Grant, O Almighty God, that as thy blessed Son Jesus Christ at his first advent came to seek and to save that which was lost, so at his second and glorious appearing he may find in us the fruits of the redemption which he wrought; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God world without end.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

Shopping online in late July, Clarabelle Rodriguez typed the name of her favorite eyeglass brand into Google’s search bar.

In moments, she found the perfect frames ”” made by a French company called Lafont ”” on a Web site that looked snazzy and stood at the top of the search results. Not the tippy-top, where the paid ads are found, but under those, on Google’s version of the gold-medal podium, where the most relevant and popular site is displayed.

Ms. Rodriguez placed an order for both the Lafonts and a set of doctor-prescribed Ciba Vision contact lenses on that site, DecorMyEyes.com. The total cost was $361.97.

It was the start of what Ms. Rodriguez would later describe as one of the most maddening and miserable experiences of her life.

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[From 1997 to 2007]…the general population grew 8 per cent, and the Anglican population declined 3.8 per cent. During those years, the number of parishes ceasing to offer Sunday School for children almost doubled to 44 per cent and regular church attendance in the diocese declined by about 2.3 per cent.

Though the decline is less than in the Anglican Church nationally, the median age of Anglicans attending Church in Canberra is 54.8, compared with the median age of Canberra’s population of 34.5.

Despite the gloomy outlook, Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn Stuart Robinson said there had been some areas of growth. And there was continuing interest in the priesthood, with 12 ordinations in St Saviour’s Cathedral Goulburn on Saturday.

Read it all and make sure to note the headline the paper gave this story–KSH.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Watch it all-wonderful stuff.

The United States has expanded the role of American diplomats in collecting intelligence overseas and at the United Nations, ordering State Department personnel to gather the credit card and frequent-flier numbers, work schedules and other personal information of foreign dignitaries.

Revealed in classified State Department cables, the directives, going back to 2008, appear to blur the traditional boundaries between statesmen and spies.

The cables give a laundry list of instructions for how State Department employees can fulfill the demands of a “National Humint Collection Directive” in specific countries. (“Humint” is spy-world jargon for human intelligence collection.) One cable asks officers overseas to gather information about “office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cellphones, pagers and faxes,” as well as “internet and intranet ”˜handles’, internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent-flier account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information.”

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There are numerous videos of possible blog reader interest here related to Anglican news–check it out.

So what am I leaving behind? 75 parishes ”“ not to mention the couple of dozen parishes I lost in Exeter diocese two or three years ago, a loss which I still notice. The mostly wonderful ”“ and otherwise usually loveable ”“ priests who serve those parishes. Fr X who calls a spade an ”˜effin’ shovel’. Fr Y whose private generosity to me and support has been extraordinary. Fr Z who gets in touch every few months with yet another tranche of candidates for me to confirm. And then there are those people who must be named: Vicky Hayman and Jackie Ottaway in the office, and former staff, who have kept the whole thing going. Alan who has driven me around for nearly ten years and has heard me gently snoring through the ten o’clock news as he has driven me home. Fr Bill, my chaplain, who has left my stuff behind in a whole variety of sacristies but who has gone round the bun fights doing most of the Bishop’s pastoral work for him. The team has been fabulous. And there are others too: His Honour Mr Judge Patrick, who used to give me free legal advice and support but who, now he’s a judge is no longer allowed to. The two or three deans who have kept in touch on the phone more or less every week for ten years. Talking of which I should mention my Council of Priests, which became a Council of Friends. The people of the parishes, showing time and time again a commitment to the Lord and to each other which I have found humbling, instructive, and life-enhancing. Various key lay people ”“ on the Lay Council, running Brean, turning up at Parish Evangelism Weekends ”“ serving with devotion and skill.

I’m also leaving behind the hugely maddening Anglo-catholic movement: its frailty and fearlessness, its humour and its holiness. It is a home for some slightly disreputable characters ”“ and the ministry of Jesus specialised in being at table with slightly disreputable characters. Ten years touring round the West and the South West has had its moments. No time for anecdotes, but there was the time when I stopped at a service station and bought two cups of tea, which I promptly dropped all over ”˜me privates’. From Burnham-on-Sea (Burnham-on-Crouch?) back to Oxford in a sodden suit. What would people have thought had I been on the way there rather than on the way back?

The Anglo-catholic movement has fought a losing battle for 150 years, trying to convince the Church of England that she would be Catholic if only she conformed herself to the Catholic Faith and fully embraced Catholic Faith and Order….

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Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous ”” from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.

But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism.

The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.

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The anticipated disclosure of the cables is already sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could conceivably strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. A statement from the White House on Sunday said: “We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.”

“President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal,” the statement said. “By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals.”

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Among scores of disclosures that are likely to cause uproar, the cables detail:

”¢ Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.

Ӣ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.

”¢ How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally….

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Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more -food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilisation as long as civilisation is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.

—Mere Christianity, Book 2, Chapter X, quoted in this morning’s sermon

“Some of the smallest and least powerful animals become perfectly terrible when they are taking care of their offspring. And do you think that the everlasting God will bear to see his children maligned, slandered, and abused, for their following of him?”

–C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)

Throughout his presentation, [Michael] Valpy referred to articles written by McGill University professor Dr. Margaret Somerville, discussing her views on the need for greater religious input into public policy.

Somerville has written extensively about the importance for the moral and ethical teachings of the church to have a place in the public sphere.

He said Somerville believes that “Canadians wrongly have given religion a pink slip. Abandoned from the arena of public discourse, dismissed religious voices and views from the public sphere, public square over the last 20 years.”

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From Gen Ys to grannies, the Anglican Church in Tasmania is attracting people from all walks of life keen to take on ministries.

Seven new church leaders were ordained yesterday by Anglican Bishop of Tasmania John Harrower during a special service at St David’s Cathedral in Hobart….

Bishop Harrower said there had been a steady stream of new Anglican Church leaders ordained over recent years.

“We are blessed with men and women of wide experience and different gifts, younger and older, who are taking up the challenge of serving their church and local community in these new roles….

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…look beyond the pomp and what you actually see is a group of men clinging to the royal skirts while their institution falls to pieces. This really is the endgame for the Church of England as we know it. I don’t mean the break-up of the worldwide Anglican Communion, although that too seems likely. African leaders have refused to sign up to a new covenant that was meant to prevent a cataclysmic split over homosexuality.

I’m talking about something close to home, a far more important issue than warring clergy. It’s about all of us in England and in Britain, whose language, laws, culture and lives have been shaped by a deal that lasted for 500 years.

The Church of England was made keeper of the nation’s soul, with countless special privileges, in return for stating that a succession of monarchs were appointed directly by God.

The trouble is, we just don’t believe in that stuff any more….

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An old nursery rhyme (composed by that prolific writer, Author Unknown) reads:

“For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the battle was lost.
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.
And all for want of a nail.”

The tiniest of details often generate unexpectedly large results. If the littlest detail is right, the results can be wonderfully good: David the shepherd boy needed only one small stone from a creek bed to topple a giant more than nine and one-half feet tall. If the littlest detail is bad, unthinkable disaster can occur: Adam and Eve ate a couple of pieces of fruit and destroyed the world as they then knew it.

Anyone who has ever worked in accounting or computer programming knows the true magnitude of small details. A pair of digits transposed, or a single decimal point out of place, can create an accountant’s worst nightmare. A single incorrectly typed character can derail an intricate computer program. (My programming knowledge is next to nonexistent, but I manually generate most of the HTML code for the Web sites I develop. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve typed one incorrect key and disabled an entire Web page!)

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O Almighty Father, fountain of light and salvation, we adore thine infinite goodness in sending thy only begotten Son into the world that, believing in him, we may not perish but have everlasting life; and we pray thee that, through the grace of his first advent to save the world, we may be made ready to meet him at his second advent to judge the world; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. Afterward the other maidens came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

–Matthew 25:10-13

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that Iran is clearly on a path to building nuclear weapons and that military options have been on military leaders’ minds “for a significant period of time.”

But Adm. Mike Mullen, in an interview to air this weekend on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” said that diplomacy remained the No. 1 strategy for reining in a nuclear program that Tehran claims is for peaceful energy purposes.

“I still think it’s important we focus on the dialogue, we focus on the engagement, but also do it in a realistic way that looks at whether Iran is actually going to tell the truth, actually engage and actually do anything,” Mullen said.

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Like the Tower of London and its attendant ravens, the Authorised Version of The Bible stands as a monument at the heart of the English-speaking world. We may not often look inside, but we are glad it is there. Like the Tower too, Americans seem particularly keen on it, and we speak reverently of its ageless magnificence while remaining vague on the detail.

In the first decade of the 17th century, it took the new king James from Scotland to hammer out a Bible that endured. “It is one of the first British things to be made,” points out the Glasgow-born Neil MacGregor, fresh from his A History of the World in 100 Objects. “It was made by the whole island to be used by the whole island.”

Now it is used by the whole globe, as though God really were an Englishman. If the last Harry Potter sold 44 million, The Bible has sold 2.5 billion some say, or six billion, say others.

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Tony Blair told an audience member at a debate yesterday that his religious beliefs did not play a role in his decision to support the US invasion of Iraq – but the votes went 2-1 the way of his opponent, Christopher Hitchens.

The former prime minister said it was true that “people commit horrific acts of evil in the name of religion”. But Mr Blair, who converted to Catholicism in 2007, said it was also true that religion inspires acts of extraordinary good.

And he said it was important not to condemn all people of religious faith because of the “bigotry or prejudice shown by some”.

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In “God and Harry Potter at Yale: Teaching Faith and Fantasy in an Ivy League Classroom” (Unlocking Press), …[Danielle Tumminio] explores how readers often overlook Christianity in J.K. Rowling’s work.

When Tumminio, who holds three degrees from Yale and is an ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church, taught Christian Theology and Harry Potter at the Ivy League university during 2008 and 2009, the course drew a religiously diverse group of students, including an Indian Christian, a Kenyan Episcopalian and a Chinese atheist.

The Harry Potter expert says she structured her forthcoming book the way she did her class: by exploring Christianity’s influence on Rowling’s themes of evil, sin and resurrection.

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A mass exodus of North Korean workers from the Far East of Russia is under way, according to reports coming out of the region. As the two Koreas edged towards the brink of war this week, it appears that the workers in Russia have been called back to aid potential military operations.

Vladnews agency, based in Vladivostok, reported that North Korean workers had left the town of Nakhodka en masse shortly after the escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula earlier this week. “Traders have left the kiosks and markets, workers have abandoned building sites, and North Korean secret service employees working in the region have joined them and left,” the agency reported.

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…[Augsburger Allgemeine’s] editor, Markus Günther, predicts that, after the furore accompanying its publication dies down, Light of the World will shape the public image of the pope as much as Seewald’s two earlier interviews did.

“Going into the conclave in 2005, people knew what Ratzinger thought on so many issues because of those two books,” said Günther. “There are many people who say that, without these books, Ratzinger would not have become pope.”

Regardless of one’s views on the pope, Light of the World is of general interest, even if it is only of the prurient Hello! magazine variety.

The pope, we learn, never carries a wallet and has never used the exercise bike given to him by his doctor. He says he was “shocked” at being elected pope and prayed silently for the strength to get through his first appearance on the Vatican balcony, let alone the years to come.

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From yesterday:

I plan to set off tomorrow morning, with my cotta, red stole, and biretta, to sit in choir at Bishop Andrew’s last publicly Pontifical Mass. I suspect it may be a votive – to anticipate his name-day – of S Andrew; upon whose feast ten years ago he was consecrated a Bishop in the Church of God. But my own Mass early tomorrow morning, if I live that long, will not have been of S Andrew … yet it will have been immensely Patrimonial. Let me explain. Are you sitting comfortably?

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“The contumacious actions of the Diocese of New Westminster and ECUSA have and continue to have profoundly divisive consequences within the Anglican Church of Canada, ECUSA, and the Anglican Communion as a whole. Within the Anglican Church of Canada and ECUSA, the “scandal” caused by the actions of these bodies has caused

”“some to leave for other churches,
”“some to call for more adequate Episcopal oversight,
”“some to form ecclesiastical bodies independent of the Anglican Church of
Canada and ECUSA (but in communion with one or another province of the
Anglican Communion),
”“some to withhold money for the support of their parish, diocese, and national
church.

Within the larger communion, a number of provinces have declared broken or impaired communion with both ECUSA and the Diocese of New Westminster. Some have even spoken of a break with the See of Canterbury if no action is taken to check the excessive claims to autonomy that lie behind the actions recently taken in Canada and the United States.

Finally, some of the most important ecumenical partners of Anglicans have issued strong statements about the divisive implications of the actions taken by the Diocese of New Westminster and ECUSA.

In short, the actions taken in Canada and the U.S. have set off shock waves both locally and internationally. They have produced as well a degree of bitterness and contentiousness throughout the communion that brings shame upon the ame of Christ and weakens the credibility of the witness of Anglican Christians. To ignore by silence and/or inaction such rending of Christ’s body is to stand idle as fellowship both within and between the provinces of the Anglican Communion disintegrates.”

”“Communion and Discipline, the Anglican Communion Institute submission to the Lambeth Commission, page 38, as posted on the old blog in June 2004

North Korea accused South Korea on Saturday of using civilians as human shields around military bases on an island that the North hit with an artillery attack this week. The accusation is an apparent effort to quell South Korean outrage over the barrage, which killed two civilian construction workers.

The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency also issued new warnings about joint United States-South Korea naval exercises in the Yellow Sea off North Korea, which will include an American aircraft carrier.

“If the U.S. brings its carrier to the West Sea of Korea at last, no one can predict the ensuing consequences,” the report said, using the Korean name for the Yellow Sea.

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The FBI thwarted an attempted terrorist bombing in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square before the city’s annual tree-lighting Friday night, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon.

A Corvallis man, thinking he was going to ignite a bomb, drove a van to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue and attempted to detonate it.

However, the supposed explosive was a dummy that FBI operatives supplied to him, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint signed Friday night by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta.

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In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims reaped a bountiful harvest. To thank God for their deliverance and the help they had received from the Indians, [William] Bradford held a three-day Thanksgiving feast inviting the Indians to join them in their celebration.

Squanto remained friendly with the Pilgrims until he succumbed to an unknown fever and died in 1622. Amazingly, he bequeathed his possessions to the Pilgrims, as Bradford would document, “as remembrances of his love.”

Considering the trials of his own life, it would have been understandable for Squanto to sow bitterness and seek war against the Pilgrims. Instead, his generosity and forgiveness enabled their survival.

Exemplifying St. Paul’s challenge to “not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” Squanto’s cooperation would not be forgotten by the Pilgrims. Nor should it today.

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