Eclectic Amateur

Hilary writes some more, this time on prayer:

Today I had a conversation with Fr. Spiritual Director about prayer. I said that I simply didn’t know how to pray. What does it consist of? How do you know when you are praying and when you are just sitting there thinking about God? When you are daydreaming? When you are merely thinking or spacing out?

I am certainly aware that most of the time when I want to be, I am not praying. I am conscious of being repelled by prayer as well as nearly equally drawn to it. The struggle to enter into prayer is the most immediate battle in fighting the Giant.

I told Fr. Sp.D. that I really didn’t understand prayer and it was a big obstacle to trying it. (Here’s a secret for you all, if you see me “praying” in church, it is likely that I am sitting there doing something entirely different.)

I have the same problem… have know it for at least twenty years. I hope Hilary can eventually share what Fr.Sp.D. advised as the correction.

Hilary White gets a touch autobiographical, and explains why she’s now a “shrieking traddie”:

I had been looking for truth and justice, as had all my friends. But where most of them gave it up as a hopeless quest, I actually managed to find what I was looking for. I found Christendom, but, it seems, only managed to get there in time to attend the burial, the funeral Mass having long since finished.

Well, here I am, and here we all are. The survivors of the Great Change. The terrible conflagration happened anyway and nary an atom was split. Here we are now, the refugees, the people who have looked around at the devastation and seen that things were, quite simply, better before our parents (and I suppose grandparents) decided to give up on the old way of thinking. We are the backlash generation. The Young Fogies.

Read the whole thing.

All this might lend some inkling, some vague hint as to why I have turned out the way I have.

Yes, it does.

I don’t qualify as an Evil Traditionalist, but I share the feeling of having awakened to discover that I’m living among the ruins. So I suppose that makes me a Young Fogey too.

The official medal results for the Torino 2006 Olympics are online at:

http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/IDF/MDL/MDL_Big.html

The Wikipedia page for Torino 2006 has the schedule, day-by-day results, and information on each country’s athletes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Winter_Olympics

(Motivated by frustration at not being able to easily get good medal counts from the Ann Arbor News‘ reporting.)

Homeschooling tie-in: Nancy is using the Olympics as an excuse to get the kids to do country reports, and also as a math exercise in graphing the various medal counts (which is why we care about getting those numbers!)

Jim Curley has good insight into why singing matters:

I have also learned that God wants not only our minds (because this is what I tend to give Him), but also our hearts. Song helps us to give our hearts. This also why the restoration of singing together-whether hymns or folk songs-is important to the restoration of a Christian culture. People need to know how to give their whole being. Music helps us do this. People resist. Singing makes them self-conscious. But this is exactly why it needs to be done-to thrust aside the self in order to give your entire self in song…

Thanks for the reminder, Jim. It’s too easy to think that “it’s only singing,” and to leave the work to the specialists and professionals.

More regarding the departure from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and the formation of the Anglican Church of Livonia:

‘StJohnsPriest’ posts the letter that Wendell +Gibbs sent around the diocese concerning our departure:

“Priest leaves, faithful follow” from the Detroit News. Overall, a good and fair writeup. Unfortunately, the archived article now drops the photo from the print version that showed my daughter.

The Episcopal News Service picks up the story.

So does The Record (the diocesan paper).

The American Anglican Council blog runs our press release.

“Michigan Parish Splits Despite ‘Gracious’ Effort By Bishop” — a rather odd article from The Living Church:

The rector and a number of members from St. Andrew’s Church in Livonia, Mich., have left the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Michigan, despite what a bishop who belongs to the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) described as “sincere and gracious” efforts by the Bishop of Michigan to arrange adequate episcopal care….

The editorial glitch is that the “gracious” quote used to title and lead the article is never actually attributed. They do quote +Ackerman (who is an ACN bishop) later in the article, so presumably he’s the source, but the article as written doesn’t say that.

Some days, I hate being right. I was pretty sure this would be the press spin:

Role of gay priests splits St. Andrew’s

Philosophical differences over the role of gay priests in the Episcopal Church has divided St. Andrew Episcopal Church in Livonia.

Fueled by the resignation of the church’s former rector, the Rev. Allen Kannapell, some 200 members of the congregation left the church on Hubbard near Six Mile. The dissident congregation was to gather today, Jan. 15, for the second time at the Holiday Inn at Laurel Park Place for a service led by Kannapell.

Ed Sulick, a Livonia resident who has been a member of St. Andrew’s for 35 years, was among those who left the church.

“The Episcopal Church elected a gay bishop out east and are installing gay priests throughout Detroit,” Sulick said. “People are very concerned about the Church ignoring parts of the Bible.”

“It’s been tough for all of us.”

Despite the departure of some 200 members, services proceeded as normal last weekend at St. Andrew’s under the Rev. John Henry, who was appointed temporary priest in charge. Some 80 people attended last weekend’s three services.

“That was nothing out of the ordinary,” said Karen Bota, spokeswoman for the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, which serves 96 churches and university chaplaincies in southeastern Michigan from Detroit to Hillsdale.

“The church still has members who are committed to staying.”

Disagreements between the Rev. Wendell Gibbs Jr., bishop of the Michigan Diocese, and Kannapell have reportedly brewed for about a year. Kannapell asked the bishop to place St. Andrew’s under the jurisdiction of a more conservative bishop. Sulick said they wanted to be tied to an Anglican community, but Bota said that could not be done according to the canons of the Episcopal Church.

Kannapell, Bota said, refused oversight by any bishop of the Episcopal Church so Gibbs ordered Kannapell and his 11-member vestry, or church council, to leave St. Andrew earlier this month.

“We tried to give them a bishop with a theological view closer to theirs,” Bota said. “It was an amicable parting of ways.”

Let me be as clear as I possibly can: the vestry of St. Andrew’s was unanimous that the difficulty was not any particular bishop. Rather, it was ECUSA‘s transformation into a Scripture-optional, Jesus-optional “Church of What’s Happening Now!” which precipitated this split.

“Would the resignation or presentment of V. Gene +Robinson have any effect on our decisions?” was explictly asked. And answered — “no”.

It’s Not About Gene™.

Minor quibble: the numbers for attendance are off. I know we didn’t quite have 200 at either service so far of the Anglican Church of Livonia. And reports I had from those attending the St. Andrew’s services say that the numbers were closer to 50 than 80. But I suppose this is all within the margin of newsprint.

Major guffaw: “That was nothing out of the ordinary,” said Karen Bota. Oh my. This is priceless. A priest inhibited and charged with abandonment of communion, the entire vestry dismissed, and depending on whose numbers you use, 70-80% of the parish following to found a new Anglican church — all within 48 hours and this is “nothing out of the ordinary”? Things must be more exciting at the Diocesan Center on Woodward than I knew.

MICHIGAN: First Orthodox Parish leaves Liberal Diocese (virtueonline.org)

LIVONIA, MI (1/8/2006)–The priest and parishioners of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Michigan, got thrown out of their property, when the bishop, the Rt. Rev. Wendell N. Gibbs, Jr., told the Rev. Allen Kannapell, 36, on Saturday, that he had to vacate his church before Sunday morning services.

This is the first orthodox parish in the Diocese to leave the Episcopal Church over biblical authority and moral relativism. The priest said he was looking for alternative episcopal oversight, but the bishop rejected the idea.

When asked what prompted him to leave the Episcopal Church, Fr. Kannapell said it was the prevailing issues of Biblical authority, the gospel of transformation not inclusion; repentance and new life rather than blessing the old life.
…
“Bishop Gibbs gave me a chance to renounce my orders. I refused. I told him I was made a priest, and still a priest, but I can’t be under your authority. He said if you don’t renounce your orders I will inhibit you immediately. I refused. He then signed a letter of inhibition.”
…
We asked if we could negotiate for the property, but the bishop said no, Kannapell told VirtueOnline.

“Basically I was inhibited for seeking adequate episcopal oversight. We had discussed Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) and the bishop had offered it, but we deemed it inadequate because the bishop retained spiritual leadership and authority over the parish. It was not personal, he had everything to do with his leadership.”
…
On Sunday morning the parishioners of St. Andrew’s met at a local Holiday Inn. Some 190 of the church’s 400 parishioners showed up. Average Sunday attendance is about 200, Fr. Kannapell told VirtueOnline.
…
Asked why he did not fight to keep the property, Fr. Kannapell said that under Michigan law, the Dennis Canon would have prevailed. He didn’t see how he could win. “We walked away rather than fight,” he said.
…
Fr. Kannapell said the majority of the church and vestry was unanimous in leaving. The priest had been at the church over three years. Fr. Kannapell has a wife and three small children they are home-schooling.

Their new website can be found at: www.standrewsministry.org.

One minor quibble with the story — the lead paragraph makes it sound as if the entire parish was barred from the property, when really only Rev. Kannapell is barred due to his inhibition by Bishop +Gibbs.

Not that that matters.

Please pray for us. We had an excellent beginning this morning — 190 people! I’m still in shock at that number. We even had a baptism today, which was a beautiful way to inagurate a new parish

Of course, there’s a lot of work yet to do. And if you happen to be anywhere near the Holiday Inn in Livonia next Sunday morning at 10:30, please come and worship with us!

UPDATE: Thanks to Mark Shea, Amy Welborn, and Chris Johnson for the links, and to Dale Price for spreading the word.

I am archiving a history of issues and correspondance regarding St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Livonia, Michigan (and its relationship with the Diocese of Michigan, ECUSA and the greater Anglican world) here.

Just so it doesn’t disappear down the memory hole.

More on this developing story soon …

God is good!

You died in the place of the One
Who would die in the place of us all.

Kyrie eleison.

May the peace of the Christ Child be upon you and yours this Chrismas season!

The Risk of Birth, Christmas 1973

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn —
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn —
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

— Madeleine L’Engle, The Weather of the Heart