A member of my community initiated a very thoughtful conversation with me starting with the ideas presented around a hymn we are singing: Dear Lord and Father of Mankind. He highlighted that the verses we sing are only a small part of a larger poem, The Brewing of Soma by American Quaker poet John Greenleaf
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind Read More »
We have, I hope, dealt with the misunderstanding that common prayer = inflexibility. Common prayer has at least two dimensions. A gathered community prays together – that is common prayer. A second dimension is that the community is bigger than the particular gathering. This post is not about common prayer in its descriptive sense (eg.
Why common prayer 2? Read More »
Cluttering liturgy is a common problem. We inherited a cluttered rite – and there is a human tendency to re-clutter as soon as clean lines and good flow are produced. Leaders add their favourite little prayers, and just another gesture, and just this other nice bit they saw so-and-so do; “may use” becomes “must use”…
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Anglican Diocese of Sydney will debate a new wedding liturgy at its forthcoming synod. In this rite the celebrant asks the bride “Will you honour and submit to him, as the church submits to Christ?” She then pledges “to love and submit” to her husband. This rite will
different marriage types? Read More »
Let us pray (in silence) [that what is good within us may flourish] pause God of power and might, source of all good, graft in our hearts the love of your name, and bind us more closely to you so that you nourish the goodness you sow in us and, by your watchful care, you
Since this site did a post on Biblical Marriage, The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill was one of five private member’s bills drawn from the ballot in the New Zealand Parliament towards the end of July. This has increased the intensity of discussion about the nature of marriage in the Bible. Here’s some quotes
Biblical marriage – introduction Read More »
The Torah reading in the synagogue this Sabbath is Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9 If you count from Tishri, then Elul (אֱלוּל) is the last month of the year. We are in the forty day “Season of Teshuvah” that culminates on Yom Kippur (this year, September 25-26). Hence, this is a time of reflection, of repentance. Beginning on Rosh
Sabbath Torah reading 7 Elul 5772 Read More »
From his 1945 book, The Shape of the Liturgy, by the English Anglican Benedictine monk, Dom Gregory Dix is writing about the action Christ had told his friends to do henceforth with the new meaning “for the anamnesis (remembering) of him”; (usually people quote the first paragraph here – it is, however, worth reading the
