Poem for Mary

Mary D. Glasspool

I have been counting down the days to the consecration of the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool as a suffragan bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. In a little while, she will become the second bishop of The Episcopal Church (and Anglican Communion) in a long-term relationship with someone of the same sex. Put another way, she will become the first partnered lesbian bishop in the Anglican Communion. She will be consecrated along with the Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce, and they will become the first women bishops for the Los Angeles diocese.

I have been wanting to write a poem about Mary Glasspool, but an idea for one came to me only today. You can read it here first, but I will also put it in the Poetry section of Lionel Deimel’s Farrago as soon as I am able. You will, no doubt, be able to identify the inspiration for this poem.

Poem for Mary

Mary, Mary, to some, contrary
To how the Church should grow—
Nor closeted, nor male, nor straight;
Why disrupt the status quo?

Mary, bane of Canterbury,
Whipping girl of “orthodox,”
Bishop for the forward-thinking;
For the rest, a paradox.

Mary, Mary commentary
Paints you as the Devil’s tool;
Yet, may you walk in Jesus’ path,
And honor God mid ridicule.

This poem may seem a bit darker than is absolutely necessary. Only time will tell of what significance are today’ consecrations. (But see my post, “Countdown.”)

Godspeed, Mary Glasspool.


Update: This poem, with a bit more commentary, is now on my Web site here.

Reviving an Old Proposal

A friend suggested the other day that The Episcopal Church withdraw from the Anglican Communion for a time. I have not been very sympathetic to such proposals in the past—our voluntary non-participation in the 2005 Nottingham Anglican Consultative Council meeting did not work out well—but, in 2010, the idea does not seem unreasonable.

In March of 2007, the Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb, a member of the Covenant Design Group that had recently issued its first covenant draft, spoke to the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church about the draft and about the process that produced it. (Her remarks can be read here.) She also reflected on the recent meeting of the primates at Dar es Salaam, suggesting that “the best evidence for how [the covenant] is likely to be interpreted in the future is the Primates’ Communiqué.” She did not find this comforting.

Grieb made this surprising proposal to the bishops: “I suggest that we enter a five-year period of fasting from full participation in the Anglican Communion to give us all time to think and to listen more carefully to one another.” She explained that “we should absent ourselves from positions of leadership, stepping out of the room, so that discussions of the Anglican Communion about itself can go on without spending any more time on our situation which has preoccupied it.” Her suggestion was not acted upon.

I assume that the duration of Grieb’s “fast” was predicated on her talk’s having been given approximately five years before the 2012 General Convention. As it happens, we are now about as far removed from the 2015 General Convention, and I think this is an appropriate time to revisit her proposal.

In the intervening three years, the situation in the Anglican Communion has continued to develop. The current covenant draft is claimed as the final one, and all Communion churches are supposedly in the process of adopting it. The Episcopal Church exhibited less deference to Communion demands in the 2009 General Convention than it did in 2006. Moreover, some of the reservations held by Grieb’s audience are no longer relevant. The Archbishop of Canterbury invited nearly all Episcopal bishops to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and the schism in The Episcopal Church that was thought might be encouraged by an institutional fast happened anyway.

Many things have not changed. The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada continue to be vilified with regularity, and churches that might be expected to be defenders of the two large North American churches continue to be conspicuous by their silence. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury is pleased with his having successfully played midwife to an Anglican covenant, the recent “Trumpet” (communiqué) from the Global South suggests that the struggle for a new doctrinal and political direction for the Communion is far from over. Rowan’s covenant seems to please the Global South no more than it does the liberal West. The election of Mary Glasspool has occasioned renewed dissatisfaction abroad, and her May 15 consecration will doubtless unleash renewed paroxysms of distress from Third World primates and their Western patrons.

It is in this context that Grieb’s notion of The Episcopal Church’s “stepping out of the room” for a time looks increasingly attractive. The main purpose of doing so is the same—to allow the Anglican Communion to decide how it wants to structure itself, not how it wants to punish the American churches. I will have more to say about this and about other potential benefits below. I first want to outline my own 2010 version of Grieb’s proposal.

Sabbatical

I have chosen to call my proposal a sabbatical from the Anglican Communion. I see it not as a time of self-denial, but as a period of respite, self-discovery, and patient waiting.

Let me begin by listing details of my proposed sabbatical, which differs in many respects from Grieb’s fast. Both she and I agree that certain actions would require the approval of General Convention. She suggested calling a special General Convention to obtain that approval. Convening a special General Convention would be cumbersome and expensive, however, and I believe we can avoid doing so by structuring our actions differently.

Specifically, I propose The Episcopal Church do the following:

1. Announce immediately that a three-year sabbatical from participation in Anglican Communion activities will be proposed at the 2012 General Convention. The sabbatical is to begin at the end of the Convention and last until the end of the 2015 Convention. (The 2015 Convention could extend the sabbatical or take other action respecting the Anglican Communion.) Details of the proposed sabbatical (enumerated below) should be made public, though the General Convention might modify or reject the sabbatical idea.
   
   
2. No funds to support Communion infrastructure are to be included in the 2012–2015 budget, though funds pledged in the current triennium budget are to be distributed.
   
   
3. Funding for joint mission projects of The Episcopal Church and other Communion churches are not to be affected by the sabbatical, but no grants are to be made for infrastructure support to churches that have shown hostility to the domestic or foreign mission of The Episcopal Church.
   
   
4. Between the 2012 and 2015 General Conventions, no representatives, official or otherwise, should attend Communion meetings. This prohibition is to include all Episcopal bishops. The church will neither respond to Communion requests nor offer any proposals of its own.
   
   
5. No action is to be taken by the 2012 General Convention on the proposed Anglican covenant or any successor covenant that may be proposed before then.
   
   
6. An amendment to the church’s constitution will be proposed at the 2012 General Convention to revise the Preamble to remove references to the Anglican Communion. (See “A Preamble Proposal.” Ideally, this and the next item should be pursued independently of my sabbatical idea. It is to be hoped that the General Convention will also move forward in authorizing liturgies for the blessing of same-sex unions.)
   
   
7. Section 1 of Canon I.20 should be modified to read something like the following (added language is shown in italics):
   

   Sec. 1. The Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion, has a relationship of full communion only with those Churches in the historic episcopal succession that have not declared themselves to be in impaired communion with or not in communion with this Church, and with those Churches with whom it has entered into covenant agreements, including:
   
   

   1. the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht,
   2. la Iglesia Filipina Independiente/the Philippine Independent Church, and
   3. the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar.

   The change would make it more difficult for ministers of Anglican churches that have declared themselves not in communion with The Episcopal Church to preach or celebrate in Episcopal Churches. It would also allow The Episcopal Church to establish missionary dioceses in such out-of-communion territories. The logic here is that churches’ being in communion with one another is like being friends. Mike is not really friends with Tom if Tom does not think of himself as friends with Mike, even though he might be a friend to Tom. (The relation being in communion with, I would argue, is a reflexive, symmetric relation. See “Some Mathematical Reflections on Communion.”)
   
   
8. Between now and the opening of the 2012 General Convention, The Episcopal Church should participate only as required in Communion affairs. The church should neither respond to requests from the Communion nor offer any proposals.

Analysis

What benefits might accrue from the proposed sabbatical?

First, the sabbatical is intended to give our own church respite from the unrelenting pressures to which we have been subjected since 2003. A sabbatical will give us time to discern what we expect in relationships with other churches, including those both in and out of the Anglican Communion. Also, in a time of dwindling resources, funds that would otherwise go to support a Communion infrastructure that seems to be satisfying no one could be used to strengthen our own church and to advance our own mission objectives.

The Anglican Communion, much of which seems eager to have The Episcopal Church out of the way, will get an opportunity to see what that might look like. Having lost its whipping boy, will the Global South turn its wrath on the Church of England and other Western and Western-leaning churches? Episcopal Church detractors in the Communion will have to decide just what sort of Communion, if any, they really want. Is the draft covenant strong enough? Is something more dictatorial indicated? Is Canterbury too influential? Is the real goal an Orthodox Anglican Communion, with or without the Church of England? Perhaps, just perhaps, life in the Anglican Communion without The Episcopal Church might be found wanting. If so, reconciliation will be easier after a trial separation than after a divorce.

More than once, I have heard pleas from progressives in various Communion churches for The Episcopal Church to stand and fight, rather than abandoning them to the machinations of Anglican troglodytes. To this I reply that The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada have received precious little substantive support from churches known to be sympathetic to their present understanding of their mission. The sabbatical would be a wake-up call for the progressive elements of the Communion to stand up and be counted, rather than relying on a long-suffering, if not actually masochistic, Episcopal Church to carry the banner of Modernism.

As I said earlier, no one seems genuinely happy with the prospect of an Anglican Communion structured by the proposed Anglican covenant. The reality is that forging a satisfactory agreement of substance among diverse organizations spread across the globe requires substantial time and money. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, chose to develop a covenant quickly and on the cheap. Perhaps, without the immediate ability to chastise The Episcopal Church removed, the Communion will act with more grace and common sense. I wouldn’t, of course, be holding my breath.

Were we to implement my sabbatical idea, we would be saying to the Anglican Communion, “Decide how you want to structure the Communion, and let us know when you’re done. We will then let you know if we’re interested in being a part of it.” This will be a difficult declaration for some to make, but the Anglican Communion is only a means to an end. We should not indulge those who, for their own reasons, have made the Communion an idol to be venerated.

Am I Serious?

Do I really think that a sabbatical from participation in the Anglican Communion is the best policy The Episcopal Church could pursue? Well, yes and no. I am quite serious about the potential benefits, and I fear that the 2012 General Convention might sign on to the covenant, either out of a business-as-usual Anglican politeness or in the mistaken belief that the covenant really isn’t so bad. Going on sabbatical would certainly be preferable to that kind of self-destructive betrayal of the Episcopal majority and two centuries of independence.

My true preference, however, would be for The Episcopal Church finally to discover its institutional backbone and to declare that its current trajectory is not subject to foreign influence and that the church will not abandon that trajectory for the sake of the consciences of a handful of reactionary Episcopal bishops.

The leadership of our church has frankly been passive-aggressive in its dealings with the Communion, failing at every turn to make clear that actions, particularly by the primates, are unacceptable. Our church has repeatedly suggested that we are trying to comply with Communion demands, even when it has been clear that we had no inclination or will to do so. The consent to the consecration of Mary Glasspool was an inevitability, not a fluke, and the Presiding Bishop understood that inevitability at the same time she was leading the Communion to believe that we would maintain a moratorium on such consecrations.

Standing up to Communion bullies is what I really think my church should do, but stepping back to let them bully someone else for a while isn’t such a bad second choice.

Get your No Anglican Covenant merchandise at the Farrago Gift Shop

A Preamble Proposal

The 2012 General Convention should begin the process of amending the Preamble of The Episcopal Church’s constitution. Recall that it currently reads as follows:

PREAMBLE

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church (which name is hereby recognized as also designating the Church), is a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. This Constitution, adopted in General Convention in Philadelphia in October, 1789, as amended in subsequent General Conventions, sets forth the basic Articles for the government of this Church, and of its overseas missionary jurisdictions.

From a certain objective viewpoint, there is nothing wrong with this introduction to the constitution. In reality, as I explained in my post “Communion Partners Bishops’ Statement,” the preamble merely states what are taken to be facts; it neither establishes nor authorizes anything. (Well, this is not exactly true. See below.)

“Orthodox” critics have accused the church of violating its constitution because they interpret the consecration of Gene Robinson as being outside “the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.” They have also suggested that, were The Episcopal Church to be banished from the Anglican Communion, the church would face a “constitutional crisis.” All this is nonsense, but it is nonsense given plausibility by an over-broad Preamble. Because the Preamble has been used as a cudgel against our church, we should take this weapon, unfit though it is for serious rhetorical battle, out of the hands of our church’s enemies.

Because it takes at least three years to amend the church’s constitution—it cannot now be accomplished until 2015—we would do well to start the amendment process in 2012. Although I think it wise to amend the Preamble irrespective of developments within the Anglican Communion, proposing an amendment at the next General Convention still allows the 2015 General Convention to reject Preamble changes if it so chooses. Should The Episcopal Church find itself outside the Anglican Communion in the next few years, whether by choice or not, it surely would be wise to delete the reference to the Communion in the Preamble. Acting in 2012 preserves our option to clean up the Preamble in a timely fashion.

The Proposal

The Preamble was added to the constitution to make “The Episcopal Church” an official alternative name for the church. (I will have more to say about this presently.) It is therefore important not to drop those parts of the Preamble dealing with the church’s name. It is also helpful to retain a statement of what the constitution is intended to accomplish. Retaining the critical elements of the Preamble and retaining as much of the present wording as is practical, I propose that the 2012 General Convention be presented with the following as the new Preamble:

PREAMBLE

This Constitution for the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (otherwise known as the Episcopal Church, which name is hereby recognized as also designating the Church), adopted in General Convention in Philadelphia in October, 1789, as amended in subsequent General Conventions, sets forth the basic Articles for the government of this Church, and of its overseas missionary jurisdictions.

The Name

From the beginning, the name of the church has been the “Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” As best as I can tell, the article “the” before the name has never been considered part of the name and has not been capitalized. The original 1789 title of the constitution was “The Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America,” but the title has been variously rendered over the years, becoming as short as “Constitution. Adopted in General Convention, in Philadelphia, October, 1789.” Unlike many constitutions, that of The Episcopal Church has never had a provision directly asserting the name of the church (“The name of this church shall be ….”), although Article I originally began “There shall be a General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America ….”

The Preamble was prefixed to the constitution in 1967, and asserted that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America also has the recognized designation of “The Episcopal Church.” In the present constitution, “Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America” occurs only in the Preamble. In the canons, it appears only in Canons I.1 and I.3. The church is typically referred to as “this Church” or, less frequently, “The Episcopal Church” or “the Episcopal Church.” The use of “this Church” is prudent, as it allows for future name changes without extensive canonical changes, though “orthodox” critics have willfully misconstrued the phrase “this Church” to refer to some broader “Church.”

Notice that I have lowercased the article before “Episcopal Church” in my proposed Preamble. Not so very long ago—and perhaps as recently as 1967—institutional entities often carried official names beginning with “The” (e.g., The American Sugar Refining Company or The Borden Company). The more modern practice removes “The” from official titles, prefixing “the” or nothing at all.

Around the time of the 2006 General Convention, Episcopal News Service began insisting on using “The Episcopal Church,” in its dispatches, but, after a time, this convention was dropped in favor simply of “the Episcopal Church.” (I have continued to use “The Episcopal Church” in my own writing, though with serious reservations.) A legacy of this brief period is the use of “TEC” as a common abbreviation for the name of the church, supplanting “ECUSA” and the earlier “PECUSA.” My guess is that, even if my proposal is implemented, “TEC” will stick as a short designation for the church. Of course, I should note that our church is not the only “Episcopal Church” in the world, or even in the Anglican Communion, but we do seem to have established the right to be the Episcopal Church, whether the leading article is capitalized or not.

Assuming my proposal is adopted, I would like to see most references in the canons to “The Episcopal Church” changed either to “the Episcopal Church” or “this Church.” Most references to “the Episcopal Church” could profitably be changed to “this Church” as well. Please don’t look to me to track down all of them, however.

Mystery Solved!

I suspect that few regular readers of my blog have read about digital invariants in the Recreational Mathematics section of Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. The discussion there is about numbers such as 153, a pluperfect digital invariant (PPDI), whose digits bear a peculiar relationship to the number itself:

1³ + 5³ + 3³ = 1 + 125 + 27 = 153

Such numbers are also called Armstrong numbers, presumably named after someone whose name was Armstrong. None of the literature or mathematicians I have consulted have been able to identify the mysterious Armstrong. However, I received an e-mail message the other day from a Michael Armstrong that appears to clear up the mystery:

You asked:
“PPDIs are sometimes called Armstrong numbers, though I have been unable to ascertain the source of this term. The term is likely older than pluperfect digital invariant, though it seems less useful. If you know the origin of the name Armstrong number, I would like to hear from you.”

In the mid 1960s -- probably around 1966 -- I was teaching an elementary course in Fortran and computing in general at The University of Rochester, and “invented” Armstrong Numbers as an exercise for my students. I still have the original coffee-stained paper that was the master copy for the homework assignment and would be happy to send you a copy if the silverfish in the garage haven’t totally devoured it. (Full Disclosure: My memory being what it is(n’t), I can’t say that I sat down and invented them out of whole cloth, but I certainly don’t remember reading about them anywhere. The paper and assignment were meant as a spoof on serious mathematical papers that often didn’t seem to have much purpose. In any event, I am reasonably certain that this was the first association of the name with the numbers.)

I remember there were Armstrong Numbers of several Kinds and Orders, but don’t remember much detail, which is pretty much true of most of my life in the 60s. The students tried to compute almost all of them, and the sharper ones quickly realized that Fortran wasn’t the best way to do the job. They rewrote their algorithms first in assembly language (for an IBM 7000 series machine), and later in hard machine language to get the last bit of speed possible. As a reward, we ran the winning algorithm as the system’s idle process for a few nights, resulting in a very long list of Armstrong numbers (of the first Kind, anyway).

As serendipity would have it, I was in Australia at a meeting in February, 1988, when a short piece on “Armstrong’s Numbers” by Tim Hartnell, one of their regular columnists, was printed in The Australian (Tuesday, February 23rd). I immediately dashed off a note to him asking if he was talking about MY Armstrong Numbers, or some other Armstrong’s Armstrong numbers. We carried on a brief and cordial correspondence, and he published a followup article about finally finding out who “The Great Man” was in the April 19 issue. I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame.

I discovered your website as a consequence of researching some Tom Lehrer songs. Go figure; where would we be without the Internet?

Best regards,

Michael Armstrong
Polk City, Florida

There is little reason to doubt that Michael Armstrong is indeed the Armstrong of Armstrong number, though it is unclear how his name became attached to the concept, as he seems not to have discussed such numbers in any public forum. The numbers were first identified at least a quarter century earlier than Armstrong’s assignment, though he seems to have been the first person to explore the concept in at least a little depth. (I hope the garage may yield some interesting material.)

I plan to credit Michael Armstrong in my discussion of digital invariants, but I am first writing this post to see if anyone knows how, after giving his assignment, Armstrong’s name came to be attached publicly to the numbers in the assignment. Perhaps one of his students was responsible, or perhaps he discussed the numbers with a colleague who than used “Armstrong number” in print somewhere. Can anyone clear up this point?

Progress in Portugal

Blog comments sometimes alert readers (and bloggers) to developments they may have missed in other media. For example, a recent comment on this blog made me aware that Portugal may be very close to legalizing gay marriage, thereby joining European countries Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Details can be found in this April 28, 2010, story from On Top Magazine.

A gay marriage bill was passed by the Assembly of the Republic, but President Anibal Cavaco Silva submitted a number of provisions of the bill to the Constitutional Court to determine if they were constitutional. The Court has said they are, and the President has 20 days to veto the bill or allow it to become law. According to On Top Magazine, the Assembly may have the votes to pass the bill over a veto by the President, who is Roman Catholic.

SB 1070

I can understand why Hispanic organizations are up in arms over the new immigration law in Arizona. What I cannot understand is why more citizens are not upset, not about rights of illegals—sorry if that does not sound politically correct—but about their own rights. Why, for example, are those folks who made such a fuss over the Second Amendment, silent about the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Surely, “probable cause” means something more than “you look like you might be here illegally.” Judges do not grant search warrants on the hunches of police officers, so why should we let the police stop people on the street on the basis of nothing more than a gut feeling? Isn’t everyone in Arizona a potential victim of SB 1070? Irrespective of your citizenship status, what if you have dark skin? What if you are poorly dressed? What if you look like a day laborer?

Arizona’s new law is almost surely going to be declared unconstitutional, for vagueness, if nothing else. Why put the state through the expense to getting to that end result?

Is our nation’s immigration system a mess? Surely. No one in his or her right mind would have created it intentionally. The solution, however, is not taking rights away from everyone, legals and illegals alike. Instead, we need to:

1. Acknowledge the facts on the ground, including the number of illegal residents already in the U.S. and the number of critical jobs being performed by illegal residents.
2. Identify the human and financial costs and benefits—yes, there are some benefits—of the present system (or non-system).
   
3. Decide what objectives our immigration system should advance or accomplish.
4. Decide what constraints must be applied to any redesigned immigration system, particularly cost considerations and effects on civil liberties.
5. Propose new systems designed to achieve the identified objectives within allowable constraints, and estimate their costs and benefits.
6. Enact laws to implement the best proposal, assuming that at least one proposal is likely to meet our objectives within identified constraints better than the current system.

Of course, our political system won’t let us do that.

Countdown

The consecrations of the Rev. Canon Mary Douglas Glasspool and the Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce as suffragan bishops in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles are scheduled to take place on May 15, 2010. In many ways, the paths these two women have taken to episcopal consecration have been routine. That is not to deny their talent, commitment, or hard work, but priests elected bishop in The Episcopal Church usually have impressive résumés.


Of course, many Anglicans, in the U.S. and elsewhere, see the upcoming consecration of Canon Glasspool as extraordinary and tragic. I have been struck, however, by how unremarkable her election and the subsequent consent process have been. To be sure, Canon Bruce received the necessary consents from standing committees and bishops with jurisdiction before Canon Glasspool, but it quickly became obvious that both elections would be endorsed by the church and that Glasspool’s quest for consents would lack the drama of, say, Mark Lawrence’s first try at becoming Bishop of South Carolina.

Canon Glasspool will become the second Episcopal Church bishop with a same-sex partner, proving that the Gene Robinson phenomenon was not a fluke. The May 15 consecration will send the message that our church is committed to a gospel of inclusion and an openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, rather than tied to the spirit-numbing bibliolatry and reaction of so-called Anglican “orthodoxy.”

It is my hope that May 15 will be a kind of Independence Day for The Episcopal Church—the day that we challenge other Anglican churches to follow or be left behind, the day that we say we are never going backward, and the day that it becomes clear that adopting the proposed Anglican covenant would be to betray our understanding of the gospel and to sign a death warrant for our church.

In light of the importance of the service that begins at 1:30 PDT on the afternoon of May 15, 2010, this blog will count down the days to that event. Let this countdown be a reminder to pray for Canons Glasspool and Bruce, for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, for The Episcopal Church, and for the Anglican Communion.



Note: The graphic above does not change. For the life of the countdown, the number of days until the consecration will be shown at the right, below the No Anglican Covenant logo. If you want to link to this graphic, use the URL http://deimel.org/commentary/b_images/glasspoolcount.png.

Another Clever Auto Tag

I was driving behind a minivan today that had an oval tag of some sort on its rear that was difficult to read. All I could make out was “wag more,” which didn’t seem to make much sense. I couldn’t read the smaller type below it. At a stoplight, I was able to get close enough to make out all the text, which I though was cute:

wag more
bark less.

Auto magnets from Agatha & Louise

Neat Bumper Sticker

As I was driving home, I noticed a clever bumper sticker on the car in front of me at a stop sign:

I don’t mind straight people

As long as they act gay in public

I don’t know where you can get one of these stickers, but you can buy a No Anglican Covenant bumper sticker here.

Listening to the Trumpet

The Fourth Anglican Global South to South Encounter in Singapore has ended, and the meeting has issued its communiqué (or Trumpet, as it is rather too cutely styled). No one should be surprised by the overall tone and direction of this official pronouncement, but it is fair to say that it is long on threats and short on announcements of actual actions, threatening or no.

Most of the early paragraphs of the Trumpet are boilerplate expressions of gratitude for one thing or another, or self-serving poppycock intended to convince the reader of the piety of the Encounterees. Those planning your bedtime reading can safely skip over paragraphs 1–15, though it is worth noting the names of newly elected leaders of the Global South Primates Steering Committee, particularly those of Orombi, Anis, and Okoh. Don’t expect any mellowing out of this group anytime soon.

The flagellation of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada begins in earnest in paragraph 16 , and the ugliness continues through the final paragraph, #22. I reproduce those paragraphs below, along with a modest amount of commentary (a PDF version of the entire Trumpet can be downloaded here):

Trumpet Text		Observations
16.	In contrast, we continue to grieve over the life of The Episcopal Church USA (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada and all those churches that have rejected the Way of the Lord as expressed in Holy Scripture. The recent action of TEC in the election and intended consecration of Mary Glasspool, a partnered lesbian, as a bishop in Los Angeles, has demonstrated, yet again, a total disregard for the mind of the Communion. These churches continue in their defiance as they set themselves on a course that contradicts the plain teaching of the Holy Scriptures on matters so fundamental that they affect the very salvation of those involved. Such actions violate the integrity of the Gospel, the Communion and our Christian witness to the rest of the world. In the face of this we dare not remain silent and must respond with appropriate action.	Here we have that “mind of the communion” thing again—see “Why Bother?”—as well as the silly Protestant notion that the meaning of the Bible is obvious to any gibbon, an easily falsified proposition by anyone inclined to investigate it. More bizarre is the implication that Mary Glasspool is going to hell, since her presumed sexual practices preclude salvation. (See Andrew Gerns’s commentary on The Lead.) The Encounterees declare that they “must respond with appropriate action, but they fail to say just what that might be. There are hints to follow, however.
17.	We uphold the courageous actions taken by Archbishops Mouneer Anis (Jerusalem and the Middle East), Henry Orombi (Uganda) and Ian Ernest (Indian Ocean) and are encouraged by their decision not to participate in meetings of the various Instruments of Communion at which representatives of The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada are present. We understand their actions to be in protest of the failure to correct the ongoing crisis situation.	Whereas Archbishop Tutu characterized Anglicanism by the willingness of Anglicans to meet with one another, the Encounterees seem to define it by those with whom they will not meet.
18.	Some of our Provinces are already in a state of broken and impaired Communion with The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada. Their continued refusal to honor the many requests1 made of them by the various meetings of the Primates throughout the Windsor Process have brought discredit to our witness and we urge the Archbishop of Canterbury to implement the recommended actions. In light of the above, this Fourth South-to-South Encounter encourages our various Provinces to reconsider their communion relationships with The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada until it becomes clear that there is genuine repentance.	As I have said many times, if other Anglican provinces would simply acknowledge that they have no control over other churches or responsibility for their actions, they would have no reason to be embarrassed by them. The purported wound here (the “discredit to our witness”) is self-inflicted. This paragraph is an invitation to all provinces that haven’t already done so to sever communion with The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.
19.	We were pleased to welcome two Communion Partner bishops from The Episcopal Church USA (TEC) and acknowledge that with them there are many within TEC who do not accept their church’s innovations. We assure them of our loving and prayerful support. We are grateful that the recently formed Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a faithful expression of Anglicanism. We welcomed them as partners in the Gospel and our hope is that all provinces will be in full communion with the clergy and people of the ACNA and the Communion Partners.	Having invited provinces to dump The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada, Encounterees here recommend that provinces declare themselves in communion with ACNA and the Communion Partners. (Bishop John Howe of Central Florida and Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina, representatives of the Communion Partners, were in attendance in Singapore.) An Anglican church’s declaring itself to be in communion with either of these groups is problematic and closely related to border crossings. Especially problematic, however, is any kind of formal connection to the Communion Partners, which directly interferes with Episcopal Church polity.
20.	For many generations Anglicans have lived together with a shared understanding of our common faith; indeed among our great gifts has been the Book of Common Prayer that has provided a foundation for our common life. In recent years the peace of our Communion has been deeply wounded by those who continue to claim the name Anglican but who pursue an agenda of their own desire in opposition to historic norms of faith, teaching and practice. This has led to a number of developments including the GAFCON meeting that took place in Jerusalem in June 2008.	The BCP has indeed been part of the glue that has held the Anglican Communion together, but it is by no means true that we “have lived together with a shared understanding of our common faith.” Much of the success of the BCP has been due to its deliberate ambiguity regarding doctrines about which shared understanding has simply not existed. If Episcopalians have expanded doctrinal possibilities, its detractors have contracted the range of acceptable Anglican exegesis.
21.	Global South leaders have been in the forefront of the development of the ‘Anglican Covenant’ that seeks to articulate the essential elements of our faith together with means by which we might exercise meaningful and loving discipline for those who depart from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints.’ We are currently reviewing the proposed Covenant to find ways to strengthen it in order for it to fulfill its purpose. For example, we believe that all those who adopt the Covenant must be in compliance with Lambeth 1.10. Meanwhile we recognize that the Primates Meeting, being responsible for Faith and Order, should be the body to oversee the Covenant in its implementation, not the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.	Here we encounter another of those stock phrases invoked in lieu of argument—the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” Whatever Jude 1:3 referred to when it was written, it certainly was not the orthodoxy that triumphed in the fourth century and that is related to, though not identical to, the “orthodoxy” so passionately proclaimed by detractors of The Episcopal Church. What is important here, however, is that the Encounterees find the Anglican covenant, hostile as it is to the interests of the two major North American churches, not nearly hostile enough; they are looking to strengthen it. (Apologists who think the covenant draft “not so bad,” please take note.) Moreover, since The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada are not about to embrace all the provisions of Lambeth 1998 I.10, the implication here is that, if either church adopts the proposed covenant, that acceptance will be regarded as insincere and ineffectual. (That judgment would almost certainly be correct in the sincerity department.) The final sentence presupposes that the Primates’ Meeting is “responsible for [Anglican] Faith and Order.” This, of course, is wish fulfillment. No agreements assert that now, and the proposed covenant will not make it so in the future. (See “Section 4 Decoded.”) The covenant would, however, surrender much too much power to the primates. Of course, bishops like this sort of thing.
22.	Over the last 20 years we have been distracted by conflicts and controversies that have kept us from effectively fulfilling the Great Commission. While we have been so distracted, Christian heritage, identity and influence has continued to decline in the West. We believe that there is a need to review the entire Anglican Communion structure; especially the Instruments of Communion and the Anglican Communion office; in order to achieve an authentic expression of the current reality of our Anglican Communion.	It is not clear just what threat is being made here. Is the covenant being deemed unacceptable, institutionalizing as it does the mostly informal structures of the Anglican Communion? We know from recent actions and statements that Encounterees dislike the Anglican Consultative Council, its attendant bureaucracy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, and the Standing Committee. They like the Primates’ Meeting, of course, as long as the American and Canadian primates are excluded. These people want to be in the Anglican Communion why?

I don’t really know whether to be pleased or not by the seeming lack of action on the part of the Encounterees. Their loyalties are clear, however, and they seem to have given us new reasons to reject any Anglican covenant.

Get your No Anglican Covenant merchandise at the Farrago Gift Shop

Why Bother?

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has sent a video to the Fourth Global South to South Encounter now taking place in Singapore. (If I were the Archbishop, I certainly would have sought any excuse I could to avoid being present at the meeting. I suspect that the Icelandic volcano was the answer to Rowan’s prayers.) Episcopalians will be most interested in this paragraph that occurs near the end of Rowan’s message:

But of course we are reflecting on the need for a covenant in the light of confusion, brokenness and tension within our Anglican family—a brokenness and a tension that has been made still more acute by recent decisions in some of our Provinces. In all your minds there will be questions around the election and consecration of Mary Glasspool in Los Angeles. All of us share the concern that in this decision and action the Episcopal Church has deepened the divide between itself and the rest of the Anglican family. And as I speak to you now, I am in discussion with a number of people around the world about what consequences might follow from that decision, and how we express the sense that most Anglicans will want to express, that this decision cannot speak for our common mind.

This paragraph brings many thoughts to mind, only some of which I will explore here. Visitors would do well also to read comments made on Thinking Anglicans about Rowan’s video address.

Several things are remarkable about the Archbishop’s statement, one of which is his readiness to speak for the Communion. It is ironic that, while asserting that The Episcopal Church’s decision to consecrate the Rev. Canon Mary Glasspool “cannot speak for our common mind,” he has no trouble saying that “[a]ll of us share the concern” that the decision has deepened the divisions within the Communion. To what “all” is he referring? Since he is addressing attendees of the Fourth Global South to South Encounter, perhaps he is referring to them and to himself, all of whom may indeed share that concern. It is certainly not appropriate to attribute that sentiment to all Anglicans. Then again, perhaps, in his mind, all true Anglicans share that concern.

The Archbishop speaks of what “most Anglicans” want to express. I don’t think he really knows what most Anglicans want to express; most Anglicans, if we are to take that phrase literally, probably do not really care about Mary Glasspool or Gene Robinson, or The Episcopal Church. Of course, when Anglican noses are counted by bishops, only episcopal noses seem to count.

What most struck me in Rowan’s little talk is the fact that, as a result of the unwelcome action of The Episcopal Church, the Archbishop is conferring “with a number of people around the world” about the “consequences” that should be visited on The Episcopal Church. Is he thinking about having the Communion impose “relational consequences” as called for in Section 4.2.4 of the proposed Anglican covenant, without utilizing the cumbersome but ill-defined process of consultation specified by the covenant? (See “Section 4 Decoded.”)

Why are we even bothering to talk about the covenant if the Archbishop of Canterbury is willing to implement its most obnoxious features without waiting for anyone formally to adopt it?

Rowan’s declaration that the Glasspool decision “cannot speak for our common mind” is troubling for more reasons than its simply being ironic. Of course the decision can’t. First, Lambeth 1998 I.10 notwithstanding, there is no common mind regarding homosexuality within the Anglican Communion, nor is there any agreed-upon definition of what the “common mind” of the Communion might be or how it might be determined. Second, The Episcopal Church, neither in the matter of Mary Glasspool nor in anything else it does, makes any pretension of speaking for the Anglican Communion; it is merely performing its necessary functions as an autonomous church. No other Anglican church need be embarrassed or feel compromised by Episcopal Church actions because they have no responsibility for what The Episcopal Church does. If the primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican) believes that Episcopal Church actions diminish the Nigerian church in the eyes of Nigerian Muslims, it is only a consequence of his church’s eschewing a posture of credible deniability to make a power grab within the Anglican Communion. Other primates, including that of the Church of England, have made similar deals with the Devil.

And why is Rowan Williams so interested in the “common mind” of the Communion? Because, I assert, he has an inflated sense of self-importance, both in his office and in the Communion itself. He believes that the importance and influence of the Anglican Communion in the world is proportional to the number of adherents it can claim. I profoundly disagree. The moral authority of the Anglican Communion is not a function of the number of Anglicans in its constituent churches, but a function of the degree to which the Communion embraces justice, charity, humility, compassion, and truth. Its stock is not doing too well at the moment.

Get your No Anglican Covenant merchandise at the Farrago Gift Shop

New Verses for a Bad Hymn

At my church Sunday, we sang—as we do much too frequently—one of my least favorite hymns, “Earth and All Stars.” The hymn is #412 in The Hymnal 1982. Words for this hymn were written by Herbert F. Brokering. The tune, which was composed specifically for this hymn and which is better than the text deserves, is by David N. Johnson.

According to Hymnary.com, Brokering wrote his hymn in 1964 for the 90th anniversary of St. Olaf College. It is a hymn of praise using contemporary references. The structure of the text and the lack of rhyme lead me to think that Brokering wasn’t really working very hard when he put this hymn together. Each verse contains the word “loud” in the same two places and “sing to the Lord a new song!” in the same two places. The refrain occurs after each verse. Here is my least favorite verse, including the refrain:

Classrooms and labs, loud boiling test tubes,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Athlete and band, loud cheering people,
Sing to the Lord a new song!

[Refrain] He has done marvelous things.
I, too, will praise him with a new song.

This may be poetry, but it is surely not poetic. Also, the meaning is none too clear. Singing the hymn, I thought the message was that earth and all stars, cheering people, etc., were singing to the Lord a new song, and I will, too. Because of the commas at the ends of the first and third lines of the verses, however, the sentences there cannot be declarative (earth and all stars sing, etc.) but must be imperative (you sing, earth and all stars, etc.). The imperatives are not nonsensical, but I don’t think they represent the most obvious sentiment. Frankly, the hymn is something of a laundry list.

It was not until I tried my hand at writing a parody of the hymn that I became aware of its lack of rhyme (and thus cleverness and grace). This makes satire-writing easy, except that it is hard to write anything more outrageous and prosaic than Brokering did. The parody I began writing does not seem satirical at all. My verses just seem like alternate verses. Anyway, here is the result of my modest effort at making fun of this frankly stupid hymn:

iPods and Droids, loud clicking keypads,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Blackberry phones, loud sounding ringtones,
Sing to the Lord a new song!

He has done marvelous things.
I, too, will praise him with a new song.

Chevys and Fords, loud honking car horns,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
Corvette and Jeep, loud roaring mufflers,
Sing to the Lord a new song!

He has done marvelous things.
I, too, will praise him with a new song.

I am told that some churches became very fond of this hymn when it appeared in the new Episcopal hymnal. I’ve heard it described as different and contemporary, but I don’t think it wears well. Anyway, feel free to use my verses in your congregational singing. They’re no worse and no sillier than what people are already singing. Don’t credit me with authorship.

Update, 6/4/2013: Because many people like the tune “Earth and All Stars,” after singing it again in church, I decided to try writing an alternate text. The result is “Heavens and Earth, All of Creation.” My initial version is here, and an improved version is here.

Some Political Observations

When I started this blog, I described its content as “random quick takes by Lionel Deimel.” I’ve certainly delivered on the random thing, but some posts have gotten exceedingly long. Here’s a post that may live up to the “quick” designation.

Kudos to President Obama for his announcement yesterday about the space program. I never thought that George W. Bush’s plan to go back to the moon was a good idea. It represented more of the same. In particular, it meant that the same people who were earning money from the space program would continue to do so and for the same sorts of things they were already doing. People concerned about the space program from a more dispassionate perspective were more interested in getting to Mars, a task requiring new and different technology from that which took us to the moon. I see that The Planetary Society was pleased with the new direction for NASA.

Actually, from my point of view, Obama had a very good day yesterday. His order to Health and Human Services to draw up regulations allowing patients in hospitals getting money from Medicare or Medicaid to designate who may visit them will be a great boon to gay and lesbian couples, but it can affect others as well. I am especially sensitive to this issue as I have been seeing a friend through a long illness. I have had little problem gaining access to my friend’s room, but I may have had a good deal more trouble elsewhere. According to The New York Times, “In some instances in the past, hospitals have barred bedside visits by the person who held the medical power of attorney for a patient.” It is difficult to see the president’s order as anything but reasonable and humane. Of course, right-wing partisans can. We have this from an NPR story this morning:

J.P. Duffy, vice president for communications at the Family Research Council, said Obama is pandering to a radical special interest group.

“There are many other ways to deal with this issue, whether through a health care proxy or power of attorney, through private contractual arrangements. We have no problem with those situations,” Duffy said, “but the fact here is that this is undermining the definition of marriage.”

Finally, there is the Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. There seem to be two questions the media are asking: How liberal a candidate will President Obama name, and will the Republicans allow anyone to be confirmed by the Senate? It has been suggested that Obama is likely to nominate someone only moderately liberal, as he is not the ultra liberal that Republicans make him out to be. The political problems are tricky, however, and they must be taken into account. Given that the Supreme Court has been stacked with extreme conservatives, my advice to the president would be to nominate the most liberal candidate that could conceivably be confirmed. To be an effective Supreme Court justice, of course, the nominee should also be unusually persuasive.

New Blog

A want to announce a new blog I’m writing. It’s called St. Paul’s’ Epistle, and it’s about my own parish, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania. The blog offers an opportunity for me to write about something that is very dear and to encourage parishioners to join in discussing parish-related matters. The blog is completely unofficial and may not be welcomed by church leaders. I believe, however, that conversation, particularly public conversation, can strengthen and improve an organization. There is no reason to think that churches are an exception to this rule.

Readers of this blog, of course, know that I am not without my opinions and prejudices, and I don’t plan to hide them when I’m writing for St. Paul’s’ Epistle. I beg everyone’s indulgence (and, perhaps, forgiveness) in advance.

I’ve started a new blog because, quite frankly, many readers of Lionel Deimel’s Web Log are unlikely to find the daily goings on in a suburban Episcopal Church parish to be of much personal interest. Such folks need not be subjected to such minutiae. Fellow parishioners who read this blog, however, may want to have a look at St. Paul’s’ Epistle at http://www.stpaulsmtl.org/. If you do decide to visit, be sure to read the welcoming essay explaining the motivation for the blog here.

The new blog is something of an experiment, and I don’t know if there are many like it. Do let me know if you have any knowledge of or experience with such an independent blog about parish life.

If you want to check out the new blog later, notice that I have a link to it at the right.

Still Not Lovin’ It

I visited McDonald’s for breakfast this morning, and was subjected to more goofy ad copy. (See my January 26 post, “Not Lovin’ It.”) The table at which I ate my meal had an advertisement on it for mocha and iced mocha. The product was described this way:

freshly ground espresso beans, smooth milk, & velvety chocolate

There are a number of problems here. First, there is really no such thing as “espresso beans.” Espresso is a method of brewing coffee, so any coffee beans used in an espresso machine are, by definition, espresso beans. But this isn’t saying much.

Then there is the matter of smooth milk. What is that? Does anyone think that McDonald’s might use lumpy milk? Clearly, some Madison Avenue type thought that an adjective was needed to describe the milk in McDonald’s mocha and iced mocha. Could the agency really do no better than smooth? Why not fresh? The phrase smooth milk makes about as much sense as white milk or unspoiled milk.

Finally, there is that ampersand. Most authorities would say that the ampersand should have been replaced by “and”; space was not at a premium, and no other rule dictated the use of an ampersand. A more serious problem is the presence of the comma before the ampersand. It may not be a logical rule, but there is a rule that a comma never precedes an ampersand.

The ad was, at least for me, a total failure. Instead of making me think of the product, all I could do is analyze the copy. McDonald’s needs a new agency.

Calvary’s Legal Fees

Calvary Newsletter

The Episcopal Church has taken a good deal of heat from people who don’t like the fact that it has spent so much money on legal fees to protect church property. (Most of those complaints have been from people who have wanted to appropriate Episcopal Church property without paying for it, it must be acknowledged.) Well, it is unfortunate that litigation has been necessary and that lawyers do not work for free, but what is one to do when property is taken without permission and without compensation?

Seldom do we learn just who spent how much money on litigation in church property cases. The current issue of the parish newsletter of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh offers some interesting accounting, albeit qualitative, with respect to the so-called Calvary lawsuit. (See page 2 of the newsletter here.)

Recall that Calvary Church brought a lawsuit against then bishop Robert Duncan and other diocesan leaders in 2003, charging that they planned to allow property to be removed from The Episcopal Church without appropriate compensation. Two years later, an agreement was reached regarding the distribution of property in the event that any congregations wanted to leave the church. That agreement provided for Calvary’s escrowed diocesan assessment to be returned to Calvary, less $50,000, which was to go to the diocese. I estimate that something on the order of $170,000 was returned to Calvary, most or all of which was likely used to pay legal fees.

At the time, Bishop Duncan spoke of the $50,000 as though it represented a windfall for the diocese. Since all the money in the escrow account would, in other circumstances, have gone to the diocese, this provision in the agreement actually represented a loss of more than three times that amount to the diocese. In essence, all the parishes of the diocese paid that price, in addition to any direct legal costs incurred in the defense of Duncan and other defendants.

The newsletter story mentioned earlier reports that the Board of Trustees of the current Episcopal diocese recently voted to pay all of Calvary’s outstanding legal fees incurred in the prosecution of the case against Duncan, et al. The three Calvary parishioners on the Board of Trustees present for the vote recused themselves from the vote, which was unanimous.

Additional sources of funds to cover Calvary’s legal expenses included (1) individuals in the diocese, (2) Episcopal Church bishops, and (3) member parishes of the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes. As far as I know, The Episcopal Church did not pay any of Calvary’s legal expenses. It was not originally a party to the litigation. It later joined the litigation, however, and incurred its own expenses.

Calvary’s counsel has been Walter P. DeForest, a Calvary parishioner. Much of his work was done pro bono, and the rest was billed at a reduced rate.

As you can see, at least in the case of litigation in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, legal expenses were borne by the church at large, but a substantial portion of the money came from within the diocese itself. When Calvary first filed its case, neither The Episcopal Church nor most of the parishes strongly supportive of their church showed much enthusiasm for Calvary’s move. I’m sure it is gratifying to members of Calvary Church that, six and a half years later, those same parishes are grateful enough to contribute directly to the cause that Calvary so selflessly undertook.

Duruflé Requiem

The choir at my church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, has lately been performing at least one major work each year, usually with a small orchestra. The piece might be a Bach cantata, a requiem, or some other sacred choral work. This year, we are performing the Duruflé Requiem, with the help of the Slippery Rock University Concert Choir & Chamber Singers. Playing the organ for the Requiem, as well as playing three other Duruflé organ works, will be Richard Elliott, the principal organist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The concert is Saturday, April 17, 2010. Here is the poster announcing the event (click on the graphic for a larger view):


I never feel adequately rehearsed for these performances, but this may be primarily because I am not a professional musician. Invariably, the performances seem to be first rate.

This Requiem was the first large choral work I ever sang. I performed it more than 40 years ago in Chicago and fell in love with it. I’m sorry I’ve had to wait so long to sing it again.

I am excited about meeting and working with Richard Elliott, and I am looking forward to hearing him play the Prelude and Fugue on the Name Alain, one of my favorite organ compositions. (Click here to hear a recording of this piece.)

I realize that many people who read this blog have never set foot in Pennsylvania, but I want to invite everyone in the Pittsburgh area to join us this Saturday for what promises to be a wonderful concert.

Directions to St. Paul’s can be found here.

More Stuff

I opened my on-line store to sell merchandise sporting my No Anglican Covenant logo. The objective was not to make money but to promote opposition to the Anglican covenant, particularly within The Episcopal Church. Because the 2012 General Convention will likely be making a decision regarding the covenant, we can expect increasing discussion of its merits in parishes and dioceses in the next two years or so. My Farrago Gift Shop—named for my Web site, Lionel Deimel’s Farrago—offers many items that are especially good at communicating one’s opposition to the covenant: apparel, bumper stickers, magnets, buttons, and the like. It remains to be seen if there is a real market for these items, but, as interest in the covenant increases, as I’m sure it will, I hope there will be.

As long as I have a store, I thought I might as well use it to sell items displaying other designs I have created, especially my curve-stitch designs. These are figures that use only straight lines but that seem to include curves. Many of my designs can be seen in the Recreational Math section of my Web site.

In particular, I have created items for the shop that use a design I created when I was in high school, which I usually describe as a curve-stitch isometric cube. The actual design used for merchandise in the shop is shown at the right. (Click on it for a larger view; individual lines don’t show clearly when the figure is reduced as much as it is here.) I am particularly fond of this design, which has the odd property of looking rather different when it is rotated. (See an extended discussion of it here.)

As it happens, my current store cannot sell identical items with different designs. For this reason, you will find that No Anglican Covenant apparel is mostly white, and curve-stitch isometric cube apparel is mostly colored. If people actually start buying from the store, however, I may be able to expand my offerings. I will likely remain a computer consultant, writer, and Episcopal Church activist, however, rather than a merchandiser.

Welcome to the Store

I am happy to announce the opening of my Farrago Gift Shop. This is where you can buy merchandise containing my custom designs. For the moment, it might as well be called the No Anglican Covenant Gift Shop, as all the merchandise displays my No Anglican Covenant logo, but I expect eventually to offer items sporting my curve stitch designs as well.

As individual parishes and dioceses begin considering the proposed Anglican covenant, the clothing in my new gift shop gives you an opportunity to show everyone where you stand on the document that threatens to change the Anglican Communion forever and surrender the independence of The Episcopal Church.

I think you will find that all the items in the gift shop are of high quality. For example, here is your intrepid blogger wearing the No Anglican Covenant Ringer T in red and white:

Photo for Easter

I was reminded Thursday of a photograph I had intended to post here but never did. The photo was taken sometime in the spring of 2003. The mechanism by which I was incorporating photos into blog posts in 2003 was time-consuming, and I just never got around to taking advantage of the picture, which has been sitting on my Web server for seven years.

In January 2003, I bought a bird feeder, a tube feeder for niger seed intended to attract goldfinches. I wrote a brief post titled “Where Do They Come From?” The name referred to the fact that I had never knowingly seen goldfinches, and I was surprised that they showed up in numbers when I set up the feeder. That post included the picture below:


I was equally surprised a few months later, when goldfinches showed up in their spring and summer plumage. (Obviously, I really didn’t know a whole lot about goldfinches at the time.) This is what I had intended to illustrate with my heretofore unused photograph:


The weather here in Pittsburgh is becoming increasingly springlike, and the goldfinch feathers are getting brighter. It seems like a good time to post my picture of goldfinches in their more spectacular attire.

A blessed and happy Easter to all!