Good News in Anglican Blog land.

Three bits of good news:

FR. TERRY MARTIN

Fr. Terry Martin has opened a new blog and in the process let us all know that he has been appointed the Evangelism Officer for the Episcopal Church. Fr. Martin is an amazingly good writer, a thoughtful and sometimes playful theologian and a fine priest.

He was also the guiding light behind Fr. Jake, who indeed stopped the World (at least the Anglican part of it) by his insightful and sometimes demanding articles and posts. I must say he cleans up nice.

His friends will have to help him continue to be daring and caring in a post where it will be easy to be neither. I worked for the Episcopal Church for twelve years and loved it. But the toll was sometimes very great. To serve people across the church when tensions run high and things are not settled can be difficult enough. Add to that a great deal of travel, constant reminders of the greatness of the tasks and the limitations of funds, time and talent, and what can easily happen is the GREAT SHUTDOWN. In my work among college chaplains it was they who kept me from shutting down. With missionaries and the dioceses in which they served it was the work those ministries accomplished that gave excitement even when I was exhausted. With partners in East Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East it was the profound mutuality and respect that developed that formed me into what I hope is a better person.

Let us wish Fr. Terry Martin well, and more let us wish that his work prospers and is sufficent - sufficent to the joys of making the Good News known and sufficient to warrant the commendation, "well done good and faithful servant."


DR. LOUIE CREW.

Word came today that Dr. Louie Crew has also started a blog. Everyone in the Episcopal Church knows this remarkable man. He saw the value of a web presence long before blogging was easy. His Anglican Pages of Louie Crew became a very important site for all sorts of information about the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. Over the years his Pages, along with those of Anglicans Online, Thinking Anglicans and TitusOneNine became the must visit pages for information, essays, reflections and comments on Anglican and Episcopal affairs.

In his picture to the right, you may notice that he doesn't have as much hair as Terry. Terry is an hairy man and Louie is a smooth man, I suppose. But Louie looks right at you and smiles.

Louie's Pages were not a blog. They were and are a repository of information and essays. His hand was in what was done and comments were welcome, but much of the material was written by others and much of the research was his based on figures available from other sources.

Now Louie Crew has a blog. The writing on it is his (and will continue I presume to be his mostly). It is an expansion of his highly creative and wonderful writing skills. It is a series of reflections on the lectionary (RCL) readings for each Sunday. Titled, Queer Eye For the Lectionary it is wonderfully provocative and clear, and more, it is both interesting and fun to read. Getting to that page may be accompanied by a warning that materials on that page might be objectionable... I guess the word Queer did it. Well, get through the hurdle if it shows up and get on to the page.

Congratulations Louie. May your blog be as mighty as your page.


SIMON SURMISES

Simon Mein, a good friend an a neighbor in Lewes, the village by the bay and near the great waters, writes rather infrequently on his blog Simon Surmises. But, as is the case with many of my blogging friends he writes well and with gusto, and often with a sharp and keen wit. So it was a gift to find yet another fine essay on his blog, titled, "Plus Ça Change…"

Here he is to the left: He is, the reader will note, neither too hairy nor too smooth.

Looking back at A Diary of a Country Parson, Simon Mein reminds us that in the midst of a very different world there were issues and concerns that find an echo into the back halls and the cloakrooms of power in both Church and State today. he concludes by saying, "On balance, a read of Parson Woodforde’s diary inclines me to agree that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, certainly when it comes to pursuing devastatingly costly wars, costly primarily in human lives and misery, but also in unpaid trillions."

Getting there is half the joy. So read his essay HERE.