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<h1 id="page-title" class="archive-title">

Discussion: March 2011 Archives

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    dc:title="Guest Reflection: God in dry places By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi"
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Guest Reflection: God in dry places &amp;nbsp; By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Water is something we cannot live without. Human life depends on having enough water in our bodies, enough water to drink. We..."
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001139">Guest Reflection: God in dry places By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: God in dry places </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Water is something we cannot live without. Human life depends on having enough water in our bodies, enough water to drink. We need water to replenish, renew and refresh us, especially when we are thirsty, tired and dry. If you have ever lived in a hot desert climate like the American Southwest, you know that it is easy to become dehydrated without even realizing it. People carry bottles of water with them, which they drink throughout the day, to avoid feeling dizzy, weary or faint.<br /><br />Imagine what it would be like not to have the water you need. That was the situation of the Jewish people as they traveled out of Egypt into the Promised Land through the Sinai Peninsula. It was a rocky, barren, arid region in which food and water were hard to come by. Thirst became a steady companion. People began to feel depression and anxiety and resentment. They thought they were leaving Egypt for a better life, but they found themselves dying of thirst in a desert. Where was God anyway? <br /><br />The Samaritan woman whom Jesus encountered had a jar that she had to go and fill at the public well every time she needed water for anything. It was an endless, tiresome chore, but no more tiresome and discouraging than her life. She had five husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband. Had the others died, or had her relationships with them just not worked out? It doesn&#8217;t matter. Whatever the circumstances, she had come to a point of profound skepticism about life&#8217;s promise for her. She felt that there was something wrong with her or wrong with men or wrong with life or wrong with God or a combination of all those things. She was unhappy, unhopeful and untrusting.<br /><br />If you are battered enough, discouraged enough, disappointed enough, frustrated enough, you begin to give up hope that anything good will come of your life. You go through the routine of living without really living. Everything seems pointless. Nothing seems to matter. It&#8217;s a kind of drought of the soul, a sort of &#8220;so what?&#8221; attitude about life that nothing really counts.<br /><br />This metaphor of desert and drought will speak to some of us more than others. Some of us may not feel we are traveling through a desert, but we are not flourishing either. We are getting by as best we can, doing as well as we can. We are surviving in the desert but not really thriving, and it bothers us. Something is missing in our lives.<br /><br />Yet others of us are indeed in the desert where there is not enough water. The things that we are doing day after day are not bearing fruit. The personal relationships that define our lives are more problematical than pleasurable. They are characterized more by conflict than by harmony. Physically, emotionally and spiritually we are more down than up. God seems more remote than near, like the man I once visited to offer communion. He was wracked with pain, the cancer had long since gotten the best of him, and his days were dwindling to precious few. &#8220;Would you like to share in communion?&#8221; I asked him. Bitterness tinged his voice as he replied, &#8220;Not after what God has done to me!&#8221; Here was a man in the wilderness who knew life only as bleak and desolate and dry. Maybe you can appreciate what that man was going through, because you&#8217;ve been there.<br /><br />Shakespeare wrote, &#8220;Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break.&#8221; That time will come for each of us at some point in our lives. The stories of the Israelites and the woman at the well are told in order to help us believe that, when we find ourselves in dry places, God sees, God cares, God responds.<br /><br />The Israelites were weary and angry with thirst, and God gave them water. A woman&#8217;s life had been battered by one loss after another, and in Jesus she found a depth of acceptance and affirmation and care which restored her soul. Apparently, God shows his love best when we go through our worst. <br /><br />A book that has meant so much to me through the years is T<i>he Diary of a Country Priest</i> by Georges Bernanos. It is the story of a young priest carrying on his ministry in a difficult country parish with its full share of conflicts, betrayals, sins, failures, victories, and virtues - the stuff of life. In summing up his difficulties (his sense of failing people and his Lord at the end) and in taking everything into consideration (his people&#8217;s failures and sins as well as his own), the country priest concludes his diary with these words: &#8220;Grace is everywhere.&#8221; <br /><br />Some of you know what that means. You know it to be true. You have received and continue to receive, grace upon grace in countless and varied ways. You have cast your burdens upon the Lord. You have experienced God&#8217;s sustaining power. You have asked for a drink, and the rock has opened for you in the desert. <br /><br />Others of you are saying to yourself, &#8220;This has not been my experience. I have prayed earnestly but no rocks have opened for me. My life seems dry and barren, and I often wonder, &#8216;Where is God?&#8217;&#8221;<br /><br />If God helps us through the deserts of our lives, how is it that some of us feel helped and others do not? Our lessons suggest that the answer has a great deal to do with the level of our trust in God. We are like that man who fell over the edge of the cliff and managed to grab with both hands a root sticking out of the side of the cliff. Dangling there, he looked up and shouted, &#8220;Help! Is there anybody up there?&#8221; A strong voice came from a cloud above the cliff. &#8220;Yes, I am here, my son. Trust me and let go of the root.&#8221; There was a moment of silence, and then the man shouted, &#8220;Is there anybody else up there?&#8221;<br /><br />It is true that some things need to be seen in order to be believed. It is also true that some things must be believed in order to be seen. The gracious care of God is one of those things. Those who can testify to the reality of that grace are people who have let go, people who have trusted themselves, their pains, their perplexities, their weariness, their skepticism, their grief, their loneliness to God. And they have found that the water God has given them in Jesus has become in them a spring of water welling to eternal life. <br /><br />When William Butler Yeats died, his friend W.H. Auden wrote: &nbsp;&#8220;In the desert of the heart, let the healing fountain start to flow.&#8221;<br /><br />It can happen and will happen, if we are willing to give up control over ourselves - willing to let life be life as it ebbs and flows, and less anxious about whether we are getting our way or not, or getting what we want or not. It means opening yourself to the possibilities of God, letting God seep through your life, renew and refresh your soul. God comes to you, as Thomas Merton put it, &#8220;selling nothing, judging nobody&#8221; - and in the process you find healing, wholeness and hope for your life.<br /><br />Dr. Bernard Nathanson died last month. Canadians probably would not know who he is. The best way to describe him is to say that Bernard Nathanson was the Henry Morgenthaler of the United States. He ran the largest abortion facility in the Western world, personally performing over 5,000 abortions, and presiding over 60,000 of them as director of the clinic. <br /><br />Though his public life was stellar, his personal life was a failure. He was living in a desert of unhappiness, an atheist, divorced three times, and admitted performing an illegal abortion on his girlfriend in the 1960s. Despite being a leading figure in the abortion movement, he struggled with the meaning of his life and work. Despite the praise of his colleagues, his life felt dry, arid and parched.<br /><br />Nathanson stopped performing abortions in the late 1970s, and eventually became a strong opponent of abortion, even making one of the most widely seen films on the subject.<br /><br />At an international symposium in 1994, Bernard Nathanson was scheduled to speak about chemical abortion, but at the last minute decided to share his spiritual journey. He had been on a long road from Egypt to the Promised Land, still walking in the wilderness.<br /><br />At the end of his talk, though, he said he was standing on the brink of conversion to Christianity. The room exploded with cheers. In 1996, he was baptized in a private ceremony at St. Patrick&#8217;s Cathedral in New York by Cardinal John O&#8217;Connor. That same year he went on to write his bestselling autobiography, <i>The Hand of God</i>. <br /><br />The diocese of Brooklyn&#8217;s newspaper, The Tablet, reported that a &nbsp;week before his death, his friend Father Frank Paone visited him in the hospital. Nathanson turned to the priest and said that he hoped God could forgive him. Father Paone replied, &#8220;Dr. Nathanson, God already has.&#8221; <br /><br />To know that you are forgiven&#133;that you are never out of the reach of God, that God&#8217;s grace is greater than your guilt, that God loves you always and forever - that&#8217;s the peace which comes to us when we put our trust in God. God will lead us through the dry places of our lives where our thirst will be quenched and our souls refreshed by the living water of his love. <br /><br />Grace is everywhere.<br /></p>
<p><br />&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i>&nbsp;</p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 28, 2011 </p></font></font>
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001136">Guest Reflection: A rose by any other name By The Rev. Canon Gordon Baker</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: A rose by any other name </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Canon Gordon Baker</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Church of England website was re-launched in January 2011 with a new design and web address. Also the email addresses of Church of England Church House departments underwent a change. Notable is the fact that the word &#8220;Anglican&#8221; has been dropped altogether. It is now just a straightforward &#8220;Church of England,&#8221; the argument being that before the change, it was generally confusing for people in England. </p>
<p>Certainly it is understandable that what people in England want to deal with is the Church of England and not some rather vague Anglican entity. One commentator, Simon Sarmiento, is reported to have said that this change &#8220;shows that the Church of England is not playing along with the rest of the Anglican Communion.&#8221; I&#8217;m sure this is true because I don&#8217;t believe it was ever envisioned that a fellowship of what have become autonomous churches would ever make claim to being a &#8220;Church,&#8221; defining universal doctrine and exercising overall discipline. </p>
<p>From the beginning of the Lambeth Conferences, bishops called together by invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury to have fellowship and to pray and share together, there were those who could foresee that this might happen. The Archbishop of York and a number of other English bishops declined the invitation. </p>
<p>So I raise the question, &#8220;Is it time for a name change from The Anglican Church of Canada?&#8221; After all, we changed it once before, in 1955, from The Church of England in Canada to The Anglican Church of Canada. This was done to recognize and proclaim our existence and autonomy as something other than a colonial religious outpost. However appropriate the use of the word &#8220;Anglican&#8221; was at that time, it is now more than 50 years later, and our church has changed in its understanding of itself and its mission in a greatly changed Canadian social context. </p>
<p>Today we are developing new mature relationships with the aboriginal peoples of Canada and they are our sisters and brothers in faith and mission. Our clergy in Quebec are becoming totally bilingual so as to work comfortably within a French culture. The tag in western Canada of being the &#8220;English Church&#8221; no longer holds true. </p>
<p>I submit that it is time for us to be fully grown up and give thanks for all we have received from the Church of England, and others, but have a name that more truly expresses who we are. I believe that the name, &#8220;The Episcopal Church of Canada,&#8221; would do just that. </p>
<p>Many other churches in the Communion use such a designation&#8212;Scotland, Jerusalem and the Middle East, the United States, Cuba, Philippines, Sudan. By this change we declare our church&#8217;s autonomy with its own form of governance and our readiness to respond wherever the Holy Spirit may lead us. And that includes a readiness to share mutual responsibility and interdependence with all other churches that would share with us. The spirit of renewal is that we move on from where we&#8217;ve been. Alleluia! </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>Canon Gordon Baker is a former editor of the </i>Anglican Journal. </p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 22, 2011 </p></font></font>
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001132">Guest Reflection: Obeying the call By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: Obeying the call </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>This past week we celebrated St. Patrick&#8217;s Day, which in places like New York and Chicago, includes the largest parades in North America. Several years ago, I read an article about two Irishmen who set up a company in order to sell genuine Irish dirt to Americans. The two men claimed the demand for Irish dirt was phenomenal, beyond their wildest expectations. In a very short time they managed to sell well over one million dollars of dirt. One elderly New York businessman placed a $100,000 order so he could be fully buried in genuine Irish soil. Obviously, that man was very homesick. His body was in New York, but his heart was in Ireland. </p>
<p>That happens to many people who are transplanted to another country. You miss the sights and sounds and perhaps even the dirt of home. How many Canadians do we know who come from some other part of the world, love this country, but still feel a bond with their homeland? </p>
<p>When I was ministering in New Jersey, I got to know a lovely Canadian couple who joined the parish. He had been transferred to the States by his company, but his wife couldn&#8217;t wait to return to Canada. It was her home, her native land, and she missed it. So when he finally retired, sure enough they moved back to Canada and are now happily living in Oakville. </p>
<p>There is something about home, isn&#8217;t there? I suspect the people of southwestern Ontario know this, since so few seem to have lived anywhere else. Home sweet home - it&#8217;s where the heart is. </p>
<p>Our story from the book of Genesis is about a couple who were called to leave home. Their names were Abram and Sarai. We know them, of course, as Abraham and Sarah. More than 1,700 years before the time of Jesus, God came to Abram and gave him a command and a promise: &#8220;Go from your country and your kindred and your father&#8217;s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.&#8221; </p>
<p>Abram was a wealthy landowner living in what is now Iraq. He had family, friends, and an honored place in the community. This was no small demand that God was laying on him. And it certainly could not have been easy for Sarai his wife, either. Often moving is more difficult for the spouse, or for the children, than it is for the one who has been called to leave to go to a new place. God told Abram to leave his home. That must have been difficult for both Abram and Sarai. However, when God spoke, Abram obeyed. It is one of the most important statements in the Bible: &#8220;So Abram went, as the Lord had told him&#133;&#8221; </p>
<p>It would be impossible to overstate the significance of Abram&#8217;s step of faith for the subsequent history of the world. Three great world religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, trace their roots back to Abram&#8217;s act of obedience. &#8220;So Abram went, as the Lord had told him&#133;&#8221; This is what faith is all about. God speaks, we obey. We don&#8217;t say, &#8220;I can&#8217;t do it right now&#8221; or &#8220;I can&#8217;t afford it&#8221; or &#8220;My friends won&#8217;t approve.&#8221; God speaks. We obey. Faith is much more than belief. Jesus said that even the demons believe in God. Faith is action. Faith is trusting God even when God calls us to do something against our own self-interest. Faith is obedience to God, no matter what. </p>
<p>When Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, many German Christians refused to cooperate. One of these was Martin Niemoeller, a Lutheran pastor. He was put in prison for his disobedience. Someone said to his father, &#8220;Mr. Niemoeller, it must be a terrible thing to have your son put in prison by the Nazis.&#8221; Mr. Niemoeller answered, &#8220;Yes, but it would be a much more terrible thing if God wanted someone to do it and my Martin was not willing.&#8221; </p>
<p>We really should talk about the cost of committing ourselves to Jesus. So many people today think they can follow Jesus without it making a difference in the way they live their lives. That&#8217;s absurd. I still have in my prayer book a card a dear friend sent several years ago. The card reads: &#8220;God&#8217;s will. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.&#8221; </p>
<p>God told Abram to leave his home and go to a new country. God spoke and Abram obeyed. Sometimes obedience is difficult for us. We second-guess God, or hold back on our commitment, or try to do things our way. But in the end, the only way to be an effective Christian is to give God your all - to trust God - to obey God - to surrender to God - to do what God calls us to do and to go where God calls us to go. If we spend our lives refusing to do what God asks us to do, we will never fulfill our potential as Christians. &nbsp; </p>
<p>One of the most difficult things for many quarterbacks in the National Football League to accept is that quite often the coach calls the plays. Even when the coach is highly respected, quarterbacks will sometimes admit that their pride tells them that they should be able to call their own plays for the team. And yet, some of the most successful quarterbacks in professional football have accepted the fact that the coach calls the plays. </p>
<p>Take Roger Staubach, for example. He led the Dallas Cowboys to an NFL championship in 1971. Mike Towle, writes in <i>Roger Staubach: Captain America</i>, that at first Staubach&nbsp;had trouble when Coach Tom Landry sent in every play, but he learned to accept it. In later reflecting on his professional career as one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game, Staubach said, &#8220;I faced up to the issue of obedience. Once I learned to obey there was harmony, fulfillment and victory.&#8221; </p>
<p>Abram obeyed and God fulfilled his promise to make of Abram a great nation. But one thing more needs to be said. God called Abram to be a blessing to others. Whenever Abram&#8217;s descendants - whether they are Jews, Muslims or Christians - cease to be a blessing to others, they are ultimately disobedient to God. </p>
<p>Now we have to be careful. The notion of being obedient to God can be tragically abused. There are people who have done terrible things in this world and they have explained it like this: God told me to do it. Dear people: mark this down and never forget it: If you hear a voice and it tells you to do something hateful, something violent, something that brings pain to others, then that is not the voice of God. That is the voice of the Evil One. God calls us to be a blessing to our family, to our neighbors, to our church, and to the world as a whole. As St. Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:19, &#8220;God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ&#133;And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.&#8221; That&#8217;s who we are and what we are about: God has blessed us so that we may be a blessing to others. </p>
<p>In <i>Some Things Are Too Good to Be True,</i> James Moore tells a story about four angels who witnessed creation. </p>
<p>The first angel observed God&#8217;s handiwork in awe and said: &#8220;Lord, your creation is beautiful! How did you do it?&#8221; That&#8217;s the worldview of a scientist. </p>
<p>The second angel said, &#8220;Lord, your creation is beautiful! Why did you do it?&#8221; That&#8217;s the worldview of a philosopher. </p>
<p>The third angel said, &#8220;Lord, your creation is beautiful! Can I have it?&#8221; That&#8217;s the worldview of a materialist. </p>
<p>Finally, the fourth angel said, &#8220;Lord, your creation is beautiful! Can I help?&#8221; That&#8217;s the worldview of God&#8217;s faithful. </p>
<p>That is the kind of obedience God honors. God told Abram to leave his home and God made Abram a promise and an assignment - that he would be blessed so that he would bless others. </p>
<p>Dear people: Do hear God saying that to you now? You have been blessed, so richly blessed, by a God who continues to bestow upon you blessing upon blessing. Share what you have with others. Give yourselves generously in service. Step out in faith and enter into that peace which consists in having put yourself in God&#8217;s hands. You will experience blessing upon blessing as you bless those around you, those you love, those who need your love, and those whom God loves. Yes, we are blessed so that we might be a blessing to others, and in so doing we bless the whole world. </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i>&nbsp; </p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 23, 2011</p></font></font>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
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    dc:title="Jerusalem, Jerusalem  By Martin E. Marty"
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Jerusalem, Jerusalem&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; By Martin E. Marty &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Jerusalem, Jerusalem is not about Jerusalem the city. Guidebooks abound and histories are plentiful. What author James Carroll was moved to write is a reflection that deals with..."
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001128">Jerusalem, Jerusalem  By Martin E. Marty</a></h2>
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        By <address class="vcard author"><a class="fn url" href="http://cep.anglican.ca">CEP site administrator</a></address> on <abbr class="published" title="2011-03-21T20:22:33-05:00">March 21, 2011  8:22 PM

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<p><strong>Jerusalem, Jerusalem&nbsp; </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By Martin E. Marty</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria">Jerusalem, Jerusalem</span></i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"> is not about Jerusalem the city. Guidebooks abound and histories are plentiful. What author James Carroll was moved to write is a reflection that deals with Jerusalem both as real and as metaphor. He does not exactly do justice to or make much of his subtitle: <i>How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World</i>, but his reflections will ignite at least sparks in the minds of readers who want to ponder with him the question: what is it about religion, with all the solace-bringing good its various forms can bring, that also prompts and promotes violence of most barbaric sorts?</span></font></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">I was one of a half dozen respondents to the book at a program at Brandeis University in Boston last Monday. Our panel featured the requisite Jewish, Muslim, and Christian participants&#8212;two of each&#8212;who could have finished off the guidebook/history approach quite easily. Dealing with Carroll&#8217;s chosen plot, however, was demanding. Those of us who count the author a friend, interact with him on occasion&#8212;as I do at programs of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute in Grand Rapids&#8212;or argued with him over details of his earlier and provocative <i>Constantine&#8217;s Sword</i> expect more of him than one more guidebook or history. While his early reviews tend to be positive, some have criticized him for his choice of approach. Thus Damon Linker in the<i> New York Times</i> chides him for using Jersualem in ways which Linker calls &#8220;messy.&#8221; </font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">Carroll does not pretend to be objective or dispassionate, though he does not side with Christians or Jews or Muslims in the many forms with which they have dispensed violence or told stories about it. So depressing are many of the expressions of Jerusalemitis, that puzzling, disorienting, and often apocalyptic fever which afflicts or is emitted by so many Jerusalemites through the ages, that some of us panelists pondered: what hope is there in dealings with militant people who successively or, worse, concurrently inhabit the sacred and bloody hills. Carroll, metaphorically taking off from Jerusalem&#8217;s mountains (as Jesus and Muhammad &#8220;really&#8221; did, in some cherished texts), was apocalyptic as he envisioned where sacred violence might lead, but let a glimmer of hope shine on the city. People work at peacemaking, he implied, because despite all the warring and bloodshed, &#8220;people&#8221; overall would prefer peace and more quiet lives.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">That kind of warning and dreaming will get you quite far. Carroll is inspired by René Girard&#8217;s influential &#8220;scapegoat&#8221; theory. It suggests, as Linker summarizes, &#8220;that human society and culture are shot through with bloodshed that can be tamed only by further acts of bloodshed. The pre-eminent example of violence taming violence, he says, is religion, which arose out of the practice of human sacrifice&#8212;a ritual that enabled a community to channel and purge its primitive impulses in a single cathartic act of collective bloodletting.&#8221; One need not buy into all details of the Girard speculations to follow Carroll&#8217;s theories, which at times sound like cautions against religion and at others as advertisements for some of its forms.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span></font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">Unfortunately for his own peace and quiet, Carroll writes a weekly column in the <i>Boston Globe</i>. He said something critical of Israel&#8217;s recent treatment of Palestinian families on disputed property in eastern Jerusalem. The response from several Israeli voices was instant, vehement, and verbally violent. Whatever else such columns do, they show that violence is still at hand and poised. Monsieur Girard: after the escalations of violence, is there a scapegoat?</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">References</font></span></b></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">Damon Linker, &#8220;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/books/review/book-review-jerusalem-jerusalem-by-james-carroll.html?_r=1&amp;scp=1&amp;sq=Damon%20Linker&amp;st=cse">Grappling with Religion and Violence</a>,&#8221; <i>New York</i><i> Times</i>, March 20, 2011.</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3">&#8220;Speaking of Faith: Inter-Religious Dialogue in the 21st Century,&#8221; <a href="http://www.gvsu.edu/interfaith/">Kaufman Interfaith Institute</a>, Grand Valley State University.</font></span></p>
<div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><font size="3"></font></span>&nbsp;</div>
<div style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria">&nbsp;</span></div>
<p><font size="3"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN"></span></b></font>&nbsp;</p>
<p><font size="3"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN">Martin E. Marty's</span></b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN"> biography, current projects, publications, and contact information can be found at <a href="http://www.illuminos.com/"><font color="#0000ff">www.illuminos.com</font></a>.</span></font></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; mso-ansi-language: EN" lang="EN"><font size="3">&nbsp;</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break" /></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><span class="yiv1157609531apple-converted-space"><i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Sightings</span></i></span><span class="yiv1157609531apple-converted-space"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"> comes from the </span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria"><a href="http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><font color="#0000ff">Martin Marty Center</font></span></a></span><span class="yiv1157609531apple-converted-space"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"> at the University of Chicago Divinity School. </span></span></font></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black">_______________________________________________________________________________</span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"></span>&nbsp;</p><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"><font size="1">
<p>Sightings 3/21/2011 </p></font></span>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Cambria; COLOR: black"><br />&nbsp;</p></span>
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    dc:title="Guest Reflection: The Mystery of Incarnation By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi"
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Guest Reflection: The Mystery of Incarnation &amp;nbsp; By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Philosophers have asked the question: &#8220;Is the world friendly?&#8221; Put another way they have asked, &#8220;Is there a heart at the..."
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<div id="entry-1126" class="entry-asset asset hentry">
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001126">Guest Reflection: The Mystery of Incarnation By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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        By <address class="vcard author"><a class="fn url" href="http://cep.anglican.ca">CEP site administrator</a></address> on <abbr class="published" title="2011-03-21T19:41:41-05:00">March 21, 2011  7:41 PM

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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: The Mystery of Incarnation </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Philosophers have asked the question: &#8220;Is the world friendly?&#8221; Put another way they have asked, &#8220;Is there a heart at the heart of the universe?&#8221; </p>
<p>Haven&#8217;t we all asked such questions, especially when we are lonely, frightened, or anxious about the future? Is the world a friendly place? Are we left alone to fend for ourselves, or is there a benevolent presence to watch over us, guard us, guide us and protect us? Is there a God, and if God does exist, does such a God care about us? </p>
<p>Christianity answers that question with a resounding &#8220;YES!&#8221; &nbsp;At a point in time over two thousand years ago God entered into the fullness of our humanity, dwelling among us, and bearing love, unrestricted love, total and complete love. </p>
<p>God got down to earth in the person of Jesus to meet us right where we are. </p>
<p>And even today, no matter our circumstances or situation in life, God comes to us, abides with us, and strengthens us for the journey ahead. God comes as friend, as companion, as one who would save us from whatever might threaten to overwhelm or obliterate us. We may turn our backs on God, but God never turns his back on us. We may reject God, but God never rejects us. We may say &#8220;no&#8221; to God, but God always says &#8220;yes&#8221; to us. Again and again, God plunges into our depths to show us his love - a love that never gives up on us, never abandons us, and never forsakes us, no matter what. </p>
<p>Somewhere I came across the story of Dr. John Rosen, a New York City psychiatrist. He had dedicated his life to helping those pitiful souls with catatonia. A catatonic is a person with a type of schizophrenia that causes muscular rigidity and mental stupor, sometimes great excitement or terrible confusion. Their illness consumes them. </p>
<p>Dr. Rosen decided that he could best understand and treat his patients if he actually lived with them. So he moved into their ward, to sleep with them, eat with them, and try to communicate with them. Obviously, it was a difficult undertaking. But the doctor is a very patient man. He accepts his patients as they are, talking when they want to talk, just being there when they don&#8217;t, hugging them when they seem to need a human touch. With medication and his presence, he tries to love his tortured patients out of their pain and confusion into wholeness and hope. </p>
<p>Sometimes he&#8217;s successful. Sometimes clarity and freedom and health come. The disease begins to loosen its grip and sanity returns. It&#8217;s then that the first words the doctor usually hears are these: &#8220;Thank you. Thank you.&#8221; </p>
<p>If you are a Christian who believes in the mystery of Incarnation, then never neglect to say &#8220;thank you&#8221; to God. Thank you, God, for coming in Jesus to save us. Thank you for showing us the way of life. Thank you for the freedom, hope, and joy you have brought us this day and every day. Thank you for giving us strength in the present to face whatever comes our way, and the hope that never gives up on life because in the end tomorrow will be better than today. Thank you for revealing yourself in Jesus our Lord who is with us now and even forevermore. Amen. </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i>&nbsp;</p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 21, 2011</p></font></font>
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Twitter FindsDo you follow the CRG on Twitter? If you don&apos;t, then you missed these two excellent resources this week: Apple continues to unveil products that are innovative and visionary. Could these two words be used to describe..."
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<p><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Helvetica; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 24px; FONT-WEIGHT: bold" class="title"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,153,102)">Twitter Finds</span></span><br /><br /><img border="0" alt="" align="right" src="http://gallery.mailchimp.com/a2eae7fba05e7ed0b349f2390/images/twitter_logo.png" width="130" height="121" />Do you follow the CRG on Twitter? If you don't, then you missed these two excellent resources this week:</p>
<ul>
<li>Apple continues to unveil products that are innovative and visionary. Could these two words be used to describe your congregation? <a style="COLOR: #17488a; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://congregationalresources.us1.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=a2eae7fba05e7ed0b349f2390&amp;id=a22ef2582d&amp;e=bfe51b2402">Church Juice serves up some food (or drink?) for thought</a>. 
<li>The moment clergy finish the last words of one week's sermon, they begin to gear up for the next week's sermon. Pastor Jeremy Walker reflects on the experience--the tools, the challenges, and the lessons--<a style="COLOR: #17488a; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://congregationalresources.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=a2eae7fba05e7ed0b349f2390&amp;id=da9ceda17c&amp;e=bfe51b2402">on the Reformation 21 online magazine</a>. </li></ul>
<p><br />_______________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p>Congregational Resource Guide, March 15, 2011<font size="1"></p>
<p>March 15, 2011</p></font>
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001121">Guest Reflection: Loved, and always loved By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: Loved, and always loved </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p><strong>
<p>It hurts me to tell you this story, but I am going to share it with you anyway. It&#8217;s the story of a little girl by the name of Loretta. She was the new girl in my fourth grade class at PS 163 in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents had arrived from Italy, and Loretta spoke very little English. </p>
<p>I can see her now as clearly as if she had just entered our classroom this morning. Loretta standing in front of the class, her eyes on the worn green linoleum floor of the classroom, her dress too big and faded from being washed so many times, as if it had been handed down from someone older and bigger. Her brown hair falling in greasy strands to her shoulders, like she hadn&#8217;t washed it for a while. And instantly all of us in that fourth grade class knew that Loretta was doomed to be an outcast. </p>
<p>We had labeled her with a scarlet letter, which she could never wipe away. She was a foreigner. She was stupid. She sounded funny. She wasn&#8217;t cool. She was different. When, as would often happen, Loretta would get laughed at or ridiculed or teased, she would stand silent, red-faced, and stare at the ground. </p>
<p>As a child I never thought of what it must have been like to be Loretta. To be an outcast - alone, rejected, made fun of, and told over and over again that you&#8217;re no good, you&#8217;re not like us; you&#8217;re not wanted. As an adult looking back, I can only begin to guess the damage that must have been done to her spirit. </p>
<p>How many Lorettas are there in the world? Children, adults, who are made to feel like outcasts. People who have been told over and over again that they&#8217;re no good, that they don&#8217;t measure up, that they are just not the right kind of people, that there is something wrong with them just because they are different.&nbsp; </p>
<p>I suspect this is the mentality that has caused so many of the conflicts in history. It&#8217;s the &#8220;us&#8221; versus &#8220;them&#8221; mentality; the &#8220;in&#8221; crowd and the &#8220;out&#8221; crowd; the people who belong and the people who are outcast; the people at the center of power and the people on the margins; the pure and the impure; the remnant and the masses; the elect and the damned. </p>
<p>In our lesson from the Book of Acts, that wall of separation is broken down. Gentiles and Jews were separate peoples in separate worlds living according to separate norms. But Peter says that God shows no partiality, and that all people everywhere are acceptable to him. There are no more foreigners and aliens; no more of the in-crowd and the outcasts, only children of the Most High God. There are no more misfits, only members of God&#8217;s household. God has taken everyone who does not fit in and brought them in. From now on, we are all God&#8217;s children, every one of us, without exception. </p>
<p>You see: the God who created us and saved us is the only one who can say who we are. And that is of extraordinary importance in a world like ours where labels are hurled at us all the time. A world that says if you are disabled, you are damaged. If you are old, you are useless. If you have an addiction, you are hell-bound. If you&#8217;re a foreigner, you are second-class. If you&#8217;ve got the wrong color skin, you&#8217;re inferior. If you speak with an accent, you&#8217;re stupid. If you are well-to-do, you are obviously selfish and uncaring. Those are the kinds of things that label us and make us feel as good as dead. But they are simply untrue. </p>
<p>There comes in the gospel a different word. That God has declared once and for all who you are. That in baptism God has sealed you with the Holy Spirit, and that you are now what Jesus is to Father: &#8220;God&#8217;s Beloved.&#8221; Yes, you are beloved because you are a child of God. And nothing and no one can take that away from you. No label, no exclusion, no church pronouncement, no civil degree can ever make you less than you are - God&#8217;s Beloved. </p>
<p>When Ben Hooper was born many years ago in the foothills of East Tennessee, little boys and girls like Ben who were born to unwed mothers were ostracized and treated terribly. By the time Ben was three years old, the other children would scarcely play with him. Parents were saying idiotic things like, &#8220;What&#8217;s a boy like that doing playing with our children?&#8221; as if the child had anything at all to do with his own birth.&nbsp; </p>
<p>Saturday was the toughest day of all. Ben&#8217;s mom would take him down to the general store to buy supplies for the week. Invariably, the other parents in the store would make snide comments just loudly enough for mother and child to hear, comments like, &#8220;Did you ever figure out who his daddy is?&#8221; What a tough, tough childhood! </p>
<p>It was a big event when anything changed in the foothills of East Tennessee, and when little Ben was twelve-years-old, a new preacher came to pastor the little church in Ben&#8217;s town. Almost immediately, little Ben started hearing exciting things about him - how loving and nonjudgmental he was. How he accepted people just as they were, and when he was with them, he made them feel like the most important people in the world. </p>
<p>One Sunday, though he had never been in church a day in his life, little Ben Hooper decided he was going to go and hear the preacher. He got there late and he left early because he didn&#8217;t want to attract attention, but he liked what he heard. For the first time in that boy&#8217;s life, he caught a glimpse of hope. </p>
<p>Ben was back in church the next Sunday - and the next and the next. He always got there late and always left early, but his hope was building each Sunday. </p>
<p>On about the sixth or seventh Sunday the message was so moving and exciting that Ben became absolutely enthralled with it. It was almost as if there was a sign behind the preacher&#8217;s head that read, &#8220;For you, little Ben Hooper of unknown parentage, there is hope!&#8221; </p>
<p>Ben got so wrapped up in the message, he forgot about the time and didn&#8217;t notice that a number of people had come in after he had taken his seat. Suddenly, the service was over. Ben very quickly stood up to leave as he had in all the Sundays past, but the aisles were clogged with people and he couldn&#8217;t run out. </p>
<p>As he was working his way through the crowd, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and looked up right into the eyes of the young preacher who asked him a question that had been on the mind of every person there for the last twelve years: &#8220;Whose boy are you?&#8221; </p>
<p>Instantly, the church grew deathly quiet. Slowly, a smile started to spread across the face of the young preacher until it broke into a huge grin, and he exclaimed, &#8220;Oh, I know whose boy you are! Why, the family resemblance is unmistakable. You are a child of God!&#8221; </p>
<p>And with that the young preacher swatted him across the rear and said, &#8220;That&#8217;s quite an inheritance you&#8217;ve got there, boy! Now, go and see to it that you live up to it.&#8221; </p>
<p>Many years later, Ben Hooper said that was the day he was elected and later re-elected governor of the State of Tennessee. He had gone from being the child of an unknown father to being the child of the King. [The Ben Hooper story has been told in several different versions. This is from a book I read several years ago by Zig Ziglar. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the title of the book.] </p>
<p>Every one of us baptized in Christ Jesus is a child of the King. We are all of royal lineage, of noble blood, because of the blood Jesus shed for us on the cross. Jesus loved us enough to die for us. In fact, if you had been the only person in the whole world, Jesus would have still died for you - he loves you that much. </p>
<p>Yes, in baptism you and I have been marked as Christ&#8217;s own forever; heirs of eternal life; inheritors of heaven; beloved sons and daughters of the Most High God. You are God&#8217;s beloved child, loved, and always loved, forever.&nbsp; </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i>&nbsp; </p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 16, 2011</p></font></font>
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001119">Guest Reflection: The hardest teaching of Jesus By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: The hardest teaching of Jesus </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Some of us may remember the Academy Award winning movie <i>Gandhi</i> in which Ben Kingsley played the great Indian leader. At one point in the film, Gandhi is walking with a Presbyterian minister by the name of Charlie Andrews. The two suddenly find their way blocked by young thugs. Andrews takes one look at the menacing gangsters and decides to run for it. Gandhi stops him and asks, &#8220;Doesn&#8217;t the New Testament say if an enemy strikes you on the right cheek, you should offer the left?&#8221; Andrews mumbles something about Jesus speaking metaphorically. Gandhi replies, &#8220;I&#8217;m not so sure. I suspect he meant you must show courage - be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you will not strike back nor will you be turned aside.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p>
<p>What do you think? Is Gandhi right? Are we expected <i>literally</i> to turn the other cheek, to take a blow and not strike back? For many of us, this is just too much to swallow. It just doesn&#8217;t make sense. It is so contrary to our experience in the world. </p>
<p>Listen to the words of Jesus: &#8220;You have heard that it was said, &#8216;An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.&#8217; But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also&#133;You have heard that it was said, &#8216;You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.&#8217; But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you&#133;&#8221; </p>
<p>You and I live in a world where retaliation and even vengeance seem natural. It happens in our politics, in the affairs of nations, in our personal lives, and even in sports. Think of all the brutal hits in hockey by players retaliating for the low blows of opposing players. Think of baseball pitchers who deliberately hit batters because an opposing pitcher hit one of their players. It&#8217;s a &#8220;hit me and I&#8217;ll hit you harder&#8221; way of playing the game. </p>
<p>There is a story about a truck driver who stopped for dinner and ordered a steak. Before he could eat it, in walked six members of a motorcycle gang. They took the man&#8217;s steak, cut it into six pieces, and ate it. The driver said nothing. He simply paid the bill and walked out. One of the gang members said, &#8220;That man couldn&#8217;t talk. He didn&#8217;t say a word.&#8221; Another said, &#8220;He couldn&#8217;t fight either; he didn&#8217;t lift a hand.&#8221; A waiter added, &#8220;I would say that he couldn&#8217;t drive either. On his way out of the parking lot, he ran over six motorcycles.&#8221; </p>
<p>Something in us loves that story, because we like retaliation. </p>
<p>But Jesus says no retaliation. Two wrongs never make a right. This is not to say that Jesus forbids self-defense. He is not telling people to stay in situations where they suffer physical or emotional abuse. Jesus does not mean that we should become doormats. Christian ethicists speak about force as a legitimate response to violence. The Church itself has set forth several conditions for a &#8220;just war&#8221; in which military action against an aggressor may be justified. We have to protect ourselves and those for whom we are responsible. </p>
<p>Jesus is much more concerned with our personal response to injury in our lives - our readiness to seek vengeance, our quickness to take offense, our keenness in asserting our rights, our eagerness to respond to injury with the attitude, &#8220;I&#8217;ll get mine and get even!&#8221; Natural, but wrong! </p>
<p>Jesus is saying that revenge has no part in our lives. That would be retaliation: eye for eye, tooth for tooth - in which case we will all eventually be blind and toothless! No retaliation. Instead we are to practice reparation. When someone injures us, we are to undo the effects of the injury with love. </p>
<p>Here&#8217;s a whole new way of looking at relationships - with our family and friends, our neighbors and co-workers. When we are the victim of an injury, we are not to injure back. Instead of planning vengeance, we are to pray for those who hurt us. Instead of demanding our rights, we are to surrender them for the sake of love. To Jesus it is more important to show mercy than to demand justice. </p>
<p>This is no prissy ethic. When love springs from the injured party to the one who has injured us, it has the power to transform relationships. </p>
<p>It was a Monday morning, October 2, 2006. A gunman by the name of Charles Roberts entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. After ordering all the boys and teacher to leave the room, he opened fire on the ten remaining girls, killing five and critically wounding the others. He then shot himself as police stormed the building. </p>
<p>Why would he do such a thing? &#8220;I&#8217;m angry at God for taking my little daughter,&#8221; he told the children before the massacre. </p>
<p>Within a few hours of the shooting, the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, was surrounded by 50 different news organizations, all reporting on the horrific violence of that day. The killing of little children shocked the sensibilities of the entire world. Naturally, the focus of the news reports focused on the violence. </p>
<p>But something happened that transformed the story from one of violence to grace. The blood in the school house was barely dry when Amish parents brought words of forgiveness to the family of the one who had slain their children. The outside world was incredulous that forgiveness could be offered so quickly for such a heinous crime. But the forgiveness of the Amish was not just in words. Amish families accounted for half of the 75 people who attended the killer&#8217;s burial. Roberts&#8217; widow was deeply moved by their presence as Amish families greeted her and her three children. The Amish also supported a fund for the shooter&#8217;s family who were near poverty. </p>
<p>Forgiveness eclipsed violence and became the story that was reported by news organizations around the world. In North America, in the Middle East, in Asia and Africa and Europe, on 5340,000 web sites and in 2,900 news reports, the focus on what happened in Nickel Mines, was not on the violence that had occurred but on the power of forgiveness not to let vengeance and hate and retaliation have the last word. (1) </p>
<p>You say that it&#8217;s amazing that people could forgive like that, and it is. It is grace, amazing grace - moving beyond the injury and seeking instead to heal the wrong, and not let violence and hate poison our lives. </p>
<p>The really hard part of the teachings of Jesus is to believe that God&#8217;s grace is unlimited love - love to the just and the unjust, to the evil and the good alike. God&#8217;s love makes no distinctions, has no conditions, and knows no bounds. It&#8217;s an undiscriminating and undifferentiating love towards all and sundry. We place limits on that love, but God never does. </p>
<p>Of course, we may not like our enemies, and we may have every reason to detest what they do, but we can still love them. I doubt whether Jesus liked Herod or some of the other notorious characters in the gospels. But I have no doubt that he loved them - because he died for them no less than for us. Should we then not remember that Jesus also died for our enemies as well as for his; and that he regards them as no less precious than us? At the very least, we should pray for our enemies and seek to do them no harm. And perhaps, by God&#8217;s grace, we will even find ourselves desiring and working for their good like the Amish in Nickel Mines. </p>
<p>&nbsp;1. Donald Kraybill, <i>Amish Grace</i> (San Francisco: John Wiley &amp; Sons, 2007) </p>
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<p><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i></p>
<p><em>_______________________________________________________________________________</em></p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 11, 2011</p></font></font>
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001117">Guest Reflection: Christ's temptation and ours By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: Christ's temptation and ours </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>A woman was struggling whether to accompany her husband on a mid-winter business trip to the Caribbean. &#8220;I could go with him,&#8221; the woman pondered. &#8220;He&#8217;s got enough frequent flyer miles to take me along, and it surely would be nice to have a few days away from the cold and snow. But our kids have school, and we&#8217;d have to leave them at home by themselves. With all the parties we&#8217;ve been hearing about when parents are out of town&#133;Well, we trust them, but I hesitate to place them under that kind of temptation.&#8221; </p>
<p>We think of temptation as the pull to do something evil, but it is much more subtle than that. Temptation is to stray from the values we hold dear. Temptation is to take short cuts, to avoid struggle, to compromise our standards. Temptation hangs in our environment like flu virus, always threatening to break our resistance. We are tempted to break our diets, flirt with somebody at work, finesse the chemistry test, cheat on our taxes, gossip about a friend, lie our way out of trouble - you name it. Temptation is all around us, and for most of us it occurs more often than we think. </p>
<p>Our gospel tells us, &#8220;Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.&#8221; Let&#8217;s consider for a few moments the nature of the temptations Jesus faced and see if they apply to our lives as well. </p>
<p>First of all, there was the temptation to turn stones to bread. Jesus had been fasting for forty days and no doubt he was hungry, so the devil said to him, &#8220;If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.&#8221; In response to the devil&#8217;s challenge Jesus quotes Scripture, &#8220;One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.&#8221; </p>
<p>Jesus is saying that there is more to life than having a full stomach. In our consumer culture one of the greatest temptations is to want more of everything. Happiness is just around the corner if only we have more things and more money. Even the best of us sometimes have the attitude of the financier who was once asked, &#8220;How much is enough?&#8221; To which he replied, &#8220;Just a little bit more.&#8221; </p>
<p>William Willimon, in his book, <i>What&#8217;s Right with the Church</i>, tells a story about leading a Sunday school class that was studying the temptations of Jesus. Dr. Willimon asked the class, &#8220;How are we tempted today?&#8221; A young salesman was the first to speak. &#8220;Temptation is when your boss calls you in, as mine did yesterday, and says, &#8216;I&#8217;m going to give you a real opportunity. I&#8217;m going to give you a bigger sales territory. We believe that you are going places, young man.&#8217;&#8221; </p>
<p>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t want a bigger sales territory,&#8221; the young salesman told his boss. &#8220;I&#8217;m already away from home four nights a week. It wouldn&#8217;t be fair to my wife and daughter.&#8221; </p>
<p>&#8220;Look,&#8221; his boss replied, &#8220;we&#8217;re asking you to do this for your wife and daughter. Don&#8217;t you want to be a good father? It takes money to support a family today. Sure, your little girl doesn&#8217;t take much money now, but think of the future. Think of her future. I&#8217;m only asking you to do this for them,&#8221; the boss said. </p>
<p>The young man told the class, &#8220;Now, that&#8217;s temptation.&#8221; </p>
<p>Jesus overcame his first temptation by putting his complete trust in God. We&#8217;re so concerned about having it all, but the wise person trusts that God will provide all that he or she needs. </p>
<p>The devil doesn&#8217;t take &#8220;no&#8221; for an answer, so next he leads Jesus to the &#8220;pinnacle of the temple&#8221; and says to him, &#8220;If you are the Son of God, throw yourself off the temple.&#8221; Then, to make his case more persuasive, the devil quotes scripture saying, &#8220;He will command his angels concerning you,&#8221; and &#8220;On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.&#8221; </p>
<p>Jesus once again countered the devil&#8217;s temptation by also quoting Scripture, &#8220;Do not put the Lord your God to the test.&#8221; Of course, Jesus could have leaped from the temple and angels would have rescued him. He would have become a superstar, a glamour king. </p>
<p>But Jesus knew that faith could not be built upon the sensational. </p>
<p>When I ministered in Southern California, I noticed that mega churches would try to outdo each other by producing spectacular Christmas and Easter shows with animals, orchestras, elaborate costumes and amazing special effects, all designed to draw people to church. After all, everybody loves a show, so why not entertain the people you want to reach? </p>
<p>Similarly, when I ministered in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, one of the biggest attractions during Halloween was Hell House, a kind of Haunted House sponsored by a fundamentalist church that would guarantee you the experience of hell. Its sponsors promised it would scare you right into heaven. Kids loved it. </p>
<p>Both in Southern California and Lancaster County, lots of people came to these events. Churches were packed, overflowing. How many of these people experienced Jesus, or had their lives turned around, I don&#8217;t know. But in light of our gospel, we need to be wary of equating church with entertainment. As William Barclay put it in, <i>The Gospel of Matthew</i>, &#8220;A gospel found on sensation-mongering is foredoomed to failure.&#8221; God is not to be found in the sensational, but in everyday faithfulness. &nbsp; </p>
<p>Jesus resisted the devil&#8217;s second temptation, but the devil gives it one last try. He shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and promises, &#8220;All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.&#8221; </p>
<p>The devil was handing Jesus the whole world if only he would worship him. All Jesus had to do is compromise his mission. The whole world would be his without having to suffer and die for it. But Jesus refused the devil&#8217;s offer. Again he quoted Scripture, &#8220;Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.&#8221; </p>
<p>When the old Soviet Union existed, a news story came out of Russia. One Sunday at a house church believers arrived inconspicuously in small groups throughout the day so as not to arouse the suspicion of KGB informers. By dusk they were all safely inside, windows closed and doors locked. They began singing a hymn. </p>
<p>Suddenly, the door was pushed open and in walked two soldiers with loaded automatic weapons. One shouted, &#8220;All right, everybody line up against the wall. If you wish to renounce your commitment to Jesus Christ, leave now!&#8221; Two or three quickly left. Then another. After a few seconds, the soldier said, &#8220;This is your last chance. Either renounce your faith in Christ or stay and suffer the consequences.&#8221; Several more left quietly. No one else moved. They fully expected to be gunned down or, at best, imprisoned. </p>
<p>After a few moments of silence, the other soldier closed the door, looked back at those who stood against the wall and said, &#8220;Keep your hands up&#8221; but this time in praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. We, too, are Christians. We were sent to another house several weeks ago to arrest a group of believers, but instead, were converted! We have learned by experience that unless people are willing to die for their faith, they cannot be fully trusted.&#8221; [Excerpt from<i> Charles Swindoll&#8217;s &nbsp;Living Above the Level of Mediocrity</i>] </p>
<p>There is no compromise in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We live for Christ or we die for Christ, but either way we remain committed to Christ. Jesus said, &#8220;Away with you, Satan! Worship God and him alone!&#8221;<br /><br />Three temptations: to use his gifts for his own selfish purposes, to base his witness on the sensational, and to compromise his mission. It occurs to me that these are the three most enticing temptations for the church. We could use our gifts only for our own satisfaction. Some churches never get beyond that. We could make our worship a sideshow and seek to win people with a superficial witness to the gospel. We could compromise our mission and sell-out to the culture. But we are the church of Jesus Christ. He resisted these temptations, and so shall we. </p>
<p>After being tempted by the devil, Jesus was ready for his ministry. His experience in the wilderness was a time of testing. &#8220;Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.&#8221; </p>
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<p><span style="LINE-HEIGHT: 16px"><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i></span> _______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, &nbsp;<font size="1">March 14, 2011 </p>
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    dc:title="The brain of Christ By Phyllis Strupp"
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; The brain of Christ &amp;nbsp; By Phyllis Strupp &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; -&gt;&amp;nbsp; [Episcopal News Service] The high priests of neuroscience (aka the Dana Alliance) have declared March 14 -20 as the 16th annual &quot;Brain Awareness Week.&quot; This global..."
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<p><strong>The brain of Christ </strong></p>
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<p><strong>By Phyllis Strupp</strong></p>
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<p><span class="source">[Episcopal News Service]</span> The high priests of neuroscience (aka the <a href="http://www.dana.org/danaalliances/about//" target="_blank">Dana Alliance</a>) have declared March 14 -20 as the 16th annual <a href="http://www.dana.org/brainweek/" target="_blank">"Brain Awareness Week."</a> This global celebration shares the good news about the brain discovered by researchers looking for the next blockbuster brain medication. </p>
<p>The brain is "plastic," capable of rewiring even after a stroke or gunshot wound. The older brain is a better brain. The mind and the brain can change each other -- sorry 'bout that, Descartes! The hits just keep on coming from the labs of neuroscience, delighting a world haunted by psychosocial brain disorders such as autism, anxiety, depression, and Alzheimer's. </p>
<p>This year, the international brainfest auspiciously coincides with Lent, when we remember <strong>Jesus</strong>' 40 days and nights alone in the desert. Before this desert experience, Jesus was a newly baptized, unheard of, undereducated 30-year-old carpenter from the wrong side of the tracks who quit his day job. Afterwards, he became a popular traveling healer and preacher who spread the good news of God and wielded political power in unprecedented ways. Jesus must have had a major brain makeover during his desert sojourn to undergo such a sweeping personal transformation.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it's a little late to give Jesus a brain MRI or CAT scan. Ah, but here's some good news! The gospel reading for Sunday, March 13 (Matthew 4:1-14) gives us insights as to how Jesus' brain changed in the desert, preparing the way for the mind of Christ to which Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 2:16 ("Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.")?&nbsp; </p>
<p>An important clue is in the very first line: "After Jesus was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Before entering the desert, Jesus felt connected to God.</p>
<p>Today, positive psychologists refer to that feeling as "transcendence," a key virtue of a healthy mind, associated with traits such as appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality.</p>
<p>Jesus was a cog in the wheel of Nazarene society, an anonymous Hebrew boy from a good family who worked with his hands. How did he get this feeling of transcendence and the nerve to lay down his tools and get baptized?</p>
<p>Hard to say, but one thing is clear: an idea turned into an action. That means that his basal ganglia, ancient brain structures that play a key role in motivation, were communicating well with his frontal lobe, where the action was carried out. </p>
<p>That transcendent feeling must have been pretty strong to make a blue-collar kind of guy run off into the wilderness without a sleeping bag or knapsack full of provisions. How very impractical of this man who worked with his hands! His brain stem and hypothalamus, responsible for running his body, must have been very upset with him.</p>
<p>Then Matthew tells us that Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights. Now it is a curious feat that the emotional center of his brain, the amygdala, didn't overreact and ruin the whole experience for Jesus. No food, no water, no people, no shelter -- that's bad enough. Then add in some wild animals and all the weird noises you hear in the outdoors at night. How did Jesus keep from freaking out in this situation?</p>
<p>He must have been doing something to work his left prefrontal cortex, the only part of the brain that is powerful enough to override the amygdala's emotional responses. Meditation strengthens that very area, according to modern science. Prayer likely does also.&nbsp; </p>
<p>Surely the most astounding part of Matthew's account is the "conversation" between Satan and Jesus. After forty days, Jesus was hungry for so many things -- food, drink, and social interaction. How could he handle Satan's challenges to his new identity? How could he remember the particular Old Testament passages that perfectly countered the devil's temptations? How did he resist all that money and power? How did he keep from getting angry at the devil and yelling at him, ridiculing him, or wrestling with him?</p>
<p>Jesus' memory and self-control were truly amazing in this situation. His default network was really on top of its game! The default network is a team of neurons that provides essential services related to identity, such as intrinsic motivation, attention, memory, consciousness, self discipline, and happiness. Interestingly, it is the same group of brain cells that is killed off by Alzheimer's disease, which could be renamed "Identity Deficit Disorder."</p>
<p>Then Satan withdrew, perhaps realizing that Jesus' default network was impenetrable, with God's help.&nbsp; </p>
<p>In the quietness of his desert experience, Jesus partnered with God to get his own act together -- mind, brain, and soul. But even that was not enough to give him the mind of Christ. He had to return to community, healing, preaching, teaching, recruiting disciples, praying, and confronting Satan in others to grow into the brain and mind of Christ. </p>
<p>Jesus demonstrates for us that the brain fitness and mental health that are so elusive today cannot be achieved alone. We need to be alone not to escape others, but to live into a meaningful, God-inspired identity built on serving others. For wherever two or more are gathered in his name, the healthy mind of Christ is there among them.</p>
<p>The good news of the gospel sounds even better with some science behind it. So how will you celebrate "Brain Awareness Week" and Lent this year? A desert pilgrimage or retreat might be just what the divine brain doctor ordered!&nbsp;&nbsp; </p>
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<p class="authorInfo"><em>Phyllis Strupp is the author of Church Publishing's Faith and Nature curriculum. She is a CREDO faculty member and author of "The Richest of Fare: Seeking Spiritual Security in the Sonoran Desert." </em></p><!-- 
        
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<p>Episcopal News Service, March 12, 2011</p>
<p>Episcopal News Service provides information and resources which we<br />consider to be of interest to our readers.<br /><br />However, statements and opinions expressed in the articles and<br />communications herein, are those of the author(s) and not necessarily<br />those of Episcopal News Service or the Episcopal Church.<br /><br /><br /></p>
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<h1><strong>International Women&#8217;s Day: Who will you celebrate?</strong></h1>
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<p>In recognition of the International Women&#8217;s Day centenary today, the Primate&#8217;s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) is suggesting that Canadian Anglicans send a note to a woman who has changed their lives &#8220;for the good.&#8221; <br /><br />Ash Wednesday, March 9, is also &#8220;a good day to reflect on the women who rise to demand a better world,&#8221; said Adele Finney, PWRDF executive director, in a message sent out to PWRDF supporters. &#8220;Then write a letter to or on behalf of women who say &#8216;No more bloodshed.&#8217; Please send PWRDF a copy.&#8221; <br /><br />PWRDF, the relief and development arm of the Anglican Church of Canada, &#8220;has committed itself to strengthening the role of women in the world,&#8221; said Finney. &#8220;&#133;Every PWRDF project has included women not only as beneficiaries, but as visioners, implementers, trainers, advocates for their own and their communities&#8217; futures. (Stories about some of these projects are available <a class="external-link-new-window" title="Opens external link in new window" href="http://www.pwrdf.org/resources/newsletters/update-february-2011/" target="_blank"><font color="#990000">here</font></a><br /><br />Countless organizations and institutions are also commemorating women around the world. The Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, urged Canadians to &#8220;pay homage to all those who have paved the way for equality&#8221; and to reflect &#8220;on what still must be done to create a smarter and more caring Canada.&#8221;&nbsp; </p>
<p>In a message, Johnston noted that throughout the country&#8217;s history, &#8220;women have made so many meaningful and significant contributions to society.&#8221; Nonetheless, he said, &#8220;we must remain vigilant in our pursuit of equal opportunities for women to learn and grow.&#8221; He said that women still need to be promoted and encouraged in the area of science and technology. <br /><br />Meanwhile, YWCA Canada has urged the federal government to address the absence of a national child care services plan, calling it a &#8220;social policy gap that is decades behind reality.&#8221; In a press statement, YWCA Canada CEO Paulette Senior said &#8220;a national plan for quality affordable early learning and child care services is not a luxury, a frill or a threat to Canadian families.&#8221; World Vision, also has ideas about how to recognize and celebrate the achievements of women. They include having a dinner that explores the diverse cultural backgrounds of women in Canada. Visit <a class="external-link-new-window" title="Opens external link in new window" href="http://www.worldvision.ca" target="_blank"><font color="#990000">World Vision&nbsp;</font></a>for details. <br /><br />At the United Nations, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that women in rural areas could feed up to 150 million more of the world&#8217;s hungry people if they had equal access to the means of production. <br /><br />&#8220;Gender equality is not just a lofty ideal, it is also crucial for agricultural development and food security. We must promote the gender equality and empower women in agriculture to win, sustainably, the fight against hunger and extreme poverty,&#8221; FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in a press statement. <br /><br />An FAO report, <i>The State of Food and Agriculture</i>, released March 7, said promoting gender equality in agriculture could reduce the number of hungry people by 12 to 17 per cent. There were about 925 million people who were undernourished in 2010, the report said. It added that women make up about 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries and they tend to be in lower-paid, seasonal and part-time jobs. <br /><br />&#8220;Women farmers typically achieve lower yields than men, not because they are less skilled, but because they operate smaller farms and use fewer inputs like fertilizers, improved seeds and tools,&#8221; the report&#8217;s editor, Terri Raney said in a press statement.&nbsp; &#8220;Evidence from many countries shows that policies can promote gender equality and empower women in agriculture and rural employment. The first priority is to eliminate discrimination under the law.&#8221; He pointed out that in many countries &#8220;women do not have the same rights as men to buy, sell or inherit land, to open a savings account or borrow money, to sign a contract or sell their produce&#133;&#8221;<br />_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 8, 2011 </p>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: Brimming with possibilities </strong></p>
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<p><strong>By Andrea Mann</strong></p>
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<p><em>God is looking at this with good eyes.</em></p>
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<p>The Rev. Aurelio Bernabé de la Paz Cot, priest of the parishes of Céspede and Florida, Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba, used these words at a recent diocesan synod to describe the transformation of his Church&#8217;s liturgical musicianship over the past five years.&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br />What began with seeking God&#8217;s guidance in music making and evangelism has resulted in an annual national music festival bringing choirs, bands, and soloists together for concerts, composition, prayer and praise.&nbsp; All are welcome and many come from every denomination and social sector to enjoy, learn and seek Christ. </p>
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<p><i>God looking at Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba with good eyes</i> brings to mind many moments and people encountered in northern central Cuba while recently travelling with Cuba&#8217;s Bishop Griselda Delgado del Carpio, Anglican Church of Canada&#8217;s Primate, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, General Secretary Michael Pollesel, and others. &nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><br />It was a privilege and pleasure to visit small and large parishes, speak with clergy and lay leaders, listen to the dreams of church moving forward into an unknown future with prayerful conviction and enthusiasm. </p>
<p>In Bermeja, the parish of St. Trinidad, having faithfully attended to the needs of local families through years of deprivation, prays actively for the arrival of mortar and wages to begin rebuilding a sanctuary and Sunday school now too small and in disrepair.&nbsp; <br /><br />The parish of St. Mary the Virgin, Itabo, carries within its banana grove, raised beds, seed oil compressor and pantry the promise and prosperity of community self-reliance.&nbsp; The parish&#8217;s catechist and lay leaders, through their ministries of hospitality, community leadership, and food security exude what is possible by God&#8217;s grace when the land is restored and cultivated in sustainable ways. &nbsp;New mission areas are taking root as Itabo farmers and town dwellers attending parish workshops like what they see.&nbsp; <br /><br />The parish of St. John the Baptist, Florencia, is actively restoring a nearby sister parish, The Church of the Good Shepherd, Perea.&nbsp;&nbsp; In both congregations, the priest&#8217;s keen interest in iconography is shaping the use of this sacred art in worship. </p>
<p>Cuba, known to many Canadians as a warm, seaside respite from winter back home, is also a large, underdeveloped agricultural country. &nbsp;&nbsp;Its compelling beauty and diversity of people, religions, land and culture brim with passion and possibility.&nbsp; North Americans who know only Cuba only as a vacation destination might think about venturing further than its pristine beaches, waterfront resorts and Old Havana, as lovely as these are. </p>
<p>The Episcopal Church of Cuba hosts weekly Sunday worship and weekday prayers.&nbsp; Church members are keen to meet visitors in conversations about mission and outreach, liturgical revision and evangelism.&nbsp; Time and again, when traveling in Havana and in the interior, we were asked:&nbsp; <i>Tell your people to come; your youth groups, clergy, musicians and seminary faculty.&nbsp; We miss you.&nbsp; We welcome you.&nbsp; Come with your gifts and skills and enthusiasm for praising God through worship, song, and mission.&nbsp; We face many challenges.&nbsp; We cannot do what is needed on our own.&nbsp; We must work together.&nbsp; Solidarity, companionship, being one with another in Christ will accomplish what must be done</i>. </p>
<p>Toward achieving &#8220;what must be done&#8221; the Episcopal Church of Cuba at its annual Synod in February unanimously passed a Strategic Mission Plan containing major development areas, strategic directions and detailed implementation schedules. </p>
<p>Of critical importance in implementing the plan is the creation of a stable, reliable funding base over the next three years.&nbsp; <i>&#8220;We have human and material resources, and local opportunities for skills training.&nbsp; What we really need is funding&#8221; </i>for mission and for the upgrading of church infrastructure.&nbsp; Communications and information technologies, the restoration of parish buildings and properties, and transportation - the church&#8217;s &nbsp;&#8220;hardware&#8221; for mission&#8212; &nbsp;&nbsp;is sadly out of date or out of service. &nbsp;&nbsp; </p>
<p>An equally important mission priority is strengthening the knowledge and skills of clergy and laity for community-based ministry, including training for social analysis, project proposal development and local leadership<i>.&nbsp; &#8220;Mission begins with people, where they are with various needs, interests and skills led by trained, capable clergy and lay leaders&#8221;.</i> </p>
<p>Other mission priorities include: </p>
<p>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Advanced scholarship and academic leadership at Seminario Evangelico de Teologia (SET), Matanzas; </p>
<p>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Reaching Cuban youth with Christian alternatives to materialism and secularism; </p>
<p>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Annual Music Festival (August 1-7) </p>
<p>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Annual Youth Camp (August 9-15) </p>
<p>It is Bishop Griselda&#8217;s intention to work toward the accomplishment of these goals with Cubans who work for liberty, mutuality and community irrespective of denominational or faith tradition, or government affiliation.&nbsp; She also seeks to broaden and deepen her church&#8217;s regional and international mission and development partners, with a sincere and humble thank you to all who have accompanied the Episcopal Church of Cuba for many years. &nbsp; </p>
<p>The Anglican Church of Canada is recognized as an especially close companion.&nbsp; Mutual and abiding friendship has been nurtured through the leadership of the Metropolitan Council of Cuba chaired by the Canadian Primate, through generous and reciprocal hospitality with parishes and people of the Diocese of Niagara, and through national Partnerships programs such as Volunteers in Mission, scholarships and grants in support of academic development, youth ministry and clergy stipends. </p>
<p>It is an exciting time for the Episcopal Church of Cuba.&nbsp; <i>God is looking at this with good eyes</i>. </p>
<p>Let us pray for Bishop Griselda Delgado del Carpio and with her, and the whole diocese as it works to implement its Strategic Mission Plan, its witness and love for Christ through proclamation, education, loving service, transformational leadership and safeguarding the integrity of creation and renewal of earth.</p>
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<p><i>Andrea Mann is Global Relations Coordinator of the Anglican Church of Canada&#8217;s General Synod.</i> </p>
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<p>Anglican Journal News,&nbsp;<font size="1">March 9, 2011</p>
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    dc:title="Guest Reflection: A Case for Open Communion By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi"
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Guest Reflection: A Case for Open Communion &amp;nbsp; By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; Should we invite persons who are not baptized to receive Holy Communion? The church is discussing this question today. Anglicans traditionally..."
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001103">Guest Reflection: A Case for Open Communion By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Guest Reflection: A Case for Open Communion </strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>By The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Should we invite persons who are not baptized to receive Holy Communion? The church is discussing this question today. Anglicans traditionally have believed that the eucharist is a family meal, reserved for members of the church through baptism. Those who are not baptized are not members of the church; therefore, they cannot participate in the family meal. </p>
<p>This exclusive view of the eucharist has a long history. St. Paul warns against eating and drinking in an &#8220;unworthy manner&#8221; (I Cor. 11:27), though he seems to leave the decision whether to partake in the meal to each person&#8217;s conscience (I Cor. 11:28). Closed communion is standard practice in some Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox. However, many Anglican churches throughout the world now practice open communion. There are good reasons, both missional and theological, for doing so. </p>
<p><b></b>&nbsp;</p>
<p><b>The Missional Case</b><br /></p>
<p>Consider the fact that most Anglican churches now celebrate the eucharist every Sunday at every service. Yet many people are not baptized. How do we reach them? Do we invite them to church for Sunday dinner and tell them they cannot eat the food? </p>
<p>How, in our multicultural and pluralistic society, can our churches be places of hospitality if we exclude table fellowship with the non-baptized? This is not an academic question. In Canada, a growing number of the population is not baptized. Included are people from different religious traditions or people with no religious affiliation at all. Quite likely, some are our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, whose parents neglected or refused to have them baptized. </p>
<p>How can the church effectively minister in a post-Christian world where a significant percentage of the population is not baptized? Some Anglican churches are attempting to meet this challenge by becoming open and inclusive faith communities, ready and willing to support people in their spiritual journeys. They understand that the Anglican tradition has never been content to adopt a sectarian mentality, to insulate itself from culture or to refuse to connect with an unchurched population. </p>
<p>Open communion increasingly is seen as a way to build a bridge between the church and the unchurched. If people are &#8220;spiritual but not religious&#8221; as several sociological studies indicate, then the desire for transcendence experienced in sacramental worship may well draw them to church. </p>
<p>There is a pattern here: <i>experience, community,</i> and <i>faith</i>&#8212;in that order. In this organic process, experience is foundational to faith. I term this &#8220;experiential evangelism&#8221;&#8212;offering people an experience of God that draws them into the Christian community and leads to faith in Jesus. There is precedent for this model. Solomon Stoddard, the father-in-law of Jonathan Edwards and himself one of the great New England Puritan pastors, referred to Holy Communion as a &#8220;converting ordinance&#8221; in which the experience of receiving communion served to transform the heart of the recipient. </p>
<p>We now live in a post-modern world that places heart over head, feeling over thought, intuition over logic and image over words. &#8220;We have a generation that is less interested in cerebral arguments, linear thinking, theological systems,&#8221; observes Leith Anderson, author of <i>Dying for Change. </i>Instead, they are &#8220;more interested in encountering the supernatural,&#8221; he says. It is by an experience with the supernatural that people enter into community. It is through community that people come to faith.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; To be sure, this is a significant shift in the way Anglicans usually have thought of Christian formation. The traditional model holds that believing leads to belonging<i>&#8212;</i>you believe the faith of the church in order to belong to the church. In this model, the church made confirmation a prerequisite to communion. However, an emerging model reverses the order, and holds that belonging leads to believing. Insofar as people belong to a Christian community, they come to believe in the faith of that community. In this model, communion leading to baptism may complement the still normative practice of baptism leading to communion. </p>
<p>This new model of Christian formation is consistent with church growth methodology. &#8220;The old paradigm taught that if you have the right teaching, you will experience God,&#8221; writes Leith Anderson. &#8220;The new paradigm says that if you experience God, you will have the right teaching.&#8221; </p>
<p>Open communion played a major part in the rapid growth of my parish in Southern California. I saw the same scenario repeated many times&#8212;non-Christians receiving Holy Communion and experiencing God in a powerful way, leading to a desire to be baptized. Therefore, I ask: might we not see the experience of receiving communion as a way of drawing people to faith in Jesus? </p>
<p><b></b>&nbsp;</p>
<p><b>The Theological Case</b> </p>
<p>There is, however, another consideration. Who is the host of the Lord&#8217;s Supper? God is. God welcomes us. Even before we ask for food, God spreads a table before us. God&#8217;s all-embracing hospitality is a hallmark of the meal we call eucharist. </p>
<p>One of the most powerful witnesses of God&#8217;s inclusive love is the welcoming table, so prevalent among southern black churches in the United States. At these fellowship dinners, held on church grounds, a large meal is prepared for anyone who might come: rich and poor, black and white, stranger and church member. In the days of the segregationist south, when legal measures were ruthlessly enforced to prevent different races from eating together or even sharing a water fountain, the welcoming table was a powerful witness to God&#8217;s inclusive love. </p>
<p>Might not the Lord&#8217;s Table in Anglican churches be understood as a welcoming table? Is it possible for us to see the altar as a symbol of inclusion rather than exclusion? Anglican biblical scholar John Koenig and reformed theologian Amy Plantinga Pauw have argued separately that the most pervasive image in the Bible is the banquet table, with God serving as a generous host. Salvation is feasting in the kingdom of God, where people will come from north and south, east and west to sit at table together. In Isaiah 25:6−9, for example, the banquet is a symbol of salvation, with the invitation extended to &#8220;all peoples&#8221; and &#8220;all nations&#8221;&#8212;not just Israel. </p>
<p>This table fellowship is at the heart of Jesus&#8217; ministry. Jesus welcomed all kinds of people to his table: rich people, poor people, good people, sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes, you name them, and they came to eat and drink with Jesus (Mt. 9:9−10; Luke 14:12−23;19:5). United Methodist Bishop William Willimon has said that Jesus&#8217; open invitation &#8220;manifested the radically inclusive nature of his kingdom, a kingdom that cuts across the barriers we erect between insiders and outsiders, the saved and the damned, the elect and the outcast&#8212;barriers often most rigidly enforced at the table.&#8221; </p>
<p>Jesus welcomed all sorts of people to his table. Might we also welcome people with the same openness and acceptance as he did? After all, it is the Lord&#8217;s Table, not ours. Who are we to exclude the very people that Jesus includes in his ministry? </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><i>The Rev. Dr. Gary Nicolosi is the rector at St. James Westminster Anglican Church in London, Ont.</i> </p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p><font size="1">
<p>Anglican Journal News, <font size="1">March 7, 2011</p></font></font>
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    dc:title="God in our work: a theology of stewardship By Vianney (Sam) Carriere"
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    dc:description="&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; God in our work: a theology of stewardship &amp;nbsp; By Vianney (Sam) Carriere Interim Director, Philanthropy &amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp; March 01, 2011 - The most knowledgeable and refined presentation imaginable can be blown out of the water..."
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<div id="entry-1097" class="entry-asset asset hentry">
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001097">God in our work: a theology of stewardship By Vianney (Sam) Carriere</a></h2>
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<p><strong>God in our work: a theology of stewardship </strong></p>
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<p><strong>By Vianney (Sam) Carriere</strong></p>
<p><strong>Interim Director, Philanthropy</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong></strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>March 01, 2011 - The most knowledgeable and refined presentation imaginable can be blown out of the water by the single question &#8220;Where is God in all this?&#8221; if no answer is available. Answering the question well is critical, especially when &#8220;all this&#8221; skirts the secular world&#8212;as the work of the Department of Philanthropy does. </p>
<p>The most knowledgeable and refined presentation imaginable can be blown out of the water by the single question &#8220;Where is God in all this?&#8221; if no answer is available. Answering the question well is critical, especially when &#8220;all this&#8221; skirts the secular world&#8212;as the work of the Department of Philanthropy does.</p>
<p>Where is God in fundraising, in asking people for money, in discussions of wills and bequests and major gifts and diocesan or national campaigns? Where is God in strategizing around the institutional church&#8217;s economic survival?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a question that was asked frequently of the new Department of Philanthropy in the last triennium. At its very first meeting in September, the Standing Committee on Philanthropy, newly minted by General Synod, agreed that an answer was required.</p>
<p>The result was the establishment of a writing group to describe where God is in philanthropy and stewardship and, of equal importance, where stewardship fits in the Christian life. We believe <a style="COLOR: #0068c0; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://anglican.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d120aa8efc4112c7cae41108e&amp;id=f6133cf3fe&amp;e=0aef6e8f07">we have produced a strong document</a> that addresses the importance of finding resources for God&#8217;s mission. Because God is indeed in the work that we do. As the document correctly notes, stewardship &#8220;is a core Christian practice rooted in Scripture.&#8221;</p>
<p><a style="COLOR: #0068c0; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://anglican.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=d120aa8efc4112c7cae41108e&amp;id=65f38d1b20&amp;e=0aef6e8f07">This document</a> belongs to the Church, not to one department or one committee. Our hope is that it will be used and studied widely, that it will form the basis for study groups and for sermons, that it will be discussed and appreciated both for what it says and for what it suggests.</p>
<p>The Philanthropy Committee approved the statement during a conference call in February. The same conference call agreed to ask the Council of General Synod to change the name of the Philanthropy Department to the Resources for Mission Department.</p>
<p>The reason for the name change&#8212;other than the fact that no one much liked the word &#8216;philanthropy&#8221;&#8212;is also reflected in the theological statement. All that the Church does <span>&nbsp;</span>is in furtherance of God&#8217;s mission. In the committee&#8217;s discussion of the name change, &#8220;Resources for Mission&#8221; was described by one member as &#8220;a spacious name.&#8221;</p>
<p>We see our role&#8212;spaciously&#8212;as bringing together, nurturing, encouraging all the resources at the church&#8217;s disposal. The term &#8220;resources&#8221; undeniably includes financial and material capacity, but also includes parishes, deaneries, dioceses, and all the people who make up those entities along with all the gifts they bring to the service of God&#8217;s mission. Our new name strives to honor those &#8220;resources.&#8221;</p>
<p>_______________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p>Anglican Church of Canada, News From General Synod, March 1, 2011<br /></p></strong>
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        <h2 class="asset-name entry-title"><a href="http://info.cep.anglican.ca/discussion/#001095">Visiting the Virgin Mary in Ephesus By Lori Erickson</a></h2>
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<p><strong>Visiting the Virgin Mary in Ephesus </strong></p>
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<p><strong>By Lori Erickson</strong></p>
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<p><span class="source">[Episcopal News Service]</span> When I became an Episcopalian two decades ago, one of my great pleasures was being able to be open about my love for the Virgin Mary. </p>
<p>Growing up in another denomination, I'd been taught that while she could be trotted out at Christmas, hanging around with her the rest of the year was idolatrous. I found myself attracted to her nevertheless. I secretly wanted one of those plaster statues of her in my garden. I taught myself the Hail Mary. I gravitated to Virgin Mary shrines on my travels. And when I became an Episcopalian, I delighted in the Anglican via media that says it's fine to hang around with Mary all year long.</p>
<p>Of the places around the world where I've been fortunate to encounter her, the place that touched my heart the most is a secluded spot near Ephesus in Turkey. Up a winding mountain road above the famous Greco-Roman ruins there stands a simple stone building known as the House of the Virgin Mary. According to tradition, it was here that Mary lived her final years after being brought to Ephesus by the apostle John.</p>
<p>Is the story true? The best response I can give is author Phyllis Tickle's tale about being approached by a young man after she had made a reference in a speech to many people's problems in believing in the doctrine of the virgin birth. "Of course I believe in the virgin birth," he told her. "Why wouldn't I? The whole thing's so beautiful, it has to be true, whether it happened or not."</p>
<p>The deeper truth of the House of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus is the peace that permeates it. The tiny house is surrounded by aromatic pine trees and serenaded by birds. It's a place that makes you want to be still and silent, which to me is always the surest sign I'm on holy ground.</p>
<p>In contrast to the ornate Marian shrines at places like Lourdes in France, there's not much here. Inside the house, a statue of Mary sits atop an altar, with two flickering candles on either side. In the space before the altar are two places to kneel and pray. That's all.</p>
<p>Because I visited in winter when there are few tourists in the area, I was able to have as much time as I wanted in the house. As I knelt, I could imagine Mary there. After all she had seen and suffered in her life, I wanted to believe that she had ended her earthly days in a peaceful sanctuary like this, even if it wasn't this exact place. I hoped that the birds had serenaded her as she pondered in her heart all that she had witnessed.</p>
<p>But the part that I found most wonderful was this: when I exited the house, I saw a small Muslim shrine to Mary. I recalled that my guide in Istanbul had told me that Mary is mentioned more often in the Koran than in the New Testament. "We honor her as Maryam, the mother of the prophet Jesus," he had explained.</p>
<p>As I watched, I saw a group of women in headdresses and robes approach this shrine. I wondered what prayers they were saying as they paused there with closed eyes. I guessed that our prayers were likely similar, and that Mary made no distinction between which ones were prayed by a Christian and which by a Muslim.</p>
<p>I don't mean to minimize the theological differences between Islam and Christianity or the tangled political web that at times divides the two religions. But in that lovely, serene place, those differences seemed non-existent.</p>
<p>As a mother myself, I know how families too often become broken and estranged, and I believe that this fracturing profoundly grieves the One who made us all, whether it happens in individual families or in the larger human family. But think of the healing that can happen when we return home to our mother's house. All is forgiven, she says. There is room for everyone, even though it seems like the house is small. Be still and at peace. And just listen to how beautifully those birds are singing. </p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><br />&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /><em><strong>Lori Erickson writes about inner and outer journeys at <a href="http://www.spiritualtravels.info" target="_blank">Spiritual Travels</a></strong></em><em><strong>. She serves as a deacon at Trinity Episcopal Church in Iowa City, Iowa.</strong></em></p>
<p><strong><em>_______________________________________________________________________________</em></strong></p>
<p>Episcopal News Service, February 28, 2011</p>
<p>Episcopal News Service provides information and resources which we<br />consider to be of interest to our readers.<br /><br />However, statements and opinions expressed in the articles and<br />communications herein, are those of the author(s) and not necessarily<br />those of Episcopal News Service or the Episcopal Church.<br /><br /><br /></p>
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