case" will be handled by the Vatican. No doubt about it: The situation is an important one -- both for him and for the church who will judge him.
It is important for Fr. Bourgeois because it involves the possible fracturing of the commitment of a lifetime.
A man who has given his life for the Gospel, been one of the church's most public witnesses for human rights, stood for the best in the human condition and modeled the highest standards of the priesthood should certainly not end his life a victim of the conscience that has stirred the conscience of a nation.
But the way this situation is handled is at least as important to the church as it ever will be to Roy Bourgeois.
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Roy, after all, is doing what a Christian is supposed to do: He is speaking for the disenfranchised, pursuing justice, witnessing to the love of God. That has been the Bourgeois story for years. Here is a man who, as a missionary in Bolivia, witnessed the results of SOA training there, and alerted the United States to the torture-teaching practices of the Fort Benning-based School of the Americas. A U.S. military training center designed to terrorize Central-American peasants working for human rights and just wages, this U.S-funded war against humanity kept many a dictator in power.
Roy's public protests began with a handful of people and has grown to well over 15,000 demonstrators yearly. Thanks to Roy, the public pressure for a change of U.S. policies at the School of the Americas has become one of the country's -- one of the church's -- proudest moments of the last 20 years.
Clearly, Roy is a priest whose courage and credibility have been tested by the State to the maximum. He's not marginal to anything: measured by the best standards of both church and state, he is completely priest, completely American.
The whole truth, however, is that this particular story is embedded in a struggle that is much larger than Roy. It is the story of how the church itself will, this time, deal with the birth pangs of conscience and consciousness that mark any society in the midst of change. The church has been in this situation before and the responses, to our shame, have not always, in the chastening light of history, been good ones.
No wonder that in his opening address to Vatican Council II, Pope John XXIII said to the bishops assembled from around the world: The church has always opposed errors regarding the faith and, in the past, did so "with the greatest severity. Nowadays, however, the spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than of severity. She considers that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations."
It was neither a pietistic nor an idle statement.
Who at that Council, for instance, -- who in that Church -- did not know that punishment and exclusion had been the hallmark of the church for centuries before Vatican II?
Excommunicated saints dot the history of the church with far too much regularity: Mary Ward, whose sin was the founding a religious life for women that did not require cloister; Mary McKillop whose sin was opening Catholic centers without the permission of the bishop; the Beguines, a community of non-cloistered women in Belgium, whose sin was walking the streets and ministering in homes; Teilhard de Chardin whose sin was the acceptance of the theory of evolution; Fr. Tissa Balasuriya, OMI whose sin was to seek new ways to transmit the doctrine of original sin in an Asian culture. All were precursors of momentous social change whose concerns were not only ignored by the church but punished.
When the dust settled, however, nobody remembered who excommunicated the saints who were pioneering a new church but everybody remembers the saints. And everybody came to believe what the saints had attempted to teach.
Reformers who centuries ago called for discussion of the sale of relics, the use of the vernacular in the liturgy, the review of a theology that divided people according to 'higher' and 'lower' vocations were also excommunicated. Wars were fought and people died by the thousands on both sides in the attempt to impose Catholic orthodoxy. Nations were divided to maintain Catholicism. Women were burned at the stake in behalf of Catholic doctrine. And, in Germany, for instance, one woman was executed simply for owning a bible in German. And all those things were done in the name of God.
But with what success? The effects are painfully clear to this very day.
Nobody remembers the "sins" of the reformers. Everybody remembers the sin of a church that refused to listen to their concerns and is still 400 years late repenting it. And the things the reformers argued for are now, finally, part and parcel of Catholicism itself.
Were all the lives lost, all the excommunications worth it? Do we never learn?
In fact, who in our own time does not know of pre-Vatican II church laws that excommunicated Catholics for marrying Protestants, or of "sins" committed and confessed by families who attended those weddings? Or, for the sake of family, worshipped with them in those churches despite the bans? Or, prodded by even more demanding consciences, suffered through brutal marriages that finally ended in brutal divorces and then, for their trouble, were denied the sacraments? Who now will defend such things in the name of either fidelity or obedience?
The most painful question of all, however, is has anything really changed, however much Pope John XXIII might have hoped otherwise?
In our own time, church by fear and intimidation is clearly on the brink of becoming the norm again.
Whole groups are being excommunicated everywhere: Call to Action, Dignity, parishes that seek more participation in making parish decisions, and the Women's Ordination Conference. Even people who voted for Barack Obama have been told by some priests and bishops that they need to go to confession before they go to communion. And, of course, Roman Catholic Womenpriests is an excommunicated group, as well. Despite the fact that over two-thirds of the U.S. Catholic church approves of the ordination of women, the discussion goes on being repressed, rebuffed and disregarded. (Survey of US Catholics, NCR)
People respond in different ways to this kind of church, of course: Some say, "Love it or leave it." Some say, Someone had to do it and we agree with them so count us in on the excommunication. Some say, How is it that we excommunicate priests who stand for the expansion of women's roles in the church but we do not excommunicate pedophile priests who abuse children. And some say nothing -- in public. But they say a great deal in private -- to their friends, to their local priests and, most of all, to their children who, as a result, carry within them the vision of another world to come.
 [2] What's this? [3] |
Oh, intimidation does its job, of course. At least for awhile. Only 33 religious of the 3,000 people who signed an early petition to Rome in Roy Bourgeois' behalf, for instance, used the initials of their religious communities on the petition. But many other religious signed and did not. That's a sure sign of their concern that their communities would be punished if their identities were known. But they did sign. They do believe. They are talking. They are taking a stand.
So, who is winning? The enforcers or the believers? Well, it depends on what you mean by 'winning.' History is clear: It is one thing to enforce behavior, it is another thing entirely to attempt to chain the mind or enslave the heart forever.
From where I stand, it seems to me that now may well be a time when the church should proceed with great tenderness, an open mind, a listening heart -- and a clear sense that, just as in times past, God's future is on the way.
If the shoe fits...
As of this morning I've seen the shoe throwing episode 4 or 5 times. When I watched it on The 700 Club a thought occurred to me and listening to a local radio talk show host an hour later remark how "spry" President Bush was in avoiding the shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter I thought it even more possible that the whole event was staged. Perhaps it was to add some drama to President Bush's farewell tour of Iraq.
President Bush didn't really seen surprised when the shoes first one and then the other came flying at him.
No one with him on the stage flinched.
President Bush's security guards didn't really do much and the Iraqi security mainly wanted to shut down the cameras.
President Bush in an interview not long after the event said he wasn't upset or insulted by the shoe throwing. Either President Bush doesn't know much about Middle Eastern culture or maybe he wasn't insulted because it was a put up job, not for real.
Perhaps after 8 years of this administration it's too easy to look for and expect to see chicanery behind every bush.
Or perhaps it's just reasonable.
President Bush didn't really seen surprised when the shoes first one and then the other came flying at him.
No one with him on the stage flinched.
President Bush's security guards didn't really do much and the Iraqi security mainly wanted to shut down the cameras.
President Bush in an interview not long after the event said he wasn't upset or insulted by the shoe throwing. Either President Bush doesn't know much about Middle Eastern culture or maybe he wasn't insulted because it was a put up job, not for real.
Perhaps after 8 years of this administration it's too easy to look for and expect to see chicanery behind every bush.
Or perhaps it's just reasonable.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
The B I B L E , Yes that's... and George Bush
Bush Says He Doubts Bible Literally True
AP
WASHINGTON (Dec. 9) -- President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with scientific proof of evolution.
In an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Monday, the president also said he probably is not a literalist when reading the Bible although an individual can learn a great deal from it, including the New Testament teaching that God sent his only son.
Asked about creation and evolution, Bush said: "I think you can have both. I think evolution can — you're getting me way out of my lane here. I'm just a simple president. But it's, I think that God created the earth, created the world; I think the creation of the world is so mysterious it requires something as large as an almighty and I don't think it's incompatible with the scientific proof that there is evolution."
He added, "I happen to believe that evolution doesn't fully explain the mystery of life."
Interviewer Cynthia McFadden asked Bush if the Bible was literally true.
"You know. Probably not. ... No, I'm not a literalist, but I think you can learn a lot from it, but I do think that the New Testament for example is ... has got ... You know, the important lesson is 'God sent a son,'" Bush said.
"It is hard for me to justify or prove the mystery of the Almighty in my life," he said. "All I can just tell you is that I got back into religion and I quit drinking shortly thereafter and I asked for help. ... I was a one-step program guy."
The president also said that he prays to the same God as those with different religious beliefs.
"I do believe there is an almighty that is broad and big enough and loving enough that can encompass a lot of people," Bush said.
When asked whether he thought he would have become president had it not been for his faith, Bush said: "I don't know; it's hard to tell. I do know that I would have been — I'm pretty confident I would have been a pretty selfish person."
Bush said he is often asked whether he thinks he was chosen by God to be president.
"I just, I can't go there," he said. "I'm not that confident in knowing, you know, the Almighty, to be able to say, Yeah, God wanted me of all the other people."
He also said the decision to go to war in Iraq was not connected to his religious beliefs.
"I did it based upon the need to protect the American people from harm," Bush said.
"You can't look at the decision to go into Iraq apart from, you know, what happened on Sept. 11. It was not a religious decision," he said. "I don't view this as a war of religion. I view this as a war of good, decent people of all faiths against people who murder innocent people to achieve a political objective."
He said he felt like God was with him as he made big decisions, but that the decisions were his.
"George W. Bush has to make these decisions."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
2008-12-09 03:08:27
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Obama birth certifcate as American as apple pie and Chevrolet
Email: Barack Obama Isn't a Natural-Born Citizen
By David Emery, About.com
Summary: Email rumor claims that Barack Obama is ineligible to become president because according to the laws in effect at the time of his birth he is not a natural-born citizen of the United States.
Description: Email rumor
Circulating since: June 2008
Status: False
Email example contributed by Carol D., June 8, 2008:
CAN OBAMA BE PRESIDENT?
It seems that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president after all for the following reason:
Barack Obama is not legally a U.S. natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between "December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986?
Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. citizen parents, which of course is what exempts John McCain though he was born in the Panama Canal. US Law very clearly stipulates: ".If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen and Obama's mother was only 18 when Obama was born, which means though she had been a U.S. citizen for 10 years, (or citizen perhaps because of Hawai'i being a territory) the mother fails the test for being so for at least 5 years **prior to** Barack Obama's birth, but *after* age 16. It doesn't matter *after*.
In essence, she was not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. citizenship. At most, there were only 2 years elapsed since his mother turned 16 at the time of Barack Obama's birth when she was 18 in Hawai'i. His mother would have needed to have been 16+5= 21 years old, at the time of Barack Obama's birth for him to have been a natural-born citizen. As aformentioned, she was a young college student at the time and was not. Barack Obama was already 3 years old at that time his mother would have needed to have waited to have him as the only U.S. Cizen parent. Obama instead should have been naturalized, but even then, that would still disqualify him from holding the office.
*** Naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of President. ***
Though Barack Obama was sent back to Hawaii at age 10, all the other info does not matter because his mother is the one who needed to have been a U.S. citzen for 10 years prior to his birth on August 4, 1961, with 5 of those years being after age 16. Further, Obama may have had to have remained in the country for some time to protect any citizenship he would have had, rather than living in Indonesia.
Now you can see why Obama's aides stopped his speech about how we technically have more than 50 states, because it would have led to this discovery. This is very clear cut and a blaring violation of U.S. election law. I think the Gov. of California would be very insterested in knowing this if Obama were elected President without being a natural-born U.S. citizen, and it would set precedence. Stay tuned to your TV sets because I suspect some of this information will be leaking through over the next several days.
Comments: False. Barack Obama is, in fact, a natural-born citizen of the United States, for the simple reason that he was born on American soil (in Hawaii, two years after it acquired statehood). The age and citizenship status of Obama's parents at the time have no bearing on Obama's own citizenship.
Any confusion on this point is the result of misunderstanding the legal concepts of jus sanguinis (right of blood) and jus soli (right of birthplace). Here is how the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service explains the difference:
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizenship at birth to almost all individuals born in the United States or in U.S. jurisdictions, according to the principle of jus soli. Certain individuals born in the United States, such as children of foreign heads of state or children of foreign diplomats, do not obtain U.S. citizenship under jus soli.It is a fact that under the provisions of Article Two of the U.S. Constitution naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of president, but this disqualification does not apply to Barack Obama, who has been a citizen since birth.Certain individuals born outside of the United States are born citizens because of their parents, according to the principle of jus sanguinis (which holds that the country of citizenship of a child is the same as that of his / her parents).
UPDATE: Is Barack Obama's birth certificate invalid?
Self-styled "experts" have questioned the validity of Obama's Hawaii birth certificate as posted online, but after examining the actual physical document, investigators at Factcheck.org (Annenberg Public Policy Center) concluded it is authentic. The state of Hawaii has also affirmed1 its validity. Read the details...2
UPDATE: Berg v. Obama lawsuit dismissed
A federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania by attorney Philip J. Berg charged that Obama was either born or naturalized in a foreign country and is therefore ineligible for the office of President. The case was thrown out of court on Friday, October 24, 2008 by U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick, who concluded in his decision that Berg's arguments were, among other things, "frivolous and not worthy of discussion." Read the details...3
Email This Article4
Sources and further reading:
Hawaii Officials Declare Obama Birth Certificate Genuine5
Associated Press, 31 October 2008Is Barack Obama a U.S. Citizen? Yes.6
The Swamp (Chicago Tribune, 12 June 2008Born in the U.S.A. - The Truth About Obama's Birth Certificate7
FactCheck.org, 21 August 2008Judge Rejects Montco Lawyer's Bid to Have Obama Removed from Ballot8
Philadelphia Daily News, 25 October 2008Barack Obama's Birth Certificate9
BarackObama.comCitizenship of Children10
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration ServicesCitizenship11
American Presidency (Grolier Online), 2006Article Two of the U.S. Constitution12
About.com: U.S. Government Info14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution13
Wikipedia
Last updated: 10/26/08
This About.com page has been optimized for print. To view this page in its original form, please visit: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/barackobama/a/obama_citizen.htm
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Monday, December 01, 2008
letter for World Aids Day 2008
Presiding Bishop issues letter for World AIDS Day 2008
December 01, 2008 [Episcopal News Service] In a letter for World AIDS Day 2008, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori encourages Episcopalians "to remember, pray, and work together to alleviate the suffering inflicted" by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and "to advocate for strong U.S. responses ... by signing up for the Episcopal Public Policy Network at www.episcopalchurch.org/eppn."The full text of the Presiding Bishop's letter follows.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
The first day of December is marked as World AIDS Day, and has been observed since 1988. Episcopalians join billions of people around the world to remember the devastation caused by the AIDS pandemic over the past generation, and to recommit to ensuring a future without AIDS for generations still to come. As our church year begins, it is especially appropriate to remember, pray, and work together to alleviate the suffering inflicted by this disease and its consequences.
As Episcopalians, we understand that we are part of a body that has AIDS – both the Body of Christ and the larger body of the family of God. More than half of our worldwide Anglican Communion lives in countries destabilized by epidemic rates of HIV infection, including several dioceses of The Episcopal Church. Parish communities in the United States have been responding to HIV and AIDS for more than 25 years.
In the United States, this year's commemoration comes in a moment of transition for American democracy. A new President and new Congress will shape this nation's response to HIV/AIDS at home and around the world. Many significant challenges face America's leaders in the coming years.
We must find ways to build on successes in fighting HIV and AIDS in the developing world. American leadership since 2003 has brought life-saving treatment to more than 1.7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (in contrast to 50,000 in 2002), while supporting more than 33 million counseling and testing sessions and providing prevention services for nearly 13 million pregnant women. Still, more than 6,000 people continue to die each day as a result of the pandemic, and infection rates in some of the hardest-hit places continue to grow. Earlier this year, Congress and the President pledged significantly increased funding, and renewed strategies, for the global fight against AIDS. It will be up to the new Congress and Administration to keep the promises that have been made by their predecessors.
The incoming Administration of President-elect Obama is soliciting suggestions from citizens for national priorities in the year ahead at www.change.gov. I urge all Episcopalians living in the United States to ask President-elect Obama and his Administration to make the fight against AIDS at home and around the world a priority, even in difficult economic times. The security and well-being of the world depends on health and healing for all. You can join your voice with those of other Episcopalians who will take action in the months and years ahead to advocate for strong U.S. responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by signing up for the Episcopal Public Policy Network at www.episcopalchurch.org/eppn.
I commend to Episcopalians the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, www.neac.org, a grassroots group that has been working in Episcopal communities for more than two decades to support caregivers, give guidance on prevention, and advocate for a more compassionate AIDS policy. In particular, I draw your attention to the online quiz NEAC has developed for Episcopal communities to commemorate this World AIDS Day.
Christians around the world marked the First Sunday of Advent yesterday as a season of hope and expectation, remembering that the "Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings" (Malachi 4:2). On this World AIDS Day, I pray that the God who tents with humanity will raise us up to work together to make the divine dream of healing and abundant life for all creation a reality – may your kingdom come, O Lord, and speedily.
Your servant in Christ,
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Church
Archbishop of Canterbury's World AIDS Day video
--
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson
And that's the rest of the story!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Just Deserts
"Unless this new province is recognised as part of the Anglican family by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and the other 38 primates, it will in effect become a new Anglican church. "
Below is a list of "Anglican" churches.
Not In Communion
November 25, 2008
Conservative Anglicans face "punishment" for helping US rebels
Senior bishops are now considering suspending the Latin American Province
Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
A conservative province in the Anglican church faces "punishment" this week for offering a safe haven to conservatives.
Senior bishops and laity meeting in London are to consider suspending the Anglican church in South America for taking rebel US dioceses under its wing.
The move will bring the Anglican Communion closer to a formal split. Early next month, rebel conservatives are expected to finalise plans for a new Anglican province in the US, to sit as a parallel jurisdiction alongside the existing Episcopal Church.
Unless this new province is recognised as part of the Anglican family by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and the other 38 primates, it will in effect become a new Anglican church.
In a further indication that the liberals are winning the Anglican wars, The Episcopal Church of the US, which was suspended at a previous meeting, is expected to be welcomed back into the fold after sticking by its pledge not to consecrate any more gay bishops.
The Latin American Province of the Southern Cone headed by English-born bishop, the Most Rev Gregory Venables, has aroused the fury of liberal primates after a fourth US diocese voted to leave The Episcopal Church and realign with it.
Fort Worth voted earlier this month to quit the liberal Episcopal Church. Within the last 12 months, San Joaquin, Pittsburgh and Quincy have all approved a similar change.
Bishop Bob Duncan of Pittsburgh has subsequently been deposed.
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, the Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, last Friday sent out a "letter of inhibition" against Fort Worth's Bishop Jack Iker which is expected to lead also to his deposition.
Bishop Iker, who opposes women's ordination, said in response: "Katharine Jefferts Schori has no authority over me or my ministry as a Bishop in the Church of God. She never has, and she never will."
The Church of England has so far resisted being split by the controversy. At a recent meeting of evangelicals in London, delegates refused to vote for a motion backing a declaration by the Global Anglican Future Conference, the conservative "alternative" to the Lambeth Conference that met in Jerusalem last summer.
The penalty being considered against the Southern Cone, which has 22,000 members in Argentina and surrounding nations, includes the removal of voting rights at the forthcoming meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council, the central governing body of the Anglican Communion, in Jamaica next May.
When the council last met in Nottingham in 2005, the lay and ordained members from Canada and the US were allowed to attend as observers but were barred from voting. This was because a diocese in Canada had authorised a rite for same-sex blessings and The Episcopal Church had gone ahead with the consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and Bishop Jefferts Schori are among those who will be debating action against the Southern Cone at this week's meeting of the joint standing committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council, chaired by the Right Rev John Paterson of New Zealand.
Significantly, the two conservative Archbishops on the committee, the Most Rev Henry Orombi of Uganda and the Most Rev Mouneer Anis of Egypt and the Middle East, have decided not to attend.
Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
FORT WORTH: Three loyalist congregations merge
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FORT WORTH: Three loyalist congregations merge
Remaining Episcopalians 'excited' about being the Episcopal church
[Episcopal News Service] The red and gold banner was hand-made; the altar, a card table; the credence (side) table, a TV-tray and hymnals and prayer books were scarce as the Episcopal Church in Parker County met for its first Sunday worship on November 16 in an elementary school cafeteria.It was one day after a majority of the diocese had voted to realign with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, but the worshippers from three congregations gathered to celebrate remaining with the Episcopal Church.
"I like being an Episcopalian," said Victoria Prescott who helped organize the gathering of about 20.
"I treasure the splendid diversity and tolerance of the Episcopal Church and how marvelously our liturgical life knits us together," said Prescott, an attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Fort Worth. "And I love the way we manage to combine our rich catholic heritage with an understanding that God's revelation to us continues."
The group, made up of worshippers formerly from St. Francis of Assisi, Willow Park; All Saints, Weatherford and Holy Apostles Church, chose the McCall Elementary School because "it is located in one of the fastest-growing areas of Texas and we do intend to reach out to the community," said Prescott.
The Rev. John Keene, a retired priest who led the congregation's worship, invited the congregation truly to engage all of the Bible. "When you regard the Bible, don't ignore your queasiness or uncertainty if you run across something that puzzles you or bothers you. God has given you a mind and I ask you to use it. It's when you start to get fundamentalist about it, that you have a problem."
The group is among several other faith communities who remain with the Episcopal Church, said Lynne Minor, an executive board member of Fort Worth Via Media and a member of the Steering Committee North Texas Episcopalians.
You name it, liturgically, and the fledgling congregations need it, added Minor, who is coordinating the supplies, everything from prayer books to candles, altar hangings and cloths, vestments.
She said the groups "have been working really hard to prepare" for what happens next, including renting buildings for worship. She asked that those desiring to donate prayer books, vestments, and other items contact her at: elm3cats@yahoo.com
"They … will need all kinds of things to set up worship in places other than their churches," she said. In addition to the Episcopal Church in Parker County, the new congregations are: St. Alban's, Arlington; St. Stephen's, Hurst; Church of the Good Shepherd, Granbury; and All Saints, Wichita Falls representing approximately 250 communicants thus far.
Contact information for the faith communities is listed on the steering committee website at: http://www.steeringcommitteente.org/misc%20pdfs/faith%20community%20info.pdf
Meanwhile, the Parker County group has already begun an outreach ministry. "We have our work cut out for us," acknowledges Prescott, "but the work ahead of us will be so positive and exciting! Please keep us in your prayers."
She can be reached at: absolutelyepiscopalian@att.blackberry.net
Monday, November 17, 2008
Going to the Southern "Baptist" Cone
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Monday, November 10, 2008
Prayer to Saint Michael of the Saints
This was sent to me by a Benedictine Sister. Please pray for my Aunt Polly and brother, Steven.
St. Michael of the Saints who is the saint we can pray to for those who suffer from cancer. He is a Spanish Trinitarian friar. He was born Sept. 29, 1591. He died at the age of 33 and had a great love for our Lord in the Blessed sacrament. This is the prayer to him;
We praise you, Most Holy Trinity, for having sent Saint Michael of the Saints, to be our friend and intercessor in the fight against cancer.
Grant us, we pray , a humble faith that we may follow in his holy footsteps and believe without doubt in your generous gift of healing.
With humble and childlike trust, we ask your Divine help through Saint Michael of the Saints in this urgent necessity.
May this gift of bodily health bring us peace and joy which are but a foretaste of heaven, and may we be counted one day among your saints in glory.
Father, your world is ill with cancer and frightened. We pray you ease the suffering of those afflicted, give loving hands to those who care for them,
and light the way for those who seek its cure.
Merciful Father, extend your healing hand so that we may soon cry out, "A cure at last!"
IN Jesus name we pray. Amen
for Sarah Dylan Breuer & Dylan's Lectionary Blog
new posts probable soon -- with your help!
Please pardon a post here that's personal news combined with (gulp!) a commercial announcement (and one that I've all but duplicated on Grace Notes at that!).
I've been to a few gatherings with large numbers of clergy lately, and have been honored and deeply encouraged in the work I do as a "paradigm planter" and public theologian by the profoundly gracious things that many have took me aside to say. And it's very clear to me now that a lot of people would love me to start adding new material once more to the lectionary blog. If you're one of those people, I've got good news:
I'm planning to do just that -- starting, I think, with the start of the church year in Advent.
I'm just trying to find ways to make it work, but I'm hitting something of a stride, and I think -- with your help -- I can do it.
I'm starting to catch my breath after the initial rush of demands from starting a job. Yes, as some of you have seen on Facebook and Twitter, I'm now working full-time for Guitar Center. Work in retail is tiring in some ways, but it hits the spot for my extroverted side, and it also uses some of my skills in listening (people talk -- verbally and with non-verbal cues -- about what they like, want, and need, and I reflect it back to them in a way that helps them recognize that), teaching (helping people make INFORMED decisions), and communication.
And I really needed the job. The economy's woes have hit everywhere, including nonprofits, and I just wasn't getting the hours I needed with IMPACT Boston to make ends meet. For example, I had no hours at all assigned for November.
Furthermore, The Episcopal Church's General Convention is coming up in July. I need to be there, for reasons that will become clear soon, and I very much want to be there, offering the kind of take on convention that I offered via The Witness magazine when it was still being published, and also raising my voice when I can and it's appropriate around important pieces of legislation. But airfare and two weeks of staying in a hotel -- even the über-cheap one I've managed to find and reserve a room for, and even when one cooks a lot of meals in a toaster oven or microwave, as I plan to do -- isn't cheap, and after paying seminary tuition for two years, I know I'm going to have to scramble hard between now and June to get through convention without an insane credit card balance. So full-time work was needed at least until I could cover convention expenses.
I also needed a job where working harder and doing better immediately generated immediate rewards. We had problems with dampness in our basement that needed remediation, and that isn't cheap -- plus I needed to make up in a hurry for the months in which I had budgeted expecting work from IMPACT that, due to no fault of theirs, didn't materialize. At Guitar Center, if I can sell more gear, then the rewards are immediate.
But I didn't want a job that had nothing to do with anything I loved, and I did want a job where I felt I was helping people like the readers of this blog in their work and in balancing work with other things that bring joy. Working with Guitar Center to connect people with what they need to make music, have their sermons, soloists, and Christmas pageants heard, and achieve excellence in liturgical sound and light seems like a pretty good way to go.
So I'm hoping that you and I -- and others that you and/or I know -- can help each other out, and that you'll pardon an announcement here that's at least in part commercial. If you're in the U.S. and you need or want anything of the sort Guitar Center or Musician's Friend carries -- or even some musical or sound-related things they don't carry -- I'm authorized to make absolutely sure that you get THE lowest price available anywhere in the country on it (indeed, if you find a cheaper price anywhere else within 30 days after purchase, you get a refund of 110% of the difference!). So the websites are great places to browse, but give me a call before you buy, as I very well might be able to do even better by you.
Thinking about giving a musical instrument, an amplifier, equipment to record music or a podcast, or even a game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band for Christmas? Please feel free to give me a shout.
Need anything related to light and/or sound for your congregation? Microphones? Affordable and professional-sounding ways to record sermons, podcasts, and services? A portable P.A. you can use in the parish hall or at the church picnic? Instruments, from tamborines and djembes to guitars and keyboards? Music software? Please feel free to give me a shout.
Is there a guitar, bass, keyboard, or other piece of musical gear you've had your eye on? Please talk to me.
Whatever you need, I'll be very glad to give you a no-hassle, no-pressure, no-sales-fib way to get any of it, and to get it more cheaply than you could anywhere else -- and one of the advantages of working for a behemoth like Guitar Center is that there's a good chance I can get ahold of what you need and a 100% chance that it will be the most affordable way to get it.
Just drop me an email with your phone number, a couple of good times to call, and a bit of information about what you need (whatever you know about it -- I'll help you figure it out if you're getting a gift for someone else or aren't quite sure what gear will accomplish what you want), and we'll talk. You'd be doing me a huge favor, and I wouldn't be putting this out there if I didn't think I that I could help you out considerably in return.
And please tell your friends, colleagues, mail carriers ... I'd really like to do General Convention -- and to produce even more of the stuff you've found helpful from me -- without breaking the bank, and I think this sound/light equipment thing just might be the "tentmaking" trade that will make the other work I do sustainable.
And with that, I'll return for now to alternating catching my breath and doing some scrambling for sales this month so I can carve out extra time to start lectionary blogging again in Advent.
I do hope that you haven't found this post obnoxiously commercial, and please accept my apologies if you have. I'm just trying to figure out how to do the rather unconventional mix of things I do as a freelance theologian for God's reign, and to pay the bills at the same time. Sometimes, the territory feels strange to me, so if it is for you too, I'm grateful for your openness to potentially successful experiments and patience with the ones that go awry.
Blessings -- and thank you, as ever, for your support, encouragement, and reading on!
Dylan
November 9, 2008 in Personal Notes | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, November 03, 2008
The Heart of the Matter
Richard Hooker, priest and theologian
3 November 1600
O God of truth and peace, who raised up your servant Richard Hooker in a day of bitter controversy to defend with sound reasoning and great charity the catholic and reformed religion: Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Coventry Cathedral's Message of Forgiveness
by David Douglas
David Douglas lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he writes on environmental and religious issues. He is the author of Wilderness Sojourn, Harpers, l987, and heads the non-profit organization WATERLINES that provides clean drinking water to villages in developing countries. This article appeared in Review for the Religious, November-December l999, volume 58, number 6, 638-648. This text was prepared for Religion Online by John C. Purdy.
I walk into the bombed-out nave, its windows empty of stained glass, only its roofless sandstone walls revealing the medieval cathedral that crumpled under Nazi explosions.
A few yards away rises Coventry's new postwar cathedral, but I begin here in the ruined shell's sobering chill. On the night of 14 November 1940, Hermann Goering, chief of the Luftwaffe, unleashed nearly four hundred fifty bombers from bases in Brittany for the air raid on Coventry. Timed to the full moon and perversely code-named Moonlight Sonata, the operation dropped five hundred tons of high explosives and forty thousand firebombs during eleven hours. It was the first attempt in history to destroy an entire city in a single air attack.
Coventry suffered enormously. The bombing killed or seriously injured more than fourteen hundred people. Goering added a new word to the lexicon: other British cities, he warned, would soon be "coventrated."
One of the buildings destroyed was this cathedral, which traced its roots to the 12th century. The new cathedral could have been built over this same site instead of adjacent to it, but the architect resolved to retain these walls as a memorial. In the open air, with its tracery empty of glass, the ruined shell stretches toward the sky in perpetual Calvary.
The hum of traffic and smell of diesel fuel drift through the ruined nave, hinting of the very industriousness that drew Nazi bombers in the first place to Coventry, the center of Britain's motor and aviation industry a hundred miles northwest of London. The cathedral's losses were not unique; the building shared the fate of other portions of Coventry. Firewatchers had attempted to quench the incendiary bombs, but too many fell, water and sand ran out, and flames spread. With water trucks busy over the city, the men salvaged what they could as fire fed on the wooden pews, organ, and roof beams. It was "as though I were watching the crucifixion of Jesus upon his cross," Provost R.T Howard recalled as he witnessed a place where Christians had worshiped for hundreds of years being destroyed in one night.
The morning after the bombing, the cathedral's stonemason took two charred oaken beams from the debris and tied them together into a cross. Another man, a local Anglican priest, plucked from the ruins three medieval nails and fashioned them into a second cross. These two images became Coventry's postwar witness, symbols of both Good Friday and Easter. Physical destruction, the burnt crosses insisted, does not have the final word.
In the chill of an early December afternoon, I work my way slowly down the ruined nave. A charred cross, a replica of the original, surmounts the stone altar, its burnt blackness in startling contrast to the clean polished wood of most church crosses.
A damp breeze blows through the roofless sanctuary. In the wall behind the altar, two words have been carved into the red sandstone, their letters a foot high: FATHER FORGIVE. Using Jesus' words from the cross, the provost chose to echo in stone the cathedral's postwar mission. Inscribed in the days following the bombing, they seem to point to the men flying the now-silent planes and to the people below as well.
The prayer invokes not human aid but divine will. The petition is only two words. By not adding the word them, the contemporary traveler finds another interpretation: "Father, forgive us."
Coventry's message is a timely one for me, preoccupied with forgiveness as I have never been before. A church in my own life has been metaphorically shattered as destructively as Coventry; anger and distrust have explosively fragmented the worshiping community. Former friends have wielded the mandate to forgive like an ax in the confusion of who has committed wrong.
Perhaps in Coventry I would find hints of what forgiveness is and demands of us. It is not simply forgetting -- the stark presence of the ruined shell prevents that. And, as a sign in large letters reminds visitors, "Forgiveness Is Not Easy." But that says only what forgiveness is not.
I have a flash of anger. What right had the provost to order these words inscribed? It is easy for a cathedral to forgive, for a provost who has not lost a child in the air raid. 'What of those families who suffered deaths and injuries? Disabled survivors still hobble through Coventry. Why extend forgiveness to bombers uncomprehending and unrepentant?
I still feel anger for a church upheaval far away, for betrayal and falsehood. Nursing those grievances, I put forgiveness off till another time
Shortly before I visited Coventry, while staying at a Scottish inn, I encountered a middle-aged tourist who praised Britain's cathedrals and extolled in particular the architectural drama of Coventry's new, postwar cathedral. Over our breakfast at a common table, I asked her what she thought of Coventry's emphasis on forgiveness.
I saw her stiffen as she cut into her eggs. In my sleepy state I realized belatedly that her accent was German. She paused before replying, then said evenly that Dresden, too, was wantonly firebombed. Forgiveness, she suggested, runs two ways, does it not? She implied that the bombings of Coventry and Dresden canceled each other in equivalent blame, as if there were no original fault, no first blow thrown. And we reached an impasse over our breakfast.
Before entering the new cathedral, I pass the former vestries, now, a sign explains, an International Center of Christian Reconciliation, the rebuilding done after the war by young volunteers from Germany "making amends for suffering caused by their parents' generation." Coventry Cathedral, in its first project for reconciliation, helped construct the wing of a hospital in Germany. Its location: Dresden.
Leaving the ruins, I pass under the canopy that links the weathered red shell at a right angle to the modern sanctuary, built between 1954 and 1962 out of the same Staffordshire sandstone.
A clear glass screen seventy feet high and etched with figures of angels, apostles, and prophets serves as the new cathedral's back wall. I peer through it into the lighted nave, a sanctuary offering warmth on a darkening December afternoon. Architect Basil Spence wrote that his desire to design a cathedral stemmed from a wartime incident after D-Day in Normandy: he had seen tanks destroy a beautiful church to kill several German snipers. In postwar England, as a little-known architect, he had submitted his drawing for Coventry's open design competition without "the faintest hope of success."
He received with amazement the news that he had won, later recounting in Phoenix at Coventry":It was lunchtime but I felt I had to go to Saint Paul's Cathedral for a while. I went in and stayed under Christopher Wren's great dome quietly for about an hour. I felt a period of dedication was called for as I had a desperate need to be alone and to meditate quietly."
The first British cathedral built since the Reformation received global publicity. The world peered over his shoulder to see what green shoots he could coax from the ashes.
Spence later recalled that, in the postwar era of disillusionment, the mayor of Coventry had suggested that "acts of faith" were more than ever needed to pierce the gloom. Spence adopted the phrase himself, viewing his design as a response to God. "The new Cathedral Church of Coventry," explained Spence, "is our Act of Faith."
Once inside, I step to a quiet corner in the back of the nave, out of the thin stream of tourists entering in the late afternoon. Ahead of me the cavernous sanctuary soars up to a diagonal grid of concrete vaulting, with spruce laths forming shallow pyramids in between. Except in the slenderness of its tapering columns, the cathedral seems vast. Organ pipes on balconies ascend four stories while the tapestry behind the altar, reputed to be the world's largest at seventy-two feet by thirty-eight feet, depicts the risen Christ on his throne.
I am vaguely cognizant of the niches harboring Coventry's renowned works of art on biblical themes of justice and reconciliation. But what I am unprepared for is the floor-to-ceiling wall of stained glass to my right. Known as the Baptistry Window, it consists of hundreds of panels of blues, reds, and greens that surround a central orb of gradually lightening yellow panels. Even in the dusk of December, the window summons enough light to give the impression that it is lit from within.
Designer John Piper and glassworker Patrick Reyntiens intended to suggest the inbreaking of the Holy Spirit. The abstract pattern conjures up for me a long-buried dream of a mountainous Dantesque ascent into light. I am unprepared for its beauty. I find myself suddenly seated in a pew, having been gently knocked off my feet by light.
I have arrived well in time for Saturday's choral Evensong and planned to sit in one of the pews, but an usher directs me instead to the clergy stalls in the choir. To one side of me sits a white-haired, genial Anglican priest, and a nameplate indicates that I occupy the Bishop of Warwickshire's chair. My fellow parishioners number five, with the choir itself ten times that number. I revel in the intimacy of the gathering, awash in song, prayer, and silence, all under brilliant nave lights that keep the grey of the December afternoon at bay.
Benjamin Britten's War Requiem had its premiere here, shortly after the cathedral's consecration in 1962. The composer linked verses from World War 1 poet Wilfred Owen to the Latin text of the Mass for the Dead, dedicating his work, in Owen's words, to "Whatever shares/The eternal reciprocity of tears."
I look down the dark sanctuary, past its glass screen, to the ruined shell of the medieval cathedral. In days following the bombing, the provost admitted that Christians in Coventry had agonized about how to respond to the hatred caused by the city's destruction. A number of possible options were open to the community. Quoting C.S. Lewis, the provost recalled, "The angels of God hold their breath to see which way we will choose to go."
On the high altar, the crosses of nails and charred beams insist that sacrifice and pain have occurred here, only to be transfigured by God. It is not a message I easily embrace as I look out into the dusk of Coventry. My mind still slips into grudges, rehearsing ripostes, picking at memories like scabs trying to heal.
The bishop of Coventry had urged Basil Spence "to design an altar and build a church around it." But the unremarkable altar, built of black marble and dwarfed by the Graham Sutherland tapestry, seems to me the least imposing part of the new cathedral.
In part the scale of other works draws the eye: the height of the nave, the luminous baptistry window that dwarfs a font of Palestinian limestone at its base, and the tapestry itself of Christ on the throne clothed in white robes.
My attention radiates out to pieces of artwork donated from around the world, each sculpture in itself an act of faith. The images seem less to decorate the cathedral than support it, clarifying biblical messages with tactile directness. There is the carved wooden Christ sunken in wood, given by a former Czech prisoner, as well as a metallic model of the city of Coventry set beneath an oversized, divine-like plumb line. Startlingly impressive is a small chrome sculpture of a head of Christ, eyes closed, wearing a crown of thorns. The sculptor used metal from a car crash that took three lives. I had read of this particular work of art and expected to be repulsed by it. But I find instead that the sculpture, like the cross formed from the cathedral's charred roofbeams, seems to convey an inexhaustible meaning: nothing can separate us from Christ.
As he designed the cathedral, Basil Spence kept in mind the words "Only the very best will do for God." Two small chapels, projecting out into the world, encourage visitors to unite faith and work as Spence himself did.
The slender Chapel of Unity, built in the shape of a ten-sided crusader's tent, extends hope for all Christian denominations to be brought together by common prayer. The Chapel of Industry, composed of clear panes looking out on modern Coventry attempts to shrink the distance between spirit and commerce in daily life.
Like the various sculptures, the chapels nudge visitors to consider how they themselves are to respond with "acts of faith." I look out the glass at the city's evening traffic. Is forgiveness, I ask myself, an act of faith?
The cathedral's ministry extends far into the world. For decades it has sponsored an international network of people devoted to reconciliation. Under the rubric Cross of Nails Ministry, participants have sought to pray, teach, and fund-raise on behalf of projects to reduce conflict in Northern Ireland, South Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Members have met in small gatherings, often committing themselves to a simpler way of life. Active chapters evolved in several countries, notably the United States and Germany (though, ironically, financial constraints recently caused the United Kingdom branch of the Cross of Nails Ministry to disband, with membership now supplied from the Friends of Coventry Cathedral).
"The ministry helped people to come to terms with their enemies and to see a mirror image of themselves in their enemies," says the Reverend Canon Paul Oestreicher, the cathedral's former director of international ministry. Like Coventry itself, Oestreicher's experience with forgiveness transcends the abstract. "My father was Jewish," he explains, "and relatives died in Auschwitz. I had to come to terms with forgiving the German people." Oestreicher chronicles part of that passage in his book The Double Cross whose pages "focus on 'the love that will not let me go.'"
I spend Saturday evening outside the cathedral, walking nearly deserted downtown streets of Coventry where Lady Godiva once rode -- presumably in a warmer month than December -- trying to persuade her nobleman husband to lower his subjects' taxes. Much of the city's current architecture stands in dispiriting contrast with its cathedral. Bleak concrete boxes rise as testament not only to postwar reconstruction but also to prewar urban planning that demolished much of Coventry's medieval charm.
After a supper of fish and chips in a nearby restaurant, I return to my small bed-and-breakfast a fifteen minute walk from the cathedral, just beyond where bombs fell in November 1940, and sleep restlessly.
Early Sunday morning I return to the cathedral, entering the small Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane through a wrought-iron gate shaped like a crown of thorns. On the wall ahead, a dazzling bronze-on-gold relief represents a kneeling angel offering the chalice in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Only a handful of people attend this service of Morning Prayer. In the stillness of the chapel, several thoughts accompany me. It seems that we avoid extending forgiveness for several reasons: first, we worry that we may be opening floodgates, acceding to future injury poured in upon past wrong (although, as C.S. Lewis noted, "there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing"),and, second, less commendably, we hesitate to surrender outrage. It is when we guard grudges like heirlooms that we demand retribution and vindication.
And then, of course, there is memory. The ancient axiom "Forgive and forget" has been modified by the contemporary slogan "Remember and forgive." And yet, if there is a room of forgiveness which I occasionally enter, memory seems to open under me like a trapdoor.
"It is impossible to forgive unless we recognize our own need for forgiveness," suggests Bruderhof pastor Johann Christoph Arnold, "and acknowledge our faults to someone else." As the poet and priest George Herbert warned long ago, "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass if he would ever reach heaven; for everyone has need to be forgiven."
Ultimately, the breathed prayer "Father, forgive" may become "Father, forgive. . . me." After the flurry of outrage and accusation, we pause, no less convinced that others have committed wrong, yet down on our own knees in penance.
The choir prepares to process for the Sunday morning Eucharist past chairs that could seat a thousand people barely a quarter filled. As the cathedral's current provost, John Petty, waits in line to begin the processional, I talk with him. He welcomes me and speaks briefly of his predecessor who had ordered the words "Father forgive" engraved.
"Many people seriously criticized him for his call to forgiveness," he admits. We agree that his was a brave response. Visionary as well, he responds, "and terribly difficult."
Huge stone tablets, eight in all, line the sides of the nave. They are engraved, a brochure notes, with "the most profound words spoken by Christ," like verbal stations of the cross. I stand under one that begins, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest," briefly considering what I would excerpt for such tablets, in this ultimate red-letter edition of the Bible.
Words that have been on my mind (yet curiously absent from these tablets) come from Matthew 6:14. "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." C.S. Lewis insisted unequivocally, "There is no doubt about the second part of this statement. It is in the Lord's Prayer: it was emphatically stated by our Lord. If you don't forgive you will not be forgiven. No part of his teaching is clearer: and there are no exceptions to it." I think of the parable of the unforgiving servant. I hear a harshness to the words, and a terrible truth colors the parable for us who have been forgiven much and who forgive little.
"There is a hard law," noted Alan Paton, "that when a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive." I have tended to think of forgiveness parsimoniously, as if it were a gift to withhold from others. But here in Coventry forgiveness strikes me more along the lines of a key, given to us by God to open a prison cell locked from inside.
I have a train to catch in a few hours, but before leaving I climb the surviving steeple of the ruined church, up its one hundred eighty winding steps to a parapet that looks out over the grey sea of Coventry.
The spire is the third highest in Britain, and from this crow's nest it is possible to see for miles in all directions. There are few points of the compass where the cathedral's role as reconciler has not been felt -- Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe, most notably in Germany itself.
Before retiring as the cathedral's international director, Paul Oestreicher was honored by the German government for his own work in Anglo-German relations. "Through no other sustained aspect of my ministry," he writes in The Double Cross, "could I better demonstrate to myself and to others my understanding of reconciliation and peace." He speaks now of the "prayer and inner process" that allowed him to forgive, adding, "I wasn't a free human being until I came to terms with forgiving the German people."
Corrie Ten Boom, author of The Hiding Place, writes of an incident in Munich after the war. On a lecture tour during which she had preached of the need for forgiveness, she was confronted by a "beaming and bowing" former S.S. jailer of Ravensbruck prison, where her beloved sister perished and she herself barely survived. After the man stretched out his hand, she tried to raise her own hand and could not.
I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
The wind buffets me as I stand in the tower's parapet. Querulously I pick at the fringes of her story, troubled by the image of a "beaming and bowing" guard. Was that contrition? But the guard's demeanor is not her point (and, in any case, as writer and teacher Kyle Pasewark suggests, "repentance is a response to forgiveness, not its precondition").
As practiced by men and women like Paul Oestreicher and Corrie Ten Boom -- and by places like Coventry Cathedral -- forgiveness mutes the objections of bystanders. And perhaps this is a quality of forgiveness. We depend on others who have suffered more deeply to show us the way out from the debris of anger.
From the steeple on this overcast Sunday morning, I take a last view down into the old cathedral where a few figures move about, lost in thought. At noon this coming Friday, and every Friday, visitors will gather around the altar in the roofless nave for a short service that begins with the Coventry Litany of Reconciliation.
"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," the prayer begins before traversing a confession of the seven deadly sins. Canon Heather Wallace, who has taken part for years in the services "in sun and pouring rain, with two people present or fifty" notes the litany's particular impact in being uttered simultaneously at noon on Fridays throughout the world in conflicted settings. The prayer ends with another echo from St. Paul, quoted as well on signs in the new cathedral: "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
In all Britain there is perhaps no better setting than Coventry to reckon with forgiveness. Yet, if the power to forgive comes from God, our ability to forgive begins with prayer. And that can begin anywhere.
In Coventry we confront the paradox that we have postponed that which we profess to pray for each day: ". . . as we forgive those who trespass against us." A tenacious wind carries up sounds of traffic from streets far below. It is time to descend the steeple steps and return home.
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