The Arrow's Path

It probably is . As someone who has a young daughter and is already having trouble finding age appropriate clothing, I find stuff like this really dispiriting. I want to walk up to advertisers who do this kind of thing and say, "Do you have a daughter? If so, why do you do this kind of stuff?" If you don't believe the article, watch this video clip: I'm sorry, but dressing your 4 year old to look like a floozy just isn't cool.

I'm just saying.

The following is my editorial that will appear this afternoon in the local newspaper on behalf of the Ministerial Association. And mercy me, it's on a political topic. I don't do this too often. -The Archer ----------------------------------------- "A Lesson from the Past." Tomorrow is July 29 th . Unless you have a photographic memory or have a personal anniversary or birthday on that day, that date probably does not carry much significance for you. The date has been historically significant, however. The English defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1957. I suppose, if you are into such things, it was this day in 1981 that Lady Diana married Prince Charles. I only know these things because I looked up the date on several of those "What Happened on this Date in History" sources that you can find on the internet. What all of those sources fail to note, howe...

I had an interesting visitor today, a seminarian postulant from the Diocese of Texas and his young family. They were passing through the area on vacation, having just come from visiting the Little House on the Prairie exhibits over in De Smet, SD. De Smet is about 45 minutes from here, and where quite a few of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books are set. Plum Creek, Minnesota, where the second book is set is about 45 minutes in the opposite direction. The seminarian wanted to see the church and also visit the local Children's Museum. I took the opportunity to show him around the church. He was impressed by the amount of construction we have going on here at this parish. I also shamelessly recruited him to consider applying to become a priest here. He has a curacy waiting on him, but he was certainly interested in this Diocese, as he asked several questions about the bishop and the Diocese. Who knows...maybe South Dakota can get another young priest in about 3 years. That would be mo...

Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage: We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.   Amen. Prayers for National Life For our Country, BCP pg 820

An interesting article from a colleague who was partially on staff with me when I was in Lincoln. She was still an ELCA pastor at the time. She also did my wife and mine's pre-marital counseling.

From time to time I will edit articles on Wikipedia . I will only do so if I see a glaring error and can document my edit with a source. I also only edit topics that on which I can competently hold my own, such as things like Anglicanism or theological topics.  There is a lot of good information in Wikipedia, but you have to take it with a grain of salt because some articles or bits of articles are just outright wrong.  I was slightly editing a paragraph on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer that erroneously stated a few items regarding Archbishop Cranmer's relation to the Sarum Rite medieval missal. I even cited my edit with a standard, the Oxford Commentary on the Prayer Book .  This is the response I just got from Wikepedia: " Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at in the article on the Book of Common Prayer . Your edits appear to constitute  vandalism  and have been  reverted  or removed. If you would l...

I apologize for my lack of blogging of late. We are putting in an elevator at my parish, which is making my job a madhouse quite time consuming. I imagine my blogging output will be down for the next month or so.

I don't get too many crank calls at the parish I work. I got more back when I was working at a parish off the campus of a major University. Usually crank calls to a parish are either infantile ("Is your refrigerator running? Well, you better go catch it! huh huh huh!") or insidious in nature. Usually the infantile ones are by parishioners or other clergy good naturedly trying to yank the pastor's chains. By insidious, I mean prank calls from the people with a real ax to grind about either the Church or God or organized religion in general. Such calls will usually involve someone telling some elaborate story to try and draw in the clergy in order to make them look foolish. Luckily these are relatively rare, but they do occur. Occasionally you hear one that is both intelligent and funny. I just received one here at the church that was an interesting play on both the Church and the weather. We've been in the midst of a real heat wave here in the Northern plains. I...

I think I'll send the NCAA investigative committee copies of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables , with highlights sections involving Inspector Javert's lifelong pursuit of Jean Valjean because he stole a loaf of bread. I'm all for ethical conduct on the part of the NCAA, but $100000 school fine and forfeiture of a Conference championship over an issue of inappropriate receipt of $312 worth of clothing one friend gave to another? Come on, boys, there are bigger fish to fry in the College football corruption pond.

Newscaster from American TV Network: "We're now going to our Weather Channel expert...So, why is the country being covered with a massive heat wave?" Me: "Because it's summer! Back to you!" Actual Weather Channel Reporter: " A heat wave occurs when a system of high atmospheric pressure moves into an area. In such a high-pressure system, air from upper levels of our atmosphere is pulled toward the ground, where it becomes compressed and increases in temperature. This high concentration of pressure makes it difficult for other weather systems to move into the area, which is why a heat wave can last for several days or weeks. The longer the system stays in an area, the hotter the area becomes. The high-pressure inhibits winds, making them faint to nonexistent. Because the high-pressure system also prevents clouds from entering the region, sunlight can become punishing, heating up the system even more. The combination of all of these factors come toge...

Check out this picture  from a Memorial service of two servicemen who were killed in a helicopter crash while on maneuvers. It is an interesting juxtaposition of religion and patriotism. See what you make of it...

I sometimes hate reading news articles on various news websites because I accidentally get sucked into reading the reader comments. I try hard to avoid reading comments because invariably after about 3 comments, as the online discussion will devolvs into name calling, personal attacks, and completely irrational idiocy which often makes me despair of humanity in general and the American Republic in particular. Occasionally, however, I run across something that makes me say, "Wow, maybe the internet actually was a good idea after all." This morning, I discovered that the Smithsonian Institute has a searchable encyclopedia . The Kid's section in particular has some fascinating has a wealth of interaction learning ideas and games from Building a Sod house to Online Jigsaw puzzles . Pretty neat stuff to explore.

I got invited to become a member of the new Google+ social network site a while back. Google+ is basically in beta and not open to the public until later. Google+ is designed to compete with social networking giant Facebook. Ironically, I was one of the original beta users for Facebook as well, so I've been involved with social networking sites for quite some time. Google+ has created a huge amount of buzz in the internet world. It was suppose to compete with or even signal the doom of Facebook. Facebook has a lot of detractors, though few people who use it refuse to dump it entirely because there are so many people one can keep up with only through Facebook. I can contact virtually all the people I met when I was living in England only through Facebook. The problem with Facebook is threefold. One is that the owners unilaterally make changes to the program without consulting users. This comes in the form of unwanted updates and general ongoing tinkering that is really more of a...

My friend, Father Stephen, has posted a very interesting blog article entitled, "The Unnecessary God."  I enjoy reading his blog because I do know him personally, as he is an Orthodox priest around Knoxville, where I grew up. He also writes some of the most original and well thought out theological blog topics on the internet. In the article, he posits a classic example of the difference between apophatic and cataphatic theology, which is fancy seminary-speak for how we, mortals, with limited language try to define God. Basically, this entails defining  or viewing God either by what God is (cataphatic or 'positive' means) or by what God is not (apophatic or 'negative' means). For example, if I say "God is love," that is a cataphatic definition because it is defining God by what God is (in this case love.) Conversely, an apophatic way of describing God would be to say that God is not a created being or that God is not knowable. Really, the two te...

And civic discourse in general... Breaking sports news video . MLB , NFL , NBA , NHL highlights and more .

"You cannot know God – but you have to know Him to know that." – Fr. Thomas Hopko  

An American news outlet is actually covering something about Sudanese independence. Al Jazeera has this interesting peace about the violence as well, as well as this 47 minute documentary entitled, "Sudan: History of a Broken Land." UPDATE: The BBC has this interesting piece on " How do you set up a nation? "

Two in one week, that's phenomenal. Good sports writing is so hard to come by. This article delves into the idiocy that is Major League Baseball's   All Star game church picnic softball game. I've never really cared for the All Star game of any sport. I would just as soon ignore it completely, but Commissioner Bud Selig, in his infinite wisdom, decided some years back to tie home field advantage in the World Series to which league won the All Star game. Thus, if the National League won the All Star Game, their representative in the World Series would get 4 home games to the American League's three, or vice versa. On paper, that's a good way to try and generate viewership for the All Star game because it upped the ante, so to speak. But, as the article above lays out in points I've argued for years, neither league plays to win the All Star game. They have all these bizarre, unwritten rules that say every player gets to play. No player plays more than 2 or 3...

Andy Staples explains exactly how its done . This happens all the time, and he's right. Always pay cash.

"Before becoming a full time mum I was a chartered mechanical engineer working in the water industry, mainly designing water and sewage treatment plants for the developing world. This background   has not been totally inappropriate   for my current role (as a Vicar's wife)." - The Vicar's Wife blog

“We could take a cue from Orthodoxy, whose priests stand with their backs to their congregation, leading a liturgy that is neither clever nor impassioned, but simply beautiful, like stone smoothed by centuries of rhythmic tides. It’s an austere ritual, in the sense of – there’s nothing new here; it’s sublime, in the sense of – creating a clearer view into Heaven. The priest can be any priest. Who he is, what he looks like, how he speaks, and what he thinks matter little. He hasn’t written the service that he officiates. It isn’t about him or his prowess. He’s an interchangeable functionary draped in brocaded robes, obscured by incense, and, as such, never points to himself, a flawed human, pointing ever and only to the Perfection of the Mysterious Divine. That is the role of every priest or preacher – invisibility, while making God seen.” -From the Daily Devotions blog . 

You will never guess which country this article suggests is about to have serious debt problems.

July is ideally a time when Americans intentionally remember the lessons of our nation's founding. Oftentimes, that intentional time to remember is obscured by watching fireworks, enjoying cookouts, and wearing red, white, and blue. During most of the first century of our nation’s independence, July 4 th was also a day for public worship. On whatever day of the week the 4th of July happened to fall, people would flock to local churches to have that intentional time of remembrance. This largely is not the case anymore, unless the 4 th of July happens to fall on a Sunday. America is still a place that has a very healthy dose of civic religion, that type of feel good "God Bless America" religiousity that likes to forget that this country is not a utopia and never has been. While America has done great things, we also have a civic history that is also very tragic in many chapters. The United States has dealt horribly with some peoples and problems over the centuries an...

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant, we beseech thee, that we and all the peoples of this land may have grace to maintain these liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.   -Collect for the Feast Day of July 4th in the 1979 BCP. (Yes, Independence Day is a Feast Day in our Current Prayerbook, much to the chagrin of some.)

No, it's not from The Onion .