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Over time I have come to believe that the reading of scripture in public worship is as important as expounding on scripture (i.e., preaching). As a friend says, “A good reading is expounding.”

I am appalled at the way some traditions and congregations take such a casual attitude toward the reading of scripture in worship. It’s treated sometimes as the role “anybody can do.” Not anybody can do it, and it takes practice. I get the sense sometimes that people are reading the assigned text for the first time when they read it in worship.

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The purpose of [the book of Job] is to explore God’s policies with regard to suffering in the world, especially by the righteous or the innocent. In the process it seeks to revolutionize our thinking about God and the way that he runs the world.

Most importantly, the book shifts our attention from the idea that God’s justice … is foundational to the operation of the world to the alternative that God’s wisdom is the more appropriate foundation. It does not offer a reason for suffering and does not try to defend God’s justice.

It does not answer the “why” question that we are so prone to ask when things go wrong. Instead, we are to trust God’s wisdom and, in the process, to conclude by faith that he is also just.

In truth, we will never be in a position to evaluate God’s justice….

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Good morning. Among the many hours of broadcasting about Syria in the past few days, one interview has stayed in my mind. It wasn’t with a politician, a pundit or even a proponent of just war theory. Last Saturday on PM I heard a telephone conversation between the presenter Jennifer Tracey and an unnamed man living in a Damascus suburb. He’d decided to stay on in Syria. He was well-educated, married and in his late twenties. Though no friend of the Assad regime, he was very realistic about what might replace it. Listening to him seemed at first to confirm that Syria’s problems were intractable. Then he mentioned something surprising almost in passing. His wife was expecting a baby….

Listen to it all (an MP3 of about 3 minutes).

The choice of “Art and Risk” as the theme of a weeklong seminar for Christian writers and artists this June proved sadly ironic when the host, Image journal, lost $65,000 through its online registration process.

Organizers of the Christian literary journal’s 2013 Glen Workshop hired Acteva, a company specializing in events for small nonprofit organizations, to handle its online registrations. The San Francisco-based company boasted a solid 12-year track record, and even gave Image a discount.

“We were looking to try to make it smooth and efficient,” said Gregory Wolfe, publisher and editor of Image. “We felt that it was a reasonable option for us because they were clearly keeping our needs in mind.”

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The chief executive of Lenovo Group Ltd., which recently overtook Hewlett-Packard Co. to become the world’s largest producer of personal computers, is sharing his annual bonus with his staff.

Angela Lee, a spokeswoman in Hong Kong for Lenovo, best known in the U.S. for acquiring IBM Corp.’s ThinkPad laptop brand and the rest of its PC business in 2005, confirmed that Yang Yuanqing, who is also Lenovo’s chairman, will share $3.25 million from his bonus with some 10,000 staff in China and 19 other countries.

Lenovo maintains dual headquarters in Beijing and in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, the base of IBM’s old PC operations, and Yang splits his time between the two. The company has some 30,000 staff worldwide, according to its website.

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The British trait of being too polite to speak one’s mind has led to a table translating numerous hollow English phrases becoming an internet hit.
…
The table sheds light on just how difficult it can be for a foreigner to understand what the British really mean when they’re speaking ”“ especially for those take every word at face value.

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Christ Episcopal Church closed December of 2012 and the question has remained for the better part of this year what would become of the church property.

Now The Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut has announced the decision to partner with the newly formed Farmington Valley American Muslim Center (FVAMC) organization to turn the Harris Road church into an interfaith hub. The partnership will bring interfaith educational programming to the facility, which the Diocese plans to lease to the FVAMC. The move aligns with the Diocese’s renewed effort in “recommitting itself to interfaith initiatives in new ways,” the Diocese said in the press release.

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,,,,church leaders are taking a more aggressive approach starting Sunday at Masses held throughout the country.

Unlike a “Justice for Immigrants” program conducted in 2006-2007, this time church leaders are urging Catholics to call, write and e-mail their congressional representatives, even providing prewritten letters and electronic postcards. Congress returns from its summer break Monday, and although an immigration bill passed the Senate, it faces tough opposition, mainly from Republican lawmakers, in the House.

Kevin Appleby, director of immigration policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the latest immigration overhaul campaign is larger, bolder and a more unified national effort than in years past.

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Auckland Anglicans have said no to gay marriage – despite church heads being in favour of it.

A motion to press the issue has failed at this weekend’s conference, despite both Auckland bishops and a majority of clergy being in favour.

72 members of the synod voted to push for gay marriage, 65 were against and eight abstained.

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Enrich our lives, O Lord, with the fruit of the Spirit; that being filled with love and joy and peace, we may live together in patience and kindness, in goodness, faithfulness and gentleness, ever exercising the grace of self-control; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Because thy steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee. So I will bless thee as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on thy name. My soul is feasted as with marrow and fat, and my mouth praises thee with joyful lips, when I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night; for thou hast been my help, and in the shadow of thy wings I sing for joy.

–Psalm 63:3-7

The Dean of the Anglican Church of Nigeria [River State], Archbishop Ignatius Kattey, was abducted at about 10.30pm on Friday, as he journeyed in the company of his wife, Beatrice, from Eleme to Port Harcourt.

It was gathered that the abductors later freed the cleric’s wife, following a chase by the police.

The Bishop was taken to an unknown destination….

Read it all and you can see the diocesan information there and you can see the basic location in Nigeria on the map here.

Leading a crowd in prayer for peace in Syria, Pope Francis said that war is ultimately caused by selfishness, which can be overcome only though expressions of fraternity and never with violence.

“Leave behind the self-interest that hardens your heart, overcome the indifference that makes your heart insensitive towards others, conquer your deadly reasoning, and open yourself to dialogue and reconciliation,” the pope said Sept. 7 before an estimated 100,000 people in St. Peter’s Square.

The pope had called the prayer vigil less than a week earlier, as the central event of a worldwide day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East and the world.

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If you were watching, the third game of the fifth set was something to behold.

his past month, clergy and laity from the Anglican Church in North America and Jubilee, a network of 12 African American Pentecostal churches centered in South Los Angeles, California, gathered to worship together at Penuel Missionary Baptist Church in LA. The Venerable Canon Dr. Jack Lumanog, Canon to the Archbishop, was the Keynote Speaker for these gatherings which were marked by exuberant praise and worship and the sharing of Holy Communion.

“It is a remarkable thing to see these dear brothers and sisters in Jubilee drawn to the Anglican Church in North America,” said Canon Lumanog. “Our life together as Anglican Christians must be dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit in order to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. What a joy it was to share in the joyful celebration with Jubilee! God is certainly on the move in our Province.”

Describing the time together, one attendee stated, “We were nourished by Word and sacrament and overwhelmed by God’s presence in our worship together,” while another said, “[M]y hope is renewed. I can begin to see the manifestation of a prayer being answered.”

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A Youtube video of a mom doing the “happy dance” after putting her children on the bus for the first day of school went viral this week. The school bus pulls up, the kids hop on, N’SYNC’s “Bye, Bye, Bye” is cued up, and the Framingham mother starts dancing wildly on the curb.

I think it resonates because it captures the swirl of emotions this time of year….

The reality is that we both fear and crave routine.

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Prayer and action can come together in common cause. It is an invitation to release our imagination for creative peaceful solutions in refusing the seemingly obvious action of moral retaliation.

Let us look for ways that reconcile, build the common good and nourish relationships ”” not increase our alienation and cause others only to hunker down while they wait for their own opportunity for revenge. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “we must learn to live in co-existence, or else face the prospect of co-annihilation.” Jesus said, “the one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”

There is a better way. Our imaginations are better than this. We have not yet exhausted all of the options of a shared global life.

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J.C. Michael Allen didn’t consider himself religious. But that was before he found himself interviewing a controversial Episcopal priest as a writer for Look magazine.

The priest was James Albert Pike and he spoke of racism, abortion, birth control and exploitation of workers.

Allen was taken with Pike’s activism and told him: “If I could believe in God, I’d become a priest.”

Allen was baptized soon after. He went on to become an ordained Episcopal minister and the dean, or head priest, at Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral in downtown St. Louis.

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Another historic Euclid Avenue church is facing demolition, now that a marketing effort by the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio appears to have netted a big buyer: the Cleveland Clinic.

The diocese recently applied for a demolition permit for the Church of the Transfiguration, a shuttered Gothic Revival building that occupies 0.83 acres on the northwest side of the Clinic’s main campus. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission, which exerts some control over significant buildings and historic districts in the city, expects to consider the demolition request at its Thursday meeting….

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Seamus Heaney’s last words – “Noli timere,” Latin for “Don’t be afraid” – came in a text message to his wife, it was revealed at the poet’s funeral this week. Test yourself on other famous last words.

See how you do on the quiz.

Simply terrific, and way more than just a who–done–it, but a deeply moving drama about fractured people in one English town–KSH.

More and more we are finding people who neither believe nor disbelieve in God — they can’t even verbalize what faith might be like. They have never experienced faith of any sort whatsoever.

In the Episcopal Church, all are welcomed at each and every worship service. It does not have to be a national crisis.

The Episcopal Church looks at life, especially our spiritual life, as a journey in which we grow in a deeper and fuller knowledge and love of God.

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As students consider how to use their devices in the classroom, they should remember, above all, that tuition merely gets them into the lecture hall. If they want college to culminate in life-changing courses, mentoring from dedicated teachers and compelling recommendations for the world after graduation, they will earn these things the time-honored way, with courtesy and hard work.

As for professors, we can make things easier for students by including detailed etiquette policies in our syllabi. Too many of us leave our likes and dislikes to be discovered by trial and error.

But even the most detailed code of conduct can’t hope to specify or resolve every possible sticking point. Society writ large is constantly struggling to come to grips with technological disruption, and so too are the adults at the front of the college lecture hall and the wired, distracted young adults who are there to learn from them.

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The Coalition has been swept to a convincing election victory in a result that could keep Labor in the political wilderness for a decade, with incoming prime minister Tony Abbott declaring the country is “under new management”.

ALP seats fell across the country on Saturday, ensuring Tony Abbott will be the 28th prime minister of Australia and have a commanding majority, holding up to 90 seats in the 150 seats in the House of Representatives.

Mr Abbott said he would methodically deliver on his promises with a government that accepts it will be judge more by it’s deeds than its word.

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On the eve of Rosh Hashana last year, as Lois Kittner was passing through security at the airport in Newark, a security screener halted her. He had a question about several strange items in her carry-on bag. One looked like some kind of animal bone; the other was a piece of metal that came to a suspiciously narrow point.

So Ms. Kittner set about explaining. She was a cantorial student at the Academy for Jewish Religion and was headed to North Carolina to help lead services at a synagogue there. The bony thing was a shofar, the instrument fashioned from a ram’s horn and blown to herald the Jewish New Year. As for that supposed weapon, it was a yad, a thin rod with a tip shaped like a pointing hand, which is used to follow the handwritten text on a Torah scroll.

“You don’t want to be that person in security who looks scared and uncomfortable,” Ms. Kittner, 56, recalled in a recent interview. “It didn’t even occur to me there’d be a problem. Friends tell me there’s never a problem with shofars when you go to Miami.”

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O Lord God, in whom we live and move and have our being, open our eyes that we may behold thy fatherly presence ever about us. Draw our hearts to thee by the power of thy love. Teach us to be anxious for nothing, and when we have done what thou hast given us to do, help us, O God our Saviour, to leave the issue to thy wisdom. Take from us all doubt and mistrust. Lift our thoughts up to thee in heaven; and make us to know that all things are possible to us through thy Son, our Redeemer Jesus Christ.

–B. F. Westcott

Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;

To the end that [my] glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.

–Psalm 30:11-12 (KJV)

ROFL–read it all.

The long, slow recovery in the U.S. job market is leaving ever-more Americans on the sidelines””and complicating the calculus for Federal Reserve policy makers weighing when the economy can get by with less help.

Employers added 169,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said Friday, a bit more than in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 7.3%, the best mark of the recovery.

But beneath such positive numbers lay evidence of a job market stuck in second gear. The government revised down its estimate for June and July hiring by a combined 74,000 jobs, and a disproportionate share of the jobs that are being added are in low-paying sectors such as restaurants and retail.

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