Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams suggested September 20 during an ecumenical service at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center that New Orleans’s recovery could remake the city into God’s image of the holy city.
As media hubbub and heightened rhetoric converge on New Orleans, humming and swarming around the House of Bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury like so many gadflies, I invite us to recall and recollect the Ember Days. It is time to pray for seeds, for growth, and for a bountiful harvest. It is time to pray for the faithful, the ordained, and the consecrated. Truly—it is a time to pray for the Church.
The shape and the content of Matthew’s gospel suggest that the author himself is a scribe like the one that Jesus names. The scribes of the first century were all teachers. The “training” of the scribe that is mentioned is the Greek verb matheteuo—“to teach, to learn.”
The most intriguing story on the wires at the moment comes from Australia, but there are also dispatches from the Associated Press, which quotes from the Day 1 item down blog a bit, Reuters and the Press Association. The story from Australia is based on an interview with Archbishop Philip Aspinall, given just before he left for New Orleans. In it he discusses the need to find a “middle way.”
Archbishop Rowan Williams emerged from the Hotel InterContinental to be driven to the Lower Ninth Ward to see Episcopal hurricane relief efforts there, including a new church that will occupy a now-ruined drugstore a few steps from the home of New Orleans musician Fats Domino.
Updated: Interestingly, the Thursday night AP story quotes from the item below. Not a lot to report from our friends who were in the room.
A break from Bishop-related news: Salon’s annual “Buffy” award goes to the most underappreciated show on television. In bestowing this year’s award, Heather Havrilesky wrote: You’d think that if you trotted out the most original depiction of the modern American family since Tony and Carmela bickered over an open refrigerator, you’d reel in countless viewers and a big sack full of Emmys to boot. Not so for “Friday Night Lights.”
Two Anglican Primates are to speak at Manchester Cathedral, calling for the Church of England to be inclusive. The Archbishop of Mexico and the leader of the Scottish Episcopal Church are taking part in a conference Celebrating Anglican Diversity, which will celebrate the long tradition of a diverse Church that welcomes all people. It is being held on September 29.
John Gibson and John Bradley are in New Orleans covering the House of Bishops meeting for Integrity. You can read their dispatches at Walking with Integrity.
Eight bishops have accepted Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s invitation to serve as “episcopal visitors” to dioceses that have requested this provision.The eight are active diocesan bishops Frank Brookhart of Montana, Dorsey Henderson of Upper South Carolina, John Howe of Central Florida, Gary Lillibridge of West Texas, Michael Smith of North Dakota, James Stanton of Dallas, and Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, together with retired Connecticut Bishop Clarence Coleridge.