The Rev. Dr. Leander Harding of Trinity School for Ministry has joined the slate of nominees to become the ninth bishop of the Diocese of the Rio Grande. Harding is Trinity’s dean of church relations and seminary advancement and associate professor of pastoral theology.

The diocese, which encompasses New Mexico and the southwestern corner of Texas, announced Harding’s nomination by petition on March 20. The electing convention will convene April 24.

The diocese has also released question-and-answer essays by all six nominees. The essays reveal how the nominees envision helping the diocese heal after what the diocesan profile [PDF] describes as an extended period of turmoil in leadership.

Read it all.

5. Four million people will lose their employer-based plans.

The new health care law will impose a list of benefits each health care plan will have to offer if they are to remain in business. The Congressional Budget Office also estimates that about 4 million people would lose their employer-based plan and be forced to buy plans on the new government exchanges.

6. Medicare will cut services along with costs.

The bill makes $528 billion in cuts to Medicare, including a $136 billion reduction for Medicare Advantage. The Medicare Advantage cuts will force 4.8 million seniors off the popular plan by 2019. An additional $23 billion in cuts to Medicare will come from a panel charged with slashing Medicare spending.

7. The bill will not pay for itself.

The CBO found that the bill would reduce the deficit by $138 billion over 10 years, but the savings was achieved by leaving out a $208 billion provision lawmakers will have to enact later to ensure doctors are adequately paid for treating Medicare patients. When the “doc fix” is included in the bill, it runs $59 billion in the red over the next decade. And former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that “if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games” the 10-year deficit would exceed $560 billion.

Read it all.

Got this (via im) yesterday from a friend who lives in Washington state:

Just got a bill Friday for a new $800 a year rain tax only they called it surface water management–to pay for all the rain that runs off my tree-covered 5 acres

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Rather wonderfully the Catholic church came to the rescue offering the abandoned congregation a place in which to worship. That congregation has since doubled, a clear sign of God’s blessing, wheras the church that remained has dwindled and died. Now for the really revealing part of this very shoddy episode”¦.

”¦having claimed that those leaving were not able to uphold the desires of the church founders the Diocese of New York has spitefully sold the building, at a third of the cost the congregation were offering, to the Muslims! How truly shameful that the Episcopal authorities were so full of hatred and malice that they could stoop to such depths.

Read it all.

It goes without saying that the recent Consent for the Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Los Angeles has been a topic of discussion among the gathered bishops and how that will impact our relationships with the larger Communion. Although we have not had a plenary discussion on this development we will no doubt do so when the subject of the Anglican Covenant later this week occurs. Of course, her presence at our meeting makes it difficult to discuss this openly and honestly, both for her and the House gathered. I bid your prayers that we may have a spirit of mutual respect and forbearance for all involved. I do believe that we will do so with sensitivity and concern for all.

Yesterday we had a discussion on “Incarnation” and “Salvation” as a part of the “Around One Table” initiative. These were refreshing conversations regarding who we are and what we are to be about. Many of you will be surprised to learn that, for the most part, the House believes we need to be more missional as a Church and begin proclaiming Jesus as the way to salvation. It remains to be seen where this will go so far as a definitive statement as to who we are as a Church but the conversation has begun.

Read the whole thing.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. As they lay down
for the night, Holmes said: “Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what
you see”.

Watson: “I see millions and millions of stars”.

Holmes: “And what does that tell you?”

Watson: “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies
and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God
is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it tells
me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?”

Holmes: “Somebody stole our tent.”

When Studs Terkel, described by Donna Seaman as “oral historian, writer of conscience and raconteur-on-a-mission,” died on Halloween in 2008, he left a tall stack of books behind him. None affected me more than one called Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. The book led me to think not only about all the jobs I have worked in my life but also about all the people whose jobs make life in my small town work.

The day I moved to Clarkesville, I walked from the church to the post office, where I came up a quarter short on a book of stamps. “Don’t worry,” the pretty blond clerk behind the counter said. “Just bring it back before we close at five.” Her nametag said “Elaine.” When I brought the quarter back, I told her my name but she already knew it. Eighteen years later, I have learned to stand patiently in line as Elaine greets her customers by name.

Last week a white-haired woman lingered at the counter, speaking of things that had nothing to do with the U.S. Mail. There were six of us behind her, but Elaine never rushed her, never stopped smiling. When my turn finally came I raised my eyebrows as I slid my package across the counter.

“She lost someone close to her a while back,” Elaine said in a low voice so only I could hear her, “but I don’t mind. I like hearing the stories. Plus, I learned a long time ago that people aren’t going to stop talking until they have said what they want to say.”

Read it all.

The Vatican inquiry into church practices in Ireland will be carried out by senior figures, most likely led by a cardinal, according to Vatican sources.

The inquiry, in the form of an Apostolic Visitation, was signposted in Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland at the weekend.

Although no final decisions have yet been made about the nature and the timing of the inquiry, Vatican sources yesterday confirmed that the visitation will focus primarily on the handling of sex abuse cases.

The visitation is expected to include the Archdiocese of Dublin, the Diocese of Ferns and many of those institutions which featured in last summer’s Ryan report, while it may also take in a number of, or indeed all, the other Irish dioceses.

Read it all.

Even when the “fixes” that have to be approved by the Senate are made, the health-care bill will still be something of a mess. But it’s a glorious mess, because it enshrines the principle that all Americans have the right to health care — an extraordinary achievement that will make this a better nation.

It may take years to get the details right. The newly minted reforms are going to need to be reformed or at least fine-tuned, and those will not be easy battles. But the social movements that allowed Obama to become president and Pelosi to become speaker proved that the arc of history bends toward fairness and inclusion.

Needed change must not be thwarted, even if some people find it hard to accept. Obama got it right in his remarks following the vote: “We did not fear our future. We shaped it.”

Read it all.

The word ”militant” has become synonymous with atheist. Militant is simply a word used to describe someone showing opposition in a way the people being opposed don’t like.

And yes, atheists have killed, tortured, lied and stolen – never in the name of atheism, but because they’re bad.

Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists are generally moral people. But that’s not because they’re Jews, Muslims, Christians or atheist. It’s because they’re people.

I do hate. I hate religion taking credit for most people’s innate goodness.

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Seventy-five years ago, on August 8, 1935, the United States Congress passed the first sweeping legislation creating a welfare safety net for the American people, the Social Security Act 1935. Its champion was President Franklin D. Roosevelt….

Support in Congress was both overwhelming and bi-partisan.

Thirty years later, in July 1965, Congress passed the second major piece of the national safety net, the Medicaid and Medicare act.

It, too, passed by an overwhelming majority with bi-partisan support. That bill was championed by another Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson….

Now comes the third major piece in the safety net when tomorrow (local time), President Barack Obama signs the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, introducing almost universal health care.

The bill passed yesterday in the House by a slender and contentious majority, 219 vote to 212.

Not a single Republican voted ‘yes’.

Read it all.

One running theme in recent comments here, but also for a long time now on many blogs, is the plea to see some real discipline of TEC. Something which did not occur with any substance after 2003 (the closest was the suspension of TEC for one ACC meeting at which its suspended members were observers), and something which should now happen with the Glasspool confirmation. So the argument goes, and it is an argument with merit because the Glasspool confirmation has a deeper significance than being the confirmation of a partnered lesbian person to be a bishop. That deeper significance is this: following Gene Robinson’s consecration a series of restrained decisions on the part of TEC’s GC meant that there was plausible argument in response to calls to discipline TEC that TEC might not actually be walking apart from the Communion, the Robinson consecration being a temporary diversion from the one path of Anglican polity; now however TEC has effectively announced that no temporary diversion has taken place, it is walking apart from the Communion.

Actually I want to suggest it is walking apart from the Communion in two ways. The first is walking apart from the common direction in the Communion, that Anglican bishops who are neither single nor married are living contradictory to Scripture and tradition. The second is walking apart from an emerging direction that the Anglican Communion cannot remain as it is, essentially a meeting point of Anglicans, but must move forward to becoming a worldwide church. To me it is inescapable that a consequence of the Glasspool confirmation is confirmation that TEC under no circumstances will be beholden to any authority larger than itself and thus is deeply opposed to any movement of the Communion towards becoming a worldwide church.

Read it all.

At present quite a few sociologists specialized in the analysis of cultural tendencies and processes — for example John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of The Economist, and Adrian Wooldridge, author of the bestseller “God Is Back” — are not convinced that atheistic secularism or religious indifference is advancing in society; rather, the opposite is happening.

Decades ago some predicted the death of religion, above all of Christianity, but later they have had to rectify themselves and admit a return of the religious under very varied forms.

Not a few say that we are in a post-secular period, characterized by a growing interest and debate on fundamental human questions, with a patent religious dimension.

In a recent report titled “The Return of God,” a non-confessional Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, was surprised by the boom of books on faith in Italian bookstores, where sales have increased by 27% in the past year.

Concretely, it stated that the sale of books on religious topics had increased by 196% in the large centers of distribution, such as supermarkets and commercial centers.

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By bus from across the country and on foot from across town, an estimated 200,000 people flocked to the National Mall March 21 to press Congress and the president — with signs, banners, T-shirts, chants and prayers — to make good on promises to fix the immigration system.

U.S. citizens, legal immigrants and some who admitted they are in the country illegally covered a six-block stretch of the Mall to make their case for reforming a system that keeps families apart, limits students’ education prospects and causes millions of people to exist “in the shadows,” because they lack legal papers.

Before marching three miles past the Capitol to RFK Stadium, where their buses waited, the exuberant, hopeful crowd waved flags and signs as dozens of speakers took to the stage to tell their personal immigration stories. Other speakers pledged the support of their churches, unions and human rights groups.

Read it all.

Members of Mother Grove Goddess Temple will celebrate at 7 p.m. Saturday with A Breath of Appalachian Spring: A Ritual in Celebration of the Spring Equinox, in the parish hall of the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Biltmore Village.

Saturday’s event is open to all faith traditions, said Byron Ballard, wiccan priestess and a member of the temple. Mother Grove “isn’t a wiccan group, though some of us are wiccans,” she said.

“Mother Grove is an outgrowth of the work of several people in the goddess/earth religions community,” Ballard said. “Its goal is to create a permanent sanctuary, where people of all faith traditions may openly and safely celebrate the divine feminine, the goddess.”

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Almighty God, who willest to be glorified in thy saints, and didst raise up thy servant Gregory the Illuminator to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia: Shine, we pray thee, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth thy praise, who hast called us out of darkness into thy marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From whence does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore.

–Psalm 121

Almighty and most merciful God, who hast given thy Son to die for our sins and to obtain eternal redemption for us through his own blood: Let the merit of his spotless sacrifice, we beseech thee, purge our consciences from dead works to serve thee, the living God, that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end.

Just over two months after threatening to leave China because of censorship and intrusions by Chinese hackers, Google said Monday that it was closing its China-based Internet search service and instead directing Chinese users to a Hong Kong-based uncensored version of its search engine, which may get blocked in mainland China.

In a blog post, Google also said that it would retain much of its existing China operations, including its research and development team and its local sales force. The stunning move represents a powerful slap at Beijing regulators but also a risky ploy in which Google ”” one of the world’s technology powerhouses ”” will essentially turn its back on the world’s largest Internet market, with nearly 400 million Web users and growing quickly.

“Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, wrote in the blog post. “We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement.”

Read it all.

Israel will defy American pressure to halt the construction of controversial Jewish housing in Arab east Jerusalem, when President Obama meets Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, in the White House today.

Fresh from his historic victory to reform American healthcare, the US leader is to be confronted, within hours, with a foreign policy crisis. This time Mr Obama must resolve the worst breakdown in relations in decades between America and its closest regional ally, Israel, and try to get the Arab-Israeli peace process moving again.

But any hopes of a compromise were dashed yesterday when Nir Barkat, the Mayor of Jerusalem, insisted that Jewish settlements would go ahead in spite of US objections.

Read it all.

This is a very good discussion of some of the real substance of the legislation.

Most of us have now learned to live with “voice mail” as a necessary
as part of our daily lives. But have you ever wondered what it would
be like if God decided to install voice mail?

Imagine praying and hearing the following:

Thank you for calling Heaven.
For English, press 1.
For Spanish, press 2.
For all other languages, press 0.

Please select one of the following options:
Press 1 for Requests.
Press 2 for Thanksgiving.
Press 3 for Laments.
Press 4 for all other inquiries.

I am sorry; all of our angels and saints are busy helping other
sinners right now. However, your prayer is important to us, and we
will answer it in the order it was received. Please stay on the line.

If you would like to speak to:
God, press 1.
Jesus, press 2.
Holy Spirit, press 3.

If you would like to hear King David sing a Psalm while you are
holding, press 4.

To find a loved one that has been assigned to Heaven, press 5, then
enter his or her social security number, followed by the “pound” sign.

For reservations at Heaven, please enter J-O-H-N, followed by the
numbers 3-1-6.

For answers to nagging questions about life on other planets, how to reconcile God’s existence with evil that occurs in history, and where Noah’s Ark is, please wait until you arrive.

Our computers show that you have already prayed today. Please hang up
and try again tomorrow.

The office is now closed for the weekend to observe a religious
holiday. Please pray again on Monday after 9:30 am. If you are calling
after hours and need emergency assistance, please contact your local
rector.

Thank you, and have a heavenly day .

Saturday, we had the presentation by the Theology Committee and their report “Same Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church.” I was a bit disappointed with the report itself, which was really simply two papers, one from the conservative viewpoint, and one from the progressive viewpoint. While they were good papers, the House of Bishops had asked for the committee to prepare “a” paper, not two. I am quite sure this will be published soon, if it is not available already out there somewhere. Still, it did provoke very good discussion, as did the report of the “Around One Table” results. This was a church wide study on the identity of the Episcopal Church. Saturday night were class dinners, and then our Sabbath began….

Sunday night after dinner we had a fireside chat with the Presiding Bishop. Many topics were covered, and much shared but perhaps the most moving was the talk by Bishop of Haiti, Zache’ Duracin….

Bishop Duracin shared with our group the day of the earthquake. It was so moving to hear his story. He had just left his car and was in his front yard, when the earthquake struck. He watched his house crumble before his eyes, with his wife and two girls still inside it. The girls came crawling out of the rubble just minutes after, basically unharmed, but his wife, although alive was trapped. Her leg was, and is, severely damaged. She is now under care in Tampa, Florida. He reported that his car, the one he had just left before the earthquake, was only unearthed this past Friday. He is a very grateful man, to be here, but also for all you have done, and many across this church….

Read it all.

Read it all.

For six decades, Elmore Leonard has been sitting at his writing desk, first in Detroit, then in the suburbs, creating robberies and murders for books and movies. Hollywood has tried many times to translate Leonard’s work from page to screen: Get Shorty, Out of Sight, two versions of 3:10 to Yuma. Leonard has written several screenplays too, and worked on the recent, short-lived ABC television series Karen Sisco.

Tonight, another television network ”” FX this time ”” takes a shot at bringing Elmore’s World to life. Leonard himself is an executive producer of Justified, but he says there are a whole bunch of those, and he doesn’t have script approval.

But Leonard’s happy. He’s met the writers, and they’re keeping their source close at hand.

“They said, ‘We all have this little plastic bracelet on that says WWED ”” What Would Elmore Do?’ ” Leonard says. “It seems to me that they sound like my writing.”

Read or listen to it all and put FX’s “Justified” on your list for possible television shows. We thought the first show as very good indeed–KSH (Hat tip:Elizabeth).

From here:

Diocesan Staff Layoffs

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

As I mentioned in my Charge to Synod, “budgetary realities are among the realities that require that we change our way of doing things as a Diocese” and that this means “there will have to be a major downsizing and re-alignment of the Diocesan Staff”.

After consultation with the Officers of Synod, and after much personal prayer and reflection, I have decided that, as part of this downsizing and restructuring, to eliminate three full-time positions and four part-time positions at the Diocesan Office. Today, March 15, I have given all of the individuals in these positions working notice. As well, I have given working notice to an individual in a position in a parish that is fully funded through the diocesan budget.
These cuts directly affect a range of ministries: congregational development, finance, administrative support, the diocesan archives, financial development and planned giving, the Diocesan Post, and Urban First Nations Ministry. Because of these cuts the remaining members of the diocesan staff, as well as the diocesan leadership as a whole, will be restructuring in order to carry out essential services and to support these ministries in new ways. That being said, it is clear that these cuts will inevitably result in a reduction of service that can be provided by the Diocesan Office, and our diocesan support of certain ministries.

While this downsizing directly affects certain individuals, it is also a decision which affects every one of us in the Diocese of British Columbia. I ask that you pray for those staff who have been laid off, and for all the Diocesan Office staff. Please pray for the leadership of the Diocese as it seeks to carry out gospel ministry with diminished resources. Please pray for the whole Diocese as it follows in the way of Christ.

Yours sincerely,

–(The Rt. Rev.) James Cowan