Praying, taking a deep breath, trying to stand in the place God wants

I almost want to apologize for the slew of "political" posts that popped off my keyboard here yesterday. I got in a weirdly opinionated and, for this blog, rather secular place. But when I start apologizing I tend to give away the farm, so just deal with the posts.

I find myself bouncing around between the sacred and the profane these days. I resonate with Kazantzakis' idea from The Last Temptation of Christ. Wouldn't it be great to dump all this religious stuff and just lead a workaday life. I majored in Political Science - maybe I need to get back to that and be involved more in the stuff of this world. Maybe that's where God wants me. I have no doubt that God is real, that He cares for me and has a purpose for my life. Just not sure I'm fulfilling the purpose.

My prayer life is raging and rampaging (positively). I look forward to my daily times of Bible reading and prayer. So I'm not adrift (if one can actually be adrift on the Plains). But I am looking for guidance - like our Epiphany Wise Men who followed the star and laid out their gifts just where God wanted. (New masthead is a Star Quilt, btw. A number of Native American tribes create these and they are a special gift among the Lakota. I have one at home, presented to me by the groom's mother at a wedding I celebrated).

I'm provoked by the upcoming Sunday lessons (the Baptism of Christ). All of a sudden, I am hung up on the problem of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, with its assertion that water baptism is "full initiation" into the Christian life. The lessons this week include Acts 19:1-7, in which Paul follows water baptism with "laying on of hands" to activate the Holy Spirit's work in the people. John the Baptist, in Mark 1:4-11, says that the Messiah will go beyond water baptism with baptism in the Holy Spirit.

I'm not flirting with Charismatic/Pentecostal thoughts. Rather, I am looking at the way the church has dumped Confirmation. In my opinion, we've lost something true and precious in our practice of Christian initiation. We've kept one part - baptism - which does in fact tell us that God's love is a pure gift, not of our earning or effort. But we have discarded the other part - our response to that love. We've left off the powerful action of invoking the Holy Spirit to equip and direct us in our God-given life's work.

Yeah, you can hear the sermon wheels turnin'.

God bless you today. I mean that. May He give you both the awareness of His unearned, even undeserved love for you, and also the guidance of the Holy Spirit to find and fulfill the sacred purpose of your life.

Love South Dakota. No desire to go back to Cali. But...

My Alma Mater, the USC Trojans, just won a record third straight Rose Bowl.

Now, let me offend folks in most other parts of this fine country. You see, we keep hearing the same "expert" garbage about college football: "The Pac-10 Conference is just USC beating nine weak teams."

• OK, the Pac-10 just finished going 5 - 0 in Bowl Games. Pac-10 teams beat BYU, Miami (FL), Oklahoma State, Pitt and Penn State.

• Meanwhile, certain states get an automatic place in the highest heavens of college football. You can open a school in certain states and they put you in the top-10 and a Bowl game before you even play. I swear, you could print up a letterhead for Florida North-Southern Correspondence Accounting Institute or Texas I-Before-E-Except-After-C and those teams would be on the cover of Sports Illustrated with breathless queries as to if they are the greatest teams in football history.

• This takes nothing away from the scary-good Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators, who will meet in the Bowl Championship Series title game. (The way Florida's Tim Tebow wills his team to win is amazing). I will certainly respect the national title status of either great team.

• But you sports expert-wonk-dorks in the Mid-West and South can just shut up about the Pac-10. So, how you like me now?

P.S. Way to go Nebraska Cornhuskers! Bring back that great tradition. Congratulations on your Gator Bowl win over Clemson.

Lesson in humility

Hey, what does it say about my blogging when my most active thread is a post about the weather?

Northern Plains Anglicans, a place for truly small talk.

A good spiritual lesson for me in there someplace.

@#%@%$@$Z Canadians really harshed my ego, eh.

Sorry to be so quiet...

Will post again some time this week.

Wife and one kid having health issues... your prayers are appreciated.

Turned 50 on Friday the 13th

I was born on a Friday the 13th as well.

The wife totally surprised me by phoning pretty much the whole parish about it... by God's perfect sense of humor, 50 church folks showed up at Famous Dave's BBQ to frighten the staff and other patrons and generally bless my night.

Yeah, the shorts are weird. I threatened to get them in the colors of the church year...the red set would be especially troubling.

The Famous Dave's Menu makes for uplifting reading, by the way.

Today's Our 18th Wedding Anniversary

Yeah, this about a two-year old Christmas card pose. The wife still sits on my lap sometimes. The autistic kid on the right still looks where he wants. His older brother on the left is a great guy in every way but does only the hard look for the camera. The dog is still a doofus... and the buffalo pic is one my wife took up close and personal on an earlier anniversary jaunt through Custer State Park.

Doesn't seem all that long ago that I was getting ready to walk toward an altar that seemed an impossible distance away to undertake something that would seem impossible if one were to know all the twists, turns and falling rocks in advance. But here we are.

Ya know, our marriage license is from the State of California... does that make us honorary LGBT? Do we get any special entitlements if we go back there? If we are honorary LGBT, does that mean TEC will promote us to some special, perpetually funded position in some bureaucracy some place?

Well, probably no institutional perks - but we are blessed with the amazing marriage journey that can both break the heart and make it more into what God wants it to be.

Toward a better marriage, I give my wife space for response or rebuttal:

Wow, and thank you for requesting that we memorize our vows. This Monday will be the 19th time we have said them to each other by heart, with heart, having begun with our wedding day (don't do the math - it means it's our 18th anniversary).

OK, now here's a question. Southern CA accepts LGBT, I know that. But if one of us is a homosexual, well, you know, we likely wouldn't feel the way we do about each other and probably wouldn't have had those wonderful boys. Furthermore, if one was not, the Californians would only accept one of us and the other would be SO left out!

Then, if we both were g/l then neither would desire the other and I doubt that we'd be celebrating our marriage, even if California loves us to pieces.

Oh my goodness, I am just, like, SO confused! Does anyone out there have any help? (not that it matters, can't teach an old dog new tricks - that means both of us).

Praise the Lord that we are together, we have weathered some very strange stuff.

We've Been At This For A Year Today!

From May 16, 2007:

Northern Plains Anglicans has no illusion about fixing The Episcopal Church. But Anglicanism is a worldwide Christian movement, not just a tiny, eccentric American sect. Tens of millions of people are finding spiritual treasure all over the world via Anglican Christianity.

So, here we are.

Let's bring back this lost treasure and share it with people all over the Plains. Welcome!

+++

Well, we don't have a buffalo herd of ten million Anglicans up here, but this week we will host a good core of Anglican treasure hunters - some are driving several hours to be here and the momentum is good.

God bless all of you who've visited, thought about, prayed over and commented on this blog. Blessings on all of your inspired treasure hunting. And a blessing on all preparing to preach this Sunday...much easier to blog than to preach on the Trinity.

The blessing of God:The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

Change in Comment Format

As an experiment in building momentum and keeping conversations flowing, I have taken the risk of disabling comment moderation - what you post will show up right away.

You will need to type in a set of letters in a special field - this knocks off some of the "spambots" that spew "comments" and give you links to porn sites and other such garbage.

I reserve the right to delete any comment that I find inappropriate to our discussions here.

And a hat tip to cp...

Yes, cp posts here from the other side of most Anglican issues... but I have to thank him for turning me on to Shelfari. It is a fun site for sharing what you read and discussing it with other readers...check it out over to the left (just where cp would want it!)

Yeah, I know...clicking on some of the book covers goes nowhere. Just use the ones that work, cool?

Fr. Fountain of Sioux Falls Photographed at an Unauthorized Orthodox Liturgy

Hey! Somebody noticed!

Our little blog is noted in an article appearing in Episcopal Life.

The author, Sean McConnell, emailed us awhile back and asked some very good questions about blogging in general and NPA in particular.

Rakin' leaves

Amazing how quickly the trees go from leafy to barren here as fall moves toward winter. A big sugar maple in the backyard finally dropped most of its leaves, and my older son and I filled 17 bags today. That's probably the last of it for this year. A small "fall fiesta" that we planted out front gave us a good color show in its first full turn of season - it's now bare as well.

The birds of all kinds continue to empty the feeders faster than I can fill 'em.

The lawn is going to winter dormancy (although it's still green!), so the mower is moving aside, with the snow blower now deployed closest to the garage door.

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years...'" Genesis 1:14

Comment Moderation

We have enabled comment moderation, so please be patient if your post does not appear immediately. With the end of the South Dakota Diocesan Convention and an information initiative by the American Anglican Council chapter, we want to make sure that discussion and debate are conducted without name calling, personal attacks or other unhelpful behaviors.

This week's picture...

The face of Lakota war leader Crazy Horse emerges from his Black Hills monument. The blasting goes on as a more and more recognizable likeness comes to be.

This seems an apt symbol for current Anglican struggles. Out of what seems dead and inert, Jesus Christ will bring a church more recognizable in His own image. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15).

Please pray as the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Anglican representatives meet with the Episcopal Church House of Bishops later this week, and for The Common Cause Bishops who will meet after that. May the Lord bring forth a faithful Anglican Christian witness in North America.

Some Friendly Changes to our Blog

We will keep trying to make this blog as hospitable and useful as we can! Here are a couple of improvements:

• You can post comments without a Blogger or Google account now - anybody can comment.
• We've put an email at the top (it's not "hot" - you'll need to copy and paste it) or you can click here.

And here are some things you can do to help our work:

• If you are interested in being part of an Anglican ministry in South Dakota, send us an email with your contact info.
• Please join the discussion: comment on the threads or email us - we especially want your comments on what an Anglican ministry in South Dakota should be doing - what kind of ministry should be offered? Where should our efforts and resources go? Where are there people in need and people willing to get involved?

Welcome - the Lord is up to something and we look forward to being part of it with you!

Treasure Hunters Wanted!

Sure, another blog. But over the great distances here on the Northern Plains, and with real forces of nature to deal with, it is hard to stay in touch. What's this blog about?

Northern Plains Anglicans seeks to connect treasure hunters. Back in the late 1800s, William Hobart Hare travelled about by horse and buggy sharing the treasure of Anglican Christianity:

• God's good news in Jesus Christ, carried in the Holy Bible and ancient forms of Christian worship and ministry
• Faith that does not reject reason, but blesses and completes it
• God's love for all "races, tribes, languages and nations"
• The Book of Common Prayer as a great spiritual resource, helping people gather in prayer with or without clergy

For a long time, The Episcopal Church was the steward of this treasure. Missionary clergy and people, both white and Lakota/Dakota, worked together in witness to Jesus Christ.

Sadly, over time, The Episcopal Church lost the treasure. The good news of Jesus in the Bible was replaced by passing political fads. Faith and reason gave way to emotionalism and junk science. Traditions of strong local leadership gave way to "one size fits all" models from New York.

The Episcopal Diocese exists largely on paper today. Churches are closing. A proud cadre of Lakota/Dakota clergy are dying off, without new leaders being lifted up from their communities. Trendy causes from coastal urban centers are talked up while real Plains issues are ignored.

Northern Plains Anglicans has no illusion about fixing The Episcopal Church. But Anglicanism is a worldwide Christian movement, not just a tiny, eccentric American sect. Tens of millions of people are finding spiritual treasure all over the world via Anglican Christianity.

So, here we are. Let's bring back this lost treasure and share it with people all over the Plains. Welcome!