I know I haven't been writing my own stuff

I'm really buried in a project right now and have a hard time taking time away from it. But I am still reading blogs and this posting from Caught a Glimpse of Jesus really blew me away.

This especially choked me up:

Very often the difference between solitude and loneliness is whether or not you have someone who is thinking of you while you are alone.

A Delightful View of the Inauguration

Seen through an artist's eye. See it here.

The Benediction from today's inauguration

Rev. Joseph Lowery came an incredibly powerful benediction today:

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.

Read the rest here. Thanks to Tim at Tale Spin.

Bishop Gene Robinson's prayer for Barack Obama

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears - tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Read the rest here. Thanks to Bene Diction Blogs On.

Moltmann on past, present and future

"The historian is failing to grasp the past if he merely asks what it was really like, and does not succeed in uncovering and absorbing past possibility as well as past reality, and past horizons of expectation together with past experience."
Jurgen Moltmann

Charity

Years ago I found an old book plate in a used book store that both disturbed and amused me. It was a depiction of charity and it showed a well dressed woman delivering something to some obviously impoverished people. She towered over them and looked more self-satisfied than compassionate. I kept the picture for several years until it got ruined by a leaking pipe while in storage. It wasn't something that I really wanted hanging on my walls and yet my ambivalence about the depiction of charity made me keep it.

In my work I am often engaged in 'acts of charity' especially around Christmas. We hand out bags of food to students at the university at the end of each term and we help do Christmas hampers at the college. I love doing this stuff - it makes my Christmas actually. Yet there are also times when I worry about becoming the self-satisfied woman in the picture, grateful to the poor for giving me the opportunity to feel good about myself for my generosity. Jim Tagg has an interesting post on the problems of charity at home that speaks to some of my own experience. Read it here.

Pray for peace

January 5, 2009 -- Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, has issued the following statement on the current situation in Gaza.


It is with a great deal of sadness and alarm that the world has observed, over the past 10 days, an appalling escalation of violence in Gaza. There has been loss of life and many of those slain, according to news reports, have been civilians, including many women and children.

I join other leaders of churches and leaders of many of the nations who have called for an immediate cessation to the horrific violence. I urge resumption of diplomatic negotiations as the means of reconciling the historic tensions between the peoples of Israel and Palestine. I issue this statement in the name of him whose birth the church is celebrating in this holy season of Christmas and Epiphany, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

I call on all Anglicans from coast to coast to coast to pray with special intention for the peoples of Palestine and Israel at this time. I commend the prayer for peace in the world as found in the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: Kindle, we pray thee, in the hearts of all people the true love of peace, and guide with thy pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquility thy kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.


+Fred

The Most Reverend Fred Hiltz
Primate, The Anglican Church of Canada

Finally, Lethbridge finally makes it as a cultured city (corrected - thanks Mom)

What does every city need to be considered a decent place to live? An East Indian restaurant! Well, finally Lethbridge has arrived. The Taj opened before Christmas and the food is delicious. The service was a little slow (the place was packed and they didn't have enough servers I think) but the food was well worth the wait. We ordered appetizers first and then had a significant wait for the rest of our food. But oh was is good. Here is the write up in the Lethbridge Herald.

Scenes from Christmas '08