Colby Curtin, a 10-year-old with a rare form of cancer, was staying alive for one thing ”“ a movie.

From the minute Colby saw the previews to the Disney-Pixar movie Up, she was desperate to see it. Colby had been diagnosed with vascular cancer about three years ago, said her mother, Lisa Curtin, and at the beginning of this month it became apparent that she would die soon and was too ill to be moved to a theater to see the film.

After a family friend made frantic calls to Pixar to help grant Colby her dying wish, Pixar came to the rescue.

The company flew an employee with a DVD of Up, which is only in theaters, to the Curtins’ Huntington Beach home on June 10 for a private viewing of the movie.

How fantastic is that? Read it all.

Children whose parents separate are twice as likely to under-achieve at school, suffer mental health problems and struggle to form lasting relationships, according to research commissioned by Ed Balls.

Effects of family breakdown can be ‘enduring’ and persist well into adulthood, the study for the Schools Secretary concluded.

It also reported that one in six children growing up in stepfamilies show social and emotional problems, against one in 10 whose parents stayed together.

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What do you want the Episcopal Church to look like in 2019?

An eight-question survey posted online June 24 asks Episcopalians””lay and ordained””to envision the church in 10 years’ time and to prioritize the strategies toward that vision.

Do you favor a multicultural church? Is evangelism “less important,” “important,” or “very important” to you? Should advocacy and social justice define the church? Or should the church be a combination of mission and worship?

“We are looking at where we are as a church today and addressing hopes and desires,” said the Rev. Christopher Johnson, a member of the Strategic Planning Committee formed by Executive Council at its January 2009 meeting in Stockton, California.

Read it all and check out all the survey questions.

“I have to tell you about Maggy,” my colleague said excitedly. He was just back from Africa, and I was eager to hear about his work and his meeting with 100 Christian leaders from east-central Africa. But he wanted to talk about Maggy.

“Love made me an inventor,” Marguerite “Maggy” Barankitse had told several of my colleagues with a sparkle in her eye. The more she talked, the more my colleagues wanted to see her Maison Shalom (House of Peace). They arranged to travel from Bujumbura to Ruyigi, the city in Burundi where Maggy lives.

Maggy’s story goes back 15 years to the civil war in Burundi…

Read it all.

Read them all.

In three hours of grueling questions from lawmakers armed with e-mail messages and internal documents, the Fed chairman flatly denied accusations that he had threatened to oust the bank’s top management if it pulled out of the deal.

He also denied that the Fed had maneuvered to postpone public disclosures about Merrill Lynch’s spiraling losses until after the merger was completed on Dec. 30, and he denied that Fed officials had kept other financial regulators in the dark about plans to bail out Bank of America in January.

But Mr. Bernanke did not appear to satisfy lawmakers from either party. Republicans accused Mr. Bernanke of strong-arming a private company, which one lawmaker called “socialistic.” Democrats complained that Mr. Bernanke had not been tough enough, and had perhaps been bamboozled into bailing out Bank of America.

Read it all

So I went over to TitusOne, which I view as the most reliable, least strident site in the “conservative blogosphere,” to learn what’s happening in Fort Worth. Kendall Harmon is carrying many, many news reports from the ACNA meet-up. It had been many weeks (maybe even a couple of months) since I’d visited his site.

And I was shocked by what I observed. His postings (especially about Big Events like this one purportedly is) used to get dozens and dozens of comments. But go look. His many ACNA-related posts are only getting a handful comments. Reports like these used to get dozens of comments. That is weird! What the heck is going on? T19 is still getting hits; it’s just not getting much discussion. How come?

I have a hunch that the True Believers have moved over to StandFirm because they’re weary of TitusOneNine’s fairly constrained links and excerpts. Maybe they want the screaming free-for-all that StandFirm feeds them in its posts and allows in its comments. But even over at SFiF, the posts don’t seem to be getting the volume of comments that they used to.

Read it all.

The Episcopal Church is part of the global Anglican Communion. Anglican Church members say they remain part of the same Communion, even though they’ve left the Episcopal Church.

Bane said that after his retirement, he tried to remain active in Episcopal ministry but was shunned by the denomination.

Bane said he was more conservative than many members of the Southern Virginia diocese. In 2003, he voted against Robinson’s ordination; other clergy and parishioners representing the diocese voted unanimously for ordination.

Asked why he didn’t join the Anglican conservatives earlier, Bane said he’d hoped to remain a traditional voice within the Episcopal Church.

He said the Anglican Church “is probably where I should have been earlier.”

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Two Tulsa-area ministers are elated about the historic creation of the Anglican Church in North America, a denomination formed by conservative churches and members who left the Episcopal Church.

Six years after the Episcopal Church consecrated a gay bishop, setting off a firestorm of protests, delegates meeting in Bedford, Texas, this week officially constituted the new Anglican church with 700 congregations and 100,000 members.

“It’s wonderful,” said the Rev. Briane Turley, rector of Tulsa’s Church of the Holy Spirit Anglican, which left the Episcopal Church several years ago over concerns that the church was drifting from its biblical foundation.

Read it all.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of St. David’s Episcopal Church congregation, church historian Wesley Martin put together a book entitled The Little Church that Could, but now, the addendum he’s writing will have be titled The Little Church that Tried, because St. David’s is closing. The last service will be held July 26, with Bishop Thomas Shaw in attendance. After the service, the church will be deconsecrated and sold.

It’s a heartbreaking end to the little white mission church built by the congregation 13 years ago after searching for a permanent home for its first 26 years. The church’s mission was to bring new members to the church, but membership has stayed at about 25 since the beginning.

“We’re a very small congregation, but everybody does things, everybody helps,” Diane Williams, the congregation’s senior warden, said as she sat in the pews of the empty church one sunny day.

Read it all.

Check it out.

Check it out.

Conservative Anglicans disenchanted with the liberal drift in their U.S. and Canadian churches say they are confident that a new church body launched this week will one day gain a seat in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

The new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been organized, its leaders say, as an alternative for Anglicans who disagree with the theology of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

“This is the beginning of a recovery of confidence in Anglicanism as a biblical, missionary church,” said former Fort Worth Episcopal Bishop Jack Iker.

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Unlike the previous General Convention, next month’s gathering faces a “vague anxiety level” over multiple issues as opposed to just one, said the Rev. Canon Charles K. Robertson, canon to the Presiding Bishop. He made the remarks during a June 24 lecture at Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS).

The comment came in response to a question as to whether a final decision on issues such as same-sex blessings would come out of the General Convention. Canon Robertson said that Resolution B033 from the 75th General Convention, consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester as Bishop of the Northern Michigan, and the budget are all flash points causing anxiety for different Episcopalians.

Read it all.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

As we approach the fi rst anniversary of those disgraceful scenes in York last July when members of the General Synod chose to ignore the clear advice of both archbishops and opted instead for provision for traditionalists to be made via a so-called ”˜code of practice’, I thought that you would appreciate a brief outline of where we are.

I know only too well how isolated many of you are feeling and how frustrating it is to have to wait upon events which are outside our control. Last summer, there were those who argued that it was all over and that we had lost the battle to achieve suitable provision for those of us who cannot in conscience receive the ordination of women. Others ”“ and I include myself in their number ”“ took the view that we could not know our position until the synodical process was complete.

Read it all.

Famed blacksmith Philip Simmons, whose wrought iron gates and other works grace gardens and entryways along the South Carolina coast and beyond U.S. borders, died at age 97, friends and funeral officials said Tuesday.

Read it all–and note the church affiliation, of which I was unaware.

Geez, I went to an appointment this afternoon, just got back, and I feel much older. My goodness.