A Trinity Sunday Sermon

THOUGHTS ON THE ASCENSION, PENTECOST, THE HOLY GHOST, AND THE TRINITY (for Trinity Sunday; all quotations from the Authorized [KJV] Version unless otherwise stated)

Jesus said, “Peace be unto you.”
Thomas said, “My Lord and my God.”

In various places throughout the Old and New Testaments we have references to the Spirit of God. Only in the New Testament do we have the Holy Ghost. And only in John do we see the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost (clearly the same entity) referred to as The Comforter [14:16; 14:26; 15:26; 16:7] or, in the Greek, The Paraclete. (I leave aside the NRSV’s “Advocate” or “Helper” alternatives.)

This year’s [2010] Year C Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and Trinity readings have mined John’s Gospel’s chapter 13 to 17 moderately thoroughly. We have John’s great spirographic circles and cycloids intersecting and re-intersecting, arcing outwards only to return and enclose and re-enclose Jesus Himself, the Father, the Holy Ghost and ultimately ourselves in the Glory and Hope of New Life in the Resurrection, and in the Glory of giving Glory to God and Glorifying His Holy Name; and of being Glorified in the Spirit — and all of this is bound together by ropes of Love.

Initially, we meet the Holy Spirit in the second verse of the Bible just after we meet God and the Protocreation in Genesis 1:1. And then in Gen 1:3 God speaks, “Let there be Light; and there was Light.” The Word, still not yet Incarnate, seen already as the instrument of God’s creating: Spoken by God — God’s spoken already Creating Word — giving us a glimpse of the Ineffable Mind of God.

Genesis 1:2: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”
The ruach elohim. The pneuma theo.

Psalm 104: 30: “Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they [various creatures] are Created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth.”

Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a Living Soul.”

We see the idea of the Pneuma — Spirit and/or breath in Greek, and its various cognates in both Greek and English — being a manifestation of God’s actions and effects; even indeed a manifestation of God Himself, in supporting Life and Sustaining His Creation.

In a disputed verse 1 John 5:7, it is stated that “There are three that bear record in Heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these Three are One.” — the only overt mention of the Trinity in Scripture as we conceive it. But what is apparently not in dispute is 1 John 5:8: “There are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these Three agree in One.”

We see the Spirit being very much involved in giving life, sustaining life, moving through, into, and upon living creatures to support and direct them in their actions, words, decisions. Jesus said as much when he assured the Disciples not to worry about what they would say in front of tribunals; for He would send the Holy Spirit to direct them.

We have the Life-Giving Water of Life in Christ; so we shall never be athirst. We have the sin-destroying, death-obliterating, life-giving, cleansing Blood of Christ. And we have the Holy Ghost that encompasses us and cleaves us asunder; catching our hearts and souls, and minds and spirits up in His gloriously transforming and in-forming and re-forming whirlwind of the Breath of Life-Sustaining Love.

Life-Sustaining Love — merely another way to speak of the Grace of God. We are immersed in an Ocean of the Grace of God. We are swimming and moving in and being propelled through life by the Grace of God — if we but accept it, and respond to it. The thing about staying alive in the water (my definition of swimming) is that one must properly interact with the water to avoid death.

Saint Paul says that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. In this case, if one is led by the Spirit of God, one is a child of God. This is the spirit of adoption. But adoption really is a two way interaction. God always stands ready to adopt us; but we must acknowledge and accept God’s freely offered Grace in order the make the adoption complete and efficacious. We must actively interact with the Life-Giving Water of the Loving Grace of God.

Again Saint Paul: “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart.” [Romans 10:8]

Luke in Acts 16 — “[Question] What must I do to be saved? [Answer] Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

And again Saint Paul: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ , and shalt believe in they heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

These are glorious swimming lessons for living in the loving, Spirit-infused, Life-Giving Water, and Death-Drowning Blood of the Grace of God, freely given through His Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ.

(Remember: Air is also a fluid. Substitute air, breath, and wind for water and the ocean, and the metaphor still works.)

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” [John 20:29]

“If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” [John 16:7]

The Ascension has gotten short shrift. The Ascension serves to ratify and to validate the consequences of the Resurrection, especially after the Holy Ghost arrives. Belief can morph into true faith, allowing us to be justified, to be in the status of imputed righteousness.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. The Holy Ghost will teach you all things. It will allow us to speak the Truth about Jesus Christ. It will allow us to demonstrate the Truth of His Love by showing us how to do Deeds of Love to our neighbor. It will allow us to be the truly human beings Adam and Eve were intended to be — allowing us to live in the New Creation; doing Deeds of Truth in Peace and Love to each other and and the physical creation.

The Holy Ghost will lead us into the likeness of Jesus Christ and through him into the Image of the Father, so that we will all truly be one in each other.

And so the New Creation well and truly started on Pentecost with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, just as at the First Creation the Spirit of God was involved: So as the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the waters, so did the Holy Spirit move upon the Disciples.

Receive the Holy Ghost. Breathe in the Life-Giving Holy Spirit; drown your old self in the Water of Life. Become a Truthfully Living Soul and become fully human as we were originally intended to be, as loving stewards of each other and of Creation.

GLORY BE THE FATHER AND TO THE SON AND TO THE HOLY GHOST: AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING IS NOW AND EVER SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN

Joe S. Kersey
19 and 20 May 2010

A Prayer

Come Holy Ghost, Spirit of the Almighty Everliving God. Move upon me. Move through me. Surround and enfold me. Transform and inform and reform my heart and soul; my mind and spirit. Quicken me according to thy Word. Quicken me according as thou art wont. Quicken me according to thy loving mercy and they merciful love. AMEN

PONDERING GOOD FRIDAY

ALMIGHTY AND EVERLIVING GOD, Grant that we never again turn away from your light into the darkness of this night, and help us to transform our faith into fruitful deeds of Truth done in Peace and Love. We ask this in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. AMEN

“And now we wait.” We have all heard those words spoken at the start of Good Friday sermons.

Each year we ponder afresh the vexing paradox of calling the day of the death of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ “GOOD”. For it certainly was not good for Jesus’ followers. Confining ourselves to the twelve men, we know of only one at the Crucifixion — John. Peter denied thrice, wept, and departed. Luke has all of his acquaintances standing afar off. Mark and Matthew have the women only afar off — no mention of the men. Only John has the very intimate exchange at the foot of the Cross between His mother and John.

Of the others — silence — until the third day and the following Sunday when Thomas finally made it back from wherever he had gone. Then the fishing expedition and breakfast by the Sea of Galilee with seven of them — Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James, John, and two others — and that is just to confine ourselves to John’s account.

We know what happened on the third day. We know what is the Good in Good Friday. Before there can be new life, there must be death. Jesus said this: Except a grain of wheat die, it can not become wheat and bear multiplied seeds — or fruit, if you will.

But we have the answer sheet. The disciples — the twelve, the men, the women, the mostly unnamed followers of Jesus — did not have that advantage. How did they — men, women, named, unnamed — respond to what, on all evidence, was the death of just another failed Messiah; or to someone not of a Jewish background, just another troublemaker disturbing the Pax Romana in a far corner of the empire.

One — Judas, the remorseful Judas — hanged himself. Some of them left town. At least two of those were going to be astonished when they finally stopped for supper. Some went to ground, hiding out in various safe houses where they, too, would be astonished. But, as I said, we have the answer sheet.

“And it was night”: When Jesus sent Judas away from the Last Supper on his mission of betrayal, John says, “And it was night.” Night. Dark. Absence of Light so complete as to be reminiscent of the Chaos postulated to have been before Creation — if anything except God can have existed before Creation. Without getting into that: Night, Dark, falling away from the Light of God until not a glimmer of the Divine Radiance can be seen. Jesus’ human nature experienced that on the Cross — “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani.” Judas — indeed, all human beings — choosing, using their Free Will, one of the attributes that is most readily seen to be the part of our own being made in the Image of God, to remove themselves deliberately from the Light of God.

But Jesus had earlier remarked [John 3:19-21] that Light had come into the world, but that humans had loved Darkness rather than Light because their deeds were evil. Humans were not doing deeds of Truth worked in God, worked in the Image of God, works that would be made manifest in the Light of God.

So His followers found themselves in a Despair. A Despair so total that no Hope remains — indeed, the very idea of Hope is extinguished.

Jesus follows up the sending away of Judas with the starburst of doxological euphoria announcing the forthcoming Glory of God [John 13:31-32], the Glory of Jesus, the Glory of Jesus in God, the Glory of both together in each other and each other in both.

But all that was forgotten in the vacuum of the immediate post-Crucifixion.

But wait. Who are these two man taking down Jesus’ body? Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, but one who had not agreed with their decision. And Nicodemus, a prominent Pharisee, who had earlier spoken to Jesus [John 3] and who had even spoken up to the chief priests to at least afford Jesus a fair hearing [John 7]. They are performing one of the duties enjoined on each Jew — to do a proper, decent, and timely burial of the dead.

Critics might say “too little, too late”. But I say this was a glimmer of Light given off by a Deed of Truth, Peace, and Love. These men had not imperiled their political and social standing before; certainly there was no obvious need to do so now.

Or wasn’t there? Was this another example of God using unlikely agents to advance His purposes? Was this action — complete with linen wrapping, one hundred pounds of spices, and a brand new tomb — no small expenditure then, or now — the preview act of the New Creation to be starting officially about thirty-six hours later? Was their act the physical expression of the doxological euphoria of John 13? Was this a hint of the ever-expanding Kingdom of God here, now, on earth soon to be revealed in a few short hours; where Deeds of Truth are done in Peace and Love, shedding light onto the various images and likenesses of God we encounter in one another?

I think the answer is Yes — but, as I have said — we have the answer sheet.

It is very hard to create Hope where no Hope is. Indeed, only God can do so.

So, the death of Christ on the Cross was not the end of Hope, the confirmation of a world of Despair, as many of the disciples may have thought, however briefly.

Jesus going willingly, despite Gethsemane, to his death was the paramount Deed of Truth done in Peace, however violent, and Love — and Hope, however apparently cloaked in Darkness.

And the Light starbursting out of that Act of Truth, radiating from the Cross, continues to illumine the images and likenesses of God found in us as we live and work in the New Creation.

Yes — our sins are forgiven.

Yes — Death has been put to death.

Yes — we live now in the sure and certain Hope of the Resurrection.

This is not a recipe for licentious, riotous, destructive, exploitive living. We tried that once. Some are still trying it. It does not work.

Ultimate Freedom in the New Creation enjoins ultimate Responsibility for the stewardship of that Creation — stewardship of the emerging Kingdom of God here on earth — now — by Acts of Truth done in Peace and Love.

We never again want to experience a Night, a Darkness as it was perceived by those present on that day about two thousand years ago. We never again want to have to depend on two very unlikely actors to initiate Deeds of Truth.

So, no, we do not wait. Not, “Now we wait,” as I said at the beginning. Now we act — harvesting and distributing the fruits of our Faith, eschewing the Darkness of that Last Supper Night; not walking away from the Light of Christ into Chaos, but rather living as if we had already died — doing True Deeds as did Joseph and Nicodemus — walking into the blinding Light of Glory, Peace, Love, and Hope that so improbably comes out of this day and night of Good Friday.

AMEN

Joe S. Kersey 2 April 2010 Good Friday

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRLAN88JY8w

Joe Wants Some Physical Contact

21 April 2015
Here’s Something That Happened The Other Night

I was Skyping with a good friend in the UK and Paul was sitting alongside me and watching and listening and participating. I was overcome with an overwhelming desire to reach over and touch him and stroke him and kiss him and hug him and (hint, hint) try to get him to leave the scene of the Skype (if you will) and go into his (used to be our) room and carry on with more insertive and fulfilling activities.

And as I looked over at him, and he looked back at me, I realized (as I’ve known for several years now — but it truly hit me then and filtered into my head right then) that he did not want anything similar in regard to and/or for me. For him it was just a benign non-intimate, non-physical moment and no shared activities along those lines loomed large in his imagination.

And so that is it.

We can live together. We can be friends. We can go about together and do things together. But there will never again be any sex.

Well, I’m here to tell you. This 63 year old man is not ready to hang it up — despite the infrequency of sexual activity since the mid 1980s. Period. So there it stands for the moment.

So we shall see.

JSK

LETTERS TO MY EARLIER SELF

This is intended to be a series of “letters” to my younger self that are to be opened after each discussion point.
Some of this material has been referenced in my August Autobiography Series from 2014 which can be found on the Joe Kersey You Tube Channel.

Letter No. 1
When I was 14, my Dad walked in on Mark and me while he was sleeping over at “my” house. I was sucking his dick, and he had just come in my mouth. My Dad said nothing then and said nothing later. I wish Mark hadn’t laughed so loud when I sucked his nipples. Maybe my Dad would not have come in to check on us at 2AM.

Dear 14 year old Joe,
This sure might have made things tense. Any tenseness came from you being terrified. It turns out you did not need to have been. But it was not an unreasonable reaction to the situation.
The shame of it all was that you decided Mark was “too flitty acting” and you started to act like all the other strate assholes. I know you will feel really horrible about that behavior toward a guy you loved then and still love up until this day. I know you don’t do the “faggy, gay” jokes and behavior any more, but you were then and continued to be all the way up through college — simply a mean asshole. You will regret it. Period. You will regret it. Who knows what hurt we sow as we move unthinkingly through life. And unfeelingly, too — but perhaps more of that in a later letter.

Letter No. 2
When I was 15 and 16 and 17, I fell in “love”/lust with a number of guys. One was in my Explorer Post, and one was a fellow I was and am truly and deeply in love with. But, alas, both of them were (and the second one I know for a fact is) strate.

Dear Teenage Joe,
There sure are a lot of great guys around that you spend your time with. You think they accept and like you because of your sarcastic humor and smarts and cleverness and willingness to not be so straight laced and uptight about things, although they might expect that you would be, given your background. The fact of the matter is they are oblivious to your desire for them — that, of course, is part of the advantage for you; you are living as a deep cover spy. Bob paid no attention to you when you threw your leg over his on the camp out. Another guy didn’t think twice when we drove back from a state park swimming outing in our wet underwear and you had a hard time keeping your eyes on the road. The other fellow didn’t know that you sucked his cum out of the bed sheets after he belly hump-fucked the mattress after he went out to take a leak when we were visiting my sister. You stew about things too much. I know you can’t help it. You wish you could connect with another guy and be open and honest — but the late 1960s in the US is not the time to be openly gay. Stonewall has not happened yet.

Letter No. 3
When I was in college, I decided to try to go out on a “date”. I asked a girl from one of my chemistry associated activities to go out with me. I believe we went out to the C&G and had a pitcher of beer and some pizza. What a farce. I awkwardly walked her back to Lincoln Tower and then there was this long pause in which I was deciding whether to do the obligatory “good night kiss” — oh, give me — please, please give me a break. I already knew I was gay. Why did I subject this other very decent pleasant human being to this humiliating experience.

Dear Undergraduate Ohio State Joe,
The above speaks for itself. Was this some sort of test for yourself. You did go all out. You even bought a red light bulb in case you came back to your dorm room which, thanks be to the Almighty, she did not want to do. (Sometimes you can be a parody of yourself.) [By the way: You will keep being a parody of yourself off and on well until you are 63.] In any case, you had the good sense to not do that again.

Letter No. 4
Or did you. And this is where it gets a bit dicey; because if I follow this chain of reasoning down to it’s logical conclusion, my son and grandson would not exist.
When you were in medical school you wanted to stay friends with some of the faculty who had taught you and it turned out that you became sexually involved with your former freshman English instructor and she had Thomas, your son.

Dear Medical School Joe Just Trying to Survive,
You will be very surprised when this woman gets pregnant on your very first shot into the bucket; which would not have happened if it had not been for the Thoracic Surgery resident at Children’s treating you like a moron and berating you and running you into the ground on your first day on the service 2 Nov 1973, and making you feel completely adrift — adrift — adrift; and you needing some human connection, and you being 21, and if someone pushes the buttons on a 21 year old guy the stuff starts to work even if you are gay. But you will be (and you knew it then, too) extremely glad when she does not heed the advice of the “kill the baby abortion babes” that surrounded her at her place of work and go ahead and kill the baby. There will be some inevitable problems: How and/or if to tell your parents. How to get your last name on the birth certificate as the father. And eventually, the question of marriage, which she will resist — and perhaps you should have listened to her objection; but that will be up in the air in your mind for the next forty years — so deal with it.

Letter No. 5
Having a child out of wedlock (as we said then) was not your only problem in medical school.

Dear Despairing Medical School Joe,
At a certain point you will have realized that this way of life — the endless hours, the no time for yourself, the deadly dull (but at the same time interesting material, especially the anatomy and pharmacology and the surgical stuff) atmosphere of having to be always — ALWAYS — at peak form — will NOT stop. (Not to mention the night work). You were on the King Avenue Bridge over the Olentangy River and had been for one of your six mile runs (those will kill your knees and ankles, but give you a superb cardiovascular reserve despite your intrinsic cardiovascular disease, by the way). It all of a sudden hits you. What I just said. You will stop and stare into the river (no — it’s not a suicide thing — that will come later) and wonder if you should stop. Because then would have been the logical break point. Cut your losses and try to do what you really wanted to do — teach history or practice law. But no. You know that you can do this and do it reasonably well and make a decent living at it, and, if you save like mad, you won’t have to do it that long.

Letter No. 6
You soldiered through and finished medical school and some surgery and anesthesia training, and, after a short stint on the university faculty the new anesthesia chairman exiled you (exiled everybody, actually) and you moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, a town you would gladly live near by now, but then you thought it was the Devil’s armpit (despite the fact hairy armpits are a huge turn on for you). You were in practice as a member of a group for a year, and then, after your contract ran out, went off on your own, and had a number of surgeons that would have gladly scheduled their cases with you, but by that time you were in deep despair about the fact you could not openly live as a gay man. You are 27. While carrying on with the plan of an independent practice, you buy a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver and plan to use it to kill yourself at some point — as well as for self defense, of course.

Dear Despairing Working for Yourself Joe,
God will intervene in the form of C. Merle Welch (a fellow who helped train you) and get you a job back in Columbus, Ohio, and it turns out you will not have to kill yourself after all, because it will also turn out that you can come out, get divorced, move out, have gay sex, meet Paul, and be yourself. It only takes 28 years. Simple, huh. Just me being sarcastic again. As you now know from watching You Tube videos (oh, by the way, you will become a You Tuber after you get your very first computer in late 2012), there are a lot of younger guys out there who go through the same internal emotional turmoil despite the massively more accepting atmosphere out there. It’s no more easier for them than it was for you. It might just happen a bit earlier (and therefore not leave so much road kill in their wake), and perhaps in a less messy way. But there are still guys that are going to be kicked out. You will be disinherited. Such are the ways of human beings, huh.

Letter No. 7
No letter here. You’ve spent 34 1/2 years with Paul. And despite the fact the sex has dwindled to none — well, that’s a problem actually — but despite that fact, many guys have it a lot worse and you don’t have to slog it out every day. Thanks be to God.

Many thank to Danny Short from You Tube for giving me the nudge to do this project.

Joe S. Kersey
28 March 2015

Joe Reminisces About Junior High School Gym Class

When I was in eighth grade, we had a sadistic gym
“teacher” who had a fetish for publicly humiliating and mistreating his “students”. E.G. flicking a guy’s cigarette package out of his shirt pocket with a paddle, and, when he bent over to pick it up, nailing him with the same paddle. He also enjoyed having the guys “play” repeated games of “prison ball” — a perverted Dodge Ball variant that was played with the players moving about on the floor in a crab position and trying to drag each other into a prison area while in the crab position; but only permitted to rise to a standing position in order to bang the ball down directly on an opposing player should the ball happen by them at the time. When struck, such player was allowed to be then be dragged back, bodily, to the “prison area” and, of course there was a little extra-mural pummeling and physical abuse that went on during the journey. Well, you might guess who was the prime target here. One day, I was so messed up that it took me fifteen minutes to go down the hall to my science period. I crawled the last fifty or sixty feet down the corridor. My teacher was appalled (her husband taught high school PE), but said nothing. When I got home, obviously I had to explain the very evident physical state I was in. This involved a full disrobing in front of my mother so she could see the full extent of my contusions — an event that had not happened for a few years (the disrobing, not the contusions). (I was then 13; I had skipped second grade — I was about a year and half younger than most of the other guys.) Amazingly, my mother (of all people) swung into action and, delaying her arrival at her work the next morning, took me to the Principal’s Office and demanded something be done about this individual. And, surprisingly there was some action taken. The guy did not last too much longer in his job. His wife taught female PE, and was reportedly just as sadistic. As a side note, both of them ended up in state prison, one of them for second degree murder and other one for involuntary manslaughter. I can’t remember which got which. I remember the woman cheering on two girls in study hall that were having a fist fight with clumps of hair and bloody scalp being pulled out and thrown about. Well, I guess they did teach us something — of a sort.

A Pre-Thanksgiving Blog 2014

Wednesday, 26 Nov 2014 Blog

Wednesday, 26 Nov 2014, 1610 EST

Now.

As it turns out, and as often happens, Paul and I got talking about the same things when he woke up from his ….. how shall we say it …. nap. After having been — first draped sideways over the chair, and then getting up and staggering (I know that does not narrow it down) and having a nap in his (formerly our) bedroom, he came out and seemed ready to engage — a bit — in conversation, and we had a bit of fun, as those who wish to go to my You Tube Channel will see.

But as the Sun sinks slowly in the West — as the script writers say — so what?

Well: So much for Joe’s horniness — unassuaged by the Caffeine Five Receptor modulating drugs — that, unfortunately, have a finite number of patients with anterior optic neuropathy blindness, and deafness, associated with their use. (Joe still thinks he may fall into the subset of complication prone users of these substances.) Joe still yearns for human contact and (with luck) intellectual contact. This does not seem to be in the offing — but, as I like to flog into the dirt — we shall see.

So check out my You Tube channel. Pimp. Pimp. Pimp. At least I’m not talking about “merch”.

Go with God.

Happy Thanksgiving (US),

Joe Kersey

Yearning for Human Contact

Thinking about things on 12 March 2015:

I so yearn for human contact — even if it does not lead to sexual interaction. So, so much. Leave aside the issue of being able to talk in an organized intelligent way. Just to have someone alongside me that I can feel against me.

I so wanted to e-mail this fellow that I had a fling with last late-Spring and early-Summer. I miss him mightily. But he would not like that and made that clear, although he did respond graciously to a compliment I sent him when he did very well recently in an activity in which he was involved.

I feel profoundly alone.

But that’s the way it sometimes is.

Update to the Transition Process at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Delaware, Ohio

Here is an update on the Transition Process at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Delaware, Ohio. The first selection is our resident priest Rose Anne’s statement that she will not be considered for the position of our next rector. This means that the Diocese of Southern Ohio gave us the big F/U. Thanks Bishop Briedenthal and the entrenched bureaucracy that revolves around dragging this stuff out even when there is no doubt who we want. The past two transitions — yes, we needed that “process”. This time we do not.

“I do want to reiterate one thing from the meeting here so that all are aware. I wanted to remind everyone  that I will not be staying on at St. Peter’s once my Residency ends. It will be a hard and sad thing for me to leave you because you all have a special place in my heart and always will. You have all been gracious, welcoming, supportive, patient and loving over the course of my time with you. I value and appreciate each of you more than I can ever express! I am here for you 100% for the time I am here.”

And now for the transition update proper. Note the bizarre phrase “Mother Lynn”. I can think of other phrases that begin with “mother”. As suspected, the “process” will play out over 12 to 18 months (or probably longer”). My gripe with this is the continual essence of deception this exercise imposes on all involved. The church which is seeking can not be fully honest. And the individual seeking a new position has to continually live a lie with his or her church for at least several months.

“Transition Update

“The Rev. Lynn Carter Edmands, Canon for Formation and Transitions is actively seeking an interim rector for St. Peter’s. The Vestry will have an opportunity to approve whomever is offered and determine if the person presented is a good fit with St. Peters. Mother Lynn [Editor’s Note: a real piece of work by the way. — JSK] will be with us again on Sunday Feb.8 and will meet with us after each service to answer any questions and be sure we understand the process. The steps in the process include: placement of an interim rector for a period of 12-18 months (This is an “on average” time frame), appointing a search committee, preparing the parish profile, seeking and interviewing candidates and calling a new rector.
It is important to keep in mind that while the vestry and search committee will keep you appraised of where we are in the process, the search process is highly confidential and no names of potential candidates will be shared with the parish. This is to protect both potential candidates and St. Peter’s. Confidentiality will be strictly maintained throughout the process.

“Your vestry is working hard to be sure that the process moves along and that St. Peter’s remains energized and vital during the time of transition.”

So the best way to energize us is to kick us off to side and ignore the expressed wishes of a majority of the congregations. Thanks, Bishop.

To Recuse or Not To Recuse

Sometimes one finds oneself in odd political situations and intellectual situations:

Here below my remark is a plea from a fellow to sign a petition:
I really hate to have to say that this fellow makes a very legitimate point. Judges should recuse themselves from a case if there is even an appearance of impartiality. And even though the marriages that these two Justices conducted were both quite legal under the laws of the jurisdictions in which they were performed, their participation in them was, at the best, ill-advised, given the cases sure to come before them, and at the worst, indicative of a prejudice toward one side of the case: which is as may be; but I shall be generous and say that they could put that possible prejudice aside and decide the case on its merits; but the appearance of non-impartiality still is out there. I have no dog in this fight, although Paul and I are gay and have been together for over 34 years; so surprisingly, I have no strong opinion on this. Nonetheless, I did not sign this fellow’s petition, herewith:
“Last August, Justice Ginsburg performed a same-sex ceremony in Washington D.C. One month later, Justice Kagan performed a same-sex ceremony for her former law clerk in Maryland. Both of these actions demonstrate a clear lack of impartiality for deciding whether homosexual marriage will be forced upon the nation.
Kagan and Ginsburg have clearly indicated how they will vote on the “gay marriage” cases before the Supreme Court. They are not impartial adjudicators of the law in this case: they are active participants in redefining marriage! Because of their clear bias, they must recuse themselves from the case.
“This isn’t a matter of opinion that Justices Kagan and Ginsburg should recuse themselves. It isn’t optional. It’s the law. United States Title Code 28, Section 455 says that “any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
Through their public and private actions, both Kagan and Ginsburg have shown themselves not only to be partial, but have shown themselves to be activists in favor of same-sex “marriage”!
In order to ensure the Court’s integrity and impartiality, Justices Kagan and Ginsburg must recuse themselves from the upcoming same-sex marriage cases.”

Take this for what it is worth. 31 January 2015