It's that fear thing again!

The latest round in the great British 'get scared until we feel alive' game is the announcement today in The Times that doctors will require police or military protection when they walk around deciding who gets to live and who will be left to die once the Great Epidemic takes place - all this due to some dead turkeys south of the border in England. That the virus which will kill us hasn't even evolved yet is apparently just a detail. It's been a slow week for global warming. The latest roundup of muslim terrorists is a week old and starting to go green around the edges like something left in the fridge for too long. The second article in the Times this morning went one step farther. Doctors, it appears, will need their own guns. Will it be this bad? Of course it will. The British public clearly has no control. The people who survived the Blitz and the IRA and Margaret Thatcher were another race of men who bear no resemblance to the weaker and less worthy crowd which presently inhabits our island and can be depended on to murder any doctor who makes hard decisions.

When I was ten or eleven there was an American serial horror show on television called Dark Shadows. My sister and I weren't allowed to watch it because our youngest sister Ruth would have wanted to watch it as well and she was far too young. The show was genuinely scary and therefore far too good to miss so we simply invented homework parties at the homes of a couple of feral children we knew whose parents wouldn't take any notice. Feral friends are, of course, the salvation of bored suburban youngsters but that's the subject of another post.

So when Barnabas Collins was about to bite the neck of one of his victims or when Quentin Collins had finally been turned into a zombie and appeared from behind the door we children were able to feel something queer and primitive rising up in us. Something akin to what our ancestors would have felt in the presence of a genuine opponent or a wild animal. Fear is a thrill and we are short on bona fide thrills these days. With more money to spend than we've had before and with life expectancy rising we would need a frisson or two. The only thing falling as quickly as the genuine crime rate is the percentage of people who vote. You see, we're not passionate about very much and therein, I think, is the problem.

A problem which the media (like a helpful call-girl with nimble fingers) has identified and will be pleased to help us with.


Also: We could all fall into the sea!

Always 'on message' and never surprising...

One thing about people who are in the midst of a scrap is that they are all so bloody boring. We can blame the organism itself, I suppose, invariably draining the peripheral members of blood in order to keep the heart, brains and lungs alive. What works with the human body in cold water tends to be the ordre du jour as well for individuals and groups embroiled in conflict. They set priorities and decide to concentrate on only three or four things to the detriment of all else.

Known many divorcing people? Ever wished you had a large cork that you could jam into their mouths accompanied by a cartoonesque 'Ploink' when they start rattling on about the outgoing spouse ? Have you noticed the searching look in their eyes as they try and ferret out from you the only datum they require: Are you on my side or on the other side? Anything else you say - well sir, that's lost on them - an anecdote, story or reflection - an expression of joy or loss, anything winsome - it's all binned and the conversation is judged worthless unless they've acquired at least one useful increment in the case which they are building. Such individuals - the file-keepers, the wrongs-recorders, the letter-daters - they cut themselves off from any semblance of community in the long run - other than mutually-reinforcing groups of people who may have suffered the same fate.

As characters they become rather flat - always on message and never surprising.

Of particular concern is the way in which the world reduces itself, for such embattled folk, into only two shades. Like a mall security guard who is looking only for shoplifters, like an ocelot lying on a tree branch scanning the forest floor for something walking by which is edible - these folk aren't interested in the 'details'. There is simply dark and light. The job of the embattled warrior is not to 'describe' anything in its complexity it is to 'declare' in which corner it might be most usefully placed. The varied world we live in is rendered mere opportunity.

Nicholas Berdyaev describes such a narrowing of vision in a journal article he wrote in 1937

For the fanatic there does not exist a manifold world. This is a man, obsessed by one thing. He has a merciless and malevolent attitude towards all and everything except for this one thing.

If the opponents are best described as animals, dead stones or pagans then so be it. We have a job to do, which is to reduce the complex molecule into something simple and digestible. Unless the truth of a situation can be reduced to 'our truth' which is a 'useful truth' then we're not interested. Gone is the colour of life and the possibility for change - gone the possibility of the hidden being made real and or the subtle discovered in its previously unseen beauty. Gone now even the necessary repentence for anything other than a lack of vigour in pursuing the well trodden path towards a corporately determined enemy.

A Canadian attempts to keep his A-1 Credit Rating

From the Globe and Mail. Let there be no mistake about it - we're responsible folks in Canada and we'll always go that extra mile. There should be more of us in high places.

Of course there are plenty of choices to be made

All bets may be off as to what the results of next weeks Primates' meeting in Tanzania will be but it''s quite clear to Tom Wright that the manual on the table in front of them is the Windsor Report. It's just a matter of putting it into action. The documents are good documents. A lot of work has gone into them. It would be a shame if we'd wasted our time anywhere along the way. The Windsor report 'part deux' will consist of a series of action points. The Bishop of Durham, according to Ruth Gledhill , believes that:

The Primates have little choice but to follow Windsor at the meeting next week.

I've always been wary of anybody telling anybody else that they 'have no choice' but to follow this or that course of action. Such words, when uttered at a Synod or during labour negotiations are never descriptive. Nobody ever stops arguing because the geezer at the microphone has just accurately described the situation. There'd be no discussion if his point were self-evident.

So the Bishop of Durham's words are not designed to say how a body of people (split along several axes with a few of them being relative unknowns and subject to heaven-knows-what sort of pressure from lobbyists arriving with satchels, satellite phones and 'briefing packets for our African friends' or from pressure groups within their own constituencies) is going to act once they're together at a meeting. I'd have put my money on either chaos, nothing much at all, or perhaps something novel - a bit of fun and games with African Primates hiding chairs during the first hour of the meeting - but I would hope for something unexpected. I think that pushing the red button on the Windsor Report and watching things unfold as they 'must' would have been the last thing we'd see. I'd have given it slender odds, frankly.

When number three bishop in the C of E and a damned fine New Testament Scholar opines that the Primates and his own friend Rowan 'have no choice' but to take a certain course of action I cannot believe that he's being descriptive. He knows better than that and so does everybody else. These are 'prescriptive' statements. There are no less than five references in a relatively short article about how much hard work has gone into the Windsor Report - how complete it is and how beautiful are the staples and covers thereof. Tom Wright doesn't know what's going to happen in Tanzania either.

The course ahead is one of discovering possible common ground and preventing the worst possible outcomes. It's a time for making sure that, while substantial agreement is not possible right now, the field is not muddied too badly by the sheep and that avenues for future work are not closed absolutely. Unlikely allies will be encouraged to make agreements - some people will need to save face - compromises will have to be made - some will have to leave the meeting dissatisfied. All things, no doubt, that drive principled people (who have made a career of showing how one thing leads clearly to another if looked at correctly) to distraction. Any number of Rowan's spiritual forebears have had to square circles - clearly it will have to be done again. I don't think a reminder to the Primates or their handlers that they have no choice in the matter is either politic or particularly godly at this juncture - in fact it rather runs against the grain of what needs to happen at such a meeting viz. precisely that exercise of 'choice' which hauls people back from their respective precipices.

Not Standing Quite So Firmly

The battle has not been won, apparently. Somebody named Greg Griffiths at a website called Stand Firm (more temperate than Virtue Online, less temperate than Anglican Mainstream) is predicting that the so called 'global-south' and the American dissenters are going to lose badly at Tanzania. He doesn't use those terms - in fact he tells his opponents (and he names all sorts of his detractors by their Christian names in a rather amusing segment which I'll let you read for yourself at the URL above) that they've all tripped over their dinks (those that got 'em, anyway) - that they've gone too far, that their day is done, their dog is lame and their 'wagon is done fixed'. In the midst of threats and vitriol, however, these are his salient predictions:

1. There will be no crowning of a new American Primate at the meeting in Tanzania. This is certainly not what we heard earlier about how there was going be a chair somewhere and Robert Duncan was going to be sat upon it with a dwarf sitting at his feet, a bucket of mandarin oranges beside him and a girl fanning him with an ostrich feather. This was the only part of the meeting that I was looking forward to hearing about. The whole prospect of having people dash to the available chairs and someone thrust onto a throne was like a little bit of British history come back to life.

2. Rowan Williams will only 'ultimately' side with the global south. I'm assuming this means that he will not side with the global south in Tanzania. He will choose his words carefully at the upcoming meeting and then go home and have a cup of tea and think about who he's getting advice from.

3. Rowan Williams will never preside over the ejection of a Province from the Anglican Communion. There is no mechanism for this and this would not be his preferred course of action.

4. Defections from the defectors will occur after Tanzania fails to produce Elvis. Defectors are warned that Anglicanism will be renewed - again 'ultimately' (try telling Inland Revenue that you will 'ultimately' pay them) and that if these 'twice turned' ever want to come back they will be returning as from 'a rear echelon' - the relationship 'will not be the same'. These I take it are threats - an angry response to something which may or may not be happening among people known to Mr Griffiths. There are obviously some passionately held feelings here. We won't dwell on it.

5. Peter Akinola from Nigeria may not come to Lambeth 2008. I'm not sure how this squares with the ABC 'ultimately' siding with the global south. This may need to occur over a distance.

6. The American Presiding Bishop will have support. These supporters are grudgingly called 'the usual suspects' but the spectre of +KJS being left alone standing under the unanimous glare of the Primates is perhaps going to be too good to be true.

The article doesn't come across as one great concession to a rocky road ahead but the points it contains seem to indicate nothing else.

When politics goes sour.

Simon Jenkins is probably kidding. Maybe he's not.

"At times I can understand countries whose officer class, sitting in their barracks over brandy and cigars, finally lose their cool and send tanks into the streets to "defend the nation" against corrupt ministers and weak assemblies".

We could all fall into the sea!

So here I am planning to go out to British Columbia in May for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and I find that B.C. is due to have its long-expected Uber-quake. I'll have to check the 'trip cancellation insurance' I bought to make sure that I get my money back if my family gets swallowed by the sea between now and then. Jeez, there's always something isn't there? Mind you - the Globe and Mail had it down as story number two. The gist of the report is that we're now able to predict earthquakes better - we know which areas might be worst affected by a tsunami when (not if) the quake eventually hits and, oh btw, here are the things you need to keep in your emergency kit. It's good to see a story which ends with something practical. It's great to see a newspaper which then moves on to the other stories.

I don't live there among the phlegmatic Canadians any more though. I live here with the Brits. Which brings me to my quick glance at the Times this morning where it is evident that

Fear Season Has Begun in the UK

We'll just pile them up, shall we? Global Warming, Bird Flu and Rabies from the Continent. What can we do? Sweet bugger all, apparently. Can we prevent it? Not really. Will it hurt? Oh yes, it will be terrible. Sit down and let me tell you how terrible it will be.

It will be horrifying. You've heard of mad dogs? Fits of aggression and foaming mouths - staggering about looking for something to bite. Imagine your little Billy affected like that. I know his Nursery teacher says he's a gentle soul but not then. Not after he's been brushed against by a dog owned by a man who lives next door to a Lithuanian who comes from a village where the postmaster says that somebody destroyed a mad dog just last year. Once bitten Billy will change - his breathing will grow hoarse and irregular. He'll foam at the mouth - he won't be himself. You'll see it in his eyes as he advances on you. You'll scream 'No Billy, go back! Don't try and bite Mummy, she loves you! Billy! Billy! Aaargh!. The streets of our villages usually filled with chubby teenager girls pushing prams and boys with shaved heads misbehaving outside Tescos will be filled with the screams of middle class mothers whose posh prams are now bereft of children since they've succumbed to the illness or have been shot by the Rabies Control Warden because the latest guidance
from the Scottish Executive is that 'you can't be too careful'.

If you ever find yourself doubting that 'fear is the only reality', no doubt Channel 4 will soon oblige us with a 'documentary' which intersperses dramatic testimony from Kazakh villagers about the attack of a rabid dog upon a woman washing her clothes by the river with a darkened images from a handheld camera running shakily along the corridor of an upscale British dwelling accompanied by the sounds of frenzied bubbly breathing (possibily Billy's) as somebody at the far end screams in terror and and slams the door shut.

Those of us who come from countries where Rabies is endemic can tell you that life continues very well in its presence. We have massive reservoirs of the disease in communities of Racoons, Skunks and Foxes. Our dogs are all vaccinated. Every once in a while a person needs to be vaccinated 'after' they've been bitten by a wild animal. We get by quite well, thank you.

Bird flu? Well it ranks high on the list of things to fear. I should declare my interests here because I raise hens and watched many months ago as people tiptoed up the lane quickly passed my henhouse in case a coughing chicken with a thermometer up its vent and a note from its GP should suddenly descend upon them. On the evidence on one dead Swan in Fife last year a local pram-pusher declared that my wee dog couldn't play with her dog because my dog had been in contact with chickens and, after all, 'You can't be too careful'. Yes actually you can be too careful. You might end up looking a utter pillock. Not looking like a pillock is usually one of the basic building blocks of life - one of its primal drives. Pillock Control Officers would have an easy sweep in most UK suburbs.

Problem is in this country that fear is about the only thrill people get any more. They are so frightened of living, of taking risks and of moving forward. These stories and the way these stories are presented seem akin to a calming opiate. Progress is unnecessary - such risks would be stupid - we may all be dead soon. And as for the media who dress the stories up? They're like clowns who appear periodically to 'set the mood'. They know their medium. They would rather thrust needles into their faces than neglect the worst case scenario. They're just providing a service to the feeble-minded. They get paid for doing that.

Lighten up folks - there's one death per birth. That's the way it works. Mozart never made his 30th birthday. While you're fretting and flapping like - well, like a sick swan from Fife - there's tons of good stuff you're not doing.

BLS over at The Topmost Apple has suggested that we post a couple of our favourite poems. I'd have loved to find an audio file for the following poem to include with it but haven't had any luck so far. Email me if you know of one.

* * * *

Limited
- Carl Sandburg

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains
of the nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air
go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers: “Omaha.”

Helsinki Complaints Choir

Do choirs complain? Of course they do! The Finns appear to have perfected the process. Enjoy

A job well done - sort of...

HM Revenue has my paperwork. They owe me just a little. Not enough to make the process worth it but enough to give one the satisfaction of being a good citizen and 'beholden to no man' These sorts of deadlines should happen to me more often. Not because I'll get anything done with a week to spare and then walk around proudly like the dog with two wotsits. I'll get it done 'just' in time like I always do.

A looming deadline for a tax return gives rise to many other unexpected improvements in one's lifestyle and environment. I will always find a hundred other things that want doing first. I tidied - nay scrubbed - my office. I went through the shelf in the bathroom and binned all those old razor blades and bits of soap. I tuned my mandolin. Finally I offered a desperate prayer to God in the realization that I was living a lie. I am indeed a lazy, self-sabotaging shit. So I sat down with the relevant papers and got the sucker done.

Now that my tax return is filed I really don't care if my desk is messy. The day seems brighter - there are a million things for a clergyman to do on his day off.

Whenever you reach for me.....

I am normally so proud to be a Canadian! I'll fly the flag and pour maple syrup over anything at all. I could even make a cogent case for why a rodent is a fitting national symbol for a country. Celine Dion may not be our greatest ambassador at the best of times. When people say 'Oh, you're a Canadian - so is Celine Dion" I wonder why they couldn't have mentioned Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Donald Sutherland or somebody else. A recent recording of Celine Dion favourites in a 'Gregorian' style really hits the nerve, though. Who are these people? Are they serious? Are they taking the piss?

There's really no question but that I have to order this from Amazon simply to say that I own my own copy - that something which so typified the empty and vacuous nature of the age I live in did not pass me unnoticed and unacquired.

Besides - she's a Canadian. So am I.

When you go to the Amazon site, check out the sound clips at the bottom of the page. My favourite is the first one - "The Power of Love" - all those long nights at the monastery with nothing but other monks, a roaring fire and a Muzak machine.

Wot, no schism?

Who let the Lutherans off the hook?

Mollie, over at 'Get Religion' asks why the disciplinary hearing. of an ECLA pastor is making such a tiny footpring in the press.

"I’m surprised the story hasn’t gotten more coverage, considering how obsessed the media are over the Episcopal Church’s significant issues with homosexuality and how to interpret Scripture."

"Michael" comments later and suggests that a comparison between the two denominations should be made.

"I think it would be interesting because the stories are actually so dissimilar. There is no significant insurgency in the ECLA, no mysterious Third World bishops, no larger questions about the global community, no angst over female priests. Instead, the dispute in the ELCA is largely about homosexualty with questions about scriptural interpretation as a faint overlay".

There is almost no reason at all for the ECLA to have avoided the 'righteous' hammering that has been dished out to the Episcopal Church in the USA. It has always surprised me. Back in my home country, the Anglican Church of Canada maintains excellent relations with the Lutherans. They've overtaken the United Church of Canada as 'partners of choice'. We exchange pastors. The Lutherans in Canada and the U.S. have high and low. They have evangelicals, charismatics and woolly liberals within the same denomination - often within the same Synods and I assume that this is the case as well in the U.S.A. So why no public schisms? Why no Lutheran Bishops with bushy eyebrows threatening to be parachuted in as the Great White Hope by the Larger Lutheran World? Why no Lutheran version of Peter Toon rising from his coffin on a nightly basis to bite necks? Why is no one nailing an extra thesis to the door of the Lutheran Church? Doesn't seem fair somehow.

I do note, however, that the big money which is available to finance schism, opprobrium and liberal/moderate bashing has not been made available to the Lutherans. If you go to the Institute for Religion and Democracy you'll see little action tabs marked 'Methodist, Presbyterian and Anglican'. Either the Lutherans were neglected because the 'L' box was inadvertently left in the car by somebody who'd rushed home to see if the oven was still on or because those wishing to foment True Religion in the Lutheran church forgot to apply for funding.

This happens in a lot of organizations - failure to apply for relevent funding is a legitimate grounds for dismissal of a chief executive or a development director. Somebody's head should clearly roll.

What an opportunity missed! There are world-wide fellowships there for the splitting. Lawyers and lobbyists aren't being paid their retainers. Lutheran bloggers are standing at the fringes of the Episcopal dispute red-cheeked with shame like boys who haven't been picked for the team. Look at these people - sitting at the same table! By default they seem to be saying that the question is manageable, a subject of discussion and a "dispute largely about homosexualty with questions (of) scriptural interpretation as a faint overlay".

Can you imagine!

Yes, I know the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is dire and Iran is not far behind. I know Fidel Castro is ill and might not live. I know, I know. But my Sloe Gin is ready to drink! I've been looking at it steeping, mellowing and improving in great big sealer jars and it is delicious! Epiphany was the day. I cracked open the first sealer and it's just right. There were mockers who said it was going to be too sweet. They said I'd picked too early. Nah - It's just right. Less sugar and everybody would have had Deaconess faces.

It begins with Sloes. Sloes are in the same family as plums. They are the fruit of the Blackthorn bush - a hedging shrub here in the UK. Little white flowers are followed by blueberry sized fruits with single stones in them. They are practically inedible off the bush. Bite into one periodically just to remind yourself of that. Very sour. Not nice.

You pick yourself a few quarts of these and then you sit down in front of the fire with a wooden toothpick and you poke each and every one a couple of times. You get to the point eventually where you can pick up three sloes at a time. You fill a big (1.5 litre) sealer jar just a smidge over half full and then you pour the berries back out into a scale and weigh them. You add half that much sugar by weight, pour the berries back into the jar and then fill it with gin. This year I used Tesco Value gin at about 37% alcohol because it was cheapest (I filled six big sealer jars with sloe gin so I've got some to give away). Rumour has it that you should not scrimp on gin but should get the stronger variety at about 43% alcohol but I don't intend to be that picky or that spendthrift.


The gin will begin to colour after a day or two. You twirl the jam sealer a couple of times a day for the first three weeks and then every two or three days after that. Normally you pick your sloes in early October. You can't touch the stuff until Epiphany! Some people leave it sitting with berries in for six months or more. You can then decant it out into bottles and leave it for as long as you like. The colour will go if it's exposed to the light. It will taste great but look fairly dull and brown. As for me and my household, we will drink it .....right now.

Please leave your snake in the pew
at the end of the service!

Quoting Bill Leonard, Dean of the Divinity School of Wake Forest South Carolina, Terry Mattingly writes in a very old article which I came across by accident:

"What the serpent handlers keep saying to us -- whether we want to listen or not -- is that we all tend to emphasize the parts of the Bible that make us feel comfortable," said Leonard. "We try to make it a tame book. Whatever the serpent handlers teach us, they can teach us that the Bible cannot be domesticated."

Well this is true - it was Schweitzer's task in The Quest for the Historical Jesus, wasn't it - to emphasize the strangeness of the New Testament witness over against its domestication by 19th Century Liberalism. Look at the mess that has gotten us into! So maybe a little domestication is okay? No need to transfer absolutely everything over between the world of the text and our world as if there were absolutely no difference.

If you're not convinced - then book yourself off a Sunday morning - bone up on Mark 16:17-18 - replenish your stock of anti-venin and go see for yourself. Wikipedia give you a list of churches where snake handling is still practised.

Please note the Canadian entries on the list. British Columbia and Alberta frequently complain that Western Canada is under-represented in appointments to the Canadian Senate. Having each more snake-handling churches than South Carolina or Alabama is probably not helping the cause.

Alabama
Rock House Holiness Church on Sand Mountain in the rural northeast
Alberta, Canada
True Holiness Believers Gathering (Lethbridge)
Holiness Fire Church Of Lord Jesus With Signs Following (Edmonton)
British Columbia, Canada
The Right Hand Of Jesus With Signs Following Church (Kamloops)
Small Believers Of Light Church With Signs Following (Revelstoke)
Georgia
The Jesus Name Believers Holiness Church (Canton)
Holiness Church of God in Jesus' Name (Kingston)
Holiness Church Of Lord Jesus (Roopville)
Indiana
Hiway Holiness Church of God (Fort Wayne)
Kentucky
Crockett Church (Fields)
East London Holiness Church (London)
Michigan
Apostolic Church (Warren)
Ohio
Full Gospel Jesus Church (Cleveland)
Full Gospel Jesus Church (Columbus)
South Carolina
Holiness Church of God in Jesus Name (Greenville)
Tennessee
Holiness Church of God in Jesus Name (Carson Springs)
Sand Hill Church (Del Rio)
House of Prayer in Jesus Name (Morristown)
West Virginia
Church Of The Lord Jesus With Signs Following (Jolo)
Full Gospel Jesus Church (Micco)
Full Gospel Jesus Church (Kistler)

Don't know if I'm prepared to answer the inevitable question which is how somebody encounters an article on 'Snake Handling' by accident.

Quite struck today by headlines in my 'newspaper of choice'- the Times - which stated quite boldly 'Anglicans Block Gay Adoption'.

This is not what the letter from Canterbury and York to the Prime Minister was saying. It suggested, rather, that Church and voluntary organizations involved in the process of adoption should not be forced, under pain of falling afoul of antidiscrimination laws, to be agents of 'gay adoption' where issues of conscience and/or Church teaching were involved.

I'm wondering what goes on in the minds of headline writers when they write headlines in this manner:

1) Are they just rushed and needing to meet their mates at the pub and therefore any old thing will do.

2) Does the one headline motivate people in the newsstand to choose the Times over the Telegraph with its (slightly) more accurate headline of Churches unite against gay laws

3) Is there an actual motivation to make things look worse or more sinister than they are with respect to the meddling of bishops in social affairs? One would expect that of the Guardian but not the Times.

On a related note, the article by Mark Harris at Preludium had some excellent points about the role of press (and quasi-press - bloggers and pundits) in attempting to create realities rather than to merely describe them. Different media and a different angle, perhaps, but much of the same thing.

I find obituaries, in the main, to be terribly written. They are generally composed by a junior member of the newspaper staff according to a set formula. I have been suggesting to families, for some time now, that they try to write their own obituaries for departed family members. I tell them to use the cadences and rhythms which come most naturally to them. Our families have certainly risen to the challenge:

My husband's no longer alive.
He insisted that he could still drive.
In lieu of carnations
our church needs donations.
His funeral's on Tuesday at five.

Dear Mummy has gone off to heaven.
She died yesterday at eleven.
The funeral's not private
so try to arrive at
the funeral parlour at seven.

Did anyone know Alvin Fetter
the inveterate drunkard and debtor?
His family's bereft
but a few things are left.
If he owed you please send us a letter.

We're all feeling sorry for Ed,
especially now that he's dead.
We sure find it odd
and wonder why God
didn't go and take Grandma instead.

Getting right with Zeus

It appears that the Cult of Zeus is making a comeback in Greece. An organization called Ellinais has recently won a court battle to be established as an official religion. The right to celebrate weddings and other official acts will not be far off.

There has been huge hesitation on the part of the government to allow the group to repossess its ancient temples since these are all in a fairly broken-down state. Members of the Altar Guild are long dead or languishing in low-budget nursing homes. Rising damp is a ongoing concern and the recommendations of the last Quinquennial Review (117 B.C.) have not been acted on.

Nothing motivates religious bodies quite as much as the disposition of property, however, and the group appears quite adamant:

"We are Greeks and we demand from the government the right to use our temples," said high priestess Doreta Peppa.

A word from the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks about the 'recovery of civility' and its preservation in the midst of conflict.

"Verbal violence, the Bible suggests, is a prelude to physical violence. Those who cannot sustain a civil conversation will eventually find it impossible to sustain a civilisation. The sooner we recover civility, the better"

Is there some alternative to fighting fire with fire? The chief Rabbi thinks so and feels that there is an art of extending friendship across lines of dispute and in spite of profound differences of opinion.

Why Clergy Should Wear Clericals

I particularly liked the bullet points part way down which described the situations in life where clergy are likely *not* wearing clerical garb:

If the minister is a shyster who is fleecing his flock for their money, he is most often wearing a sports coat and tie.

Everybody arrives at their own happy medium. Apart from church services where I wear the appropriate vestments, I tend to wear my black shirt and collar on Sunday morning, School Assemblies, Hospital Visits, visits to people I don't know terribly well and most importantly

*drumroll*

When a police car is following me. I can slip my tab collar in in about five seconds flat.

I tend to pronounce the word 'Skwurl' which gets me in trouble around these parts. You gotta give 'em credit for trying - The United Church of Canada has come up with a site called Wonder Cafe. I've been chuckling about this video all week. Check out the poster campaign on the main site as well. Top marks for creativity....anyway.

http://wondercafe.ca