Bishop Paul's Page

A Traditional Anglican Ministry Using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer

Bishop Paul's Page

1 August 2010

It seems that every so often life throws you a curved ball that has the ability to bring you to your knees, either physically or emotionally. For the physical curved ball, it is usually a process of diagnosis and rehabilitation that will ensure a full recovery. Often, we have to consult with an expert and undertake a course of corrective behaviors that typically give our body the rest and recuperation that it needs to heal fully and enable us to get back into a normal life. The prescription is usually an easy one to handle: pain killers, corrective exercise and a slow re-building process until full health is achieved.

But what of the emotional curved ball? The mind is much harder to heal than the body. In physical rehabilitation we can immobilize the offending limb or body part with external bindings, such as a cast or some sort of bandaging. When that happens it is obvious to all that the person is injured and needs extra consideration during their time of healing.

When the emotional curve ball hits, it can floor us in a way that no other can understand or appreciate. It often is so intensely personal that we feel that we cannot share what it is that ails us with anyone, either out of insecurity, embarrassment or perhaps fear for the result of our sharing its details unedited.

So how to heal from the emotional curve ball? First, it is essential to recognize it for what it truly is. Each time we are emotionally stuck out we should know that as in any baseball game there is another inning and if we learn how to deal with the pitcher we can once again enter the game on an even keel.

You see, we often blame others for our inability to hit the pitch when really it is our inability to recognize the pitch for what it truly is and lack of practice that caused us to swing and miss. In relationships that is communication failure. We have to be truthful with ourselves before we can pick up the bat and head back to the plate. What are we really feeling? Really feeling. Why do we feel that way and what exactly is the feeling? What are the consequences for our decisions? Are we prepared to be honest and face up to whatever the results of our decisions are? Are we prepared to pay whatever the price may be to live with the consequence of our action? In order to fully recover, honesty is essential even when that honesty causes us pain.

If you need surgery to repair damage, it leaves a scar which reminds us to be careful next time. If we have an emotional scar, it is never on the surface and may occasionally be re-opened unknowingly by others.

As we go to the plate next time, let's give some thought to just making it on base rather than hitting it out of the park. The main thing is, I believe, to stay on the team and not risk injury by taking foolish chances or not fully recognizing what is at stake.

Blessings,
+Paul
Rector, Bishop Missioner and Vicar General

28 February 2010

It seems that Lent is becoming less and less evident in the lives of every day Americans. Even a short ten years ago, it was possible to see people showing the remains of the charcoaled cross on their foreheads as they traveled home from work. This year I saw none. Does that mean that the faithful few are even fewer, or that society has created such a stigma that the faithful no longer show their trip to Church on Ash Wednesday in as an outward sign of the inward grace that they had received?

Now I do live in Los Angles, the city that many would equate to a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, so should I be surprised by this lack of evidence?

I feel that we are slowly moving towards the precipice that is religious indifference, as Christian believers are more and more marginalized and 'having a faith' but no specific religion becomes more dominant in our society.

If one asks many believers the origin of Ash Wednesday some faithful Christians are still unable to fully explain the significance of the Imposition of Ashes. So what follows is a simple explanation.

Ash Wednesday is a day of repentance and it marks the beginning of Lent. Ashes were used in ancient times, according to the Bible, to express mourning. Dusting oneself with ashes was the penitent's way of expressing sorrow for sins and faults. An ancient example of one expressing one's penitence is found in Job42:3-6. Job says to God: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. The other eye wandereth of its own accord. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (vv. 5-6, KJV) Other examples are found in several other books of the Bible including, Numbers19:9, 19:17, Jonah 3:6, Matthew 11:21, and Luke10:13, and Hebrews 9:13. Ezekiel 9 also speaks of a linen-clad messenger marking the forehead of the city inhabitants that have sorrow over the sins of the people. All those without the mark are destroyed.

Ash Wednesday marks the start of a forty day period which is an allusion to the separation of Jesus in the desert to fast and pray. During this time he was tempted. Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13. While not specifically instituted in the Bible text, the 40 day period of repentance is also analogous to the 40 days during which Moses repented and fasted in response to the making of the Golden calf. (Jews today follow a 40 day period of repenting during the High Holy Days from Rosh Chodesh Elulto Yom Kippur.)

As I child I remember a poem by T.S. Elliot, that was purportedly written shortly after his conversion to Anglicanism. I share it with you for your own meditation.

Ash-Wednesday

by T S Eliot
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
II
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying
Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.
Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.
III
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.
At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jagged, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth

I pray that the words of T.S. Elliott will resonate in your hearts this Lenten tide.

Blessings,
+Paul
Rector, Bishop Missioner and Vicar General

1 October 2009

The world's Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly one in four people practice Islam according to the US Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life which published the survey. This compares to 2.25 billion Christians.

The top five Muslim countries in the world include only one in the Middle East - Egypt - behind Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, in that order. Russia, the survey shows, has more Muslims than the populations of Libya and Jordan combined. Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon. China has a bigger Muslim population than Syria.

So what does this say about Christians?

Let's look at the great commission from Mathew 28:16-20. 16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

So have I missed something in the translation? We (Anglicans and Roman Catholics) have been preoccupied or perhaps distracted by our own internal struggles and conflicts while it seems that Islam has been working amongst our own flocks on their own version of our great commission.

It is time for us to refocus our efforts to complete the task at hand. Perhaps some may wish to abdicate personal responsibility in this matter. If so, I have some bad news: this is personal. In the Great Commission, Jesus calls upon each and every Christian to step out in faith and spread the Good News. I know that people who obey this command change their spiritual lives forever! It could be spreading the Good News to a neighbor, someone in the grocery store or as a missionary in another country to reach the people there. It could be sharing with less fortunate kids down the street or spreading the Word in a town two hours away. Wherever we go, every faithful Christian is compelled through obedience to share the Gospel. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, where has He called you to go? Who has God put on your heart to share the gift of salvation? What small or large steps can you take, with the knowledge that Christ will be by your side, "to make disciples of all the nations"?

While that may seem all well and good and may large churches may claim it is their core activity I believe that they are misled or even mistaken. Look at the budget. What would God have as the number one line item? Based upon the great commission, I believe we can argue that several key things are needed long before a stewardship campaign for building an even more magnificent edifice. What say you?

We have to change our ways and bring more people to Christ. There is no shortage of people seeking as the Islamic growth attests. We have to take the lead and push forward in the belief that what we do meets God's desire for us.

Blessings,
+Paul
Rector, Bishop Missioner and Vicar General

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