Building and nurturing community—relationships with common purpose and common support—is very much like planting and nurturing a garden. Just a few weeds, if not attended to, can kill what you are trying to grow. Like the weeds in a real garden, if considered alone, they are just healthy plants; in the context of the garden they are killers.
What is on the hearts and minds of the blogging bishops during their time in Canterbury at the Lambeth Conference? Deep and not so deep thoughts are being shared across the blogosphere in these few weeks. Some are mastering technology with only a few lessons before leaving their trusty media officers. Some are still challenged. We offer a few “outtakes” found in the Feed that links many of the bishops’ offerings.
“Voices of Witness: Africa”, a new film by Integrity USA with stories of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Christians in Africa, will be premiered at the Lambeth Conference. Ruth Gledhill calls it “an incredibly powerful and moving film.”
From the opening Eucharist: “There is space equally for everyone and anyone regardless of color, gender, ability or sexual orientation. If we attempt some game of uprooting the unrighteous, then my sisters and brothers, none of us will remain.”
Three months ago, Tom Perriello, the Democratic challenger in Viriginia’s fifth congressional district, announced that his campaign workers would be required to spend a tenth of their time doing volunteer work. Previous campaigns have done the odd bit of community service, but this appears to be the first to make it an integral part of the enterprise, and to couch it in religious terms as a form of tithing.
That Lambeth Reader discussed in earlier posts has been made available on the official Lambeth Conference website. Our earlier posts on the reader are here
Christoph Romhild and Chris Harrison offer a fascinating visual display of the cross references in the Bible.
Matthew may have been clear that there are only two kinds of people in the world—the wheat and the weeds—but it is a clarity that escapes most of us, we who have encountered both kinds in ourselves, and in our neighbors, and in the world. Most of our fields are full of mixed plantings, or worse.
Bishop Tom Wright last night compared his inability to find a parking space near his home to the firebombing of Dresden. Actually, he didn’t, but he may as well have.