The last of a Good Old Boy

My old Golden Retriever got down last week and couldn't get back up. I knew this day was coming -- he's been barely able to get up and down even with the help of medication to ease the pain and inflammation in his joints.

Last week, he just couldn't do it any more. The vet came out and gave him an injection to euthanize him as he lay on my kitchen floor. I had one hand on him and one hand on a worried Betsy, my Border Collie mix.

It was a painless exit from this world.

It reminded me that Jesus said he came to heal the sick, bind up the broken-hearted and set free the captives.

Jesus did all that for Good Old Boy, at different times. This was the time to free this beautiful animal from the body which had become a prison for him.

In the three years I had him, Good Old Boy was healed of heartworms by the miracles of modern science (which comes from God); he had two tumors removed from him, and he made it through the last six months only because of the medication that allowed him to get up and down. And my prayers through it all. He was deaf and he was developing cataracts.

Good Old Boy was about 10 years old when I got him. He looked to be a purebred golden retriever. Although already marked by arthritis, he could still prance at times, legs held high in the air. At the end, he couldn't lift his leg high enough to pee. He hadn't been able to lift his tail during the time I had him.

After the vet (who is a wonderful and kind young professional) left, I had a strong vision of Good Old Boy running through the green fields of the Kingdom of God, flowing red-blond fur blowing in the wind, plume of a tail held high, prancing -- and smiling that glorious retriever smile.

Good Old Boy is healed.

I imagine him joyfully reunited with his previous owner, who predeceased him.

I know that when I pass through that door, he will be there, weaving in and out, between the legs of that great cloud of witnesses, moving to joyfully greet me.

To those who say there is no heaven, I say, "Phbbbbt!"

To those who say there are no animals in heaven, I say there is certainly a place for any loving creature in heaven. These pets who are members of our families are beloved and loving and belong with us there, too.

To those who say there's a separate heaven for animals, I say it wouldn't be heaven for them without their beloved people.

In fact, don't even try to talk theology with the grieving. They don't want to hear it. Just give them a hug.

A new slant on 1984

From George Orwell's 1984 (published in 1949), on the nature of Doublethink:

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

Ron Suskind, in the New York Times online magazine, Oct. 2004, giving rise to the blogger tag "reality based." I count myself one of the reality-based bloggers:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

A word from another Anglican in Africa
God has a dream

This was posted on my Episcopal Voices listserv. Just read: It needs no commentary.

(~) DIVERSITY THE LAW OF LIFE
address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. March 29, 2005

Most of us have read the first few chapters of Genesis in the Bible.
Isn't there a veritable explosion of creativity.

God, it could be said, went on a real spree, almost one might say, an orgy of creativity - where there was chaos, darkness and disorder, now there was order, cosmos and light and what a kaleidoscope of diversity.

There were trees, there were stars, a sun and moon, rivers and seas,
fish and fowl and birds and trees and animals - and what a splash of
diversity amongst the animals, not just one sort but a whole range of different animals, giraffes, elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys, cattle, sheep, goats, and among the trees, would be oaks, beeches, etc. and we could go on and on, and then there was Adam.

Now, that seemed to change the pattern. He was all by himself and then God saw that it was not good for man to be alone. And then we have that lovely story of how Eve came about.

A solitary human being is a contradiction in terms. We say in Africa a person is a person through other persons. We are made for togetherness, for friendship, for fellowship. We are created to live in a delicate network of interdependence and we are different precisely in order to know our need of one another. I have gifts that you don't and you have gifts that I don't have, and God you could almost hear saying, "Voila."

No one can be totally self-sufficient, the totally self-sufficient
human being is sub-human.

Diversity is the law of life. A tree is not just leaves. It has a trunk and branches, and roots and leaves - none can survive without the others. They are interdependent and perform different functions for the good of the whole. If the leaves were to go on strike and refuse to be involved in photo-synthesis and all that, the tree would suffer and the leaves would discover they were really nothing without the branches and the trunk and the roots. And so also with the human body. We say, "I see", not my eyes see - "I hear", not my ears hear - and I am an organism precisely because of the diversity of my organs performing different functions for the good of the whole body. Without this diversity functioning harmoniously I would be nothing.

Diversity is the Law of Life

Now God created us different, some tall, others short, some black,
others white (?), pink, yellow and red. What a fantastic array of
remarkable difference and diversity, different languages, different
cultures, different ethnicities, different this, different that. God
wanted us to glory in our differences, to affirm our differences, to
celebrate our diversities and to know that we are so obviously
interdependent.

Even now no single nation however prosperous and powerful can really go it alone. We must trade with other nations. We may find we don't have this commodity but they have it in abundance but lack what we have and God says I made you to be interdependent, to want to cooperate, to share, to care, to know that an injury to one will end up being an injury to all.

Unfortunately as seems always to happen, we perverted a good, our
particularity, our peculiarity - some then used it as a reason to
justify hostilities. We have used our differences to mistreat one
another.

And so we had obscenities such as slavery where frequently one race
claimed to be superior to those who could thus be bought and sold like so many cattle when families were callously divided, wives from
husbands, mothers from their children and sold separately. They were
regarded as barely human and their dignity was trodden horrendously
underfoot. Even someone as smart as Aristotle declared that slaves were not persons. For him, and so many others, human personality was not a universal phenomenon possessed by all human beings without distinction.

Racism exalted differences that made some superior and others
inherently inferior and so we had the horror of the Holocaust when Jews were systematically eliminated in Hitler's Nazi final solution for being inferior to the Aryan and used as scapegoats to blame for Germany's parlous economic situation in the 1930s.

This kind of thinking justified the brutal and heartless massacre of
six million Jews and gypsies and homosexual persons. There have been other instances of genocide as of the Armenians, or of those who perished in the killing fields of Kampuchea (Cambodia) and more recently in Rwanda and then the so-called ethnic cleansing in of the former Yugoslavia, people being done in simply because they were different.

I come from South Africa which carried the opprobrium of the world for its vicious apartheid policy which was a blatant system of racist injustice and oppression.

In that land they saw nothing wrong with public signs reading, "Dogs
and natives not allowed" - natives meaning black people. There was no subtlety at all. In many other countries racism existed though perhaps in forms that were not quite so blatant and unashamed. In this country you spoke of separate but equal and everyone knew that it was really a fiction, since no white person would have willingly accepted to exchange places with those who were called Negroes, or more insultingly as Niggers, to enjoy the equal but separate facilities. We know the outrages and the atrocities perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan, burning churches where little girls perished or the several lynchings - it continues to some extent as when a black man can be dragged to an excruciating death behind a truck. Racism is well and alive in so many parts of God's beautiful earth - we know what the neo-Nazis have been up to in Germany, or the National Front in Britain, and France, led by Le Pen, etc.

And we know that racism is totally un-Christian without remainder. It is unmitigated evil and totally immoral.

Why? Because racism says what invests anyone with worth, with value, is something extrinsic, something biological, skin colour, ethnicity. What does the Bible say quite categorically ? It says our worth is intrinsic. It comes with the package. It is part of being human. It does not depend on who or what we are. It belongs to all without distinction. And it is the wonderful assertion that each one of us is created in the image of God. Fantastic. Each one of us is God's representative, God's viceroy. God's standin. Each one of us is a God-carrier, since we are each a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Each one - everyone, whether we are rich or poor, beautiful or not so beautiful, red, white, yellow, black, young, or old, clever, or not so clever, our worth is intrinsic, our worth is infinite. And to treat one such as if they were less than human is not only evil, which it undoubtedly is; is not only painful as it certainly
turns out to be for its victims.

No it is all these things but more, it is blasphemous for it is really spitting in the face of God and we who are believers have no option - in the face of this evil and blasphemy we cannot be even neutral. We are constrained by our faith to oppose it
strenuously, for we can't say that well, it is respectable. No, that
would be to acquiesce in the crucifixion yet again of our Lord and
Saviour for remember he is the one who said, "When I was hungry you fed me, when I was naked, etc", for he is forever to be found with the outcast, the victim of injustice, of oppression.

When someone is the victim of any form of injustice and oppression, look carefully at that person and you will see the features of Jesus, and would we stand idly by when Jesus is vilified and illtreated yet again?

And how could we even have imagined that skin colour really told us
anything worthwhile about a person - does it tell us that you are
intelligent, humorous, compassionate, can I know these things just by looking at you? Of course not.

In the bad old days of apartheid in South Africa they used to have universities reserved only for whites. The main entrance qualification was not academic but biological. So I would say
suppose we changed that and said that this university was for large
noses only. If you had a small nose then you had to apply to the
Minister of Small Nose Affairs for permission to attend that
university.

Totally absurd - it ought to have been something to dismiss with a loud guffaw, except of course that it was no laughing matter for its
victims.

God does not give up easily. God still believes that one day we will
get to agree with God that diversity is beautiful - that it is wonderful to have a garden made up of roses, but how much more wonderful one that has a whole array of different flowers, roses, daffodils, chrysanthymums, irises, etc - how wonderful when we see the rainbow in the sky and it is a rainbow precisely because it is made up of different colours.

And so are we surprised that God has a dream ?

On the Resurrection Day Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene and said some strange words to her. He said, "Go tell my brothers", referring to those so-and-so's who had betrayed, denied and abandoned him - he called them brothers and he must have meant it because he went on to say, Athat I am ascending to my Father and to your Father; to my God and to your God." That is mind-blowing.

God dreams that we will come to realise that we are family, the human family, God's family, made up of all sorts and conditions of people.

I sometimes say I am glad I am not God. To think that God has to accept a Judas Iscariot, a Herod, a Hitler and a Bin Laden, a Mussolini and an Idi Amin as all his children. To say we are family is the most radical thing Jesus uttered, a family of glorious diversity where there are no outsiders. All are insiders.

Jesus said, I if I be lifted up will draw all, not some, all to me - black and white, red and yellow, rich and poor, Christian, Jew, Muslim, pagan, atheist, Hindu, all, old and young, male and female, gay, lesbian and so-called straight, all belong in his family. George Bush, Bin Laden, Sharon, Abbas, all belong, all are
loved, all. You know God has no enemies. Certainly my enemies are not God's enemies.

God dreams that we would realise that we are family caring for one
another as family, sharing with one another as family, concerned for
one another as family, appalled that members of our family could wallow in poverty and squalor without clean drinking water, and adequate health care, enough to eat when we have the capacity to feed them.

We have the means to ensure that all God's children, our brothers and sisters do have clean water to drink, enough food to eat and enjoy good education and adequate health care. Peace can come for all when we live as God's family.

And God says, "Please help me to realise my dream, please. . . .
please. . . . please. . . . .please."

The Bishop's take on the House of Bishops response

From the Bishop of Central Florida's column for the April newsletter:

I believe all of us wanted to signal to the rest of the Communion that we are taking the Primates’ requests very seriously, and this highly nuanced response is truly the most we could fashion together.  It is the result of a greater cooperative effort than I have seen in this House since becoming a Bishop!

Did I vote in favor of the Bishops’ statement?  Yes, because even this rather strange and limited response is better than no response at all.

Interestingly, our Presiding Bishop shared with us an email he received from the Archbishop of Canterbury within a few hours of our statement being issued.  The Archbishop thanked us quite profusely for our “generous and costly” response to the Primates.  So perhaps the glass is half-full, rather than half-empty!

I believe that for the moment we are technically in compliance with the Primates’ requests.  And our work this week may have bought us a year and a half (until General Convention).

What will happen during this time?  A delegation of Bishops and theologians who believe that our decisions in the last General Convention were right will be invited to “make their case” at the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in June.  There will be much international consultation (as there should have been previously). 

But frankly, I cannot envision any scenario in which a majority of our Anglican partners will change their minds in so brief a time.

The clear expectation of nearly everyone (in my opinion) is that when GC 2006 rolls around, all of these moratoria will be lifted.  General Convention will then have to decide whether to affirm in a clearer way than it has to date the legitimacy of same-sex blessings and the consecration of non-celibate gay and lesbian persons, or to back away and reaffirm the teaching and practice of the rest of the Anglican world.

And then we will have to answer the question of whether we will “walk together” or “walk separately.”  Again, thank you for your prayers.  Please continue to offer them.

The net effect probably is to buy more time. While the Bishop doesn't think the more conservative bishops in the union will change their minds, neither do I think the more liberal bishops in the union will change their mind between now and General Convention 2006.

While the Bishop doesn't think the agreement will stop some bishops from blessing same-sex unions, I don't think it will stop interfering foreign primates from crossing lines, either.

I don't see Presiding Bishop Griswold "making his case" i.e. "making his defense" of the actions of the last General Convention. It's like telling a child, "Explain yourself," implying guilt from the get-go.

Myself, I'm really tired of being told my church has "chosen to walk separately." It hasn't. Others want it to walk separately.

So I guess we're in for general sniping and arguing until the next convention.

It will be interesting to watch, though interesting is not always a good thing.

The Network supporters probably figure they can make more inroads into more dioceses in the meantime. "Liberate" more parishes from the evil liberals. But maybe more people will have their eyes opened about the Network/AAC and the intentions of some of these parties between now and GC 2006.

We can only pray.

The Schiavo fiasco

I have a confession to make: I'm starting to feel sorry for Michael Schiavo.

He's been villified in this sorry, sad, sordid epic, branded as a wife-murderer who wants to collect the insurance money and get on with life with his common-law wife.

But he waited eight years before he started advocating removal of Terri's feeding tube. That's a long time to watch a loved one vegetate. Maybe he found a new life quicker than many would approve, but only God knows his heart.

Terri's parents are sincere, but deluded, I've come to believe, in thinking their daughter reacts to their presence. Her brain has been liquefying these past 15 years. Those couple of seconds worth of video of her blinking at her parents were culled from many, many hours of videotape, none of them recent.

I can't fault them for wanting to hang onto their daughter, though. Losing a child is the hardest pain there is to endure.

I even feel sorry for the doctors, who are damned if they do and damned if they don't. They can't even hasten the end for Terri, to make it quicker for the family, even if she doesn't know what's going on. They would be sued.

If I starved my old, sick dog to death, instead of having him euthanized, I would be arrested for cruelty to animals. Why can't a more humane way to ease the transition from this life to the next be used for human beings? I would certainly want it for myself.

I don't fear death. I don't want a long-drawn out one, so I have a living will and a medical surrogate. Who knows if my wishes will be honored, though.

Anyway, so who are the villains in the Schiavo case?

Those who would use this poor woman as a political football. For example, the Bushes. George W., who has brought about the death of thousands in an illegal and unjust war, talks about a climate of life. Pah. Jeb, our illustrious Florida governor, trying to make some political hay. Trying to stretch their authority into places where they have no business going. Pah.

Jesse Jackson comes down to gain some publicity out it all, snuggling up the Bushes in the process. Pah.

Our local TV news channels, with anchors in place over in Pinellas Park, to give us the blow-by-blow sound bites. Hanging on like a bunch of ghouls. Pah.

All the nut cases who want to kill Michael Schiavo, using the same logic as "right-to-lifers" use to kill doctors (don't they see a basic contradiction here?), descending upon Pinellas Park, too. Trying to sneak into her hospital room. The carnival atmosphere must appeal to them. Pah.

A thought

There's only one way to solve the mess in the Anglican Union: repentance and resignation.

I hereby call on Bob Duncan, Diane Knippers, David Anderson, Peter Akinola and all those who have abandoned the Gospel message, to repent of their ways and truly turn from their path and return to the loving arms of Christ.

To confirm their sincerity in this, they should also resign from their posts. Organizations like the AAC and the Network should disband immediately and turn their assets over to the Episcopal Church as a measure of their true repentance.

Harken, ye sinners, and turn from the path of hate, discord and discrimination.

Purple journalism

My copy of the diocesan newsletter came in the mail today. The headline is: "Near the breaking point: The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion."

The front page is filled with that headline, the first part of the bishop's letter (see my last entry) and a photo with the caption "Primates consider future of the Anglican Communion at their meeting in Northern Ireland."

Further inside is an "Analysis" by an AAC supporter-priest talking about how the the Episcopal Church has "chosen to walk apart from the rest of the Communion," and how "one primate" viewed Bishop Griswold's statement that God was working in new ways, or in a "leading of the Holy Spirit" was a "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit," prompting charges of "heresy" against the Episcopal Church.

Gee, wonder which primate that was? Must be that mysterious, anonymous one who's been quoted before.

Our analyst raises the overriding concern of the Global South about "whether scripture was trustworthy and true." And, "If it is true, then the normalization of homosexuality violated both the word and the spirit of scripture -- as well as the universal teaching of the Church." Or, as I interpret this statement, "My way or the highway."

Finally, at the back of the newsletter, "A word from the Presiding Bishop" was finally printed.

I think I'm going to "walk alone" on off to bed. May the Good Lord bless us and keep us all.

Heretically yours,
UnSaintly Pat

Is the split here?

There's been a lot of talk about an Anglican communion split, with the news that Anglican leaders are asking U.S. and Canadian churches to withdraw from the Anglican Consultative Council until 2008 because of their stance on homosexuality.

Well, I'm dummy enough to not even know what that council is. Luckily, my Episcopal Voices listserv posted some information.

According to a BBC Q&A program on "Anglican Church Split":

It is a body of bishops, priests and lay people from national Anglican churches who meet and consult in between the once-a-decade Lambeth Conferences.

It is one of the Anglican communion's four "instruments of unity", as
they are called, the institutions which link the autonomous Anglican
churches into a federation.

The others are the Archbishop of Canterbury (the leader of the mother
church), the regular meetings of primates (the senior bishops who head
the communion's 38 provinces), and the Lambeth conference, the meeting
every ten years of all Anglican bishops.

The ACC has no legislative powers, but provides a way for the
different churches to act together.

And, why have US and Canadian Anglicans been asked to withdraw from it?
Answer: The conservatives wanted the North Americans to admit their error over homosexuality.

Does that mean if we don't admit our "error," promise not to do it anymore and remove Bishop Robinson from his post, we will be kicked out of the communion?

I've been reading the comments on Father Jake's blog with interest. Many think this is the first step to real schism and a "trial separation" in preparation for a divorce. Most aren't too sad about it.

My concern is living in a Network diocese. Will the Network try to pull us under a foreign province, as some of its leaders have been itching to do? Our bishop is being noncommital about the whole situation until he confers with the rest of the good old boys Monday. So, we'll have to wait and see.

As far as the Anglican Communion, I'm starting to feel like Rhett Butler: "Frankly, I don't give a damn." Let the ones who want Bob Duncan in charge of the Episcopal Church under someone like Archbishop Peter Akinola get a taste of what it's like, and a lot of them will want out, pronto.

I just don't want my parish being dragged into some awful African or Asian or whatever homophobic, sexist and Calvinistic province, or becoming an AMiA church. I don't want my parish split apart, as many parishes will be, with such a move.

The people engineering this crap obviously don't care about the people. They care about the "purity" of their doctrine and their political ambitions.

What do they think Christ values most? What does he demand of his shepherds?

Meeting Spong

The retired Episcopal Bishop, John "Jack" Shelby Spong gave a talk on sexuality at one of our local universities. He addressed attitudes of homosexuality, sexism and ageism, and our attitudes toward sex itself.

Instead of demanding either marriage or celibacy for
young adults (who come to puberty younger than they used to, but delay marriage to complete educations), homosexuals, or aged widows and
widowers, for whom marriage can cause financial hardships (loss of Social Security benefits or family squabbles over inheritances), the emphasis should be on maintaining a
loving, dedicated, monogamous relationship, Spong
said.

Whether one is homosexual or heterosexual, promiscuity
diminishes one's self and others, he said, adding,
"Sex is a precious gift that should only be shared in
a deep, committed relationship."

The church should be there to "walk beside you,
someone to talk with as you make decisions," he said.

Spong believes all people in such committed
relationships should be able to come to the church to
have their unions blessed, whether or not they seek a
wedding license.

He sees time as healing many things, and for
homosexuality to be debated in the church today means
homophobia is having its last gasp. Maybe this is true, although homophobia certainly still has a stronghold in this part of the world.

The church will move forward, Spong believes. "When
the church moves, some adjust, some drop out," he
said. It is not a painless process.

"I'm not interested in being part of a racist,
patriarchical-sexist, or homophobic church," Spong
said.

My reaction: Amen! and Amen!

I covered the lecture for the newspaper, which gave me the opportunity to interview him earlier that day.

Spong is pretty much vilified by all the local clergy for his views. I asked him about his theological beliefs.

I reported on it as follows:

Conservative elements within the Episcopal Church and
other denominations accuse retired Episcopal Bishop
John Shelby Spong of failing to adhere to basic
Christian tenets. In an interview before his Jan. 31
lecture at Stetson University, Spong answered
questions about his beliefs.

To charges he doesn't believe the Nicene Creed, the
basic statement of faith in the Episcopal Church and
other churches, Spong replied that the creed was
adopted late in the fourth century after Christ. He
chooses to look at the Bible itself and its Judaic
background for answers, not to something written
hundreds of years later, he said.

"How was Jesus understood in the Jewish world?" he
wants to know.

Spong said he doesn't accept the virgin birth, the
physical resurrection of Christ, or the atonement. But
when asked if he believes in the divinity of Jesus
Christ, Spong said, "Yes."

He explained that in the Gospel of Mark, divinity
descended upon Jesus at the time he was baptized, with
no mention of a virgin birth; also, the epistles of
Paul talk about a "declaration" of divinity, not a
virgin birth.

Accounts of virgin birth in the Gospels of Matthew and
Luke were written much later, in the ninth decade
after Christ, Spong said. He added, the Gospel of John
doesn't address how the mix of human and divine came
together in the physical form of Jesus, but talks
about the Word being with God "In the beginning."

Stories of miraculous births abounded in cultures of
the time, always with human mothers who were
considered simply receptacles, and divine fathers. The
knowledge we have, that the mother contributes 50
percent of the child's genes, makes the idea of virgin
birth unlikely, according to Spong. Modern
understanding of physics makes the idea of physical
resurrection unlikely in Spong's estimation, as well.

As for the atonement, which is the belief that Christ
died for our sins, Spong said he can't fathom a loving
God demanding this kind of sacrifice to pay for his
children's sins.

"It's the woodshed theory of atonement," Spong said,
the act of a cruel and punishing God, not the loving
God Spong finds in the Scriptures.

He quoted John 10:10: "I came that they may have life,
and have it abundantly."

"In this Jesus, I met the Holy God," Spong said, and
Jesus is "the life in whom and through whom we meet
this loving God."

Spong refused to be pinned down on a definition or
description of God. He said, "God is a whole lot
bigger than any of us imagine."

While I found Spong engaging, I guess I fall more toward the traditional in theology -- I don't see the need to make God mundane, as many modern theologians do. God is a supernatural being who controls physics, space, time, and the natural, and can make changes in all, just as a composer can conduct his or her own music and throw in riffs and variations to suit the composer's desires.

So, I see the logic of Spong's arguments about the virgin birth and the resurrection and so forth just don't feel compelled by them.

Spong was most gracious in talking with me, which I appreciate. My ex-rector sent an e-mail to the publisher attacking me for "bias," and being overly favorable toward Spong. And for not calling him and asking his opinion on Spong, though he didn't even attend the lecture. A little hubris showing?

Oh, well, just goes to show -- you can't please 'em all.

See what you think

I found the article the archdeacon was having a hissy about at the convention (see the Feb. 5 post) at the North American Association for the Diaconate. Scroll down the page to the Diakeno newsletter and open this year's Advent issue. The article is on page 5 - "Acceptance Speech for the First Faith in Action Award."

See what you think.

In the meantime, liberal, John Kerry, Al Franken, liberal, liberal, sort of moderate, liberal liberal liberal. Ted Kennedy. Democratic National Committee. John Kerry, Kerry, Kerry.

I'm trying to get the focus of the Adsense ads changed. They've been linking to ultra (I won't say the "C" word) sites, based on my use of the "C" word in my posts.

I need to make a few cents -- click on the ads once in a while. I'm supposed to get compensated according to the number of clicks.

Thanks!

More news from the convention

Among the trends I've noticed in this diocese the past couple of years is bridge-building to the African churches. It's a response to the ordination of Bishop Gene Robinson's ratification and installation; the leadership has been seeking ties with those who agree with them on the hot-button issue of homosexuality.

The African churches are right in (lock)step with the "orthodox and traditional" segment of the Episcopal Church on this: they display a virulent, hate-filled homophobia. They also agree with the ultraconservatives in throwing out Hooker's three-legged stool, and have a very narrow field of vision when they look at Scripture.

I'll give credit and say yes, there are probably some altruistic motives on both sides of this bosom-buddiness that's been so in evidence A.R. (after Robinson), but I'm cynical enough to think politics is the big reason: forming an alliance within the Anglican Union to throw out the revisionists and get everybody back to the "right" thinking of a couple of hundred years ago. Letting the homosexuals know they're not welcome, putting women back in their places, etc.

I posted my concerns about this alliance a year ago, in February 2004:

"The Gene Robinson issue is only a small part of the picture as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to be taken or dragged out of the Episcopal Church into some other "province," or to have authority over it given to foreign primates who have a lot of cultural differences, including polygamy, slavery, child labor exploitation and stoning. I don't think the AAC bishops involved in this realize how dangerous giving away this power is. They think they'll really be controlling things behind the scenes and have the mantle handed to them after they've purged and purified the church.

"Nor do I want to go to some Calivinistic, repressive church where you can have only one interpretation of scripture (theirs, fundamentalist) or you're not a Christian.

Some of the AAC bishops, including the one in this diocese,
have been engaged in talks with these foreign, ultraconservative
bishops: July 15, 2003, Bishop Howe, among other AAC-affiliated bishops, signed a letter to "Concerned Primates" to address "the crisis of Faith and Order that is increasingly unfolding among us:"

In the face of these looming departures from evangelical truth and catholic order, and in line with our commitment to oppose all such innovations in every Godly way, we do hereby affirm the moral and spiritual authority of you, the "Concerned Primates" of the Anglican Communion, and do join in commitment with you to address the situation under your leadership. We desire to act in concert with you, and are ready to take counsel from you. We pledge solidarity with you in sharing common faith and practice within an Anglicanism that is submitted to her sovereign Lord, true to his holy Word, and at one with the catholic Church. We stand ready, in concert with you, to commit to common responses to the deteriorating situation within the Episcopal Church and
elsewhere..

I went on to say, "I don't respect bishops who are so willing to hand their flocks over to others. I don't want to be subjected to these primates' "moral and spiritual authority," thank you very much. They need to work on setting their own houses in order...These men seem to have a brew of fundamentalist theology, anger and suspicion toward anything different -- like ordained women or Gene Robinson -- lust for power and contempt for their flocks, from whom they want to conceal so many of their actions, with closed, secret meetings, secret memos and stealthy plans [i.e., the Plano Convention and the Chapman Memo].

I wrote, "Father Dearest [the rector in my old parish] accused me of trying to "discredit" the Network. I don't think I have to -- they do it themselves as soon as the light is shined on their activities."

So, these are the reasons I look with scepticism on the African alliance. I'll have no truck with the hate-filled theology of Peter Akinola or the ultra-right priests who put themselves under a Rwandan or Ugandan or whatever foreign province.

We were treated to a big dose of African music and African-style worship during the convention -- which I enjoyed greatly. Also of Hispanic music (yes, we're universalists, and Hispanics agree with our ultraconservatives on sexuality, too).

All very enjoyable. I could feel the Holy Spirit moving during the church service, and it occurred to me that the Spirit will take this, even when brought forth with a lot of wrong reasons, and use it for good. Maybe we Anglo-Episcopalians can absorb some of this joy in worship while showing that God's love extends to all. I hope so.

I am praying that regarding mergers with African provinces, the Bishop, having taken a look, is backing away from the precipice.

Go here if you want to read his address to the convention.

The homophobia still rages, though. The deacons were all called to share a lunch together. I found out the topic of conversation was publication for deacons containing a magazine article the archdeacon objected to. The article was by a gay postulant for the priesthood in Atlanta. He talked about the terrible days of the 1980s with the AIDS epidemic, losing so many of his friends, and coming through it.

I got just a quick look at the article (I wish I could get a copy of it. I don't recall the author's name). He took some jabs at both the church and the gay community for their response to AIDS. Yet, I could see this man's faith coming through, a faith that sustained him through all the horrible stuff, and through losing so many of his friends.

The archdeacon apparently took severe umbrage at this "gay" story by a gay priest. She apparently wants all the deacons in the diocese on her side of the argument, for she complained to the magazine editor, accusing him of pushing a gay agenda. He responded to her letter, saying he doesn't take any sides, but publishes articles from various points of view.

So the homophobia continues. And I question motives for a lot of things I see around here.

Jesus called for all who are burdened to come to him. He didn't exclude anyone.

Holy Spirit, work all this to your good, I pray.

Conventional wisdom

It's been more than a week since I last posted. That's because a lot has been going on, including our Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida convention.

I had planned to go as an observer, just to see the spectacle and get my own feel for the politicking -- I have never attended convention. Last year, I almost went, but I was just too depressed by everything going on in this diocese. It was probably a good thing, too, as I probably would have left the church when they voted in the AAC/Network.

So, I was set to go observe this time, when my rector said why not come as an alternate delegate. One of the delegates was sick and wouldn't be able to come and another one might not be able to go. So I went as an alternate, which assured me a place to sit and see everything. (Thanks, Father.)

Bishop Howe talked a good talk of conciliation, even quoting Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. I have a trust issue here, though, since last year, he orchestrated (in my opinion) a lot of the conservative movement to join the Network, then at the last minute, played "neutral" and wouldn't vote on it to maintain this new "neutrality."

It was too much like my old rector's behavior, the one who would tell some of us what he thought we wanted to hear, while he pursued an altogether different agenda.

Anyway, I'm reserving judgment on this, pending new developments. It's encouraging that the right wing rabble-rousers are mad at the bishop. Still...

The AAC was present at the convention in full force, with a booth in the display room. Members were distributing unsolicited fliers, suggesting for whom everyone should vote. Not that it made much difference. 80 percent of those on ballots to be elected were AAC members.

A look at the delegation from my old parish fueled that feeling of disenfranchisement -- everyone in the delegation was ultraconservative, even though there is a moderate/liberal population of significant size in that parish. Or at least there used to be.

I looked with cynicism at all the conservative clergy in the convention hall, many of whom were helped into their positions by the very conservative bishop, who handpicked their very conservative delegations.

It did make me appreciate my current rector, who picked a mix to be representative of the parish. My rector was in the minority.

So, the deck is stacked in a completely conservative manner.

A look at the up-and-coming clergy in the diocese was an eye-opener, too. All the newly ordained deacons were asked to stand. They were all female. The current seminarians were asked to stand. About half were women.

The newly hired priests in the diocese were asked to stand. They were ALL male. Mostly older, conservative, white male. Retired from other dioceses to come to sunny, conservative Florida, to work part time. And vote at the conventions.

What does that tell you?

And one of the resolutions voted in was to call for a special General Convention in 2005 on the Windsor Report and related topics. I understand they were hot to press that, because after 2005, the retired bishops (mostly old, white ultraconservative) won't be eligible to vote at convention.

The best thing about going to the convention for me was getting to know fellow delegates and the clergy better.

COMING UP -- STRANGE BEDFELLOWS -- why the ties with the African churches
ALSO COMING -- meeting Bishop Spong (live, in person)

Thank you, James Dobson

It's been a depressing week, what with the inauguration and all that stuff. So I want to pause a moment and thank James Dobson for bringing a bright spot of levity into it.

I never knew he had such a knack for satire until I read that he complained about the video remake of the 1979 hit song "We Are Family" using the voices of SpongeBob Squarepants, Barney, Winnie the Pooh, Bob the Builder, the Rugrats and other TV cartoon characters. It was made by songwriter Nile Rodgers' foundation, set up after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in an effort to promote healing.

A CNN news report said "Christian groups however have taken exception to the tolerance pledge on the foundation's Web site, which asks people to respect the sexual identity of others along with their abilities, beliefs, culture and race."

"Their inclusion of the reference to 'sexual identity" within their 'tolerance pledge' is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line," James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement released Thursday.

Dobson was quoted by the New York Times on Thursday as having singled out the wildly popular SpongeBob during remarks about the video at dinner this week in Washington, D.C.

What a great idea Dobson had -- parodying Jerry Falwell's attack on Teletubby Tinky Winky as "a gay role model."

Yeah, as if watching Teletubbies and hearing cartoon characters ask for tolerance of one another leads one down the gay garden path! How funny!

I needed a good smile this week.

I wonder what's next?

And then they came for me

“In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me — and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

Written as part of a sermon by the Rev. Martin Niemöller in 1945. He was arrested for treason in Hitler’s Germany, and was held at Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps, narrowly averting execution.

You've probably already read the recent history recounted below. I found it worth another look, in light of even more recent history:

On Jan. 14, Army Reserve Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr. was convicted on five counts of assault, maltreatment and conspiracy in connection with the beating and humiliation of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.

Yet, one of the men instrumental in setting the stage for this is President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who argued that the nature of a “war” against terror places a high premium on factors such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors, thus rendering obsolete the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners.

Gonzales was supporting the position of then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had written a memorandum Jan. 19, 2002 (a memo to which the State Department objected), in which Rumsfeld ordered the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to inform combat commanders that "Al Quaeda and Taliban individuals...are not entitled to prisoner of war status for purposes of the Geneva Conventions of 1949." He ordered that "commanders should "...treat them humanely, and to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, consistent with the Geneva Conventions of 1949." This order thus gives commanders permission to depart, where they deem it appropriate and a military necessity, from the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Note: bolding is mine, for emphasis.

Gonzales penned his memorandum to President Bush Jan. 25, 2002, concerned that certain Geneva language such as "outrages upon personal dignity” and “inhuman treatment" were undefined and it would be difficult to predict the needs and circumstances that could arise in the course of the war on terrorism. (I guess you just never know what you might need to do to somebody.)

Remember, Gonzales is also the one who called the rules of the Geneva Convention "quaint."

Gonzales believed that a determination of inapplicability of the GPW would insulate against future prosecution.

Maybe things like "outrages upon personal dignty" and "inhuman treatment" can be defined by the testimony at Graner’s trial (source: Washington Post, Jan. 15):

*Prisoners were kept naked much of the time, with hoods over their heads, and often chained to the bars in painful "stress positions."

Inmates and U.S. soldiers testified that Army guards regularly beat the prisoners with fists or iron rods, forced them to eat food from a toilet, confronted them with unmuzzled police dogs, and made them wallow naked in the mud outside in near-freezing temperatures.

*Sexual humiliation was another common practice on cellblock One-Alpha, witnesses said.[I won't go into all the grisly details. I'm sure you're familiar with them by now.]

*When one of the prisoners was causing trouble for the guards, prosecutors said, Graner tied a leash around his neck and made him crawl like a dog.

Bush had access to other advice, prominently from retired U.S. Army General and current Secretary of State Colin Powell, who, on Jan. 26, 2002, wrote the President a memo in which he said, "I am concerned that the draft does not squarely present to the President the options that are available to him."

Powell was insistent in his advice: "Treat all detainees consistent with the principles of the GPW."

Powell enumerated the "Cons" of taking the position that the Geneva Covention does not apply:
1. It will reverse over a century of U.S. policy and practice in supporting the Geneva conventions and undermine the protections of the law of war for our troops, both in this specific conflict and in general.
2. It has a high cost in terms of negative international reaction, with immediate adverse consquences for our conduct of foreign policy.
3. It will undermine public support among critical allies, making military cooperation more difficult to sustain.
4. Europeans and others will likely have legal problems with extradition or other forms of cooperation in law enforcement, including in bringing terrorists to justice.
5. It may provoke some individual foreign prosecutors to investigate and prosecute our officials and troops.
6. It will make us more vulnerable to domestic and international legal challenge and deprive us of important legal options.

Powell argued that applying the Geneva Conventions "presents a positive international posture, preserves U.S. credibility and moral authority by taking the high ground, and puts us in a better position to demand and receive international support."

Too bad this advice wasn't followed. On Feb. 7, 2002, President Bush signed an order containing the caveat, "As a matter of policy, the United States Armed Forces shall continue to treat detainees humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva," thus opening the door for whatever treatment deemed “necessary."

In other words, the ends justify the means. I can just hear, “But it was necessary.” A nice, fascist approach.

I wonder why one conspirator goes to prison and another one is nominated to be the nation's attorney general, with little fuss about it, thus far.

Why should the Bush administration even need to hash out the legalities of the Geneva Convention, when Americans have always considered abuse of prisoners morally repugnant? An administration that prides itself on being Christian should be able to honor the Geneva Convention.

It's a question of what’s right, moral, and ethical. It's a question of who we are as Americans. Are we people who torture people who are under our control? If we are, we’re no better than Nazis.

If we think it's expedient for prisoners in U.S. hands to be tortured at Abu Ghraib, if we think it's expedient for U.S. citizens to be detained and treated as enemy combatants in Guantanamo, how far away are the gulags for you and me?

Not One Damn Dime Day

You may well have seen this already -- it's making the e-mail rounds. I've gotten it twice already, once on my Episcopal Voice group's listserv, and once on my e-mail at work. No one seems to know where it originated, though some got so passionate about it's anti-war message, they started a Web site for it.

The movement seems to be picking up steam, despite its naysayers, and it's getting press attention from the likes of USA Today and large-city newspapers.

If you're angry at the war in Iraq, if you're disgusted with our government leaders, if you wish our religious leaders would have the guts to speak out, read on.

Oh, yeah, and don't spend one damn dime on inauguration day! It might even be a good day to fast against the war.

I'd suggest boycotting the big, right-wing friendly retailers for much longer than a day.

Here's the letter:

Since our leaders don't have the moral courage to speak out against the war in Iraq, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.

During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money, and don't use your credit card. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases. Nor toll/cab/bus or train ride money exchanges. Not one damn dime for anything for 24 hours.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Walmart, KMart and Target. Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter).

For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.

"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics.

"Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. The politicians put the troops in harm's way. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan -- a way to come home.

There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed.

For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people.


Please share this as an email with as many people as possible, and please express your opinion at www.NotOneDamnDime.com .

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Turning

I try to slip away, like a thief in the night,
hounded by shame of what I am.
Horrified by evil abounding, human and more.
Why.
I turn away, to wander, I don't know where.

Turn away, to chase my own vision.
If I'm alone I have to do it on my own.

Are you real, do you care,
Will you help the five year old
buried under a mountain of mud?
Will you help me?
God who will not answer,
I turn away from you.

Turning away
hurting
turning, turning
until you call.

Your voice sighs on the night air.
It pursues me.
Your voice falls from the sky like dew,
It cover the hills, it surrounds me.
it comforts me
with a blanket of stars.
You call me back to you.

I hear you.
Your voice touches me.
It murmurs. It calls me.
Your voice, I hear it
and I return to you.

I pray.

--UnSaintly Pat

Epiphany thoughts

I received this today on my Episcopal Voices listserv. It's terrific.

Go Home Another Way

You are looking for me in the wrong place.
 
You come looking for me in the lofty palaces of the mighty and the powerful forces that shift the plates of the earth,
but today I have been born in the shore-line stable of chaos built by the sea-hammers of destruction,
and yet you still come.
 
You come bearing gifts, precious, life-giving gifts.
 
Gold - to buy food, fresh water, clothing, medicine and shelter.
Bring your gold.
Come bring your money and resources to the cradle of poverty and devastation.

Frankincense - fragrance of prayer, rising like a phoenix from the pyre of human suffering.
Bring your frankincense.

Come bring your prayers of faith and healing to the cradle of hopelessness.

Myrrh - blessed balm, oil of anointing, touch me gently, soothe my aching, orphaned soul.
Bring your myrrh.
Come bring comfort to the cradle of grief and pain.
 
Look for me, bring your gifts, then go home another way,
Another way of living as neighbors,
Another way of loving one another,
Another way.

Jenny Gordon+
Victoria, Australia

Happy Epiphany! May the wisdom of those three kings who found The King of Kings be with us and our leaders this year. -- UnSaintly Pat

Responding to disaster

This report from Episcopal News Service shows some of the strengths of the Episcopal Church, in it's quick response to the earthquake and tsunami of Dec. 26. This morning, there are warnings that there may be more tsunamis on the way, and the death toll is already expected to pass 100,000.

This report also gives us glimpses of how people who are posted in churches and dioceses in South Asia are responding to the disaster.

Bulletin: Tsunami aid begins through Episcopal Relief & Development

ENS 122804-1
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
[Episcopal News Service] With numbers of dead and homeless rising across southern Asia in the wake of December 26th's unprecedented Indian Ocean tsunami, Episcopal Relief and Development has begun emergency response efforts and welcomes financial contributions to aid these initiatives.

ERD representatives request that contributions be directed to Episcopal Relief and Development, South Asia Relief Fund, P.O. Box 12043, Newark, NJ 07101. Contributions may also be forwarded on-line ( http://www.er-d.org/ ).

Devastation is reported worst in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India among other southern Asian countries.

The retired Anglican bishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, the Rt. Rev. Kenneth Fernando, was the first to reach the Episcopal News Service with comment by electronic mail December 27: "We have received many inquiries about the situation in Sri Lanka after the disaster. It has been a very heavy disaster. Most of those affected are the poor who live in little shanties by the sea. They have lost everything.

"Our churches are being used as temporary camps and the government, and NGO's (non-governmental organizations) are beginning to function.

"Since we live near a lake only a few miles from the sea, we had a few anxious moments as I thought the water level of the lake would rise. But there has been no change at all."

Fernando -- who is well known for building Buddhist-Christian-Muslim dialogue and has served the Anglican Communion as head of its NIFCON effort to build interfaith dialogue with the use of technology among other strategies -- said that various relief agencies, including OXFAM and the World Council of Churches, had begun helping Sri Lanka. 

"Many thanks for your concern for us," he added. "We are hoping there will be no after shocks, The people are very frightened."

Meanwhile, from the Church of South India, Bishop Thomas Samuel of the Diocese of Madhya Kerala, sent the following message to Oregon Bishop Johncy Itty:

"It is with deep distress and immense grief that I share with you the terrible tragedy that has hit the coastal regions of Tamil-Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Sri Lanka. The magnitude of the disaster is difficult to comprehend mainly becasuse of its unexpected nature and also because of lack of exact statistics. The figure of the death toll in South India has gone up to 15,000. This tragedy has suddenly made us not only challenged into rising up to the situation but also made us realize our insufficiency and vulnerability.

"The worst-hit Alappuzha and Kollam are in Madhya Kerala Diocese where thousands were rendered homeless and many were reported missing. Many in these areas  were caught and crushed and washed away before they even knew what was happening. There is no electricity and borewells put for drinking water supply were also destroyed. This is the worst national disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas. We could have epidemics within a few days unless we get health systems up and runing.

"Our diocesan pastors and leaders have rushed to the disaster areas with food, clothing, medicine etc. Our focus is on supply of drinking water, food and clothing. Sanitation is a big problem. Many camps have been set up to accommodate thousands of homeless people.

"We would greatly appreciate if you would kindly extend your generous support to the relief work. Please do remember us in your prayers."

Also in Tamil-Nadu, Bishop V. Devasahayam of India's Diocese of Chennai, a port center, concurred in a phone interview reported to ERD that the worst damage was in Tamil-Nadu, south of Madras. He said among the hardest hit were fisher-folk, many of whom were fishing at the time of the tsunami. Some 2,000 power boats and 20,000 catamarans were lost, he said.  Many of the islands have been washed out. The bishop said his diocese has set up relief stations in many of the churches. He said the local cathedral complex survived as did many of the churches, including St. Mary's by-the-Sea.
-- From Staff Reports

****

In other news, I see St. Nicholas visited Canterbury Palace Christmas Day. Despite dire predictions from the conservative wings of the church, he did not leave lumps of coal in Archbishop Rowan Williams' Christmas stocking. In fact, he seemed rather chummy with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Way to go, ABC!  

Alleluia! He is here

I heard Martha Butler's song "Alleluia, He Is Coming" performed at church several times during Advent. It's one of those songs that can bring tears to my eyes. It's full of longing for Christ, longing for the presence of God, God that we can know, God who became human.

I looked up and I saw my Lord a-coming
I looked up and I saw my Lord a-coming
down the road
Alleluia He is coming, alleluia He is here
Alleluia He is coming, alleluia He is here

You see, God is too big for my mind to begin to comprehend. But Jesus puts a human face on God, and I can relate to this. God is real in a tangible, touchable way, through Jesus Christ.

I can visualize Jesus. I hold a perfect image of him in my mind's eye: He has a long, ovular face; his cheekbones and nose are a bit sharp. He has large, liquid, chocolate-brown eyes, from which his compassion radiates. He has brown skin and wavy, chestnut-colored hair.

I can even see the hairs on his shins.

This is God we can know, God who walks among us and speaks to us. God who teaches his disciples.

In reading the prophets, we get a picture of a Messiah who is not a handsome man. Yet he is able to draw thousands to him. They follow him out into the countryside and out onto the hillsides. Jesus is truly the charismatic man, full of healing, and that compassion that spills out of him like a river flooding its bank. It is too much to contain within him.

Those who are spiritually attuned sense it and follow him. Those who are spiritually dead or asleep don't feel it.

I can almost imagine what it is like to feel his hands touch me as he prays healing for me. I can imagine the warmth of those hands, his human flesh.

I can love him, passionately. I can grieve him. I can repent of my human pride, greed, envy, all the sins that wrenched him pitilessly from this life:

I looked up and I saw my Lord a-dying
I looked up and I saw my Lord a-dying on a tree

Yet, I think it wasn't just to proclaim his reality to us or even to die for love of us that the word became flesh.

It is one thing to know, another thing to experience. I wonder that, even with the might of the universe at his command, even creating us, forming us in our mothers' wombs and knowing us, God had not experienced being human.

Can even God fully know something without experiencing it?

The Bible said he came to dwell among us, literally, to pitch his tent among us.

A tent is a frail and vulnerable thing. It is not meant to be permanent. It is a temporary habitation, for it cannot long withstand the elements. One good storm, and it's gone.

The Word made flesh was subject to the weakness, the frailty, the vulnerability of human beings. He experienced temptation. God became a God at the mercy of the world around him, instead of in divine control. God experienced this.

So, the New Covenant is a covenant of mercy and grace. He showers grace upon us, for he knows, in a new way, that, try as we might, we cannot do it. The world is too much for us spiritual infants. We cannot make ourselves deserving of God's favor.

His love is now even more full of compassion and tenderness. He knows our humanity. He knows what it is to fear the future, to be ravaged by disease, to suffer loss and grieve. To hurt and to be hurt. He has pitched His tent in the middle of it. He has put His flesh-and-blood hands on it.

Oh, little newborn baby Jesus. So weak. So helpless. So tender, held in your mother's arms. So full of promise.

Alleluia, he is here!

I'll look up and I'm gonna see my Lord a-coming
I'll look up and I'm gonna see my Lord a-coming
in the clouds

He will return for us.

Don't even bother to ask

Culled from AP and Reuters today, regarding Preznit's big press conference before he goes off to the ranch for a nice Christmas vacation. Guess he has to escape from the war and all. Too bad our troops and the Iraqis can't.

I felt ill and angry after reading his statements. It amazes me how the press seems to let these statements by, unchallenged.

I added bolding/emphasis to particularly notable statements. I also added my own commentary.

"Don't bother to ask me," Bush told reporters at a year-end news conference when pressed for the specifics of his plan to overhaul Social Security to allow personal investment accounts similar to a 401(k).

Bush made clear he would not engage in a public debate about how to shore up Social Security's $3.7 trillion, 75-year shortfall until he gives Congress "a solution at the appropriate time." The administration has said a plan is still being crafted.

Yeah, just fahgittabouddit. We peons whose money funded Social Security and whose futures are tied to it don't need to know anything. The shrub has no accountability to the citizens of this country. He'll tell us what he's going to do with the remains of our future when he's good and ready.

Concluding his remarks on the budget came the following:

"The temptation is going to be ... to get me to negotiate with myself in public. To say, you know, 'What's this mean, Mr. President? What's that mean?' I'm not going to do that," Bush said. "The law will be written in the halls of Congress. And I will negotiate with them, with the members of Congress."

What?? What is this -- some new level of schizodom? Does Bushy need his meds? His megalomaniacal tendencies are showing, too.

President Bush defended Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war on Monday and said training Iraqi police and army to take over responsibility for the country's security from U.S. troops has been difficult...

Several Republican lawmakers have expressed doubts about Rumsfeld's performance and many Democrats want him fired, but Bush rejected such criticism.

"I believe he's doing a really fine job," Bush said.

"Sometimes, perhaps his demeanor is rough and gruff. But below that rough and gruff, no-nonsense demeanor is a good human being who cares deeply about the military and deeply about the grief that war causes," Bush said.

Rumsfeld did not sign condolence letters to the families of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, having them machine-signed, instead. Bush's aides said personally signs condolence letters he sends to the bereaved.

On relations with Russia, Bush said he would not let policy differences undercut close relations with President Vladimir Putin, despite the Russian's recent moves seen by critics as potentially damaging to democracy. They plan to meet Feb. 24 in Slovakia as part of a Bush Europe tour, a U.S. official said.

"As you know, Vladimir Putin and I have got a good personal relationship. ... I intend to keep it that way," Bush said. "Obviously we have some disagreements. ... But this is a vital and important relationship."

Isn't it heartwarming to see how the fascistatolitarian boys stick together? All for one and one for all! Maybe Bushy should let Saddam out of the slammer so he can hang with Bush and the boys.

Bushy did stoop to admit that things are going all that great in the War on Iraq:

Bush is often accused of sugarcoating the Iraq situation, but at his 17th solo news conference he talked at length about the difficulties facing the country as it prepares for Jan. 30 elections that the insurgents are trying to derail.

"These people are targeting innocent Iraqis. They're trying to shake the will of the Iraqi people and, frankly, trying to shake the will of the American people. And car bombs that destroy young children or car bombs that indiscriminately bomb in religious sites are effective propaganda tools," he said.

Car bombers struck the Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Sunday, killing 66 people.

Bush said "life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein" in the year since Saddam was captured but that "it's important for the American people to understand" that the Jan. 30 elections are only the start of a political process that will see a constitutional government elected in a year.

Who did they survey to determine life is better now? The upper echelons of the Defense Department?

Ain't it strange how the prez allows "policy difference" in some parts of the world and not others?

The President acknowledged the central U.S. goal of training Iraqi police and army so U.S. troops can leave has had mixed results.

"There have been some cases where, when the heat got on, they left the battlefield. That's unacceptable," Bush said.

You mean those Iraqis won't stand up and be shot to please the White House and Rummy?

He would not give a timetable on when U.S. troops might return home but said top U.S. generals are "optimistic and positive about the gains we're making."

Yeah, yeah. I wonder which top generals?

Oh, don't even bother to ask.

Addendum 12-21-04: Sigh. This is the 'moral prez, keeping those Christian values.' Oh, yeah. I can hear the snickering wafting up from the bowels of hell.