[New York, 3 October 1789]

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor”“and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be”“That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks”“for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation”“for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed”“for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted”“for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions”“to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually”“to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed”“to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord”“To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us”“and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

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

1 Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly. 2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. 3 He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds. 4 He determines the number of the stars, he gives to all of them their names. 5 Great is our LORD, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. 6 The LORD lifts up the downtrodden, he casts the wicked to the ground. 7 Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; make melody to our God upon the lyre! 8 He covers the heavens with clouds, he prepares rain for the earth, he makes grass grow upon the hills. 9 He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens which cry. 10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man; 11 but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.

12 Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! 13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your sons within you. 14 He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest of the wheat. 15 He sends forth his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. 16 He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. 17 He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold? 18 He sends forth his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow. 19 He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances to Israel. 20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the LORD!

–Psalm 147:1-20

One day near the middle of the last century a minister in a prison camp in Germany conducted a service for the other prisoners. One of those prisoners, an English officer who survived, wrote these words:

“Dietrich Bonhoeffer always seemed to me to spread an atmosphere of happiness and joy over the least incident, and profound gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive”¦ He was one of the very few persons I have ever met for whom God was real and always near”¦ On Sunday, April 8, 1945, Pastor Bonhoeffer conducted a little service of worship and spoke to us in a way that went to the heart of all of us. He found just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment, and the thoughts and resolutions it had brought us. He had hardly ended his last prayer when the door opened and two civilians entered. They said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us.” That had only one meaning for all prisoners”“the gallows. We said good-bye to him. He took me aside: “This is the end; but for me it is the beginning of life.” The next day he was hanged in Flossenburg.”

Bishop Frank Lyons of Bolivia, a guest at the Diocese of Fort Worth’s annual convention, told delegates and visitors that Archbishop Gregory Venables had “received a positive response” from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams last September when he informed Archbishop Williams that his province would likely extend a formal invitation to Fort Worth and other U.S. dioceses.

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At Forward Operating Base Salerno, weekly briefings of the support battalion are down-to-earth, nuts-and-bolts affairs. Inside air-conditioned metal shipping containers, surrounded by aerial photographs marked “SECRET,” soldiers report on risk assessments, mission accomplishments, and the operational needs of the 500 soldiers here who keep the war machine running.

Capt. Shareen Fischer ”“ clad in tan and green fatigues, hair pulled tight in a no-nonsense bun ”“ clutches her Power Point remote as she admonishes the leaders of the men and women of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie companies to be prepared.

For Mother’s Day.

The troops, Captain Fischer says, “can start thinking right now what they are going to say either to their mom or to the mother of their children.” Because she will be coming around with her camera to tape the next video she sends back home to families.

Her tone may be mil-speak, but her message is Hallmark. And nobody so much as blinks. The woman, after all, is their chaplain. Her soldiers work out the logistics of supporting small bases scattered across southern Afghanistan, getting fuel, food, and equipment to them ”“ and Chaplain Fischer supports the support troops.

For Fischer this means hours of listening, counseling, and using her camera to bridge lives that are worlds apart ”“ a healing, nurturing presence in the midst of a war in which the casualties can be relationships with partners and families back home.

While her work might seem soft in a world of weapons and tactics, there is hard evidence that it contributes to the overall strength of the military.

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The dollar sank to a new low against the euro Wednesday on pessimism about the American economy and speculation that Washington will cut interest rates again.

The euro spiked to $1.4856 before retreating slightly to $1.4829 in afternoon European trading. It broke the $1.48 mark for the first time on Tuesday, when it settled at $1.4815 in late New York trading.

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Over the last 12 months, 1,042 soldiers, Marines, sailors and Air Force personnel have given their lives in the terrible duty that is war. Thousands more have come home on stretchers, horribly wounded and facing months or years in military hospitals.

This week, I’m turning my space over to a good friend and former roommate, Army LTC Robert Bateman, who recently completed a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq and is now back at the Pentagon.

Here’s LTC Bateman’s account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning. It first appeared on May 17 on the Weblog of media critic and pundit Eric Alterman at the Media Matters for America Website….

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The Aiken Hounds were established in 1914 by Thomas Hitchcock Sr. and his wife Louise Eustis Hitchcock. They were recognized by the Masters of Foxhounds Association of America in 1916.

“It’s a nice brisk walk to the Memorial Gate,” said Knox McLean. “It’s what everyone loves to do on Thanksgiving day.”

The pageantry of the hunt, the riders dressed in their formal attire, the clean horses and clean hounds are parts of the ceremony the public really enjoys, said Knox McLean.
The hounds will be receiving their annual bath on Wednesday, courtesy of the Aiken County Pony Club, said Knox McLean.

“The riders will dress formal, and the leather will be clean, everything will be spit and polish,” said Knox McLean.

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Just when I was about to commend our Episcopal Bishop of Georgia for his moderate stance in agreeing that our orthodox friends over at Christ Church continue to hold services on the property during the dispute over its ownership, I read that, contrary to Biblical warnings against Christians going to court with fellow Christians, he has decided to litigate his differences with Christ Church.

His initial position was especially to be commended because The Episcopal Church’s (TEC’s) Presiding Bishop and other radical TEC bishops have been quick to urge the very strongest measures against those parishes that leave TEC.

Our bishop, of course, is not one of the radicals, some of whom now so reinterpret classic Christian doctrine that, even though they dress up in traditional garb and recite a somewhat familiar sounding liturgy, they are, in fact, like the pagan priests of the late Roman Empire whom Gibbon so devastatingly described as, “Viewing, with a smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar, they digilently practiced the ceremonies of their fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes condescending to act a part on the theater of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an Atheist under sacerdotal robes.”

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Now that biologists in Oregon have reported using cloning to produce a monkey embryo and extract stem cells, it looks more plausible than before that a human embryo will be cloned and that, some day, a cloned human will be born. But not necessarily on this side of the Pacific.

American and European researchers have made most of the progress so far in biotechnology. Yet they still face one very large obstacle ”” God, as defined by some Western religions.

While critics on the right and the left fret about the morality of stem-cell research and genetic engineering, prominent Western scientists have been going to Asia, like the geneticists Nancy Jenkins and Neal Copeland, who left the National Cancer Institute and moved last year to Singapore.

Asia offers researchers new labs, fewer restrictions and a different view of divinity and the afterlife. In South Korea, when Hwang Woo Suk reported creating human embryonic stem cells through cloning, he did not apologize for offending religious taboos. He justified cloning by citing his Buddhist belief in recycling life through reincarnation.

When Dr. Hwang’s claim was exposed as a fraud, his research was supported by the head of South Korea’s largest Buddhist order, the Rev. Ji Kwan. The monk said research with embryos was in accord with Buddha’s precepts and urged Korean scientists not to be guided by Western ethics.

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How far we have come from the wisdom saying in Prov 25:2 that God’s glory is to conceal a matter while a king’s glory is to search it out? Once that human task was democratized, like the move to make room in heaven for the Pharaoh’s subjects too, the touch became truly reciprocal. For nearly forty-three years, I have explored the implications of the human initiative in a silent universe. Like Karl Rahner, I have found divine silence to be a compelling reason for a determined search to discover God’s presence through insights provided by biblical sages. I, for one, am eternally grateful that these wise men and women did not abandon reason for faith, as important as faith is to knowledge, but tried to the best of their ability to actualize a reciprocating touch that even Michelangelo did not envision when depicting the origin of humankind.

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Microsoft has abruptly closed down four “pro-anorexia” websites in Spain following a complaint that they were endangering the lives of teenage girls.

The websites, which offer tips such as “take up smoking” and “if your stomach rumbles, hit it”, were accused of teaching teenagers how to starve themselves.

Internet companies usually wait for a court order before closing any sites that they host. But Microsoft acted swiftly after complaints from a Catalan watchdog that several blogs on its Live Spaces community glorified starvation as a lifestyle choice.

Such sites worship “thinspirational” celebrities such as Victoria Beckham and refer to “my friend Ana” instead of anorexia to avoid discovery by parents.

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[Steven] Van Zandt has a way to counter all this, at least where music is concerned. He’s drawn up a high school music curriculum that tells American history through music. It would introduce students to Muddy Waters, the Mississippi Sheiks, Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers. He’s trying to use music to motivate and engage students, but most of all, he is trying to establish a canon, a common tradition that reminds students that they are inheritors of a long conversation.

And Van Zandt is doing something that is going to be increasingly necessary for foundations and civic groups. We live in an age in which the technological and commercial momentum drives fragmentation. It’s going to be necessary to set up countervailing forces ”” institutions that span social, class and ethnic lines.

Music used to do this. Not so much anymore.

— David Brooks in today’s NY Times.

Next year, San Francisco will issue municipal identification cards showing the usual name, birthdate and photo.

What the card won’t include: gender.

When other cities considered issuing ID cards without regard to legal status, the debate was over illegal immigrants. In San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors approved such an ID on Tuesday, transgender activists added gender to the discussion.

“Transgender” is a broad term for people who do not identify with their birth sex. Those who refer to themselves as transgender include cross-dressers and transsexuals.

“The card really makes gender a non-issue,” says Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco.

Read it all.

The trial phase of the case involving 11 Virginia congregations where the majority voted to leave The Episcopal Church last year ended Nov. 20, a day ahead of schedule, after lawyers for both sides agreed not to call an expert witness on Wednesday.

A decision is unlikely before late January, however. Yesterday Fairfax Circuit Judge Randy I. Bellows requested submission of all closing arguments in writing no later Jan. 17. The schedule calls for lawyers for the 11 congregations to submit their closing brief by Dec. 21. The diocese and national church then have until Jan. 11 to respond, with lawyers for 11 congregations required to submit their reply no later than Jan. 17.

The dispute, which includes two Colonial Era churches and property worth tens of millions of dollars, began last year after the Diocese of Virginia contested a legal filing made by the 11 congregations with the Commonwealth of Virginia stating that a division had occurred. Under an 1867 Virginia law, the local congregation is entitled to decide “by majority vote” which side they wish to join. Majorities at the Episcopal congregations had voted to leave the diocese and affiliate with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria.

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When Pentecostal power couple Randy and Paula White recently announced they were headed to divorce court, the most remarkable part of the reaction was that there wasn’t much reaction at all.

For increasing numbers of clergy, a divorce no longer generates the kind of career-killing hue and cry of decades ago, in part because plenty of people in the pews have experienced divorce themselves.

The shifting views on divorced clergy reflect a growing concession among rank-and-file conservative Christians that a failed marriage is no longer an unforgivable sin.

For many evangelical Christians, the line seems to have shifted from a single acceptable reason for divorce — adultery — to a wider range of reasons that some say can be biblically justified.

“I am probably one of those evangelicals who would say it would be three A’s for me,” said Chris Bounds, a theologian at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind. “Abuse, abandonment and adultery.”

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November 20, 2007,
Dear Friends in Christ,

I have communicated to the Presiding Bishop my request to be released from my ordination vows and the obligations and responsibilities of a member of the House of Bishops. I have taken this step in order to be received into the Catholic Church. Through a long season of prayer and reflection Marcie and I have come to believe this is the leading of the Holy Spirit and God’s call to us for the next chapter of our lives. We are grateful to our brother in Christ, the Most Rev. Robert N. Lynch, the Bishop of St. Petersburg, for his openness to our request and for his prayerful support.

I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home where I was given the gift of a deep love for the Lord Jesus Christ and a reverence for God’s revelation of his love and redemptive purpose in the Word written, as well as the Word made Flesh. I was blessed to be brought into the family of the Episcopal Church 40 years ago. I have a deep love for the sacramental life, most especially the Eucharistic sacrifice through which God continues to pour his grace into our lives in the Word that needs no words.
I will be forever grateful for the opportunities I had to serve this faith community as a deacon and priest. I am most grateful for the opportunity you, the people of the Diocese of Southwest Florida, gave me to serve as your bishop and to participate in the life of the Anglican Communion. You made it possible for me to share in the mission of God that can never be bound by geographical or political barriers.

I believe God is now calling us to continue our ministry to serve in the healing of the visible Body of Christ in the world. I am convinced our Lord’s deepest desire is for the unity of the Church.

Marcie and I will never have the words to express to you the depth of our gratitude for the support you gave us during my medical leave and for the joyous celebration of the ministry you allowed us to share with you that brings to a close my ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. We will pray for the continued health and vitality of the Diocese of Southwest Florida.

The following prayer by Thomas Merton speaks more eloquently than we can find possible at this moment. Marcie and I have experienced an abundance of God’s grace throughout our lives, and we continue to trust God in the future, which continues to unfold for us:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Lawyers and witnesses tangled yesterday over whether disaffected Episcopal congregations can be considered part of the 77-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion in the fourth day of a lawsuit at the Fairfax County courthouse.

Ian Douglas, a professor at the Episcopal Divinity School, a seminary in Cambridge, Mass., repeatedly testified that the Anglican Communion is a “family of churches,” and therefore, not divisible into factions.

“We”re not a global church,” he said. “It”d be hard to create a division because it presupposes an intact whole.”

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The tragedy of Megan Meier will take another twist Wednesday night when officials in her home town vote on whether to make online harassment a local crime.
Meier is the 13-year-old suburban St. Louis girl who met a cute 16-year-old named Josh Evans last year on the social networking site MySpace. They became close, but suddenly he turned on her, calling her names, saying she was “a bad person and everybody hates you.” Others joined the harassment ”” the barrage culminated in Megan’s Oct. 16, 2006, suicide, just short of her 14th birthday.

Weeks later, Megan’s grieving parents learned that the boy didn’t exist ”” he’d been fabricated by a neighbor, the mother of one of Megan’s former friends. The girls had had a falling out, police say, and she wanted to know what Megan was saying about her daughter.

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The Anglican Bishop of New Westminster says the division over homosexuality in the Canadian church is now “a full-blown schism” and a conservative Anglican faction has hinted at an announcement this week on the formation of a breakaway body.

Right Reverend Michael Ingham, whose Greater Vancouver diocese became the first Anglican jurisdiction to formally authorize the blessing of same-sex unions, reacted forcefully to a retired Newfoundland bishop’s intention to come into the diocese and ordain priests who oppose the blessings.

Diocesan turf-poaching is the biggest bureaucratic sin in the decentralized Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest Christian church. Authorizing same-sex blessings may represent a theological difference of opinion, but one bishop taking his episcopal authority into another bishop’s diocese is clearly a schismatic act.

Bishop Ingham also warned 10 priests in his diocese who are pastors of conservative parishes that he will discipline them if they take part in the ordinations planned by retired bishop Don Harvey.

Read it all.

Listen to it all

Finally, I want to add to our Diocesan photo album an affirmation that we are part of a larger family, with a larger photo album. As members of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, we currently find ourselves in a place of challenge and some anxiety, due in large part to theological and ecclesial disagreements with regard to human sexuality. We have been in similar places before. Part of what is different this time is the reality of globalization, the challenge of information management and the pace with which we carry on conversations across the internet.

For example, I keep shaking my head and wondering how did the Windsor Report, a report that started out as a committee report, become in such a short time the sacred text and standard of “right” moral and ecclesial behavior that it is for many today! In my judgment, calls to be “Windsor compliant” are premature at best; and do a disservice to our Anglican heritage of faithful engagement with one another around complex issues and to the special Anglican charism of the via media, the middle way.

On this day when we remember in our liturgical calendar the great Anglican theologian, Richard Hooker, we would do well to take to heart the words of the collect appointed for his commemoration. “Grant that we may maintain that middle way, not as a compromise for the sake of peace, but as a comprehension for the sake of truth.” As noted in the recent publication, Communion Matters, from the Theology Committee of House of Bishops: “Comprehension for the sake of truth has served us well. Perhaps it is our unique and essential charism as a Church.”

In the spirit of that heritage, I will continue to labor for a church that is welcoming and inclusive of all in every aspect of its life, governance and ministry. In particular, this means that I will continue to champion the justice ministry toward full inclusion of gay and lesbian persons in our church, including their full access to all orders of ministry and the liturgical blessing of the church on the committed, life long relationships of gay and lesbian couples.

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Following a joint meeting of the standing committee and diocesan council, the Rt. Rev. John W. Howe, Bishop of Central Florida, announced Nov. 15 that they were unable to agree upon a protocol for congregations desiring to secede from The Episcopal Church.

The rejected proposal would have permitted a departing congregation to purchase church property from the diocese provided that they made adequate provision for those members who desired to remain Episcopalians and participated in a parish discernment process devised and supervised by the diocese.

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For years she hid the credit card bills from her husband: The $2,500 embroidered coat from Neiman Marcus. The $900 beaded scarf from Blake in Chicago. A $600 pair of Dries van Noten boots. All beautiful items, and all perfectly affordable if she had been a hedge fund manager or a Google executive.

Friends at first dropped hints to go easy or rechannel her creative instincts. Her mother grew concerned enough to ask pointed questions. But sales clerks kept calling with early tips on the coming season’s fashions, and the seasons kept changing.

“It got so bad I would sit up suddenly at night and wonder if I was going to slip up and this whole thing would explode,” said the secretive shopper, Katharine Farrington, 46, a freelance film writer living in Washington, who is now free of debt. “I don’t know how I could have been in denial about it for so long. I guess I was optimistic I could pay, and that I wasn’t hurting anyone.

“Well, of course that wasn’t true.”

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Fairfax Circuit Judge Randy I. Bellows overruled all objections by lawyers representing the Diocese of Virginia and The Episcopal Church during morning testimony by bishops Martyn Minns and John Guernsey on Nov. 14. Paul Julienne, a member of the vestry at Truro Church, Fairfax, and the Diocese of Virginia’s reconciliation commission, also testified on the second day of what is expected to be a six-day trial.

The Diocese of Virginia brought suit after the majority at 11 Virginia congregations voted to leave The Episcopal Church. Most of the congregations subsequently affiliated with the Anglican Church of Nigeria. All Saints’, Woodbridge, the parish where Bishop Guernsey served as rector for more than 20 years, affiliated with the Anglican Church of Uganda. The diocese is seeking eviction of the breakaway Anglican congregations and court recognition that it lawfully holds title to the properties which are worth tens of millions of dollars.

Bishop Minns testified first, responding to questions for about 30 minutes for lawyers representing the breakaway congregations. He was then cross-examined by lawyers for the diocese and national church for about 20 minutes. Bishop Guernsey testified next for about 20 minutes with 10 minutes of cross examination.

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The top three Democratic presidential contenders remain locked in a close battle in Iowa, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) seeing her advantages diminish on key issues, including the questions of experience and which candidate is best prepared to handle the war in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) draws support from 30 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, compared with 26 percent for Clinton and 22 percent for former senator John Edwards (N.C.). New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson received 11 percent. The results are only marginally different from a Post-ABC poll in late July, but in a state likely to set the tone for the rest of the nominating process, there are significant signs of progress for Obama — and harbingers of concern for Clinton.

The factors that have made Clinton the clear national front-runner — including her overwhelming leads on the issues of the Iraq war and health care, a widespread sense that she is the Democrats’ most electable candidate, and her strong support among women — do not appear to be translating on the ground in Iowa, where campaigning is already fierce and television ads have been running for months.

At the heart of the Democratic race has been the dichotomy between strength and experience (qualities emphasized by Clinton, Richardson, and Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut in their appeals) and the ability to introduce a new approach to governing (as Obama and Edwards have promised to do).

Iowa Democrats are tilting toward change, and Obama appears to be benefiting from it.

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