O, No, Canada!!

After Pentecost is supposed to be the "green" season. But apparently, if you are in the Anglican Church of Canada, this is the "yellow" season. The General Synod meeting in Halifax decided not to decide anything on blessing of same-sex marriages. You can read it HERE. The statement is the usual blah blah blah that is commonly used to defend a defenseless position of maintaining a pattern of discrimination. How I interpret the Synod's statement: "We're frightened of the big hairy scary man in England who is threatening to take away our chance to attend the keg parties with the other purple dudes, and so we'll just quiver in our boots and tell the queers, 'Not at this time' and hope they aren't offended."

Well, sorry, but I am offended. Probably every gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person is offended. And hurt. And frustrated. Queers can get married legally in Canada. The government says it's OK. But the Anglican Church can't go along with this and offer to bless those self-same marriages?

The paragraph in the statement that grabbed my attention:
We are deeply aware of the cost to people whose lives are implicated in the consequences of an ongoing discernment process. This is not just an ‘issue’ but is about people’s daily lives and deeply held faith commitments. For some, even this statement represents a risk. For some the statement does not go nearly far enough.

And for some... we are tired of your statements and your "deep awareness". If you are that deeply aware, then you'd realize that continuing to hold a group of people off to the side as "other" is not a Christian act!

If I'm "deeply aware" of anything it's the place of the Episcopal Church in all of this. Our ECUSA is obviously going to have to go it alone. Peace be with us!

Yes, Virginia: There is Good News

From the Falls Church News-Press:

In a stunning development this morning, the Virginia Supreme Court issued a decision reversing a lower court ruling that favored the ability of breakaway congregations to occupy Episcopal Church properties. The ruling will have profound consequences for occupancy of the historic Falls Church in the downtown of the City of Falls Church.

Since the vote by a majority of congregants of the Falls Church in 2006 to join the Rev. John Yates and to defect from the Episcopal Church denomination, the Falls Church has been occupied by Yates and his followers, who subsequently aligned with a group of like-minded defectors known as CANA (Council of Anglicans in North America). Those members of the Falls Church who did not align with the defectors were denied access to the church property, and held their allegiance to the wider Episcopal communion while being forced to worship off-site as guests of the nearby Falls Church Presbyterian Church.

Read the complete story HERE.

I am sure this comes as a great relief and celebration for those who have remained Episcopalian in Falls Church and the other parishes affected in Northern Virginia!

It must have been very painful to have been denied access to the place that had come to be their church home, and then to have it occupied by schismatic squatters must have been even worse.

So now the lower court will have to reassess, based on real estate and contract law, who gets to have the buildings and property that have an estimated market value between 30-40 million dollars. I think the answer is plain: they go with the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, and those who are aligned with CANA are kicked to the curb. I'm sure there is some vacant strip mall storefront somewhere that will be happy for their "orthodox" occupancy.

This case is likely to be appealed. So I'm sure we haven't heard the end of it. But at least on this day the Episcopal faithful in Northern Virginia can smile. Thanks be to God!

Late to the Party

And so it has begun. The Archbishop of Canterbury with the help of his Secretary General has set the wheel in motion to hook up the Episcopal Church to the back of the pick-up truck and take us for a drag through the mud. Others have written more expertly on this topic, most especially Fr. Mark Harris at PRELUDIUM. I have lost interest in Pope Rowan I, our Presiding Bishop has decided she is no longer amused by his "new Pentecost", and the Canadians seem to be siding with us in this latest round of "Let's Make God in Our Image".
The ABC has decided that including us makes things too messy. We aren't going to be allowed to sit at the adult table anymore because we believe that God calls all kinds of people into service, and that's just childish, isn't it?
Pope Rowan I knows what God likes. He knows what God wants. And he knows that any church that allows women and gays to don the purple shirts is not anybody he wants to be forced to sit with at the table.
Because that's what God's all about, right? Exclusion? Wrong!
I have said it over and over: there is nothing, NOTHING, in the Bible that should lead a person who is seeking God to believe that they are not worthy of being found.
Archbishop's letter and subsequent follow up from the Secretary General: another cancer cell in the Body of Christ.

The Cancer in the Body of Christ

One of my Facebook friends posted this "gem" on her page this morning, and as you might imagine, it caused a stir.
I don't like church marquee signs as a general rule, and this one, from a church in Blacklick, OH, on the outskirts of Columbus, definitely wins in the highly-offensive category. The lyrics of the Katy Perry song it references are bad enough ("I kissed a girl just to try it. Hope my boyfriend don't mind it"); this sign adds additional insult and is yet another barrier designed to keep the LGBT community from knowing the love of God. Signs such as these don't just keep gay people away from Havens Corner Church; it repels them from Christianity as a whole.
Checking into the church's website, I learned that they "love God's Word and people". They want to "meet the spiritual needs of our community and provide opportunities for fellowship". They clearly believe that one must accept Jesus Christ to be saved, and be a member of the Allison family in order to lead (the pastors are father and son... with another son as the assistant music minister).
This marquee message is a symptom of what I believe is the cancer in the Body of Christ. That cancer being the noxious hatred of the LGBT community, and the use of homosexuality to conjure up fear and loathing among the faithful. Like cancer, this attitude and belief about gays spreads itself throughout the Body. Once inside, it kills off the healthy cells in the Body until it overwhelms the Body in the effort to destroy it.
Any time Christians fall prey to the cancer of hatred of the "other", they are helping to spread a cancer. Pastors who preach using a song that is thought to be lesbian and then saying that leads to "Hell" are infecting the Body with cancer.
The motto of Havens Corner Church is "Finding and Feeding His Sheep". But if this sign is any indication of how they plan to do that, it might be better to say that they are finding and feeding some of the sheep to the wolves.

Blues for the Gulf

I have not written much about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Not because I am unconcerned and not because I haven't been thinking about it. Actually, I have had a war in my head around this whole issue. I am thinking about it, but the thoughts associated with it are so overwhelming that I feel paralyzed.
It really came to a head yesterday during the Prayers of the People portion of the service. It's "After Pentecost" so we are using Form IV... which includes the line:

Give us all a reverance for the earth as your own creation that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others and to your honor and glory.

I started to cry.

What have we done?! We have poisoned our water!!! Our ancestors knew the power and the precious nature of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved, and all of that. And here we are... one failed attempt after another at containing this leak... and talks that we won't get this thing under control until the fall. Meanwhile, the oil is choking the wetlands of Louisiana and Mississippi; washing up on beaches in Alabama and Florida; killing birds and sea life in the Gulf of all kinds. And the meager living of many coastal residents dependant on fishing and tourism is destroyed. And for what?

Greed. Our insatiable appetite for cheap oil. Such a desire that our state legislature actually thought about passing a bill to allow for off-shore drilling closer to our coast, a position that a decade ago would have resulted in the burning in effigy of the fool who would propose such an idea. Now, our governor has appointed a guy with ties to BP to advise the state on our legal recourse! You can read Julie Hauserman's article HERE.

Who is to blame? Well, it is easy to see British Petroleum as public enemy number one. And then there is our federal government that put corporate profits ahead of conservation. And then there is us: all of us who drive cars that use gasoline. We are the ones who make demands that an oil industry and an auto industry are all too happy to oblige if it means they can make some money. When are we going to learn to demand new sources of energy? When are we going to stop poking holes in our planet to suck out all that its got to give?

When will we take seriously that prayer that we are to have reverance for the earth as God's creation and use its resources rightly?

O Lord, make haste to help us.

Successful Surgery

I spoke with my mom's doctor yesterday and he explained the surgery. It would be either a vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty, he wouldn't know which until he was underway. I haven't learned yet what he ended up doing, but the basic premise is that the surgeon makes two insertions and then cements shut the crack that is in the spine.

He left a message on my phone that all had gone well in the procedure. And a good thing he did it, too. My mom's "crack" was apparently even larger than what had been revealed on the x-ray or CAT scan!

When I talked to her yesterday afternoon, she was still a little groggy, but was sitting up in a chair. She said that she still felt sore, but thought that normal given that she had just had an operation. The next question is whether she will be released today and sent home, or if they will recommend a stay at a rehab facility. I'm voting for the latter, so she can get the attention and the PT that she needs.

I am grateful to all of you for your prayers and offers of support. I know it helps! My mom... the Anonymous Peggins of Hurricane Peg fame... I hope will be back to right soon. I have found it perfectly her that throughout this ordeal, and even in the haze of morphine, she has managed to track the ups and downs of her beloved Boston Red Sox. Nothing, and I mean nothing, stands between her and baseball!

Peggins Update

My mother underwent a CAT scan at Portsmouth Hospital where they discovered a crack in her back at L1 (the area of the spine right below the rib cage). She has to have surgery; otherwise she will remain in pain for the rest of her life because there are too many nerve endings at that spot.
The nurse I spoke with explained, in layman's terms, that this surgery is not as dramatic as fusing discs, but it is still a surgery. It will involve an insertion at the point of the crack where the surgeon will--to put it in these terms--glue the crack shut.
I am not thrilled by any of this, but there is nothing that I can do from here besides pray and look for flights home.