I've noticed the cool guys.............................

..............................................................always sit in the back.

Stark.............................

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.

On prayer.......................

Underneath the variety of questions and concerns are some basic Christian questions about prayer: when I pray for our leaders, why am I doing so?  Should I pray for a leader I disagree with? When I pray what do I think I am accomplishing? 

On one level these questions seem inconsequential and innocuous. But real prayer is not innocuous. It is powerful. That question can become poignant and even painful as it is for many in this moment, given that some of the values that many of us heard expressed over the past year have seemed to be in contradiction to deeply-held Christian convictions of love, compassion, and human dignity.

-Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, as excerpted from this read-worthy letter

On prizing the Moral Sense................

     During the Six Days, God created man and the other animals.
     He made a man and a woman and placed them in a pleasant garden, along with the other creatures.  They all lived together there in harmony and contentment and blooming youth for some time;  then trouble came.  God had warned the man and the woman that they must not eat of the fruit of a certain tree.  And he added a most strange remark;  he said that if they ate of it they should surely die.  Strange, for the reason that inasmuch as they had never seen a sample of death they could not possibly know what he meant.  Neither would he nor any other god have been able to make those ignorant children understand what was meant, without furnishing a sample.  The mere word could have no meaning for them, any more that it would have for an infant of days.
     Presently a serpent sought them out privately, and came to them walking upright, which was the way of serpents in those days.  The serpent said the forbidden fruit would store their vacant minds with knowledge.  So they ate it, which was quite natural, for man is so made that he eagerly wants to know; whereas the priest, like God, whose imitator and representative he is,  has made it his business from the beginning to keep him from knowing any useful thing.
     Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, and at once a great light streamed into their dim heads.  They had acquired knowledge.  What knowledge - useful knowledge?  No - merely knowledge that there was such a thing as good, and such a thing as evil, and how to do evil.  They couldn't do it before.  Therefore all their acts up to this point had been without stain, without  blame, without offense.
     But now they could do evil - and suffer for it;  now they had acquired what the the Church calls an invaluable possession, the Moral Sense;  that sense which differentiates man from beast and sets him above the beast.  Instead of below the beast - where one would suppose his proper place would be, since he is always foul-minded and guilty and the beast is always clean-minded and innocent.  It is like valuing a watch that must go wrong, above a watch that can't.
     The Church still prizes the Moral Sense as man's noblest asset today, although the Church knows God had a distinctly poor opinion of it and did what he could in his clumsy way to keep his happy Children of the Garden from acquiring it.

-Mark Twain, as excerpted from Letters from the Earth

Amoris Laetitia............................

The post-synodal apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis, released in early April.  Full text here.  Wee sample here:

If I were a betting man...............................

..................I'd stake a lot on this position:

 God may ultimately be less interested in how people line up on the theological battleground than on how they work, in an atmosphere of contention and conflict, to follow the way of the Cross with an honest conscience and an open heart.

As excerpted from Walter Russell Mead's post on the "yellow card" given to the U. S. Episcopal Church (Disclaimer:  I'm a dues paying member) by the Anglican Communion.

A big day in the life of a church...............

...........................St. Luke's, with an able assist from my Sweetie, burns its mortgage.  Trust me when I tell you, debt free is good.

The History Blog...........................

.........................studies the early distribution of the Magna Carta:

“We now know, therefore, that three of the four surviving originals of the charter went to cathedrals: Lincoln, Salisbury and Canterbury. Probably cathedrals were the destination for the great majority of the other original charters issued in 1215.

“This overturns the old view that the charters were sent to the sheriffs in charge of the counties. That would have been fatal since the sheriffs were the very people under attack in the charter. They would have quickly consigned Magna Carta to their castle furnaces.

“The church, therefore, was central to the production, preservation and proclamation of Magna Carta. The cathedrals were like a beacon from which the light of the charter shone round the country, thus beginning the process by which it became central to national life.”

Inspired............................

"Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral."
-Robert Louis Stevenson

image of Mont Saint-Michel via 
back story on Mont Saint-Michel here

Getting huffy with the Pope................

Greg Mankiw takes aim at Pope Francis's recent slams statements against the "trickle-down" aspects of economic growth and free markets.  Full post is here.  Excerpt here:

"Third, as far as I know, the pope did not address the tax-exempt status of the church.  I would be eager to hear his views on that issue. Maybe he thinks the tax benefits the church receives do some good when they trickle down."

Even more beautiful..............................

At the end of June, 2012 a derecho blew through Licking County with 100+ mile per hour straight line wind.  It was a nasty storm.  Along with many other buildings, St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Granville was damaged.  The Greek Revival styled building, erected in the later part of the 1830's, had recently received significant structural improvements - mostly to insure that the roof stayed where it belonged for another 180 years.  While the old timber roofing system was replaced, the original timbers supporting the plaster ceiling were not.  In the course of the derecho, the unusual wind pressure caused some of those ceiling timbers to crack.  A quick and casual inspection would have shown no damage.  A more studied review would have led one to say, "Wait a minute.  Isn't that part of the ceiling out of level and lower than it used to be?"  A thorough review showed that the entire ceiling was in danger of collapse.  A life, and building, threatening event, should it happen.  The building was secured to prevent occupancy and our friendly insurance agent was called.  Several architectural studies later, it was agreed that the old ceiling must come down, and a new ceiling put back up.  Easier said than actually completed.  Fourteen months later, the ceiling structure has been rebuilt and the church put back together.  Yesterday was the first church service in fourteen months in the restored old Church.  It is a thing of beauty.

St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Granville, Ohio

The new ceiling is looking pretty sharp

The house was full and the choir was in fine form

Yesterday's service included a brief wedding ceremony.