Heavenly Father,
you entrusted your Son Jesus,
the child of Mary,
to the care of Joseph, an earthly father.
Bless all fathers
as they care for their families.
Give them strength and wisdom,
tenderness and patience;
support them in the work they have to do,
protecting those who look to them,
as we look to you for love and salvation,
through Jesus Christ our rock and defender.
AllAmen.

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Praise be to thee, O God the Father, who didst create all things by thy power and wisdom, and didst so love the world as to give thy Son to be our Saviour.

Praise be to thee, O God the Son, who wast made man like unto us in all things, sin except, and wast delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification.

Praise be to thee, O God the Holy Spirit, who dost lead us into all truth, and dost shed abroad the love of God in our hearts.

All praise and glory be to thee, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

–Ephesians 4:1-7

Budde has served as rector of St. John’s, Minneapolis since 1993 and has guided that congregation through significant membership and financial growth, two capital campaigns and comprehensive ministry development. Since 2001, she has served as a conference leader for CREDO, an organization committed to clergy wellness and vocational renewal. She was a leader of the Diocese of Minnesota’s Commission for Mission Strategy and has served that diocese as dean of the Minneapolis Region, General Convention deputy, on the Standing Committee, and in support of diocesan multi-cultural ministries. She speaks fluent Spanish and has a long history of work among Spanish-speaking people. A well-regarded preacher, teacher and conference leader, Budde is the author of Gathering Up the Fragments: Preaching as Spiritual Practice, published in 2009. She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in theology from the Virginia Theological Seminary and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester, N.Y., where she majored in history. She has been married to Paul Budde for 25 years, and has two sons, Amos, 23, and Patrick, 20.

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Some churches are objecting to Alabama’s tough new law that aims to clamp down on illegal immigration, saying it violates Christian principles in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Leaders of the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church all have criticized the law as running counter to biblical teachings about caring for neighbors, helping visitors and showing hospitality to strangers. Episcopal Bishop Henry N. Parsley of Birmingham said the law “will make it impossible to love and be hospitable to our neighbors as we ought to be.”

“It is a profoundly disappointing decision and a sad moment for our state,” he said in a statement late Wednesday.

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Congratulations to them.

….we asked a trader/portfolio manager (who prefers to remain anonymous) at a Greek bank what he thought of the situation, what Greece had to do, and why reform wasn’t happening.

His answer was interesting….

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Now, as…[Prime Minister George Papandreou] comes back to Greece’s foreign creditors asking for the next $16.8 billion installment of aid ”” predicated on persuading Greeks to accept more tax hikes, wage cuts and the privatization of more than $71 billion in state assets before 2015 ”” doubts have emerged about the government’s ability to implement and enforce the measures it has already passed.

“The main problem is that he’s only been able to deliver on the parts of the austerity package that are easily enforceable and transparent and irrevocable,” such as cuts to public sector salaries and pensions, said Spyros Economides, a political scientist who co-directs the Hellenic Observatory at the London School of Economics. “Unfortunately, the rest of it is a complete mess.”

“It’s very easy to legislate,” Mr. Economides added. “The problem is to enforce legislation. There’s no enforcement mechanism. It’s all done for the eyes of the public.”

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Well what do you know: a year ago I called it correctly on my blog in my reflections on The Limits of Management. At that point the cogniscenti in the Episcopal Church were convinced that they could push through any program they wanted by “using psychology” and beating up anyone who wouldn’t get on board. There would be “workshops” with “materials” in three-ring binders at which we poor sods could “ventilate” our feelings. The agenda would be ratified by General Convention and then there would be more workshops for “healing” and “reconciliation” with hugs and making nice. And everyone would live happily ever after except for the recalcitrant few who would soon die off.

I predicted that it wouldn’t happen, and I was right.

Now, as we await the Eames Commission’s report, I’ll venture another prediction. The report will censure the Episcopal Church for the ordination of Bishop Robinson, propose some symbolic gesture to make it good, and make noises about flying bishops and alternative jurisdictions. Within ECUSA it will not make one whit of difference””except to the extent that it provides more opportunities for bishops and their staffs to go to conferences. Conservative congregations will continue pursuing litigation to retain rights to their property, liberal clergy will keep sucking up to the secular elite and congratulate themselves for being cool, the secular elite will not notice and despise them as much as ever, and the majority of Episcopalians, preoccupied with bake sales and Sunday School construction paper projects will not give a damn.

The Episcopal Church will continue in its slide, with membership down from 5% of the population in 1960 to 1% now, and I look forward with pleasure to its eventual demise, facilitated by the arrogance of clergy who regard themselves as members of the enlightened intelligencia and imagine that they can manipulate or bully us into buying their half-baked politically correct nonsense and into doing church they way they want it done.

–Dr. Harriet Baber in a blog comment on October 11, 2004.

Charleston, S.C.–After the shish kebab and blueberry pie, as dusk calmed the Lowcountry heat, the dinner guests gathered around Park Dougherty’s table prepared to sing. They clapped hands in one rhythm, beat their feet against the floorboards in another, and lifted their voices into a song that had been passed down to them through generations and in defiance of a rigid racial divide.

“Een muh time ob dyin’,” Mr. Dougherty began, “Uh don wan nobody fuh moan.” These were the words, in Gullah dialect, to a spiritual about the wish to die easily and to be taken into heaven by Jesus. Mr. Dougherty’s mother had first heard the song as a teenager in the 1930s, and she requested it for her own funeral six decades later.

Now, on this evening in June 2011, the financial adviser and social worker and music professor and Navy officer, and the other half-dozen people joining in harmony from their chairs, were engaging in a profound act of cultural conservation. In a city built on the slave trade, in the state where the Civil War started, these white men and women were the curators of an African-American religious and musical treasure.

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General Ratko Mladic is now on trial in the Hague charged with war crimes, following the horrors nearly 20years ago in Srebrenica with the massacre of 8,000 boys and men.

This is in marked contrast to the discovery and subsequent shooting of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. There may have been very good reasons why he, too, could not have been arrested and put on trial for his crimes, but we are not told them in any clear or persuasive way.

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The discussions about change during this meeting have their roots in the council’s decision in October 2009 to reorganize and expand the number of its standing committees. The theme of structural change came to the fore again during the last two council meetings, beginning with remarks made by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori at the October 2010 meeting as well as those by House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson in February.

“We continue to work toward adaptive change rather than technical change,” Jefferts Schori told the council in her closing remarks June 17. Calling it a “significant shift” in the council’s attitude, she said “we have, to some degree, left the culture of fear and entered into a culture of the future.”

[Bonnie] Anderson said that “ever since we arrived [at the conference center], our energy and creative tension have been signaling to me that we’re on the cusp of breaking through to authentic, creative change.”

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Jim Cowan, liaison to Council from the Anglican Church in Canada, reflected that he found the conversations concerning the Dioceses of Quincy and San Joaquin intriguing. He asked, “How do the dioceses that have suffered as a result of schism compare with those dioceses that are marginal? There are real concerns about viability, but where do these concerns mesh with plans for the extended mission of the Church?

He also observed, “We have talked about ‘pruning for growth.’ What does this mean to us? Pruning, whether for maintenance or for growth, hurts.”

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The Members of the Governance Working Group are:

Canon David Jones, Q.C., Chair (Province of Rupert’s Land)
Canon Dr. Randall Fairey (Province of British Columbia and Yukon)
Cynthia Haines Turner (Province of Canada)
The Ven. Dr. Harry Huskins (House of Clergy)
(The) Rt. Rev. Sue Moxley (House of Bishops)
Monica Patten (Province of Ontario)

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Some church members believe the number of members who leave ultimately will be much higher. The official membership at Trinity sits at about 1,500, and Jensen said the average Sunday attendance was about 350.

“I think history will tell whether it was a good decision or a bad decision,” [Bishop Larry] Benfield said. “We’ll have to look to the future to see.”

Benfield did acknowledge his surprise upon hearing of the vestry’s vote.

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STUCK from Joe Ayala on Vimeo.

O Holy Spirit of God, Lord and Giver of life: Come into our hearts, we beseech thee; that enlightened by thy clear shining, and warmed by thine unselfish love, our souls may be revived to the worship of God, and our lives be dedicated anew to the service of our fellows: for Jesus Christ’s sake.

–H. C. Cooksey

Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need. Thus Joseph who was surnamed by the apostles Barnabas (which means, Son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field which belonged to him, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

–Acts 4:32-37

Almighty and everlasting God, who didst enkindle the flame of thy love in the heart of thy holy martyr Bernard Mizeki: Grant to us, thy humble servants, a like faith and power of love, that we who rejoice in his triumph may profit by his example; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Marriage rates have fallen so far in the past 40 years that what was once an institution is now largely a symbolic gesture.

A record low 20,900 marriages took place last year, less than one-third of the number in 1971 and one half of the 1987 rate, figures from Statistics NZ reveal.

And Victoria University anthropology senior lecturer Diane O’Rourke sees no chance of those numbers heading back up again.

“People don’t need to get married any more to make a living or raise children. You have to specifically want to be married.”

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At a news conference following his report, Cardinal Wuerl said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the Vatican were to establish the U.S. ordinariate by the end of the year. “I think it will be sooner rather than later,” he said.

Two Anglican congregations in Maryland — St. Luke’s in Bladensburg and Mount Calvary in Baltimore — have announced their intention to join the new ordinariate once it is established.

Addressing the bishops at the close of the first day of their spring general assembly near Seattle, the cardinal said St. Mary’s Seminary in Houston has developed and the Vatican has approved an intensive nine-month program of priestly formation for Anglican clergy who wish to become Catholic priests.

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“Last in pitching, last in defense, not much power or speed.”

–The scouting report on the Chicago Cubs on the MLB Network this afternoon during their game with the Yankees

ROFL!

So many people in France believe that the world is about to end that a government agency yesterday alerted the country to the risk of mass suicides by converts to prophesies of imminent Armageddon.

Natural disasters, the internet and French fears of economic doom are conspiring to lend credence to predictions that the planet will self-destruct on December 21, 2012, said Miviludes the government body that monitors cults and suspicious spiritual activities.

There have been 183 false predictions of the end of the world since the Roman Empire collapsed and these are multiplying with new technology and a global climate of fear, it added.

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A Sacramento atheist’s challenge to the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, which stirred a legal and political frenzy nearly a decade ago, has quietly expired in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Michael Newdow said Tuesday, however, that he isn’t giving up and plans to file one or more lawsuits this year in hopes of winning a favorable ruling that would eventually reach the high court.

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…the Fannie Mae scandal is the most important political scandal since Watergate. It helped sink the American economy. It has cost taxpayers about $153 billion, so far. It indicts patterns of behavior that are considered normal and respectable in Washington.

The Fannie Mae scandal has gotten relatively little media attention because many of the participants are still powerful, admired and well connected. But Gretchen Morgenson, a Times colleague, and the financial analyst Joshua Rosner have rectified that, writing “Reckless Endangerment,” a brave book that exposes the affair in clear and gripping form….

The scandal has sent the message that the leadership class is fundamentally self-dealing. Leaders on the center-right and center-left are always trying to create public-private partnerships to spark socially productive activity. But the biggest public-private partnership to date led to shameless self-enrichment and disastrous results.

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I kept thinking, “I just want somewhere to put my grief.” I was imagining a vessel for it: a long, shallow, wooden bowl, irregularly shaped. I had the sense that if I could chant, or rend my clothes, or tear my hair, I could, in effect, create that vessel in the world.

–Meghan O’Rourke, The Long Goodbye: A memoir (New York: Riverhead [a dvision of Penguin Group], 2011)

After a year in Afghanistan, members of the unit will head home with their memories. Spc. Jenny Martinez’s voice grew soft as she recounted treating a Marine who stepped on an explosive and lost both of his legs.

She held his hand all the way to the field hospital.

“He didn’t want to let me go,” said Martinez, 24, of Colorado Springs, Colorado. But “I had to leave because we had another mission.”

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What a thrill it was to be in that beautiful place, standing only a few feet away from the shrine of St. Alban himself, England’s oldest saint and patron.

It was a trip were I literally “got in touch” with some powerful things””the 1,000 year old tower at Glendalough; the pages of a Bible handled in 597 by the founder of our Anglican church; the pages of an original King James Bible (of which we are marking the 400th anniversary).

But more important, it was a chance to also be touched by the spirit of our heritage as Anglican Christians through the mysterious “high crosses” in the Irish countryside: the deeply moving experience of Evensong at Kings College Cambridge; the stillness of Sunday worship at a little parish church; bracing intellectual conversation at a Cambridge college “high table” dinner; bookcases full of leather-bound books at Lambeth.

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So what is the Greek crisis really about? For starters, it’s a solvency crisis, meaning that bailouts can at best postpone, but not avert, the day of reckoning. Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio still tops 150%, and despite touting its efforts at austerity, government expenditures are up 3.6% year-on-year, to €21 billion. Its revenues for the first four months of 2011 were down 9.1% from the previous year.

Greece also suffers from a productivity crisis. The country’s employment rate is under 60%, compared to a eurozone average of 64.2%. In 2009 Greeks produced $34.2 worth of goods and services per hour worked, according to OECD data””compared to $53.1 in Germany and $56.8 in the United States.

The productivity crisis is linked, in turn, to the huge proportion of Greeks employed by the state””fully a third of the workforce, by some estimates, and civil servants are unionized, often militant and politically influential.

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A former Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said that the BBC had some “hard questions to address”, after broadcasting the programme. “Its own guidelines state that the portrayal of suicide has the potential to make this appear possible, and even appropriate, to the vulnerable.” He also argued that “the BBC has an obligation to provide a balanced presentation of the moral issues of the day,” but “so far, there has been little evidence of such balance in this matter.”

In a statement, the BBC said that it ac­know­­ledged that suicide was “an exceptionally difficult issue”, which “should be portrayed with the utmost sensitivity”. It argued that there was “a clear editorial justification” to broadcast the programme, which “does not encourage suicide and does not breach BBC guidelines.

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