We’re invited to imitate his way of living, to eat and drink it in, and then to share it with others. We have tended to describe that as a linear sequence, as in “be bathed to belong to the body, be formed by eating, and then go and live like Jesus.” The world around us seems to be leaning toward a far less linear mode…

So this a lead-up to the “Open Table” resolution?

If you say so, Chris.
I can’t understand a word she said.

Eclessiology by Michael Moorcock?

Katharine Jefferts Schori flowers a dense countryside next to a cramped freak. A narrative damages Katharine Jefferts Schori. Katharine Jefferts Schori fishes inside hell. Katharine Jefferts Schori contrives the brick borderline. Should the arena fiddle outside Katharine Jefferts Schori?

Does she have the same version of the Random Paragraph Generator? She should, it makes more sense than she does!

Or the
Postmodern Essay Generator.

“… to eat and drink it in, and then to share it with others …”

Not sure how keen the “others” will be to have the after-product of eating and drinking “shared” with them.

So the underlying current here is that farewell, expensive General Conventions with multiple resolutions from the Underwater Yoghurt-Weaving Committee Sub-Delegation and hello, centralised hierarchical structure where the Presiding Bishop and Primate, and perhaps a small board or panel, make the top-down decisions.

All that flap about the Archbishop of Canterbury trying to be an Anglican Pope and set up a Curia? You were looking in the wrong direction.

I tried, honestly I did. But when it got to
Formation and practice are about the transformation from self-focus toward community …
… I was inexorably reminded of the (just re-elected) Mayor of London’s remark about his early attempt at another career: “Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix and stay conscious.” Mutatis mutandis …

Actually, I don’t think it’s so bad, if you don’t know what’s she’s done for the last 6 years.

When I was on the Vestry of my last Episcopal parish, we worked by consensus, which, yes, sometimes turned into peer (or priest) pressure, but I thought it was better to grapple together with issues rather than engage in an adversarial process.

Since when is order not open to change?

Since when is “abundant life and creativity” the end-objective of Christian individuals?

The way she says Real African Word one gets the impression that she thinks there is only one of them. That’s rather condescending.

Can we dream of a Church that is engaged in creative and distinctive ways with the variety of cultural communities around us? Does that include the Christians?

We are a people gathered by God to join the dance Scripture citation please? Maybe Luke 7:32? No? Thought not.

This body called a Church is meant to image the same transformation, which is from solo to corporate leadership. This from the woman who has done more than any other Presiding Bishop to disempower diocesan bishops and centralize power.

When I read the first paragraph, all I could think of was the scene in “That Hideous Strength” when the members of N.I.C.E. begin to speak gibberish.

This sounds to me like an introduction to General Convention 2012. She’s going to indaba them into insensibility and then just tell them what the “sense” of the church is. Hell on earth.

Did you notice a root cause? “Our 33 year old prayer book” which has opened the door to “the spirit.” It’s not the Holy Spirit.

Absolutely splediferious! I have seldom witnessed finer “jabber” talk since I was an ROTC cadet.

She should get a job writing presidential speeches.

Evil needs no better christian than Our Lady of the Oven Mitt: KJS

I can’t understand a word she said.

Me either. Read it, recognized the language as English, understood what most of the words meant, but put together it made no coherent sense…just a pleasant white noise in my head.

The vibe I got was meetings that never EVER end.

But just think of the expense account, Chris! And the food!

I work in insurance. I read coverage forms and ISO rules and regulations all day. This is far, far worse.

“The vibe I got was meetings that never EVER end.”

I can remember, literally, having nightmares about those back when I worked for a small town newspaper and covered county zoning meetings that never ever seemed to end…

Speaking of C.S. Lewis, his preface to The Screwtape Letters describes his concept of Hell as “the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern”.

“I’m not suggesting that we start throwing dice”

Sorry, Miss. Your organization threw the dice long ago. And crapped out.

I suspect what she really has in mind is a process based on Lambeth ’08: people gather together and yammer in small groups, and then KJS declares what all that yammering amounted to.

A process that has the form of consensus, and the substance of dictatorship.

I am posting this before I read the other comments. This is the most ridiculous emission of greenhouse gas I have ever read from the Presiding Bishop. She sounds as if she has lost all interest in governance.

This does not bode well for what is left over of a once great institution. I would be willing to bet that TEC general conventions will turn into mere yammering fests as special interest groups tear it apart in order to get their way. What a sad, pathetic joke TEC has turned into!

I thought I was reading something by the Druid at first and it is certainly on one of his favorite forms of church abuse – the subversion of democratic governance and its replacement by facilitated and manipulated small groups with ‘reflections’ collected and disseminated by the spider at the center of the web – in other words it is all about replacing open and accountable decision-making with the Delphi Technique. What does she have in mind – General Convention, or has she set her sights with her chum Rowan on the next ACC meeting?

I read through this sludge as a kind of penance for reading through this sludge.

Have no idea what she is talking about. And her obsession with “adjectives” is mind-boggling!
“great good”
“creative tension”
“abundant life”
“emerging possibilities”

Reminds me of what Mark Twain said about “adjectives” – When in doubt, strike it out.

And her ability to use more words than necessary is staggering – “…done damage to…” Why not just “damaged?”

Would reading this turgid nonsense to the terrorists at Gitmo be considered torture? A violation of the Geneva Convention? Inhumane treatment? I think so.

It’s the biggest Episcopal cliche fest ever invented. Too bad it’s not a drinking game.

Are we absolutely sure she’s not a member of the LCWR?

Fr. Philip Neri, OP

Special interest groups have been tearing TEo apart for decades. It is all about me and my rights, not about God and His ways.

The handwriting is on the wall. There is no need for resolutions, and debate, and voting with the consequences of making an actual decision. She is making a play for carte-blanche supreme power within TEC. Of course, this is a “new thing” the “Spirit” is now doing. But in the end, she will look to consolidate all legislative power within her own hands.

Will Bonnie Anderson or other “power-players” in TEC sit back and let her have her way?

I’m minded of a line of Peter Kreeft’s, while writing in a Screwtapian vein: “We usually have to tolerate a little truth before we twist it, but this bunkum is pure.”

“We have made legislative decisions over the last few decades that have done great good in opening us up to the movement of the spirit.”

Really?

“I work in insurance. I read coverage forms and ISO rules and regulations all day. This is far, far worse.”

The insurance industry is extremely orderly. ISO forms and insurance policies have structure – this, eh, not so much.

(OK, OK< I have bound coverage for risks on cocktail napkins, but not lately.)

Fortunately, we have a little snippet of the Presiding Bishop’s address.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss2hULhXf04

I, too, immediately thought of Delphi technique. Order, of course, is what makes science possible, civilized living possible, true justice possible (not the imitation feel-good stuff), and is absolutely necessary for any kind of trust. TEO has certainly lost the trust of lots of former members.

The best meaning I can give to this dribble is:

“Forget about the Master Plan as provided for in the Bible and the Tradition of the Church, and let us consider what our spirit feels is good at the time.” The rest is all about process. In Progressive circles this is called Post Christianty, since Christianity is now dead.

Reminds me of what must have lead to the building of the Tower of babel.

The title shoul have been “Makin’ it up as she goes along”.
“Real African word tm? Check.
Living into the whatever? Check.
Endless yammering with no resolution? Check.
Completely ignore that Jesus fellow? Check.
Hat tip to the “trinity icon”? (That’s a new one.) Check.
But it’s her last line which tops it all…
“…perhaps it’s”(manure)”enough for a death and resurrection experience.”

…Well, a death experince anyway.

white, landowning men rode horses for days to gather in a small room and vote.

Hey, we still do that out here in flyover country.

“We are a people gathered by God to join the dance.” Uh, I hate to go all snotty 7th grader on everybody, but I’m not sure I want to join her.

(OK, OK< I have bound coverage for risks on cocktail napkins, but not lately.)

Funny, I've issued policies based on bar napkins that were scanned and emailed to me.

then we need to learn to live in the creative tension between complete order and complete freedom

Kinda like how Moses had creative tension with the Hebrews dancing before the golden calf.

Executive summary of the mindless dreck from Te({[c]})’s peerless leader:

KJS: “Hey, I’ve been shilling for this truly new and improved New Age religion for a long time now. My spirit leader is asking me to provoke more results for his/her plan. C’mon, help me out here; join the dance. Put your back into it; live into it.”

So, in Committee Room 9 the one with the ice?

Christopher, your idea of hell is similar to mind: a faculty meeting that never, never adjourns.

What’s really impressive here is that what she describes is so vague that everyone can assume she’s on their side. Can it be she’s actually learned something from +Cantuar?

The first line used the term “ordered freedom”. What would “disordered” freedom or just plain chaos look like? She just doesn’t understand that her saying anything is a disaster. I have a hunch she left the field of research because she simply can’t communicate. Got a PhD fair and square, but once the dissertation is over you have to be able to get a point across without an adviser and a committee overseeing you. She became an overseer (epi-scopos) and see what a disaster it all is. Lucky for her this organization thrives on jibberish; see Rowan Williams.

Making an attempt at this again…

Yes, I definitely think she’s pushing for ‘open communion’ here. Actually, that whole paragraph is amazing – did she really say we should conform ourselves to this world? In so many words?

And “Behave, be formed, co-create”… what does that even MEAN? Whatever it means, how does she know the world is ‘leaning’ in that direction? How is it more useful than ‘bathing, eating, and living like Jesus’? It’s a heck of a lot vaguer and less concrete.

Reminds me of the joke about Judgment Day…

And then Jesus said to those on His right hand: Come, you blessed of the Kingdom, enter into joy.

And then Jesus said to those on His left hand: You all may now break into small groups…

peace,
Zach

“We have also done damage in voting, by creating winners and losers about several hundred issues at every General Convention.”

Shades of “yay! you came in second!” of over-correct children’s games.

Right and Wrong are words to shy away from in her Piskieland. Too tough to take, emotionally speaking.

I do want to suggest that we have the ability to listen far more widely to the spirit at work in the lives of Episcopalians and of local faith communities than we did in the days when white, landowning men rode horses for days to gather in a small room and vote.

Ok, I understand to the liberal mind white males are evil, but what’s wrong with owning land and riding horses? Don’t horses have a smaller carbon footprint than cars? Shouldn’t she be trying to promote more horseback riding, if she truly cares about the ecology?

The achievements of those white landowning equestrians included the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Surely we can do better.

The Way
To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way,
And the High Soul climbs the High Way,
And the Low Soul gropes the Low,
And in between, on the misty flats,
To rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A High Way, and a Low.
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go.

John Oxenham

Why can’t I get Lambchop’s song out of my head?

This is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend, some people started singing it not knowing what it was and they’ll continue singing it forever just because, this is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends, some people started singing it not knowing what it was and they’ll continue singing it forever just because, this is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends, some people started singing it not knowing what it was and they’ll continue singing it forever just because, this is the song that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends, some people started singing it not knowing what it was and they’ll continue singing it forever just because, Etc…