Stacey Jutila knows the halls well. She has walked miles in those halls. She knows Moses, and all the rest of the Bible. Plenty of the Koran too. Jutila, 32, is the night chaplain at Children’s. She is among the few ordained ministers assigned full time to the night watch of a hospital, in Chicago or beyond. Usually, nights are covered by whoever happens to be on call. Maybe a student. Maybe someone who drew the short stick.

Not so at Children’s. Folks there listened to the nurses, the doctors. Listened most of all to parents who cried out for someone to lean on when the place, finally, is quiet. When you can hear the sounds that don’t sound one bit like home.

“Nighttime here, especially in the [intensive care unit], is the hardest time anywhere,” says Carly Haniszewski, 29, of northwest suburban Huntley. Her only child, 2-year-old Teagan, has a brain tumor and, beginning June 1, the day after the toppling toddler fell flat on her face off a couch, and everyone, especially her mother and father, realized something was wrong, very wrong, she spent 71 nights in intensive care, took six trips to the O.R., was twice told she would not live through the night.

“Your family’s all gone,” the mother explains of the curse of the nighttime. “The floor has become quiet. You hear more of a hospital, the machines. You don’t hear a ventilator until it’s nighttime. You can hear every breath of the bag. You know that that noise is giving your child that breath, and without it, she couldn’t stay alive.

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The claim of those who organized this is:

We are evangelical and catholic Anglicans, and fellow travelers from the wider household of God, assembled and summoned to a common labor in the ecumenical Church of Christ, not least through the present struggles and gifts of our communities.

We recognize that the Anglican Communion””the first instance of ecclesiality with which we, in this particular online assembly, wrestle for a blessing””is incomplete by itself, because we have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands the wounds of our Lord’s body: the countless factions and disputes that do not bring Him glory, leaving us all together far short of our call to “share,” as sisters and brothers visibly united, in the “partnership” of His offering (I Cor 10.14ff.).

In a sense it has ever been so. We recall St Paul’s outrage with the Corinthians, who “came together (synerchesthai) ”¦not for the better but for the worse,” a sobering point too-little reflected upon in our day by those, on all sides, who find the Church’s unity and orthodoxy uncomplicated””either simply given, or obviously taken away. Against both of these views, Paul insists that “there have to be factions (hairesis) among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine” (I Cor 11.17-19). And yet the Apostle does not on that account “commend” the Corinthians for showing “contempt for the Church of God and humiliat[ing] those who have nothing” (I Cor 11:22). Rather, Paul’s argument devolves to his prior exhortation to learn from the “example” of “Israel,” “written down to instruct us,” “so that we might not desire evil” but instead the singular “blessing that we bless.” Only upon this, objective basis: the blood and body of Christ unveiled, will the Corinthians learn to “do everything for the glory of God,” that is, to “give no offense to Jews or Greeks or to the Church,” to “please everyone in everything,” and not seek their “own advantage,” so that “many”¦ may be saved” (I Cor 10).

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, said Sept. 10 that he has been talking with members of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s staff and will attend next year’s Lambeth Conference in whatever capacity he is permitted as long as he is given a voice.

“I’m going to do my best to be at the table,” Bishop Robinson said. “More than anything I wish I could be in the same room with Archbishop [Peter] Akinola [of Nigeria] so he could hear from my own lips how God has transformed me through scripture. The miracle is that I heard God’s voice in scripture. I am fiercely committed to it. It literally saved my life.”

Bishop Robinson delivered an address at the General Theological Seminary on reconciliation efforts on human sexuality within the Anglican Communion as part of the “Reconciliation at the Roundtable” conference Sept. 10-12 at the seminary’s newly opened Desmond Tutu Center. He began by comparing his invitation to speak on reconciliation within the Anglican Communion to inviting a fox to lecture on reconciliation within a henhouse.

“Either this was a stroke of genius or a profoundly disturbing decision,” he said. “You will get to be the judge.”

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The federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday upheld a death sentence from a jury that had consulted the Bible’s teachings on capital punishment.

In a second decision on the role of religion in the criminal justice system, the same court ruled Friday that requiring a former prisoner on parole to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous violated the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion.

In the capital case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit split 9 to 6 on the question of whether notes including Bible verses prepared by the jury’s foreman and used during sentencing deliberations required reversal of the death sentence imposed on Stevie L. Fields in 1979.

Mr. Fields, on parole after serving time for manslaughter, committed a series of rapes, kidnappings and robberies, and murdered Rosemary Cobbs, a student librarian at the University of Southern California.

After the jury convicted Mr. Fields and while it was deliberating his sentence, the foreman, Rodney White, conducted outside research, consulting several reference works and preparing a list of pros and cons on the death penalty that he shared with fellow jurors. On the pro side, he quoted passages from the Bible, including this one from Exodus: “He that smiteth a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to death.”

Judge Pamela Ann Rymer, writing for the majority, said there was no need to decide whether there had been juror misconduct, “because even assuming there was, we are persuaded that White’s notes had no substantial and injurious effect or influence.”

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Turn on the sitcom that is the hottest television show in Russia, and it all seems so familiar. Moored to his living room couch is a shoe salesman who is more interested in watching sports than conjugal relations. His wife has shocking hair and an even more shocking mouth. A couple of ne’er-do-well teenagers round out this bawdy, bickering bunch.

In fact, the show is an authorized copy of the American sitcom “Married With Children,” with a Russian cast and dialogue but scripts that hew closely to those of the original. This knockoff is such a sensation, especially among younger viewers, that its actors have become household names, and advertisements for its new season are plastered around Moscow.

A drumbeat of anti-Americanism may be coming from the Kremlin these days, but across Russia people are embracing that quintessentially American genre, the television sitcom, not to mention one of its brassiest examples. And curiously enough, it is the Russian government that has effectively brought “Married With Children” to this land, which somehow made it through the latter half of the 20th century without the benefit of the laugh track.

The show’s success says something not only about changing tastes here but also about Russia’s standing. Sitcoms are typically grounded in middle-class life and poke fun at it. The popularity of Russian versions of “Married With Children” and other adaptations of American sitcoms suggests that Russia has gained enough stability and wealth in recent years that these jokes resonate with viewers.

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Interesting stuff.

Peters Creek Presbyterian Church voted 273-86 yesterday to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA ) for the more theologically conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

The vote — which included two abstentions — represented more than half the church’s full membership of 595 and just over 75 percent of the 361 ballots cast. Those percentages would meet the standard that Washington Presbytery set in July to consider allowing churches that want to move to the other denomination to do so along with their property.

But because Peters Creek initiated its move before that plan was adopted, the presbytery is not required to consider those numbers in its case. In the absence of such a local plan, denominational law says that the property belongs to the denomination.

“We have placed the future of this ministry into your hands and into the hands of Washington Presbytery,” the Rev. L. Rus Howard said in a prayer after the decision was announced. “Help us treat each other with love and grace and mercy.”

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On Monday this week, the last of the 343 firefighters who died on September 11th was buried. Because no remains of Michael Ragusa, age 29, of Engine Company 279, were found and identified, his family placed in his coffin a very small vial of his blood, donated years ago to a bone-marrow clinic. At the funeral service Michael’s mother Dee read an excerpt from her son’s diary on the occasion of the death of a colleague. “It is always sad and tragic when a fellow firefighter dies,” Michael Ragusa wrote, “especially when he is young and had everything to live for.” Indeed. And what a sobering reminder of how many died and the awful circumstances in which they perished that it took until this week to bury the last one.

So here is to the clergy, the ministers, rabbis, imams and others, who have done all these burials and sought to help all these grieving families. And here is to the families who lost loved ones and had to cope with burials in which sometimes they didn’t even have remains of the one who died. And here, too, is to the remarkable ministry of the Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, who played every single service for all 343 firefighters who lost their lives. The Society chose not to end any service at which they played with an up-tempo march until the last firefighter was buried.

On Monday, in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, the Society therefore played “Garry Owen” and “Atholl Highlander,” for the first time since 9/11 as the last firefighter killed on that day was laid in the earth. On the two year anniversary here is to New York, wounded and more sober, but ever hopeful and still marching.

—First published on this blog September 11, 2003

Six years ago today, May Hoy kept a lunch date with a group of ladies she grew up with on Sullivan’s Island, but her mind was filled with worry over her son, Warren, an Army foreign affairs officer serving at the Pentagon.

Hoy was married to a military man, the late Maj. Tom Hoy, and he had served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, so Hoy was no stranger to the anxious wait for news of a loved one. But she had seen the World Trade Center attacks on television and knew that the Pentagon also had been hit by terrorists.

The North Charleston Fire Department will remember the attacks today with a ceremony at the department’s administrative building at 2536 Fourth St.

Firefighters will gather at the flagpole in front of the building at 9:58 a.m. and will ring the bell and observe a minute of silence before reading the names of all 343 firefighters who died in the World Trade Center.

“I was a nervous wreck,” May Hoy said.

She would later learn that her son and his immediate co-workers escaped death by about three feet, when the hijacked plane that struck the Pentagon slammed through the levels immediately below his office.

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This is a long download but an important file to take the time to listen to and watch. There are a few pieces I would have wished to do differently in terms of the choices, but the actual footage and the music is valuable.

For myself, I finally watched United flight 93 which I have been unable to handle watching until this year. It also is very worth the time. I was speechless by the end. My distinguished friend and co-worker the Rev. Craige Borrett saw United 93 in the theatre and noted that it was the only time he has ever been to a movie where the people left in total silence–KSH.

Read it all–you won’t believe it.

Watch it all courtesy of Anglican TV

House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson assured Episcopalians in the Diocese of Fort Worth September 8 that they will be supported by the leadership of the wider church “so that you may answer God’s call to mission.”

“Above all else, I want you to know that faithful Episcopalians have made promises to God, asking for God’s help to keep these promises each time we renew our baptismal covenant,” she said. “Faithful Episcopalians will be supported by their church leadership so that you may answer God’s call to mission with the full support of the Episcopal Church. The obstacles in front of you are no match for the power behind you. You are beloved.”

Still, Anderson advised Episcopalians to “saddle your own horse” if they wanted to see changes in their diocese. She advised them to pay attention to the issue of governance, reminding them that parishes and dioceses remain a part of the Episcopal Church even if some members decide to leave.

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THE first synod of the Anglican Diocese of Nike was concluded in Enugu yesterday with a strong condemnation of what it called the debasement of moral values exemplified in same sex marriage and homosexuality.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the synod, the church described same sex marriage as “devilish and a deviation from the Holy Scriptures” which it said is the anchor of the Anglican faith. It called on the Christian faithful to shun such practice in view of the punishments awaiting the perpetrators.

The synod also observed with satisfaction what it described as the stable leadership that had been entrenched at various levels of governance in the country, calling for prayers and support of the masses to enable the leaders succeed in their efforts to move the nation to enviable heights.

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In many sweet ways – little notes on the refrigerator, photos of kids on the walls – Holy Comforter parish in Broomfield resembles a happy family.
But next Sunday, this 49-year-old family faces something like a divorce.

That’s when the Rev. Chuck Reeder and an unspecified number of parishioners join the national conservative flight out of the Episcopal Church because of its departure from traditional teachings on marriage and Scriptural authority.

“Very soon, this is not going to be the congregation it has been,” Reeder told Sunday’s Bible study crowd over pastries and coffee. He confessed to typos in this week’s study outline and added, “Go easy on me. This has been a tough week.”

Unlike the bloody war of lawsuits elsewhere, this parish breakup is civil and polite – gentle, even. Nobody’s trying to take the property. Reeder won’t even discuss who’s staying or going, lest it seem like a bitter “us” versus “them” issue.

But everything still hurts.

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