Prayer request for Essentials at General Synod

Please pray…

So much for anonymity…..

Somebody in my parish tapped me on the shoulder last night and said “I’ve been reading a blog called the Hairy Eyeball, you wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”  Shoot, I didn’t think it was *that* obvious.  Oh well.  I owe you a coffee, W______.  And I’ll buy a Timmies coffee for the next person at my church who figures it out, too.

Attitude adjustment

It’s been a wet, miserable grey day and there is a praise service at my church this evening.  I’m off to church for an attitude adjustment………..

Afghanada?

Any CBC radio drama fans out there catch the last episode of Afghanada?  I missed it, and would like to know what happened….

I love being an Anglican…

…or The Rumours of the Death of my Church have been Greatly Exaggerated.

 I have read one too many Roman Catholic or capital O Orthodox blogs written by folks  who seem to think that the Anglican church is dead.  Therefore, here is my rebuttal:

 My true home is Anglicanism, and the Anglican church is most emphatically not dead. 

 I love being an Anglican.  The great strength of the Anglican church today is that it is a church where you can worship with incense; bells; candles; organ music; choirs; guitars; praise music; drums; bass guitars; certainly in the same diocese, sometimes in the same church!  It is a church where you can cross yourself and bow, or you can sing a praise chorus with your hands in the air.  It is a church where your priest might wear a very plain black suit and collar for one service, and glittering vestments for the next one. Do you know why?  Because all of these things are style, not substance.  The substance is Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

 I love being an Anglican.  I belong to a Network parish.  I have a godly priest who loves God and loves us; who points us to God; who teaches the substance using different styles, in order to remove stumbling blocks to Jesus Christ and him crucified. Despite the idiocies that grab the headlines in the blogosphere, there is a Godly Anglican church in Canada that is still very much alive, and is struggling for survival.  There are many godly men and women in Anglicanism who are still being called to the priesthood, and are calling the Anglican church back to orthodoxy.  Take a long hard look at this letter.  Read it again, and take a long hard look at the names of the priests who signed it. Read them again:

The Very Rev’d Roger Briggs
The Rev’d Andrea Christensen
The Rev’d Pat Coulombe
The Rev’d David Crawley
The Rev’d Archie Hunter
The Rev’d Frank Kirby
The Rev’d Alex Lewanowicz
The Ven. Tim Parent
The Rev’d Stephen Silverthorne
The Rev’d George Sinclair
The Rev’d Desiree Stedman
The Rev’d Neil Stephens
The Rev’d Donald Tudin
The Rev’d Scott Whitfield
The Rev’d Margo Whittaker
The Rev’d Jennifer Wickham

 To my knowledge, only three of them are retired.  The rest of them have risked their careers and livelihoods by signing that letter;  some of them have put their hearts and souls into calling the Anglican church back to God.

I love God.  If there was no hope for the Anglican church, I would sadly, and with great grief, find another church home.  But there is hope.  Hope is written in the names of those sixteen priests who were willing to risk their jobs to call the Anglican diocese of Ottawa back to God.  Hope is written in every prayer for our church.  Hope is written in every voice raised in worship and song in every orthodox Anglican church every Sunday morning, whether those voices are accompanied by organ or guitar.  I love being an Anglican, and I intend to stay, pray, and fight to bring the beautiful Anglican church back to the Lord.

Spring

My irises survived the snow, my perriwinkle is flowering, and my bleeding hearts are up, and I have one heck of a lot of gardening work to do. (I had a bad back most of last summer, you see.)  Off to buy mulch….

The Big Lie

I found this piece on Drell’s Descants – go read it, it’s wonderful.

Chair of Essentials Network interviewed – reactions

The Current read letters in reaction to Monday’s interview, you can listen in here. Go to part 2 and scroll ahead to 18:17.  Two things particularly struck me.  In the first letter, the author speaks of Jesus’ compassion.  Yes, Jesus loves us, and he ate with sinners, and he associated with outcasts.  However, he was and is not content to leave we sinners where we are.  He told the woman caught in adultry to go and sin no more.  He told the rich young ruler who was ensnared by his wealth to give away everything to the poor and follow him.  Same sex blessings are only the presenting issue.  The deeper, underlying issue is whether we submit to God and his word, or try to twist God and his word to our own ends.

 The second thing that struck me was the last letter, from the “married” lesbian, whose “wife”’s parents are members of Anglican Essentials.  I can’t help but think about how grief stricken those parents must be about the lifepath their daughter has chosen, and I wonder how I would react in similar circumstances.  I think the only thing to do is to try to keep communication open without condoning the lifestyle.  A hard, thin line to walk, indeed.

A “Gee aren’t my kids cute” post. Ignore at will.

Cast of characters:  I___, 12 years old.  G____, 4 years old.  S____, 2 years old.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I____: “You shouldn’t hurt S_____, he’s just a little boy and you’re a big boy now.”

G____:  “Yeah.  I’m all growed up now!”

Not very successfully stifled laughter from the next room…

The Risen Christ

In a dream, somewhere between waking and sleeping, not quite awake, not quite asleep.  In agony over a lost child, strongly tempted to give it all up and turn my back on all things Christian.  In a black dark square room, no windows or doors, save one.   A door to darkness.  It was being blocked by my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I couldn’t leave, even though I wanted to.  Then a crack started in the oposite wall, and started to grow into the shape of a door, and the door slowly started to open,  and I was blinded, and I hid.