Povey Prattle

The triennial General Convention of the Episcopal Church gathered July 5 – 12 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Much of what General Convention did was entirely boring, e.g. adopting a new budget, consenting to the election of new Bishops, thinking about selling our expensive H.Q. in New York City, setting up a committee to review our structures (yawn!). General Convention also approved liturgical rites: for the blessing of same sex relationships (walking on eggs), and suggesting (but not enshrining) prayers at the death of a pet. The popular media seized upon the idea of blessing same sex relationships, and prayers upon the death of pets to signify the “death of the Episcopal Church”. For instance, a fine Episcopal layman named Jay Akasie wrote a scathing article about our Church for the Wall Street Journal. The article was sadly inaccurate, Then the Roman Catholic journalist Ross Douthat tore us apart in his New York Times editorial. I believe that Jay Akasie and Ross Dout...

Given the recent meeting of the General Synod of the Church of England, and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church I offer you the following. -------------------------------------------------------------- "A meeting of Bishops described..." "they squawked in very direction. a flock of jackdaws combining together, a rabble of adolescents, a gang of youth, a whirlwind raising dust under the pressure of air currents, people whom nobody who was mature enough either in the fear of God or in years would pay any attention, they splutter confused stuff or like wasps rush directly at what is in front of their heads". Gregory of Nazianzus ( A.D. 329 - 390 ) as quoted in Charles Freeman's "The Closing of the Western Mind" (Knopf 2003)

“Summer-time is the rainy season in this part of south west Florida”.  That’s what I was told when I moved here in 2006. What I was told was not borne out until this year, 2012. We’ve had rain, and rain, and rain:  since the beginning of June. Indeed, we’ve had lots of rain. Our rivers are overflowing. The retention ponds are filled to their brims. The grass has never been greener. Outdoor plants, shrubs and bushes are growing before our eyes. The trees look stronger, greener, and healthier than ever. I overheard a conversation in the supermarket today.  A woman said “from a desert to all this beauty”. She had nailed it. . Weather patterns are so strange, Whilst much of the U.S.A. is in severe drought, we in south west Florida are enjoying the rain, and the resultant verdant loveliness.

Sermon for 15th July 2012.  The Revd. J. Michael Povey at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Punta Gorda, FL 2 Samuel 6:1-19 My parents and your parents would annoy or amuse us greatly when they began to talk about the “good old days”.  We would roll our eyes when they began to talk about going to the “five and dime” to buy candy, then to the movie house to see the latest “talking picture” , followed by a malted at the drug store, and all for a nickel. “The good old days”:   In our American memory they were either when George Washington was President, or in the 1950’s when in a new age of American prosperity we thought “God is in his heaven, and all’s right with the world” (unless of course we were black, or were poor whites in Appalachia). The ancient nation of Israel had its own myths about their “good old days”.  They looked back to the long reign of King David as a golden era, never to be repeated. David was viewed as a hero, with super-human, even semi...