The Rev. John Painter’s desire to serve abroad pulled gently at his conscience, then grew strong and clear when the Air Force Chaplain Service called in June.

Painter, who is a chaplain at the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center, voluntarily deployed Sept. 5 to Ali Air Base in southern Iraq. He will forego Thanksgiving and Christmas, and his two children will turn a year older before he returns home in January 2009….

Today, Painter plans to lead a Thanksgiving observance service for Air Force and Army personnel and people from coalition forces, including Romanian and Ugandan, who share the base.

“It’s an American holiday. The other contingents do not register the holiday, but the concept did,” he said. People will sit around tables and get to know one another and share what they’re thankful for.

Personally, Painter said, “I’m thankful for freedom, family, good friends. It’s the little things like a hot shower.”

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

THERE IS A marvelous medicinal power in joy. Most medicines are distasteful; but this, which is the best of all medicines, is sweet to the taste, and comforting to the heart. We noticed, in our reading, that there had been a little tiff between two sisters in the church at Philippi;””I am glad that we do not know what the quarrel was about; I am usually thankful for ignorance on such subjects;””but, as a cure for disagreements, the apostle says, “Rejoice in the Lord alway.” People who are very happy, especially those who are very happy in the Lord, are not apt either to give offence or to take offence. Their minds are so sweetly occupied with higher things, that they are not easily distracted by the little troubles which naturally arise among such imperfect creatures as we are. Joy in the Lord is the cure for all discord. Should it not be so? What is this joy but the concord of the soul, the accord of the heart, with the joy of heaven? Joy in the Lord, then, drives away the discords of earth.

Further, brethren, notice that the apostle, after he had said, “Rejoice in the Lord alway,” commanded the Philippians to be careful for nothing, thus implying that joy in the Lord is one of the best preparations for the trials of this life. The cure for care is joy in the Lord. No, my brother, you will not be able to keep on with your fretfulness; no, my sister, you will not be able to weary yourself any longer with your anxieties, if the Lord will but fill you with his joy. Then, being satisfied with your God, yea, more than satisfied, overflowing with delight in him, you will say to yourself, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” What is there on earth that is worth fretting for even for five minutes? If one could gain an imperial crown by a day of care, it would be too great an expense for a thing which would bring more care with it. Therefore, let us be thankful, let us be joyful in the Lord. I count it one of the wisest things that, by rejoicing in the Lord, we commence our heaven here below. It is possible so to do, it is profitable so to do, and we are commanded so to do.

Now I come to the text itself, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.”

It will be our first business at this time to consider THE GRACE COMMANDED, this grace of joy; “Rejoice in the Lord,” says the apostle.

In the first place, this is a very delightful thing. What a gracious God we serve, who makes delight to be a duty, and who commands us to rejoice! Should we not at once be obedient to such a command as this? It is intended that we should be happy. That is the meaning of the precept, that we should be cheerful; more than that, that we should be thankful; more than that, that we should rejoice. I think this word “rejoice” is almost a French word; it is not only joy, but it is joy over again, re-joice. You know re usually signifies the reduplication of a thing, the taking it over again. We are to joy, and then we are to re-joy. We are to chew the cud of delight; we are to roll the dainty morsel under our tongue till we get the very essence out of it. “Rejoice.” Joy is a delightful thing. You cannot be too happy, brother. Nay, do not suspect yourself of being wrong because you are full of delight. You know it is said of the divine wisdom, “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.” Provided that it is joy in the Lord, you cannot have too much of it. The fly is drowned in the honey, or the sweet syrup into which he plunges himself; but this heavenly syrup of delight will not drown your soul, or intoxicate your heart. It will do you good, and not evil, all the days of your life. God never commanded us to do a thing that would really harm us; and when he bids us rejoice, we may be sure that this is a delightful as it is safe, and as safe as it is delightful. Come, brothers and sisters, I am inviting you now to no distasteful duty when, in the name of my Master, I say to you, as Paul said to the Philippians under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.”

”“C.H. Spurgeon (1834 ”“ 1892)

“When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, and have taken possession of it, and live in it,

you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the LORD your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place which the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there.

And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, ‘I declare this day to the LORD your God that I have come into the land which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’

Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down before the altar of the LORD your God.

“And you shall make response before the LORD your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.

And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage.

Then we cried to the LORD the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression;

and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders;

and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O LORD, hast given me.’ And you shall set it down before the LORD your God, and worship before the LORD your God;

and you shall rejoice in all the good which the LORD your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

–Deuteronomy 26:1-11

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.”

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

[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

Apparently GM is considering selling Saab, Saturn, and Pontiac in addition to already planned sale of the Hummer brand as part of a larger scheme in order to get congressional approval.

Fueled by rising unemployment and food prices, the number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.

The figures will put the spotlight on hunger when Congress begins deliberations on a new economic stimulus package, said legislators and anti-hunger advocates, predicting that any stimulus bill will include a boost in food stamp benefits. Advocates are also optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama, who made campaign promises to end childhood hunger and whose mother once briefly received food stamps, will make the issue a priority next year.

“We soon will have the most food stamps recipients in the history of our country,” said Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a D.C.-based anti-hunger policy organization. “If the economic forecasts come true, we’re likely to see the most hunger that we’ve seen since the 1981 recession and maybe since the 1960s, when these programs were established.”

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was among those attending the JSC meeting, which was held behind closed doors at the Anglican Communion Office and Lambeth Palace in London. She noted that a November 26 report in The Times of London newspaper, that suggested the JSC had discussed plans to discipline the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone for its recent incursions into other provinces, was untrue. “The subject has not come up,” she told Episcopal News Service.

The committee heard a report about the 2008 Lambeth Conference budget “and the deficit is much lower than was originally anticipated,” said Jefferts Schori, who was elected to the Primates Standing Committee in February 2007.

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Gunmen have opened fire at a number of sites in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), killing at least 78 people and injuring about 200 more.

Police said shooting was continuing and that the incidents were co-ordinated terrorist attacks. Gunmen had taken hostages at two hotels, they said.

At least seven sites have been targeted across India’s financial capital.

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Appearances can be deceiving. Six months ago, when Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia’s new president, many hoped there would be a thaw in U.S.-Russia relations.

The soft-spoken lawyer has never worked for the KGB. His reputation as a liberal seemed to contrast sharply with his predecessor, Vladimir Putin.

However, for the past six months it seems that President Medvedev has been working hard to dismantle his liberal image and revive memories of the Cold War.

Putin had a reputation for being tough, but it was under Medvedev that Russia used excessive force against Georgia, occupying part of its territory and crushing its military. Medvedev then defied world opinion by accusing the United States of instigating the war and by recognizing the independence of Georgia’s two separatist regions.

Read it all.

Watch it all from last night’s evening news.

Forward in Faith North America (FIFNA) has announced that Michael Howell had been appointed executive director.

The position of executive director is the organizing center for an organization comprised primarily of volunteers. FIFNA is a member of the Common Cause Partnership which recently announced plans to seek admittance as a second North American province of the Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

Here is one:

Re “For Detroit, Chapter 11 Would Be the Final Chapter” (Op-Ed, Nov. 24): Spencer Abraham, like all who have spoken in support of the auto industry, talks as if Chapter 11 would kill the American auto industry. When will he and others present a more realistic scenario?

A Chapter 11 filing may be the middle ground between the government-financed “trust me,” pain-free, business-as-usual path Detroit prefers and its straw man, the draconian forecast of Chapter 7 with its accompanying specter of a near-term liquidation of the entire American auto industry. It may also be the only way the automakers can revise their contracts to shrink their businesses to the existing market.

General Motors, for one, has too many models, too many plants, too many employees and too many dealers to support the 20 percent share it has whittled itself down to over 30 years.

Its leaders must demonstrate a willingness to make what’s good for the United States taxpayer good for G.M.

Roy Fuchs
Trumbull, Conn

Read them all.

Pope Benedict XVI may change the sequence of the Catholic Mass, including the sign of peace exchanged between worshippers, in order “to create a more meditative climate” of worship, a senior Vatican official said.

Cardinal Francis Arinze said the pope had asked all bishops for their views on whether the sign of peace, which is currently shared before Communion, should be moved to an earlier point in the Mass.

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The pipeline from corporate America to the nation’s charities is starting to dry up, as losses in the stock market mount and the U.S. recession deepens. With many large organizations depending on corporate largesse, their futures are suddenly uncertain.

Billionaires and large banks are pulling back on commitments or scaling back pledges. Some generous givers, such as Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., have folded or been bought. The pain is spreading to other big institutional donors and trickling down to New York’s famously lavish charity-gala scene, which is suffering lower turnouts and fund-raising hauls.

On Monday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it would slow the pace of grants next year — a sign that even the titans of philanthropy are rattled by current economic conditions.

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This is a nice picture.

“Two hungry kids, no job, need food,” which is written on a jagged piece of cardboard, moves in and out of sight in shades of green, followed by yellow, then finally, red.

The woman holding the sign shrinks back when asked to tell her name. She doesn’t want people to know how hard a time she is having. She only wants them to know her children are hungry.

For her, Thanksgiving Day is shaping up to be like all the other ones lately ”” not enough food on the table, little hope in the tank.

But fortunately, for Upstate residents like her in need of a Thanksgiving meal, local churches and charities are working to provide it.

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In a way, the new province raises some problematic questions for the structure of the church in North America. To truly be a province, the group would need recognition from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

“Those who are gathering next week to essentially declare a new province can only call it a ‘province’ in quotes,” said Rev. Edward Rix, rector at All Saint’s Parish in Wynnewood. “What will be controversial will be how they move forward on such issues that divide them.”

Rev. Rix said there are many examples of overlapping jurisdiction that could provide a precedent, but those instances may be considered different than this one.

“It is the case that dioceses spring up from groups of parishes,” said Rev. Rix.

He said some parishes incorporate as a diocese and than apply for membership as a diocese, essentially the same procedure that is being used for the new province.

Bishop David Moyer, rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, knows many of the leaders of the movement. He said their intentions are good, but that their road will be difficult.

“I think these leaders are driven by Gospel imperatives,” said Bishop Moyer.

But he also said he doesn’t really expect Archbishop Williams to recognize the new province.

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According to a report commissioned by the Government from the former HBOS chief executive, Sir James Crosby, and published with the pre-Budget report, net new mortgage lending may next year shrink to below zero, a situation quite without precedent even during the last housing market crash of the early 1990s, when the problem was never lack of mortgage finance but rather its cost. Today it is the reverse.

The main reason for this intensification in the mortgage famine is that lenders have approximately £160bn of mortgages to refinance next year, yet beyond the Government, no obvious way of doing so. Nobody is prepared to finance or buy mortgage assets right now. The securitisation markets remain closed.

Sir James suggests the Government guarantees £100bn of mortgage-backed securities as one way out of this downward spiral of decline. Yet Mr King doesn’t like this solution at all, as subsidisation of mortgage lending may end up only crowding out small business and other forms of lending. As can readily be seen, there is no magic wand that can be waved to get rid of the deleveraging process.

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If that headache plaguing you this morning led you first to a Web search and then to the conclusion that you must have a brain tumor, you may instead be suffering from cyberchondria.

On Monday, Microsoft researchers published the results of a study of health-related Web searches on popular search engines as well as a survey of the company’s employees.

The study suggests that self-diagnosis by search engine frequently leads Web searchers to conclude the worst about what ails them.

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“Vigorous conversation is a good thing,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said, “and not something to be afraid of.” She said disagreement is to be expected. “The body has many parts with different roles. That’s what unity looks like””people working together in spite of their differences to serve the people of the world.

“If everybody’s a little uncomfortable, I think it means we’re doing our job. We have something to learn from people who are most irritated with us.”

A responsibility of all church members, she said, is “getting outside our beautiful buildings” into the community and “speaking the good news” about Jesus who “is friend, prophet, fully human and fully divine, a challenger of the status quo and of being too comfortable, healer, feeder of the hungry and challenger of the demons who say there is no hope.

“We are a pilgrim people,” she continued, “and not allowed to settle down until all people find a home in God. I think that is the kind of people we need to be, to know we have no permanent home except in God.”

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President-elect Obama wants America to know he is not just about spending money.

Once the economy starts growing again ”“ his first priority ”“ he will get out the knife and start to cut programs that have “outlived their usefulness.” In short, he wants to also be known as a budget reformer.

In a press conference Tuesday, Mr. Obama characterized trimming federal programs as “not an option; it’s a necessity.” He promised that Peter Orszag, whom he has picked to run the Office of Management and Budget, will go through the $2.9 trillion US budget line by line, page by page, looking for better and less expensive ways to do things.

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Over my career, I have seen thousands of consumers that have credit card lines in excess of their annual salaries. Some are sinking under their burden. Some have been fiscally responsible and have minimal amounts outstanding. My 21-year-old daughter, who’s in college, gets pre-approved offers all the time. She has no ability to repay debt, yet the offers flow in just the same. We all know how these lines are accumulated. The banks, in their infinite stupidity, keep upping credit lines because the customer pays the minimum payments on time. My daughter’s credit line started at $1,000 and has been increased over the last two years to $4,400. She has no increased earnings to support this. But the banks do it without asking. And without being asked. The banks reel in the consumer, charge interest rates higher than those charged by the mob, increase lines without the consumer asking and without their consent, and lure them into overextending. And we can count on the banks to act surprised when they aren’t paid back. Shame on them.

As a banker, let me describe what we do wrong when we accept and review an application for a credit card. First, we don’t verify income. The first ”˜C’ of credit: Capacity to repay, is completely ignored by the banks, just as it was in when they approved subprime mortgages. Then we ask for “household income” ”” as if other parties in the household could be held responsible for that debt. They cannot. And since we don’t ask for any proof of income, the customer can throw out any number they think will work for them. Then we ask if they rent or own and how much they pay. If their name is not on the mortgage, they can state zero. If they pay $1,000 in rent, they can say $500. (Years ago we asked for a copy of the lease to verify this number.) And finally, we don’t ask how much of a credit line the consumer is looking for. The banker can’t even put that amount into the system. There isn’t any place on the application for that information. We simply put unverified information into a mindless computer and the computer gets the person’s credit score and grants them the biggest line that score and income (ha!) qualifies for.

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Read it all and check out the picture.

The pace at which Americans are getting cancer has started to decline for the first time, marking what could be a long-awaited turning point in the battle against the disease, according to an annual report that tracks progress in the war on cancer.

Cancer deaths have also continued a decline that began in the early 1990s, meaning that for the first time both trend lines are dropping.

“It is a significant milestone,” said Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, which produces the report with the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. “It is a really big deal.”

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We debated the merits of collective wisdom earlier this year, after the bettors in the the Intrade online prediction market wrongly picked Barack Obama to win the New Hampshire primary. The bettors are looking more savvy now that the election’s over and the last undecided state, Missouri, has finally been called for John McCain. Once again, collective wisdom backed by cash has triumphed over conventional wisdom ”” at least when you compare the Intrade bettors with some of the pundits who get paid to make predictions.

On the morning of Election Day, I printed out the expectations from the Dublin-based Intrade market as well as a roundup of predictions from nearly two dozen political consultants, journalists and academics that appeared at the Huffington Post.

The Intrade bettors expected Mr. Obama to end up with 364 votes in the Electoral College ”” one less than he actually got. None of the pundits came so close.

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