Episcopal Relief and Development in Japan

Episcopal Relief and Development has announced plans to help the Anglican church in Japan. Check out the report at ERD.

40 Bags in 40 Days

This idea has floated around the blogosphere for a while ... as a Lenten discipline, try to remove a bag of clutter from your home every day for 40 days. People who are clutter-prone might need to try a large black garbage bag. For others, small grocery bags might do it.

Maybe you could take a week and call it "recycle" week. Have every bag that week be stuff that needs to go to the Recycling Center. Then a "Goodwill" week. Then a "Garage" week ... before you know it, you'll be ready for Easter, and your random, accumulated clutter from years of living in our consumption-driven society will be annihilated.

Spiritually, the practice is called purgation. As you purge your material clutter, ponder your spiritual clutter. Take time as you sort your stuff to sort through your "STUFF."

What IS it about Lent?

A parishioner recently asked these questions:

"Educate one of your sheep. I have no Catholic background and have no understanding of the significance of Ash Wednesday.



Why do we celebrate Ash Wednesday?

What do the ashes mean? (dust to dust, ashes to ashes) or something else?

What does Lent signify? Is it something specific in the Bible? Or is the 40-day period merely building on the 40 days Jesus wandered in the desert and was tempted by the devil?

Why no alleluias during Lent?"

I thought these were great questions, and probably questions many of us wonder about. Here is my reply:

Lent began sometime in the fourth century CE, as a period of preparation for adult baptisms at Easter. It also became a time of repentance for people who had been very bad and had been separated from the worshipping community because of their actions. The penitent people were sprinkled with ashes and dressed in hair shirts on Ash Wednesday, then sent out of the church to do acts of repentance and to fast. They were returned to the community on Maundy Thursday and publicly reunited with the church.

Then everyone sort of got on the devotional bandwagon -- not just candidates for baptism, or penitent sinners -- and began using the time of Lent as a way to prepare for observing the Triduum, which are the three days from Good Friday through to Easter. Intentional prayer, self-discipline and fasting were seen as ways to draw closer to God and to focus on the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection.

The fasting and ashes have Biblical backgrounds ... Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness, and ashes and sackcloth were a Biblical symbol of mourning and repentance. We are marked with ashes as a sign of our mortality (ashes to ashes, dust to dust) and as a sign of our need to accept our human limitations and predisposition to sin, and use that as inspiration to turn to God and deepen our relationship with God. The sign of the cross done in ash echoes the cross that was drawn on our foreheads in baptism, and the ashes are actually mixed with baptismal oil, so the cross of our bodily death and the cross of our eternal life are mixed together in that one gesture of drawing the ash on the forehead.

We drop the alleluias and other aspects of Easter celebration to mark this as a season of thoughtful preparation for Easter, and so when we bring out the alleluias on Easter, we will be so much happier to have them back.

I find in our culture that it is easy to have a cross-less Christianity ... all Easter and no Good Friday. Lent helps us remember that you can't have resurrection without something dying first. And it helps us refocus on Christ's sacrifice for us, that God loved us enough to participate in our human life, all the way to death and out the other side, in order to set us back into right relationship with God.

Basically, Lent is a time to remember that God is God. And we are not.

Sermon for tomorrow

Wednesday in Haiti

Fun in the sun, the hot, hot sun continues. The clinic, with Monica at her chair, continues to see patients. Audrey did exams on more than 500 children today at St. Pierre School. The flouride team treated more than 700 students. This is one sign of the earthquake's effects ... the people coming in from Port-au-Prince to move in with relatives in the country bring their children and swell the schools.

Eric is still hanging lights in the orphanage. He was playing soccer with the kids yesterday and took a spill in the gravel, cutting his chin. This morning there were at least three docs examining and irrigating the wound. He is fine.

I was with Doug on the away team today. We went to the school and church at Trianon, where more than 250 people came through to see the doctors. Until 2 p.m., I was the keeper of the door, and only once channeled my inner Roger Matthews. Young men were trying to slip into the line ahead of crippled old people and feverish babies, so I had a good yell at them, with the help of an interpreter.

In the afternoon, Audrey and I -- along with some other folks from the flouride team -- continued our English conversation sessions with teenagers and young adults from the St. Pierre church. A young man I have known for three trips now -- Alexei, really led the sessions. He is a wonderful teacher.

And here is part of the real damage of the quake. Once you acknowledge the terrible losses of life and limb, the long-range effects on these young people are going to doom a generation. Alexei is 24. The past two trips he has told me of his deep desire to attend university and become an Episcopal priest. Thanks to Pere Jeannot, he had taken ONE SEMESTER at university, beginning last fall. The university is now destroyed, with no immediate plans on how to restart, and Alexei is back in Mirebalais with nothing to do.

Or the girlfriend of Dr. Tony, the HOM clinic dentist. She has been helping in the dental suite this week. She was ONE SEMESTER away from graduating as a full-fledged dentist. And now she is in Mirebalais, almost a dentist, but not quite, with nothing to do.

There are also lingering stresses. One of our drivers, Isaiah, lost his wife in the quake. He is now a single parent of five little children. Pere Jeannot's wife jumped from a balcony with their three children as the building fell. Her injured foot is almost better, but she still refuses to sleep indoors. The backyard of the rectory is a little campground of tents. When the wind blows, suddenly and hard, everyone at the clinic gets nervous, because apparently there was a sudden wind just before the quake, and everyone is afraid it will happen again.

Everyone is grateful for prayers. But soon it will be time to begin to imagine solutions for some of these problems. As the Rev. Lauren Stanley told us last month, Haiti is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Some of this will require lots of money, lots of ingenuity, and lots of commitment over a long time to repair.

+ Kit

Tuesday in Haiti

Can you say hot? Can you say tired? Everyone is working hard in the heat. The clinic is seeing a steady stream of patients. No evidence of earthquake related injuries, just the usual round of chronic conditions relating to malnutrition and lack of health care. The children are beautiful ... they always are.

Doug is out on the mobile team in Noyeux today. They have to take four by fours, ford streams, and set up shop under tarps in a field. Audrey is amusing the children at Trianon school with the mobile flouride team. Eric is off climbing on some roof somewhere and I am trying not to watch. Monica is reveling in the dental suite. If she had seen it even two years ago, she would be even more amazed. It is good to see a patient and be able to refer them to follow-up with Dentist Tony in a few weeks.

We had a hand surgeon join us on the trip, Dr. Joe Feilla. He was able to get a ride to the Partners in Health center in Cange, where they have patients lined up for him. We can't wait for him to come back Thursday night and tell us all about it.

Internet access is erratic, so I will update as I can, but it may not be every day. Know that we are well and working hard. Keep us in prayer.

+ Kit

Sunday in Haiti

All of us have arrived safely. We spent yesterday unloading the clinic. All Saints was there in every pack of Rolaids and every bottle of Children's Tylenol that we unpacked, sorted and stowed away. This is a smaller team this year ... half the size of last year's trip, and we are focusing on getting through our regular mission work without the dominating presence of Roger Matthews. It is different, but Dominique is holding up well and all of us are willingly working together.

Monica is delighted beyond belief with the excellent condition of the dental room. A full time dentist employed by HOM has been seeing patients regularly. She has set up her equipment and is excited to see patients, beginning tomorrow.

Doug will be on the traveling medical clinic that is going out into the countryside to do basic medical care. Audrey will go with the flouride team into schools to do preliminary exams of the children for possible referral to the clinic. Eric is working with the construction guys. But we are all flexible, and any of this could change.

Pere Jeannot's family is still living outside in tents in his back yard. His wife was in their home in Port au Prince during the earthquake and jumped with the children to safety from the balcony. She is still shaken by the experience and so far feels more comfortable out of doors. Our construction team has looked at all the buildings and there are no more than superficial cracks, so we are all sleeping well, some in the Hotel Mirage, and some in the St. Louis rectory.

We did not see much earthquake damage on the way out from the airport ... although at the airport, the main terminal is unusable and we cleared customs in a cargo shed. The main damage is in the city center, which we do not ever see. Out in the countryside, things appear much the same.

Today church lasted 3 hours, but we all had an excellent time. There was lots of good music, and I preached with Dominique translating. We had special prayers for Roger. Pere Jeannot's three-year-old son, Olivier, joined us for the procession and spent some time wandering around on the altar or helping the musicians. He is getting very big!

Love to all, and I will post again if I can get to a working computer. Keep us in prayer.

-- Pere Kit

On Our Way to Haiti

We are in the airport in Miami, waiting to board the flight to Port-au-Prince. Doug Powe and Eric Hegg should already be there, having traveled separately yesterday, slept in Ft. Lauderdale and gotten on their Haiti flights early this morning. They will have to wait as the rest of us straggle in on our various flights throughout the day. By 4 p.m. or so we should be on the road to Mirebalais, God and the crazy customs situation willing.

It is good to reconnect with old friends from previous trips and to meet new friends joining us for the first time. All of us are in pretty good spirits. Of course, we are still safely in America, swathed with the comforting sounds of CNN on the airport TVs, the vast array of junk food spread out around us, resting in air conditioning that is maybe just a tiny bit too cold.

All of this is not what it will be like in Port-au-Prince.

So what really happens in the Eucharist?

The short answer is ... we don't know.

However, I understand that there was a lot of discussion following Carrie Euler's presentation on Eucharistic controversies during the Reformation. People want to know... well, what do we think now?

It would be easy to take the dodge offered by (or attributed to) Elizabeth I:

Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it,
And what that Word doth make it,
That I believe, and take it.

But we ought to be able to do some theological exploration around this. What do we think is happening in the Eucharist?

For now, I offer you this short essay I wrote some years ago on the matter. Later, we can talk more.


Peace,

Kit


I believe that Christ is the Word of God, and that as that Word, Christ is made manifest throughout the entire Eucharistic action. Humans use words and gestures to communicate with each other; if God wants to communicate with humans, as we believe God does, what better way than to use the means of human communication, words and gestures, speech and symbols? And what better way to enter into full communication with humanity than in the Incarnation, by becoming an embodied human being, able to understand us by living as one of us, able to communicate with us by being one of us, using the media of our world – words and gestures, speech and symbols, to speak with us?

As God revealed God’s self to the Israelites, they began to set that revelation into words that described the history of their encounters with God. First the Law, the sacred covenant that outlined the nature of their relationship with the Creator. Then the Prophets, who interpreted Israel’s life with God against the backdrop of the Law and called Israel to true relationship with God. Then the Writings, the prayers and songs and wisdom and stories that described the everyday nature of life with the One God. These writings grew out of Israel’s liturgies of worship, and once written down, were used in Israel’s liturgies of worship in a mutually interpreting feedback loop of revelation and praise.

But to communicate effectively with humanity and to enter fully into human life and to redeem it, that Word became enfleshed, we believe, in the man Jesus of Nazareth. In his life on earth, Jesus used the media of human communication – words and actions – to combat evil in all its forms. In his death on the cross, Jesus used the entire medium of human life to conquer evil once and for all. Following his resurrection, his ongoing Body in the world, the Church, also used words and actions to retell this story of redemption, to recreate it for themselves in liturgical gestures and words that would make the truth of our redemption in Christ present to the community and to the world.

That is the story of our redemption that we re-tell and re-enact in every Eucharistic celebration – the story that is encoded in the Biblical narrative, the story that is re-told, re-taught, and offered in prayer during the entire Eucharistic liturgy. And I think that this is no mere memorial or remembrance of what Christ did. It is a liturgy that prays for God’s grace to enter into the gathered community so that it may become the Body of Christ in the world by feeding on the real Body of Christ we experience in the Word and in the Bread and Wine.

God is seeking us, God is reaching out to have a relationship with us, and we respond to God in faith when we hear that call. We first we hear that longing for relationship in the Word read in Scripture and unfolded for us in the Sermon. We hear the Biblical narrative, we hear the Word of God. When a word is spoken, it expresses a self-disclosure on the part of the speaker. When that word is the word of Scripture spoken in the Eucharistic liturgy, it is a self-disclosure on the part of God. It is God’s testimony to the truth that God loves us, God desires our relationship, God acts to redeem us so that we can share that relationship with God. We are confronted with God’s missionary Word, calling us into relationship. We respond in faith and prayer, opening our hearts so that we can encounter God in this Word. The Word calls us; the Word also stands over and against us, becoming the basis for our relationship with God, the ground for God’s judgment of our lives and behavior.

As we encounter this Word, as we respond in faith to the truth of God’s Testimony in that Word, we long for a deeper communion with God, a fuller encounter. God has already been made manifest to us in the proclamation of the saving Word and in our response to the truth of the Word’s testimony in prayer. Christ has already become present to us. But as with any loving relationship, the words also call for gestures, for touch, for embodiment, and so we move into the actions of the Eucharist seeking a deeper Encounter with God.

Macquarrie points out that in the Eucharistic liturgy, the presence of Christ is a personal one – in which communication takes place between two persons. But it is also a multiple one. Christ is present in the word which speaks his truth, in the priest who presides, since Christ is the presider at every Eucharist, in the gathered community, which is one body with him, and in the bread and wine which focus his presence for us (pp. 126, 127). We are embodied beings, and so we seek to touch God, to encounter an embodied God, and Christ bespoke Bread and Wine as the means by which God could be embodied after the physical form of Jesus was no longer present with us.

Bread and Wine are symbols of the sustenance we need to survive. When they become symbols of Christ present to us and with us, the elements’ function as purely physical sustenance become functional as spiritual sustenance as well. Christ could have chosen any physical element to embody himself for us. He chose Bread and Wine to speak his presence to us because they already speak to us. His choosing of Bread and Wine amplifies their symbolism of life-sustaining reality into a symbolism of the life-sustaining reality that is Christ himself.

With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Christ became present to everyone who believes in him. But the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist focuses Christ’s uncontainable presence in these elements. As embodied beings, we need to touch the Body of Christ, just as the disciples touched their risen Lord on Easter night (Luke 24:36 ff.). Focused in the elements of bread and wine, we touch Christ there, we feed on him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving, and we do it in profound unity and communion with Christ’s gathered Body, present there at the altar rail with us, present in the communion of saints with us, present in the final eschatological banquet with us. Time collapses in the Eucharist, all time is as one, and the icon that gives us the glimpse of that eternal banquet is the entire Eucharistic liturgy, building to the climactic communal moment in which we are united with each other and with the Holy Trinity by means of the sacramental eating and drinking.

So are the bread and wine changed into flesh and blood? I think God is bigger than that. It can’t be reduced to that. It also denies the reality of the Incarnation, when God became human, but did not change that human form. If we believe in the Incarnation, then we must believe that God uses the sacraments in the same way, entering, but not changing, some created stuff so that it can speak the Word to us, bear Testimony to us, create Encounter for us, so that we can be drawn in to the deep, self-giving communion of God’s love within God’s self, a love which cannot be contained, but which spills out to draw all of us into that deep, self-giving love.

Hope for Overwhelmed Moms

I am excited about the new MOPS group that will provide support and fellowship for mothers of children up through 6th grade. This group is open to the entire community, not only All Saints folks, and the first meeting is featuring a wonderful speaker.

Karen Hossink, an Okemos author, has written a book about her struggles with parenting and her growing awareness that the challenge of child-rearing is making her the woman God believes her to be. The book is called "Confessions of an Irritable Mother: Hope for Overwhelmed Moms."

As one who has walked the long path (and continues to walk it ... they're never really done, are they?) of parenting, I appreciate her honesty about the challenges and her graceful ability to see God's hand in even the more unattractive moments of motherhood.

I hope you will invite your mothering friends and neighbors to join us this Friday evening. Potluck at 6 p.m. and Karen Hossink will speak at 6:30 p.m. Pass the word along!

+ Kit

A Meditation on Stillness

This video, by Eric Law, an Episcopal priest who has written extensively on inclusion and acceptance, reminds us ... on the brink of a busy academic year ... to be ...

still ...

Who Are We When our Walls Fall Down?

That is the poignant question asked by an Episcopal priest, Tom Ehrich, in an essay in the Indianapolis Star. In this essay, he defends the moves the Episcopal Church has made to broaden its inclusion, but he critiques our beloved church as an institution that has "rewarded institutional tinkering and stopped dreaming. We depend on style and not substance. We worry about inherited property and not about the world outside our doors. We fuss about who is ordained when we should be nurturing healthy congregations."

I hope you'll read what he has to say. I wonder what your response might be ...

+ Kit

Tweet!

OK, against my better judgment, I am going to start posting Twitter updates. If you are a Twitter person, and want to receive updates, there is a button on the blog you can click to "follow" me. Mostly I will be posting tweets related to upcoming events or news about All Saints, and not (as on Facebook) whether I went to Crunchy's or Harrison Roadhouse for a burger.

So if you want Twitter updates about All Saints, click the magic button, or follow me at RevKit (or email ... pastorkitcarlson@gmail.com).

I'll be working on my hip social networking skills now ...


+ Kit

A Hopeful, and Quintessentially Anglican, Approach

Resolution D025, as passed at General Convention yesterday, offers the Episcopal Church an astonishing way forward in the great messiness that has marked the debate about full inclusion of GLBT people.

Quite simply, it tells the truth. It tells the truth about who we are as the American branch of the Anglican Communion. We are a church that has listened to the lives and stories of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters; we have observed them exercising holy and life-giving ministries in every corner of the church. We are a church that understands them to be baptized people, the same as anyone else, and we are a church with laws (called canons) that particularly forbid non-discrimination in the ordination process. We are a church that is not of one mind on how to move forward on the question of ordinations of GLBT people, and is not of one mind on blessing of same-sex unions, or marriage -- in states where that is legal -- between two people of the same gender. We are a church where some dioceses will ordain gay and lesbian people, and some dioceses will not.

We are a wonderful collection of faithful people on a journey to deeper understanding and love of one another, led by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. But it is a journey, and it is not over yet, and so this resolution offers a wonderful declaration of where we are right now, vis a vis the Anglican Communion, the question of gay ordinations, and our ongoing differences of theology and interpretation.

This resolution does four very important things:

1) It affirms our intention and commitment to remain in the Anglican Communion, continuing to do ministry and mission in developing countries, and continuing our financial support of $661K of a $1.8 billion budget -- a significant contribution from any one member church -- for Anglican Communion programs and ministries. It says that we intend to stay at the table and play.

2) It recognizes that we have participated fully in a "listening process" requested by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988 and 1998, to listen to the experiences of our GLBT brothers and sisters. And what we have discovered is ... wow! They are people. And Christians! And they do wonderful ministries at every level of the church! And generally function like every other baptized person.

3) It reminds everyone that our church has laws (canons) and some of those laws relate to ordination, and that those laws have non-discrimination policies attached to them, and that there is no LEGAL impediment in our church to QUALIFIED, DISCERNED, GLBT folks to being ordained, provided they go through discernment processes like everyone else and are selected for the ordination track.

and finally, and most important, and most ANGLICAN of all it says,

4) We understand that good and faithful people are not of one mind about this stuff and we are on a journey together and we are not going to agree on all of this right away.

So, does this mean that gays are allowed to be ordained? In dioceses where they are currently being ordained, that will probably continue. Sometime soon, some diocese will probably elect another gay bishop (note ... we've always had gay bishops. Bp. Otis of Utah came out after he retired.). Other dioceses won't be ready yet. No diocese will be forced to ordain GLBT people.

Will we get kicked out of the Anglican Communion? That's still a future possibility. However, we are not alone. Other provinces of the communion are also moving forward with rituals for blessings of same-sex unions, and are ordaining qualified and called gay and lesbian persons. Our mission and development work in the Global South continues to express our love for all our brothers and sisters, and our willingness to work together on areas where we do agree, to end poverty, to increase health, to create fulfilling lives for all God's children. The Archbishop of Canterbury said as much to General Convention ... that if the Anglican Communion didn't find the Episcopal presence so necessary, this would not be so difficult.

However, the "restraint" exercised by the Episcopal Church for the last three years, (a resolution passed in the waning hours of the last General Convention called for restraint in the elections and consecration to the order of bishop of people whose "manner of life" posed a difficulty to the wider communion) did not stop bishops from crossing provincial and diocesan boundaries. It did not stop other bishops, parishes, even entire dioceses from trying to leave the Episcopal Church. It may have gotten our bishops to the Lambeth Conference, but the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, a canonically elected, approved and consecrated bishop, was still "uninvited." Other bishops from the global South still stayed away from Lambeth, unwilling to share fellowship and communion with "heretical" bishops.

So perhaps it is just time to tell the truth. We do want to remain in the Anglican Communion. We do understand that GLBT people have gifts to offer our church and our world. We intend to follow our canons. We know that people are not of one mind about this, and we intend to go forward together anyway, messy, confused, but together.

And hopeful.

+ Kit

How to Start Your Monday

1) Sit still in a place that you like. It should not be a place where you see any work or tasks that you need to accomplish.


2) Sit there for five minutes. Be aware of your surroundings, the temperature, the sounds you hear, the things you see. Be completely present to the moment and to the place. If your mind starts running ahead to what you need to do today, just set that aside and return to quietly observing your surroundings and being present.


3) Say "Thank you." Take three deep breaths. Stand up slowly.



Now go about your week.


Peace,

+ Kit

From Hatred to Hope

I went to downtown East Lansing this morning to check out the Sidewalk Sale, and ended up in Kirabo, the fair trade store. At the checkout counter, there was a basket of these tiny crosses. They are made from spent bullet casings left over from the brutal civil war that raged in Liberia in the 1990s. The artisans who make them created them to witness to the triumph of hope and healing over the hatred that destroyed so much of their lives and well-being.

My last parish had a number of Liberian members, refugees from that civil war. Their stories were challenging, horrifying, and tragic. Although many of them, in the end, were able to tell their own tales of redemption. The one story each person always told however, was of unswerving faith in God. When a roomful of Liberians sings "It is Well With My Soul" at the top of their lungs, and when you know what they have come through and risen above, how can you not believe?

When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.

+ Kit

Back to Blogging -- General Convention Thoughts

Hello, there has been a hiatus in my blogging efforts. Periodically in my career as a writer I have simply run out of things to say (this can be a problem when preaching almost every week!). I try to respect those periods as times of silence and restoration, and allow God to work with me when my busy brain and keyboard fingers are still for a while.

Nonetheless, "Saints Alive!" is back for now. I want to share with you some thoughts about our church's General Convention, meeting in Anaheim, California. General Convention is the governing body of the Episcopal Church. It meets every three years in a legislative/party/family reunion/convention type setting to do the work of the church. To decide the direction of our denomination. To rewrite the canons (church laws) that govern how we work together. To pass resolutions that speak to the world at large with the voice of Christian justice and concern. To ponder liturgy, polity, politics.

The Episcopal Church was born in the period after the American Revolutionary War. Anglicans in America had to figure out how to be a new kind of Church of England, when the nation was no longer a British colony. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America was born in 1789 in the city of Philadelphia. You may recall that our US Constitution was written in 1789 in Philadelphia. There are strong similarities between US governmental structures and our own church structure.

General Convention is a bicameral body. The House of Bishops and the House of Deputies (made up of clergy and lay deputies elected from dioceses) work much like our Senate and Congress, developing legislation, reconciling differences in legislation passed by both houses, and articulating the voice and direction of our denomination. The House of Deputies is presided over by Bonnie Anderson from our own Diocese of Michigan. The House of Bishops is presided over by the Most. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of our church. The Presiding Bishop is also the chief executive officer of the Episcopal Church, and is in charge of the administration of the denomination in the three-year intervals between General Conventions.

But General Convention itself sets the guidelines, the rules, and the direction of the Episcopal Church. And so, if you are curious about where we are headed as a denomination, and what is going ON out there in Anaheim, here are some preliminary notes, and also sources where you can keep updated:

1) The first two days of convention have been occupied with the beginning of legislation, the presence of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and the beginning of a process called "public narrative" that may help us each tell our own stories and hear others' (rather than talking past one another, which we too often do).

2) Major issues of concern are first ...a shrinking denominational budget (like everywhere else, money is tight) and whether we can keep our commitment as a denomination to give 0.7 percent of our budget to work toward the UN Millennium Development Goals. And second ... the ongoing discussion of inclusion for LGBT people. For example, in states where same-sex marriage is legal, should churches and dioceses be able to bless and celebrate those marriages? And what about the resolution passed in the waning hours of the last General Convention, resolution B033, that encourages dioceses to refrain from electing bishops whose "manner of life" poses difficulty to the wider Anglican Communion?

3) There is a barrage of information coming out of General Convention. And if you like that sort of thing, you can follow blogs, get Twitter "tweets", watch videos, debate on bulletin boards, until you have no time left to eat or to think. If you don't have that much time or interest, but want to follow the activity at General Convention, here are the three best resources I have found:

-- Episcopal Cafe. Edited by journalist Jim Naughton, this blog is following items of significance and general interest.

-- Convention Daily. This is a daily newsletter that everyone on site at GC2009 receives. It is updated daily, and covers the events of major significance in a traditional newspaper-type format.

-- The GC Media Hub. I find the Media Hub totally overwhelming and confusing. HOWEVER, Heidi Shott, of the Diocese of Maine, does a video segment called "The Daily Wrap" at the end of each day. The Daily Wrap does a TV-style report on the events of the day, which is short, comprehensive, and entertaining. You can find The Daily Wrap by rolling over the tiny, square icons to the right of the page, until you see Daily Wrap.

And finally, one of the most encouraging side activities at GC2009 is the construction of a house for Habitat for Humanity. The house is being built in sections INSIDE the convention center. Affordable housing in the LA area is hard to come by. This home will make a difference in one family's life in the LA area.

+ Kit

What Your Kids Can Teach You

This article in Slate ponders the mystery of what kids get out of worship. It is fascinating to watch children explore their spirituality and experience God in ways that might challenge us as adults. They ask questions we find hard to answer. They celebrate aspects of religious life in ways that make us uncomfortable ... all you have to do is hear them discussing the size and nature of the communion bread they receive to realize that worship is vitally important to them, and everything they do in worship means something.

Most importantly, when kids enjoy coming to church, to Sunday School, to worship, they prod and provoke us to understand and life our own faith. They look to us to put our money where our mouth is ... in our attention to worship, in our knowledge of the Bible, and in the ways we live as a Christian the other six days of the week.

They are watching us. Do we make it worth their consideration?

+ Kit

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Visits CMSU at All Saints

Archbishop Desmond Tutu visited with our Canterbury MSU students today in the Undercroft, sharing thoughts and wisdom with these young adults as they prepare for their lives and vocations in the wider world.


Local clergy were invited to attend with their wardens,and Bishop Wendell Gibbs and his wife Karlah joined us for a tea lovingly prepared by women from All Saints and St. Paul's.




Bp. Tutu had all sorts of wonderful advice for the students, most importantly, he told them, "Don't stop dreaming. Don't get seduced by the cynicism of your elders. Dream about changing the world and go out and do it."

He also shared his tips on how to win the Nobel Peace Prize: 1)Have a big nose. 2)Have a short, easy to remember name. 3)Have really sexy legs.

Kudos to CMSU chaplain Sarah Midzalkowski for arranging this wonderful visit for the students and for letting some of us share in the day.

+ Kit

Taking Action for Children

Justice and advocacy for children has long been an important aspect of our calling to Christian witness and service here at All Saints. Our annual observance of the Children’s Sabbath, frequent collections to furnish apartments for children leaving foster care, layette and teddy bear collections, and our work with the families at Haven House, the project at the orphanage in Haiti, all show our commitment and concern for the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society.

This month, we have an opportunity to ally with local churches to speak out for equity and justice for the children of mid-Michigan. Action of Greater Lansing, the interfaith justice network, of which All Saints is a member, has chosen to focus this year on children’s health. Specifically, working to make sure that the new Children’s Health Initiative (CHI), coming into being in our community, will address the health needs of ALL area children, regardless of whether or not their families have insurance or are able to pay.

Last fall, the Action member congregations voted to focus on the lack of user-friendly, centralized access to human services in the Lansing area. The research committee that tackled this broad request soon learned about the CHI --an effort of local parents, health care providers and organizations--to create a children’s health center where pediatric sub-specialists – the doctors your child must see when the primary-care doctor cannot address all their health needs – can provide care for children with serious health problems. Currently, families must travel to Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids or even farther for their children to receive care. The CHI would bring this kind of care back to the Lansing area for our local children.

Action’s interest is to make sure the CHI meets the needs of all children in our area … not simply the ones whose families can pay. You can imagine the kind of burden this need for specialty care places on poor and uninsured families and their children – 40 to 50 percent of the children in our area are on Medicaid. Traveling to distant doctors, trying to retain a job, caring for the other healthy children in the family, all without financial resources, is vastly more difficult for poor families than for those of us with insurance, education and financial security.

There is a key event coming up where our presence is necessary to show our support for uninsured and underinsured children.

Everyone is asked to come to the Nehemiah Assembly and to bring THREE PEOPLE. The Nehemiah Assembly will be held at Union Missionary Baptist Church, 500 S. MLK Blvd., on Tuesday, May 12 at 7 p.m. We will bring leaders from MSU and Sparrow Hospital to hear our request for the CHI and for a commitment to serve all children, regardless of ability to pay. Our Action goal is to turn out 600 people at this assembly. Your presence is so important!

Come out to this event. Bring your family members, friends and neighbors to the Nehemiah Assembly. Speak out for Lansing area children, who need our voice and our commitment.

Feel free to speak to any All Saints Action team member ... me, Janet Chegwidden, Pam Miklavcic, or Gus Breymann, with your questions.

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