Message in a Bottle

“Walked out this morning, don’t believe what I saw
Hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore
Seems I’m not alone at being alone
Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home.”
From a song by Sting & Police

Once upon a time, say Friday September 29th, there was this link, http://babybluecafe.blogspot.com/2006/09/breaking-news-bishop-minns-licensed-by.html which got you to a letter now preserved on Titusonenine at this address and reprinted on VirtueOnLine, by Fr. Jake and the Daily Episcopalian. But at least on Saturday it was no longer on Babybluecafe. The Daily Episcopalian writer Jim Naughton states the concern about just what is going on better than I, as well he should, having put me onto the question in the first place. “Awaiting confirmation” is just about the right sort of response.

But now Miss BabyBlue herself is perhaps having some fun with us all. Her most recent post is THIS. The story of doubting Thomas is posted, straight from the Gospel of John, complete with a picture of Turuo Church Why? It’s not the Gospel for Sunday. Maybe it’s a message in a bottle. Jesus says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." And, if you take your curser to the edge of BabyBlueCafe's page you get the message down in the corner to go to "The Leaky Cauldron" where this quote appears, "Oh, Harry, don't you see?" Hermione breathed. "If [Professor Umbridge] could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!"

Perhaps we are to believe then that our friend was asked to remove the letter, had us doubt its existence, thereby reading all the copies of it. If so, well done!

Having read the letter, the Daily Episcopalian's reservations about what it means, and my own, posted in an earlier note, stand. All the waving of arms and the good laughs still leave us with the question as to the validity of the letter and what it means to license a bishop as rector when his orders are from a church that is out of Communion with the Episcopal Church. All that stuff still remains.

Babybluecafe is an interesting and lively place well worth the visit. I particularly recommend her first video newscast, not for its contents particularly, but for its joyful present tense sense. TRY IT. I also like her Anglican Alert: Code Orange bit.

So, smiling, I await confirmation anyway. The possibility of a message in the bottle is intriguing.

Then again maybe it just hit her that that Gospel was important to offer us for some other reason, known only to those who blog while looking for a home.

It's a good thing I don't have to preach tomorrow. This is way too much fun to stop simply to get back to trimming up a sermon. Instead I get to go celebrate a friend's 50th year in the priesthood.