By rehabilitating original buildings like the Newel K. Whitney General Store ”” where Mr. Smith lived for a time and had the revelation that Mormons should not smoke or drink alcohol or caffeine ”” and rebuilding long-lost buildings like a sawmill, the curators try to explain the town’s significance in vivid terms and allow people to walk in their prophet’s shoes.

“When Joseph Smith arrives in Kirtland in 1831, he’s the head of a loosely organized group of followers,” Mr. Olsen said. “When they leave Kirtland in 1838, the church has a fully recognized ecclesiastical organization.”

The church also addresses the reason Smith and most of his 2,000 followers left Kirtland, citing the Depression and the failed bank the church had started.

And while the tour has attracted the many visitors the church had hoped, non-Mormons say any fear of Mormons taking over the town have evaporated.

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The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ”¦ a church ”¦ a home, or an individual.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day. We cannot change our past ”¦ we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

–Chuck Swindoll

…Am I surprised that TEC’s next target will be Bishop Mark Lawrence, or the Diocese of South Carolina, or parishes within that diocese? Absolutely not, albeit that I must admit to being somewhat taken aback by their timing.

My lawyer instincts suggest to me that South Carolina’s initial response to the requests made to them by local counsel hired by 815 and seeking diocesan documents, including documents specifically related to certain parishes was absolutely the right one – – “no.” More importantly, the fundamental initial reason for the refusal was quite properly to point out that any such requests, if proper at all, should be made from Katharine Jefferts Schori in her capacity as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church to Bishop Lawrence as the Diocesan of The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina (and assuming that “her office” affords her any basis to make such requests). After all, there is no pending litigation and, if as the “local lawyer” suggested in his request that there are no plans for litigation, one must logically conclude that there is no need for lawyers to be the vehicles for communication. Of course, we all know that litigation is precisely “the plan” and therefore there is no foundation for trust between the Chancellor and counsel for the Diocese of South Carolina and 815’s “local counsel….”

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Lord what fools these mortals be. It is difficult for an outsider to look upon the febrile maunderings of the General Synod of the Church of England without a sense of bewilderment and mild irritation. The body which is the parliament of the nation’s established church is, all things considered, a pretty poor advertisement for the message of good news which its founder set out to bring humanity.

Indeed it seems more focused upon bad news ”“ as if it were determined to project its faith in entirely negative terms. Listening to its preoccupations the casual listener could be forgiven for dismissing it as a reactionary institution which is anti-women, anti-gay, anti-Muslim. That is a caricature but it is drawn with the Church’s own ink.

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God bless those ancient Hebrew hippies who loved to live in their bodies, who understood that denying our sensuality and sexuality would be denying the very thing that draws us into joie de vivre and links us to the Divine. Because, as the old poets knew, our spirituality has everything to do with our desires and passions.

In other words, as Ron Rolheiser sets forth in The Holy Longing, our spirituality is what we do with our sexual energy.

The preaching I heard growing up, more often than not, made me feel guilty about desire and pleasure. And the Song was avoided, or if not, it was sterilized — keeping us safe from budding desire and associative pleasure, which, it was thought, would lead to sin.

But Sebastian Moore, a Benedictine priest, turns this conventional view of sin on its ear. “Sin,” he says, “stems from a lack of desire for pleasure.” Dom Moore is saying that desire and pleasure are not only gifts, they are God’s own calling cards, and their repression is not only an offence to the Giver but a sure way to snarl up our psychological, emotional and spiritual health.

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…Yet for all the rage these nearly seven years since that day, the Episcopal Church in Hudson County and much of New Jersey, while aware of what is swirling around them, is at peace.

The parishes continue to minister. The Episcopal Diocese of Newark, which covers the northern part of N.J., is one of the most liberal in the U.S. and has had its share of controversies.

Rev. David Thomas, the priest-in-charge of Christ Church in Harrison, believes, “There will not be much effect whatsoever.” And while much of the debate swirls around the morality of homosexuality and same-sex unions, he sees it differently.

“Personally I would say that the Anglican Communion is split on economics,” said Thomas, 67, a retired, psychiatric emergency clinician. He believes that it’s a first world/third world division.

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i found it really thrilling. If you haven’t seen it–watch it all.