Heavenly Father, we pray for your holy catholic church. Govern us by your Holy Spirit so that we may live in truth, faith and righteousness for your name’s sake. We pray for your Chosen People of Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem. By your grace we have been grafted onto this holy tree of life. Honour your eternal covenants with your Chosen Ones so that your glory will be revealed in Zion and all nations will know that You are God.
Lord, in your mercy…Hear our prayer (more…)
a sermon on the texts 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 and Luke 9:51-62
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ast year I wrote a piece for the national Anglican Journal, which was ostensibly a review of an album by Ravi Coltrane, but was in fact more a meditation on the challenge of succession; of “standing on the shoulders of giants.” Ravi Coltrane is a gifted and respected musician, an increasingly able jazz composer, and a creative soloist on his instrument; the tenor saxophone. But if ever a musician stood on the shoulder of a giant – or perhaps stood in a giant’s shadow – he is the one. His father was John Coltrane, the ground-breaking innovator whose relatively brief recording career produced a body of work that has now influenced generations of musicians. Ravi’s mother Alice Coltrane was also a musician, and her sometimes eccentric and avant-garde body of work also has its serious devotees.
How do you follow that? Here is what I wrote in my piece for the Journal:
Even people with little knowledge of jazz will know that to place the name “Coltrane” in the same sentence as the words “jazz” or “saxophonist” is to evoke the name “John.” John Coltrane towers in the jazz world; John Coltrane is “Trane.” Ravi Coltrane is not – and never will be – simply “Trane.”
A note from Jamie Howison: Realizing that this post reflects my own personal tastes and biases, and that not everyone will share my sense that jazz music has the potential to “enact” theology and to embody something of the human search for the sacred, I still wanted to put this out there as a way of encouraging our commitment to connecting the arts to the life of faith. If you’re wanting to explore some of these themes a bit more, you can check out two other posts: “God’s Mind in the Music” and “Jazz and the Holy.”
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he Winnipeg Jazz Festival is just about to kick into high gear, offering up various opportunities to hear some great live music. Last night the legendary Sonny Rollins played what was billed as a “festival preview concert,” and it was a very fine way to kick things off. Very fine. Rollins will turn 80 in just three months, and while he walked and moved like an older man, he played with a startling level of passion and power. His fresh and imaginative solo in the opening song ran close to 15 minutes, and never once was there any sign of his tiring. Great stuff.
a sermon on 1 Kings 19:1-15
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ast Sunday night I spoke about the nature of the prophet’s task, and how it had much to do with “speaking truth to power.” That night we read the story of how King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had played a game of power politics by which they framed Naboth and had him killed so that they might claim his vineyard for their own (1 Kings 21). In that narrative, we heard of how the prophet Elijah had engaged in the oftentimes costly business of speaking truth to power.
Well perhaps oddly, tonight’s reading from the 1st book of Kings is actually part of what precedes the story of Naboth and his vineyard; it is comes two chapters prior to that particular showdown. But Elijah had already been vocal in his criticism of the royal household, and in particular of its neglect of the inherited faith of Israel. He had publically faced down the so-called prophets of Ba’al, and unveiled their religious practices as being empty. This had all been a humiliation to the royal family, and particularly to Queen Jezebel who was a committed advocate of the religion of Ba’al.
More, than that, Elijah had incited the people to kill the discredited prophets of Ba’al, and now Jezebel is spitting poison – “‘So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.’” And so Elijah has packed his bags and fled for his life. (more…)
I invite the community into a time of prayer. Let us pray with confidence to the Lord, responding to the invitation “Lord in your mercy,” by saying, “Hear our prayer.”Creator God, we pray for all who call themselves Christians: that we may become a royal priesthood, a holy people, to the praise of Christ Jesus our Saviour.
Lord in your mercy, Hear our prayer.
Last week when I was at General Synod in Halifax, we were treated to the debut performance of a unique theatre project written and performed by group of five young people. Coming from various church backgrounds, this theatre troupe has created a production built around the stories of some 70 people from across the Canadian church. By turns funny, poignant and provocative, “Roots Among the Rocks” takes its audience on a searching tour through questions of life, faith, doubt and struggle. The troupe will be in Winnipeg on July 3.
Roots Among the Rocks: Young actors break open deep truth and big questions.Park Theatre, Winnipeg, Saturday, July 3, 7:30 pm
$10.00H
ow do we find life, faith and authenticity in an ever-changing world, where faith, religion and ‘going to church’ are questioned on every side? Who is Church? Why do we continue to gather in this way? Roots Among the Rocks, a brand new play, explores some of these questions and opens up a whole lot more.
The show has been built using a process called collective creation, where the performers gathered stories from over seventy people, ages 11 – 95 from all over Canada. The stories were gathered from people in church, out of church, people who have stayed or left or struggle to find answers to deeper questions in life. Five actors and two directors have spent a month in the collective theatre process listening and talking, praying and laughing to bring to you the stories that they have heard.
Over the past two years, saint benedict’s table has cultivated a bit of a relationship with a vibrant mission in Haiti, and what follows here is the latest update on how things have unfolded over these challenging months of rebuilding after the earthquake. Not only have we offered financial support to this work, but we have a personal connection through Pierre Plourde and Krista Waring and their family, who have a longstanding relationship to this ministry.
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e have had two teams travel to Haiti this past month. Everyone is now back home and those who got sick have either fully or mostly recovered. Both the EMAS (Education, Medical Aid & Service) team and the eMi (Engineering Ministries International) team were made up of incredible individuals who worked remarkably well together. Between the two teams, the El Shaddai community hosted a total of 18 people. This involved organizing accommodation, meals, transportation, telecommunications, and security for both teams. Our hosts did a remarkable job!
Photograph: El Shaddai Church after the earthquake
a sermon on the texts 1 Kings 21:1-21 and Luke 7:36-8:3
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alter Brueggemann identifies one of the key roles of the prophet as being that of “speaking truth to power.” In the world of royal Israel – a world in which both the palace and the temple were in principle committed to a torah-shaped life and faith – the prophets were the ones who dared to speak out when the priests and kings and queens of the nation had ceased to speak the mother-tongue of faith.
The story we read from the first book of Kings is a classic example of that daring act. King Ahab has decided that he would like to have the vineyard of Naboth for his own, to turn into a vegetable garden. Naboth, however, is not prepared to sell or trade his ancestral vineyard; the tie to a particular piece of land, tended by his forebears, is strong. Reflecting a theologically grounded understanding of land as gift, Naboth refuses to see this plot of land as being a simple commodity. Instead, it is part of what defines him and his family.
And so King Ahab goes home to sulk. “He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.” (more…)
Over this week, saint ben’s members Jamie Howison and Dan Draper have been in Halifax serving as delegates to the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Canada. This is the third in a series of occasional updates.
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o, we wrapped things up this morning, and I immediately headed out to a local pub to try to catch a bit of the first game of the World Cup (it was a 1-1 draw between Mexico and South Africa). It seemed a good thing to do, getting a lunch-hour pint of Strongbow cider, a bit of food and some serious soccer. I’ll tell you, it was much more fun than days and days of church meetings.
Did we achieve anything at these meetings? Well, we covered a good deal of the sort of governance stuff that a church institution requires in order to keep ticking along. Some good presentations were offered by various folks, which gave a sense of hope in difficult times. Good conversations with a wide array of people. So far, so good.
Over this week, saint ben’s members Jamie Howison and Dan Draper are in Halifax serving as delegates to the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Canada. This is the second in a series of occasional updates.
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t is just after 7:00am, and I am comfortably settled in at “Uncommon Grounds,” a coffee place located just a couple of blocks away from St Mary’s University where the meetings of our 2010 General Synod are taking place. I found this place on our first morning in Halifax, and it has become part of my daily ritual to get up early enough to have at least an hour here on my own, before getting immersed in the the activities of the day.
This is day six in a nine day stretch of meetings (and on most days, we have sessions in the morning, afternoon and evening), and I have to confess that on more than one occasion I’ve wondered, “why did I let myself get nominated for this?” Some of the resolutions we’ve been dealing with seem worth wrestling with, there have been some presentations that have been really quite engaging (the address by Suheil Dawani, the Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, shed some new light on life in the middle east), and there are some really good conversations being shared over meals and coffee breaks, but after five days it feels like it would be nice to be doing something else. And I have to say, I’m getting bit tired of our accommodations in the university residence… trying to figure out how to time things in the morning when there is only one shower for the five of us in our hallway is probably as challenging as some of the resolutions arising in our plenary sessions.