Letters
from 18 to 25 April 2004
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Invite the runners
to come in...
I WAS
DELIGHTED TO READ of
the creative initiative of those Peterborough
clergy who shined shoes on Maundy Thursday.
I would like to suggest an extension of the practice so that those
wearing runners can also be served. My own runners are always
in need of a good scrub, so why not have a bowl of soapy water
and a brush beside the shoe polish and cloth? Foot washing can
easily be translated into
shoe washing, as well as shoe shining!
The Reverend Catherine
Laufer
Anglican Parish of Box Hill
Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
20 April 2004
Too northern to get
it right?
I AM
FAINTLY BEMUSED
by your comment that
you have never seen people wear sandles to church, and I think
that this betray your overtly northern hemisphere focus. Here in
the south there is probably no one who has not worn sandles. I
have for many
years told parents to take off toddlers' or children's shoes in
church, so that when they clamber over pews they don't make noise!!
Seems to work!
As for footwashing,
I am surprised that you have never seen it really work. We long ago stopped
symbolical numbers and let anyone who wanted have their feet washed. As a
priest I have always found it deeply moving to wash the feet of my children
and my beloved wife.
I know when my daughters
started school they were suitably impressed by a Headmaster who washed the
feet of one girl from every year ranging from age 5 to 18... a legacy of
a good school founded by the Community of the Sisters of the Church. It is
a great ceremony and always with one or two deeply touching moments.
Nevertheless, the
thought of bishops shining shoes is a great one!
Stephen Clark
St John's in the Valley and All Hallows on the Hill
Adelaide, South Australia, AUSTRALIA
stephenclark@iprimus.com.au
19 April 2004
From the uncomfortable
to the transcendent
THANK YOU, AS ALWAYS, for your thoughtful and insightful front page. I always feel enriched by
reading it.
Your
reflections on
the ritual of footwashing were thought-provoking. I've always been appalled
at the idea of footwashing being anything but footwashing. You did get me
to think about it though. Yet I have to say, I think the very awkwardness
of it is actually important; as you say, hoovering carpets, washing cars
and such are just too impersonal. I still remember vividly the first time
I had my feet washed, I was terribly self-conscious and had to actually
force myself up front to do what I had decided I would do. But the actual
experience was so radically in contrast to my anxiety that it provided a
powerful opening for meeting God — the gentleness, the unconditional
acceptance, the caring and intimacy that was conveyed to me by the person
washing my feet (someone I barely knew) offered a dramatic experience of
the love of Christ made present. And isn't that, after all, precisely what
we seek to accomplish in liturgy — anamnesis, ceasing to forget, making
vitally present the
saving grace of Christ's acts of love for us.
Fr. Jay Rozendaal
St Ignatius of Antioch
New York, New York, USA
20 April 2004
Down with feet
WHAT A SILLY LETTER — you
are usually my first read of the week and usually a joy.
I am sure that anywhere
in the UK in April there will be far more people in the street in leather
shoes than with pedicures. Or was the idea only to minister to teens and
young adults. That's pretty silly, too.
Are you running out
of ideas?
Sarah Porter
Christ Church
Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
19 April 2004
Uh, no, we're not running
out of ideas. Promise.
Up with flossing
THANK YOU FOR YOUR
THOUGHTS on
the modern equivalent of washing feet. A few years ago one came to me: flossing
other people's teeth. The question however still remains, Do any of us really
want a bishop or anyone other than a dental hygenist flossing our teeth?
The Very Reverend
Tom Luck
St. Paul's Cathedral
Syracuse, New York, USA
gtluck@hotmail.com
19 April 2004
'Words have consequences'
AS A REGULAR AND
GRATEFUL reader of Anglicans Online, I write to suggest that AO modify the language
it uses to summarize news articles relating to the consequences of Bishop
Robinson's election in its News Centre reports.
In your April 19 News
Centre report, you write that the new Bishop of Ohio is not welcome in 5
out of 103 parishes in that diocese 'because he does not condemn gays.' In
this same report you write that various news sources report that the Council
of Anglican Provinces in Africa will reject money from the Episcopal Church
because 'that Church refuses to condemn gays.'
As I understand
it, conservative Anglicans do not argue that gays should be condemned,
but that
non-celibate gays should not be ordained. There is a great difference
between these positions. It would be far more accurate, and much less
offensive,
to summarize these articles as saying, e.g., the Bishop of Ohio
is not welcome because he supports (or is not against) the ordination
of homosexuals, and that African Council will reject money from the
Episcopal
Church
because
it consented to the ordination of a non-celibate homosexual.
While I am firmly
on the side of inclusion, I am mindful that words have consequences, and
that Christian charity requires us to characterize the position of those
with whom we disagree with accuracy and integrity.
I wish you much success
in your continued efforts to bring an Anglican perspective to the world wide
web.
Thomas Peters
Christ Church Cathedral
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
tpeters@fbtlaw.com
19 April 2004
We'll try
to do better. Thank you for your comment.
A time certain to repent
HOW
KIND OF SOME African Anglicans to give the Episcopal Church of the United States
'three months to repent'. Did a burning bush appear in Africa?
Carl D. Bell
Cradle Episcopalian
Los Altos, California, USA
21 April 2004
'Should not we
look to unity in love'?
I
AM MUCH DISTRESSED by the threatened split over the
ordination of a homosexual bishop in the USA. I cannot find any
clear and unambiguous statement against homosexuality in the
Bible. Not finding this evidence, I must conclude that fellow
Episcopalians find homsexuality distasteful because of cultural
bias. Is this sufficient reason to threaten schism? Cannot compassion,
charity, and deference to the judgement of God guide bishops
and laymen? Is this split over mere religion? What about true
faith? Is that not more important? If one can find no clear Biblical
guidance, should not we look to unity in love? May God have mercy
on us all.
William T. Jacobks
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Muskegon, Michigan, USA
23 April 2004
Calendrical confusion
a hopeless cause
IS IT POSSIBLE to
get this right? The Saturday immediately before Easter Day is NOT Easter
Saturday. The secular world doesn't understand anything about the Church's
year, and the mysteries of Easter completely defeat it, so it seems logical
to them that 'Easter Saturday' means the day before.
But it is unforgiveable
for Christians — and especially Anglicans, whose Prayer Book makes clear
these things — to decline into that tragedy. A recently appointed
lay-reader couldn't understand the issue when it arose in discussion and
said 'Of course it's Easter Saturday'. In my parish church last year,
the priest, in his Good Friday sermon, even referred to 'this Easter Friday'! Some
of our clergy shrug and say 'Who cares?' when confronted with their own carelessness
or ignorance on this matter. And at that response it is realised how hopeless
is the cause.
Trevor Grant Cowell
Christ Church, Illawarra, Longford
Perth, Tasmania, AUSTRALIA
platcha1@optusnet.com.au
21 April 2004
Earlier
letters
We launched our 'Letters
to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All of our letters are in our
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