Was anyone listening? That was our esteemed blog host Kendall Harmon’s question exactly five years ago:

[blockquote]Sunday, August 03, 2003
Posted 10:00 PM by kendall

The Voice from Nigeria at this morning’s sermon

“When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches cold,” said the Archbishop of Kaduna, the Most Rev Josiah Idown-Fearon.

“I want to plead with you not to sneeze too much because if you do we will all catch a very bad cold.”

Was anyone listening?[/blockquote]

— From Kendall’s lone blog entry from August 3, 2003 on his original blogspot blog. Kendall was blogging from the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in Minneapolis

Please read widely from a variety of points of view and if something is asserted, check the documentation if you can to make sure it is accurate. Seek not to jump to conclusions.

And get ready for this: if the Conference goes as I have been concerned it might (and I defer judgment in any final sense until the end), one of the responses is going to be: see, people like that (ie people who are concerned) just do not understand, they are against–and then you fill in the blank–meeting face to face, group process, face to face encounter, the importance of understanding different contexts, the Archbishop of Canterbury personally, etc. It does not follow that if Lambeth 2008 failed to do the most important thing that nothing good in the process occurred, but it is the larger overall outcome that matters. The Windsor Report used the metaphor or image of sickness to describe the state of the Communion (when it was written, now it is worse). The central question remains did the conference contribute the helping the serious sickness of the Anglican Communion overall heal or did it do the opposite? KSH.

Does it bother anyone else that the participants in the conference have so little sense of what the content of the conference itself is actually going to be? Some of you may remember my doctoral supervisor at Oxford, Geoffrey Rowell, now Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, saying before the conference how little information he actually had (and he was genuinely surprised). Well, yesterday I spoke to a Bishop at the conference, who, having been there now some days, still is quite unsure and unclear as to what will be taking place when exactly.

Why is so little information available at this late stage to actual Lambeth 2008 conference participants? There are only two possibilities. One is less than good administration, and the other is a deliberate attempt at control. I do not have enough evidence to make a judgment either way, so I will keep an open mind. But neither choice is a good one–KSH.

Even though I am under 50, my mom had polyps in her colon and so I had this done as a precaution. The preparation was ghastly, and I had to go through it twice over two days. I am dizzy and wan but the doctor gave a good report. How do you spell relief–KSH.

Update: Read what Dave Barry wrote about having a colonoscopy as provided by one of our commenters.

We took the Mom in our family, Elizabeth, out to dinner this afternoon and then all five Harmons–our oldest just got home from freshman year of College–went to see Iron Man together. We enjoyed it–KSH.

Elizabeth and I are up here at the Millbrook School where our youngest child Selimah has an interview this morning.

That’s the BSOD to computer geeks, and if you do not know what it means, be thankful.

This will mean less capacity for blogging until the problem is diagnosed and fixed–KSH.

I was so very troubled by the deterioration of the comments recently that having said my prayers about it I believe it prudent to take Holy Week and have no comments on any thread for a week.

This achieves several things:

(1) It gives all of us space to step back and focus on the most important week of the Christian year.

(2) It allows some perspective on life, the blog, the news, and our comments thereon. One of the sayings I use in parish ministry is “no one is indispensable,” by which I mean sabbaths need to be taken and ultimately it is up to God. Some people commenting on this site who have been asked to take a time out based on their comments have protested to us by email for months afterward, as if the site depended on what he or she had to say.

(3) It allows some reflection to be taken on what to do about the comments when we return to allowing them during Easter Week. It looks as if after a warning we may need to turn to a more aggressive editing policy at a minimum. Any suggestions you have are welcome.

(4) It gives the elves and me a break in this area (which really does take a lot of work).

In the meantime you can feel free to share any thoughts you have to me by email at: E-mail: KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com. It is possible that any really important emailed comment may be posted in the main blog if I think it appropriate–KSH.

Does it strike any of you as it does me what a model thread we have this morning on the HOB vote canonical question? We have reappraisers and reasserters, we have questions and disagreements, but no venom, no sidetracking, and no personal attacks.

My dilemma is how to get all threads to be like this one. Suggestions are welcome….–KSH.

I am never entirely sure why this happens, but the problems with the comments have really mounted over the last 7-10 days. I am very concerned about this as a matter of stewardship of the site.

In particular:

(1)There has been a tendency to import other agendas into a thread which are the concern of the poster, but not of the thread.

(2) The number of posts which express anger, bitterness, frustration and grumpiness without a balance of Christian charity and in a number of cases Christian hope has gone way up.

(3) We still have people who engage too much in ad hominem attacks or unnecessarily personal comments.

(4) Some individual are dominating certain threads to a unnecessary extent.

Please read my previous statements about the comments found here. Also, do take the time to read over and pray over your comments before you submit them. Consider taking a break from commenting if some of these concerns apply to you.

Thanks.

My hope was that the audio and/or video would be able to be released publically so that people could form their own conclusions based on their interaction with the material. Unfortunately because some of the participants chose to share details of a quite personal and intimate nature that is not going to be possible. I hope to have more on this as time and schedule allows–KSH.

When I visit Dad I worship at Church of the Cross in Ticonderoga, New York. It snowed all night and is still snowing presently so the drive from Silver Bay to Ticonderoga was quite treacherous, even on the ploughed roads. There is maybe 1 to 1 /2 feet of snow on the ground; it is a beautiful winter wonderland. During worship the snow came off the roof and spilled onto the parish walkway so the rector, Marjorie Floor, announced that unless one wanted to go through a lot of snow to get to the parish hall the best means available was through the main worship area–KSH.

Here is one picture as a sample.

If you wish to see more go to this website. Then click on 2008- February 2&3 USEA Horse Trial (top left). Look for Selimah Harmon’s name (alphabetical–right column). When you get to the set of pictures her pictures actually begin at about number 7.

I am up at Lake George visiting my Dad. It is snowing outside and beautiful–KSH.

We are going to take a break from the Anglican, Religious, and Cultural News until the Morning of December 27th to focus from this evening forward on the great miracle of the Incarnation–KSH.

I am on my way to Lake George to go and get my Dad, Stuart Harmon, and then bring him back to South Carolina tomorrow. My brother Randy and his wife Barbara are driving down tomorrow to join us all in Summerville for Christmas–KSH.

Update: my first flight is delayed (say you are surprised).

Q & A topics include:

– The Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter to Bishop Howe of Central Florida
– How Rowan Williams could get the majority of people to Lambeth
– What is the worst form of leadership
– What Wesley and Whitefield have to do with “differentiation” and “structural relief”
– Myths about the Episcopal church

Read it all.

Read it all.

See what you make of it.

This is a thoughtful, prayerful letter and deserves to be treated as such by all Anglicans. It cannot possibly have been easy to put together.

There is much here to be welcomed.

First, he shows a profound awareness of the gift of the Anglican communion and its fragility at the present time, and desires our unity in Christ. Unity plays a strong role in the New Testament. To be part of the third largest Christian family in the world is an awesome responsibility and privilege. If Anglicanism falls apart, everyone loses. I simply cannot say how strongly some reasserters need to hear this message. Dr.Williams says he writes this “out of the profound conviction that the existence of our Communion is truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church and that all of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our Communion fractures any further.” I wonder if our words and actions have a similar motivation?

Second, there is a strong underscoring of scripture’s authority and importance in our common Anglican life:

The common acknowledgment that we stand under the authority of Scripture as ‘the rule and ultimate standard of faith’, in the words of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral; as the gift shaped by the Holy Spirit which decisively interprets God to the community of believers and the community of believers to itself and opens our hearts to the living and eternal Word that is Christ. Our obedience to the call of Christ the Word Incarnate is drawn out first and foremost by our listening to the Bible and conforming our lives to what God both offers and requires of us through the words and narratives of the Bible. We recognise each other in one fellowship when we see one another ‘standing under’ the word of Scripture.

Third, there is a strong criticism of TEC’s actions. Note carefully that the actions in question were not one but two breaches caused by that fateful gathering, one having to do with the confirmation of an episcopal election, the other having to do with actual liturgical practice. The 2003 actions were not only unilateral, but they plainly imply “a new understanding of Scripture that has not been received and agreed by the wider Church.” Here we have again a reference to Scripture and the need to read and understand Scripture in, with and through the church. Given the importance of this decision, it should have been done with the wider church, but it was not. We should have sought to make a convincing scriptural case for its actions. but we failed to do so.

Let there be no mistake, the heart of the current crisis among Anglicans is a change “in our discipline” and “our interpretation of the Bible.”

More than this it is clear that New Orleans House of Bishops meeting and the JSC Report were insufficient. True, hard work went into them, but there are serious problems here, as to the assurances that were sought. In the case of Episcopal elections the tie in to a possible future General Convention receives special notice, and welcome reference is made to “the distinctive charism of bishops as an order and their responsibility for sustaining doctrinal standards.”

In the case of same sex blessings, what was asked for has simply not been given:

But the declaration on same-sex blessings is in effect a reiteration of the position taken in previous statements from TEC, and has clearly not satisfied many in the Communion any more than these earlier statements. There is obviously a significant and serious gap between what TEC understands and what others assume as to what constitutes a liturgical provision in the name of the Church at large.

(This is a much clearer and more accurate summary than that of the JSC report which had to be corrected by various participants in the New Orleans meeting).

Fourth, there is a welcome description of the Lambeth Conference as “a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice.”

Fifth, there is again an underscoring of the need to treat homosexual and lesbian persons with the care of Christ himself. “The Instruments of Communion have consistently and very strongly repeated that it is part of our Christian and Anglican discipleship to condemn homophobic prejudice and violence, to defend the human rights and civil liberties of homosexual people and to offer them the same pastoral care and loving service that we owe to all in Christ’s name.”

That having been said, one is also left with many questions.

How can he recommend consultants given the degree of the breach? I am concerned that the Archbishop of Canterbury underestimates the depth of this problem, alas. “Actions which they deplore or which they simply have not considered” is not strong enough to describe what is, has, and will be happening. The Windsor Report’s language was stronger:

By electing and confirming such a candidate in the face of the concerns expressed by the wider Communion, the Episcopal Church (USA) has caused deep offence to many faithful Anglican Christians both in its own church and in other parts of the Communion.

(Please note carefully, not just offense, but deep offense)

Also, has he not undermined his own argument about Lambeth in the way Lambeth 1998 has been treated? If Lambeth ”is a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice,” then why has a province which has unilaterally and blatantly repudiated that voice not suffered real consequences for so doing? What is the point of coming to a meeting to establish a common voice when those who so establish it will not honor it as common in the common life of their own province?

It is very important to underscore here something which many have missed, namely that is is simply insane to come together and discuss whether to do something which has always been considered immoral when one member family of an extended family is already doing it.

I also wish to ask why there is no mention of the fact that there has been no primates meeting since Tanzania? The Primates set in motion the process that produced the Windsor Report, received and deliberated over the meaning of that report for the wider Anglican family, and then set specific guidelines in place for TEC to respond to in order to repair the enormous breach which the TEC leadership caused. Surely they are the logical body to evaluate and deliberate over TEC’s response in New Orleans? The Archbishop of Canterbury risks arrogating to himself too much of a role here in this matter.

Finally, when Dr. Williams writes

I also intend to convene a small group of primates and others, whose task will be, in close collaboration with the primates, the Joint Standing Committee, the Covenant Design Group and the Lambeth Conference Design Group, to work on the unanswered questions arising from the inconclusive evaluation of the primates to New Orleans and to take certain issues forward to Lambeth. This will feed in to the discussions at Lambeth about Anglican identity and the Covenant process; I suggest that it will also have to consider whether in the present circumstances it is possible for provinces or individual bishops at odds with the expressed mind of the Communion to participate fully in representative Communion agencies, including ecumenical bodies. Its responsibility will be to weigh current developments in the light of the clear recommendations of Windsor and of the subsequent statements from the ACC and the Primates’ Meeting; it will thus also be bound to consider the exact status of bishops ordained by one province for ministry in another

He surely puts the emphasis in the right place but he raises so many more questions than he resolves. Who decides who is in this group or not and why, for example? What criteria do they use? By what deadline do they make their decisions? And: given that meetings and consultations have failed so far to resolve the current chasms in the Communion, how will this lead to any different outcome?

With regard to boundary crossings and the like, has not Dr. Williams allowed allowed this letter to look as if it supports the very equivalency between those actions and what TEC has done which the Tanzania Primates meeting said did not exist? Also, I do not feel that the Archbishop of Canterbury realizes that these actions have been undertaken because the Instruments of Communion have sought to provide a refuge for Communion minded Anglicans in the province of TEC, but they have consistently failed to do so.

The bottom line for me is this: we have here truth, but no consequences.

I sense Archbishop Williams really wants to have a Lambeth Conference as a conference of the whole communion. There is, I believe, a way to do this. It will mean not inviting bishops whose diocesan practice contradicts the mind of the communion; it will involve warning those who have been involved in increasing disorder in our common life, it will involve a clear declaration of the nature of the Lambeth Conference and its focus on the Covenant and that Covenant’s relationship to future Lambeth Conferences, and it will involve a called Primates meeting in the middle of the fall of 2008 to consolidate and elucidate what Lambeth and has said and done and its implications for our common life.

All though this crisis Rowan Williams has decided not to decide, and here he has done it again. Although his description of the problem is most welcome, the solution will take a Herculean effort without which the Lambeth Conference will no longer be a real instrument of the whole communion. In a real communion, there is truth, but there are consequences. I am concerned that with the underestimation of the degree of the problem and the lack of clarity involved in a real solution, Dr. Williams Advent letter will be too little, too late. I pray it may be otherwise–KSH.

Genius Products, Inc. is proud to present “Wordplay,” the critically acclaimed documentary, on DVD for the first time on November 7, 2006. “Wordplay” is an artfully constructed film that provides an in-depth behind the scenes view of the New York Times crossword puzzle and the current and historical creative forces that drive its production. Director Patrick Creadon treats this ordinary form of self-amusement as a spectator sport filled with rugged down-and-acrossers in hot pursuit of attaching words to terse definitions.

Elizabeth and Selimah caught this in the hotel room during thanksgiving vacation and I am now watching the DVD which we ordered through Netflix. Well worth the time–KSH.

“Oh Dad, there is just so much I do not know.”

We dropped our oldest child Abigail off at her first year of College in August. You may remember that my mother died of cancer this past March. It is a year of rites of passage in the family.

Not long ago Abigail was in our den with her mother and me, expressing her anxiety the day before she left to go to school. One thing after another was named, and then it built into a crescendo, which ended with the quote with which I began above. She was so very frustrated with how little she knew about what her future would look like.

Who could blame her? She didn’t know what her roommate’s personality was, what her major would be, who she would end up being friends with, whether she would like her professors, what she would think of Ohio (she is attending Wooster), and on and on and on.

Hold that thought, I said to my daughter. For it was only the day before that I was having my daily devotions and reading in Hebrews 11 when a verse jumped off the page at me:
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go” (verse 8).

I spent a lot of time thinking about what that verse really meant in Abraham’s own experience. He did not know if he would even make it to the place, he did not know what it would be like when he got there, he did not know how long he would stay, or what the implications for his family would be, and his list, too, was very long. But nevertheless he went in faith, for faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

So instead of not knowing being something to lament, it is something to be embraced. For if we did know all that we want to, we would not need to depend on God but on ourselves, putting us on exactly the wrong road when it comes to discipleship.

It is a shame there is not more preaching on and study of the book of Ecclesiastes these days. Vanity of vanities, the writer says about life. The word in Hebrew is a word used for vapor; no matter how hard he tries, the vapor of what he sees always eludes the writer’s grasp as he tries to fathom it. Life is apparently inscrutable in Ecclesiastes. It is not known how God is working his purpose out.

According to Ecclesiastes life is not so much a problem to be solved as a mystery to be lived. Not knowing is a good thing that drives us back to faith, back to our knees before the one who made Heaven and earth.

So I told my daughter that I was right with her in struggling with not knowing. I didn’t know what exactly would happen the next day, where and how I would ultimately end up serving, how her younger sister would like her new school, whether the Anglican Communion would really have a future as a genuine communion, and my list, too, was very long.

But there is one thing we DO know about the future, I told her. God is there. And the God who holds the future holds us in his hands right now as he calls us to go out in faith in the midst of so many unknowns every single day.

–The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is editor of the Anglican Digest and convenor of this blog

People in the early twenty-first century seem to struggle to be thankful. One moving story on this topic concerns a seminary student in Evanston, Illinois, who was part of a life-saving squad. On September 8, 1860, a ship called the Lady Elgin went aground on the shore of Lake Michigan near Evanston, and Edward Spencer waded again and again into the frigid waters to rescue 17 passengers. In the process, his health was permanently damaged. Some years later he died in California at the age of 81. In a newspaper notice of his death, it was said that not one of the people he rescued ever thanked him.

Today is a day in which we are to be reminded of our creatureliness, our frailty, and our dependence. One of the clearest ways we may express this is to seek to give thanks in all circumstances (Philippians 4:6).

I am sure today you can find much for which to give thanks: the gift of life, the gift of faith, the joy of friends and family, all those serving in the mission field extending the reach of the gospel around the world, and so much else. I also invite you to consider taking a moment at some point today to write a note of thanksgiving to someone who really made a difference in your life: possibly a teacher, a coach, a mentor, a minister or a parent. You might even write to the parish secretary, the sexton, or the music minister in the parish where you worship; they work very hard behind the scenes.

”“The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is the convenor of this blog and takes this opportunity to give thanks for all blog readers and participants and to wish everyone a blessed Thanksgiving

A presentation by some guy that a number of people have missed.

One of my friends has the delightful habit of sending me New Yorker cartoons. Certainly one of the best features a man behind a bookstore counter on top of which is prominently featured Allen Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. He has a big smile on his face and says to the customer “I haven’t read it, but it’s a great book!”

Alas, that is too often a true reflection of how many Episcopalians actually relate to Holy Scripture.

It is such a fabulous book, but we only experience it when we learn to be Scripture students and spiritually attentive Bible readers.

Consider the story of when Simon the Pharisee has the preacher over for dinner (Luke 7:36-50). As for many a good Episcopalian, having the rector over is a big deal for Simon. Etiquette must be properly followed. Invitations must be carefully issued. Everything must be done in correct Anglican fashion, decently and in order.
Then a woman from the wrong side of the tracks crashes the party. She does not have an invitation, and she violates every protocol. Indeed, having messed up all those things, she cannot even give to Jesus the gift she wants to give him in the way she wants to give it. Her heart is so broken by the depth of Jesus’ love for her that when she simply gets behind him she starts crying, and then before you know it the ointment intended for his head ends up on his feet.

Simon is livid, and has a conversation with himself about Jesus’ failure to get upset and to follow the proper procedure when something like this happens.

But Jesus marches to a different drummer. “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing,” Pascal said, and Jesus not only spoke in but also heard the language of love. He saw more than what this woman was doing; he heard why she was doing it. She was loved, and wanted to find a way to say thank you.

Many a parent has accepted a very strange gift from a child with pleasure and joy ”” because it was given out of love. I remember Mom showing me early letters I had written. One of her favorites, written when I was about 6, read: “Dear Mom: I hate you. Love, Kendall.” There isn’t a parent reading this who doesn’t understand why my mother had it in the file.

Pleased about what the woman was doing, Jesus entered into Simon’s conversation with himself and told him a story. Two people owned someone money, one owed 5 million dollars, and the other 50,000. They both had all their debts erased. Who do you suppose was more grateful? Simon knew the answer and gave it.

Then Jesus commended the woman as a heroine in the kingdom of God to Simon. Do you see her, he said. She did what she did because she knew how completely she had made a mess of her life and therefore how profoundly God had forgiven her. As a result, she loved much and wanted to find a way to say it.

What a story. The heroine is a woman who has no name and no lines. That does not sound like a prescription for a successful play, does it, to have the key character without a name and with nothing to say?

But Jesus specialized in turning the world upside down. This woman has the real power that changes the world, the power of the Holy Spirit that enables her to be loved by God in Christ and then to seek no matter what to try to express it to others.

I hope to meet her in heaven some day. In the meantime I am going to plunge myself into the Bible and try to read it carefully and let it hit me with the full force God intends it to. It really is a great book.

–The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon is editor of the Anglican Digest and Convenor of this blog

Yesterday at work I got something caught in my eye. Trying to get something out of your own eye, or your son to do it, is difficult. No matter how much Bausch and Lomb wash with an eye cup I used nothing worked. In a lot of pain–and couldn’t sleep much last night either. Called the eye doctor this morning–he is not in the country. On call doctor backing him up is off on Mondays. Hmmm.

It makes you appreciate eyes when they don’t work properly, and medical people who are there to help when you need them even if they have never seen you before–KSH.

This is an illegitimate report based on a bizarre and deeply flawed process. The Presiding Bishop should have but did not recuse herself. Members of the Joint Standing Committee suggested word changes to an American report which they were then going to evaluate. Not all committee members had a chance to deliberate with others before the report was released, and the release was clearly rushed. Also: who wrote this document?

This looks and feels like American power politics, not prayerful Anglican deliberation–KSH.

The great value of Titus One Nine to all of us, including this slightly to the left of center Episcopalian, has been the inclusion of all the “news fit to print” (and leaving out some which isn’t) regarding the current challenges in the Episcopal Church. You have had the good grace to allow your readers to interpret that information as their intellect determined, until recently. In the days before the HOB meeting and subsequent to it there has been an increasing tendency to parenthetically comment on or reinterpret the input from various sources with whom you are not in explicit agreement. My belief is that this diminishes, not adds to, the value of the information. Many of your sources are unquestionably intellectually capable of making an interpretation of the current situation and the product of their efforts is their interpretation. Adding your editorial comment that they are in error in that interpretation is not terribly helpful as i t does not change their interpretation and they do have a right to that interpretation. It is no more right or wrong, inherently, than your own. So my advice is to go back to reporting the information and quit kibitzing.

But it is your blog and you are doing us all a considerable service by maintaining it, so thanks for that.

I would genuinely appreciate blog readers feedback on this, thanks–KSH.

In a time of judgment the truth is revealed in moments like this, and it can be quite painful. So why does the New York Times get it, the Times-Picayune get it, Integrity get it, and people in the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church who should know better not get it? It is because they do not understand the depth of the breach that needed to be repaired in the first place. The Primates sought an unequivocal commitment because for a marriage in temporary separation if you do not invest yourself completely in what the marriage counselor asked for, it will not work and you get a divorce. The stakes are simply too high, and the damage is too great, for a negotiation, quid pro quo, well I might, sort of, for a short time do this, and while I say this (I will still do sometimes do that), oh and by the way, I insist on my spouse doing this and that which I want because I have terms here too.