Seven whole days

A few days ago, I posted the Anglican Chant weather report. In a rare bit of useful correspondence on the House of Bishops/Deputies email list, someone posted a link to the Anglican Chant traffic code. Enjoy!

My friend Greg Cole has the right take on John the Baptist, I think. This is a timely reminder that Advent is not really meant to be a sentimental time for Hallmark Christianity, but is rather a radical call to prepare for Jesus Christ by striving toward God’s reign.

During Advent, John the Baptist serves as our agent provocateur, the one who comes to stir things up, to shake us out of our complacency, and to urge us to search our hearts. John the Baptist asks us whether we really want to accept what Christ offers, whether we really want to take on what Christ requires. To accept Christ means that we live by the commandment to love God and our neighbors. It means that we filter everything that we do through that double commandment. It means embracing Jesus’ call to love our enemies, to seek the transformation of evil not through violence and retaliation but through love and compassion. It means living in a qualitatively different way, convinced that the road to peace and fulfillment in this life is none other than the way of Christ.

If you want something deeper this year, something that goes beyond the parties and the presents, consider what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus, someone completely committed to embodying his teachings, someone determined to live according to our baptismal covenant that calls us to strive for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being. Christian faith – Advent faith – is faith lived out in the world around us. It is not reserved for quiet Sunday mornings or for Christmas Eve worship. It pervades every part of our lives. It informs the shopping decisions that we make, the way that we treat other people, even the choices that we make about our time and our money. Why? Because we have looked ahead toward God’s future and we cannot sit satisfied with the present when we can contribute to the coming reign of God.

Go read the whole thing, and glue your RSS readers to Greg’s blog. Image from St. John’s, Canberra.

As I was finishing up my sermon for tomorrow, I was thinking of a bit of music. Thought I’d share it with you, dear reader.

Father Matthew has many great videos. Go visit him on youtube.

I don’t know who started it, but people have taken to calling today’s new Anglican province the “third province” in North America. I don’t get it. Are conservatives so concerned about the perceived heresies of ECUSA and the Anglican Church of Canada that they forget about the rest of North America? I’m not sure, but I think George Conger created this phrase for North American Anglicans? He used it here and here. It’s been picked up many times since then. Maybe George or someone will leave a comment here to help me understand this. George is a smart guy, so I’m sure there’s a good reason behind the phrase.

What surprised me a little was the official statement from the Episcopal Church today, which includes this: “The Episcopal Church, along with the Anglican Church of Canada and the La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, comprise the official, recognized presence of the Anglican Communion in North America.” Well, not really.

We all need to remember the Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America and The Church in the Province of the West Indies, which are both found the southern bits of this continent. If you include the Caribbean, which is technically part of North America, you have to include Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba and Bermuda (Extra-Provincial to Canterbury), though that’s not really a province. And of course, we can’t forget the Church of South India, operating in North America. You can find all this on the Anglican Communion website.

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Here’s another great Advent resource — this time from the Church of England. Pull up a chair, grab some cocoa, and warm yourself to the glow of a nice virtual fire at the website: Why we are waiting…

Each day features a thought, perhaps an excerpt from a book. Here’s the nugget from November 30.

God’s call to us remains a call to change: to leaving and accompanying, to moving and changing, to growing and flourishing. It is part of human nature to yearn for stability, to put down roots and stay put; but it is also a rule of nature that things which do not move do not live. Water that does not move becomes stagnant and in the same way when we do not move we become sluggish and hard to change. God’s call does not necessarily ask us to move our physical surroundings (although sometimes it does); most often it asks us to move our internal surroundings, to be prepared to be changed and transformed. God calls, and waits for our response…

That’s Paula Gooder in The Meaning is in the Waiting. Anyway, this is a great place to stop by each day during Advent.

On another blog, I said that we’d be saying “Archbishop Duncan” before long. That was in September 2007, right after his famous Pittsburgh conclave.

Today Bishop Bob Duncan has been promoted to Archbishop of the newly formed conservative province. Soon they will need to set up a new company for the next level of ecclesiastical finery. Maybe I should go ahead and trademark the name: Pittsburgh Pallium.

In the midst of Advent, while we prepare our hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the universal church witnessed another birth today. Gathered in Illinois, conservative Anglicans formed a new province. For my readers who don’t follow these things, a “province” in this context is a collection of dioceses (in Anglican terms, a province is usually connected with a national church, e.g. the Church of England or the Episcopal Church in the USA).

Today’s new province is different from others. It’s not based on geography; it’s based on theology. Some wags will claim that today’s action is unprecedented. They’ll say that the Catholic church has always maintained one province in a specific geographic region, so it’s illicit to form this new province in North America where the Anglican Church is already well established. There are all kinds of problems with this criticism. For one thing, Anglicanism itself overlaps with Orthodox and Roman Catholic dioceses. Even within Anglicanism, there are precedents for overlap, namely in Europe (ECUSA and C of E) and in this country. Everyone likes to forget that the Church of South India has peacefully operated here for decades.

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Thanks, Raspberry Rabbit, for this.

I would actually watch the local news and teevee weather forecast if it were sung this way.

Tip of the umbrella to T19.

I’m going to try to have something here for every day of Advent. Today’s installment is the Advent Calendar from the Diocese of Washington. Jim Naughton says this about the calendar:

In addition to the usual seasonal content, this year’s calendar features videotaped interviews with young people who have benefited from the work of the terrific Bokamoso Youth Program in Winterveld, South Africa.

Since its founding in 1999, the Bokamoso Youth Program has helped hundreds of young people survive and thrive amidst the poverty, crime and despair of the AIDS epidemic. Until recently, the program was funded by the Anglican church of South Africa but the overwhelming social needs of the country brought an end to that support. The program now relies on donations, and we are trying to help insure its future. Every $1,500 we raise through the calendar will be used to pay one year’s fees for one student at a community college or technical college in South Africa.

Make sure your visit it daily. You can start today.

Watch this video. The ten minutes it takes will be some of the best time you spend. This is the Rowan Williams we can forget amidst all the strife in Anglican-land. This is the wise, gentle man we can forget about if we only think of him as a political leader and not as a spiritual leader.

A tip of the mitre to BabyBlueOnline.