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There is something crazy wonderful to me about spending time in a church during "off hours" ... during hours of the day in which one is not typically in church. Yesterday, St. Bartholomew's had a day-long prayer vigil for the unborn, lasting from the end of the 10:10 am Holy Communion until the 6 pm Evensong/Benediction service. Parishioners had signed up for half-hour time slots to come and light candles and pray for the protection of the unborn (something that I feel is particularly needed given the pro-abortion views of our President Elect, for whom we also prayed, of course). My wife and I had signed up for an early time slot, after which we went over to watch movies with Mrs. G (the Rector's wife and Youth leader) and the youth of our parish: Miracle on 34th Street and The Keys of the Kingdom . Then back to St. Bart's with the whole Youth Group in tow. The evening services were wonderful. I think it is the first time I'd been to Benediction at St. ...

We made a family decision not to send out our usual home-made Christmas card this year. Umm ... because I didn't come up with a poem for it. Instead, we made this nifty video, showing Anglican family life, circa 2008. Hope you enjoy it ... Merry Christmas to all !!!

Often, my life seems meaningless. Here is one explanation, which occurred to me after finishing a session with my current oil painting. I make my paintings by peering very closely at the details of a reference photograph and then trying to get the paint on the canvas to resemble what I see (or, think I see; I've been known to get it wrong) in the photograph. I spend a lot of time looking at the canvas very close up, like this: I push the paint around until it looks about right, but I never think about the pattern it is making - I am too close up to see that. Instead, I have a slavish sort of devotion (or "duty") to the Reference Photo (an analog of Holy Scripture). And I have to admit that, pushing the paint round ... does get old. Why does that old Reference Photo have to be so bloody complex?! It is tedious sometimes, and still I see no pattern or meaning, only abstract shapes and colors. Finally , when it is time to go to bed, I step away from my easel and take a...

This song precisely captures my mood this week. Not the best week of my life. winter is blue living is gone some are just sleeping in spring they'll go on our love is dead nothing but crying love will not find even one more new morning why must i stay here rain comes i'm sitting here watching love moving away into yesterday winter is blue everything's leaving fires are now burning and life has no reason i am alone waiting for nothing if my heart freezes i won't feel the breaking why must i stay here rain comes i'm sitting here watching love moving away into yesterday (© vashti bunyan 1966)

If you only read one Anglican blog post during Advent I suggest this one , in which the Anglican Curmudgeon gives us a nice reminder of the timelessness of J. Gresham Machen's classic book, Christianity and Liberalism .

I found several more photos in my files from the Goth & Gothic photoshoot with Ivy Blue which, as it turns out, took place in July, 2003. This was just a few weeks before The Episcopal Church (although it was still calling itself ECUSA* back then) held its General Convention in Minneapolis. Something noteworthy happened at that year's General Convention, but I cannot quite recall what it was. Oh, yes, I forgot to say in the last entry: The church is St. John's Episcopal Church of Detroit . And the car ... The car is the original Mr. Venables , the first 1963 Mercury Meteor I owned , named after Theodore Venables, the Rector of Fenchurch St. Paul, in the Dorothy L. Sayers mystery, The Nine Tailors . *Old enough, now, to change your name ... When so many love you, is it the same? -- Neil Young ( Cowgirl in the Sand )

Baby Blue blogged here regarding a parish which is holding Goth Eucharists . It reminded me of some photos I took several years ago for a " Goth & Gothic " series of paintings (which of course, I never got around to painting). Here are a few. The model is Ivy Blue ( N ot S afe F or W ork). The Episcopal Church Welcomes You:

One sometimes hears the criticism, from fellow Christians who worship in "non-liturgical" churches, that having a set Liturgy is "vain repetition." But actually, it is the best kind of repetition there is. One might just as easily accuse a Kindergarten teacher of "vain repetition" for going through the alphabet with the students more than once! Cindy kept very nice "baby books" for our kids, and I was browsing through Eliot's the other day when I found this entry: Parents: Eliot, do you know why we go to church? Eliot: Have mercy upon us! I can hardly think of a better answer than that, and he was able to give it because the phrase appears so often in the services of the Book of Common Prayer . That was when he was two-and-a-half years old!

One useful thing about having real and powerful enemies is that it should clarify one's thinking about one's friends. Often between friends (or those who should be friends) there is a rivalry that makes them act in unfriendly ways toward one another. This blog entry is one of the few that is fully worthy of the title of the blog, as it will deal with both Hot Rods and Anglicanism. I mean to talk about the enemies of Hot Rods and the rival factions within hot rodding. Likewise, I mean to touch on the enemies of Anglicanism and the factions within Anglicanism. An Enemy of Hot Rods An Enemy of the Gospel Within what can loosely be called Hot Rodding (and I'm having to be generous here), we have what I would call proper hot rodding (meaning old school hot rodding), but also 1960s muscle cars, custom cars, newer muscular (American) cars, and import Tuner cars. There, I've said it. In times past, I would now wash my mouth out with ...

The Book of Common Prayer ... now has a MySpace .

I inherited from my grandfather, the Rev. William J. Jones, a hardcover book of G. K. Chesterton's (1932) entitled: SIDELIGHTS ON NEW LONDON AND NEWER YORK In it is an essay entitled, The Cowardice of Cocktails and Other Things , which contains these words: Cocktails are perhaps the only practical product of Prohibition. They are certainly, I should imagine, the only part of Prohibition in which America will really succeed in setting a Great Example to the world ... It was necessary that the sort of drink should be one that could be gulped down quickly; it was necessary that it should be very strong for its size; and it was natural that it should be made a sort of separate science of luxury in itself. I hope Chesterton is correct (and he usually is) in saying that the prohibition of something results in a more potent variety of it being produced. I will leave you to draw the obvious analogies in the area of politics, where I hope that a shrinking Conservative movement will have m...

Although I am not a big fan of, for instance, the guitar Mass ... there was a time when I fancied myself a sort of Anglican version of John Michael Talbot . At one time, I had hoped to write music for the entire text of The Litany . I never finished that project, but I have a few "fragments" of Litany music saved up in my head from when I wrote them back in 1996. Here are a couple of them, recorded last night ... O GOD the Father, Creator of heaven and earth; Have mercy upon us. O God the Son, Redeemer of the world; Have mercy upon us. O God the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful; Have mercy upon us. O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God; Have mercy upon us. R EMEMBER not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers; neither take thou vengeance of our sins: Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood, and be not angry with us for ever. Spare us, good Lord.

I love Anglican church music, including the congregational hymn singing ... but to be perfectly honest, they all sound like this to me if I'm not looking at the Hymnal ...

Thanks be to God! The new American Anglican Province will be formed, God being our helper, on December 3rd, 2008. This video is from AnglicanTV ... Note to Katharine Jefferts Schori: Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four dioceses playing a game can make a play-Province which licks your "real" Province hollow.

Near the bottom of this post , I mentioned that Edo Bertoglio would be creating a Thingie-related (slot car) exhibition for an art gallery. The poster for the event has been released. It is to take place on November 27 at Galleria Pack Milano (Milan, Italy). Nicely done website they have, by the way. Here's the poster: And here is Edo's Thingie collection!

As a postscript to this blog entry , I would like to mention one additional benefit of Organized Religion, and that is its beautiful power to influence even the shape of our rebellions from God. One huge benefit I obtained from growing up in Organized Religion was that when I went through my (seemingly obligatory, no?) college-age rebellion from God, it was the real, almighty, triune God of the Bible, and the truly incarnate God/man Jesus Christ against whom I rebelled, and not some 3rd-rate imaginary deity.

To welcome all my new readers, who may have wandered over from StandFirm or MCJ ... I am holding a special " Buy it While There's Still Such a Thing as Anglicanism " T-shirt sale! *** Not available in stores! *** Available in Men's Medium-Large-XL sizes (Hanes Beefy-T), and Women's Cap Sleeve T (M-L-XL - see size chart below, because they run small!) ... If you're ready to order, please click on the convenient PayPal button below ... Style / Size Men's Medium $12.00 Men's Large $12.00 Men's XL $12.00 Women's Medium $12.00 Women's Large $12.00 Women's XL $12.00 Here is the sizing chart for the Ladies' T-shirts: And here is the lovely Tracy, modeling one of these fine shirts!

This attack by militiant homosexuals happened about 50 miles from my parish ... Read about it here. And from a sympathetic source, here. Some of the comments at StandFirm are helpful. As I've said before, there will be Christian martyrs made over this issue. The question is not if , but when? ... A number of other questions occur to me, such as: 1) Would they have dared to try this in a mosque? What would have been the outcome? 2) How can we best protect against these people who wish to stop us from worshipping our God in peace? How can we make this costly enough for them that they will be forced to severely limit this sort of activity? 3) At what point would such people be satisfied? I can answer that one, at least: They will not be satisfied until every individual Christian and every church which believes homosexual sex to be sinful ... is utterly silenced. In any case, brothers and sisters, I want you to take note of one thing: What you do on Sunday morning, kneeling in y...

Here, in 4 parts, is a recent video production of Flannery O'Connor's short story, The Lame Shall Enter First . It is not true to Flannery's text in every detail, but it gets enough right to make it worthwhile. If you have 37 minutes of free time or so, check it out! It is from Chris Pierdomenico of Philagape Productions . Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here.

(H/T: Christopher Johnson ) From the Diocese of California website : Saint Mary the Virgin hosts hot steamy night of Scripture On the night before the big election, I was done with campaigning and the last thing I wanted to see was another political commercial. My pre-election tension was high, as a Facebook friend wrote in her status that she felt “the same anxiety as on Christmas Eve when I was six-years-old and I had asked Santa for a bicycle.” I completely understood the sentiment and I needed relief. What better than a night out for trashy tales of sex and smut? And in the fullness of pre-election ambiguity, where better to go for bawdy fare than St. Mary the Virgin, San Francisco? You know, the way that the Episcopal Revisionists (i.e., Apostates) told it to me, it was only Traditional (i.e., orthodox) Anglicans who were obsessed with human sexuality. So it is (you will have to pardon the term) queer to find these folks obsessing over sex in the Bible. It occurs to me that may...

Many Democrat voters (after John Kerry's 2004 loss to George W. Bush) stated that President Bush was not human , and that all who voted for him were stupid . In an effort to distance myself as much as possible from those folks, in knowledge of the full humanity of my political opponents, and in recognition of the fact that people's actions make sense to them, I have been trying to get inside of the mind of Obama voters. Here is one such attempt. The quote below (quoted with permission) is from a friend of mine, F. A. Harper. I "met" Mr. Harper on the Internet, because we share a common hobby. Mr. Harper is an intelligent, witty, thoughtful, and well-balanced individual. And he is black. So when he wrote about the election of Barack Obama, I wanted to listen. Here is his statement about what the Obama victory meant to him. I just want to say that when I was in the second grade, I thought to myself I would be come the first Black President. Then I realized by the t...

We can be thankful to Congressman Jim Moran of the 8th District of Virginia for finally clarifying the Democrat Party position on the 8th Commandment . "The American worker has produced more per person than at any time. But it hasn't been shared, and that's the problem, because we have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it ... and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth." This is at the heart of our nation's current crisis, and it is largely why someone like Barack Obama (who has promised to "redistribute" wealth) can be elected: Democrats have decided that stealing is no longer a sin, as long we consider the people we steal from to be rich. Thank God for every American who still believes in the simplistic notion : Thou shalt not steal.

About 6 months ago, my son Eliot (14 years old) made an interesting comment. At least my wife thought it was interesting. He said: Dad, if I could do it, I would invent a time machine, so I could go back in time and be your brother. Leaving aside the technical difficulties left unaddressed by his statement, I have to admit that it touched my heart in a powerful way. It made me realize that in many ways, I already thought of my son as my brother. Since about the time he was three years old, our thoughts have been very congruent and in phase. Even though Eliot is adopted, he is much more like me (in many ways) than I am like my own brothers. Another reason Eliot wants the time machine is that he feels he missed out on the best parts of the 20th Century (1950s and 1960s). He is very nostalgic for certain eras which he never lived through himself. This YouTube video shows one event that Eliot would like to go visit in his time machine:

Long-time followers of this blog (are there any?) may recall that my son Eliot and I are somewhat involved in the Vintage Slot Car hobby. Well, actually only in a small corner of that hobby, in which vintage Thingie slot cars are raced. This is now the 3rd year in which cars from all over the world have been sent across continents and oceans to be raced all across Europe by drivers we've mostly not even met. We entered two cars last year and only one this year. The overall results are in, and of 34 cars in the Fast & Scratchbuilt class, we finished 19th. Not bad, considering we really don't know much about building these cars or procuring fast vintage motors. Here are the results: I've also mentioned Edo Bertoglio before ... Edo is known as the King of the Thingies ... or simply the Thingie Kingie ... and here is why. Take a look at part of his Thingie collection, which will form the centerpiece of an Art Show he is putting on next month: If you squint real hard, you ...

Based upon the hundreds of cartoons I have seen which assume this view, the dozens of pop songs which are based on it, and the clueless discussion of the topic of hell on internet forums, I estimate the devil's most effective lie to be this: that he is the Proprietor of hell, rather than the chief being for whom it was set alight, and the first one who will be cast into that everlasting fire. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels ... (Matthew 25:41)

Sometimes, in order to help me love those I have the most trouble loving (e.g., Obama supporters), I have to remember who I used to be myself. One day in my life that seems to best capture who I was 30 years ago is Sunday, September 23, 1979 . I was an engineering student at The Cooper Union, beginning my senior year, and I resided on Manhattan's lower east side. That day is interesting to me because it brought together so many things that seem to have typified various aspects of my life up to that point, and in some cases, since. To understand my day that Sunday, you need to know that I was a recreational consumer of LSD in those days, and that was a day I was tripping. ( Strike 1 against me, from my current persective of a middle-class, middle-aged, well-respected-man-about-town-doing-the-best-things-so-conservatively perspective.) My acid friends and I had something very special planned: We attended the No Nukes Rally and Concert in Battery Park, under the shadow of the World...

All of these logos were found simply by searching for "Anglican" at CafePress ... And, our first winner, for Best False Dichotomy is (drum roll ...): In the Scariest Message category (watch out for folks driving a car with this bumper sticker!) ... In the Best Unintentionally True Message category (envelope, please!) ... This next award is for the Worst Misspelling of "Millennium Development Goals" ... In the Harry T. Cook Award for Most Tripped-Out Logo : In the Best Use of Redundancy category, our winner is: For Best Example of Self-Serving Guilt-Manipulation , we have a clear winner: In the Shameless Racism category, the unanimous winner was: And, our GRAND PRIZE WINNER , in the Love and Tolerance category is (wait for it!) ... Congratulations to all our winners. See you again next year!

You might be an Anglican news junkie if ... You're currently using an Anglican Mainstream mouse pad . You know ++Peter Akinola's middle name. Your screensaver is a photo of Archbishop Gregory Venables. You have more than 50 posts at StandFirm . People at work refer to you as that crazy Anglican guy/lady . You click "Refresh" on the Anglican Curmudgeon's blog page more than 10 times per day. You know the first and last names of Gene Robinson's "husband." You are wearing an I Like Iker button . There is a KJS --> English dictionary on your desk. You can name at least 3 Anglican Instruments of Unity . Just kidding; there are no Instruments of Unity. You have a TEC Diocese Countdown Calendar on your wall, which reads: Today's TEC Diocese Count = 111 110 109 ... You wear a Hot Rod Anglican T-shirt !

To: The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori Cc: David Booth Beers, Esquire Bcc: The Most Reverend Gregory Venables Subject: A Legal Matter The lyrics may be found here.

An internet acquaintance (who tends to be on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me) was writing to me to agree with something I'd written. But she capped her comments off with the following statement: Honestly, people act like children about all this. So what if your dude doesn't get elected? You accept it and move on with your life. Wallowing in self pity and refusing to acknowledge that Christ does indeed live in every person is kind of a crappy way to live, in my opinion. To be honest, the part about Christ living in every person (emphasis hers), made my jaw drop. This is a 20-something young woman, a committed Episcopalian, who is pursuing a path that will lead to Ordination. I was at a loss, for a moment to explain to her why I do not believe that Christ dwells in all people. I felt exactly like the person (described by G. K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy ) who is asked to tell why he prefers civilisation to savagery. The fact that everything in the New Testame...

TEc Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori had this to say about the Diocese of Pittsburgh wising up and leaving the rotten corpse that is The Episcopal church today: "I believe that the vast majority of Episcopalians and Anglicans will be intensely grieved by the actions of individuals who thought it necessary to remove them from The Episcopal Church," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said after the vote. Yes, and I believed the Chicago Cubs would win the World Series this year ... You see, when she says goofy stuff like this ... it makes it really hard on anyone trying to satirize TEc. Thanks for the LOLs, Katharine! But with your absurd reality outstripping my satire on a daily basis ... you're putting me out of business here!

The Ph.D. Thesis of my very smart brother (well, one of two very smart brothers; they are twins), the Rev. Dr. Charles Erlandson (a.k.a., Zolton, Diocese of Fort Worth ) is now available to be downloaded from the St. Andrew's Parish website . You can read the full "teaser" on it here. In his doctoral dissertation, Orthodox Anglican Identity , the Rev. Dr. Charles Erlandson examines this orthodox Anglican identity in terms of the complex identity that consists of structural, normative, stylistic, and historical definitions. Structurally, he argues, orthodox Anglicans desire to live together in a clear and authoritative communion life but are likely to produce a messy and ambiguous structural identity. Normatively, orthodox Anglicans desire to assert a relatively clear and strong identity by turning to the Bible, the Prayer Book, and the Articles but that many orthodox Anglicans will be unwilling to submit to the Prayer Book or Articles in any meaningful way, and impo...

Once, after I had finished confessing an episode of drunkenness to a priest, he gave me some background on AA . (Wait ... is the person Confessing bound by an oath of secrecy, or only the priest?) Anyhow, he mentioned that in Step 2 of the 12 steps you admit the existence of a higher power. Of course, the priest and I had already admitted the existence of this Higher Power, in the Triune God. But, he mentioned one case in which the only "higher power" that one of the "friends of Bill W" could think of was the air-conditioner in his full-size Buick. Apparently, this man lived in some intemperate region, such as Arizona, and his Buick's air-conditioner was the one thing in his earthly existence which had never let him down. As the priest's story went, the man eventually graduated from belief in his car's air-conditioner to full-fledged belief in God. I was thinking, the other day as I worked on Eliot's car: If I were an atheist, what would my higher p...

By now, all of the sports world knows that Lane Kiffin was fired today. Kiffin has been on the hot seat since the beginning of 2008, when Lane wanted to find a replacement for Rob Ryan, who must be Al Davis' illegitimate son the way he thinks the world revolves around him, at DC. So a team executive told Kiffin last night that he was going to be canned and that Mr. Decomposition would be calling him in the morning. Not only does someone other than Davis tell him he is going to be fired, Davis does it over a phone call. Then to top it all off they are trying to not pay him the remaining salary left on his contract. Because Lane was not afraid to speak his mind, the Raiders will probably win that battle, claiming that the coach was insubordinate, and merited the firing. How long before the old decrepit bastard realizes that he should have sent Ryan out the door with him. Probably never. Al Davis will Matt Millenize him. Al Davis should fire himself. He as already ran the tea...

There's this woman ... I can't stop thinking about her. The kooky things she does just drive me crazy! I know I must seem a little obsessed and all. In fact, I just made a video about her: One of the things that makes these projects fun for me it to set up constraints for myself within which I agree to work. In this case, I set up as an Objective Function (which I tried to maximize) the number of words I was able to keep from the original song (Motorcycle Irene, by Skip Spence of Moby Grape). Here are the lyrics I ended up using, with Skip's original words highlighted in purple. By my count, fully 40% of the lyrics are intact from the original song!

So I get home today and to my delight there is a package waiting for me on my front patio. Being that this is the first box that i have opened in a couple of years. I have the box broke in about 5 minutes. At first I thought that this was a great looking set. A lot of that had to do with my initial excitement. After mulling it over for a while, I have to admit that the 2008 SPX Football is ok. While it is not an overall great design it is not bad. Breaking down what I "pulled" out of this box, I have to say that I may not have gotten the value of what I paid, however I am happy with a lot of the cards that came out of this box. I got a few lower end rookies and another low end rookie autograph. Most likely a bunch of guys who may never make it in the league, but I will hold on to them, because you just never know. I also got on redemption card for a SPx Football Super Script Amobi Okoye. I am actually hoping that UD can fill this redemption. I have been a fan of Okoye for the...