September 11, 2001 ad infinitum

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine,
et lux perpétua lúceat eis.
Requiéscant in pace. Amen.

This is from the 9/11 2007 page of Forward Day By Day from ForwardMovement.org

Day in History: TUESDAY, September 11

Philippians 1:12-30. I want you to know, beloved, that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel.

This date will always dredge up memories for us. We remember where we were when the attacks began, and how we felt-horrified, helpless, and confused. No amount of moralizing or second-guessing can blunt such memories.

Yet Paul, without seeking to diminish the reality of remembered pain, seeks to add something to it. "Pain was not all that happened," he says of his own
vicissitudes. "The things I suffered had effects far beyond their effect on just me. The people who observed my suffering, and how it didn't diminish my commitment to the gospel, were also changed. My enemies, who caused the pain, were made to wonder about this Lord I serve, and my friends were encouraged to proclaim him more boldly."

An assault on what seems the very foundation of a person or a society is only the first chapter of a story. What happens next is equally important. Have the things our nation and its citizens have done since 2001 helped to spread peace and justice in the world, let alone the gospel? God make it so.

PRAY for the Diocese of New York and the Diocese of Washington (United States)

Ps 45 * 47, 48; 1 Kings 16:23-34; Mark 16:1-8(9-20)

The Episcopal Church and Pocahontas Welcomes You

New York Times ad notes Episcopal Church history, mission

May 14, 2007

[Episcopal News Service] The op-ed page of May 12 editions of The New York Times carried a display ad marking the beginnings, 400 years ago, of the Jamestown Colony and the Episcopal Church's heritage and mission in North America.

A pdf of the ad is available here.

The Episcopal Church
Marking a Milestone,
Moving Forward

Somewhere near you, there’s a blue-and-white sign bearing the familiar slogan: The Episcopal Church Welcomes You. It represents some 7,400 congregations that trace their beginnings in North America to a small but hopeful group of English Christians who arrived May 14, 1607 at a place they called Jamestown — the first permanent
English settlement in the New World.

You may know us as Washington’s monumental National Cathedral, site of historic services and ceremonies, or
the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, still unfinished, but already the largest cathedral in the world.

But the Episcopal Church is also Boston’s Old North Church, founded in 1723 and made famous by serving as the beacon for Paul Revere’s revolution-spurring “midnight ride.” And Philadelphia’s Christ Church, home parish of 15 signers of the Declaration of Independence, host to the first General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1785.

It’s Trinity Parish on Wall Street in New York, formed in 1698, and St. Paul’s Chapel just down the street, frequented by George Washington and the spiritual healing center of Ground Zero since September 11, 2001.

It’s also Epiphany Church in Los Angeles, where Cesar Chavez rallied the United Farmworkers. And Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Cumberland, Maryland, whose basement was a major stop on the Underground Railroad to freedom for enslaved African-Americans. And St. John’s Church in Greenwich Village, a meeting place for gay and lesbian action following the 1969 Stonewall uprising.

It’s a parish in Iowa. A campus ministry in Georgia. A mission in Dinétah — the Navajo Reservation. A cathedral in Utah. Even a house church in Vermont.

Wherever you find us, you’ll find the Book of Common Prayer and a Christian faith that honors and engages the Bible, the tradition of the Church, and God-given human reason.

Joined in prayer, you’ll find people with many points of view — Christians who are progressive, moderate, and conservative — yet who value the diversity of their faith community.

That’s a heritage drawn from our deep roots in nearly 2,000 years of English Christianity, and shared by a world-wide Anglican Communion that unites nearly 80 million people in 164 countries through prayer and ministries committed to caring for “the least of these,” as Jesus commanded, by reducing poverty, disease, and oppression.

Episcopalians struggle with the same issues that trouble all people of faith: how to interpret an ancient faith for today… how to maintain the integrity of tradition while reaching out to a hurting world… how to disagree and yet love and respect one another.

Occasionally those struggles make the news. People find they can no longer walk with us on their journey, and may be called to a different spiritual home. Some later make their way back, and find they are welcomed with open arms.

Despite the headlines, the Episcopal Church keeps moving forward in mission — in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as well as congregations in Belgium, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guam, Haiti, Honduras, Italy, Micronesia, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, Taiwan, Venezuela, and the Virgin Islands. We’re committed to a transformed world, as Jesus taught: a world of justice, peace, wholeness, and holy living.

We’ve grown a lot in 400 years, since that 1607 worship service from the Book of Common Prayer was held in Jamestown — inside and out. Come see for yourself. Come and visit… come and explore… come and grow.


The Episcopal Church welcomes you

www.episcopalchurch.org
www.comeandgrow.org

Bicycle in Baghdad

" What can I do with a bicycle in Baghdad ? "

That's what a young Iraqi boy said to Lara Logan, CBS' senior Iraq correspondent, when she asked him why he had sold his bike.

Can you imagine ? Before the US invasion of Iraq children could play in their neighborhoods and ride their bicycles.

Now even their parents are afraid to walk in their neigborhoods without a rifle or arms of some sort. They often didn't even own a rifle before the invasion.

I know, I know there are some of you who will say "Well, Saddam probably wouldn't even let them have rifles.

Even if that's so they weren't afraid to walk in their neighborhoods after dark. They went to worship whether they were Muslim (Sunni or Shiite) or Christian without fear. They lived in the same neighborhoods, shopped in the same shops, went to soccer games together.

Just after the invasion a Chaldean Catholic priest said he expected everything to be fine for all religions after the war just as they had been before. Now everyone who can leave Iraq does. The Christian community that had been there like that in Palestine since the 1st century AD is dwindling down to nothing.

This is what we have done to Iraq.

The ABC/BBC/USAToday poll that came out this past week has most Iraqis saying they wish we had never come, that Saddam was still in power.

Only 42 percent of Iraqis say life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein.

In countries where there have been dictators or totalitarian rule of one sort or another where the USA hasn't interfered democracy has blossomed. It's been home grown.

In Iran where we put in the late Shah's family we have rule by the Ayatollahs.

Zina Abdulhameed Rajab, a Shiite doctor, said "Whenever I watch my kids laughing or playing, I can't be so happy from inside my heart because I don't know what the next day will bring. I really regret the birth of my kids here."