This past week we had a network-wide clergy retreat for Diocesan clergy and aspirants (people in the discernment process towards ordination). The guest teacher was my good friend Fr. Ben Jefferies. He taught on the importance of the inner life, using the rule of St. Romuald as the syllabus and the Psalter as the application. I want briefly only to reflect on one point of his instruction, namely the dictum of Romuald that “in the Psalter there is one way only…”
Read moreAn empty clergyman
Mr. Collins is the name of the pompous clergyman in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. He is a sanctimonious fool. Everything he does is equal measures hilarity and painfulness. And I commend a careful study of him to all clergymen everywhere. Be sober-minded, brothers, lest you fall into the emptiness of the form of life Mr. Collins lives.
Read moreSome thoughts on Romans which, though biblically faithful, will most likely get me called a heretic by some concerned quarters of christendom
In the interest of some small recovery of what I think the Holy Spirit is saying through Paul in Romans I offer this general thesis: the Letter to the Romans is primarily about Glory, glory and worship. The brief notes which follow flesh this out a little.
Read moreMaui Fires Update - August 2023
During the week of August 14-19, both Chris Bruno and Deacon Dawson visited Fr. Jason Hill and our sister church on Maui - Kingsfield Anglican. The goal of the trip was to pray, listen, and see what ways we can partner with Kingsfield to best minister the Gospel to the people of Maui after this terrible fire.
Read moreSickness and the removing of idols
I am newly recovered from a bout of very bad illness —an illness which kept me in bed for almost 5 days in a row, mostly asleep. If you know me, such a condition of inactivity is not fun. It is brutal. “What am I” some dark voice within me whispers “if I am not doing something?”
Read morePraise God for the lives of Things
Things have a kind of life in God’s World. Sure it’s not the same as human life, nor is it the same as the lives of other animals, nor is it even quite the same as plant life, but it is life none the less. Pretend as we may to be fashionably modern people, disconnected from the material world, we still are —deeply and intimately.
Read more1-2 Kings: A Book Review by Dcn. Dawson
In May of 2020, the same month I bicycled completely alone down the middle of a Kalakaua Avenue emptied by covid, I ordered a book from Eighth Day Books: A Commentary on 1-2 Kings by Peter Leithart. I was a 4-month old deacon and looking to use quarantine to sharpen myself for ministry. Well, three years later, I’ve finally finished the book. I promise that I read dozens of other books in that span, but this one uncharacteristically came on and off the shelf with irregularity.
Read moreGrave humility: After provincial council
p/c: Jomarc Nicolai Cala
There were announcements, and motions passed, and reports given, and wonderful meetings with brothers and sisters engaged in ministry all across the world —these and many other things contributed to making the 2023 ACNA Provincial Council wonderful and encouraging. Most encouraging, however, for this priest was the way in which I witnessed the Gospel proclaimed by the college of Bishops.
Read moreKiss the drowning
By Internet Archive Book Images https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersworko01barr/lifelettersworko01barr#page/n369/mode/1up
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was first formulated in contemporary medical language in a presentation John Fothergill gave at the Royal Society of London. He called it “the kiss of life.” It was poorly received.
Read moreThe sense of touch
p/c: Jackson David