Heavenly Father and gracious God, we give thee thanks for the life and ministry of your servant Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, through whose vision, perseverance and strength, a legacy of education was provided for generations then unborn, and we pray for your Holy Spirit’s inspiration to follow her example, through the same Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Elizabeth Evelyn Wright, #Tuskegee alum, in 1906 founded #Denmark Industrial Institute in #Denmark, #SC, start of #Voorhees College (#HBCU). #Humanitarian and #educator, #founder of several #schools for black #children. #teacher #alum #Unsung #BlackGirlMagic pic.twitter.com/cLhkI0B8eq

— HBCU Alum Gives (@HBCUGIVES) July 2, 2018

Being Human: Gender, Sexuality, Fulfillment
A Ridley Institute Offering
January 10-11

In order for a Christian to faithfully respond to the challenging topics of sexuality and gender, one must engage and understand Scripture’s teaching on these matters. This two-part course will help to increase the Church’s understanding and compassion towards those experiencing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria, so all may be cared for in love and truth. We will create space for Christians to learn and talk about these challenging topics together, so that voices may be heard, questions addressed, and the Church encouraged to live faithfully today.

Read it all.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

All Saints North St York. Seven stars as seven gifts of the holy spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, wonder pic.twitter.com/2XQ5Oh7Aai

— Dr Jonathan Foyle (@JonathanFoyle) February 2, 2017

A missions team from Christ Saint Pauls, Yonges Island, sends picture during their recent trip to #Nigeria https://t.co/7dS1sdC68d #anglican #southcarolina #ministry #service #sharing #gratitude pic.twitter.com/ANfNeqPYIH

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 7, 2019

Take the time to read it all.

McKissick influenced not only the lives of countless athletes, but also other students and coaches. That influence extended beyond the walls of the school, reaching deep into the Summerville community.

“Coach McKissick has always had a standard he holds all his players to,” Bo Blanton, a Green Wave quarterback from 1974-76, said during a 2012 interview following McKissick’s 600th coaching victory. “He requires you to perform on the field, but he also expects you to represent your high school and community in a manner everyone can be proud of. Just look at the things his former players such as Converse Chellis, George Tupper and Harry Blake moved on to do for their community and state.”

Over the years, McKissick sent countless players off to the college ranks. The players he helped reach the NFL ranks include A.J. Green, Kevin Long, Ian Rafferty, Stanford Jennings, Keith Jennings and Zack Bailey.

Read it all

Summerville High School Coach John McKissick, winningest coach of all time, dies | News | https://t.co/h8cx5SJrVI #sports #southcarolina #history #death https://t.co/vEN4pAEeVS

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 29, 2019

I believe Eugene Peterson’s translation of these verses deserve a joyous reading on Thanksgiving Day:

Oh, visit the earth, /ask her to join the dance!
Deck her out in spring showers, /fill the God-River with living water.
Paint the wheat fields golden. / Creation was made for this!
Drench the plowed fields, / soak the dirt clods
With rainfall as harrow and rake/ bring her to blossom and fruit.
Snow-crown the peaks with splendor, /scatter rose petals down your path,
All through the wild meadows, rose petals. / Set the hills to dancing,
Dress the canyon walls with live sheep, / a drape of flax across the valleys,
Let them shout, and shout, and shout! / Oh, oh, let them sing! (Ps. 65:9-13)

Here is a man gripped by God’s goodness and trustworthiness. Like Jesus, who spoke often of his Father’s goodness, and taught us to take a good look at the birds of the air and the little flowers in the fields, God’s goodness for this psalmist spills over into a life of gratitude. Fleming Rutledge puts it well, “The giving of thanks is not just an activity to be taken up at certain times and set aside at other times. It is a whole way of life.” One might even say it is The Normal Christian Life. Nevertheless, to set aside days when a people offer their Creator thanks is formational. From early on in our nation’s history it has been so. Our ancestors knew and practiced this even in days of scarcity. They learned it from the Holy Scriptures—both Testaments.

The Creator, who has filled the world with so much wonder and mystery, beauty and truth is—as Jesus revealed—our heavenly Father. He is no gloomy tyrant from whose grimy, stingy hands we have to wrench every meager gift. Yet, make the gifts of God our highest priority and moth will eat, rust will mar, thief will steal, and worry will whittle away. “But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness… and all these things…” the world’s, wonder, mystery, beauty and truth, as well as life’s gifts will be added to us in due time and right order. We don’t have to worry about missing out. There is enough—always has been enough—enough and to spare.

Read it all.

Wishing everyone a #HappyThanksgiving! Need a prayer for dinner today? Try this one: https://t.co/Q1LjTOyD8n pic.twitter.com/Y64IGdPdsC

— U.S. Catholic Bishops (@USCCB) November 22, 2018

Read it all.

From here:

Orangeburg, S.C. (November 26, 2019) –Earlier today, South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Edgar Dickson held a hearing regarding motions related to the ongoing litigation between The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina and The Episcopal Church (TEC). Although the hearing covered all outstanding motions in the case, Judge Dickson focused on our motion to clarify what the set of 2017 Supreme Court opinions said.

Diocesan attorneys focused on our motion to clarify, and argued in detail that no parish expressly agreed to the Dennis Canon, which TEC has asserted creates a trust interest in parish property. Our lawyers also argued persuasively that the Diocese successfully withdrew from TEC with its property interest intact in compliance with South Carolina state law. TEC attorneys addressed the motion to clarify and also their pending motion for enforcement.

After a two-and half-hour hearing, Judge Dickson ordered attorneys from both sides to submit proposed orders resolving the motion to clarify.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

#NG365 Duccio’s “The Healing of the Man Born Blind” @NationalGallery #art #twitart pic.twitter.com/wmq7ntOcqC

— Paul Wadey (@pwadey) June 14, 2015

On November 11, 2019 the Episcopal Church in South Carolina filed yet another petition (41 page pdf) in Federal Court this time objecting to the Diocese’s use of the name The Anglican Diocese of South Carolina, as well as references found on the diocesan website pertaining to its history.

Our legal team, in conjunction with the Standing Committee are formulating a response.

Dressed in suede shoes, a print button up shirt with rolled up sleeves and dark slacks, Amaker’s loosely pulled back locs spill out from beneath his newspaper boy cap. He exudes a vibe funky and chic. Then, he introduces himself with a poem that could make anyone appear anything but cool.

“I beat myself up the first time words bumped up against my breath, disconnected from the pulse inside my head. So I made beats alone behind closed doors instead.”

Amaker’s intro depicts a solitary boy who looks to music for a friend; a boy who stammered and stuttered and still stumbles as an adult. It’s a self- portrait so raw; it’s as if it’s drawn with crayons.

“I’m in a mode now where I want people to know me,” says Amaker as we talk downtown in Washington Park just behind city hall.

“I’ve been writing a lot about Charleston and social justice issues. I want folks to know me as well, and that is me.”

Read it all.

Charleston’s Poet Laureate Marcus Amaker Making a Difference | South Carolina Public Radio https://t.co/QwrFoeZLF4

— Victoria Hansen (@VHansenSCRadio) November 12, 2019

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

#AllSaintsDay Fact:

All Saints’ Day is a celebration to honor the saints that have graced our world, and as a day to honor loved ones who have passed away. pic.twitter.com/BJpQe6SFg5

— American School (@AngelesSchool) November 1, 2019

You can listen directly here or download it there.

O God, source of all holiness, we venerate today with great devotion the #saints in heaven: we pray for the unity & peace of your holy people on earth.

~ Father, be with your people.#Lauds #MorningPrayer #Solemnity #AllSaints #FeastDay #AllHallows #Prayer pic.twitter.com/5rN3Wv3mUG

— McCrimmon Publishing (@McCrimmonsuk) November 1, 2018

Pray for the women of the Diocese as they gather at St. Christopher for their annual retreat October 25-27. It’s a time for fellowship, teaching, rest and restoration. This year Bishop Mark Lawrence will be speaking on “Gift and Giver: Life in the Spirit.”

You can see the schedule in the link provided; I would apreciate your prayers, KSH.

The clergy of our Diocese will gather from October 21-23 at Camp St. Christopher for the annual Clergy Conference. The guest speaker will be The Rev. Dr. John Yates, retired Rector of The Falls Church Anglican. Please keep our clergy and this conference in your prayers.

Developers feel unjustly singled out. Jim Brady is trying to develop a 135-room hotel in Portland, Maine, where city leaders recently required new hotels to pay into an affordable housing fund, arguing that hospitality workers are being priced out. “I recognize that you need to earn a livable wage, and there are sectors that pay lower incomes, and hotels are some of those, but so are food and beverage facilities and retailers,” he says. “It just seemed unfair to say hotels were the cause of the affordable housing crisis.”

In Charleston, a decades-long effort to nurture tourism without spoiling the city’s 350-year-old heritage reached a boiling point recently. Former Mayor Joseph Riley presided over the “Holy City” for 40 years until 2016, and since then the city’s politics have been rife with infighting, locals say. Mayor John Tecklenburg campaigned on a pledge to temporarily halt new hotel construction as a candidate in 2015 and continued the fight upon taking office. Members of the City Council viewed that as alarmist and pushed for less severe restrictions. Councilman Mike Seekings, who’s hoping to unseat Tecklenburg in November’s election, published an op-ed in Charleston’s Post newspaper citing a fundraising email Tecklenburg once sent to supporters that included the line: “Every property that has the possibility of becoming a hotel will become a hotel unless we act.”

Read it all.

America’s small cities are starting to buckle from a tourism boom. Locals are directing their anger at hotels https://t.co/8usOoiIVy8

— Businessweek (@BW) October 16, 2019

I love the story of Oklahoma native and former heavy-weight boxer James Quick Tillis as he recalls the day he moved to Chicago. “I get off the bus with two suitcases under my arms in downtown Chicago and stop in front of the Sears Tower. I put my suitcases down, look up at the Tower and say to myself, ‘I am going to conquer Chicago.’ It was my moment of glory! And then I looked down. My suitcases were stolen.”

You can read or listen to it all.

On April 7, 1971, just one month after his win over Ali, Frazier became the first African American man to speak before the state legislature in Columbia, South Carolina.

“It was an extraordinary event,” Kram Jr. says. “He reached out and tried to implore the members of that assembly to be open to bringing the races together. And, indeed, he wanted to.”

Frazier told the legislature that not much had changed since he left Beaufort, about 140 miles south of the state capital.

“We must save our people, and when I say our people, I mean white and black,” Frazier said in his address. “We need to quit thinking who’s living next door, who’s driving a big car, who’s my little daughter going to play with, who is she going to sit next to in school.”

Read (or listen to) it all.

Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier often pulled over on the road to fix flat tires for stranded motorists.

“He did this not just once, but again and again. It was almost as if he was his own AAA.”https://t.co/zv35xIBRMG

— NPR’s Only A Game (@OnlyAGameNPR) October 12, 2019