Letters from 22 to 28
October 2007
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Why a Lambeth
Conference every 10 years? (Er, we've always done it that way.)
I
just read the 'Tale of three Parishes' article.
Lovely one. As a concerned Anglican, I do think that we should
all be trying to combat this wind as schism that's threatening
to leave us standing alone, each province clutching a BCP
and not much else. Why, oh why, can't the Lambeth Conferences
be held more frequently than at 10 year intervals? I know the
Brits are big on tradition, but frankly, it's an anachronism
in these days when the bishops no longer have to assemble
by stagecoach, wagon, and steamship.
Obi Udeariry
St. Andrew's Anglican Church, Aladinma, Owerri
Owerri, Imo State, NIGERIA
netwalker55@yahoo.es
22 October 2007
'Listen
and keep watch'
Last
week while I was still 'in recovery' from
sitting through the debate on the blessing of same-sex marriages
motion at Synod for the Diocese of Ottawa, I happened upon
this gem from Canadian poet Archibald Lampman:
There
is a beauty at the goal of life,
A beauty growing since the world began,
Through every age and race, through lapse and strife,
Till the great human soul complete her span.
Beneath
the waves of storm that lash and burn,
The currents of blind passion that appal,
To listen and keep watch till we discern
The tide of sovereign truth that guides it all;
So
to address our spirits to the height,
And so attune them to the valiant whole,
That the Great Light be clearer for our light,
And the Great Soul the stronger for our soul;
To
have done this is to have lived, though fame
Remember us with no familiar name.
I found
the sonnet a comfort, especially for the notion that we need to
set aside more time to 'listen and keep watch' rather than fanning
the 'waves of storm that lash and burn'.
Michael
Mavis
St. Paul's Church, Almonte
Almonte, Ontario, CANADA
mikelmavis@hotmail.com
22 October 2007
How deep
is your church's welcome?
'Behaviourally
inclusive' brought to mind an
occasion years ago in New Jersey when I was asked as a single
man (not then being widely known as a recently partnered gay
man) to join a panel discussing the congregation's outreach
to various segments of the community and to involve those
already members to more fully participate in programs offered.
These were
the heady days of 'inclusive' — when the term, seen as politically
correct, had a load of baggage I cared not to embrace. Nonetheless,
I found myself using it with respect to behavior, how the members
of those myriad groups within the congregation could include single
folks more by how they acted than by how effusively they welcomed
the same at the door. A 'zone of welcome', if you will, that opens
its borders wide to truly (here’s that word) include, rather
than exist at the door for form, yet which truly acts as a buffer
to reinforce the existing 'in'.
'Words
of Welcome to everyone present', what a refreshing change to 'Would
visitors stand and. . .' There are enough places, enough time
for differences. The Eucharist need not be one of them!
Lyle Clark
Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity, Saranac Lake, New York, USA
Tupper Lake, New York, USA
lyleclark@verizon.net
22 October 2007
Who leaves?
Who cares?
Thank
you for such an informative website.
I am a non-practising Anglican, but still keep myself abreast
of the Anglican news worldwide. I went onto a Roman Catholic
news website and it saddens me to see that our brothers and
sisters within The Traditional Anglican Church have requested
full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and have not
requested the same from the very Communion from which the
stem.
It saddens
me that we Anglicans just sit back and allow such to happen without
a wink of an eye. It saddens me that our very bishops and archbishops — whom
we see as the guardians of Faith — will not read this letter
and many others which I and many of our fellow Anglicans with
hope and prayer have sent in the past. I sometimes feel that our
very Communion is doomed to destruction.
Damian
Bellairs
No church at present, with sadness
Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA
damien@firtgarment.co.za
26 October 2007
Hiding in
plain sight
I
enjoyed the editorial about visiting. (link) I
just moved back to a new church where I had been a member
nine years ago, so I knew what I was getting in to. It's a
very cold and closed place. I was inspired to write this column
for my previous church newsletter, of which I am still the
editor.
The
invisibles
'At
[Dives’s] gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered
with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s
table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores'. (Luke 16:19)
When
Dives strutted out of his gate, he probably chose to make
Lazarus invisible. When we examine our consciences about 'the
invisibles' in our life, we usually think of street people,
like Lazarus. We may have been guilty of making people invisible.
We at St. James are greatly favored in that we are very seldom
treated as invisibles in our world.
How
do you treat your siblings-in-Christ in church on Sunday?
Do you look around for your friends and jump ’em like
a duck on a June bug after the service and carry on intense
conversations? And are strangers invisible to you?
Or
do you look around the church for people who are strangers
to you and jump on them and make them welcome, really welcome,
after the service?
St.
James is one of the friendliest churches I've ever attended.
It's pretty good — but that’s not good enough.
Look for 'the invisibles', folks just like you, friends you
haven't met yet — and greet them after church.
'Be
not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares'. (Hebrews 13:2)
Richard
Parsons
Christ Church
New Bern, North Carolina, USA
snosrap@marshmud.net
26 October 2007
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