I’m not just resolving to “be healthy”, I’m resolving some specific things: to buy organic food whenever possible, to buy local food whenever possible, to eat my five servings of fruits and veggies daily, and to exercise at least three times a week. So far so good, but now—what about my spiritual health? Doesn’t it require just as much nurture as my physical health?
The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak—even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere.
Three priests have been chosen to head up three new mission centers as part of the reorganization taking place at the church’s national headquarters in New York City, according to Episcopal News Service.
Researchers in Greece have determined that there may be relationship between the monastic lifestyle and a decreased incidence of cancer. For 1,000 years, the monks of Mount Athos have maintained dietary and lifestyle habits that include a mediterranean diet and lots of produce, according to the research.
Dan Edwards’ path to becoming the new bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada may not seem conventional to some. But even when he was a lawyer, he was committed to social justice, representing “unpopular causes” such as migrant workers and American Indians. Raised a Baptist, he moved through a cycle of faith that included boredom, disenchantment, agnosticism that bordered on atheism, Buddhism and, in his 30s, a return to faith and a call to serve the Episcopal Church.
The leading advocate for gay and lesbian rights in the Anglican Church in Britain is stepping down after 30 years, according to the New Statesman, which profiles the Rev. Richard Kirker and provides some insights into his work at the helm of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement.
It’s common during the first week of January to see Christmas trees lying naked by the side of the road. For some, including the congregation at St. James Episcopal Church in Leesburg, Va., disposing of the trees has become an occasion for gathering for an Epiphany bonfire, bringing to life the light that is the promise of Advent and Christmas. The event, which drew about 100 people from the church and the community, was featured in a Washington Post video this week.
In this new year, how I wish that we Episcopalians could focus on the gifts so freely and lavishly given to each of us by God: our capacity to love and our freedom to commit ourselves to whomever we choose; the thousands of opportunities available to serve those without a voice in our society and in the wider world.
The ‘unity,’ then, ‘of the Spirit,’ to which the apostle exhorts, includes both; both concord in mind and affections, and love of charitable unity, which comes from the Spirit of God, and returns to it. And, indeed, the grace of God’s Spirit is that alone which makes men truly at peace and unity one with another.
“We have concluded that the structure and polity of the Province of the Southern Cone would afford our diocese greater self-determination than we currently have under the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. This autonomy would be evident most specifically in the areas of property ownership, liturgy, holy orders, and missionary focus.”