We All Saw This Coming And We Knew It Was Bad {wstcawkiwrb}

I was mulling over the idea of linking up with Like Mother Like Daughter's 

Pretty Happy Funny Real {phfr}

today because it's snowing and I'll be clocking another solid day of school which means there'll probably something funny and cute and I could have taken a picture and carried on with the mundanity of my own life. However, I really wish someone would orangize an internet day for 

Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid {ssss}

or

We All Saw This Coming And We Knew It Was Bad {wstcawkiwrb}

After all the kerfluffle in Virginia last year of an ACNA (that's the group that left The Episcopal Organization TM [see Midwest Conservative Journal] over its apostasy in rejecting the bible and the elevating and celebrating of same sex relationships inspite of what God has so clearly said) rector (that's a fancy word for Main Pastor) first having regular meetings for coffee and prayer and then later going on little organized tours around England with the Episcpal Bishop (that's the person who wears the fancy hat) of Virginia, who, no shock to anyone, married two women together in the Old Falls Church as soon as ever that faithful congregation had been flung out on its ear--after that it is no surprise that the Archbishop of Canturbery would confer special honor on this enlightened and reconciling rector who knows that doctrine and the bible are not so essential as how we all get along with each other. They will know us, you can just hear the muttering, by our love. Love love love. 

Of course the Archbishop of Canterbury wants everyone to just get along. All this division is pointless. It doesn't matter about the Bible, all you mind numbed Neanderthal "Anglicans". What's really important is that we stop fighting and get along with each other. We must reconcile because Jesus ate with sinners.

By bringing in an ACNA rector to preach at regular intervals from the pulpit of Archbishop Cramner who was willing, in the end, to die because of the word of God is a very bold way of saying There Is No Real Division Here. What you all are upset about is a secondary and unimportant issue and you need to Keep Calm and stand and kneel where liturgically appropriate. It's such a clever move. My hat is off to you, your Grace. You've succeeded in making me look like a flapping fundamentalist nitwit, like a divisive dividing divider. Me here with my brick church wall and my northeastern snow covering over the dying and decaying American Spiritual Landscape. Well done. Let's not really talk it out and tell the truth about how bad things really are, about how angry God really is with sin, about how many women around the world are being smudged out in black by a religious system that hates them, about how homosexuality actually kills the soul, about how sinful we all really are. Let's just have another bun and talk more about the weather. It's the Anglican Way and it's worked for a long long time. But guess, what, I'm homeschooling, that is, indoctrinating my children, and so are a whole lot of other people, against this foolishness. And everyone else isn't bothering to have children at all. So eventually it will just end because there won't be any more people to pretend that it's really working.

there's a new church year around the corner

I'm good at living and celebrating the church year because it's my job and if I don't pull things together, the church does it for me. Or, rather, I go over and do it at church and don't have to worry about it in the same way at home. So much of my life is rummaging around in cupboards in the sacristy or the church bat cave or the Sunday school cupboard looking for advent candles or black ribbon for Good Friday or tying head arrangements on assorted boys trying to beat each other with their shepherd's staffs at Christmas time or rushing out on Saturday night to acquire unto myself oranges and chocolate gold coins for the tallest man that fits my make shift bishop hat to distribute to surprised children in the middle of church on the Sunday closest to St. Nicholas Day. My home church year life is less about all that and more about the food. And that, the food I mean, Matt and I take very seriously. Eating through the church year is our spiritual act of worship, or our love language, or something.

But vast acres of this way of living and worshipping go unexplained and might appear to be, or even are, hap hazard. And the church, this exact church here that I am lying in my bed gazing at

is full of people for whom this particular flavor and brand of Christianity is new and unfamiliar. The changing colors on the altar is the most obvious and intriguing sign of the church year but there are so many rites  and prayers and traditions that we do at Good Shepherd, sometimes explaining them, sometimes forgetting to, that many who worship here are frequently wandering around in a shadow of curiosity wondering "What On Earth are they doing and why?" And sometimes "Can I go on doing some of this in my dorm or at home with my children or something?" 

Well, rejoice beloved, now there is a clever little book to bring some of it into focus and make it easier to bring what we do at church into your various and sundry abodes.

Jessica Snell of Homemaking Through the Church Year and many other interesting endeavors has put together a practical and useful guide to understanding and doing many of the things that Christians have done done through the centuries. She writes, "This book is focused on bringing seasonal Christian traditions into the home, so that our daily routines can be peppered with little reminders of God’s goodness and grace. Ideally, we’ll all be as aware of God at home as we are at church."

Because what is the use of knowing about these traditions or seeing them if you can't bring them home and make them your own. And how can you do that if someone doesn't show how and why. And to add icing over the whole plummy wonder is that she's published the Advent and Christmas sections first and in time to really do something about them. I particularly commend Jessica's introductory explanation of what the church year is and what it is for. Rather than just adding another pile of work to your devotional life, she articulates a lovely vision for an ordered, gracious life centered around the life of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit. As I am constantly yelling at people, liturgy is meant to be a help. You put yourself into an action that you don't necessarily feel and it carries your forward. Wondrously, this doesn't just have to happen for an hour on Sunday morning. Carry it home with you. Let Us Keep The Feast will be a great help to you as you do!

plain old anglican snark

As I was lying face down on the couch yesterday listening to one child read Dinosaurs Before Dawn, giving a spelling test and checking over some math, I also watched a tiny bit of the new ABC Enthronment. I came in on it as the last lesson before the gospel was read and figured I'd had enough as the gifts from around the world were being laid on the altar-- so essentially, I heard some hymns, saw the African dancing, heard the sermon, and did not by any means miss out on the exceptionally weird voice of the woman inducting Welby into the pulpit/see of Canterbury. Well, it's a stretch to say I actually heard the sermon (see above), a few lines washed over me.And I must say, after a decade of watching liberal/episco-Unitarian white boomers pander liturgically to the rest of the true believing world--swaying back and forth and clapping ineffectually, or raising the hands to the latest Native American wind--I am frankly grossed out by all the showcased ethnicity. Archbishop Welby in no wise was made to look more believing or relevant by the dancing and singing. Taken together with his "sermon" (I think scare quotes are more than appropriate), the liturgically enshrined ethnicity showed a hollow husk of a church that once brought the truth into the darkness of a world broken by sin and death, but now is just dancing around in the dark, clapping to songs of a light it doesn't know or understand. So the "sermon". I expect some were really happy that the new ABC was so bold as to say both "Jesus" and "Christ" in church. I used to be one of those people--pathetically grateful that the sermon wasn't about cloning or the Buddha. And he even noted that we should be "reconciled" to God through the cross. But here's the tiny little problem. None of those words mean anything any more. "Reconciled" doesn't indicate the cross to anyone who hears the word any more. It just means that God won't mind whatever we do as long as we agree to women bishops and gay marriage. Those are the two things He, God, really cares about now, and so it's no problem for all the world to be "reconciled" to him. Except if you really believe the old worn out word, "reconciled", can only be applied to the person who dies to himself and clings to Jesus and the cross. No less a Jesus who joins with the Father in wroth against the marrying of one man to another and two women together. If you believe in that Jesus, so much so that you're not willing to play the game, then no reconciliation for you. So color me bored by the sermon. And irritated by the cheesy 'Christ Believing Courage' or whatever it was that his Grace applied to institutions like the NHS along with other so called Christian items, none of which I can remember at the moment. I'm sorry, but societal stability is not what Jesus is most worried about in the year 2013. If you want to know what's really on his mind, your going to have to flip open the electronic device of your choice and dig around for an app called t.h.e b.i.b.l.e and then you have to touch it with with the soft pad of your finger and then touch the little audio play icon in the corner and then try very hard to pry your eyes open and your ears and listen to all the amazing things it says, without your fingers crossed behind your back. All the way through, starting at the beginning and going all the way to the end--not just the lectionary readings. And when you don't understand something you might open a book or get on the Internet or talk to a real c.h.r.i.s.t.i.a.n. But if you don't want to know, just keep doing what you're doing because its working really really well.

work, it won't save you but it's still a good idea

I've been mulling over the Christian concept of Work over the past many weeks, not least because we do so much of it around here, but more really because of our Sunday School program, Catechesis of the Good Sheperd.

My own children have all come through Catechesis, Elphine, as in everything, paving the way. Way back then, I didn't have any expectations and didn't have time for anything either and was just really grateful for her to meet Jesus, the Good Shepherd, in a special and beautiful space and to 'work' with so many materials made particularly for her and the other children. I count her current love of Jesus as the fruit of that time in the 3 to 6 year old Atrium and I am so so grateful for it. So also with all who have followed her. The teachers and the space and the time have been such a huge gift to their spiritual lives.

And then at the beginning of this year by the strange and seemingly incomphensible organization of God, I landed in the 3-6 year or Atrium myself, not as student, you will be relieved to know, but as Catechist. And so I have over this past year, finally, seen the "work" of the youngest child, so often read about but never observed first hand (by me).

So, knowing academically what was supposed to happen, I rigorously followed the steps laid out, establishing a culture and method of common life in the space--walking quietly, talking quietly, rolling and unrolling mats, working on something and then returning it to its place before the next thing, watering the plant, carpet sweeping the floor, and so on.

 Having Marigold, who was cumbered in her speech at the beginning if the year, flower in contentment and joy particularly through the Work has been so interesting. She is 'at home'. She is restful. She gets out her folder and her mat and  pastes and colors and then she puts it away and pours beans and then she might arrange flowers and then she takes all the little switch on 'candles' and lines them up and turns them on.

That she is not this restful at 'home' is also very interesting to me. Here, she beats and shouts her way into doing things she wants to do, many of them destructive. It's a clutter and a jumble here and even when there is 'work' for her that she wants to do, usually someone else is coming in and trying to ruin it for her. I don't feel particularly bad or guilty about this. We are a lot of people doing all our own things and the little ones, as far as I am concerned, are welcome to beat their way into everyone's attention, as long as they don't literally beat each other. I'm making it sound worse than it is. Right  now, for example, Marigold is industriously coloring in her school book while everyone else also works. But still, there's a definite edge to her chin as she goes about it.

Unfortunately for all of us, this is just going to have to be Part One because I myself also have actual work to do and I haven't completed my own thought. But do not despair, I'll probably back to this subject sometime again before we all die.

a season of election

Not that one,
this one.
Not that it matters, as Matt points out. Someone will eventually have to make a decision.
I remember back in the bad old days we used all wait and long for a saving word from Lambeth Palace, we used to sit in bed late at night and parse every turn of the head and eyebrow move and have hope. Ah, the innocence and stupidity of youth. Of course now we know that if someone suitable were picked, God's strength and sanity wouldn't have an opportunity to be made perfect.

And on that note, I am going to stop reading the internet and do something else. Cheerio!

Ordinary Time

We are fast approaching the green season of Ordinary Time in the church year. The garden will grow, vegetables, flowers and weeds together. I will eventually get summer clothes out of bins and sweaters put away. We will slack off school for a couple of months. The boys will wear short sleeved shirts to church. A lot of Sundays it will seem sparse because it everyone is out of town. And our days will race by so quickly by the time September rolls around we will have whiplash. And then, just when we think the liturgical season should change because the school year has, we will go on being in Ordinary Time.

But from this vantage point, ordinary is so to be desired. The long exhausting season of feasting needs to folded up and put away or we will become like Aileen in Word Girl--monstrous, green, whining 'But everyday is my Biirrffffdaaaaayyyyy!'

I think a long Ordinary Time is a pleasant rebuke to our always-on-to-the-latest-thing-culture. I don't want anything new right now. I want some things to be useful until they become threadbare. I don't want to rush out and buy a new pair of shoes just because the shape of my heel is clearly last season's...well, I shouldn't lie, it is a lot more seasons before last season. From this angle nothing is to be gained by a new pair of shoes.

But I know that come September, the endless green of Ordinary Time will cause me to bite my lip and fret that we will never get on to the next new shiny thing. And that is when the rebuke will be for me and not for the general masses out there. Then, ordinary will feel insufficient. I will rearrange the furniture and be lured by school supply displays. Who knows what time it was when all the crowds left Jesus (well, obviously, someone probably knows but not me as I'm writing this) but I always figured it was sometime like September, or a change of season time. The crowds flitted away, thinking, 'whatever, if you won't give me bread I'm going back to see what's on sale in the market'.

And on that note, I am going to pick up this ordinary fat baby and hope that she doesn't move into any new stage for at least three days.

here's what's wrong with you

The interwebs are jangling and flapping with the latest Anglican trauma and many interesting people are saying many interesting things on all the threads at Stand Firm. I happened to read the sermon Matt linked in the comments and I was irritated again by something that's been increasingly irritating me over the past year.

I finally put words around it a few months ago as Matt read the transcripts of CJ Mahaney's endless accountability moments (this isn't the link I wanted but it will have to do) with his leadership team, wherein we all learned that he, horrors, is a sinner and, horrors, one of his sins is pride, and, horrors, he was not sufficiently and in a timely manner aware of his sin nor in a position to do anything about it. 

Now, CJ Mahaney is really Christian, and so are all the people trying to take care of him, way way more Christian than I am AND all of them want everyone, everywhere, to grow up in Christ and become mature--a worthy and necessary goal. However, and its a big big big however, I think they fall prey to a peculiar selfishness, rampant all over American Evangelicalism, whereby one person gets to 'speak into' and 'stand over' and 'look into' another person's life in the name of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, judge him or fix her according to the 'discipler's' own specifications.

All this seems to me unacceptably human centered. Certainly I can look at the way people are behaving, even my own children, and see that they ought to do things differently and that they are on the road to insanity or perdition. In fact, with my children, it is my duty to get them to stop doing whatever is wrong and harmful. But when I try to look past the behavior and sort out the heart, myself, I am encroaching on territory that is not my own, it is God's. I do not understand my own heart most of the time, I cannot know the hearts of my children and even less those of people around me unless they clearly tell me, but even then they might be deceiving themselves even as I often do. In my application of scripture to the life of another person, it is of proclamation--here is the Gospel, here is what Jesus did for you, a sinner, repent and turn to him--but not of constant, exhausting working on that other person until they meet with my approval in the name of Jesus.

I have much much more to say on this subject but I want to get to this amazing sermon Matt so generously pointed me to last night. It seems there is another iteration of this human centered, I'll fix everything myself manner of being.

Here's the offending paragraph.

Restorative justice is different from contemporary criminal justice practice in a number of ways. It views criminal acts more comprehensively: rather than limiting crime to lawbreaking, it recognizes that offenders harm victims, communities, and even themselves. It involves more parties: rather than including only the government and the offender in key roles, it invites victims and communities as well. It measures success differently: rather than measuring how much punishment has been inflicted, it measures how much harm has been repaired or prevented. Finally, rather than leaving the problem of crime to the government alone, it recognizes the importance of community involvement and initiative in responding to and reducing crime.

So some poor boob robs a bank. And he goes before a judge and is sent to jail. He survives jail, he gets out and then he has to go through some awful community 'restorative justice' program. His life is ruined, not by stupidity, selfishness, and prison, but by 'listening sessions' and officious community minded men with carefully trimmed beards and a penetrating gleam in their eyes who constantly 'involve more people in the process'. There is no end point. There is no way out. The community is never 'restored' and never allowed to have a quiet moment to recover.

In the old days you used to be allowed to do something awful, go to jail and then move on with your life. And Christians used to be allowed to quietly go to church, confess their sins, receive Holy Communion and go out to love and serve the Lord. And children used to be allowed to grow up thinking about how to come by a better pair of roller skates. Now we all get to think about ourselves, and the failings of other people, all the blessed time. Actually, maybe I take it back. Maybe Tory Baucam will 'speak into the life' of Shannon Johnston. And they'll have regular weekly meetings working on restorative justice. And while they do that, we can creep away and get on with our lives and maybe get something done, like the lawn mowed or a food pantry filled or something.

on to bigger fancier things

Stand Firm just (finally!) relaunched! (sorry about all the exclamation marks)
Out of sheer nepotism I'm still linked under the Anglican category. Thanks Matt!

Anyway, as this has been looming on the horizon lo these many months, I've wallowed deeper and deeper into a lovely pillow of nostalgia about Stand Firm and all it has been over the years, both to the Current Anglican Unpleasantness and to us as a family. So many of our babies' moments of being born coincided catastrophically closely with General Conventions or Lambeth or New Orleans meetings. So many times I would sit at my computer pushing 'refresh' obsessively reading Matt and Sarah's live blogs of incredible happenings, so fat I could barely reach the keyboard, much less the endless cups of tea my mother would supply me with. She would come and prop me up so Matt could blog, blog, blog blogblogblogblog.....

That is our Life! Blogging. And the church, of course, and so many babies. But really blogging.
When I'm blessed with new technology the bookmarks always go up (in this order) Stand Firm, Matt's Email, My Email, Undercurrentofhostility, Facebook, the Bible, the Dictionary, YouTube.

As for the Current Unpleasantness, its probably too big to try to measure. We up here at Good Shepherd were able to connect with Anglicans around the world, were able to access breaking news, were able to see inside the centers of power and decision making. When we moved the readers of Stand Firm knocked us flat with prayer, love, stuff, money, vestments, technology, so many things we were completely overwhelmed.

And now the team is bigger, the site is lovely and I expect to see more and more of the inner workings of a fading mainline Christianity in the West. I raise my cup of tea, Congratulations Stand Firm. Here's to another great decade!

a broken body: or why I'm very sad about the church today

What seems like a lifetime ago Matt and I took the astounding and miraculous opportunity to go to Jerusalem to participate in the GAFCON meeting. I'm still living off that brief stunning visual landscape--off just standing on the Mount of Olives looking at the Dome of the Rock, off our one day driving around the Sea of Galilee and hungrily sucking down every word of our guide as he unfolded the Scriptures before us, off sitting in front of the huge great stones of the temple, flung down.

But there was a great and shocking grief for me, when we visited the Holy Sepulcher which I wrote about here and here. I know others who visit are generally overwhelmed by holiness and love for Jesus and other wonderful things. And its not that I didn't get a little of that as we walked through the cavernous structure. But my over-abiding thoughts and emotions were of shock at the decay, at the blackness of the whole thing, at the weird gaudy ornate gold around the place of the cross, the pale and bizarre representation of Mary in some sort of glass box. Which Narnia book is it where they find the Stone Table and it doesn't resemble itself at all?

Looking back, part of the reason I was so struck by this particular visual, I think, is because of what was going on in the GAFCON meeting itself. Not being important at all, I was not privy to any politicking or anything. I attended the general lectures and seminars and my small group--all of which were excellent--but it felt like something was in the air and it filtered down to my dim consciousness in a phrase that stuck in my head as a freaky little irritating refrain

"when sin enters in."

And I came home with it in my head. And as ACNA became a thing, and AMiA became a thing and we lost our lawsuit and engaged on varying levels with Anglican politics the refrain and the broken decaying sepulcher joined to be the filter through which I have always been seeing the Anglican Church in America.

Its so broken. And it goes on being broken.
And there's not really any thing we can do about it. The church in every age and at every time is full to the brim of sin. When you stand on something and say 'you can go over there but I'm not going to go with you' its easy to imagine that all the sin has gone on over there and you are standing in a pool of purifying and holy light. It may be that sometimes ACNA and other leaving bodies have tried to say that, or not. Its possible any of us say it at any moment. But the key is to stop saying it. We are in the light, and it does purify and make us holy. But it does that because we're standing in a dark cavernous ruin of a church, a church that the moment Jesus ascended to the Father started crowding itself into the darkness, breaking things and sinning. And its going to go on doing this for the foreseeable future. And it will be Jesus, really and finally, who comes and says Enough! to the weird Mary in the glass box and the broken pavement and the black walls, and Enough! to all of us who can't pull it together to do his will in all that we do and say. Until then,
Lord have Mercy
Christ have Mercy
Lord have Mercy.

what! prayer? has it come to that?

Where have I been the last few days? Trying to put the house back together after this last painting trauma, doing school, generally spinning my wheels BUT ALSO helping to organized a Day of Prayer at the church.

Long ago we had a day of prayer right before we lost our law suit and building. Pastors from many kinds of churches came and preached and prayed with us and for us. It was so encouraging and wonderful to pray together in this way and for the community to come together with us. And then we lost everything, as it were, landing in this extremely pleasant and expanded situation. Through the move there was a small group that met, and of course we prayed like anything on Sundays and at Bible Studies and individually, but we also got busy moving in and arranging the furniture and adding daily to the number of faithful, those who were being saved.

But there has lately been a really wonderful rebirth of prayer at Good Shepherd and in the course of this new and wonderful thing, it became clear that we needed to pray more Right NOW!!!

So Saturday, from midnight to midnight, there will be people praying in the church continuously for a long list of needs. I've been running around filling in the slots, making lists, gathering resources and trying to keep on top of the stream of volunteers we've had. One day out and I only have one slot empty--5am. But there's a party tonight and I'm pretty sure I can sucker someone in who isn't really paying attention and who, in the delight of food and good company, will be foolish enough to think, "5am? Oh, I can do that."

See you tonight guys! I'll be there with my lists.

praying for south carolina

I'm crashing into bed but had thought, seemingly randomly, to myself three days ago how grateful I am to be out of TEC. We're wildly busy and I don't ever think about it, except sometimes to pray for local TEC congregations and KJS. But after the Wall Street Journal article and the unfettered exuberance of Good Shepherd on an ordinary Sunday morning, I was just really grateful again, the other day, to be on the other side of such a continuing mess. It is so like a messy and painful divorce--a little space and time brings so much calm and space to pray and reflect and heal.

So I am really grieved, as I pray for Episcopalians all across South Carolina--just reading about it brings that nasty sick feeling in the gut--but also really hopeful. God is going to do something remarkable, I'm sure, multiplied over and over by every person in the diocese, every congregation, every priest, and certainly in Bishop Lawrence as he steers his people through the storm. I pray a steady hand for him and all his clergy. I pray for clear vision and hope. I pray for courage. I pray they will stand firm.

Inroads

Every upswing in energy and growth in the church seems to be met with a serious wall of struggle and opposition. This makes sense, of course, because if the Gospel of Jesus is spreading and taking root in people's lives, the enemy is being destroyed, which I imagine must be awfully frustrating.

Inroads

Our summer festival, about which I neglected to blog, was a resounding and encouraging success. Many many people came and availed themselves of all we had--ice cream, hot dogs, the tooth fairy, pony rides, the list goes on and on. Our on going efforts to build relationships in the neighborhood through tutoring and the community garden and so on are going swimmingly better than my skeptical heart imagined possible. The relationships are real and the opportunity to talk about Jesus is real.

More even so, during Solemn Communion last night I had the chance to lay out the good news about Jesus explicitly for the little boy who comes over to play all the time (let's call him Buddy because he's our Buddy and because I'm stumped thinking of a cooler name than his own, which is cooler than cool). He has never been able to sit still for more than 30 seconds, precluding then, the possibility to come to Sunday School or even sit through Children's Chapel. And yet last night he was sitting forward on his knees, rehearsing the little he knows about God, and adding to it word by word as I told him about Jesus.

After Solemn Communion and Shepherd's Bowl, while tons of people hung about in the parking lot and kids ran crazily around the play ground, an enormous bang shattered the quiet and smoke snaked ominously towards the gray twilight sky. The only other time I've seen Matt run that fast is when he jumped our short fence two years ago to chase some young stalking jerk who was peering in our neighbor's window and  harassing her on a cell phone. Actually every man in the parking lot and from several houses along the road took off, seeing the smoke. But the car wasn't on fire and police and fire department were there in under five minutes (especially since about 20 different people called 911). The driver of the car, our same neighbor no less, was fine, though totally shaken. Matt, after discovering who she was, ran up to get her son and father and bring them down the street and was able to pray with and comfort her little boy. After I post this I'm going to bake a cake to take next door. I don't know what could be more helpful than cake (I'm serious, if you can think of something more helpful please let me know because it feels terribly trite, just to take cake).

Anyway, the opportunities, even only counting prayer, which is enormous because I hadn't remembered to pray for them since our previous encounter, are abundant. Its almost As If, crazy though it sounds, God wants us to know and care for and pray for our neighbors.

This Fisk Wasn't for Me but I'm taking it anyway

One Phyllis Strupp, of whom I have never before heard, thinks that Father, and by that I presume she means God, doesn't always know best. Father, by whom we assume she means God (I'm kidding, I know she doesn't mean God, I'm  just messing with her), needs the Holy Spirit, whom it's clear she assumes is "female" to get it right.

Jesus was loud and clear on this point: God has both masculine, left-brained qualities in God the father as well as feminine, right-brained qualities in God the Holy Spirit.

And then there's this

Is the idolatry of male power in a patriarchal society preventing us from seeing the Trinity more clearly -- and receiving the wisdom and aid of the Holy Spirit? Do we grieve the Holy Spirit, as Paul warned us not to do in Ephesians 4:30-31:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Is that right? Men are filled with all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice? Whereas "the ladies" are not?

Father doesn't always know best. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn't. He's only human, after all. Sometimes mother knows best. No one person is the only source of grace in a family, congregation, diocese, business, or society -- and no one person should shoulder all the blame for failures. Let's give father a break and put our heads (left brains and right brains) together and find new ways to welcome the Holy Spirit and satisfy the spiritual hunger of our times!

To which I reply
Phyllis, Know Your Limits!

Whine

Why isn't there a hue and a cry (backed up with money from some rich underground lair dweller) for Anglican Women and Mothers to get together for a blogging conference so that we could all meet each other face to face? The Catholics do it all the time. Tisn't fair.

We could meet near some lovely gorgeous beach with a beautiful chapel and pray the hours and eat beautiful food and hear talks from each other (or anyone we might choose to invite).

Jessica could lead Writing and Exercise Workshops.

Kerry could do something on homeschooling and the church year. (Blog Kerri! Blog!)

Jeanne could tell us about how to balance church and family and older children.

Annie could talk about homeschooling, missison, and gardening.

I will sit in the cool shade listening and eating bon bons. What fabulous Anglican Women do you want to hear from or meet?

Funerals

My funeral plans are really always in some stage of being planned and replanned. As much as I mentally redesign most rooms I walk into, I replan my funeral when I attend other people's, or run into a new hymn or something. In terms of my profession, on the whole I prefer funerals to, say, weddings. People generally have very fixed ideas at weddings and if one thing goes wrong EVERYthing might as well go wrong. Whereas at a funeral, people are grateful for the liturgy, rather than always trying to change it, and ready to attend to and hear the Word of God.

I generalize, of course.

So it was interesting to see how much attention, today, was paid to the manner and occasion of Ussama bin Laden's burial at sea. He was buried, shouted every possible news outlet, in the manner prescribed by Islam, in the 24 hour period after death, body washed and wrapped in a white cloth.

Among some of the many evils of Islam, the flattening out and wrecking of funeral ceremonies remains one of the highest. Getting the body in the ground in under 24 hours, and then, as far as I can remember, sitting around doing nothing--no party, no dancing, no music, just sitting--is boring and horrible. Where I grew up, your funeral is the biggest party of your life (if you're a reasonable age at death). Everyone who can come does come. The party lasts for many days. The food is amazing. The music is fabulous. The body is danced and danced to the grave site. But if you are so unfortunate as to convert to Islam before you die, and request and require a Muslim burial, all that goes away and your family gets to sit around for long long hours not having a party.

Which is really fitting for the death of a man so few of us mourn.
Which is its own great tragedy.
I hope at my funeral nobody will be able to stop weeping, and will only be able to console themselves with Nigella's Fish Pie, Cream Sherry, and Cake.

Holy Week

That's what it is. Holy Week.
I have got to arise and quickly get the children moving so that I won't be late for New Baby's two month well baby at which time I expect to be told that she weighs a gagillion pounds. Nobody (at least amongst my children) ever wants to hold her because of the immediate back ache. Poor child. She is the first of my babies to definitely and completely have her hair rub off the back of her head from sitting so much.

And then I've got to run around and get ready for school.

And make some phone calls to fill those last slots of readers and one more acolyte. The vigil is well in hand, and Maundy Thursday. Thought that Tennebrae was fine until Matt said yesterday (Yesterday! mind you) "wouldn't it be great if I didn't do all the readings".

Well, yes, that's a sensible and fine idea but that means a bunch more phone calls.

I really love Holy Week for the church, but I do always come out on the other end needy for lost time with the kiddos and an actual complete conversation with Matt. I'm delighted that Elphine will be in most of the services this year, as a boat bearer and regulate acolyte. She finally decided she likes it because older girls she loves thinks its cool.

I ALREADY have Five Fat Easter Baskets filled and tucked away. I'm going to iron Easter dresses this evening. And we're going to more carefully plan all our Easter eating in such a way that we're not ruined from exhaustion. Easter day will just be something nice in the Crock Pot and then probably Tuesday of Easter Week we'll roast a large piece of paschal lamb and have lemon pie, or something.

Gratuitous Pictures

Gladys holding New Baby ("Can I hold the New Baby I'm sitting down" she says every few days.)

Alouicious a few days after turning 7. Think we lived up to his hopes and dreams but not totally sure.

Have a Blessed and Holy Remembrance of our Lord's Passion, Suffering, Death and Resurrection!
See you on the other side.

Episcopal Oversight

We're halfway through our time with the bishop.
("Is the good bishop or that bad bishop coming to visit?" Alouicious asked on Thursday as we were cleaning.
"The good bishop," I said.
"Oh" he said disappointedly. Think he probably wanted to practice awesome "kung-fu" moves on a bad guy and so I pulled him back to remind him to pray for the bad bishop which disappointed him even more. Romulus then wandered in to inquire why we were cleaning.
"Because!" said Matt, "we enjoy a clean house, Cleaning is a regular integrated part of our lives." Nobody believed him.)
Today will be various workshops and training. Tomorrow will be baptism, confirmation, chrismation (I don't even know how to spell this or anything--someone, enlighten me, what will he be doing?), and, said the bishop, "raising of the dead". I look forward to it immensely.

The Bishop is Coming! The Bishop is Coming!

I always wanted to say that after seeing the Far Side cartoon about the anthropologists. This congregation is So diverse in denominational backgrounds that it seems like many people have no idea what this is all about. And I'm finding an appalling lack of vocabulary to be able to talk about it. My conversation with our wonderful church secretary went something like this.

Me: There are so many changes for the service next week perhaps I should just putting everything in order in a new document for you.
A: Are we not doing it right now?
Me: Oh no! We're doing everything right. Its just there will be some new things. And some other stuff.
A: Oh. Um ok. (looking very quizzically like why are you waving your arms and becoming agitated)
Me: I just want to make sure that everything is right for that week. (beginning to babble incoherently) Not Morally right. We're just talking about the service and the whole week. It's not a matter of sinning or not sinning, just being properly Anglican.
A: Properly Anglican. Ok.
Me: Well, that sounds weird. Scratch that. Just ask Matt what I mean.

Or my conversation with Matt:
Matt: Make sure everything is in the bulletin next week please because you messed up this week.
Anne: I'll write that line in your bulletin  that I forgot. You'll be fine.
Matt: I don't want to say it if its not in the bulletin. Everyone will be confused.
Anne: No one will be confused. It will be fine.
Matt: I don't want to say it if its not in the bulletin.
Anne: The bulletin isn't the Bible.
Matt: (laughing hystically) Yeah but sometimes the Bible quotes the bulletin so we have to be careful.
That was a joke! All non-Anglicans please don't freak out.

And then there's my running internal list of things to do that I'm afraid no one else will think about. Things like
1. Putting the fear of God into the acolytes so that they will slow down and not shoot themselves down the aisle after the service like all the donuts will be gone before they get there and by gum thy will get a donut so Get Out of the Way Everyone! They can't do that.
2. Finding out who the acolytes are ahead of time.
3. Putting a word in to the altar guild to make sure the purple altar frontal is swapped out for white because of baptism, even though its Lent.
4. Reminding the choir to wear white instead of purple.
5. Conferring with the altar guild about the whole chrism extravaganza--getting oil, having something to put it in. Its been so long since we've had proper chrism who even knows what we did before.
6. Trying to get Matt's attention about the schedule of the weekend so if we need to get a babysitter we'll have plenty of time.
7. Cleaning my House!!!!! Just in case someone wanders in.
8. Cleaning all the Sunday School rooms (but maybe someone could help with this).
9. Finding that wretched baptismal dress because we might as well have the baby baptized while he's here. Where on earth did I put it?!?!

etc. etc. etc.

What a glorious thing it is to worship the Lord...

We have recently reached a  milestone with our eldest child. She has gained the age, possibly not of discernment, but of being invited to be trained and to serve as an acolyte in church. For those of you who are not remotely Anglican or liturgical in your ecclesiastical leanings, an acolyte assists in worship by carrying candles or a cross down the aisle, ringing the bell during the Eucharistic prayer (when its supposed to be rung and not all the time or when they feel like it), assisting the priest to set the table for communion, ushering people up to communion and other tasks of that nature. 

We have struggled over the years at Good Shepherd to convince children to want to serve in this way, have struggled to train them, and struggled to get their parents to bring them to church. However, in the last year, there has been a veritable explosion of children desirous of participating in this ministry and eager to serve, our own child amongst them.

Of course, our own child is excessively short, and, as an eight your old, she succumbs, though rarely, to silliness.

This last Sunday was one of those times. She, and the other candle bearer, also of small stature, walked carefully  and reverently down the aisle with the crucifer (the one who carries the cross) at the beginning of the service. I could tell from the gleam in her eye that she was thinking about silly bands and not about Jesus. The ministry of the Word went forward without incident. The acolytes stood, knelt, sang, sat, and prayed without drawing attention to themselves. Only an occasional leaning back while she knelt, to grin at me in the pew, interrupted the quiet flow of worship. At the peace Elphine made a bee line for me to inform me that her fellow candle bearer had been allowed to wear his silly bands high up under his robe and so could she have her back. 

"Absolutely not!" I said, "and the Peace of the Lord be always with you."

As she regained the altar, she and the other acolyte consulted with each about what to do, always a bad sign, I feel, but finally decided to pursue the correct course and return to their seats. The bell was mercifully rung by the crucifer and then came the agonizing moment when they had to walk back to the first pew and let the congregation out, pew by pew, to come forward for communion. Again the two whispered together but finally decided to do what they'd been instructed to do. As I left my pew Elphine whispered loudly, "NOW can I have my silly bands?"

"NO" I whispered back, imploring God to save my child from her sins.

The final prayer was said, Matt blessed the congregation, I opened my hymnal to sing the final hymn, and then Elphine, possibly in confusion, or impatience or gratitude that the service was finally over, took her candle, glanced at the other acolytes, the Eucharistic Ministers, me, and her father the priest, and spun around to walked quickly down the aisle all by herself, candle flailing. The other candle bearer, naturally, took off after her. The entire congregation, excepting visitors who didn't noticed, dissolved into fits of laughter, some of them crying with joy.

I left my pew and went back to encourage my child in the way she should go. "You did a pretty good job," I said, "but, um, did you notice anything just now?" 

"No!" she whispered, "can I have my silly bands?"

Happy 4th!

Part IV of Leaving Home is Finally up! Took us an age, but I think the extra time made it extra good. If you missed the beginning, here's Part I, Part II, and Part III.

On that note, I'm going to wrench myself from the internet and desperately paint my kitchen and fling it back together and clean the house before noon when my weekend visitors arrive.

Stay cool! Its a scorcher.