The Arrow's Path

Jim Tressel resigned as head coach of the Ohio State football team yesterday for various infractions and lying to investigators and all sorts of shenanigans. FYI, I reported this back in 2004 . I'm just saying...

Original Handwritten Copy of "In Flanders Fields" The Great Canadian War Project has a write up on the circumstances surrounding the writing of the original poem. Interesting to note that the author initially threw it in the trash, and it was only retrieved and mailed to various newspapers in England by another officer. Interestingly, many modern renditions do not include the 3rd stanza. Even in 1921, just a few scant years after the Armistice, when it ran in the London Times  it was already fashionable to omit the final stanza. In fact, when I was in middle school and had to memorize it, I think I only memorized the two verse rendition. It was not until I was studying the first World War in college that I realized there even was a third stanza for that poem. Many want to treat it as an anti-war poem, but if you read the 3rd stanza, you see it actually is not. I am not making a political comment here; I just find it interesting how many people want to conveniently f...

The Oldest Anglican Church in Southeast Asia has been restored .

I receive a few daily comic strips via e-mail from one of the major cartoon syndicates. There was a gem in the fine print this morning that read, " Changes coming on June 1, 2011:  On June 1, Comics.com and GoComics are merging to create the largest comic and editorial cartoon compilation on the web." As I read that, that means that almost all the newspaper comics in the country with the exception of King Features (which does a few of the standards like Beetle Bailey and Blondie), will be one massive syndicated comic strip monopoly.  That can't possibly be good. 

There is an interesting case brewing in England that this editorial talks about.  Granted, the Politically Correct Militantly Secularist Crowd in England is completely bonkers, but they are much more "mainstream" in terms of public opinion than in the States and also have much more political clout. Personally, I think this article mingles a some distinct issues that I wish she had presented more clearly. One is the issue of what she labels as the Confessional, though really what she is talking about is patient/client confidentiality, which is similar but different. Also mingled in is the issues of invasion of privacy (which does not really exist in England as England does not have a formal Constitution, though Right to Privacy here is the States is merely a legal fiction not found in the Bill of Rights), actual harm versus offense, and the issue of Public Denunciation.  Nonetheless, I think her editorial is right though on a few things. In the era of the sound byte, we ha...

I got invited down for a renewal of wedding vows between Father Tim and Melissa. This was really a ruse to break out my 1552 Prayerbook and then go out afterward and have sushi, which was delicious!

The Following is a Press Release sent to me from a local resident who is taking supplies to Joplin, MO. If you have anything to donate, the information is as follows: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Former Joplin, MO resident and 6-year Brookings resident, David Reynolds is spearheading an effort to collect food, water, and baby supplies   (diapers, formula)   to deliver much needed food and supplies for a massive relief effort for first responders and Joplin, MO residents left homeless by the tornado which divided that town on Sunday, May 22. “I have spent the past few day...s receiving updates from my brother, my parents, and other family members who still live in Joplin, and seeing images in the media of the devastation and I just knew that I needed to do something to help,” explained Reynolds. “The sheer magnitude of the loss of life and tragedy makes it nearly impossible to see how just one person can make ...

Episcopal Relief and Development is at work in Ghana and engaging in several development schemes. Check out this article from the ENS about the projects; the article is pretty interesting.

I'm just not tuned in enough to American Evangelical circles. I think they as a group tend to obsess about theological trifles and biblical non sequiturs . I also don't identify as an Evangelical, nor do I particularly hold to many American Evangelical theological norms, particularly in the realm of the extreme American individualism that infests virtually every aspect of life what I perceive as the Evangelical movement in the USA. I say this not to point fingers at my Evangelical brethren. They are committed and sincere Christians, and I certainly wish them all the blessings in the world. They certainly do way better at telling people about Jesus than my denomination could ever hope to do. We just simply have to agree to disagree and a good number of things. I do say this because I have trouble understanding the American Evangelical mind, and perhaps that is my own fault. To be fair, there is very wide spectrum of varying traditions that vie for the title "Evangelical...

In light of the tornado disaster, anyone interested in contributing money to help through the Episcopal Church, the Diocese of West Missouri has set up the following Emergency Fund: The Diocese of West Missouri PO Box 413227 Kansas City, MO 64141-3227 Checks Payable to: Diocese of West Missouri Memo: Joplin Tornado Relief Fund

Most people (at least in the West) assumed after the peaceful and largely successful referendum vote for South Sudan to become an independent nation, that the problems were solved. Going largely unnoticed in the Western news outlets, Sudan is still very much on brink . (Hat tip: Al Jazeera English.) Border towns in particularly are very much at play, and the President of (Northern) Sudan has announced that he won't recognize the independence of South Sudan if the town of Abyei did not remain in the North. If this isn't ironed out soon, the whole region could go back down the road to war. Please Pray for Sudan.

We usually hear this story of the first Christian martyr after Easter and Christmas because all three major parties in this story...The people stoning Stephen, Stephen himself, and Saul (or Paul as we usually call him). These people, even Stephen though we usually wrap him up in the flag of martyrdom, are all finding ways of pushing God aside for their own purposes. Some have better motives than others, but they are all pushing  God aside in some way. The people are stoning a person who is telling them things they need to hear. Stephen is telling people what they need to hear but in a way that isn't really helpful, and Saul is egging on a lynch mob in the name of religious purity. And before we write off the whole lot as 1 st century religious fanatics, the question we need to ask ourselves in the wake of Easter is the same question we ask oursevles during Holy week: are we really any better? We pretend we are. We pretend to be more sophisticated, more ethical, more ...

Everything has gotten extremely busy this week, so spring must indeed finally be here. Luckily, it got here in time for the end of the world, or so the kooks are saying.

Baseball lost Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew this morning. This is of particular local interest in the Northern Plains (aka Twins country) because Killebrew was a local fixture here for many years. He as statue in front of the new Twins Stadium. The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a terrific article and photo essay on Killebrew here . Killebrew had been battling cancer for a while. Ironically, he had been vocal proponent of Hospice care for several years before that. And, he died in hospice. I met him once by chance in an Airport. I had no idea who he was until after he walked away and someone told me. For someone whose nickname was "Killer' Killebrew, he was a completely unassuming man, and actually pretty small by modern professional behemoth athlete standards. (Official stats say he was 5'11 and 220 lbs in his prime, but looking at photos of him in his playing days, I think that was being pretty generous.) He largely played in the era before modern weightlifting and ...

My Wife and I hiked up House Mountain State Park while we were vacationing. This is about 10 minutes from where I grew up. It used to be a privately owned mountain until half of it was turned into a state park when I was in college (I think).We hiked up it once with my Cub Scout troop and spent the night at the top. I remember that vividly.

(The following is a repost due to blogger.com's massive crash yesterday in which all blog posts of the last 24 hours were apparently lost.) Upon returning from vacation, I had to hit the ground running. My parish, thanks to a very generous anonymous donation, was able to acquire a refurbished pipe organ to replace our old electronic organ that was almost 40 years old. The last few days, we have been assembling it, thanks in large part to the former interim pastor here at St. Paul's who is a master organist and pipe organ mover.   The following is my photography of the installation process. The musical background is not the new organ, as it still needs to be tuned, but filler music courtesy of Trinity Church, Boston.  

On our drive back to Kentucky to catch the train, we decided to visit Cumberland Gap state park (I will post some pictures of Cumberland Gap park shortly). Cumberland Gap, of course, was a pass made famous by pioneer Daniel Boone that allowed passage and subsequent settlement past the Appalachian mountains. Contrary to popular belief, Daniel Boone did not actually discover the pass. Cherokees and other Native Americans had used it for years. Even another white man had discovered it and had already named the region after the Duke of Cumberland, who was a British general who finally defeated the Stuart dynasty in Scotland at the Battle of Culloden . Ironically, many of the descendants of the defeated Scots found there way to the Appalachian mountains later on, only to find the region named for the infamous British lord who authorized a slaughter of wounded soldiers and civilians after the Battle of Culloden turned into a route. To this day, no British regiment claims the Battle of Cull...

 Flying used to be fun, but the national security scanners and waiting lines and all have just ruined air travel. With the security, you get stuck in the terminal with nowhere to go.  Airlines also charge you for bags and all this garbage. You don't even get a bag of complimentary peanuts or pretzels on the flight anymore. If I never have to deal with an commercial airline flight again, I'll die a happy man. As such, we decided for vacation this year that we were going to take the train  to visit my parents in Tennessee. Ironically, there are no Amtrak lines through East Tennessee, despite the fact that there are all sorts of railroads everywhere. This is why so many ferocious battles were fought in Tennessee during the Civil War. My parents had to come up to Maysville, KY, to pick us up. This is basically the first train stop after Cincinnati. Union Station-Chicago California Zephyr Family Room We left from a town in Nebraska where my wife is from....

Gotta love the quote from this pastor. This is truly unbelievable .

If I ever complain about living in a small town (not that I think I ever would), remind me of this picture: I took this last week in downtown Atlanta, GA. Sadly, it was not even rush hour...

After a two week hiatus, I will be back to my regular bloggery this week. I've been on vacation and have plenty of interesting pictures and stories to share.