LeaderResources on Haiti: Hope for Haiti

LeaderResources has just published a new resource on Haiti, titled "HOPE FOR HAITI."  It has a wealth of material in it, references other materials, has activities for youth and adults related to each section, and is an excellent way to inform and challenge your congregation to participate in the effort to rebuild the Church in Haiti. More information can be found on the LeaderResources pages. 

Congratulations to LR on pulling this together!  Here is the write-up from the LeaderResources web pages:

150 pages of education, fun and fundraising resources for congregations that want to learn about and join the campaign to rebuild the Cathedral complex in the Diocese of Haiti.  This resource packet contains lesson plans for adults, youth and children -- several can be used with intergenerational groups. You'll learn about the country, the diocese, and the ministry of the church in Haiti. You can also explore some of the fun cultural aspects of Haiti: the tap-tap busses, fanal lanterns, proverbs, jokes and folk tales....and recipes to host a Haitian feast. Plus you'll get over 25 fundraising ideas, including detailed instructions and recipes for the trendy "Cupcakes and Cake Balls Fundrasier" and a Guide to Fundraising  to help you get organized -- tools you can use for years to come. This resources is being offered "at cost," as is the work of all the partners in the Haiti campaign. Once we have paid our out-of-pocket expenses, any additional income will go to the Diocese of Haiti.

Triptych for the days following Incarnation.

Christmas has come, although the days of Christmas continue, on to day of the Presentation, right about now, Jesus is given his name.  Meanwhile, even though Mary conceived in a quite spectacular way, she gave birth the regular old way. So I have been thinking in a poetic sort of way about postpartum musings that might have come to Mary. This is of course a dangerous sort of undertaking, given that I am neither Mary nor a woman, nor someone who has given birth. So this could be all wrong. Yet the Incarnation is as much available to me as to any of us, I suppose. So I take heart.

The central panel is a new annunciation to Mary, that, after all this she might still fall in love, no explanation necessary. It is not by Mary, but to her. The panels to the left is Mary's ruminations on pleasuring, the one on the right on the risk taking of belief in the Incarnation.

With all the accent on Incarnation in Anglican theology and spirituality, we still fall short of the full impact Tillich's "Anglican heresy." Those of us who accent the Incarnation believe the Incarnation reverberates throughout the whole of creation, as if a God virus has come and spread across the world. The reverberation has been since the beginning, but in Jesus everyone who sees in him the Light catches on - God is loose in the world and nothing is only merely matter.

Hindu and other religious traditions may not have been very surprised by this possibility, but it is very disturbing to followers of monotheistic religions. We tend to tone the matter down by making Mary "mother mild," and not particularly remembering that she was also young, went on to have other children the regular old way,  had a particular stake in the reality of the Incarnation, might have spoken coarsely at the well and so forth.  These little poems are an experiment in remembering Mary, who risked her own night under the stars, her own pleasure and her faith, in this most remarkable of possibilities - that God might indeed be found among us.

Well, there it is.

Triptych

Left Panel: Favor

Center Panel: Under the Stars

Right Panel: Faith