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This page last updated 26 December 2011
Anglicans Online last updated 20 August 2000

Letters to AO

EVERY WEEK WE PUBLISH a selection of letters we receive in response to something you've read at Anglicans Online. Stop by and have a look at what other AO readers are thinking.

Alas, we cannot publish every letter we receive. And we won't publish letters that are anonymous, hateful, illiterate, or otherwise in our judgment do not benefit the readers of Anglicans Online. We usually do not publish letters written in response to other letters. We edit letters to conform with standard AO house style for punctuation, but we do not change, for example, American spelling to conform to Canadian orthography. On occasion we'll gently edit letters that are too verbose in their original form. Email addresses are included when the authors give permission to do so.

If you'd like to respond to a letter whose author does not list an email, you can send your response to Anglicans Online and we'll forward it to the writer.

Letters from 12 to 18 December 2011

Like all letters to the editor everywhere, these letters express the opinions of the writers and not Anglicans Online. We publish letters that we think will be of interest to our readers, whether we agree with them or not. If you'd like to write a letter of your own, click here.

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Death, Judgement, Heaven, Hell — and Messiah

Poet Mark Doty wrote a poem titled, "Messiah Christmas Portions" several years back which has a good answer to the question in your front page essay last week about why Handel's Messiah seems to show up each Advent, or at least his answer satisfies me. Here is a link to him reading his poem, on YouTube, so you can hear for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30GnZxuUpnY

This other link is to a printed version posted by the Poetry Foundation:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173406

Michelle C Jackson
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento
Elk Grove, California, USA
astraeus@accessbee.com
12 December 2011

Marriage — and Messiah

Your brief mention last week in the News Centre of the Porvoo discussion on marriage should have added the very good news that those particular churches have continued to be in communion with one another despite their disagreements about what and who may constitute a marriage. As others have noted, if the Lutheran and Anglican churches of that agreement are able to show Christian charity to one another, what is wrong with the rest of the Anglican Communion?

And on a different subject: I consider myself something of a musician and have enjoyed many performances of the Messiah both within churchly settings and without. To my mind, one of the very best is that conducted by René Jacobs and released by Harmonia Mundi. His interpretation brings a certain evangelical excitement, if you will, to a work often dulled by careless repetition — rather like the Gospel!

May your Advent continue to be blessed.

The Reverend Carlton Kelley
Diocese of Indianapolis
Richmond, Indiana USA.
cfkblh@yahoo.com
12 December 2011

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Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.

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