Disaster Area

Berlin

Things have been light on the blog the last week or two mostly because I've been traveling for work quite a bit. Right now I'm in Berlin for a software users conference. The host company took the attendees out to dinner last night to Potsdam, with a tour of the Castle Sanssouci and dinner at a very pleasant restaurant on the grounds. My German hosts tell me the meal was classic German - all meat and potatoes, with nary a green vegetable in sight. Regardless, it was very nice, though.

Blogging as usual will likely resume in a few days when all the molecules settle down a bit...

Itinerant Deposed Bishops...

Have crook, will travel...

The odd situation that has developed around the flying conservative bishops who have been accumulating disaffected Episcopal parishes is nowhere stranger than my back yard of the Diocese of Olympia. Here, the two original breakaway parishes aligned themselves with the Bishop of Recife in Brazil, Robinson Cavalcanti, who was shortly thereafter deposed by his own primate, leaving him a former bishop without portfolio. He was promptly snapped up by Archbishop Greg Venables of the Southern Cone in what appears to be a deposed bishop fire sale.

Since then, Venables and his new henchmen have set out on what looks more like a Gordon Gecko style hostile takeover spree or or shameless land grab than anything to do with "church". It's all very unAnglican and unTraditional and unseemly.

Apparently Cavalcanti, in his new role of flying bishop, will be in the great Pacific Northwest, crossing diocesan boundaries without permission (of my diocesan bishop, no less) and so on.

Father Jake has much, much more on the story, including this...

While in Washington State, he will be visiting the parishes and clergy he is claiming for Recife in Poulsbo, Bellingham, Oak Harbor, Spokane and Walla Walla. On Sunday, May 11th (Pentecost) he will preside over diaconal ordinations at St. Stephen “Anglican” in Oak Harbor. On Tuesday May 13th he will attend a special service at St. Brendan’s worship space in St. Paul’s (Bellingham) church school. While there he will preside at a Confirmation service during which he will also install (the Rev.) Kevin Allen (former rector of St. Paul’s), who has been appointed to the newly created Pacific Coast Common Cause Council which will have its charter meeting May 16th in Vancouver, Canada.

Cavalcanti will be back in Spokane over the Memorial Day weekend (May 23-25). On Friday, May 23rd, he will meet with the Vestry of Christ-the-King Anglican in Spokane before traveling to the Tri-Cities to visit Trinity Anglican Church. On Sunday, May 25th he will preside at a diaconal ordination at Christ-the-King Anglican.

If you see Mr. Cavalcanti, please document his presence and activities by sending information regarding the time, date and location to The Rev. Rachel Taber-Hamilton at chaplain@whidbey.com. All reported tracking and sighting information will be updated daily on the St. Stephen Episcopal website: http://www.ststephenepiscopal.com.

For every sighting which includes a documenting photo, St. Stephen Episcopal (the faithful Episcopal remnant who are locked out of the building that is rightfully theirs) will donate the cost of mosquito net to our diocesan NetsforLife campaign.

Reading about all the shenanigans in the dioceses of San Joaquin and Virginia and Fort Worth is one thing, having it happen in your own back yard is another. Really, I don't mind if these folkls want to break away, but the onus is surely on them to vacate the property that belongs to the diocese they no longer wish to be part of. Even if it they don't like it and it's not very practical, surely that would demonstrate integrity and be the honorable thing to do?

After all, if you don't have integrity and honor, what's the point of calling yourself a church?

Grief and Healing - A Bishop's Perspective

A blog I latched onto a few months ago is that of Bishop Alan Wilson, the Bishop of Buckingham in the Diocese of Oxford in England. Bishop Alan does a wonderful job of just being a regular blogger, describing the life of a bishop in his diocese. He has a pretty decent sense of humour and can also get quite serious. On Sunday he posted a sermon he gave at a service for survivors of bereavement by suicide. I can hardly imagine how to approach such a subject, never mind do it with tact and grace, but he apparently does. His sermon is posted in full on his blog.

One might not think that there would be huge parallels with my situation, but really, there are certain characteristics of having someone taken from you suddenly that are universal. In the case of suicide, Bishop Alan writes:

I went to see Father Tom, my Roman Catholic colleague. He said to me,

"the hardest thing in some ways is to stop trying to renegotiate the outcome with the person we loved, and respect their decision. Only then can you leave God to sort out the big stuff."

Fr Tom’s wise words reflect another problem, tied up in being human. When somebody we love dies, there’s a powerful instinct find out why and fix responsibility. It quickly becomes a tortuous game of “if only...”

This is the one area that doesn't really apply to me, and I will admit I'm in a tiny minority of the bereaved here. In Sue's case, there was not really anything rational that would have indicated a problem. As such, it's really hard to point a finger at anyone or anything that would have helped or changed the course of what happened. In an odd way I'm grateful, because the "what if" or "if only" game is nothing but torture. I can't even imagine how hard it must be for the friends of relatives who are survivors of bereavement by suicide (an oddly tortured phrase, but appropriate).

My thanks to Bishop Alan for his kind, encouraging, compassionate sermon and for blogging his work so transparently. "If only" there were more bishops like him...

Fresh Breath Problems?

Maggi Dawn posted recently on various and sundry tacky Christian novelties. Well, the same people who brought you the wash away your sins soap also have this lovely borderline sacreligious product for sale...

Are the flavors of your last supper lingering too long? Freshen your palate with the miraculous breath-cleansing power of these Last Supper After Dinner Mints. Each collectible, 3" x 1-1/4" x -1/2" (7.6 cm x 3.2 cm x 1.3 cm) tin contains one hundred mints that you can share with your apostles! Thirty-six shrink wrapped tins in each illustrated display box.

In the right circumstances, I could see these figuring into a humorous alt-worship service of some kind. Come to think of it, why does church have to be so solemn all the time? Why couldn't we cut loose a bit with a humorous service? Of course, there's no need to get stupid about it...

Future Plans...

With the yard moving along nicely it's time to start thinking about plants and trees and such. The landscape architect does have all the plants picked out on the plans, but there's plenty of scope for changing things up. Feeling in a researchy mood today, I went to Molbaks, one of the big garden center/nurseries around here and took some photos of what's there. Here are some bits and pieces that caught my eye...

First, a lovely Capistrano rhododendron:

And then a few lovely Japanese Maples, like this:

And a maybe a Paperbark Maple...

Whatever I end up selecting, it's all sure to be a lot of fun watching it grow...

Emerging Church - A Distant Perspective

Andrew Jones links to an analysis of the emerging church and its critics by Dr Reg Codrington, a South African biblical scholar and theologian. It's an interesting article, as he read several emerging church books (two by Brian McLaren, others by Leonard Sweet, Shane Claiborne and Reggie McNeal) and followed it up by reading D. A. Carson's critique of the emerging church.

It's a fascinating look from someone not embroiled in the midst of the catfight, and it's well worth reading. One thing that's nice to see is that Codrington sees Brian McLaren in a neutral light - somewhat difficult from the middle of the "battlefield", and finds weaknesses in McLaren's writing without demonizing him as Carson does.

I haven't read any of Shane Claiborne's stuff yet, but Codrington's comments made me want to, so I guess that's another book on the reading pile...

Yardwork

Not much time for blogging lately, but here's some progress on the yard.

And a bit less messy looking...

And finally, the framing for the path is in - probably pour concrete next week when the weather will (hopefully) be nicer.

   

Krister Stendahl...

Several people have noted the passing of Swedish bishop and New Testament scholar Krister Stendahl. Not being terribly knowledgeable about Sweden (nor, in terms of global academic standing, the New Testament) I was unaware of the influence of Stendahl until this point. Maggi Dawn linked to an essay of Stendahl's on "Why I Love the Bible", which I found both entertaining and fascinating.

Stendahl defined his love of the Bible in five negatives, thus:

• It is not primarily about me.
• It is not always as deep as we think.
• Even Paul isn't always totally sure.
• Don't be so uptight.
• It is probably not as universal as we think.

Apparently, Stendahl was pivotal in redefining Pauline studies, and I have to think that anyone that can point out that Paul wasn't always sure must have had a rough ride somewhere along the way. In particular, his expansion on why "the Bible isn't primarily about me" is an incredibly valuable piece of work. Although I never even knew of him before, I miss him now.

More Progress

Front yard all ripped up, ready for sprinkler system installation... It's so nice to be rid of the nasty grass put down by the builders.

And then the patio and back yard:

Presiding Bishop Q&A

Due to a hectic personal life the last few days, I haven't had much of a chance to compile and format my notes from the Presiding Bishop's visit with the youth of our diocese last week. But, finally, here it is!

The PB opened with a few remarks and questions for the youth. What I wrote down was this:

How does being connected all the time to your friends affect your relationships?

You are asking the questions older generations may not be.

Creation/Environment – hold older generations feet to the fire for what we have left you – you have the voice and technical ability to mobilize people to do better things for the earth.

You live your life with your thumbs – what does that mean?

Interesting questions or points to think about, at least.

And so on to the Q&A (sorry - I couldn't be bothered to expand the notes to real English):

Q: Music in church is old and tired – how do we get newer stuff?

A: U2 is not contemporary, it’s young boomer, older Gen X generation, try something new for yourself. Diocese of California has song writing workshops for youth

Q: How do we deal with homophobia in church? (specifically disinvite of +VGR to Lambeth)

A: It’s the ABC’s party, and he can invite who he wants. Handle it like racism and sexism, name it and learn about it – finding in ourselves how we respond to those who are different

Q: How has her experience as Presiding Bishop been different than for a male?

A: Don’t know – she’s never been a male PB… Women used to be confined to altar guild and choir. Social constructs define “normal” roles – need to get beyond that. Hillary Clinton running for president will be an interesting example.

Q: The Emerging church is a way to look outside of box. How can we make it real?

A: Not different from rest of church. Vibrant communities emerge when you leadership with a broad vision.

Q: New generation – overscheduled – less than half youth at services due to overscheduling (jobs, homework, sports, as well as leisure). Are they getting what they need?

A: Challenge is converting a consumer and competitive society – value comes from being a child of God, not how many things you attend – must prioritize what is important.

It was interesting to listen to the Presiding Bishop. It's hard in this format to look brilliant, but she gave careful answers that asked the questioner to think about what they could do to help with their own issue - not to just wait around for someone else to do something, or solve their problem for them. All in all, I'm extremely glad she is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.