Newsboys - Something Beautiful Lyrics

I wanna start it over
I wanna start again
I want a new a new beginning
One without any end
I feel it inside
Calling out to me

CHORUS
It's a voice that whispers my name
It's a kiss without any shame
Something beautiful
Like a song that stirs in my head
Singing love will take us where
Something's beautiful

I've heard it in the silence
Seen it on a face
I've felt it in a long hour
Like a sweet embrace
I know this is true
It's calling out to me

CHORUS
It's a voice that whispers my name
It's a kiss without any shame
Something beautiful
Like a song that stirs in my head
Singing love will take us where
Something's beautiful

It's the child on her wedding day
It's the daddy that gives her away--Father
Something beautiful
When we laugh so hard we cry
It's the love between you and I
Something beautiful

Why we seem to never get anything done at work... and then have to do it all at home.

Great poster work from eBoy -

http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/category/posters/

Bishop Whalon, of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe, has written an excellent and I think very important opinion piece on Anglicans Online.

It is entitled, "What We Think We Are Doing," by The Rt Revd Pierre W. Whalon, D.D.

Basically, he says in very strong terms that this Church of ours has gotten the cart before the horse when dealing with the issue of the full-inclusion of gay and lesbian people. Because there has not been a clear and faithfully formulated theology supporting the relationships of gay people leading to their full-inclusion, we are acting unjustly and unfaithfully as a Church when we ordain partnered clergy and bless unions.

We have acted politically, not theologically, and we have done all this before we are able to make a cogent and thorough theological defense - particularly since we are changing the universal Church's understanding from the beginning.

Here are the two final paragraphs:

Finally, I am quite aware that changing a part of the church's teaching may be in error, and that those leaders who lead others astray will fall under God's judgment. I do not expect to get handed one day a millstone with my initials on it fitted to my neck size, so to speak, but those are the stakes, and we need to own up to it. Moreover, as a matter of justice, not to mention love, it is simply wrong, that is, unjust and unloving, to continue as a church to live into a new teaching without giving clear reasons—carefully argued and officially accepted by our own church—for doing so. While justice delayed is justice denied, the global scope of our actions is in fact hindering the acceptance of gay and lesbian people elsewhere.

Some have said that the moratoria will end when we act to end them. Such an action, undefended, would only perpetuate the present anomie, and raise a real question about a “General-Convention fundamentalism”—“the majority voted it, therefore God said it, and that settles it.” Rather, we need to continue to keep "gracious restraint" until we have done the necessary work in order to end it. We do not have to wait for the rest of the Communion to approve our arguments, of course. But it is terrible that we as a church have continued to avoid that work, and all therefore continue to pay a heavy price, both within and without The Episcopal Church. If we go on blessing same-sex unions and consecrating people in those partnered relationships, and yet continue to refuse to do that work, will that mean that we cannot justify our actions? And if we cannot, then what — in God's name — do we think we're doing?

How often I hear these days that "the Church must change or die." I think this kind of talk comes generally from people bent on institutional survival when things don't look very good for the coming years. Funny thing, most of them seem to be anti-establishmentarians. I think it comes more from a place of insecurity and a lack of assurance that the Tradition has any longer much to say to contemporary culture. I could be wrong. I think they are wrong.

Of course organizations and institutions change. But the question I have to ask is what must change - everything, organizational structure, teaching, belief, attitude, expression, etc... Perhaps all, perhaps one, perhaps none.

Here's the thing... When I hear that "the 'top-down' authority structures have to change or else the Church will die." I don't believe it. Why? Because the world totally functions within a "top-down" authority structure. There is nothing wrong with it, but then again there is nothing pre-ordained about it either. It simply is, and it is neutral. When I read or hear this kind of assertion, what I come away with is an experience of bad leadership. Rather than focus on helping leaders - be they priests, bishops, CEO's, mayors, or any other authority of rank - be better leaders (which isn't easy, I know), we would rather tare down the structure and replace it with what?, something we imagine will be better?

Here's another thing... When I hear that "the teaching of the Church must change or it will die!" I don't believe it. Why? Because the core teachings of the Church have flourished, when given an chance, in more cultures and languages than can be counted for over 2,000 years. There is something reliable there, folks. I think the panic comes from people who have lost their sense of imagination. Of course, there have been a whole lot of adiaphora forced onto the Church from centuries past that was (is) never necessary, and these things should perhaps be let go of, but this is a different matter.

What the Church and its members do need to do is learn from the enduring understandings and experiences of the Church in Christ and from the lives of countless Christians over two millennia. Too many of us, I think, have a somewhat vague notion of what a Christian is supposed to be like intellectually, but too many of us do not have the experience of God that enabled martyrs to endure their suffering and death, the down trodden to endure their hardship with a semblance of self respect, the grieving to somehow have joy, the pained to rejoice. This knowledge comes only through relationship, however too many of us have dysfunctional relationships with God. The problem is that we too often demand to stay in our dysfunction. God has other ideas, however, but He will respect our decisions.

What the Church does need to do, I humbly assert (and of course the Church is only individual people), what we need to do is learn how to translate the Faith and the Tradition and the Experience that have endured for all these centuries to emerging generations.

Our problem is a translation problem! Our problem is that we don't translate or reflect the imago Dei very well in these times and in our own contexts. Many do, of course, and they don't seem to have the same kind of "change everything" panic that tares at the heart of what enlivens the Church and enables Christians to be.

Shrove Tuesday, as it was explained:

The day before the beginning of Lent is known as Shrove Tuesday. To shrive someone, in old-fashioned English (he shrives, he shrove, he has shriven or he shrives, he shrived, he has shrived), is to hear his acknowledgement of his sins, to assure him of God's forgiveness, and to give him appropriate spiritual advice. The term survives today in ordinary usage in the expression "short shrift". To give someone short shrift is to pay very little attention to his excuses or problems. The longer expression is, "to give him short shrift and a long rope," which formerly meant to hang a criminal with a minimum of delay.

Another Valentine's Day passes.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave the Presidential address to the Church of England's General Synod, yesterday.

Of particular interest, aside from his more balanced thinking on the whole LGBT issue and of the troubles within the Anglican Communion, of particular interest to me was his explanation of the distinctiveness of the Christian understanding and definition of freedom and liberty. (this starts around the 17:51 minute mark)

I also find very interesting his presentation of the concept of "three-dimensional thinking." In many ways, he is presenting something that should be natural for Anglicans - really it is a re-presenting of the Via Media extended beyond the original middle way between Roman Catholicism and the Continental Reformation.

"Seeing something in three dimensions is seeing that I can't see everything at once: what's in front of me is not just the surface I see in this particular moment... So seeing in three dimensions requires us to take time with what we see. It may help us look more critically at solutions that seek to do too much all at once; and perhaps to search for structures that will keep open the ability to learn from each other." (Source)

This is something I want to thank more about.

Another big snow storm is supposedly upon us. Friends of mine in Baltimore said they measured three feet from the last storm. We, in Brooklyn, lost out. We got barely a dusting. This time, however, may be different. The weather guy said last night that we could get 8-12 inches. I'll believe it when I see it. Snow is falling at this point...

I have been mulling over in my mind how this blog might take shape in the future. As I have always intended, it is a place for me to "dump" things to which I can return later - to keep track of links or quotes or ideas and to "think out loud" as I try to figure out this crazy world of ours. I've been doing less "thinking out loud" and more posting of quotes.

I thought that I might us this space to chronicle this new ministry project in which I find myself. It is the creation of something completely new from scratch, from the ground up. It makes me nervous, but also excited. Getting used to doing ministry full-time is challenging. For the past 4 3/4 years, I've been a working priest. I've worked full-time and then did ministry during my "down" hours. I worked two jobs, and that was very frustrating. Months would go by and I would have no days off. It wore me out... it is an unhealthy way to live. Now, for these past three weeks, my job is my ministry. I don't quite know what to do with myself. I feel guilty spending hours in a row planning or reading or thinking about the work of a priest and the work of the Gospel of Christ in this blistered world of ours.

Society and culture is changing so quickly. As a tech-guy, I love the advances in technology and what they allow us to do - and be. But, the changes that are going on go far deeper than just the advancement of technology and our use of the new technology. My mind whirls when I think of the possibilities of the iPad (and like instruments), but my mind shutters at the thought of what is developing within the hearts and minds of people. The changes go to the heart of who we think we are and how we deal with one another. Technology may augment or finder aspects of that deeper reality, but technology is neutral - it is we that change. (Should I use "us" there instead of "we"? I'll be lazy and not use the technology to investigate the correct grammatical usage. My failure, not the technology's failure!)

Add to this the "gift" of the last generation that pulled us away from any mooring or tether to anything tried or solid to help ground us in something other than the immediate, the trendy, the superficial... as we stumble along trying to find our way unable to receive and recognize the lessons from lives past.

The next twenty years should be amazing, from the standpoint of a neutral observer of people and society. I don't know were we will be, and I think few people will be able to imagine where we will be. These are strange times, as if all times are not strange, but these truly are fundamentally strange times.

As people who deal with people who are living out their lives in "real time" and as people who talk amongst ourselves a lot, I keep hearing from priests that something just isn't right. Something strange is doing on in the underlying strata of our society and lives. There has been some sort of turning, and we can't at this point quite figure out to what. Some say they think we will enter into a new Dark-Ages. Some say they think we may be coming close to an end of the age of democracy. I don't know - that may all be extreme. Something, however, is certainly up.

In the changing and the new contexts, where is the Gospel? Where are the people who live lives so rooted in the Way of Christ that the image people see in them, in us, is something profoundly different than what is "imaged" or seen in most worldlings?

The way we live out our Faith in the coming days will have little in common with what has been commonly experienced in this country since its inception. These are heady times, these are challenging times, these are times that will look in many ways far more like pre-Constantinian times that post (our recognizable times). How do we navigate these coming days?

The snow is falling hard, now. Perhaps we will have a big snowfall, after all.

The "Unholy Trinity of the False Self:"

- I am what I do
- I am how much I do
- I am how well I do

-Michael Hryniuk, in Growing Souls: Experiments in Contemplative Youth Ministry, Mark Yaconelli.

"A friend of mine attended a Christian pastor's conference in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The participants, gathered from across North America, included one Native American pastor who was on is first trip to a major metropolitan city. During a lunch break the Native American pastor took a walk outside with one of his colleagues. As they stretched their legs along the busy sidewalk, the pastor suddenly stopped, turned to his companion and said, 'Do you hear that?' the friend paused and considered the bustling noise of the city. 'Hear what?' he replied.

"Planted along the downtown sidewalk was a small row of tress. At the base of each tree was a circle of flowers. The pastor walked over to one of the trees, knelt down, reached beneath one of the floral clusters, then stood and opened his hand, revealing a small black bug. 'It's a cricket.'

"Dumbfounded, his friend replied, 'How could you possibly hear that?' The Native American pastor reached into his pants pocket, took out a handful of coins, and threw them into the air. As the coins hit the cement, people from all directions stopped and looked down. The pastor turned to his companion and said, 'It depends on what you're listening for.'

"In the New Testament Jesus identifies his followers not as those who hold orthodox beliefs or embody moral purity. Jesus says his followers are those who have 'ears to hear' (Mark. 4:23) -those who walk with heads tilted, straining to hear the voice of the 'good shepherd' (John 10:14). Jesus claims that those who know how to listen will one day hear the voice of the Beloved and will overcome death (John 5:25).

"Sadly, the Christian church is losing its capacity to listen. we forget what it means to sit still, to be silent, and to wait until we hear the voice of the One who calls us by name. We're losing our capacity to be surprised and amazed by what we hear. We've become a church more responsive to the predictable clinking sounds of the marketplace than the surprising still, small voice of God. Instead of heeding the call to 'be still before the Lord, and wait patiently,' we 'fret' and worry and 'plot' (Psalm 37). Driven by our own fearful voices we run ahead of grace, frantically seeking a plan, a strategy, a formula for securing a Christian life. A culture that no longer listens to God becomes increasingly noisy. Every idea must be exploited, every insight publicized, every sermon downloaded, every passing thought blogged and posted. We live in a time when everyone is talking at once -a time when the truth isn't hidden, but drowned out in a sea of irrelevance."

-(Mark Yaconelli (2007), Growing Souls: Experiments in Contemplative Youth Ministry. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p 17-18)

While this book is directed to American-Evangelicals (primarily), I see within the Episcopal Church, which has much more of a tradition of contemplative worship and Daily Prayer, that we too have been so distracted by the "marketplace" of ideas and ideologies that overwhelm not only our ability to listen to one another, but to listen to the still, small voice - to sense and feel the thrilling of God's voice.

[The Rector said...] "Here is a book. It is so much paper, pasteboard, cloth, and ink. Yet it brings from one mind a value to thousands of minds. It is sacramental, an outward and visible sign of inward value. A book may make you cry or laugh. Really it is the author who does so. The book is the effective means of conveying truth from the mind of the author to the reader.

"So with our food. A few acres of land will sustain a man's life. How? Does he eat the earth? No! But he prepares it and plants wheat. He gathers the wheat, grinds it into flour, bakes bread and eats the bread. The loaf has gathered up the chemical elements in the earth and air and sunlight, and conveys them to man to sustain his life. The loaf is a sacrament: it is the outward token of invisible values.

"God's grace toward man, His love toward man, are universal. But He has established certain ways by which men may be assured of God's favor. Jesus Christ ordained the Sacrament of Baptism by which men are incorporated into His Kingdom.

"Jesus Christ died for men. That men might receive the value of His life and death. He instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Communion.

"The consecrated bread and wine are made the very sacraments of the value created for men by the death of Christ on the Cross, and they are the very means by which the power and efficacy of His body broken and His blood shed are conveyed to each individual soul.

"Of course, he who receives them must receive them with a heart prepared to accept them for what they are. There is no magic in them. The individual must be prepared to welcome Christ, His power and love, into his life. The Bread and Wine then become the food for the soul, by which we become partakers of Christ's most blessed Body and Blood.

"Then the sacrament, instead of being an unusual and exceptional method," said the Doctor, "is merely the most natural method, having a counterpart in every process by which life is upbuilt."

"That is quit true," answered the Rector. "The exceptional element is not the method, that is, the charging of bread and wine with some further function, but the exceptional thing is the nature of the value that is conveyed by them. Christ instituted this method and pledged His word that in the Holy Communion there should be the value created by His death on the Cross for men."

[The Episcopal Church: Its Message for Men of Today, George Parkin Atwater; New York: Morehourse-Gorham Co., 1950; 85-87.]

On Facebook, I posted this working theses:

In the coming decades, society will look more pre-Constantinian than post. The majority unchurched population will not be intrigued by or drawn to the Gospel if all they see in Christians is a reflection of current culture, liberal or conservative. To be a people in the imago Dei, Christians will need... to recognize our distinct "otherness" in our formation. What does that mean? How will it be done?

A former seminary mate of mine responded: "It's like Michele's friend said: if you want to know if a person is a Christian, ask their neighbor. "

I absolutely agree, but... The problem in our current situation is that common, disinterested people are not particularly impressed with the lives of their neighbors who claim to be "Christians." (see "unChristian" for examples). What has to change at very fundamental levels within our churches and our individual lives that will causes us to be more reflective of Christ rather than culture?

The Gospel of Christ and the consequent life He calls us to is are profoundly disturbing and counter cultural. Are we too embarrassed or afraid, in the arrogate, to take on such a life? Are we to enamored with mammon? Are we too deceived? Too lazy? What???? These, of course, are questions that have been bantered around since the beginning, but what do they mean in our contexts and in our time?

Many people - Christians, non-Christians, Atheists, and the like - assert that the Christian holiday of Christmas was stolen by early Christians from a pagan holiday and that early Christians made to be their own in order to promote their new religion.

No so, according to William J. Tighe, then Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. His refutation of the Christmas-pagan myth appeared in Touchstone magazine, December 2003, entitled, "Calculating Christmas."

Calculating Christmas

William J. Tighe on the Story Behind December 25

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.

A Mistake

The idea that the date was taken from the pagans goes back to two scholars from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Paul Ernst Jablonski, a German Protestant, wished to show that the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th was one of the many “paganizations” of Christianity that the Church of the fourth century embraced, as one of many “degenerations” that transformed pure apostolic Christianity into Catholicism. Dom Jean Hardouin, a Benedictine monk, tried to show that the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals for Christian purposes without paganizing the gospel.

In the Julian calendar, created in 45 B.C. under Julius Caesar, the winter solstice fell on December 25th, and it therefore seemed obvious to Jablonski and Hardouin that the day must have had a pagan significance before it had a Christian one. But in fact, the date had no religious significance in the Roman pagan festal calendar before Aurelian’s time, nor did the cult of the sun play a prominent role in Rome before him.

Read the rest here...

Here is a synopsis of the article by Tighe:

Continue reading "Christmas is a stolen Pagan Holiday..." »

This quote from, Looking for God in Harry Potter (second edition), by John Granger (yes, Granger):

"'He understood at last what Dumbledore had bent trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledoor knew - and so do I, thought Harry with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world.' (Rowling, Half-Blood Prince, 512)

"If the reader wants to believe in an existential fatalism, something like Harry sitting at the window staring into the darkness and doubting the arrival of his deliverance, rather than in mortal virtue and heroic choice of the good, that reader is fighting the tide of Rowling's message. The human heart thrills in resonance to Harry's heroic decisions - decisions made (until Dumbledore's revelations at the end of Order of the Phoenix) without knowledge of his destiny. Readers around the world share his programming, it seems, to the tune of more than 300 million copies [as of the publishing date of 2006] of Harry's stories being sold. If this is only a matter of programming, there seems a prevalent programming in the human person for sacrificial, altruistic, loving service that loyalty to the local gene pool does not explain. Why do we thrill to Harry's choices if they're just a function of his being the boy born to be 'kind?' (see http://www.mugglenet.com/jkinterview.shtml)

"The answer to this question brings us to the Christian meaning of choice and change in Harry Potter. Harry, it turns out, has a larger-than-life destiny (vanquish Voldemort; save the world). But he can only realize this destiny by making the right choices and becoming the sort of person - an embodiment of love, the power the Dark Lord knows not - able to defeat the Dark Lord."

Consider the influences these books have had and will have on a generation?

Joshua Jameshttp://www.joshuajames.tv/ target="_blank

I first learned that song in 1990 while doing campus ministry with Studenten für Christus in Germany. Es klingt auf Deutsch besser, ich denke. (Someone mentioned it in Facebook and it got me thinking about it... memories!)

Herr, das Licht Deiner Liebe leuchtet auf,
strahlt inmitten der Finsternis für uns auf.
Jesus, Du Licht der Welt sende uns Dein Licht.
Mach uns frei durch die Wahrheit, die jetzt anbricht.
Sei mein Licht, sei mein Licht!

Jesus, Dein Licht
füll dies Land mit des Vaters Ehre.
Komm Heil`ger Geist,
setz die Herzen in Brand!
Fließ Gnadenstrom,
überflute dies Land mit Liebe!
Sende Dein Wort,
Herr, Dein Licht strahle auf.

Herr, voll Ehrfurcht komm`ich zu Deinem Thron,
aus dem Dunkel ins Licht des Gottessohns.
Durch Dein Blut kann ich nun vor Dir stehen.
Prüf mich, Herr, laß mein Dunkel vergehen.,
sei mein Licht, sei mein Licht!

Jesus, Dein Licht
füll dies Land mit des Vaters Ehre.
Komm Heil`ger Geist,
setz die Herzen in Brand!
Fließ Gnadenstrom,
überflute dies Land mit Liebe!
Sende Dein Wort,
Herr, Dein Licht strahle auf.

Schau`n wir, König, zu Deinem Glanze auf,
dann strahlt Dein Bild auf unserm Antlitz auf.
Du hast Gnade um Gnade gegeben.
Dich widerspiegelnd erzähl`unser Leben
von Deinem Licht, von Deinem Licht!

Jesus, Dein Licht
füll dies Land mit des Vaters Ehre.
Komm Heil`ger Geist,
setz die Herzen in Brand!
Fließ Gnadenstrom,
überflute dies Land mit Liebe!
Sende Dein Wort,
Herr, Dein Licht strahle auf.

Originaltitel: Shine Jesus Shine
Deutsch: Manfred Schmidt

The beginning of the year 2010... 2010 years in the designation of time that began with the life and death (and resurrection) of a Nazarene. (If the claim of resurrection was made then, I doubt time would have been designated different then the current method.) In these days of global plurality, it is often called CE or the "Common Era." A.D. or "anno domini," "the year of our Lord," has fallen out of favor.

With the coming of each new year, there is a kind of optimism (hopefully) that the days ahead will be better than the days behind. I certainly feel this way. Sometimes, I know that the coming year will yield some very different experiences and outcomes - I will be changed. This is one of those years.

I will be changed through the experiences of the coming months, and I'm honestly excited to see how I've changed by this time next year. This is my last week at CPG. With the coming of next week, I take up my new position as Diocesan Missioner for the Red Hook Project and ImagoDei. What all that means, I have no clue at this point. I will be responsible for making it mean something and doing something that will benefit the cause of Christ in the Diocese of Long Island. I've nervous. I'm excited. I'm afraid. I'm expectant.

I will not be the same person I am right now at the beginning of 2011. By the grace of God, I will be more of the kind of person I was created to be, more able to love honestly, less hypocritical, more humble in my understanding of myself and the world around me, wiser to the ways of the Systems of this World and the Kingdom of God, and having a good and beneficial influence on those in my life - to be more fully the imago Dei to those around me. This is my hope.

Because we are called to love one another, we seek to learn from the wisdom and the experiences of God of those who have come before us over the past two millennia.

Because we are called to love one another, we strive to be formed as God intends in order to pass on this wisdom and these experiences to those who will come after us.

The foundation for the developing Rule of Life for the ImagoDei Society and the Red Hook Project.

"... I believe in the Holy Catholic Church: The Communion of Saints: The Forgiveness of Sins: The Resurrection of the Body: and The Life everlasting. Amen."

"I am not sure that I understand all that it means," said the Doctor.

"Possibly not at the first reading," agreed the Rector, "for there are several phrases here whose meaning is not quite apparent. A little patient study, however, will make them plain. I always explain these phrases to those who enter my confirmation classes.

"You must understand, Doctor," continued the Rector, "that this Creed is centuries old. It is the collective judgment of the Christian Church as to the fundamental facts. It is as much a corporate expression of the whole Church as it is a personal expression. An individual might not understand all the bearings of these facts. He would scarcely be expected to believe the Creed as the independent conclusions of his own thinking. He might never have discovered some of these facts by himself. The heart of the Creed is this. First, that God is the Father: that Jesus Christ is His Son and was born into this world and died for men; and that the Holy Spirit of God is now active and present to bring men into relation with God. If all that you feel about God and Christ is toward these conclusions, then you may, with real integrity, say you believe facts of the Apostle's Creed. No man can do more than believe toward this great expression of fundamental Christianity."

"But it does not explain anything," urged the Doctor.

"It does not. But it is an expression of allegiance toward God and Christ. The teaching Church instructs the attentive mind. But this teaching, as I said, imposes no obligation except as all truth demands credence by its very nature. What I mean is that in the Episcopal Church you do not commit yourself beforehand to a body of doctrine which prevents your own thinking. The Creed does not restrain your liberty of thought, but enlarges it by giving you some basis of fact upon which thought may exercise itself. You have complete intellectual freedom in the Church.

Continue reading "The Apostles Creed (pp. 76-81 )" »