I have always believed in a threefold way of looking at the journey of life. I need to acknowledge the past, live in the present and anticipate the future.

In relation to the cathedral building I acknowledge the forebears. I go further and honour them, because for many years I have been a beneficiary of their efforts.

When it comes to living in the present, my life, like so many others, has been drastically changed by the seismic activity. Life cannot return to what it was. I live in a house which is to be demolished and hopefully rebuilt. This is just one of the constant reminders of the change that has and is occurring for so many.

The present situation, dominated as it is by change, is forcing me to think more and more about the future and try to anticipate what that might look like.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

Watch it all. It will brighten your day.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Health & Medicine • Marriage & Family • Psychology • * General Interest • Animals

"The rectory secretary is out this week, so none of the priests will be receiving their massages."

--From a church bulletin as submitted by Brite Templeton of Arizona, featured in the June 2013 Reader's Digest, page 165

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Great Expectations, Chapter 9

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Poetry & Literature • * General Interest • Notable & Quotable

Here is the link, it is two parents with the young babies, and it is just fantastic.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

The Loma Prieta earthquake tore through northern California in 1989, shaking the ground for 10 to 15 seconds, killing 63 people and doing extensive damage to bridges, roads and buildings. Much of the worst damage was in built-up areas around San Francisco Bay, including Oakland.

This could be sounding like a familiar story by now. One of the casualties was a 96-year-old Gothic brick church, the Catholic diocese of Oakland's Cathedral of St Francis De Sales. Rather than simply rebuild, the diocese opted to be even more radical: it built a new cathedral on an entirely new site. In 2008, the Cathedral of Christ the Light opened on the shores of Oakland's Lake Merritt and it is already regarded as one of the greatest of contemporary church buildings.

It has been called the first cathedral to be built in the 21st century, and that has become a symbolic value as well as a chronological fact. It says to others that this is the future of church buildings.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Australia / NZ

One of the most beautiful birds we have in South Carolina, this picture was taken by my friend Francis Allston.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

The Anglican diocese will tomorrow release detailed information on how it arrived at cost estimates for three design options for the Christ Church Cathedral.

Gavin Holley, of the Church Property Trustees, told last night's Press-hosted public forum on the proposals for the city's Gothic landmark that he hoped to have the information up on its website by late tomorrow afternoon.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Urban/City Life and Issues • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Yale University is organizing a conference on “Personhood Beyond the Human” for December 6-8, 2013. It will feature, among other proponents of personhood rights for animals, notorious infanticide and bestiality-promoting ethicist Peter Singer.

The conference is co-sponsored by the animal rights group Nonhuman Rights Project and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, in collaboration with the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and the Yale Animal Ethics Group.

"The event will focus on personhood for nonhuman animals, including great apes, cetaceans, and elephants, and will explore the evolving notions of personhood by analyzing them through the frameworks of neuroscience, behavioral science, philosophy, ethics, and law,” reads a description of the conference on its website.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Education • Life Ethics • Young Adults • * General Interest • Animals • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

"Saving abandoned animals, one ride at a time..."

Guaranteed to brighten your day--watch it all (Note: video is linked at the top, if no video capacity you can read the story. Make sure to check out the map of how long the ride is from Texas to Tok, Alaska where the dog was delivered).

Also, please note that the website for Operation Roger Operation Roger (a ministry which, as the video notes, was begin through a prayer) is there.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Travel • * General Interest • Animals • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Some dodge the stones and bottles thrown at their tents in the dead of night, others watch helplessly as their tarpaulin shelters, huddled in camps sprawled across the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, are destroyed with knives and sticks.

Rights group Amnesty International has collected dozens of such testimonies from Haitians who have been kicked out of makeshift camps set up by those left homeless by the January 2010 earthquake. Many camp residents have moved out, but just over 320,000 Haitians still live in them.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Poverty • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti

Watch it all. LOLOL.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

The start of hurricane season is 6 weeks away, and four independent forecast outlets unanimously agree it will be a busy one.

Colorado State’s Bill Gray and protege Philip Klotzbach, the pioneers of seasonal hurricane forecasting, predict a blockbuster hurricane season, with 18 named storms, 9 hurricanes and 4 major hurricanes. (The 1981-2010 30-year averages are 12.1 named storms, 6.4 hurricanes, and 2.7 major hurricanes.)

“We anticipate an above-average Atlantic basin hurricane season due to the combination of an anomalously warm tropical Atlantic and a relatively low likelihood of El Niño,” Klotzbach and Gray write in their outlook, released last week.

Ugh--read it all.

Filed under: * General Interest • Weather • * South Carolina

The ‘‘overwhelming majority’’ of Anglican leaders are in favour of a new, modern Christ Church Cathedral with not a single person voting for restoration.

The church held its synod yesterday where more than 220 Anglican representatives across the diocese expressed their views on the design options for the earthquake-damaged cathedral.

Last week the church revealed three designs for the Christchurch icon – restoration, a reinterpretation of the original cathedral in modern materials, or a completely new building with a sculptural spire.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

This blew my mind--watch it all (in case of any trouble, there is another link there). Wow.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • Travel • * General Interest • * International News & Commentary • Europe • Germany

Absolutely, positively not to be missed--read it all and enjoy all the wonderful pictures (Hat tip: AH).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Music • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

Anglican leaders cannot spend insurance money from the Christ Church Cathedral on the new cardboard cathedral, a judge has confirmed.

In a judgment released yesterday, Justice Graham Panckhurst ruled that the use of $4 million of insurance money from the cathedral to fund the $5.3m transitional project near Latimer Square was a breach of the terms of the Cathedral Trust.

Church Property Trustees (CPT) asked the High Court for direction on whether the money could be used to fund the cardboard cathedral after it was called into question last year.

Read it all and the judgment is here [pdf]

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

The Anglican Church has revealed three options for the rebuild of the ChristChurch Cathedral.

The public can now vote for their favourite, before the church leaders make the final decision.

The fate of the most well-known church in the country has been tied up in court cases and shrouded in secrecy since the big quake in 2011, but today the three final options for the cathedral's future were unveiled to the public.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

Of all of the creepy and crawly things that you can think of, tarantulas probably are near the top of the list when it comes to scariness. Well, get ready to add another terrifying arachnid to your list, because a new type of tarantula has been discovered in northern Sri Lanka.

Ranil Nanayakkara, a local researcher, and his team found the tiger spider and named it Poecilotheria rajaei, after a local police investigator, Michael Rajakumar Purajah. Purajah helped the team of scientists navigate the remote area where the spider was found.

Read it all.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

Check it out--lol.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Check it out--lol.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

A cat is an animal intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.

--Garrison Keillor, Reader's Digest, April 2013 edition, page 117

Filed under: * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Full Moon Silhouettes from Mark Gee on Vimeo.

Filed under: * General Interest

Check it out

Filed under: * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Courtesy of the really cool Slothville website:

BUCKET OF SLOTHS from Lucy Cooke on Vimeo.

Oh so cute--watch it all; KSH.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

Look at all all of them (Hat tip: Selimah Harmon).

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

I caught this by accident recently and was hypnotized by its beauty. It is simply splendid--on central park, on the seasons, on the birders, and, oh my--on the birds.

You can read more about it here and if you are up for it there is a spectacular bird show there to whet your appetite.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • * General Interest • Animals

Someone apparently hacked into the Emergency Alert System and announced on KRTV and the CW that "dead bodies are rising from their graves" in several Montana counties.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

A behemoth storm packing hurricane-force wind gusts and blizzard conditions swept through the Northeast overnight, where more than 650,000 homes and businesses in the densely populated region lost power, roads were impassable and New Englanders awoke Saturday to more than 2 feet of snow.

More than 38 inches of snow fell in Milford in central Connecticut, and an 82-mph wind gust was recorded in nearby Westport. Areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire notched at least 2 feet — with more falling. Airlines scratched more than 5,300 flights through Saturday, and the three major airports serving New York City as well as Boston’s Logan Airport closed.

Read it all.

Filed under: * General Interest • Weather

Wow.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * General Interest

Watch it all.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

Members of the Anglican Communion have been asked to provide prayer and financial support for the Diocese of Seychelles which has been badly hit by flooding due to recent extreme weather.

The Primate and Bishop of Mauritius, Archbishop Ian Ernest, has written to supporters to raise awareness of the crisis--which appears to have been largely ignored by global media--and to ask for assistance.

"Following the natural calamity which has hit the Seychelles in the past days, I am sad to inform you that the country and the diocese have suffered heavy losses from the floods," he wrote. "Church buildings and other important structures have been destroyed. However we give thanks to the Lord as there has been no loss of life.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Province of the Indian Ocean • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

A bishop in flood-hit Mozambique has warned of greater suffering if the flooding disaster that has displaced around 70,000 people is not properly addressed.

Bishop of Lebombo Diocese in southern Mozambique, the Rt Revd Dinis Salomão Sengulane said in a recent statement sent to supporters, “The situation is dramatic and it calls for our response if we are to avoid more damages to the lives of people”.

The bishop’s plea comes after devastating floods hit Mozambique following severe rains in southern Africa during the past two weeks.

The United Nations reports that at least 36 people have died and nearly 70,000 have been displaced because of flooding in the country.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Mozambique

But you don’t believe the dear Lord created it anyway, do you? Hasn’t that got you into trouble with the people who don’t believe in evolution? Not in this country. You get letters but it’s a very easy thing to answer. Someone says: ‘I believe a God of infinite mercy created every single species and the Lord looks after us and all the animals.’ Well, what about that little African boy, five years old, sitting on the banks of a river, and he’s got a worm in his eye that’s going to turn him blind in three years? Did this God that you talk about actually design this worm and say: ‘I’ll put it in this boy’s eye?’ To suggest that God specifically created a worm to torture small African children is blasphemy as far as I can see. The Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t believe that.

He’s supposed to believe it, though, isn’t he? Absolutely not! If you said to the Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘Are you really telling me that God got some mud, blew in it and made a man and when that man said: “I haven’t got a friend”, he took out one of his ribs, rubbed it in his hands and went “boom, boom”?’ [Rowan] Williams [the last Archbishop of Canterbury] is a highly civilised, educated man. He wouldn’t for a microsecond be so silly as to believe that. But it does put him in an intolerable position.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Rowan Williams • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Animals • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

One would have hoped that the Seattle opinion and common sense would be sufficient, but FEMA has apparently reverted to a position that provides less than full participation for religious institutions. Its reasons for doing so are not entirely clear but seem to include a mix of constitutional, statutory and regulatory concerns.

Many of these concerns should have been put to rest by the Oklahoma City experience and Congress's approval of aid to religious organizations there. Nobody suggests that government should entirely rebuild sanctuaries or pay for the printing of prayer books. But if roofs are being repaired and other structural damage is being remediated, the religious nature of what might occur below shouldn't matter. That is consistent with the reasoning of a 2003 Justice Department opinion that permitted the federal government to provide assistance to help restore the landmarked Old North Church in Boston.

In essence, federal disaster relief is a form of social insurance meant to help repair a tear in our social fabric. Houses of worship are an important part of that social fabric and are often where people turn for comfort and support after a disaster. After Hurricane Sandy, they are equally in need of repair and should be equally eligible for assistance.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Church/State Matters • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Watch it all--such fun.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

Watch it all. Clean humor, oh so funny.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Sender 1: . What are your plans for today then?x
Sender 2:Nothing beyond seeing you dead xx
Sender 2:DEAR!!!

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Our new minister pleaded with the congregation for help with a church project. After weeks with few takers. he called our house with this deeply felt, if not diplomatic, request: "I am scaping the bottom of the barrel for volunteers and wonder if you might be able to help?"

--Virginia Nifong, of Auburndale, Florida, in the February 2013 Reader's Digest, page 188

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Would you like to make some extra money, and at the same time run the risk of being eaten by a carnivorous reptile the size of a war canoe? If your answer is “yes,” I have an exciting opportunity for you. It’s called the Python Challenge, and I am not making it up. It’s a real event that was dreamed up by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which apparently was concerned that Florida does not seem insane enough to people in normal states.

The Python Challenge is a month-long contest; its purpose, according to the official website (pythonchallenge.org) is “to raise public awareness about Burmese pythons.” Q. What do they mean by “raise public awareness about?” A. They mean “kill.”

Read it all.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals • Humor / Trivia

The Church of Nigeria has about 17 million members and Uganda another 8 million. As in other African provinces, most members in these two countries are regular churchgoers.

The Church of England counts about 26 million baptised members, but says only about a million of them attend services every Sunday.

--Reuters from a story last week entitled "African Anglicans denounce Church of England gay bishop rule"

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • Church of Nigeria • Church of Uganda • * General Interest • Notable & Quotable

I decided I can't pay a person to rewind time, so I may as well get over it

--American tennis player Serena Williams

Filed under: * General Interest • Notable & Quotable • * Theology • Anthropology • Eschatology

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

Watch it all--very heartwarming.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Marriage & Family • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Watch it all--LOL (hat tip--Abigail Harmon).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

It was a cruel, cruel year — a year that kept raising our hopes, only to squash them flatter than a dead possum on the interstate.

Example: This year the “reality” show Jersey Shore, which for six hideous seasons has been a compelling argument in favor of a major earth-asteroid collision, finally got canceled, and we dared to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we, as a society, were becoming slightly less stupid.

But then, WHAP, we were slapped in our national face by the cold hard frozen mackerel of reality in the form of the hugely popular new “reality” show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, which, in terms of intellectual content, makes Jersey Shore look like Hamlet.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Wonderful stuff!

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Christmas • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Gear up the handkerchiefs and watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • * General Interest • Animals

A Woman texts her husband on a frosty winter’s morning. “Windows frozen!”

Her husband texts back, “Pour lukewarm water over it.”

Five minutes later comes her reply. “Computer completely messed up now”

--Reader's Digest, January 2013 edition, page 13

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Marriage & Family • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Almost three years after an earthquake toppled the Roman Catholic and Episcopal cathedrals in Haiti's capital, visions for their resurrection have started to take shape as officials from both churches begin considering proposals to rebuild them.

A six-member panel led by the dean of the University of Miami's School of Architecture met this week in South Florida to choose the winner of a design competition that sought ideas for rebuilding the Notre Dame de l'Assomption Cathedral.

Meanwhile, Episcopal Church officials have selected a Virginia-based architectural firm to design a new Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

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

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Rural/Town Life • Violence • * General Interest • Animals • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • * General Interest • Animals

Right in the middle of all these things [in the first century ancient Near East] stands up an enormous exception. It is quite unlike anything else. It is a thing final like the trump of doom, though it is also a piece of good news; or news that seems too good to be true. It is nothing less than the loud assertion that this mysterious maker of the world has visited his world in person.....

It came on the world with a wind and rush of running messengers proclaiming that apocalyptic portent, and it is not unduly fanciful to say that they are running still. What puzzles the world, and its wise philosophers and fanciful pagan poets, about the priests and people of the Catholic Church is that they still behave as if they were messengers. A messenger does not dream about what his message might be, or argue about what it probably would be; he delivers it as it is. It is not a theory or a fancy but a fact. It is not relevant to this intentionally rudimentary outline to prove in detail that it is a fact; but merely to point out that these messengers do deal with it as men deal with a fact. All that is condemned in Catholic tradition, authority, and dogmatism and the refusal to retract and modify, are but the natural human attributes of a man with a message relating to a fact. I desire to avoid in this last summary all the controversial complexities that may once more cloud the simple lines of that strange story; which I have already called, in words that are much too weak, the strangest story in the world. I desire merely to mark those main lines and specially to mark where the great line is really to be drawn. The religion of the world, in its right proportions, is not divided into fine shades of mysticism or more or less rational forms of mythology. It is divided by the line between the men who are bringing that message and the men who have not yet heard it, or cannot yet believe it.

--G.K. Chesterton The Everlasting Man (Radford, Va.; Wilder Publications, 2008 edition of the 1925 original), pp.173-174

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Advent • Christmas • * Culture-Watch • Books • * General Interest • Notable & Quotable • * Theology • Christology

One of nature’s tiniest creatures has brought havoc to one of Charleston’s oldest churches.

Termites have attacked the wood and skeletal support system at Citadel Square Baptist Church, the yellow stucco landmark adjacent to Marion Square.

The damage is so severe that the sanctuary has been closed for the last two years, forcing the tiny congregation to meet in an adjoining 1950s-era chapel.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * Culture-Watch • Architecture • * General Interest • Animals • * South Carolina

When did nuns become funny?

Was it in 1967, when Sally Field first donned her absurd cornette and took flight in the ABC comedy “The Flying Nun”? Maybe it was 1985, when the musical “Nunsense” made its Off Broadway debut — soon to procreate, paradoxically, many sequels. Certainly nuns were safe sport by 1992, when Whoopi Goldberg appeared in “Sister Act,” a movie that later became a play in the West End in London and on Broadway.

Americans began laughing at nuns just as the nuns lost the power to defend themselves. In the early 1960s, Catholic nuns were plentiful, working in schools, hospitals and orphanages, and visible, wearing the habits prescribed by their orders. Today their numbers are diminishing, and many of them wear civilian clothes.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Theatre/Drama/Plays • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Volunteers from the Church of the Holy Cross barely had time to warm their feet after a relief trip to New Jersey last week before others from the church headed north to deliver 300 appliances to Hurricane Sandy victims.

What started with a simple desire to help blossomed into a huge response of giving.

“I feel like I’m holding on to a freight train,” said Chris Donavan, a church member who experienced Hurricane Hugo with three small children and wanted to assist Sandy’s victims. She put out a call for donations and was overwhelmed with response.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Pastoral Care • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * South Carolina

Oh my &^%, trying to get a four year old dressed in the morning is like trying to gift-wrap a live ferret.

--Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire on his twitterfeed

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

Blue whales can grow to 90 feet -- that's longer than a tennis court. Getting that big requires a lot of fuel, says Jeremy Goldbogen, a postdoctoral researcher at the Cascadia Research Collective. That's why Goldbogen studies the whales' dining habits. They feed on krill, slurping in millions of the mini crustaceans along with hundreds of thousands of pounds of water in a single gulp. With the help of data tags and a National Geographic Crittercam, Goldbogen and colleagues found that blue whales do underwater acrobatics while they eat -- specifically a move they coined "the blue whale barrel roll."

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

Americans have a long tradition of pampering and memorializing their pets. Now, technology lets precious friends become precious gems.

The idea of turning the carbon in ashes into man-made diamonds emerged a decade ago as a way to memorialize humans. Today, departed pets are fueling the industry's growth, with a handful of companies selling diamonds, gemstones and other jewelry out of pet remains, including hair and feathers.

Some gems start at about $250, while pet diamonds cost at least $1,400, with prices based on color and size. The diamonds have the same physical properties as mined diamonds, purveyors say.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • * General Interest • Animals • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A.

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • * General Interest • Animals • * South Carolina

A piece of Christchurch's cardboard cathedral is on display outside four major Anglican churches around the country as part of a new fundraising drive.
With the scheduled opening of the transitional cathedral just four months away, the church is exhibiting four giant cardboard tubes as it looks outside Christchurch for financial help.
“They're huge and it gives us a real idea of what's going on, lots of excitement and people coming in and going,” says Auckland Anglican Dean Reverend Jo Kelly-Moore.

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

The recession continued to affect how much Americans gave to charity last year, and the triple whammy of Superstorm Sandy, a national election and the looming fiscal cliff may cut how much we donate in the crucial final month of 2012, experts say.

Charitable giving overall increased by $6 billion in 2011, an increase of almost 4 percent from 2010, according to the 2012 report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Individuals gave $217 billion, compared with $209 billion in 2010.

“A little less than two years out from the end of the Great Recession, we’re starting to see charitable giving increase modestly each year,” said Geoffrey Brown, executive director of the Giving USA Foundation, which publishes the report.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • * Theology • Anthropology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Watch it all.

This is from the Carol Burnett Show with Harvey Korman as the dentist's patient.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Movies & Television • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

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

Watch it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • History • Marriage & Family • * Economics, Politics • Terrorism • * General Interest • Animals • * Theology • Pastoral Theology

The gray clapboard church with the red door had stood near the New Jersey coastline for more than 125 years, surviving floods and fires, hurricanes and northeasters. So when its senior warden left the church on the Sunday before Hurricane Sandy hit, he tucked the church records into a drawer for safekeeping and kept everything else in place.

That moment keeps replaying in his mind, said the warden, Dennis Bellars, because this time, luck ran out for St. Elisabeth’s Chapel-by-the-Sea, a tiny Episcopal chapel in storm-ravaged Ortley Beach, N.J. The church is marked now by nothing but a field of sand and broken pavement. The pews, the brass candlesticks; the 1885 stained glass windows, the needlepoint kneelers sewn by a parishioner; the wooden baptismal font — the sea or the sand took all of them.

Mr. Bellars, 70, said he had evacuated to the mainland that afternoon with the family Bible, a change of clothes, his dog and some dog food. Devastated, he found the destruction hard to talk about....

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Laity • Ministry of the Ordained • Pastoral Care • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

A 123-year-old church is close to reopening after it sustained significant damage during Tropical Storm Irene last year. According to church officials, doors might open at the Gethsemane Episcopal Church in Cavendish by Christmas.

“The builders are working very hard on it. The target date is Christmas, but it will open when it opens,” said Barbara Dickey, the church treasurer. “Because of regulations of public buildings, we can’t open until the handicap bathroom is ready to go among other things. So we’re hoping it will open up very soon.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Parishes • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has paid tribute to the resilience of the people of Christchurch while visiting the city's devastated red zone - but refused to be drawn into the debate over the fate of the cathedral.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

He is just so adorable--check it out.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

Speaking after a bus tour of the city's red zone, the Archbishop says it was important for him to see the remains of the Christ Church Cathedral.

"It's different when you see a great building, historic building, very much loved, in ruins like that. You can read stuff on a page, you can even see pictures, (but) it does feel very different...."

"The only thing I've seen like this really is when I was in Beirut a few years ago. But somebody was saying to me just now, 'there are no bomb craters, there's no enemy. You can't hate somebody out there, it's just something that's happened'. And in some ways that's even harder to come to terms with I think."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Liturgy, Music, Worship • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • Urban/City Life and Issues • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

"There is no way this is just some sort of accidental thing, that the elephant was making normal elephant sounds and somehow got rewarded for doing it and then people started saying, 'Oh, he's a talking elephant,' " says [Tecumseh] Fitch. "That's what I think makes it really convincing that this is speech mimicry."

What's more, the researchers asked native Korean speakers to listen to the sounds made by Koshik and transcribe what they heard. While most listeners agreed on the vowel sounds, there was some disagreement on what consonants he was saying. "His consonants are kind of blurry in the same way that mine might be if I'd had a half a bottle of Jack Daniel's or something," says Fitch.

What most struck the researchers is that Koshik was apparently so driven to imitate sounds that he invented the method of putting his trunk in his mouth and moving it around. They believe that he may have done this to bond with his trainers, as he was deprived of elephant companionship during a critical period of his childhood and spent years with humans as his only social contact.

Read or listen to it all and do not miss the video.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

You know I am a mush for these kinds of things but please go and look for yourself.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

On the third day after Hurricane Sandy soaked Hoboken in several feet of water, leaving the city one of the most crippled in the region, those with the least found themselves suspended in the storm’s cold, dark aftermath. Late this week, Hoboken started to hum with generators and a taco truck.

The projects where [Grace] Rodriguez and her daughter, Jayleen Avalos, lived were still at the bottom of the world. The 25 or so buildings operated by the Hoboken Housing Authority were clustered together on 17 acres at the city’s southern edge. They were hemmed in by gentrification on one side — $600,000 lofts with same-day shirt service dry cleaners — and a steel fence in the back. Two feet of floodwater created a moat around the buildings. The National Guard brought water and MREs. The Red Cross brought bologna-and-cheese sandwiches.

But the one commodity residents were starved for was information, and the absence of it deepened their sense of isolation. The city government used social media to update citizens. Grace Rodriguez would have appreciated a bullhorn.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Media • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Personal Finance • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • City Government • State Government • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

"In the wake of disaster and trauma, a city has to decide what is it that binds it together – above all, what are the promises that we make to one another," the Archbishop said.

"Because a truly healthy and just city is a place where people make promises to one another. They promise to be there for one another’s safety and welfare."

Archbishop Rowan then went to the heart of God's promise in Ezekiel: “I will resettle your towns, the ruins will be rebuilt.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • --Rowan Williams • Anglican Consultative Council • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • * Christian Life / Church Life • Liturgy, Music, Worship • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Australia / NZ

Two days after the superstorm Sandy struck the East Coast, rescue officials confronted flooded cities and battered beach towns that remained dangerous and chaotic, particularly in pockets of hard-hit New Jersey.

Large portions of this old factory city were still flooded, and pumps were working round-the-clock to clear a toxic and potentially deadly mix of water, oil and sewage estimated at more than 500 million gallons. National Guard troops in 2.5-ton Humvees patrolled the flooded streets, seeking to evacuate the most vulnerable of the city’s 20,000 stranded residents, nearly half of Hoboken’s population, who were told to stay inside and signal for help with pillowcases....

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Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

For anyone wanting to follow the Hurricane Sandy open thread, you'll find it here.

Filed under: * General Interest • Weather

The members of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, today expressed their concern, compassion and prayers for all those caught up in the impact of Hurricane Sandy. Members heard of the scale of lives lost in the Caribbean, in the eastern USA and Canada, and of the devastation wrought in the wake of the hurricane
Condolences were expressed to the Anglican Province of the West Indies, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Diocese of Cuba.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Consultative Council • * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

There are 42 in all, check them out (autoplay slideshow option available).

Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Make no mistake - the storm will lead to historic levels of financial damage, not to mention dozens of lives lost. It has claimed 69 lives in the Caribbean.

Apart from the physical destruction of property, there are additional costs to governments, businesses and individuals. These are often more about the human cost and less to do with the physical wealth destroyed by a storm.

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Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Check it out, especially the NY skyline shot(s).

Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

As Hurricane Sandy churned inland as a downgraded storm, residents up and down the battered mid-Atlantic region woke on Tuesday to lingering waters, darkened homes and the daunting task of cleaning up from once-in-a-generation storm surges and their devastating effects.

Power remained out for roughly six million people, including a large swath of Manhattan. Early risers stepped out into debris-littered streets that remained mostly deserted as residents awaited dawn to shed light on the extent of the damage. Bridges remained closed and seven subway tunnels under the East River remained flooded.

The storm was the most destructive in the 108-year history of New York City’s subway system, said Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in an early morning statement. “We are assessing the extent of the damage and beginning the process of recovery,” he said, but did not provide a timetable for restoring transit service to a paralyzed city.

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Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Whoa.

Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Please post your experiences of Hurricane Sandy in the comments, including links to any interesting storm tracking sites, pictures, news stories, etc.

This storm has the potential to bring severe damage and disruption across much of the East Coast from Delaware to Maine in the coming days. Please be in prayer for all affected.

Filed under: * Admin • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • Weather

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Hurricane Sandy, a menacing monster of a storm that forecasters said would bring “life-threatening” flooding, churned toward some of the nation’s most densely populated areas on Sunday, prompting widespread evacuations and the shutdown of the New York City transit system.

Officials warned that the hurricane, pushing north from the Caribbean after leaving more than 60 people dead in its wake, could disrupt life in the Northeast for days.

New York went into emergency mode, ordering the evacuations of more than 370,000 people in low-lying communities from Coney Island in Brooklyn to Battery Park City in Manhattan and giving 1.1 million schoolchildren a day off on Monday. The city opened evacuation shelters at 76 public schools.

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Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

This is some storm; I find the water vapor loop helpful also.

Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Hurricane Sandy, on track to disrupt the lives of as many as 60 million people along the U.S. East Coast, forced officials to halt train service in New York and Washington, airlines to cancel flights, Broadway to go dark and polling places to close.

“The time for preparing and talking is about over now,” said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Whether Sandy hits as a hurricane or just a large storm, “it is going to produce very high, potentially life-threatening, storm surge.”

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Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

As we’ve all heard by now, there is a big storm brewing on the East Coast. Looking at the latest weather models, that may be a bit of an understatement.

The National Weather Service has labelled the hybrid gyre that may result from the merging of Hurricane Sandy and a Midwest snowstorm a “Frankenstorm.” When it hits, the storm could have truly scary implications befitting the Halloween holiday it will coincide with....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Urban/City Life and Issues • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc.

Watch it all. Not a dry eye in the house here after this one--KSH.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • War in Afghanistan • * General Interest • Animals • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

U.S. meteorologists expect a natural horror show of high wind, heavy rain, extreme tides and maybe snow to the west beginning early Sunday, peaking with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday and lingering past Halloween on Wednesday.

Experts predict at least $1 billion in damage in the United States.

"It's looking like a very serious storm that could be historic," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the forecasting service Weather Underground. "Mother Nature is not saying, 'Trick or treat.' It's just going to give tricks."

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Filed under: * General Interest • Weather

Watch and listen to it all and you can read a bit more over there.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

This has to be listened to--catch it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • State Government • * General Interest • Animals • Humor / Trivia

School teacher Darlene Derosier lost her home in the 2010 earthquake that devastated her country. Her husband died a month later after suffering what she said was emotional trauma from the quake. She and her two daughters now live in tents outside Haiti's capital, surrounded by thousands of others made homeless and desperate by the disaster.

What has helped pull her through all the grief, she said, has been her faith, but not of the Catholic, Protestant or even Voodoo variety that have predominated in this island country. Instead, she has converted to a new religion here, Islam, and built a small neighborhood mosque out of cinderblocks and plywood, where about 60 Muslims pray daily.

Islam has won a growing number of followers in this impoverished country, especially after the catastrophe two years ago that killed about 300,000 people and left millions more homeless.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Caribbean • Haiti • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Faiths • Islam

Emma Thompson isn't just an Oscar-winning actress; she's also an Oscar-winning writer. Thompson authored the 1995 film adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and now she's taken on another period project — reviving the classic children's book character Peter Rabbit.

Beatrix Potter first brought the mischievous bunny to life in 1902 with tales of stealing lettuce and making trouble. Now, Thompson's version takes Peter Rabbit across the Scottish countryside. Not surprisingly, it opens with Peter Rabbit contemplating an adventure in which he's sure to break a lot of rules.

"Peter is sort of anarchistic, which I love," Thompson tells NPR's Renee Montagne....

Listen to it all at the link provided here (a little under 8 minutes).

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • Children • History • * General Interest • Animals • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

“This is a big old ship, Bill. She creaks, she rocks, she rolls, and at times she makes you want to throw up. But she gets where she’s going. Always has, always will, until the end of time. With or without you.”

--J.F. Powers’ Wheat that Springeth Green (New York: New York Review Books Classics edition of the 1988 original, 2000), p. 170

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Books • * General Interest • Notable & Quotable • * Theology • Ecclesiology

Check it out. Lol.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • Office of the President • * General Interest • Humor / Trivia

These are just so much fun.

Filed under: * General Interest • Animals

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said."

--Peter Drucker (1909-2005)

Filed under: * General Interest • Notable & Quotable

The black mamba has a fearful reputation, and it’s easy to see why. It can move at around 12.5 miles (20 kilometres) per hour, making it one of the world’s fastest snakes, if not the fastest. Its body can reach 4.5 metres in length, and it can lift a third of that off the ground. That would give you an almost eye-level view of the disturbingly black mouth from which it gets its name. And inside that mouth, two short fangs deliver one of the most potent and fast-acting venoms of any land snake.

Combined with its reputation for aggression (at least when cornered) and you’ve got a big, intimidating, deadly, ornery serpent that can probably outrun you. It’s not the most obvious place to go looking for painkillers.

But among the cocktail of chemicals in the black mamba’s venom, Sylvie Diochot and Anne Baron from the CNRS have found a new class of molecules that can relieve pain as effectively as morphine, and without any toxic side effects. They’ve named them mambalgins.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Animals

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • * South Carolina