BLOGGING-THOMAS

The artwork on the cover of this week’s worship bulletins for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at St. Thomas’ Parish is a nativity painting by the contemporary Chinese artist He Qi. The video below is the first movement of the choral composition, “Touch,” a 3-movement multi-media work for chorus and chamber orchestra based on the paintings of He Qi by Allan Robert Petker that premiered just last fall. The “Prayerful Creed for Christmas Eve” at our 7:00 p.m. Saturday evening Holy Eucharist is based on the text of this work.

this is my very favorite telling of the Christmas story.  It comes from a quarter-century old book by John Shea, The Hour of the Unexpected; I first read it in Ron Rohlheiser’s The Holy Longing.  It’s called “Sharon’s Christmas Prayer.”

She was five, sure of the facts, and recited them with slow solemnity convinced every word was revelation. She said they were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady rode a donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady. They had to stay in a stable with an ox and an ass (hee-hee) but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lited the roof Shepherds came and you could pet the sheep but not feed them. Then the baby was borned. And do you know who he was? Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars, The baby was God. And she jumped in the air whirled round, dove into the sofa and buried her head under the cushion which is the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation.

A New Tradition Begins:
Candlelight Service of Lessons and Carols

Gather by candlelight on Sunday evening, December 18, at 5:00 p.m., to hear lessons from the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament about the coming Messiah and the birth of Jesus and sing carols about the coming of Christ-among-us, then and now.  Classical guitar preludes begin at 4:40 p.m.

Music includes choir, classical guitar, oboe, English horn, piano, and double bass to accompany anthems and congregational carols.

Outtake from “Love Free or Die”

“Love Free or Die: How the Bishop of New Hampshire is Changing the World,” the documentary film directed by Macky Alston and produced by Sandra Itkoff, will be one of sixteen U.S. documentary films to have its world premier at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Described as “A portrait of Gene Robinson, the first gay partnered bishop in the Episcopal Church, and his refusal to quit either the church or the man he loves,” the film is an important reminder that much of our country, ironically, lags far behind the traditionally-risk-averse Episcopal Church in confronting our society’s systemic as well as individual homophobia.

What strikes me most, however, in such attempts  to measure the enduring significance of an iconic figure like Bishop Robinson, is that his legacy may well prove to be not just what he has already contributed to the gay rights movement in church and state, but what church and state still have to learn from Gene about our common calling to our higher selves.

I believe the heterosexual community is learning from faithful and pastoral Christian leaders like Gene Robinson not just how to be more humane towards our LGBT sisters and brothers in the faith, but how to be more fully human ourselves, and more faithful to our calling as Christians to see Christ in our neighbors, without reserve, rather than presuming that  there is already enough Christ evident in us to show off to others with ease.   It’s one thing for Gene Robinson to teach us about what it means to be gay; it’s another when he begins to show us superior ways of being straight, as well.

The backlash against Gene Robinson hasn’t just been because he is ‘the gay bishop’ but also because he has shown us through who he is, not just what he says or does, the deeper bonds that unite us as Christians once we no longer let ourselves judge others by their sexual orientation.

Once we allow him to be the faithful human being and priest that he is, we begin to imagine what Bishop Robinson may have to teach us about ourselves, whatever our sexual orientation.  Gay rights really becomes human rights, and we all become more able to be our authentic selves, and perhaps even to become more than we believe we are capable of being.  If so, then it’s no exaggeration:  This Bishop can change not just the church, but the world. (W. Floyd)