Sunday, April 8, 2007

Archbishop of Canterbury - Easter Sermon

ACNS 4275 | LAMBETH | 08 APRIL 2007

Archbishop of Canterbury - Human failure is overcome by God's love

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams says that the whole weight human failure cannot extinguish the creative love of God. In his Easter sermon, to be preached at Canterbury Cathedral this morning [Sunday 8th April, Easter Day], Dr Williams says that conflict and failure are part of the human condition, but that Jesus' death and Resurrection turns that on its head:

"We share one human story in which we are all caught up in one sad tangle of selfishness and fear and so on. But God has entered that human story; he has lived a life of divine and unconditional life in a human life of flesh and blood."

He recalls a visit to the Solomon Islands in 2004 when one of the leaders caught up in the islands' recent civil war took public responsibility for failure:

"He said 'I want you to bless us; I need to say in public that we were responsible as well as the people on the islands.' Here was a politician representing a community that had suffered greatly and inflicted great suffering as well saying 'We were all wrong. We needed healing and forgiveness.' And it was as if for the first time you could see the bare bones of what reconciliation means."

The lesson, he says, can be learnt in other conflicts when people learn to listen to stories other than their own:

".going forward requires us all to learn a measure of openness to discovering things about ourselves we did not know, seeing ourselves through the eyes of another. What they see may be fair or unfair, but it is a reality that has been driving someone's reactions and decisions. We'd better listen, hateful and humiliating though it may be for some of us."

In Northern Ireland, he said, progress towards reconciliation had made it possible for people to start to hear each other's histories; this meant that they needn't be bound by the past:

"Everyone in this history made decisions, some shockingly evil, some tragic, some foolish [but] those decisions and the sufferings that came from them don't have the power to tell you what decisions you have to make today."

The Easter story, he says, provides comfort and encouragement:

"If we can accept the unwelcome picture of us and our world that Good Friday offers, we are in the strangest way, set free to hear what Easter says. Give up the struggle to be innocent and the hope that God will proclaim that you were right and everyone else wrong. Simply ask for whatever healing it is that you need, whatever grace and hope you need to be free, then step towards your neighbour; Easter reveals a God who is ready to give you that grace and to walk with you."

"When in our world we are faced with the terrible deadlocks of mutual hatred and suspicion, with rival stories of suffering and atrocity, we have to pray for this resurrection message to be heard."

Ends

The Archbishop's sermon for Easter Day will be delivered at the main Eucharist in Canterbrury Cathedral tomorrow, 8th April. The service starts at 11am

Monday, April 2, 2007

Bible Reference Tool

This online tool is very handy. You can increase the font size (click the A buttons).

Use this tool to look up passages:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/

Or, search the Bible:

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/

Holy Spirit in Scripture (New American Standard Bible)

Job 33:4

The Spirit of God has made me;
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Ezekiel 36:26

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

John 3:8

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 6:63

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

John 14:26

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Acts 10:34-35

Opening his mouth, Peter said: "I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him."

Romans 8:26-27

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

1 Corinthians 12:1-6

The Use of Spiritual Gifts

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus is accursed"; and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Holy Week and Easter Schedule

Maundy Thursday,
7:00 pm, Maundy Thursday Eucharist - Ceremony of Washing Feet
8:30 pm - 9:00 am Watch at the Altar of Repose

Good Friday,
9:00 am, Morning Prayer
12:00 pm - 3:00 pm Seven Last Words from the Cross
7:00 pm, Good Friday Liturgy

Holy Saturday,
1:00 pm - Sacrament of Reconciliation
3:00 pm
8:00 pm, The Great Easter Vigil (arrive at 7:30pm)

Easter Sunday,
8:00 am, Holy Eucharist, Rite I
9:15 am, Contemporary Eucharist, Rite II
10:30 am, Holy Eucharist, Rite II

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Seeking Refuge

By Mark Harris

Creeds state what the church or the believer believes to be true, and they always have the built-in supposition that the creed states the Truth and truths that are larger than our own partial experience. And, of course, creeds are fighting words, words about things we would defend -- if not with arms, at least with our lives.

But what would it look like to make a statement not of what we believe, but where we go when the going gets rough. Where would we go when, as Howard Thurman said, “our backs are against the wall?” Where would we go for refuge?

I have tried to write a statement of where I would, and do, go for refuge. It closely parallels the Trinitarian creedal formulation, but presents the matter not as truths to be defended but as a tracing of a path to refuge. . . It is not a formula; it is a confession.

It is, of course, unsatisfactory in that it cannot adequately state where any given person should go for refuge. It is not a formula; it is a confession.

The reader will note that I have tried to be informed by some of the prayer and conceptual forms given us by Moslem and Buddhist brothers and sisters. I speak of God as compassionate and merciful, mindful that Islam knows God as both in many of its prayers. I speak of mindfulness, compassion and refuge in ways that echo a sensibility of the Buddha's own three refuges. But, of course, these references are like the early dawn recognitions that the light that comes to every person is somehow seen in whatever light we receive as the Sun rises. They are inadequate.

Inadequate confession: that is the fate of any effort to put in place a witness to faith. And yet at Easter, indeed at any time, what more can we do? Strange and simple marks on paper, odd and strained statements from our mouths: these are all prayer, and prayer is refuge too.

http://www.thewitness.org/agw/harris040204.html

Three Christian Vows of Refuge

By Rev. Canon Mark Harris

I take refuge in God,

compassionate and merciful,

Source of all that was, and is, and will be,

Whose name is beyond naming,

Who yet is so present with us

That we call out to the One whose offspring we are

in names of affection,

The names we give our parents.

I take refuge in Jesus Christ,

compassionate and merciful,

In whom we have known God's word and wisdom,

Present and incarnate.

In Jesus, who comes among us as attentive as a servant,

Whose mindfulness heals,

Whose teaching is the way of life,

Who welcomes us to eat and drink with him

And calls us brothers and sisters.

His compassion is our refuge,

Even his compassion in death.

For we remember:

Under imperial authority

In a captured province

He suffered humiliation and agony

And death on the cross.

That cross has become our sign,

For his death was not the end,

But a new mark of his healing Grace.

Death could not keep him from us,

His compassion and his teaching

Have no boundaries.

In Him we find ourselves alive.

He is our refuge for all time.

I take refuge in the Holy Spirit,

compassionate and merciful;

Who is present in the source of all our being,

In Jesus the Christ, the incarnation of God's mercy,

And in the community of all who at table

Together are the Body of Christ,

Where God's mercy and compassion reign,

Where the way of life is practiced,

And Presence and the present are one.

The Rev. Canon Mark Harris is author of The Challenge of Change: The Anglican Communion in the Post Modern Era, and a member of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company's (The Witness magazine) board of directors. He lives in Lewes, Del., and may be reached by email at poetmark@worldnet.att.net .

Bishop Spong Creed

I believe that there is a transcending reality present in the very heart of life. I name that reality God. I believe that this reality has a bias toward life and wholeness and that its presence is experienced as that which calls us beyond all of our fearful and fragile human limits.

I believe that this reality can be found in all that is, but that it reaches self-consciousness and the capability of being named, communed with, and recognized only in human life.

I believe that heaven, the domain in which this reality has traditionally been domiciled, is not a place but a symbol standing for the limitlessness of Being itself.

I believe that this realm of heaven is entered whenever the barriers that seem to bind human life into something less than that for which it is capable are set aside.

I believe in Jesus, called Messiah, or Christ.

I believe that in his life this transcendent reality has been revealed so completely that it caused people to refer to him as God’s son, even God’s only son. The burning God intensity was so real in him that I look at his life and say, “In you I see the meaning of God, so for me you are both Lord and Christ.” I believe that Jesus was a God presence, a powerful experience of the reality of that Ground of Being undergirding us all at the very depths of life. That is why the earliest Christians interpreted this Christ experience in the language of theism. That was the only language in which they knew how to speak of God. It needs to be said clearly that the God presence of this Jesus will lead us ultimately beyond every religious definition. Indeed, it will lead beyond Jesus himself.

I believe in that gift of the Spirit who was called “the giver of life.” I believe that this Spirit inevitably creates a community of faith that will come, in time, to open this world to God as the very Ground of its life and Being.

I believe, therefore, that being in touch with the Ground of Being creates the universal communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the reality of resurrection, and the doorway into the life that is everlasting. Those may not be the words I would now choose to use to describe the reality to which they point, but once they have escaped their idolatrous literalization, those words will do.

Religion is a human attempt to process the God experience, which breaks forth from our own depths and wells up constantly within us. We must lay down, therefore, the primitive claims we have made for our religious traditions. None of them is drawn from otherworldly revelations. None of them is inerrant or infallible. None of them represents the only way to God. The only divine mission in life that the Church of the future could possibly have is to open people to a recognition that the ground of their very being is holy and that when they are in touch with that holy Ground of Being, they can share in God’s creation by giving life, love, and being to others. That is the task of those who claim to be God bearers.

Creed of the Masai

We believe in the one High God,

who out of love created the beautiful world

and everything good in it.

He created people and wanted them to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth.

We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know Him in the light.

God promised in the book of his word, the Bible

that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise

by sending his Son Jesus Christ:

A man in the flesh,

A Jew by tribe,

Born poor in a little village,

Who left his home and was always on safari doing good,

Curing people by the power of God,

Teaching them about God and humanity,

Showing that the meaning of religion is love.

He was rejected by his people,

tortured, and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died.

He was buried in the grave,

but the hyenas did not touch Him,

and on the third day He rose from the grave.

He ascended to the skies.

He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him.

All who have faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live by the rules of love, and share the Bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus come again.

We are waiting for Him.

He is alive. He lives.

This we believe. Amen.

The Affirmation of Faith

From: He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (the New Zealand Prayer Book)

You, 0 God, are supreme and holy.

You create our world and give us life.

Your purpose overarches everything we do.

You have always been with us.

You are God.

You, 0 God, are infinitely generous.

Good beyond all measure.

You came to us before we came to you.

You have revealed and proved

your love for us in Jesus Christ,

who lived and died and rose again.

You are with us now.

You are God.

You, 0 God, are Holy Spirit.

You empower us to be your gospel in the world.

You reconcile and heal: You overcome death.

You are our God. We worship you.

A Lenten Meditation

As a Lenten reflection on our place in creation, I share with you an article from our
former Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold:

A much-loved saint associated with the natural world around us is Francis of Assisi.
Francis is the author of a text known as the Canticle of the Sun, which expresses an
enthusiastic thanksgiving for the world around us and is also a profound theological
statement about creation and our place in it.

"Praised be you most high good Lord with all your creatures especially Sir Brother Sun... Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Moon... through Brother Wind...through Sister Water, through Brother Fire... through our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs."

Clearly Francis' inspiration came in part from the psalms, which he would have recited in the course of the daily office. He also would have been familiar with the canticle found in our own prayer book that begins, "Glorify the Lord, all your works of the Lord, praise him and highly exalt him forever." What is unprecedented in Francis' canticle is that he refers to sun and moon, wind and water, fire and earth as brother and sister, thereby establishing an intimate, and affectionate, relationship between humankind and all created things.

The canticle situates humankind within creation as sister or brother to all created things and never in a position of domination. This radical reordering of humankind's relationship to creation flowed from a profound sense that sun and moon, earth and all creatures, colored flowers and herbs are all revelatory of God and God's goodness. Everything speaks of God and praises God in fulfilling its own nature and function in the vast web of relationships and interdependencies that constitute creation - us included. This relationship of mutuality and respect and affection reflects God's own love of the world God created.

This sense of being in harmony with creation is very much part of how native peoples
understand themselves and is reflected in the Navajo Blessing Way Prayer:

In beauty may I walk. All day long may I walk. Through the returning seasons may I walk. On the trail marked with pollen may I walk. With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk. With dew about my feet may I walk. With beauty may I walk. With beauty before me, may I walk. With beauty behind me, may I walk. With beauty above me, may I walk. With beauty below me, may I walk. With beauty all around me, may I walk. In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk. In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk. It is finished in beauty. It is finished in
beauty.

I wonder what would happen if we said this prayer as we walked through life. What would we see differently or perhaps for the first time? How might a new consciousness - a new sense of relationship - brotherhood or sisterhood with creation - move us to a stance of respect and even affection for "this fragile earth our island home" and call us to deeds of healing and reordered relationship? Would we then be mindful that a break in that relationship opens the way for our misuse and violation of creation?

In the letter to the Romans, St. Paul comes at the reciprocal relationship between
humankind and creation from a different perspective. He speaks not of mutual blessing
leading to a song of praise but of bondage leading to inward groaning and cries of pain.

"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God
... creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies."

These words make clear the indissoluble link between the children of God, which is all of us, and creation. The future and well being - redemption - of one is bound up with the future and well being of the other. The bondage of the one is reflected in the bondage of the other.

Put another way, the spirit of ingratitude that occludes one's ability to see God's "hand at work in the world around us" leads to a relationship with creation that is characterized by domination, disrespect and misuse. Our blind ingratitude throws us off balance, creates disharmony and makes us unable to walk any longer on a trail of beauty. Our relationship to creation reveals the disposition of our souls and says a tremendous amount about whether we are children of light or children of darkness. Our focus on the environment moves us not simply to admire and rejoice in the beauty that surrounds us, but also to recover and renew our gratitude and reverence for the wonder of creation of which we ourselves are a part. In so doing, may we indeed be faithful stewards of the world God has given into our care.

NY Times Editorial

A Divorce the Church Should Smile Upon

By JACK MILES

Los Angeles

THE decision of the global Anglican Communion to threaten the Episcopal Church, its American affiliate, with expulsion is about much more than the headline issue of homosexuality. Yes, the impending divorce has been precipitated by the decision of the Episcopal Church to consecrate a gay bishop and to allow individual congregations to decide whether or not to allow gay marriages. But as so often in religious history, the deeper issue is one of church governance. In effect, the Episcopalians left the Church of England more than two centuries ago.

The problem dates back to the time of the American Revolution, when the Church of England in America was just what that name says: it was the Church of England, merely in America. Since the 16th century, when King Henry VIII made himself, in effect, the pope of England, the English king had been the supreme church authority. Time had somewhat eroded this authority by 1776, thanks in part to the Puritan revolution in the mid-17th century. Nonetheless, the authority structure within the church remained officially monarchical.

So it was no surprise that after the newborn United States broke with the crown in the political realm, the Church of England in the United States did so in the religious realm as well, establishing a democratic form of self-governance under a “presiding bishop,” whose title echoed that of the chief executive of the new nation. The name the new church adopted — from episkopos, the ancient Greek word for bishop — signaled that its governance would be neither by pope nor by king but, as in early Christianity, by elected bishops.

British colonial history did not end in 1776, of course. As the British Empire grew, the Church of England went wherever the crown went, evolving in the process into a religious multinational, called the Anglican Communion, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury exercised a global spiritual jurisdiction. Structurally, however, the Episcopal Church, though long since reconciled with Britain, remained uneasy under this arrangement.

Why? Because the deepest rationale for the creation of the Church of England had been that church governance through separate national churches better reflected the practice of the early church than did papal governance. During its first centuries, Christianity had governed itself as separate but equal dioceses or administrative units, each coinciding with a great capital city, each headed by a bishop; the pope, at that time, was merely the bishop of Rome.

Thus, the same logic that dictated the initial creation of the Church of England dictated that, once the United States had become a separate nation, it ought not to belong any longer to the Church of England nor to the Anglican Communion as a colonial extension.

For sentimental reasons, including now fading American Anglophilia, Episcopalians and Anglicans alike tended to mute this logic. However, under the improbable stimulus of a dispute over homosexuals, the logic may be about to assert itself, with consequences that may be larger for the Anglican Communion, and in particular for the Archbishop of Canterbury, than for the Episcopal Church itself.

Numerically, the 2.3 million Episcopalians do not loom large among 77 million Anglicans. Symbolically, however, given the global importance of the United States, the departure of the Americans will leave the archbishop exposed as a quasi-colonial, quasi-papal figurehead heading a church made up, anachronistically, of Britain and her mostly African and Asian former colonies. This will be an awkward state of affairs, and portends further fissures along the same logic that underlies the impending departure of the Americans.

There is, finally, a quintessentially 21st-century implication to this quite likely split. A solid majority of American Episcopalians supports their church’s stance on homosexuality and gay marriage. A minority disagrees, and some of these members have even sought to pull out their congregations from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with one of the Anglican churches in Africa that have been most vehemently opposed to the Episcopalians’ decisions on homosexuality.

The flip side of such threats is that, along the same lines, any British or Canadian or Australian congregations that wished to disaffiliate from their local forms of Anglicanism might well affiliate with the Episcopal Church. In fact, a few have already signaled their readiness, though in the hope of preserving Anglican unity the Episcopal Church has not encouraged them.

I pass over, for the moment, the many legal complications involved in such rearrangements, the surrendering of church property that is entailed and so forth. The broader point is that communications technology makes new forms of church organization possible, and geographically distant congregations can easily join together. Rather than voting with your feet, you may now vote with your mouse, perhaps the most amicable form of religious divorce.

A generation from now, when we look back on the breakup of the Anglican Communion and on the status of homosexuals within the churches of the world, what may we expect to see? An old proverb holds that “God writes straight with crooked lines,” and at this juncture, the Author of Liberty, as a venerable American hymn names him, seems to have taken pen in hand.

Jack Miles is a senior fellow for religious affairs with the Pacific Council on International Policy and a scholar in residence with the Getty Research Institute.

A Prayer before reading Scripture on a rainy day

Your wet words of life
in thousands of thin sentences
saturate my meditation
as I lift up my heart to you,
O God of rain-gifts.

The earth, like an ear,
soaks up your words.
Oh, that my heart
would do the same.

Soften my heart,
O God of living waters,
that the shower of Scripture
I am about to read
may enrich the soil of my soul.

Rain down your wisdom
in sacred streams
to carry me like an upturned leaf
through the currents of this gray day. Amen

Edward M. Hays, Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim, pg. 98

Prayer Book Quiz

THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
A Quiz

1. What is the primary Gospel read in Year A? Year B? Year C?
2. What is the earliest possible date for Easter? the latest?
3. If you are doing Morning Prayer tomorrow morning, what Psalms might you choose? What readings might you choose?
4. What year was the first Book of Common Prayer published?
5. Name four different ways of singing or saying the Psalms.
6. Who can hear a confession?
7. Where and when may a confession be heard?
8. What are the principal feasts observed in the Episcopal Church?
9. What is the feast day of Clare, Abbess of Assisi?
10. What is a rubric?
11. On what pages are the collects for the First Sunday in Lent?
12. What item is given during the rite to all those ordained as bishop? priest? deacon?
13. What three creeds are printed in the Book of Common Prayer?
14. What do the Historical Documents have to say about Purgatory?
15. What are the two fast days?

The Church Year

The Church Year: Calendar of the Christian Church

The principal holidays and seasons of the Christian year and what they mean

As humans order or arrange the physical space in which they live, for example, their homes, neighborhoods, and cities, they also have a propensity for ordering time. Most Christian denominations utilize a calendar that has evolved over two millennia, in which the year is divided into several seasons, beginning with Advent, the period of four weeks leading up to Christmas. Each of the seasons is associated with a specific color, as well as certain Biblical texts or themes that give focus to public worship and private prayer.

Like all calendars, the liturgical calendar is based on recurring seasons in nature: fall, winter, spring, and summer, marked out by the movement of the sun (solar calendars of 365 days) or the phases of the moon (lunar calendars, 12 months of 28 days). The calendar of the Christian church makes use of both kinds and for this reason can be somewhat confusing, as holidays based on the solar calendar like Christmas always occur on the same date each year, whereas holidays based on the lunar calendar like Easter occur on different dates each year, reflecting the cycles of the moon.

The liturgical calendar was developed over many centuries, appropriating rituals common to many cultures, to tell the story of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection as the pattern not only for the life of the Church and its worship, but also the progress of the individual believer toward union with God. At one level, the seasons of the Christian year are ordered around the life and work of Jesus, beginning with Advent and Christmas.

The Christmas season is one of twelve days, ending with Epiphany, which marks the coming of the magi to the stable in Bethlehem where Jesus was born.

Epiphany extends for a period of 4 to 9 weeks in which the believer follows the major events of Christ's life, from his baptism which marks the start of his public ministry and ending with Ash Wednesday.

During Lent, Christians follow Christ toward the culminating days of Holy Week and Easter in which his confrontation with the "powers and principalities" of this world came to a climax in his death, and then, the resurrection.

Following Easter, Christians remember the relatively short period during which the risen Christ appeared to the disciples on earth. According to the creeds, he then "ascended" into heaven; the church was not abandoned by God, however, but rather was blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost Sunday celebrates that presence in the life of the church and is followed by a season of 24 weeks, often referred to as "ordinary time," in which both the church and the individual believer focus on the work they are called to do in the world as the living "body of Christ."

For further discussion of these and other seasons of the Christian Year

At another level the cycle of the Church year is understood, not just as a rehearsal of events that happened in the distant past, but as a reflection of those universal themes and patterns that are part of the structure of reality itself. As one follows the trajectory of the Christian year, one is also following the trajectory of the cosmos itself, as it moves from the moment of creation to its final consummation. In this we are all on a journey, an often painful one that leads through many joys and sorrows and many seasons of the heart toward that final moment when we return to the Source.
For Christians the journey is not without purpose or direction, but rather points toward the time when all things shall be caught up once again in the unity of a just and loving God.

Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the Way to

something unknown, something new;

And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability...

And that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually...

Let them grow, let them shape themselves,

without much undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on as though you could be

today what time (that is to say, grace and

circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give our God the benefit of believing

that the divine hand is leading you,

And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.

Three Simple Prayers

God our Father,
Walk through our house
And take away all our
Worries and illnesses;
In Jesus' name. Amen

The light of God surrounds me;
The love of God enfolds me;
The power of God protects me;
The presence of God watches
over me;
Wherever I am, God is!

Lord Jesus Christ
You are the light of the world
Fill my mind with your peace, and
My heart with your love

The Stream & The Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes, by Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov, The Stream & The Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes
(New York: New Directions Publ., 1997)

Annunciation
‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
From the Agathistos Hymn,
Greece, VI c.

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
Almost always a lectern, a book; always
The tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
The angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
Whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
Courage.
The engendering Spirit
Did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
To accept or to refuse, choice
Integral to humanness.

+++++++++

Aren’t there annunciations
Of one sort or another
In most lives?
Some unwillingly
Undertake great destinies,
Enact them in sullen pride,
Uncomprehending.
More often
Those moments
When roads of light and storm
Open from darkness in a man or woman,
Are turned away from
In dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
And with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

+++++++++++++

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
Like any other child -- but unlike others,
Wept only for pity, laughed
In joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
Fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
Than any in all of time,
She did not quail,
Only asked
A simple, ‘How can this be?’
And gravely, courteously,
Took to heart the angel’s reply,
Perceiving instantly
The astounding ministry she was offered:

To bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
In hidden, finite inwardness,
Nine months of Eternity; to contain
In slender vase of being,
The sum of power --
In narrow flesh,
The sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
Push out into air, a Man-child
Needing, like any other,
Milk and love --

But who was God.

People

Iver Band

Christine Courtney

Daryl Courtney

Patricia Craig-Waldrip

Alicia Davis

Carol Friendly

Jeanette Fruen

Lynn Hingson

Jeff Honeyman

Lesley Kempsell

Judy Laing

Anne-Marie Lindstedt

Patty Leritz-Higgins

Sarah Leritz-Higgins

Bob Loy

Betsy Marsh

Mary McCarter

Click here to send an email to everyone.

Bibliography

Dorothy C. Bass. Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People. Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Debra K. Farrington. Living Faith Day by Day: How the Sacred Rules of Monastic Traditions Can Help You Live Spiritually in The Modern World. Berkley Publishing Group, 2000.

Wayne Muller. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. Bantam Books, 1995.

In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture, by Alister McGrath

Reading Suggestions

+In Parish Library

*In Multnomah County Library

The Episcopal Church and Anglicanism

+J. B. Bernardin. An Introduction to the Episcopal Church. Morehouse Publishing

+James E. Griffiss. The Anglican Vision. Vol. 1., The New Church’s Teaching Series, Cowley Publications, 1997

+Urban T. Holmes, III. What is Anglicanism? Morehouse-Barlow Co, 1982.

James Rosenthal, ed. The Essential Guide to the Anglican Communion. Morehouse Publishing Co, 1998.

Geoffery Rowell, ed. The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism. Abingdon Press, 1992.

Fredrica Harris Thompsett. We are Theologians: Strengthening the People of the Episcopal Church. Cowley Publications, 1989.

John J. Westerhoff. A People called Episcopalians. St. Luke’s Press, 1996.

Bible Reading and Bible Translations

*+ Marcus Borg. Reading The Bible Again for The First Time: The Historical Jesus & The Heart of Contemporary Faith. HarperSanFrancisco, 1994.

+Roger Ferlo. Opening The Bible. Vol. 2, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 1997.

Robert W. Funk, trans. The Five Gospels: The Search for The Authentic Words of Jesus. Scribner, 1996

+Michael Johnston. Engaging The Word. Vol. 3, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 1998.

*George M. Lamsa. Idioms in The Bible Explained and a Key to The Original Gospels. HarperSanFrancisco, 1985.

Alister McGrath. In The Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed A Nation, A Language, and A Culture. Anchor Books, 2001.

* Nan C. Merrill. Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness. Continuum, 2002.

*Bruce M. Metzger. The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions. BakerAcademic, 2001.

* John Shelby Spong. Liberating The Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

Neil Douglas-Klotz, trans. Prayers of The Cosmos: Meditations of the Aramaic Words of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.

Bible Translations Recommended for Public Use

By The Episcopal Church

Good News Bible

Jerusalem Bible

King James Version

New American Bible

New English Bible

New Revised Standard Version:

Oxford Annotated, 3^rd ed.

Harper-Collins Study Bible

Revised Standard Version

Creed, Doctrine, Belief

Marcus J. Borg. The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering A Life of Faith. HarperCollins, 2003.

Joan Chittister. In Search of Belief. Liquori Publications, 1999.

Elizabeth Rankin Geitz. Gender and the Nicene Creed. Morehouse Publishing, 1995

+Urban T. Holmes, III and John H. Westerhoff, III. Christian Believing. Vol. 1, The Church’s Teaching Series, Harper and Row, 1979.

+Mark McIntosh. Mysteries of Faith. Vol. 8, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 2000.

Kathleen Norris. Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. Riverhead, 1998.

Richard A. Norris. Understanding the Faith of the Church. Vol. 4, The Church’s Teaching Series, Harper and Row, 1979.

Christian Church History

*+Karen Armstrong. A History of God: The Four Thousand-Year Quest for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ballantine Publishing Group, 1994.

*Karen Armstrong. The Battle for God. Ballantine Publishing Group, 2001.

John Dominic Crossan. Excavating Jesus: Beneath The Stones, Behind The Texts: The Key Discoveries for Understanding Jesus in His World. HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

+Rebecca Lyman. Early Christian Traditions. Vol. 6, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 1999.

John McManners, ed. The Oxford History of Christianity. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Anglican and Episcopal Church History

+John E Booty. The Church in History (vol. 3, The Church’s Teaching Series). Harper San Francisco, 1979.

Henry Chadwick, ed. Not Angels, but Anglicans. Canterbury Press, 2000.

+Fredrica Harris Thompsett. Living with History. Vol. 5, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 1999.

David L Holmes. A Brief History of the Episcopal Church. Trinity Press International, 1993.

+Caroline Litzenberger. The English Reformation and the Laity. Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Peter B. Nockles. The Oxford Movement in Context. Cambridge University Press, 1994.

*Richard Prichard. A History of the Episcopal Church. rev’d edn. Morehouse Publishing, 1999.

William Sydnor. Prayer Book Through the Ages. Morehouse Publishing, 1997.

Justice

Earl H. Brill, The Christian Moral Vision. Vol. 6, The Church’s Teaching Series, Harper and Row, 1979.

Matthew Fox. Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth. Harper San Francisco, 1991.

Stephen Holmgren. Ethics after Easter. Vol. 9, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 2000.

+Harold Lewis. Christian Social Witness. Vol. 10, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 2001.

Titus Pressler. Horizons of Mission. Vol. 11, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 2001.

*Hernando de Soto. The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in The West and Fails Everywhere Else. Basic Books, 2000.

+Titus L. Presler. Horizons of Mission. Vol. 13, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications,

Prayer Books and Prayer

The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. A New Zealand Prayer Book. HarperSanFrancisco, 1989.

Neil Douglas-Klotz, trans. Prayers of The Cosmos: Meditations of the Aramaic Words of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco, 1990.

Elizabeth Rankin Gietz, et al., eds. Women’s Uncommon Prayers: Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated. Morehouse Publishing, 2000.

Suzanne Guthrie. Grace's Window: Entering the Seasons of Prayer. Cowley Publications, 1996.

Suzanne Guthrie. Praying the Hours. Cowley Publications, 2000.

+Jeffrey D. Lee. Opening The Prayer Book. Vol. 7, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 1999.

* Nan C. Merrill. Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness. Continuum, 2002.

Charles Price and Louis Weil. Liturgy for Living. Vol. 5, The Church’s Teaching Series, Harper and Row, 1979.

P Ray Simpson. A Holy Island Prayer Book. Morehouse Publishing, 2003.

Martin L. Smith. The Word is Very Near You: A Guide to Praying with Scripture. Cowley Publications, 1989.

David Steindl-Rast. Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer: An Approach to Life in Fullness. Paulist Press, 1984.

+Louis Weil. A Theology of Worship. Vol. 12, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 2002.

Reflections

Frederick Buechner. Beyond Words: Daily Readings in The ABC’s of Faith. HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

Joan D. Chittister. Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir. Sheed & Ward, 2004.

George Connor, ed. Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner. HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.

Barbara Cawthorne Crafton. The Sewing Room: Uncommon Reflections on Life, Love and Work. Penguin Books, 1994.

Alan Jones. Passion for Pilgrimage: Note for the Journey Home. Harper San Francisco, 1995.

Lawrence Kushner. Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary. Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998.

Annie Lamott. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. Pantheon Books, 1999.

Kathleen Norris. Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Barbara Brown Taylor. Gospel Medicine. Cowley Publications, 1995.

Barbara Brown Taylor. Bread of Angels. Cowley Publications, 1997.

Spiritual Practice

* Dorothy C. Bass. Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People. Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Joan Chittister. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. Harper San Francisco, 1991.

Patricia Hart Clifford. Sitting Still: An Encounter with Christian Zen. Paulist Press, 1994.

* Debra K. Farrington. Living Faith Day by Day: How the Sacred Rules of Monastic Traditions Can Help You Live Spiritually in The Modern World. Berkley Publishing Group, 2000.

+Margaret Guenther. The Practice of Prayer. Vol. 4, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications, 1998.

Rachel Hosmer and Alan Jones. Living in the Spirit. Vol. 7, The Church’s Teaching Series, Harper and Row, 1979.

Wayne Muller. Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives. Bantam Books, 1995.

Donna Schaper. Sabbath Keeping. Cowley Publications, 1999.

Spiritual Formation and Theology

Marcus Borg. Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture and the Life of Discipleship. Harper San Francisco, 1995.

Marcus Borg. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith. Harper San Francisco, 1995.

Marcus Borg. The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith. Harper San Francisco, 1998.

Avery Brooke. Finding God in the World. Cowley Publications, 1994.

Frederick Buechner. Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. Harper & Row, 1988.

Joan Chittister. Heart of Flesh: A Feminist Spirituality for Women and Men. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998.

L. William Countryman. Living on the Borders of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All. Morehouse Publishing, 1999.

L. William Countryman and M. R. Ritley. Gifted by Otherness: Gay and Lesbian Christians in the Church. Morehouse Publishing, 2001.

Tich Nhat Hanh. Living Buddha, Living Christ. Riverhead Books, 1995.

+Stephen Holmgren. Ethics After Easter. Vol. 11, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications,

Paul F. Knitter. No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes Toward The World Religions. Orbis Books, 1985.

Madeleine L'Engle. The Irrational Season. Seabury Press, 1977.

Michael Lerner. Spirit Matters. Hampton Roads Publishing Co., 2000.

Martin L. Smith. A Season for The Spirit. Cowley Publications, 1991.

+Martin L. Smith. Christian Wholeness. Vol. 12, The New Church’s Teaching Series. Cowley Publications,

John Shelby Spong. Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. Harper San Francisco, 1998.

Phyllis Tickle. The Shaping of a Life. Image Books / Doubleday, 2001.

Esther de Waal. Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering The Celtic Tradition. Morehouse Publishing, 1991.