The Arrow's Path

Gah! For some insane reason, I decided to try to work on my taxes. I hate having to file taxes because invariably something goes wrong. The last year I used a real tax form instead of doing it online (as I have been the last few years), I spilled coffee all over it three seconds after completing it. D'oh! Last year, for purposes of filing a FAFSA (which I didn't even need because I have scholarships but Seabury required a FAFSA regardless), I was forced to file taxes even though having done CPE in the summer, I had zero income for the entire year. So I was filling out government forms so I could fill out more government forms that I didn't even need in the first place. To add insult to injury, the unneeded forms would disappear into the desk drawer abyss of the financial officer at Seabury never to be seen again. Double D'oh! This year I actually had income, surprisingly enough. And as I had my W-2 forms already, I decided to go ahead and file online. I went through all...

(Click to enlarge) For this week's edition: The Archer thanks Andrew for being a sounding board for this week's cartooning ideas. The Archer apologies to the Ghosts of Rod Serling and John Palmerston Anderson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Chris Carter, X Files fans, and The Anglican Communion (except the Diocese of Swaziland, I don't think I managed to offend them). No crucifixes were harmed in the making of this cartoon... -The Archer+

I have been somewhat remiss in putting photos on my blog. I decided to take some pictures of the interior of my field ed parish, St. Paul's by the Lake in Rogers Park, Chicago. This is the main altar area. Yes, its an East Facing altar. Crucifixes, candles, and thuribles in the Sacristy. (More thuribles available in the other sacristy. This is the side chapel where the weekday Mass is said. The altar in the side chapel. The baptismal font. And the Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham.

I have never been a big fan of the seminarian clerical collar. Episcopalians have this bizarre seminarian collar which is basically the Anglican full dog collar with what I can only describe as a racing stripe. Its suppose to be this little black line on the very front of the collar below (on men) the Adam's Apple. At least in my case, this concoction is, in fact, a black string that has been taped on. This is to have a break in the collar so people know you aren't really a priest, or at least that the church has not fully leashed their pet dog seminarian yet. This is all in theory of course. I sort of have ethical issues of wearing one because its sort of purposefully deceptive, as only Episcopalians in the know understand what it means. Seminarians in the C of E do not have any such invention of the seminarian collar. I wore a seminarian collar a couple of times when I was doing CPE, mainly when I was on call overnight. It was helpful for a sinister looking man like myself wa...

Snake Charmer convention . Protestor mercenaries . A brewsky for your dog .

Way to go Peyton (Tennessee's favorite son).

So today was the annual parish meeting at St. Paul's, my field ed parish. Coincidentally, the NFC championship games between the Chicago Bears and the New Orleans Saints NFL Teams was also slated to go on. Bears football is pretty big here in Chicago, so we were competing with the Bears for attendance this morning. Here's my play by play of the contest: Forecast: 30 degrees F, snowing, but not a killer. St Paul's defense holds but lower than average morning attendance. Bears 3, St. Paul's 0. No acolytes show up for service. Bears 6, St. Paul's 0. Seminarian comes in off bench to serve as thurifer/server/chalice bearer. Seminarian does not burn church down or accidently accost parishioners with thurible. Bears 6, St Paul's 7. Elderly congregation with a lot of immigrants not so much into American football. St. Paul's opts for field goal, 10-6. Promise in sermon that annual meeting will finish before kickoff of Bears game. 16-6. Promise of coffee and sandwiche...

Prior Peter, over at Daily Bread , made an interesting little post about music being a gift from God and also took a little jab at some of the stuff that passes for "music" today. I heartily agree with his assertion, especially about mainstream secular music. I think music in the West is frankly in complete free fall. When I was in England a few months back, the stuff that was passing for music in the British Disco scene completely baffled me. Granted I'm something of a good ole' boy, and techno/dance music has never really interested me much. It is not much better over here in the States with rap/rock/country. Most genres hit the mainstream in the late '80s/early '90s. Rock n' Roll and Country especially were born with the good American rebellious spirit combined with musical innovation. Those genres have become domesticated like a frufru dog whose ancestors in ages past were wild wolves. Even ghetto rap is, in a sense, domesticated. Its packaged by other...

Benedict XVI: Fashion Consultant Real Life Tarzan(a) found Ashes Filled Urn found in Thrift Shop

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that I am a bizarrely anachronistic blast right out of the year 1960 or so, what with my Johnny Cash and Andy Griffith Show collections. I collect old radio shows, read pulp action novels, and think the notion of "postmodernity" is a load of bunk because it is really just modernity cannibalizing itself. I also prefer, horror of horrors, East facing altars. I have also never been a big fan of talking on telephones for its own sake, especially cellphones (or for my British readers, "mobiles"). Coming from an apparently dying tradition where looking someone in the eye is the most important sign of respect because it gives someone else your full attention, I often grapple with trying to figure out the point of talking to someone on a phone is, if you can't look them in the eye. I do own a cellphone, only because there is no grounded phone line in the dorm in which I have resided for the last 3 years. And I do use it. Occasionall...

There is a gentleman at St. Paul's by the Lake, where I am doing my full time field education. Before going to Westcott in the fall, he had told me about being one of the children involved in the Kinder-transport prior to WWII. The Kinder transport apparently was a massive effort to move children from Nazi occupied Germany and Austria to England prior to the second World War. He was apparently adopted or looked after by an Anglican Clergyman in England, and then after the war eventually made his way to the States. I didn't think much about this story until I was in London back in October. I ran into this monument outside the Liverpool trainstation, and remembered the story this gentleman had told me. I took a couple of pictures of the monument. In any event, when I returned to Chicago this month, this gentleman was interested in seeing and hearing about England and Cambridge. Apparently right before he left England for America, he took some sort of a Vacation to Cambridge and...

'Da Bears finally won a playoff game . And Peyton won too . It's all good...

I sent this post out on the Seabury Bulletin, but I will post it on my blog as well. I have some tickets (each ticket admits 2 people) courtesy of my field ed parish to the premiere of a documentary film on the Sudanese "Lost Boys." The documentary film is called "God Grew Tired of Us," is rated PG, and can be read about at the movie's website: http://www.godgrewtiredofus.com The Episcopal church in Chicago, Nebraska (my home diocese), and other places has done work with the Lost Boys, so this will be of interest. The premiere is set for the AMC River East theater on 322 E Illinois in Chicago at 7PM, Tuesday January 16th. Reading the fine print on the ticket, I see that it has been overbooked, so you need to arrive a little early to make sure you get a seat. I have 5 tickets (good for 10 people), and if anyone is interested, just let me know. The tickets are free, and a good way to show support for the Sudanese community. If I run out of tickets I can probably g...

After a hiatus, I have decided to bring my Daily News Nugget back. Here are today's news headliners: Nebraska baseball teams set Guinness World Record . Man electrocutes himself with Do-it-yourself Mole killer . Dracula's castle up for sale .

Seabury had its annual Feast of the Boar's Head last night. Boar's Head is sort of a medieval mass/feast/celebration of the end of GOEs/senior roast. This years after dinner entertainment was a jeopardy skit where each senior was an answer. It was good fun, and done in good taste. Thanks to everyone who made it a memorable evening... -The Archer+

Click to enlarge: Shaken, not stirred. -The Archer+

Hate to say I told you so... but I did . I was told numerous times by people on the prediction board and other places that OSU was full of beans, but no one listened despite the fact that I ended up in the 97th percentile nationally in predictions on college bowl games and have been at least in the top 93 percentile for the last five years running. Had Oklahoma won, I would have been in the 99th percentile. Everyone, including most of the ESPNCNNSIFOXSPORTSANYOTHERACRONYMICANTHINKOF, was saying Ohio State had such a great defense. Whatever. OSU had their hands full with Michigan, who by the way also got plastered in the BCS bowl. How can you be such a great defense if you only ever run a zone package with the occasional zone blitz thrown in for flavor? So much for the #1 Ohio State- #2 Michigan game being the game of the century. How do we spell 'overrated?' B-I-G-T-E-N-F-O-O-T-B-A-L-L

I do not have a ballot in the Baseball Hall of Fame vote this week. I wish I did, but only hall of famers and AP types get that honor. I bring this up because I commentate on sports periodically on this blog (Florida 34-Ohio State 14 at halftime as of this writing), and the Hall of Fame ballot for Major League Baseball is gearing up this week. There are two home runs this year: Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken , Jr. Both were phenomenal baseball players that I actually got to see play live. I have no problem whatsoever with those picks. My general rule of thumb in evaluating Hall of Fame candidates is my two rule method: 1. What have you done for/in baseball? 2.What have you done for/in the community? I have to be able to give checkmarks to both questions before I consider a former player to be worthy of Cooperstown. The baseball side of the first question is usually pretty easy; you can just look at the stats. High batting average, career wins, whatever. Occasionally there is a marginal p...

General Ordination Exams are officially over! There was one question this morning on concerning Holy Scripture and the use of psalms like psalm 58 and 59 in liturgy, given the rather problematic theology of God inherent in those scriptures. But, for all in all, I feel good about it and all my GOE answers. We celebrated with champagne and dinner at a faculty members house. I brought along a couple of home grown cigars (the tobacco not the cigars), which was quite possibly the finest cigar ever smoked. I will post more about this later, but 42 typed pages later, suffice is to say, "Ding Dong! The wicked witch is dead!"

Today went pretty well. If my brain were a nuclear reactor, it would be close to hitting critical mass, bit otherwise I am happy with the questions this far. I will reflect more at some later date, but here are today's questions: Morning Session on Theory and Practice of Ministry: CLOSED BOOK A terminally ill, 32-year old mother of two small children has been told by her physician that there is nothing more to be done to cure her cancer. After admitting her to the hospital for palliative care, the physician asks you, as the hospital chaplain on duty, to visit this woman. Upon entering her hospital room, you find a group of her friends insisting that she will be healed if only she has more faith and prays harder. It is clear that the woman is greatly distressed, and has questions about God's presence with her in this trauma. The friends, looking up and seeing you, tell the woman they will leave so that the pastor can affirm what they have been sharing with her. When you reach th...

I finally found another RSS feed/blog reader program I like. I had liked my old application Blog Navigator; it was basic but easy to navigate. For some reason, it was dying a slow and ignominious death, probably from over reading too many blogs I check. I was sick of the error messages, but had tried several and they were either too expensive (Hey, I can serve around with my browser and check sites for free, folks!) or to cumbersome. I stumbled on feedreader and am quite impressed. Its opensource and free. If you need an RSS/Atom news/blog application, I recommend it. [end] uber -nerdspeak[/end]

Its been a while since I have commented on college football. I had considered running my usual pre-bowl game break downs, but considering I was in England and missed the entire season, I would have been completely doing that blind. I did enter a bowl prediction contest that my hometown newspaper ran. I was not up to my usual par, but still in the 75 percentile. It was mostly the nickel and dime bowls (Troy v. Rice? Utah v. Tulsa?) that screwed up my batting average. Now that I have a break from GOEs today, and all the SEC teams have played their bowls, except for Florida who will likely win the national championship against a much over-rated Ohio State, the time for commentary has arrived. I think the SEC faired pretty well in the bowls, but was not as stellar as I had hoped. The SEC did win its big BCS game (the national title remains to be seen). LSU thumped Notre Dame (no real shock there) in the Sugar Bowl. Notre Dame hasn't won a bowl game since I was in college. I still can...

Well, the second day of the bar exam General Ordination Exams is over. I am pretty happy with today, but not quite as thrilled as yesterday. The good news is that the broad question theme seems to be holding. Today's questions were Theology (bible and prayer book) and Contemporary Culture (bible and prayer book. The Theology question was a straight up scenario of a parishioner asking you want was the meaning and relevance of Council of Chalcedon and Definition of th Union of the Divine and Human Natures of Christ, as found in the BCP. I feel like I nailed that one, as Patristic theology is one of my interests. The second question in the afternoon, was a bit harder. It was not so much hard like "Dude, I have no idea what this means" but hard as in "Dude, this is so broad, how do I fit this into 3 pages and cover it all." The question was: "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be...

Well, the day has come and gone, and I feel pretty good about the General Ordination Exam today. We had two sets of questions today, both in long essay form. Both sets were pretty straight forward. In fact, they were so straight forward, one wonders whats coming tomorrow. The first question set for the morning was a compare and contrast the Rite I BCP Eucharistic Prayer and the Enriching Our Worship Prayer 2. They basically asked about how the two prayers viewed 1. God, 2. Humanity, 3. Community, and 4. what is happening at the Eucharist. The history question was just a straight up question about the Crusades, their aspects, and how that plays out in the Post-Reformation era with examples from Christian churches, movements, or sects. I was just happy when I opened up the questions and I immediately recognized what the question was talking about. No Caroline Divines or last year's infamous ESP question "We're going to ask about the Social Gospel movement without actually sa...

I have been contemplating what I was going to do for an end of the year blog, so I decided to do a David Letterman-esque top ten photographs of the year. Considering I have taken well over 1000 pictures during the year with my adventures in South Dakota and Europe. It was a tough task. I whittled it down to 50 and then 30 and finally ten. My criterion was a memorable event and/or a unique place or camera shot. Here is what I came up with: This is the granddaddy of all hot dogs I got at the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, NE. And it was kosher, too. This was the view out my back porch one weekend in South Dakota. A local Lakota had erected a traditional teepee for a group of church folks to see. For a few weeks, I was working as a counselor/program coordinator at the Thunderhead Episcopal Camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota. One day after a dinner time shower, there was the biggest rainbow I have ever seen. My time in South Dakota ended, and I found myself across the pond. First...