Do you sleep with your smartphone? Are you on 24/7? Do you think that your success depends on your non-stop connection to work?
Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow has a better way.
In her latest book, Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work, Perlow shows how to disconnect and become more productive in the process. She provides techniques for devoting more time to your personal life while simultaneously accomplishing more at work.
In his final service at Christ Church Cathedral, retiring Episcopal Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Gordon P. Scruton, told worshipers it had been a privilege to serve as their pastoral leader for the past 16 years.
Worshipers from Episcopal churches across the state gathered for Scruton’s last mass at the cathedral as the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, the bishop and his wife, Rebecca, greeted each member of the church for a heartfelt goodbye.
“It was a joy to share with people who we came to love and share our life and ministry,” Scruton said. “It was a joy to be able to say ”˜Thank you.’”
Earlier this year at its general convention, the national church authorized the provisional use of liturgy to bless same-sex couples. The liturgy can be used beginning in December if local diocese choose to allow it.
“The church says we can use it, but it is under the authority of the local bishops whether to use it,” said Bishop Russell Jacobus of the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac, which heads Episcopal churches in Northeastern Wisconsin.
Jacobus said he plans to announce his decision of whether to allow clergy in the diocese to use the liturgy at the diocese’s annual convention Oct. 19-20 in Manitowoc.
These are the 16 members of the Crown Nominations Commission, the panel selected to appoint Dr Rowan Williams’s successor as Archbishop of Canterbury….
It is the decision that 77 million Anglicans around the world are waiting for: who will become the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
But nine days after the successor to Dr Rowan Williams was expected to have been named, the Crown Nominations Commission remains silent.
Its work is shrouded in secrecy, but a Sunday Telegraph investigation can reveal that its 16 members are split, not over women bishops or same sex marriages, but the future of the Church itself.
Read it all. Also, there was an earlier Evening Stndard article there.
The agreement between the Ripon and Leeds Anglican Diocese, which covers a large part of the region, and the Leeds Methodist District will mean more sharing of clergy and services and both churches working together to support their “ministry and mission”.
The Covenant Area Partnership is the first of its kind in the UK and will see greater consultation and co-operation between 85 Anglican parishes and 65 Methodist churches.
The Revd Gloria Shipp, from the Gamilaroi tribe in New South Wales, has been elected Chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Anglican Council (NATSIAC) by members at their Annual Gathering in Brisbane.
Ms Shipp, the Indigenous Ministry Coordinator and Chaplain at Orana Juvenile Justice Centre in the Parish of Dubbo (Diocese of Bathurst), is the first woman to be elected as Chair, having previously held the Treasurer’s position.
She said she was “excited and honoured” to be elected Chair.
Read it all. Also, the AP has more there.
God always makes the first move. To know the God of the Bible is to trust the God who created everything out of nothing, not because more was needed to somehow complete the circle, but simply because it pleased God. There’s nothing necessary about our existence, just as there’s nothing we can do to force God’s movement in the world. God always makes the first move. Faithful action, then, is always a response.
So, if you’re a bishop of the church in the turmoil of the fourth century, there’s nothing you can do to guarantee the future of the church. And if you’re a passionate, thoughtful person at the beginning of the twenty-first century, eager to sort out the big questions about God and life, there’s nowhere you can go to start figuring everything out for sure. However strong our desire, however fervent our initiative, it’s never enough. God always makes the first move. The Spirit blows where it will. When it does, it often blows our minds.
But after you’ve been knocked off your feet””after the Spirit has hovered over the chaos of your life and hurled you forward into a future beyond the limits of your vision””the questions are still there. God’s interruption doesn’t answer our questions. It doesn’t erase them either. It leaves us, rather, with a photo album full of pictures of hope.
Israeli military experts Sunday worked around the clock to examine the remains of a mysterious drone that was shot down after penetrating Israeli airspace from the Mediterranean Sea.
The Israeli military announced Saturday that the unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down over the northern Negev Desert. They say the drone did not take off from Gaza, leading them to consider the possibility that it originated in Lebanon.
Israeli security experts point the finger at Israel’s longstanding rival Hezbollah, the Shiite militia based in southern Lebanon.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday opened a meeting of Roman Catholic Church leaders from around the world to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the momentous Second Vatican Council.
The synod of 262 archbishops, bishops and other senior clerics heard a call from the pope for a “new evangelism” for the Catholic Church, which is fast losing followers in Europe and feels increasingly discriminated against in many parts of the world.
The three-week synod coincides with the announcement on October 11 of a “Year of Faith” to mark the anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which changed the face of Catholicism.
The theme of marriage, found in the Gospel and the first reading, deserves special attention. The message of the word of God may be summed up in the expression found in the Book of Genesis and taken up by Jesus himself: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24; Mk 10:7-8). What does this word say to us today? It seems to me that it invites us to be more aware of a reality, already well known but not fully appreciated: that matrimony is a Gospel in itself, a Good News for the world of today, especially the de-Christianized world. The union of a man and a woman, their becoming “one flesh” in charity, in fruitful and indissoluble love, is a sign that speaks of God with a force and an eloquence which in our days has become greater because unfortunately, for various reasons, marriage, in precisely the oldest regions evangelized, is going through a profound crisis. And it is not by chance. Marriage is linked to faith, but not in a general way. Marriage, as a union of faithful and indissoluble love, is based upon the grace that comes from the triune God, who in Christ loved us with a faithful love, even to the Cross. Today we ought to grasp the full truth of this statement, in contrast to the painful reality of many marriages which, unhappily, end badly. There is a clear link between the crisis in faith and the crisis in marriage. And, as the Church has said and witnessed for a long time now, marriage is called to be not only an object but a subject of the new evangelization. This is already being seen in the many experiences of communities and movements, but its realization is also growing in dioceses and parishes, as shown in the recent World Meeting of Families.
One of the important ideas of the renewed impulse that the Second Vatican Council gave to evangelization is that of the universal call to holiness, which in itself concerns all Christians (cf. Lumen Gentium, 39-42)….
Traditional family life in Canada is declining, according to data recently published from the 2011 census.
Census data show that married couples declined as a proportion of all census families between 2006 and 2011. Nevertheless, they still formed the predominant family structure in Canada, accounting for two-thirds of all families, Statistics Canada reported Sept. 19.
The proportion of cohabitating couples and lone-parent families both increased. For the first time, cohabitating couples outnumbered lone-parent families in 2011.
After an uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak early last year, women and minorities hoped for a nation that would guarantee long-denied equal rights. But their pleas have gone unanswered as Egypt has shifted from military control to the conservative designs of a new Islamist president. Mostafa’s death symbolizes for many women the prospect that civil rights would be further jeopardized by a new constitution.
Scores of Egyptians, with the support of 33 women’s rights organizations, protested outside President Mohamed Morsi’s palace last week against the proposed constitution, particularly Article 36, which says the state is “committed to providing all measures to ensure the equality of women with men, as long as those rights are not contradicting the laws of Islam,” or sharia.
Overwhelmed by Islamist domination in the assembly drafting the constitution, liberals and moderates have repeatedly threatened to resign because they say the political body leans toward radical political Islam. A previous assembly was dissolved this year for failing to represent Egypt’s diverse society, and a court decision expected Tuesday could again disband the body amid charges it has ignored women, Christians, youths and other groups.
O Heavenly Father, grant us so to love thee with all our heart and mind and strength, and our neighbour for thy sake; that the grace of charity and brotherly love may dwell in us, and all envy, harshness and may die in us; according to the perfect love of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Praise the LORD! O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures for ever! Who can utter the mighty doings of the LORD, or show forth all his praise?
–Psalm 106:1-2
Among the 23 recipients of the MacArthur “genius” grants this past week: an economist, a mathematician, a photographer, a neuroscientist, and a Boston-based stringed instrument bow maker.
Benoit Rolland acknowledges that the violin reigns supreme as the star of the strings, capable of fetching millions of dollars at auction. But what about the bow? “A violin with no bow is not a violin, that’s clear,” says Rolland.
“A lot of people, even some instrumentalists, in our younger years we believe that the violin is of paramount importance and the bow is just a tool,” says Elita Kang, assistant concert master of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. “But the bow is just as important as the violin because that is our breath. That’s how we draw the sound out of the instrument, so without a fine bow that’s responsive and flexible and finely made, we can’t express ourselves fully.”
The end of hope was widely expected, and all the more unwelcome for that. When it arrived yesterday afternoon, some railed against it; some were mute and bowed. But all in the Welsh town of Machynlleth were forced to face up to one heartbreaking reality: five-year-old April Jones was not coming home.
Since her disappearance on Monday, the 2,500-strong community living in the green valley on the southern edge of Snowdonia National Park has put on an extraordinary display of solidarity under the eye of 24-hour news coverage. Normal life ceased. The whole town set out in search of the missing girl, their missing girl. News that she needed medication and suffered from mild cerebral palsy only made their efforts more urgent.
The police, astonished by the intensity of the town’s response, struggled to cope with the stream of emotion and demands that people be allowed to help, and to conceal the fact that they were increasingly pessimistic about the chances of finding the little girl alive.
How does a president bring the war in Afghanistan to an end? There are 68,000 American troops serving in the country as the war enters its 12th year.
The war hasn’t been a major issue in the presidential campaign, and polls show American voters are tiring of the war. But the next commander in chief will find the Afghan war among the most difficult of many foreign policy challenges.
His job was to stand with customers in their back yards, suntanned and smiling, and look beyond the problems of the past several years to see the opportunities in every suburban cul-de-sac. How about a pool and a sauna next to the patio? Or a custom waterfall near the property line?
“The possibilities here are as big as you can dream them,” he liked to tell customers, gesturing at their yards.
In a country built on optimism, Frank Firetti was the most optimistic character of all: the American salesman ”” if not the architect of the American dream then at least its most time-honored promoter. He believed that you could envision something and then own it, that what you had now was never as good as what you would have next. Since the country was founded, it had climbed ever upward on the spirit of people like him, on their vision, on their willpower, on their capitalism. But now, when he traveled from house to house to sell his monuments to American success, he sensed that spirit waning….
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.”
–Peter Drucker (1909-2005)
The reality is that more than three years into this weakest of economic recoveries, 12.1 million Americans are still out of work””nearly 23 million by the broader definition that includes those who have stopped looking or can’t find full time work””and the labor participation rate is still down to 1981 levels at 63.6%. Hooray!
Of the 114,000 new jobs, 104,000 were in the private economy, and all of the 86,000 in upward revisions for July and August came in government jobs. Job growth for 2012 has averaged 146,000 a month, which is down from 153,000 in 2011.
Manufacturing employment fell again (down 38,000 in the last two months) further dampening one of the few bright spots in this recovery. A still abysmal 40.1% of the unemployed in America have been jobless for six months or more. Such a job market is anemic by any historic measure for this stage in an expansion and reflects continuing slow GDP growth in the 1%-2% range.
Q: What is your faith story? Did you have a Road to Damascus experience, or were you always part of a church-going family?
A: I was raised in a church-going family, going every Sunday and on all of the special days. … However, at age 15 I realized it was not having any impact on my life at all and felt the need and desire to make it a priority.
Q: What role does your Christian faith play in your golf game and in your career as a pro athlete?
A: My belief and faith in God is the grid that everything in my life passes through. What you believe is the core of who you are, so, therefore, whether it is golf, my family, the things I get involved with in my hometown of Phoenix or just the daily choices I make, it is all influenced by my Christian beliefs. Golf is very much like life in that there are ups and downs, successes and disappointments: How you deal with them is what determines so much of what happens not only now but in the future. I believe the Bible and the words of Jesus provide a road map for how to deal with all of the challenges that come with both failure and success.
Events in recent days have illustrated just how quickly the violence in Syria could spiral into a regional war. After Syrian mortar bombs once again fell on Turkish soil, this time killing five civilians, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt compelled to act. The Turkish military’s retaliation on Wednesday and Thursday startled the international community.
With its actions, Turkey obviously proceeded with caution: It answered the repeated attacks from Syria with a few artillery shots — not missiles. And the permission for further military action granted to Erdogan by his parliament is intended primarily as an intimidation measure. There is no apparent intent to declare all-out war — at least for the time being. The United Nations Security Council, meanwhile, has strongly condemned the Syrian attack on Turkish soil and called on both sides to show restraint.
The fact of the matter is that the longer Syrian civil war continues, the more often incidents like that seen earlier this week will occur — particularly in Turkey and Lebanon. A large part of the border region around Syria has already become a war zone. Previously, the international community had worried that a military intervention could fuel a regional wildfire, but now it is being forced to look on as this increasingly appears to be the reality — without it ever even having gotten involved.
Connor Shaw could see it in the Georgia players’ eyes on South Carolina’s first touchdown drive.
A few minutes later, it was even more obvious to Marcus Lattimore after the Gamecocks drove it right down the Bulldogs’ throats for their second touchdown in as many possessions.
“They were shell-shocked. We hit them in the mouth, and they weren’t ready for it,” Lattimore said….
Update: An article from the local paper is there.
It’s rare to find a pastor who is attuned to how “place” informs human experience and community. But a discerning pastor can know more about this than most city planners, if they are attentive to the particular shape of the lives of their congregants and their community. Enter Eric O. Jacobsen (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary), a pastor of 14 years, the last 5 as senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma. “I am not a trained architect or urban planner, but an ordinary pastor who has always lived within walking distance of my church,” he says.
Jacobsen’s 2003 “break-out” book, Sidewalks in the Kingdom (Brazos Press), used the tenets of New Urbanism to help Christians recognize the value of local churches in local neighborhoods. Jacobsen calls his newest book, The Space Between: A Christian Engagement with the Built Environment (Baker Academic), a “more mature reflection” on the subject.
As Trinity Episcopal Cathedral begins a year-long bicentennial celebration Sunday, the new dean said he believes the congregation is ready to embark on a new chapter, mindful of its history but focused on a third century devoted to spiritual formation and Christian outreach.
The Very Rev. Timothy “Tim” Jones arrived in July in Columbia after seven years as the senior associate rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville and already is immersed in the life of one of the city’s most visible and prominent congregations. He was installed formally on Sept. 15.
A native Californian who has spent much of his pastoral life in the South, Jones said he was drawn to Trinity because he felt an “instant sense of warmth” from members of the search committee.
Almighty God, who hast bestowed thy grace upon thy people by thy Son Jesus Christ: Grant us, we beseech thee, to be enriched with his manifold gifts; that patiently enduring through the darkness of this world, we may be found shining like lamps in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he cometh in his kingdom; to whom be praise and glory for ever and ever.