May 2012
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“We were in the gardens at the park drawing pictures of the flowers we saw. I...”
– Victoria’s journal, September 13, 1993
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“The contemporary philosopher Giorgio Agamben, following Aristotle, remarks that...”
– Paul La Farge in Cabinet. This is the kind of philosophical cant one can expect from a novelist of French descent building his premises on an Italian philosopher whose teacher was Martin Heidegger. It calls to mind a phrase Kevin Fabry and I sometimes used — don’t ask when we would use it —...
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Recently I was reminded again why renewal in theological education is so important for Germany. I attended a conference on “Text, History, and the Gospels” sponsored by the theology department at one of Germany’s major universities. The conclusions of the conference speakers were 1) there is no correspondence between what is written in the gospels and what actually happened,...
A Head of State, and a Boy’s Touching Request →
A photograph of a young black boy feeling President Obama’s hair has been on view in the West Wing for years.
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“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” It was this verse (John 12:24) that Dostoevsky put as the frontispiece to the greatest novel ever written, The Brothers Karamazov. The story goes that one publisher forgot to print the verse before page one and Dostoevsky wrote an angry letter to...
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In our culture, we have all accepted the notion that the right to know is absolute and unlimited. The gossip column is one side of the medal; the cobalt bomb is the other. We are quite prepared to admit that, while food and sex are good in themselves, an uncontrolled pursuit of either is not, but it is difficult for us to believe that intellectual curiosity is a desire like any other, and to...
April 2012
15 posts
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Charles Colson died Saturday, April 21. Mr. Colson...
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The Commemoration of Saint Anselm
Today is the feast day of St. Anselm (died 21 April 1109). The theory of the atonement he articulated so beautifully that it still bears his name is in our day thought passé by Anglican divines and others who, being poorly trained, can’t read their Bibles and their Anselm closely enough. Here’s an excerpt from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ 21 April 2009 sermon...
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O proud left foot, that ventures quick within Then soon upon a backward journey lithe. Anon, once more the gesture, then begin: Command sinistral pedestal to writhe. Commence though then the fervid Hokey-Poke. A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl. To spin! A...
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In Memorium With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote “The Hokey Pokey”, died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble...
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At the end of a Good Friday service, we get to the point where nothing we do will be or feel adequate to what’s being remembered. And that’s completely right, because what matters on this day is what’s done elsewhere, done by God, somehow using the stark injustice and horror of the execution of Jesus to turn around the way the world works. Intense activity elsewhere; as if you could hear faintly a...
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“We have much to be forgiven; nay, we have the more to be forgiven the more we...”
– John Henry Newman, sermon on Sins of Infirmity (published 1840). I do not like to think about what I would give to be able on my best days to write a tenth as well as one Cardinal Newman.
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No Trees Were Harmed
Two years ago I drove through Foggy Bottom with two of my children to enjoy a delicious lunch with a good friend. The next day it struck me how foggy are the bottoms of selected email messages in my inbox. At the bottom of a March 10, 2010 message from a school teacher: “Please help reduce our impact. Do not print this email unless absolutely necessary.” And recently from someone else’s bottom:...
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The sacramental meal we commemorate and eat on Maundy Thursday has four common designations: The Lord’s Supper, Communion, Eucharist, and the Mass. Tonight I want you to meditate with me on the sacrament as the Mass.
I recognize that that’s a designation not used in some Protestant circles. Still, twenty years ago in Providence on Saturday mornings I would go to Low Mass at St Stephen’s, one of...
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Watch
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“The foot washing is a sign of that ultimate subversion of all human power and...”
– Lesslie Newbigin
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Can you imagine flying over a war and you know you can never look down? You have to look forward, or you’ll never get home. I ask you, What could be braver than that?
The old French farmer speaking of the work of wartime carrier pigeons to his granddaughter in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse. Writing a homily for Maundy Thursday, I hear the lines as midrash on Jesus saying to his...
How Communal Singing Disappeared from American... →
gabrielellsworth:
A fascinating topic that says a lot about the development of culture—specifically, ours.
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“Theologians talk about a prevenient grace that precedes grace itself and allows...”
– Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
“I put up with this church, in the hope that one day it will become better, just...”
– Erasmus
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March 2012
22 posts
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Gabe translates an email from our relative Tomokazu updating us on my mother’s visit in Japan, with commentary.
———— 転送メッセージ ———— From: 玉置智一 日付: 2012年3月20日21:52 件名: 日本より To: Gabriel Ellsworth こんにちは。 お届け物は無事に届きました。 追伸、仙台教会の方はテンワックの看護婦さんを知ってます。 Subject: Pic of Grandma in Sendai! “Hello. We were able to deliver the presents. By the way,...
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From Russ White, Tenwek Hospital, Kenya
Dear Friends at St. Francis, I want to bring two items to you for your encouragement in the Lord and to enlist your prayers for a special mission we are undertaking.
The first item you will find posted on Phil Ellsworth’s web site, wherein I describe a bit of an “object lesson” which the Lord brought before me last month. Please take a few moments to read about Sofia and the lesson she...
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Sofia
A surgeon at Tenwek Hospital, Kenya, my brother-in-law Russ White writes, Sofia is a nobody, by the world’s standards. At 75 years of age, with long dangling earlobes from tribal piercing at a young age, now mostly toothless, she looks like hundreds of other old Kipsigis women in southwestern Kenya. But to her large family, she is the “Batiem”—the much loved and respected grandmother. And to all...
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Thomas Aquinas’s Childhood Journal (Excerpts)
(Age 4) Article XXXI: Whether I stole Laurie’s apple juice during nap time? Objection I: It would seem that I stole Laurie’s apple juice during nap time. For it was said: “Thomas, go sit in the corner. And say you’re sorry to Laurie for drinking her juice” (Miss Ellen). Objection II: Further, once in the corner, I wedgied Billy and made him eat glue. On the contrary, it is written: “Share...
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On 21 March 1556 the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer stood in the pulpit of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford and recanted his earlier recantation of Protestant Christian faith. He was taken outside and burned at the stake. Herewith the last few lines of the magisterial sermon Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ preached from the same pulpit 450 years later:...
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Shocks there have been. Nobody in 2002 saw what was coming. That’s why many of us, courteously disagreeing on some issues, have remained convinced that Rowan was the right man for the job. Shallow, polarizing analyses remain irresistible for commentators; many in the church go along for the ride. But Dr Williams is a thinker’s thinker. He burrows down into an issue, reads it up, mulls it over,...
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WatchJIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI is a quiet yet enthralling documentary that chronicles the life of Jiro Ono, the most famous sushi chef in Tokyo. For most of his 85 years, Jiro has been perfecting the art of making sushi. He works from sunrise to well beyond sunset to taste every piece of fish; meticulously train his employees; and carefully mold and finesse the impeccable presentation of each sushi...
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Mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black — and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look.
The reason is simple. Despite the tremendous societal progress these recent changes in attitude reveal in a country that enslaved its black...
Part of the weakness of current theological warfare is that it is premised on stable, lifelong belief – each side congealed into its rival (but weirdly symmetrical) creeds. Likewise, in contemporary politics, the worst crime you can apparently commit is to change your mind. Yet people’s beliefs are often not stable, and are fluctuating. We are all flip-floppers. Our “ideas” may be rather as...
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WatchHat tip to Billy Shand
“If you feel that Catholicism or Christianity or religion is not represented, by...”
– Marilynn Robinson at Holy Cross, May, 2011.
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“What makes the temptation for power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that...”
– Henri Nouwen
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Third, to be able to think with a Christian mind about the issues in your discipline, you have to have a Christian mind. As I see it, three things are necessary for the acquisition of such a mind. First, you have to be well acquainted with Scripture – not little tidbits, not golden nuggets, but the pattern of biblical thought. Let me add here: beware of the currently popular fad of reducing...
A Life in Trees
Today is Purim. The Megillah [the Book of Esther] was read around the world last night. For the fifth Sunday of Easter, May 2, 2010 at Saint Francis Episcopal Church, Potomac, Maryland. Based on the Gospel according to The Gospel according to John, 13: 31 – 35. [PDF] Trees figure significantly in my life. As a young buck on summer vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan I lumberjacked with...
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Pop Goes the Worship
Mark Moring of Christianity Today interviews T. David Gordon, author of Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns. St. Francis Church sings hymns and mass setting music at Sunday worship and our students sing contemporary praise songs at their Thursday evening worship. Read the whole interview here. Hat tip to Gabriel Ellsworth. David Gordon: I find it ironic that if I’m attending a blended service,...
“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and...”
– Dr. Seuss
February 2012
4 posts
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Polycarp
On February 23rd of the Christian calendar we commemorate Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp was the elderly Bishop of Smyrna in the year of our Lord 155 when he was arrested by the Roman proconsul and brought on an ass to an arena. There the proconsul would command him to renounce his faith in Jesus and to swear his fealty instead to Caesar.
At the entrance to the arena, he was transferred from...
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We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We...
January 2012
8 posts
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Listen