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Friday, June 20, 2008

Summer reading list

Here is what I am reading (or at least attempting to read) this summer:

Preview copy of I Shall Not Want, by Julia Spenser-Fleming (release this June). Sixth in her mystery series about Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and Millers Kill police chief Russ Van Alsyne. This excursion tackles migrant workers, gangs, Clare and Russ alternately attracting and clashing, Clare juggling parish and Air National Guard chopper duties while coming to terms with her actions in the previous volume, and a new member of the Millers Kill police department.

Take this Bread, by Sara Miles. Miles, raised an atheist, and schooled in the Friends World College and as a journalist covering the socialist movement in Central America, walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa church in San Francisco in 1999 and took communion, an event that changed everything for her. Out of that experience she founded a food pantry that blossomed into dozens throughout the city.

excerpt:
"What I heard and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely; that upsets the established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new."


Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other, and the Spirit of Transformation by Stephanie Spellers. Spellers, minister for Radical Welcome at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, conducted 200 interviews with people all over the U.S. asking them: How do we face our fears and welcome transformation in order to become God’s radically welcoming people? For Spellers this has led to founding The Crossing, an emergent worship gathering at St. Paul’s which reaches out to the marginalized—people of color, gays and lesbians, homeless and working poor, and young adults. Spellers is also a member of the Episcopal Church’s Commission on Domestic Mission and Evangelism (the parent for the 20/20 initiative).

Preview copy of The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle (to be published this fall). Tickle embarks on a journey from St. Gregory through the Great Schism and Reformation to the present, making a convincing argument that Christianity is in the first throes of the next Great Emergence. Quoting Episcopal Bishop Mark Dyer, Tickle observes that every 500 years or so the Church experiences a giant rummage sale, one that involves the shattering of existing structures and power trains, and the birth of new expressions of the faith.

excerpt:
". . . every time the incrustations of an overly established Christianity have been broken open, the faith has spread--and been spread--dramatically into new geographic and demographic areas, thereby increasing exponentially the range and depth of Christianity's reach as a result of its time of unease and distress."

Thursday, June 19, 2008

65 East report


The diocesan and cathedral center plaza has a new resident: a ten foot high amalgamation of rust red I-beams by American artist Mark di Suvero. di Suvero is noted for his momumental industrial oriented sculptures. The piece gracing the center of the diocesan plaza is Choopy, which had been on display at the Merchandise Mart in April and May. City of Chicago asked the diocese to host the sculpture for three months after its parking expired at the Mart, so we gladly obliged. It is one of six di Suvero scultures in Chicago this spring and summer, the other five have been on display in Millennium Park since April and will be here until October 12. It is attracting a lot of snapshooters, perhaps to the relief of the overexposed Peace Angel perched on the upper plaza. We are thinking of giving Choopy a more Anglican or at least religious name. Any suggestions?