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Discussion about collect

Dana writes:


Mike:  What do you think of this collect? (We should be having this discussion on the Prairie Anglican.)

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people in this land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this land; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I am not trying to start a fight.  My relationship with you is very important and I treasure our discussions. After all, iron sharpens iron.

-- Dana

Mike responds:

OK, here we are, dusting off Prairie Anglican. Thanks for the nudges to use this forum.

Iron sharpens iron, eh? Who said that? Bismarck? Der Kaiser?

Actually, I'm working very hard this Lent to not be iron but clay molded by You Know Who. It's a work in progress. Which is to say, I am.

You ask what I think of this collect. What's it from? Is it next Sunday's? I'm wary about being drawn in to analyze and even criticize a collect. What do I know?

All week I've been praying the collect that's with the Morning Prayer at the Mission St. Clare site:

"Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."

I'd have to say -- and not by way of misdirection -- that I'm pretty comfortable with this collect from last Sunday. It seems to have all the right ingredients: It's focused on God, and how only He can help us miserable sinners do what He wants us to do, which is the only way we can experience true joy.

In sum: We don't measure up; only God can help us measure up; and only through grace, which helps us walk the line, can we know happiness and be saved.

Now, the collect you asked about has nothing in it to offend. Does it? It's asking God to have mercy on those who are oppressed and need justice. Being against any of those things would be like being against motherhood.

I'm tempted to not take what I perceive, perhaps incorrectly, to be the (friendly) bait and let it go at that. But of course I don't have that kind of self control. (g) One way to read the above would be to assume a subtext that we live in an unjust society and that we need to call on God to fix things. Again, who could disagree with that? Utopia does not exist on earth. All societies are, to some greater or lesser degree, flawed. Things man create can not achieve perfection. That's a given.

Some might detect within the subtext a particular assertion that America is rife with injustice, terror, cruelty and inequality, and that God needs to fix it. If I were a citizen of Haiti and praying this collect, I would assume that's the case. If I were a citizen of the United States and praying this collect, I would tend to have my own subtext of gratefulness we live in a nation where we have so much material wealth and freedom, though some of the conditions the collect lists are no doubt problems in particular instances and to varying degrees.

It is different to be poor and oppressed and sick and afraid in a country where many, even most poor people have homes, cars, color TVs and cell phones and access to at least emergency rooms and public defenders if the police unjustly throw them in jail. There are countries where being poor means, for the great many and not the few, living in hovels or on street, no food, no clean water, no rule of law, being harassed, enslaved or killed by the police, the militia, etc.

There's oppression, fear and sickness, and there's oppression, fear and sickness.

My honest reaction to the collect -- which is subjective and probably completely wrong, and which I wouldn't probably even think to comment on but have because you specifically asked -- is that it seems to have a certain TEC/social justice focus, as opposed to taking aim at asking the Lord to extend grace and salvation to us, as individual miserable sinners trying to in some small, pathetic way live our lives in imitation of Jesus.

Christ was pretty dismissive about Cesar, "that fox" Pilate, and the scribes and Pharisees who ran Israel. Seems to me -- and I claim no authority to say this -- Jesus' message was aimed at the hearts of individual sinners, and not governments for failing to extend "equal protection of the law and equal opportunities." Are those bad things? No. Should we hope and pray all people have them? Yes.

I think there's a basic paradox.

Does Christ care about government, whether laid off people get nine or twenty-four months of unemployment checks, and whether we're "fair and unprejudiced enough" to marry gay people in our churches? Or does Christ want to love God and love our neighbors and try to live according to the Bible's teachings, and thereby bring about the best kind of society to whatever degree we can be good?

Obviously we can't know. My personal sense is Christ wants me to put the emphasis first on God, and then treating everybody the way He would treat them if He were in my place. I don't think that can be teased out to "therefore, the Lord wants me to vote for this candidate," or "therefore, the Lord wants me to do try to enact a law to punish people who spend $80,000 to buy a Mercedes when there is a guy who happens to live in my house in Bettendorf who hasn't gotten one of those invasive back-door cancer exams because his insurance doesn't cover it."


There are some people, probably some people who dress in black and wear those funny collars, who think Jesus wants them to drive to Iowa City to cheer Obama during his visit. And there are probably some who think Jesus wants them to go there to protest him. If so, I would say both are wrong. As Democrats or Republicans? Sure. Because that's what God wants out of Congress? Nay. 

Interviewing Quincy bishop candidates

Father Joe sent out this update from the Diocese: 

“Please continue to keep the Nominating Committee for our next bishop in your prayers. This group of people received applications for the next bishop of Quincy. They are currently reviewing the paper work and will conduct initial interviews very soon. Once the field of candidates is narrowed down to the canonical requirement of at least three, but no more than five people, then a second round of interviews, will be conducted. Watch for more information on the second round of interviews as these will be forums for people from outside the Nominating Committee to submit questions to the candidates. We will also videotape these interviews and make copies available to all churches, so that the congregations can make informed choices for the election of the bishop. The time and place of the election will be announced very soon.”

I’m going to try to find out a little more about the process; I'll post anything pertinent here. 

For example, are people asked to apply? Does a notification go out saying there’s an opening? Is there some kind of ecclesiastical headhunter organization, as there is in business, to find candidates to fill key positions such as this? 

I’m also curious about what qualities the committee is looking for in a new bishop. I know there was a survey earlier seeking input from clergy and laity. It would be interesting to get a look at a summary of skills, talents and experience in the ideal candidate. 

Eighty years and counting

Mom turns eighty Saturday. 

A series of strokes have left her with limited use of her right arm and leg. She spends her days and nights in a La-Z-Boy recliner at Bickford Cottage. She has trouble speaking. But her mind is clear, she still has a great sense of humor, and she continues to be one of the happiest people I know. 

When I start feeling ground down by the world -- as I do this week -- I think about her. 

Snow falling on cedars

It’s a paradox that things can be simple and complex at the same time.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to discover it had snowed overnight. Looking out the window at a landscape bright despite the overcast a few nights past full moon, everything was stark black and white. The tree trunks and limbs, the wooden fence, the vertical parts of the iron table and chairs on the patio: black. Everything else was perfect white, sharp lines and edges softened beneath a blanket of new snow. 

I thought about what the snow might represent as a metaphor. Grace coming down from heaven to make everything white and clean and fresh? Mainly, it was just snow. Simple and uncomplicated as snow is -- unless you get down to the granular level of examining individual snowflakes, which are supposed to be infinite in their crystalline variety. 

I spent time yesterday catching up on news from the Anglican communion. 

I read that Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem has resigned from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion. The bishop was quoted as saying his presence on the committee had “no value whatsoever” and his voice was “like a useless cry in the wilderness.” 

I’ve always liked Bishop Anis. He speaks his mind and uses plain language.

At the Stand Firm website, where there is always good discussion, Sarah Hey put up a post delving into difficulties with the Anglican Communion Covenant -- details which become increasingly byzantine and problematic the closer you study them. 

It is easy for a lay person to gloss over the difficulties of getting the primates and bishops to settle on a framework that preserves orthodoxy -- especially considering the fact that there are people in authority working hard to do just the opposite. 

Still, it seems to me Christianity is very simple. Love God. Love thy neighbor. Participate with Christ in the suffering of the world. Through Christ come to know God and receive the hope salvation. 

Personal experience has taught me that the simpler things are, the truer they are, although maybe that is because I am simple-minded. The Devil really is always in the details. The simpler things are, the fewer the places for the enemy to hide. 

Maybe sometime things simply are black and white. Even though, looked at from a different perspective, they are also complex.

For God alone my soul in silence waits;

truly, my hope is in him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my stronghold, so that I shall not be broke. 

The Holy Spirit

Sometimes God seems near, sometimes very far away. 

This mystifies me. Since God is always there, how can it seem otherwise? 

Father McClaskey used to talk about the Holy Spirit drawing close to us sometimes but pulling away at others, depending upon what we need. He compared it to a loving parent raising a child: Sometimes the child needs all the help and support the father can provide, but other times the child needs to be made to stand on his or her own two feet. 

Mother Theresa suffered for fifty years, feeling “no presence of God whatsoever” in her life. St. Therese of Lisieux called these spiritual tests the “night of nothingness.” The people considering Mother Theresa for sanctification say the fact she did not feel the presence of God during much of her life did not change the fact that He was working through her in helping Calcutta’s poor, sick and dying. 

For the less saintly among us, maybe it is we who withdraw, not the Holy Spirit. Like stiff-necked Hebrews in the Old Testament, the moment God does something good for us, we decide we’re in charge -- not God -- and turn away. 

When we put ourselves first, things always go wrong. 

Family room angel

No home should be without one!