The first morning of Council brought three distinctive yet interwoven narratives from the Presiding Bishop, the President of the House of Deputies and the Chief Operating Officer. Each made important statements about how the work of Executive Council relates to the larger narratives of the life of the Church. There were moments of conflict as values held passionately by the three speakers were openly expressed. There were admonitions to find Jesus among the poor, to honor the hard work and witness of the whole people of the Church in all orders, to express how we carry out God’s mission in the shaping of a budget.
The experience of conflict in church meetings where budgetary discussions and vision are mixed together often make us wary of even trying to connect the dots, of weaving a whole story from the threads. Rich insights by committed leadership, accompanied by a common commitment to hear one another out, resulted in the beginnings of new stronger cloth.
In 2009, General Convention closed with a strong emphasis on mission, mission, mission. . . . God is calling the church to meet Jesus in the marginalized ”“ the poor, the lonely, the suffering, the lost. Weave, weave, weave . . . Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in her opening remarks challenged Council to regard budgets as moral documents. The 76th General Convention’s adoption of the Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican Communion as mission priorities are the threads that are woven through all the parts of The Episcopal Church’s budget.
RE: “In 2009, General Convention closed with a strong emphasis on mission, mission, mission. . . . ”
And by cutting various mission budgets including evangelism.
But at least people [i]said[/i] “mission, mission, mission” and “evangelism, evangelism, evangelism” really really loudly and repeatedly.
On another note . . . uh . . . who wrote this?
Self-parody.
If this note was all I knew of TEC, then I’d conclude TEC is led by a group of Jr. HS girls. Seriously, this reminds me of those contact lens commercials: “highly dramatized dramatization.”
No. 1; “On another note . . . uh . . . who wrote this?”
Heh-heh. Indeed.
Subscribing to the patriarchal, oppressive tradition of subject-verb agreement also makes this author very very wary:
“The experience of conflict in church meetings where budgetary discussions and vision are mixed together often make us wary of even trying to connect the dots, of weaving a whole story from the threads.”
My suggestion: Don’t worry about connecting the dots; for starters, just concentrate on connecting the subject and the verb!
#3–Of course, if she didn’t write run-on sentences, it would be easier to match up subject and verb. She needs to try writing like a news reporter rather than a novelist! BTW–as I noted elsewhere here notation the the words from “Weave” are “attributed” to Rosemary Crow, is another journalistic mis-cue. Crow is a real person who actually wrote the song. It was dedicated to Grahame Butler-Nixon, an Anglicam priest from Australia, who became a TEC priest in the 1970’s. He is also real–I know him.
The whole thing is rich in absurdity almost beyond words. ENS offered this up as journalism? Turn your average smart T19 commentator loose on it and the results are, well, pretty much the last four posts. #3, good eye! Your last sentence still has me laughing.
“We are living into a new season of weaving our threads of interdependence together in the spirit of ubuntu – you in me and I in you, the theme of our last General Convention. ”
I couldn’t help thinking about [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-C9_51vQHw]this[/url]:
Howard: First, there was this trouble between me and Hugh.
Judge Maxwell: You and me?
Howard: No, not you, Hugh.
Hugh: I am Hugh.
Judge Maxwell: You are me?
Hugh: No, I am Hugh.
Judge Maxwell: Stop saying that. Make him stop saying that.
“On another note . . . uh . . . who wrote this?”
Why, the 40 most influential Episcopalians, learned in theology and ecclesiology, great minds all, who gather a couple times a year to allow us to bask in their literary genius. Who else could have written such a masterful statement?
Or else someone with 500,000 CDs of a song called “Weave, weave, weave” that they want to unload on music directors at parishes around the country.
Two random comments.
1. This latest example of idiotic drivel coming out of the leaders of TEC reminds me again of the ancient dictum of Euripides, “[i]Those who the gods would destroy, they first make mad[/i]” (i.e., insane).
2. On the repeated use of the song “Weave,”
This song always makes my stomach turn. It pains me to hear it sung fairly often by naive Christians in Cursillo or Kairos (etc.) who ought to know better. The sheer nonsense of its version of inclusivity is vividly displayed in the following line:
[i]We are different instruments playing our own melodies, each one tuned to a different key.
Yet we are all playing in harmony in one great symphony.[/i]”
How stupid is that? Everyone playing in a different key is somehow supposed to be harmonious???
Note: It is possible to craft a piece of music with multiple melody lines going simultaneously. J. S. Bach did it with matchless skill in his fugues, where there are often three different melody lines going at one time. But they are most assuredly all in the same key.
The multiple ironies in this statement are rich indeed. Here is a group of highly educated people who pride themselves on being smarter than average saying incredibly vapid, stupid things. And not least, here is a group suppposedly dedicated to inclusivity above all else who are steadily driving TEC in the direction of becoming more theologically and politically monochrome than it has ever been. These days everything is acceptable in TEC except orthodoxy. And the peculiar result is that TEC is FAR less inclusive in reality than it was when I was ordained in 1985.
Self-parody indeed. You just can’t make this stuff up. It would all be comical, if it weren’t so sad and serious.
David Handy+
Oops, in the ancient Greek maxim I meant “whom,” not who. “Those whom the gods would destroy…”
I’m actually glad TEC isn’t pretending to sign the Covenant with the intention of then blithely ignoring it. That’s better than the way the cabal running TEC brazenly ignored the plain meaning of the canons in the deposition of orthodox bishops, when they were inconvenient obstacles standing in the way of “social justice.”
The leaders of TEC haven’t just decided to “walk apart” (in the language of the Windsor Report 7 years ago). No, this is no casual stroll in a leftward direction. They are RUNNING away from the majority of the world’s Anglicans. You have to keep up with the (secular) cultural elite, you know.
David Handy+