From here (page 8).

To the Cathedral Chapter
and Parishioners of
Gethsemane Episcopal Cathedral

I am announcing my resignation today as Dean and Rector of Gethsemane Episcopal Cathedral, effective March 15, 2011. I have come to this decision, with the support of my wife Dixie and our families, as the conclusion of a year-long period of prayer and discernment regarding the Lord’s ongoing will and plan for my life and ministry. I leave the Cathedral with the greatest love and respect for all of you, for the clergy of this congregation and diocese, and for our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Michael Smith.

Read it all. Bishop Smith says [the Dean] Dr. Steve Sellers is seeking ordination in the Roman Catholic Church.

….the bridegroom rejoices to revisit the heart’s chamber when He finds it adorned with fruits and decked with flowers””that is, meditating on the mystery of His Passion or on the glory of His Resurrection.

The tokens of the Passion we recognize as the fruitage of the ages of the past, appearing in the fullness of time during the reign of sin and death (Gal. 4.4). But it is the glory of the Resurrection, in the new springtime of regenerating grace, that the fresh flowers of the later age come forth, whose fruit shall be given without measure at the general resurrection, when time shall be no more. And so it is written, ”˜The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth’ (Cant. 2.11 f); signifying that summer has come back with Him who dissolves icy death into the spring of a new life and says, ”˜Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev. 21.5). His Body sown in the grave has blossomed in the Resurrection (I Cor. 15.42); and in like manner our valleys and fields which were barren or frozen, as if dead, glow with reviving life and warmth.
The Father of Christ who makes all things new, is well pleased with the freshness of those flowers and fruits, and the beauty of the field which breathes forth such heavenly fragrance; and He says in benediction, ”˜See, the smell of My Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed’ (Gen. 27.27). Blessed to overflowing, indeed, since of His fullness have all we received (John 1.16). But the Bride may come when she pleases and gather flowers and fruits therewith to adorn the inmost recesses of her conscience; that the Bridegroom when He cometh may find the chamber of her heart redolent with perfume.

So it behoves us, if we would have Christ for a frequent guest, to fill our hearts with faithful meditations on the mercy He showed in dying for us, and on His mighty power in rising again from the dead. To this David testified when he sang, ”˜God spake once, and twice I have also heard the same; that power belongeth unto God; and that Thou, Lord, art merciful (Ps. 62.11f). And surely there is proof enough and to spare in that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, and ascended into heaven that He might protect us from on high, and sent the Holy Spirit for our comfort. Hereafter He will come again for the consummation of our bliss. In His Death He displayed His mercy, in His Resurrection His power; both combine to manifest His glory.

–Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), On Loving God, Chapter III

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, that my soul may praise thee and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to thee for ever.

–Psalm 30:11-12

Wisconsin’s deficit, using the tougher GAAP measure, was $2.94 billion in 2010, though the state officially posted a general fund balance of $89.6 million. That gap – call it the GAAP gap – has been growing for years.

How bad is it?

Under this measure, Wisconsin’s budget hole is second only to Illinois per capita. The state’s bond rating from Moody’s is lower than 33 states.

—The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

NEW Zealand has already sent civil defence volunteers, search-and-rescue teams, and firefighters – now six Anglican priests are being dispatched to flood-ravaged Queensland.

Their grim tasks could include leading funerals and supporting grief-stricken families.

The Bishop of Wellington, Tom Brown, approached the priests about going to Australia after talking to Brisbane’s Archbishop Dr Phillip Aspinall.

Read it all.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ”˜What are you doing for others?’”

To commemorate what would have been King’s 82nd birthday, United Methodist congregations across the connection are “taking a day on, not a day off” to reach out to their neighbors in activities ranging from washing the feet of underprivileged children and giving them new pairs of shoes to writing words of encouragement to U.S. military personnel.

The Western North Carolina Annual (regional) Conference, for example, encourages United Methodists to participate in local celebrations, especially hands-on outreach activities that reflect the spirit of the civil rights leader.

Read it all.

…in attempting to explain away the parallel Western legal tradition,…[Andrew Koppelman] does concede that the original public purpose of marriage law was not to oppress or exclude anyone, but to ensure that wherever possible children were reared by their father as well as their mother. His contention is simply that we should now expand its purposes to recognize same-sex partnerships.

Note two things about this concession.

First, it shows that when Koppelman insists that “any definition of marriage that excludes same-sex couples strikes [him] as already underinclusive,” he is simply measuring marriage law against a set of purposes that, for whatever reasons, he wishes it served, and not against the purposes that he admits it has served historically. In other words, Koppelman seems implicitly to concede that there is a rational basis for current marriage law””in which case, it passes constitutional muster. He also implicitly concedes that to recognize same-sex partnerships would be not merely to expand but to change the definition and meaning of civil marriage.
Second, while urging that we expand marriage law’s understood purposes, Koppelman says nothing to answer a consideration we raise against doing so: If the law encourages people to see marriage as an essentially emotional union that has no principled connection to organic bodily union or procreation, then marital norms (e.g., permanence, exclusivity, monogamy) will increasingly be treated as optional at best, and groundlessly restrictive at worst””at great cost to children and society generally. (After all, there is no reason that essentially emotional unions like friendships should involve pledges of permanence or exclusivity.) Koppelman also completely sidesteps our specific argument that he has no ground of principle for opposing “open marriages” and legal recognition of polyamorous sexual partnerships as marriages….

Read it all.

Taken as a whole, the European Union, not the United States, is the world’s largest economy; the European Union is fully coequal with America in the running of the global trading system; Europe is the world’s most important source of foreign aid; and Europe is, whatever some Americans may think, a crucial partner in the fight against terrorism. A troubled Europe is bad for everyone else.

In any case, the odds are that the current tough-it-out strategy won’t work even in the narrow sense of avoiding default and devaluation ”” and the fact that it won’t work will become obvious sooner rather than later. At that point, Europe’s stronger nations will have to make a choice.

It has been 60 years since the Schuman declaration started Europe on the road to greater unity. Until now the journey along that road, however slow, has always been in the right direction. But that will no longer be true if the euro project fails. A failed euro wouldn’t send Europe back to the days of minefields and barbed wire ”” but it would represent a possibly irreversible blow to hopes of true European federation.

So will Europe’s strong nations let that happen? Or will they accept the responsibility, and possibly the cost, of being their neighbors’ keepers? The whole world is waiting for the answer.

Read it all.

It was an old-fashioned championship game that featured solid defense, goal-line stands, field goals and a safety.

The first quarter was scoreless and the fourth quarter was breathless.

What game was this?

Read it all–congratulations to the Tigers.

The storm that struck the housing market has strewn many casualties””lenders, builders, real-estate agents, mortgage-bond investors.

Add to the list the comity of certain communities where residents live close together, some of them paying their mortgages and homeowner-association fees, and some not.

As banks slow foreclosures amid concerns about sloppy record keeping, some delinquent homeowners get to stay put even longer without paying. The delays are further inflaming some neighbors who consider that unfair.

Read it all.

Eternal God, who makest all things new, and abidest for ever the same: Grant us to begin this year in thy faith, and to continue it in thy favour; that, being guided in all our doings, and guarded all our days, we may spend our lives in thy service, and finally, by thy grace, attain the glory of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–W. E. Orchard

From here:

Great encouragement to your congregation and readers, brother. First, as your brother, I send greetings to your wife and children, and wishes for a happy new year.

Second, as an Anglican priest who, with high ideals but considerably lower savvy, “poped” back in 1997, all I can say to those who may be thinking likewise is this: Unless you know in your heart you can believe in such super-added dogmas as papal supremacy and infallibility (very late inventions), that Jesus did not need to possess “faith” during his earthly years (to which I respond, was he or was he not fully human?), and that the bread and wine physically change into his body and blood during the Eucharist without any palpable evidence of it; unless you can believe in Mary’s “Immaculate Conception” (an unnecessary and unverifiable belief, if ever there was one), her bodily assumption, and so on, then I would urge you to stay put. You already have everything you need, and, what Rome would add to you, you not only do not need, but should positively avoid weighing yourselves down with. Anglicanism is doctrinally sound and blessed with great forms of worship. Rome is neither. As for Rome’s claims to a vastly superior moral authority — well, I would venture to say that after such revelations as clerical sexual abuse on an international scale and their bank’s money-laundering, the lie has been put to that.

No, don’t make my mistake. I wouldn’t make it again myself, and, as it is, I’m making my way out the Roman door.

Just a word to the wise.

(Hat tip: WT)

Germany’s stepped-up efforts to ban some Islamic groups for promoting radical views have sparked a national debate over whether the government is violating the free-speech protections of the constitution it says it is aiming to protect.

The German government’s latest move to crack down on groups that promote extremist Muslim teaching came earlier this month as police raided homes, offices and religious schools in Bremen, Braunschweig and Mönchengladbach. The security forces were seeking evidence that could lead to the banning of two organizations that officials say are calling for imposing Islamic law in place of German law.

Interior ministry officials allege the groups, Invitation to Paradise and the Islamic Culture Center Bremen, seek to undermine Germany’s parliamentary democracy by supporting the establishment of an Islamic theocracy within the country.

Read it all.

In the ballroom of an upscale hotel a short train ride from New York, advertisers, food industry executives and market researchers mingled ”” the men in dark suits, the women in headscarves and Western dress. Chocolates made according to Islamic dietary laws were placed at each table.

The setting was the American Muslim Consumer Conference, which aimed to promote Muslims as a new market segment for U.S. companies. While corporations have long catered to Muslim communities in Europe, businesses have only tentatively started to follow suit in the U.S. ”” and they are doing so at a time of intensified anti-Muslim feeling that companies worry could hurt them, too. American Muslims seeking more acknowledgment in the marketplace argue that businesses have more to gain than lose by reaching out to the community.

“We are not saying, `Support us,'” said Faisal Masood, a graduate of the University of Illinois, Chicago, and management consultant. “But we want them to understand what our values are.”

Read it all.

Most merciful God, who hast so loved the world as to give thine only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life: Vouchsafe unto us, we humbly pray thee, the precious gift of faith, whereby we may know that the Son of God is come; and, being rooted and grounded in the mystery of the Word made flesh, may have power to overcome the world, and gain the blessed immortality of heaven; through the merits of the same incarnate Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

–Book of Common Order

From here:

Any words of encouragement for those of us who graduated in the last few waves and still haven’t found a job? I’ve sent out hundreds of resumes and applications (local, retail, national, government), and rarely get contacted and have never been offered an interview. My impression is that the smaller places don’t want me because they feel pressured to pay me more than an undergrad, and the bigger places don’t want me because they are not up for taking a gamble on a new grad. Two days a week I do volunteer interning work related to my field, but there is no chance of hire at that location.

The lack of income has put me back into my parents’ rather toxic presence, which I would love to leave, but without a job, I lose the health insurance (parents would remove me from theirs).

Perhaps rather few people, watching this Nativity Play in this school gym with its high blank walls and slightly-leaking roof, sense the tradition of which they are a part. A tradition, it has to be said, which is becoming decidedly fragile, and for the reason that the very culture of which it is at the heart is fragile too.

It is, in fact, something of a wonder that secular-run schools should still do the “Nativity” thing at all, although many in the State system have long since retreated from this overt display of the nation’s religious heritage.

Sensitive souls, of which parts of the school system have an abundance, look askance at anything that smacks of a culture that is embedded in our shameful Imperial past. Their urge is to purge every trace of it from our modern, multi-cultural society….

The angels, the shepherds, the Three Kings, the inn keeper and Mary and Joseph ”“ and assorted snow flakes and animals ”“ may not grasp the significance of what they are involved in, but a reference point is being established for the rest of their lives.

Read it all.

If someone told me to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages and ninety-nine of them would be blank. On the last page I would write, “I recognize only one duty and that is to love.” And as far as everything else is concerned, I say no.

–Albert Camus, Notebooks

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

…there is one item which seems quite extraordinary, which in the UK is leading the reporting of this story: the alleged claim by Francis Campbell, UK ambassador to the Holy See, that Pope Benedict’s creation in September last year of a church structure for the reception of groups of Anglicans risked the worst crisis in Anglican-Catholic relations in 150 years. Even more bizarrely, he is reported to have told the US deputy chief of mission to the Holy See, Julieta Valls Noyes, that the move could lead to “violence” against Catholics.

As I told BBC News this morning — watch here — I knew, reading this, it wasn’t true: not just because I know Francis Campbell, and his reaction to Pope Benedict’s initiative; but because no UK diplomat with any sense — and Francis has more than many diplomats put together — would have said something so lurid and exaggerated.

He would have spoken about the tensions with the Anglican Church which Anglicanorum coetibus occasioned, the difficult position it put the Archbishop of Canterbury in, and the offence caused to Lambeth Palace by the way in which the move was announced — all of which are also reported.

But the remarks about crisis and violence are obviously half-heard, decontextualised, and distorted….

Read it all.

O God of hope, fill us, we beseech thee, with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope by the power of thy Holy Spirit, and show forth our thankfulness to thee in trustful and courageous lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The interviewee is Jack Valero, a leading figure in the lobby group Catholic Voices, and press officer for the UK division of Opus Dei.

KATHY JAMIL (Principal, Universal School, Buffalo, NY): We hope to instill in our children what it takes to be a responsible, caring and giving person who is God-conscious, and we believe we can only do that if we develop a whole child. So we focus on academics, but it’s just one small part of everything else, because we actually feel if we can hit the other realms, we feel like the academics just skyrocket.

[LUCKY] SEVERSON: God-consciousness, they say, is meant to be a constant state of awareness of Allah throughout the day. Tamer Osman directs the Islamic studies program.

TAMER OSMAN (Director of Islamic Studies, Universal School): There are times when students are traveling in the hallway that maybe an adult’s eye may not be on them for just that moment. If they remember that God is watching, they may not do those type of things that we find in other schools, whether it is ridicule other students or bullying. We have a lot less of those types of things at the school here, and I think part of that reason is because we are trying to inculcate the idea of God-consciousness in the children.

Read or watch it all.

In order rightly to appreciate the position of those…Branches of the Church, of which we are severally members, it will be necessary that you should fully understand the principles upon which the great work of the Reformation was conducted, and what it really effected. This is far too wide a subject for me to do more than just glance at; but I would wish you carefully to note that it was not a work completed at once, or by one generation of men; and that it resulted in two inestimable blessings, which we now possess as our inheritance, which have preserved to us “the truth once delivered to the saints,” and which, I trust, we shall faithfully hand down to those that come after.

The first and greatest of these blessings was The Bible, which now once more received its due reverence and regard; and, having been translated into the language known and used by the people, was placed by command in all churches and places of public worship, that it might be read by all for their guidance and comfort, and be referred to by all who, respecting any matters of faith or doctrine, wished to “search the Scriptures to see whether these things were so.” [Acts xvii. 11.] And it is the great excellence of the Church, to which we belong, that, in all her formularies and articles, she shrinks from no inquiry, and fears no comparison with the written Word; and teaches expressly, in her Sixth Article, that “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”

The other blessing I refer to is “the Book of Common Prayer,” which serves not only as our guide and assistant in public worship, and in most simple and spiritual language leads us with one mind and one voice to praise and worship God; but it also provides us with Confessions of Faith, and standards of doctrinal truth, by means of which the maintenance of a full and pure system of Christian belief is always preserved, and the Gospel-message necessarily set forth before men.

The weakness of man is so extreme, the temptation to evil so great, and false doctrine so agreeable to our natural inclination, that we may truly bless God that we have not been left, each of us to search out for himself, without such a guide to help us, the great and essential truths contained in the Word of God.

Read it all.

Thou who with thine own mouth hast avouched that at midnight, at an hour when we are not aware, the Bridegroom shall come: Grant that the cry, The Bridegroom cometh, may sound evermore in our ears, that so we be never unprepared to meet him, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

–Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626)

Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the LORD our God.

–Psalm 20:7

Perhaps because I have been teaching a nine week class on C.S. Lewis and an introduction to Christian Apologetics this fall, I am particularly mindful of his influence. It is after all his feast day today! So let’s hear from you in terms of how C.S. Lewis has impacted your life in whatever way you choose to share it. Please remember that the more specific you are (what age were you, which Lewi’s book it was, etc.) the more the rest of us can enjoy it–KSH.

V. Gene Robinson’s announcement last week that he will step down as New Hampshire’s Episcopal bishop may have shocked his congregants and made waves around the world, but his reasoning is hardly surprising: After seven years of strain caused by the controversy surrounding his elevation as the first openly gay Anglican bishop ”” and a steady stream of death threats aimed at him and his partner ”” the bishop is ready to open a new, less public chapter of life. It was only seven years ago that Robinson stood during his consecration ceremony surrounded by bodyguards, wearing a bulletproof vest. While many were hailing Robinson as a civil-rights trailblazer, those safety measures stood as a reminder of the everyday sacrifices required of such pioneers.

Read it all.

Perhaps if ordinary people were publicly Catholic or Christian in their daily lives and online, that would dispel some of the stereotypes and make the civic discourse on faith more fruitful, more authentic, more varied or nuanced. I spoke to one Catholic woman who told me she viewed her Facebook profile as an “apostolate.” She shares musings about her love of the church right alongside her love of kickboxing. The transition, for her, was seamless. She is not aggressive in her posts, but it’s clear that she is deeply committed to her local parish.

If you find my page on Facebook, it will not take you long to discover that I am Catholic, but I do sympathize with friends who are reluctant to make such electronic declarations of faith. Surely it is not ideal to “discuss” religion or politics in the decidedly anti-Socratic setting that is Facebook. Still, when religion is one of the few things that remain private in our carefully constructed, very public, online universe, then religious voices at the extremes will profile us all.

Read it all.

We start tonight and go through Wednesday midday.