You are currently browsing the daily archive for November 13th, 2008.
Filched from the Bovina Bloviator, it’s the Fish-Eater’s JPII Random Quote Generator. A sampling:
- The refreshing epiphany of social systems will deepen the People of God’s new Springtime.
- The genuine radiance of universal spiritual resources will embrace today’s compassion.
- The decisive acclamation of our elder brothers in the Faith will further the cause of, in a certain sense, the People of God’s remarkable gifts.
This puts me in mind again of what is probably my very favorite religious joke:
Jesus said to them, “Who do you say that I am?”
They replied, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma of which we find the ultimate meaning in our interpersonal relationships.”
And Jesus said, “What?”
A Palie church in New York attempts to make itself look less empty by getting rid of some of its vacant pews:
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – An Episcopal church in the New York suburbs is hoping that the removal of two dozen pews from the sanctuary will make the church feel less empty and more inviting.
St. Bartholomew’s Church in White Plains, an 80-year-old congregation that like many mainline Protestant churches has experienced shrinking membership, hatched the plan as part of an effort to create a more intimate space for worship that could appeal to visitors.
“When people visited before, it seemed like a museum,” said the Rev. Gawain de Leeuw, rector of St. Bart’s for five years. “The church seemed empty. Each person could have had their own pew. Changing our sanctuary space immediately changed the way people feel in the church. It’s an important start.”
The church gets about 50 to 60 people during its morning services on Sundays. In its heyday in the 1950s, more than 1,000 people attended services.
The 18 removed pews now sit in a spare room. The church was unable to sell them on Craigslist for $300 each. Other pews were used to build a new altar, which now rests at the front of the church floor.
De Leeuw said he believes that a welcoming and energetic church could draw a few thousand people looking for an open-minded, tolerant form of Christian worship. His goal, however, is 600 families.
I guess they needed the space for the group hug?
From what I remember of my time on the vestry, Sunday worship is gradually dwindling at RFEC, too, although it’s not as dire as this case. My former rector used to get round the shrinking number of worshipers by arguing that although fewer people were attending services, more people were attending other functions- the various study and discussion groups sponsored by the church – and that if bodies were actually in the House, that was good enough. (Indeed, I believe that although I don’t take Communion there any more and although I am O-fficially registered in my RC parish, RFEC still considers me to be a member for attendance purposes because I show up with the family. Heck, I’m even still on the email list for current and former vestry members – I recently got sent a set of talking points for chatting up the church’s annual fund-raising drive.)
Well, of course you can feng-shui your worship space and cook your books until your heart’s content, but that’s not going to do much about the real problem.
A glass of wine with Dr. Harmon.
Mr. Peperium recently tried (and failed) to apply a little TLC to the reputation of Gen. George “Little Mac” McClellan. Interestingly enough, today is the anniversary of the birth, in 1814, of Little Mac’s (second) replacement as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, Gen. Joseph P. “Fighting Joe” Hooker in Hadley, Mass.
In the area of reputational reparation, I am wholly on board with Steven Sears’ analysis of Fighting Joe’s performance in the defeat of the Army of the Potomac at the hands of Robert E. Lee at Chancellorsville in May, 1863. If my mother is any indication, Hooker has long been condemned for the Union loss, his nicknamed being seen as nothing but a piece of empty, hot-headed vanity.
However, Hooker’s plan for breaking the stalemate before Fredericksburg by secretly swinging around onto Lee’s left flank upriver was cleverly concocted and (really) brilliantly executed. Indeed, so stealthily did Hooker slip out of his lines at Stafford Heights across the Rappahanock River from Lee that Lee didn’t even realize the Union army was moving until it had crossed the river to the west.
Of course it’s a leap of “what might have been,” but I would hazard that if Hooker had been going against anyone else in the subsequent battle, he might well have won a crushing victory. Unfortunately for him, in Lee and Jackson he was up against the Confederate varsity at the top of their game. All the same, despite the fact that Jackson’s famed flank march bamboozled and panicked the Federals for a time, ultimately the Union line held. Furthermore, at the height of the Confederate attacks, the Federals still had large bodies of men unfought in reserve. Their commanders – Reynolds, Meade and Hancock, were eager to pour into the fray, but Hooker would not commit.
Why? Hooker was knocked out by a piece of shrapnel when a shell hit his headquarters early on the second day of the battle. Sears believes that even though Hooker got himself back on his feet, the injury – both physical and mental – from that hit was greater than Hooker or those around him realized. Whatever the extent of its contribution to his performance, it was at that point that Hooker’s aggressiveness and resolve snapped, that he suddenly became fearful, pokey and hesitant.
Well, you don’t win battles that way. Rather than swarming out to overwhelm the Confederates – who were stretched thin in a long semi-circle around the Union position – Hooker instead cowered down and allowed himself and his men to be hammered by the Rebs instead. Eventually, fearing entrapment on the wrong side of the river, Hooker slipped back across the fords to the north bank.
I suppose the point of all this rambling is that Little Mac was just an inherently bad field commander. Hooker was a good one who, on that day, simply fell victim to the fortune of war.
We have developed a saying in the Family Robbo concerning bad table manners to the effect that if the gels do not learn to behave in a proper, ladylike fashion while eating, then the only person who will ever invite them to dinner is Genghis Khan. (I suppose this is the flip side of the old warning about not being invited to tea with the Queen. I just like to do things a bit differently.)
I’ve no doubt that sooner or later one of the gels is going to let slip somewhere in the wider world that Daddy disapproves of barbarians and barbaric behavior, and that Daddy cites Khan as an example. I’ve an equal lack of doubt that somebody out there will criticize Daddy’s disapproval as being elitist, racist and Euro-centric and will argue that Khan has been libeled by his enemies, being really quite kind and sensitive and always seeking to reduce his carbon footprint.
I’m thinking in particular of the middle-aged suburban woman I overheard in the cereal aisle last evening comparing various brands with her son, but this advice is pretty generally applicable: Please do not pepper your speech with expressions like “Yo!” or “check it out” or “da bomb”.
Oh, and please do not use “rock” as a verb unless you are speaking of boats, cradles or earthquakes.
You may think you sound cool but trust me, you don’t.
That is all.
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