When Wilt Thou Save The People?

Since shortly after my first reading of the Primates Communique Monday evening, "Save the People" from Godspell has been running through my head. The words were written by Ebenezer Elliott in 1850, and appeared with the tune Kendal in The Hymnal 1940 (#496) of the Episcopal Church. A snippet of the Steven Scwhartz tune sung by Stephen Nathan on the 1971 cast recording can be heard by going here, paging down to the "Listen to Samples" section, and clicking on the "Listen" link for whichever media player you have.

And here are the words...the plea...

When wilt thou save the people?
Oh God of mercy, when?
Not kings and lords, but nations,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flow'rs of thy heart, o God, are they;
Let them not pass, like weeds, away,
Their heritage a sunless day.
God save the people.

Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, o Father,
That men shall toil for wrong?
"No", say thy mountains;
"No", say thy skies;
Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs be heard instead of sighs.
God save the people.

When wilt thou save the people?
Oh God of mercy when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people,
for thine they are,
Thy children as thy angels fair.
God save the people from despair.
God save the people.
Oh God save the people!
God save the people!
Oh God save the people!
God save the people.
Oh God save the people!
God save the people!
Oh God save the people!

When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people, save us,
For thine they are, for thine they are.
Thy children as thy angels fair:
O, God save the people,
Save the people,
God save the people,
From despair.
God save the people!

God save the people,
O, God save the people,
God save the people,
O, God save the people,
God save the people,
God save the people,
God save the people.

Katharine Speaks to The Church

Our Presiding Bishop has issued her first public statement regarding the results of the Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam. Go and read it here.

My initial reaction is that, once again, lesbian and gay Episcopalians--along with lesbian and gay Anglicans across the Communion--are being asked to pay the price to maintain the Anglican Communion.

My emailbox and the Anglican blogosphere continue to be filled with reactions, commentary and outright raw pain. Katharine's words have not eased my fears for and deep sadness about the Epsicopal Church, or my place in it.

I have little else to say at this point.

Peace,
Jeffri

Spinning, Spinning, Spinning.....

I spent the afternoon and evening with friends, glad to be away from the temptation of the computer and the Anglican blogosphere. As expected, I returned to the Primates Communique, 100+ emails with reactions from my various listservs, and the Anglican blogosphere teeming with first-reading commentary and cursory analyses.

After my first reading of the Communique, I feel like I've been kicked in the gut--much as I did at General Convention 2006 when the House of Deputies passed B033. The long term consequences of this statement, and of the proposed Covenant, cannot be predicted at this point in time. But for tonight I am deeply grieved.

If you want to read some of the reactions in the blogosphere, check out the following:

Elizabeth Kaeton's Telling Secrets
Susan Russell's An Inch at A Time (which includes the Integrity Press Release)
Stand Firm
Ruth Gledhill's Articles of Faith
epiScope
Inclusive Church Blog
David Virtue's VirtueOnline

Some of it comes from the spinmeisters, but much of it is from our spinning emotions...

Peace,
Jeffri

Let The Spin Begin!

This morning the Anglican blogosphere and the world press waited with bated breath for the first concrete news to come from the Primates Meeting in Dar es Salaam. After days of filing reports on vague press briefings, writing stories about each other, and speculating on the actions of some of the primates and visitors, today they would finally have something to report--only to be told that the primates postponed the final press conference. So they all sat and waited. The commentary on the delay was remarkably restrained.

Until Ruth Gledhill's story "Churches back plan to unite under Pope" appeared on the front page of The Times (England). While that caused a bit of a stir for a while, it was quickly pointed out by the co-chairs of the International Anglican - Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) that the document in question had been given to the Anglican Primates as part of a continuing discussion that has been going on for a number of years. Their statement can be found here on the Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS) web site. Then Ms. Gledhill, Religion correspondent for The Times, posted "Schori triumphs in Dar as new Anglican queen" on her blog. That discussion kept things going for a little while until people started noticing that the Report of the Covenant Design Group was online, released by ACNS.

Once that hit the radar screens, the conservative blog sites went nuts within the first hour. Initial comments on the proposed covenant were overwhelmingly negative (check out the Stand Firm in Faith posting of the Report to sample the comments). There were few if any comments to be seen on liberal or moderate blog sites. Most of us continue to wait for the primates' final statement, which as of early this afternoon Eastern Time (United States), they seem to still be drafting.

THAT is when life in the Anglican blogosphere should get very interesting.

And now back to my regularly scheduled day off--getting the last load of laundry out of the dryer, folding and putting clothes away, going grocery shopping, and preparing for tomorrow evening's Education for Ministry (EfM) seminar, which I co-mentor.

Peace,
Jeffri

Tell Me A Story

Last Sunday after Epiphany, February 26, 2006
Year B: 1 Kings 19:9-18, Mark 9:2-9
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Fairfield, CT

Tell Me A Story
by Jeffri Harre

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

“Tell me a story about your baptism.” I was eating lunch with my boss a couple of weeks after starting my job at the Episcopal Church Center. I paused and said, “I don’t really have one, I mean I don’t remember my baptism, and there aren’t any family stories about it.” She didn’t say a word but went on eating her fruit salad, so I started talking.

I was baptized in the basement of the Episcopal church my parents attended because the parish was in the midst of a building program. I suppose it would have been a private ceremony, like most baptisms were then. My parents left the church a couple of years later, and my brother and I grew up unchurched. I found my way back to church during college and joined the Congregational Church. A number of years later, I returned to the Episcopal Church and had to be confirmed by the bishop. I dug out my baptismal certificate for the Rector and was floored to find that my confirmation was scheduled almost 30 years to the day of my baptism.

She smiled at me and said, “See, you do have a story.”

A few weeks later, again at lunch, Robyn looked at me across the table. “Tell me a story about an encounter you’ve had with God.”

“Ummmmm….well….” I mumbled before lapsing into silence. She continued to eat, saying nothing. I did have a story. I just didn’t feel very comfortable talking about it. After all, as the old joke asks, “Why is it that when we talk to God we’re praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?” In our society, even in most of our churches, we just aren’t comfortable talking about our own experiences with God. We are children of the scientific age, and it’s easy to dismiss such stories as bits of fantasy or as some kind of mental aberration. We want to be able to test, measure, and study something before we accept it. We want logic. We want things to make sense to our rational minds.

Yet our scriptures are full of stories about burning bushes, pillars of fire, visits from angels, voices from the heavens. The Season of Epiphany begins and ends with two such stories—Jesus’ baptism on the First Sunday, and the Transfiguration, which we read today. In both stories we are told that God spoke, “This is my son, the beloved…” For Peter, James and John, the experience was more than just hearing God speak, they SAW things—Jesus shining, his robe whiter than anyone on earth could whiten it, Moses and Elijah appearing to talk with Jesus. Now how do you go back down the mountain and talk about that? Maybe Jesus had the right idea, “Tell no one…”

The other story we are told in today’s readings is just as dramatic. Elijah is instructed to go up on the mountain and wait for God. First comes the great wind, followed by an earthquake and then the fire. Yet, God is not in any of those things we are told. It is only when sheer silence descends on the mountain that Elijah covers his face and goes to the mouth of the cave to listen to God. And how do you go back down the mountain and talk about that experience?

Yet, Christians have been telling stories about experiences with God from the very beginning. It’s how we engage the Gospel. It’s how we share those stories of the Good News. And that Good News doesn’t stop with the Gospels. If Christ is truly present in our lives, then we will have our own stories to share. And it isn’t always easy. Sometimes it’s downright dangerous, as we know from the stories of the early Christian Martyrs. Even after Christianity became “the norm” in Western Europe, it could be dangerous. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake because she dared not only to share her story but to act on it. It is still risky today. It means opening ourselves up to others and being vulnerable.

Part of our work in the Office of Children’s Ministries and Christian Education is to help people, especially children, share in the Good News, including the telling of it. We want people to know that their stories are part of The Story, and that sharing those stories is part of how we share the Gospel. We do this, in part, by teaching people how to create safe spaces for themselves and others to tell their stories, and we emphasize that listening is as important as telling. Part of creating that safe space is to start with “safer” stories, or by answering a series of questions over time that start us thinking about what it means to be part of that story. When I started working for the office, we were in the middle of preparing a video tape of people’s stories to be shared at an upcoming conference. The questions we asked people were:

Do you believe in God?
How did you first learn about God?
How do you tell others about God?
Why do you think people go to church?

Another set of questions you might think about is:

Who am I?
Who are my people?
Who or what is God calling me to be or do?

Or simply ask them to tell a story about their baptism. It’s a story we all share. It is, after all, how we are brought into the Christian community.

What Robyn did those first few weeks I was on the job was to create that safe space for us, where we could share our stories with each other. So, here is the story I was eventually able to share with her.

It happened when I was in graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin. It was one of those perfect Fall days. There are days even now when the sky is just the right shade of blue, or the smell of the leaves will take me back to that day. I was standing at a corner waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. Suddenly—or at least it seemed very sudden—everything seemed to be sharper, brighter. Even now the logical part of me wants to try and explain the sensation away as a cloud moving away from the sun, or a shift in the way I was standing so that I was no longer in the shadow of a building. But I don’t think it can be explained away that easily. Then along with that sharpness, that brightness, I became aware of a message—it wasn’t exactly words that I heard aloud or in my head. It said, “I need you. You have a ministry in my church.” And then just as suddenly, it was just another Fall afternoon on a Madison street corner. Now, how do I go back down the mountain and talk about that experience?

Over twenty years later I am still struggling with the implications of that experience, and what it means to minister in God’s church and in the world. I have come back down the mountain and shared the story, sometimes with ease and sometimes with unease. I have been blessed by many people over the years who listened to my story and told me theirs. Together we are finding the many ways to live out God’s call to us.

So, tell me a story…

==============================================
Yes, I know it's from last year, but I think it is as relevant now as it was then. It also fits with the storytelling theme of my blog, which I didn't have last year.

Peace,
Jeffri

Tanzania? Spanzania! Schism? Schmism!

My friend Elizabeth Kaeton has posted a story called "Bald Boogie" on her blog Telling Secrets (there's a link to the blog in my Links section). This story is infintitely more important than the "stuff" happening--or not happening--at the primates meeting in Tanzania. It tells about lives lived and shared. Thank you, Barbara and Elizabeth, for sharing your humor, sense, and lives with us.

Peace,
Jeffri

"For I was hungry..."

Travelling to Dar es Salaam is expensive. Although I could find tickets for about $1,000, most were in the $5,000-$7,000 range. But let us assume that everyone attending the gathering of the Anglican Primates was a good steward and thus found a good fare and booked early. Even so, average transportation costs to Dar es Salaam would be approximately $2,000 per person (and that is probably a very low estimate). That adds up to $76,000 in transportation costs for the 38 primates.

Rooms at the White Sands Motel and Resort in Dar es Salaam average $130 per night. Most of the primates will have spent seven nights at the meeting, which adds up to $910 per room. Multiplied by 38 primates, lodging costs for the meeing will be approximately $34,600.

For the sake of simplicity, let us assume that each primate will accumulate $300 worth of incidental expenses during the course of the meeting (also probably a low estimate). Thirty-eight times $300 comes to $11,400.

To gather these 37 men and one woman for their meeting in Dar es Salaam is costing about $122,000. This does not include the number official guests, spouses, staff, the cost of security, or the members of the press who travelled to Dar es Salaam for the meeting.

Looking at the Episcopal Relief and Development Gifts for Life online catalog, here is what it would cost to make some very basic improvements for a village of 50 families:

Mosquito Bed Netting for All - $375
Clean Water and Basic Sanitation - $7,500
One Goat for Each Family - $4,000
Set of Tools for Each Family - $9,000
20 Trays of Seedlings for Each Family - $20,000
One Flock of Chickens for Each Family - $6,750
Total for Village - $47,625

Enough said.

Peace,
Jeffri