Going Home

This photo was taken near the end of the second visit I paid to the Midwest this summer, in late July and early August. It may well mark my mother's last visit to her home and undoubtedly the last family meal on the porch, one of her favorite places in the whole world. Not only was it the site of family meals, reading, playing games, and all sorts of informal gatherings of friends and family during seasonable weather, it was used on occasion in the cold and snow (one I recall offhand was members of the bridal party at my first wedding lighting and dancing with sparklers on a snowy late November day).

This "new" porch furniture, the porch, and the house itself will be soon up for sale. Meanwhile, Mother remains temporarily at a nursing home trying to build up her strength to travel. The plan for her to leave after my second visit never materialized when she was hospitalized for a week with some new and old problems and generally left in a much weakened condition, I went out to visit for yet a third trip in hopes that I could both keep her company and help determine whether she could travel as planned. In the end, we decided to wait yet again, and she has returned to the nursing home near her home for the time being. Meanwhile, the sale of the house and its contents is proceeding. It will never be the same as she and I last saw it.

I don't know when and if I will write about these trips. Every time there seems to be a sort of ending or resolution, things change. I have had wonderful friends and family lending their ear to the mixed feelings and concerns I have had. Meanwhile, we hope and pray that my mother will find the strength and the wherewithal to get to where she wants and needs to be.

Don't Ask, Go to Hell Policy

Colbert tells it like it is -- about the Anglicans, the Episcopalians, and the Romans. (Hat tip to The Lead). This brought one of the few laughs I've had from all the nonsense from Lambeth. (And this, which conjured up pretty much the same image I had).

The rest is too depressing for words. The "Agony and the Ecstasy" made me weep. I don't know if I want to be associated with people who treat others like that, but I guess everyone's already so busy dissociating with others that I'll just give it a rest for awhile.

Meanwhile, blogging will continue to be light (!) as I travel cross-country to see my mom and see what I can do to help her right now. Thankfully there is little of Pennsylvania along the way (no offense to Pennsylvanians, but your road repair system is... well, lacking, although I did circumvent the northern mess last week by taking Rte 11 around and about the interstate). Next stop, Chicago.

Pray with Bishop Gene

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

From Canterbury Tales from the Fringe.

It takes a Brit

The official account of the opening session is on ACNS and is imaginatively titled "The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams opens the Lambeth Conference."

from "Lambeth - what happened on Wednesday" at Thinking Anglicans.

Thank you Simon Sarmiento (who should be ranked far higher than No. 46 on The List) for my M.D.R. of dry British humor.

Getting back in the groove

These are some photos from our recent vacation in Maine.





It's been difficult getting back in the groove now that vacation is over. No doubt it will take several days to just get caught up with work and family and soccer, let alone the Lambeth chronicles. I realize now more than ever how I relied on Fr. Jake to collect and grasp the essential news. Also, I found it a great help to get away from it all -- Anglicana news, legal news, U.S. politics, etc. (although take a peek occasionally online on the day of the General Synod vote on women bishops, the ulitimate significance of which still eludes me).

For Lambeth news, I now find myself relying on Jim Naughton at The Lead, Allie, our favorite Lambeth steward (who seems to keep running into ++Rowan Williams), and last, but not least, +Clumber's reports on the canine and feline bishops (who seem to have taken a few side trips to the local pubs, which is a wonderful way to visit with folks in the U.K., but I worry if +Pittsburgh may end up with more than occasional headache if he keeps reading SFIF news feeds on his Google Reader). While I know there is much more to read, it's about all I can manage right now.

I hope to soon jump in at The Friends of Jake, where IT, David, Ann, Eileen, and Padre Mickey are doing a fine job of posting ideas and news of interest to all those going through Jake withdrawal. But for now, I'm still buried in work (try scanning over 300 new court opinions that piled up while I was away) and ongoing concerns and difficulties about my mother, who has been back and forth between the hospital and the rehab wing of a nursing home (since last night back in the hospital) since mid-May with various ailments (congestive heart condition, diabetes, arthritis) and possibly a new series of strokes. We (my brother in Seattle and I here in New York) have traveled back and forth to the Chicago area, where she lives, several times already and still are working on getting her moved to where we can see that she gets better care and has an appropriate place to live full-time. In my spare time, I manage my daughter's soccer playing (never easy with politics changing the make-up of teams, club-affiliations, etc. while we just try to hang on somewhere), and occasionally get to see my son, who is slaving away at a fast-food restaurant as his summer job while home from college. Thanks to vacation, I even got to see my husband for days on end, though our time together has been scarce since we've been back.

And so it goes.....

It will take awhile before I can get into blogging again. For the first time in many years I did not finish a single book (though I brought two bags of them along) during vacation. I read good chunks of Judge Wood's An Unmarked Trail and, thanks to a recommendation from Franiam, Nicholas Christopher's A Trip to the Stars. I also read bits of Whose Justice? Which Rationality (by Alasdair MacIntyre, whose ideas were addressed by ++ Rowan Willliams in his lecture on "Religious Faith and Human Rights") but did not get back to Charles Taylor's A Secular Age and Mark Lilla's The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West as I had hoped. I'm afraid the ocean, the harbor, the ships, and wind had greater allure. But somewhere in the back of my mind some things were churning, in part by contrasting Judge Wood's commonsense, practical approach to human rights and dignity and conflict resolution with those of philosophers and theologians. Some other day.......

For now, hello to anyone who still stops by, and my apologies to anyone who left posts or emails while I was on vacation with limited computer access and time. I hope to respond and get back in the groove someday soon.

When religion makes itself God, it ceases to be religion

So writes Sr. Joan Chittister in the following passage:

WHAT IS RELIGION ABOUT?

The Sufi tell of disciples who, when the death of their master was clearly imminent, became totally bereft. “If you leave us, Master,” they pleaded, “how will we know what to do?” And the master replied, “I am nothing but a finger pointing at the moon. Perhaps when I am gone you will see the moon.” The meaning is clear: It is God that religion must be about, not itself. When religion makes itself God, it ceases to be religion.

But when religion becomes the bridge that leads to God, it stretches us to live to the limits of human possibility. It requires us to be everything we can possibly be: kind, generous, honest, loving, compassionate, just. It defines the standards of the human condition. It sets the parameters within which we direct our institutions. It provides the basis for the ethics that guide our human relationships. It sets out to enable us to be fully human, human beings.

Religion at its best gives substance to life. Most of all, it enables us to find meaning in life. It gives purpose to the human condition. It sets the human compass toward home. It requires us to be more than we ever thought we could become. It raises our sights beyond ourselves. It sets standards for us that are above the lowest level of the self.

Religion, this great treasure-house of the faith, is the history of our family heroes. It presents us with an historic stream of witnesses from every people on earth who chose the holy, in the face of rejection and ridicule, whatever the cost to themselves. They dared courage, rather than cooperation with evil. They chose love, rather than law. They stood for justice, rather than self-interest. They sought the transcendent, rather than the immediate.

We walk in line with those, religion reminds us, who gave themselves for the great things of God. Doubters themselves perhaps, thinkers always, they clung to faith beyond the institution itself, beyond the “answers,” because there is a place, they knew, where answers end. And it is religion that taught them that.

At the same time, no doubt about it, religion is often religion’s own worst enemy. The tension between religion at its best and religion at its worst drives people from church to church, searching for authenticity. It drives them, as well, from the God of the institution to the God of the spirit within. When religion makes itself God, when religion gets between the soul and God, when religion demands what the spirit deplores—a division of peoples, diminishment of the self, and closed-mindedness—religion becomes the problem.

Then spirituality is the only valid answer to the cry of the soul for the kind of life that makes life possible.

From Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir by Joan Chittister (Sheed & Ward), excerpt published in the Ideas In Passing (6/30/08) newsletter.

UPDATE 7/18/08:

I'm glad you all liked this. Note that if you want more, you can get Sr. Joan's weekly email newsletter with excerpts from her writings by simply going to http://www.benetvision.org/index.html and signing up for "Ideas in Passing" (currently in box in top left column on her Home Page).

This week's "Until Now Rules Are Necessary" is another keeper. It includes this powerful passage:

Life is very short. To get the most out of it, we must begin to attend to its spiritual dimensions without which life is only half lived. Holiness is in the Now but we go through life only half conscious of it, asleep or intent on being someplace other than where we are. We need to open our eyes and see things as they exist around us: what is valuable and what is not, what enriches and what does not, what is of God and what is not. It may be the neighborhood we live in rather than the neighborhood we want that will really make human beings out of us. It may be the job we have, rather than the position we are selling our souls to get, that will finally liberate us from ourselves. It may be what we do rather than the prayers we pray that will finally be the measure of our sanctity.

from The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages by Joan Chittister (Crossroad)

Julie Foudy Gets it Right

Julie Foudy explains How the Game Was Won, clearly and simply. This was a beautiful goal -- great set-up and then an incredible shot taken while leaping over the keeper.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Fairfax Circuit Court Rulings

The trial court has issued its long-awaited ruling on the constitutionality of the Virginia division statute and responded in a separate opinion to five questions as to the scope and impact of its earlier rulings. Both opinions are available from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia here.

These rulings no doubt will be appealed. They are not much of a surprise given the tenor of the judge's prior written decisions in this case. But it is sad that the judge did not demonstrate full understanding of the issues at stake here, not just for the Episcopal Church and these parishes in Virgina but for all churches. No matter which side one is on, these rulings do not bode well for the principle of separation of church and state which, for many, is critical to First Amendment rights of free speech, association, and exercise of religion. The government simply has no business deciding how a church is to resolve disputes over property and the authority to create or dissolve parishes and dioceses. It remains to be seen whether appellate courts will step back and think seriously about these issues in a neutral fashion or will be swayed by partisan considerations and/or a desire to defer wholly in these matters to the Virginia legislature. Sure do miss the kind of Republican judges who knew how to stand above the fray and to truly think and act judiciously.

¡Viva España!

¡Viva España!
Cantemos todos juntos
con distinta voz
y un solo corazón

¡Viva España!
desde los verdes valles
al inmenso mar,
un himno de hermandad

Ama a la patria
pues sabe abrazar,
bajo su cielo azul,
pueblos en libertad

Gloria a los hijos
que a la Historia dan
justicia y grandeza
democracia y paz

I don't know about the "la patria" and "Gloria a los hijos" stuff but I do have a soft spot for Spain, having spent a few months there during a difficult time in my life. They played well in the quarter-finals and I hope I can catch some of today's semi-finals match on the late night rerun.

I didn't know about the Marcha Real and its wordlessness since 1978. How... well, Spanish. Here it is.

I suppose it would be corny to say I left my heart in Santiago.... This place, only there were roses when I was there in early winter.

And we sleep inside this machine

- Brand New Lyrics

"Jesus Christ" by Jesse Lacey and Brand New.

Jesse and this band are the favorites of my teens. In fact, I have attended two of their concerts (not entirely by choice). I may have even heard this song performed but I've always had a great deal of difficulty hearing lyrics in rock music, so I pretty much get only the tones and the rhythms.

Wondering what to make of this song and the artist. [Note to Dennis: "He is a well-known fan of Morrissey and The Smiths.]