Category: General Interest

Items of General Interest about liturgy, the liturgical calendar, church customs and culture, our unique “Episcopal vocabulary,” the intersection of faith and culture, and all other items not fitting into the other categories (or fitting into multiple categories).

Wind Chimes: 21 Jan 2013 — Day 4

A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Readings for Day Four — Walking as children of the earth

Leviticus 25:8-17 | The land is for the common good, not personal gain
Psalm 65:5b-13 | The fruitful outpouring of God’s grace on the earth
Romans 8:18-25 | The longing of all creation for redemption
John 9:1-11 | Jesus’ healing, mud, bodies, and water

Quote . . .If we are to walk in humility with God, we will need always to be aware of ourselves as part of creation, and recipients of God‘s gifts. There is a growing recognition in today‘s world that better understanding of our authentic place in creation must become a priority for us.  2013-WPCU-Readings-and-Prayers

Prayer on Day Four

2013 Week of Prayer (Cover)

God of life, we thank you for the earth, and for those who care for it and bring forth its fruits. May the Spirit, the giver of life, help us to recognise that we are part of creation‘s web of relationships. May we learn to cherish the earth and listen to creation‘s groaning. May we truly walk together in the steps of Christ, bringing healing to all that wounds this earth, and ensuring a just sharing of the things that it brings forth. God of life, lead us to justice and peace. Amen.

divider lineImage: School of Theology & Ministry, Seattle University

Wind Chimes: 20 Jan 2013 — Day 3

A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Readings for Day Three — Walking towards freedom

Exodus 1:15-22 | The Hebrew midwives obey God’s law over the command of Pharaoh
Psalm 17:1-6 | The confident prayer of one open to God’s gaze
2 Corinthians 3: 17-18 | The glorious freedom of God’s children in Christ
John 4:4-26 | Conversation with Jesus leads the Samaritan woman into freer living

Quote . . .Walking humbly with the Lord is always a walk into receiving the freedom he opens up before all people. With this in mind we celebrate. We celebrate the mystery of the struggle for freedom, which takes place even in the places where oppression, prejudice and poverty seem to be impossible burdens. 2013-WPCU-Readings-and-Prayers

Prayer on Day Three

2013 Week of Prayer (Cover)Liberating God, we thank you for the resilience and hopeful faith of those who struggle for dignity and fullness of life. We know that you raise up those who are cast down, and free those who are bound. Your Son Jesus walks with us to show us the path to authentic freedom. May we appreciate what has been given to us, and be strengthened to overcome all within us that enslaves. Send us your Spirit so that the truth shall set us free, so that with voices united we can proclaim your love to the world. God of life, lead us to justice and peace. Amen.

divider lineImage: School of Theology & Ministry, Seattle University

Wind Chimes: 19 Jan 2013 — Day 2

A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Readings for Day Two — Walking with the broken body of Christ

Ezekiel 37:1-14 | “Shall these dry bones live?”
Psalm 22:1-8 | God’s servant, mocked and insulted, cries out to God
Hebrews 13:12-16 | The call to go to Jesus “outside the camp”
Luke 22:14-23 | Jesus breaks the bread, giving the gift of himself before his suffering

Quote . . .To walk humbly with God means hearing the call us to walk out of the places of our own comfort, and accompany the other, especially the suffering other. 2013-WPCU-Readings-and-Prayers

Prayer on Day Two

2013 Week of Prayer (Cover)God of compassion, your Son died on the Cross so that by his broken body our divisions might be destroyed. Yet we have crucified him again and again with our disunity, and with systems and practices which obstruct your loving care and undermine your justice towards those who have been excluded from the gifts of your creation. Send us your Spirit to breathe life and healing into our brokenness that we may witness together to the justice and love of Christ. Walk with us towards that day when we can share in the one bread and the one cup at the common table. God of life, lead us to justice and peace. Amen.

divider lineImage: School of Theology & Ministry, Seattle University

Wind Chimes: 18 Jan 2013 — Day 1

A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Readings for Day One — Walking in conversation

Genesis 11:1-9 | The story of Babel and legacy of our diversity
Psalm 34:11-18 | “Come … listen.” God’s invitation to conversation
Acts 2:1-12 | The outpouring of the Spirit, the gift of understanding
Luke 24:13-25 | Conversations with the Risen Jesus on the road

Quote . . .To walk humbly with God means to walk as people speaking with one another and with the Lord, always attentive to what we hear. And so we begin our celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by reflecting on scripture passages which speak of the essential practice of conversation. 2013-WPCU-Readings-and-Prayers

Prayer on Day One

2013 Week of Prayer (Cover)Jesus Christ, we proclaim with joy our common identity in you, and we thank you for inviting us into a dialogue of love with you. Open our hearts to share more perfectly in your prayer to the Father that we may be one, so that as we journey together we may draw closer to each other. Give us the courage to bear witness to the truth together, and may our conversations embrace those who perpetuate disunity. Send your Spirit to empower us to challenge situations where dignity and compassion are lacking in our societies, nations, and the world. God of life, lead us to justice and peace. Amen

divider lineImage: School of Theology & Ministry, Seattle University

Wind Chimes: 17 Jan 2013

A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Unity. United. Different. United. One but different. Common, yet not the same. The chimes are moved by the wind and remind me that to be united in Love means to celebrate all that makes me, makes us, unique. Followers of the Way are unique creations of God who is Love. Each of us will respond differently to Love. Yet, each of us ‘loves’ the best we know how. Like the chimes, each of us sounds a different note, yet all of us together can make beautiful music. What do you hear?

Upcoming: A Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan 18-25)

Quote . . .The traditional period in the northern hemisphere for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is 18-25 January. Those dates were proposed in 1908 by Paul Wattson to cover the days between the feasts of St Peter and St Paul, and therefore have a symbolic significance. In the southern hemisphere where January is a vacation time churches often find other days to celebrate the week of prayer, for example around Pentecost (suggested by the Faith and Order movement in 1926), which is also a symbolic date for the unity of the church.

2013 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Brochure, p. 2

The theme for 2013: What does God require of us? The theme was developed in India and is based upon the text of Micah 6:6-8:

6 ‘With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? —NRSV

Over the next 8 days (beginning tomorrow, Jan. 18, 2013) I’ll invite you to join me and join others worldwide as we pray that the Spirit bring us even closer together as we walk humbly with God.

Image: School of Theology & Ministry, Seattle University

Wind Chimes: 15 Jan 2013

A young Golden Eagle in flight

As the chimes move in accord with the wind and make their sounds, I hear both trust and playfulness. Let the sounds create an image of an eagle soaring; imagine that eagle is you and the wind supporting you is the Spirit. What do you hear?

Trust the wind (Spirit) and soar

In our Daily Office, (Morning Prayer for 1/15/13), we read from Isaiah:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:28-31 NRSV

Consider now this meditation from Lowell Grisham, Rector of St. Paul’s in Fayetteville, AR

What a compelling image. When the pressure is on; when we are weary and worn out; when there is more than we can handle; when we don’t know what to do… Isaiah says “Wait.” Breathe deeply. Be conscious and mindful. Wait for God.

I can see in my minds eye the next movement, an eagle beginning to mount the skies. With slow and deliberate movement, a perching eagle will spread her wings, feeling for the power of the wind. And then, gently, like sliding into water, the great bird will trust itself to the sky, throwing its arms out in a wide embrace. It catches the power of the wind and goes soaring, adjusting with modest effort as it picks up the drafts. In a similar way we can run and not be weary; walk and not be faint.

That’s the image I want to take with me today when that inevitable moment of weariness comes.

Please read the rest of his meditation, “Encouragement,” here.

You may visit the website of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, here.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Wind Chimes: 14 Jan 2013

Friends

What does a question sound like? What does friendship sound like? Today, I hear an important question in the sounding of the chimes. What do you hear?

Could it be true? How will you answer?

Today [Jan 12th] as Cistercians we celebrate the life and teaching of our own Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, a 12th-century monk of Great Britain. In his well-known treatise, Spiritual Friendship, Saint Aelred declares rather boldly that “God is friendship.” This is his own gloss on Saint John’s words, “God is love.” And clearly it expresses Aelred’s own experience of God’s intimacy.

Saint Aelred on the blog of St. Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer MA

Read the entire post (it’s short) to hear the question of the monks. Hear the question of the monks in the glorious sounds of the Good News proclaimed on Sunday (believing that what was true of Jesus and for Jesus is true of us and for us): “You are my Beloved.” (Luke 3:21-22)

Image: Clip art, photos, and animations on office.microsoft.com

Wind Chimes: 12 Jan 2013

Going somewhere

Sometimes the sounds from the chimes are rhythmic, like the regular movement of a person from one place to another. We’re all on a journey. What do you hear?

The Journey Prayer

God, bless to me this day,
God bless to me this night;
Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
Each day and hour of my life;
Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
Each day and hour of my life.

God, bless the pathway on which I go;
God, bless the earth that is beneath my sole;
Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,
O God of gods, bless my rest and my repose;
Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,
And bless, O God of gods, my repose.

Prayer of St. Brendan the Voyager, Irish Monk, (484-577)

Prayer: Quoted by Daniel Clendenin on Journey with Jesus: Poems and Prayers

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Wind Chimes: 11 Jan 2013

Sometimes, God just wants to hang out with us

Listen. Do the chimes sound like the start of a conversation? Be still. Listen. What do you hear?

A God who is Friend

If you haven’t discovered inward/outward, today is a good day to change that. The site “is an ongoing, online conversation sponsored by The Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC.”

As preparation for hearing the Gospel this Sunday (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22) listen to these words from Oscar Romero:

This is the beauty of prayer and of Christian life: coming to understand that a God who converses with humans has created them and has lifted them up, with the capacity of saying “I” and “you.” What would we give to have such power as to create a friend to our taste and with a breath of our own life to make that friend able to understand us and be understood by us and converse intimately–to know our friend as truly another self? That is what God has done; human beings are God’s other self. He has lifted us up so that he can talk with us and share his joys, his generosity, his grandeur. He is the God who converses with us.

Quote: Oscar Romero in The Violence of Love as quoted by inward/outward 8/13/12

Image: dreamstime images

Wind Chimes: 10 Jan 2013

Gracious Father, we pray for thy holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen.

A prayer (updated) of William Laud (see The Book of Common Prayer, p. 816)

The chimes produce a mixed sound today: sometimes a violent crashing sound, sometimes a soft peaceful sound. What do you hear?

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, d. 1645

Today (January 10th) the Episcopal Church remembers William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (1633-1645). Laud’s short biography in Holy Women, Holy Men tells the truth, “Laud’s reputation has remained controversial to this day. [He is] [h]onored as a martyr and condemned as an intolerant bigot ….”

Given the current concern among some in England about “The Succession to the Crown Bill” it is informative to remember today that, “Laud believed the Church of England to be in direct continuity with the medieval Church, and he stressed the unity of Church and State, exalting the role of the king as the supreme governor.” (“William Laud” on Holy Women, Holy Men).