The newSpin newsletter, Oct. 28, 2010
Spinning (1) Do you have a decision to make. Walk a Labyrinth. Find one near you. More here. H/T to Ann Fontaine. (2) A Nike marketing campaign for Lebron James has James reading a few lines from a wonderful Maya Angelous poem. (3) WH Auden once wrote that purgatory should consist of pairings of people with radically opposite points of view, required to spend time together till they understood one another. H/T to AnglicansOnline. (4) Consider the true meaning of forgiveness. Text and video. (5) Seth Godin on why ideas spread.
Diocese of Bethlehem
Happening #19 ... [From Kim Rowles] November 11-14 at Kirby House. Registration closes Nov. 7. More here.
Peace Training Seminar ... The Peace Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem will sponsor a three-day Creating a Culture of Peace Training from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Nov. 5 and 6 and from 1-6 p.m. Nov. 7 at St. Stephen’s Pro-Cathedral, 35 S. Franklin St. More here.
Congregational Grants Deadline ... [From Canon Jane Teter] Just a reminder that the absolute deadline for Congregational Grant applications is Monday, November 15. No applications will be accepted after that date.
RC Diocese of Scranton Bishop will preach at St. Luke's Scranton. You are invited. More here.
Packard L. Okie RIP ... Onetime rector at Trinity Bethlehem, St. Elizabeth Allentown and St. Margaret Emmaus, Packard L. Okie, Episcopal priest and tennis champion, died October 4. He served aftrer retirement as assistant pastor (1982-2008) at St. Clement by-the-Sea in San Cemente CA. Find obituary here. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.
Diocesan Life ... Download the November issue here.
Calendar of Events ... [Kat Lehman] Here is the latest calendar of events in and around the diocese. If you want your event posted, please email Kat Lehman who will gladly add your event to the list. This calendar is updated monthly. The format is in Word .doc if you want to cut and paste into your own calendars. Download 101001calendarofevents.doc
News/Info/Commentary sources from The Diocese of Bethlehem ... •The newSpin blog •The Diobeth website. Enter your name and email address in the "Get Connected" box on the right hand side. You will find quite a few public news and info lists there. You are welcome to subscribe to any or all of them. "Bakery" is the diocesan interactive list. •Twitter
Diocesan Convention ... Read Bishop Paul's address to the 2010 Diocesan Convention here. Read Bishop Paul's sermon at the 2010 Diocesan Convention eucharist here. Read Andrew Gerns' story on small groups highlighting the work of the Spirit at Convention here.
One Communiy/One Voice ... A national day of mourning and solidarity for the LGBT community. Come together on November 12 at 6:15 p.m. at St Mary's Church in Reading and walk down Windsor to Centre Ave and then down Centre Ave to Calvary UCC where All Souls Church is hosting a 7:00 p.m. service of remembrance. The walk is less than a mile. No banners. No music. No rainbows. No stereotypes. No shouting. As a show of unity, please wear all black clothing. Download poster here.
Find earlier issues of the newSpin newsletter here and recent ones in the left column here.
The Episcopal Church/The Anglican Communion
Presiding Bishop discusses courage, challenge and uncertainty of leadership ... [Episcopal News Service] Courage and willingness to step out into the unknown are essential leadership qualities, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told several thousand women Oct. 26 at the "Women's Conference 2010 Main Event" hosted by California first lady Maria Shriver at the Long Beach Convention Center. "It takes the willingness to challenge people to think in new ways and the willingness to try things in a way that wasn't done before," added the presiding bishop, who was among more than 85 featured speakers and 14,000 women at the Oct. 26 event in downtown Long Beach. Leadership also involves challenging "people to think bigger than their own particular self-interests," Jefferts Schori said. More here.
Jubilee Ministry grants ... Info here.
United Thank Offering application process ... Info here.
Grants awarded for innovative leadership development programs ... The 2011 Roanridge Grants totaling $129,700 were recently awarded to seven Episcopal Church agencies actively engaged in developing new and creative models for leadership development in small communities across the Church. More here.
Studying Your Congregation and Community ... Free tool provides info on Episcopal Church congregational, diocesan trends. Myriad of uses includes stewardship, planning, strategic development. More here.
Charles A. Perry, RIP ... Former Washington National Cathedral provost, the Very Rev. Dr. Charles A. Perry died on Saturday, October 23. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. More here and here. Canon Mark Laubach, St. Stephen's Wilkes-Barre, says he "was fortunate enough to serve a year-long apprenticeship as Fellow in Church Music from 1984-85 during Provost Perry's tenure, and came to know him as a truly genial, compassionate, and sincere pastor and an amazingly effective and fair administrator. He and his wife Joy were always very kind to me."
Project Canterbury ... Founder and director of Project Canterbury, Richard Mammana, is a gifted young man who once resided in the Stroudsburg area.As a senior in high school, he served briefly on our Communication Ministry until, it seems to me, this did not sufficiently challenge him. I'd welcome correction, but it seems to me that Richard and Project Canterbury have strong Anglo-Catholic leanings. Richard has founded and developed in Project Canterbury a treasury of sources unavailable elsewhere. Richard serves also as one of three editors of AnglicansOnline, "an unpaid group not affiliated officially with any church body." Self description of Project Canterbury: "a free online archive of out-of-print Anglican texts and related modern documents. It was founded in 1999 and is an all-volunteer effort; it is not affiliated officially with any church body. An advisory board helps to strategize about the site and to plan its further development. An update notification list alerts subscribers on a regular basis to new additions to the site. Documents hosted on Project Canterbury are believed to be in the public domain unless otherwise indicated; for-profit use of any material on this site is explicitly forbidden. Reproduction for study or religious purposes is permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons Deed."
News/Info/Commentary sources from The Episcopal Church ... •NewsLine •News & Notices •Infoline •Episcopal News Service •Website •Twitter •Facebook •YouTube
News/Info/Commentary sources from other Episcopal sources ... •The Lead, Episcopal Cafe •Daily Episcopalian, Episcopal Cafe •AngicansOnline •
Got a question? Need some info? ... InfoLine can help you with answers to questions and in making connections to churchwide ministries, events and activities. Email or call. Check it out: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/info/ Contact: info@episcopalchurch.org or 212-716-6136, 6137; 800-334-7626, x6136, 6x6137
ENS Weekly bulletin inserts ... For October 31: [Episcopal News Service] New commemorations on the Episcopal Church calendar for the months of November and December from Holy Women, Holy Men are the topic of Oct. 31 bulletin inserts from Episcopal News Service. The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is conducting a year-long open forum on Holy Women, Holy Men, the first complete revision of Lesser Feasts and Fasts in 40 years, and invites participation from all church members through its website or by email at sclm@episcopalchurch.org. For November 7: In September, the United Nations held a summit meeting on the Millennium Development Goals to assess the progress of the 15-year plan, adopted in 2000. "In a nutshell, the summit asked the world to move from talk to action," write Devon Anderson and Bishop Ian Douglas. Full text of inserts may be found and downloaded here.
Beyond the Bounds
Amid cholera outreak in Haiti, fear and misery ... [NYTimes] St. Marc, Haiti — Inside the courtyard of St. Nicholas Hospital, beyond the gate with the handwritten sign stating “Diarrhea Emergency Only,” lies a grim but unusually orderly scene at the epicenter of this country’s unexpected cholera epidemic. Patients were treated in a tent clinic for cholera victims, in a hospital courtyard in L’Estère. Scores of children and adults are doubled over or stretched out on every available surface, racked by convulsive stomach disorder or limp with dehydration. Buckets sit by their sides, intravenous solutions drip into their arms. Life hangs in the balance, yet there is a sober, almost eerie calm. More here and here.
'All Facts Considered' by NPR's longtime librarian ... Left to his own devices, NPR host Scott Simon admits he would regularly confuse Monet, Manet and Matisse; Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal; Socrates and Sophocles; Crete and Sicily; and Grover Cleveland and William Howard Taft. Thank goodness for librarian Kee Malesky — who, for 20 years, has been saving NPR's hosts and reporters from themselves. Malesky is the organization's longest-serving librarian, and Simon says he suspects that she is actually the source of all human knowledge.
Father Charles Curran draws fire ... [Tom Roberts, NCR] Father Charles Curran is an easy target. To those who readily dismiss him as a dissenter from official teaching, he wears a large bull’s eye on his chest. There’s no need to discuss what he’s writing or saying first. Just take aim and shoot. For others he remains one of the few, in a church in which theological speculation has become an exercise to avoid if you want to stay out of Rome’s sights, willing to ask and explore difficult questions. The latest incident involving Curran, reported here, involves a lecture he is scheduled to give Thursday at Southern Methodist University, where he has been teaching since 1991. More here.
N.T.Wright: Working on a building ... Institutions are essential to the church's mission, but they are not reality, Wright says. They are merely the scaffolding and plumbing that make possible the building called community. More here, text and video.
No healing without story ... Some doctors are finding narrative to be essential to healing. The church already knew that. More here.
I do my filing once a year whether I need to or not ... [Vital Practices, Peter Strimer] I just booked the cottage at our diocesan retreat center on the Olympic Peninsula for my annual Advent filing marathon retreat. More here.
Handling sexuality issues badly ... [Bill Tammeus - Kansas City Star, Faith Matters Blog] White evangelicals are most likely to give their own church high marks for handling the issue of homosexuality." Why do you suppose that is? My guess: They are happy to have their churches confirm their own prejudices against gays and lesbians. Read more.
Health
Some adversity in life seems to help build resilience ... Researchers analyzed data from 2,398 people who took part in a national survey each year from 2001 to 2004. Those who experienced some adverse events reported better mental health and well-being than those exposed to high levels of adversity or no adversity at all. [H/T to Diana Marshall]
Media
The Social Network ... Cathleen Falsani finds that the movie version of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg misses the very point of the social network: to reconnect with people with whom we already have a relationship. More here.
The Confession, by John Grisham ... [Washington Post's Book World] The novel's target –– the death penalty and its casualties -- derives from John Grisham's other life as an activist and board member for the Innocence Project, an organization that fights to exonerate prisoners it deems wrongfully convicted. The novel opens with a classic noir situation in which an ordinary Joe finds himself suddenly thrust by fate into a nightmare. In this case, our flummoxed hero is the Rev. Keith Schroeder, pastor of a Lutheran church in Topeka, Kan. Sitting in his church office one cold morning, Keith is paid a visit by a monster. Travis Boyette is a convicted felon, out on parole, whose rap sheet for sexual assault is as long as a fresh roll of yellow "crime scene" tape. Boyette tells Keith that he's dying from a malignant brain tumor and that he (maybe) wants to confess to the abduction, rape and murder of Nicole Yarber, a high school cheerleader from the small town of Slone, Tex., who disappeared almost 10 years ago. More here. [H/T to Leadership Education at Duke Divinity]
Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress, By Raymond A. Schroth, SJ [Reviewed by John Olinger, NCR] In the midst of President Richard Nixon's first term, the 1970 election sent to Congress a small band of liberals who helped shape the progressive legislation of the next three Congresses: the War Powers Resolution, and the Freedom of Information, Endangered Species, Legal Services and Budget Acts, not to mention the impeachment of Nixon. Among those new members -- Bella Abzug, Paul Sarbanes, Charles Rangel, Ron Dellums -- one man stood out from the start, the first priest elected to Congress, Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan. More here.
*************
Send info about newSpin to friends you think may be interested ... newSpin is an electronic newsletter that includes news, information and commentary related to the Diocese of Bethlehem, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion and the world of religion ... with some spin, of course, from the editor. It is edited by retired communication minister Bill Lewellis and ordinarily published twice weekly, on Monday and Thursday. The newSpin newsletter is currently received by some 1,200 people, many of whom forward it to many others. To have it emailed directly to you, subscribe at the "Get Connected" box on the right column of www.diobeth.org. Select newSpin under the groups. You may find samples of the newSpin newsletter on the left column of the newSpin blog, www.diobeth.typepad.com.
About the newSpin newsletter ... Composed at least weekly (usually twice a week) by Bill Lewellis, the newSpin newsletter appears as a post within the newSpin blog, but newsletter and blog are not identical. The newsletter comes, of course, with some spin from the editor, but the views expressed, implied or inferred in items or links contained in the newsletter or the blog do not represent the official view of the Diocese of Bethlehem unless expressed by or forwarded from the Bishop or the Archdeacon as an official communication. Comments may be addressed to Bill.
Comments