At one of the first plenary sessions, the organizers announced (to much applause) that no official statements would come from the meeting. Instead, lots of time was scheduled for conversation, including meals, siestas, and “marketplace” encounters.
It is the moment of the annunciation which makes sense of all other moments. It is a moment which is truly in time, not out of time. It has a whole series of temporal consequences; the embryo begins to stir in the womb. But it is a moment in which eternity has really come, in which God is present and at work.
Dante invites us to go on pilgrimage with him as an act of spiritual transformation. The concept is not foreign to our age. Last year, an estimated 70 million Hindus journeyed to the sacred Ganges River in India for spiritual cleansing; a record six million people visited Jerusalem’s Western, or Wailing, Wall; 150 million Christians are estimated to be “on the move” each year to one pilgrimage site or another.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, “This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.” Not a single person in this gate — once the cries of confusion stopped — was apprehensive about any other person. They took to the cookies. All I felt like hugging everyone else.
General Theological Seminary in New York City, will begin construction this month on of one of the largest geothermal projects in the Northeast, converting the school’s present heating-cooling system, powered by fossil fuel, to a new energy-efficient geothermal system.
Among the highlights of the first year of her nine-year term as bishop, was seeing the hard work of American church members to reach the rural areas of Kansas and seeing churches in Brazil ministering to the poor there. On a February trip to Cuba, she discovered a “thriving Episcopal church” and helped consecrate two new bishops.
The seminaries of The Episcopal Church are reflecting on how to meet the challenges of education and finances in the 21st century. In their current discussion Dean Ewing of General Theological Seminary said, “All the deans’ conversations come down to two questions: “How do we work better among ourselves?” and “How do we really serve the Episcopal Church and build a structure that provides mutual insight into how we do theological education in the church that’s emerging today.”
A Pew Internet & American Life Project report revealed that 64 percent of Internet users in 2003 used the Web for spiritual and religious activities,
Brooke Astor, Episcopalian and NYC’s most gracious philanthropist, died Monday at the age of 105. According to The Rev. Paul Woodrum of Challwood Studios, when she gave money to a project, however, small, she would always go visit the people receiving it and see how it was being used.
A coalition of more than 125 religious organizations, US National Religious Campaign Against Torture, has called on the US government to forswear the use of torture without exception asking whether the recent executive order is a real prohibition.