All posts in April 2005

Between 1:30 and 3:15 this afternoon, a series of different web surfers came to this site after Goodle-searching for the phrase “luminous poison,” the trick murder implement in the 1950 film noir classic D.O.A. I alluded to this plot device last year, so I can explain why this page shows up in the Google results;…

Several things will happen within the next eighteen months or so. (So far, I’m on safe ground.) One seems increasingly likely: the Episcopal Church USA will find a polite and careful way of declining to accede to the Windsor Report. It will take this as a matter of justice, of the development of doctrine, of…

I woke this morning to the strangely thrilling news that the ivory-billed woodpecker may not be extinct. I’ve been aware of ivory-bills from my childhood; I have a vague memory (Mom can check me on this) that the family copy of Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds included a picture of the…

Some random thoughts: First, I thought the clerical attire answer would be the less volatile of the two ecclesiastical entries I was contemplating. Little did I anticipate the attention it would draw. Second, Tom Coates is pumping out buckets of wisdom in his entries on pointing at things and on the fate of Trackback and…

So, friend Chris Locke from Blogaria turns up quoting from an article by Margaret’s friend and Duke professor Amy Laura Hall in his latest Chief Blogging Officer entry. That’s a convergence I wouldn’t have anticipated.

I’ll start with the easier of the two questions: When do I wear clerical garb, and why? My current practice is to wear clericals when I’m exercising the ministry to which I was ordained — that is, when I’m serving in liturgical or educational ministries (or stand available so to do). In practice, that means…

“Most of my music is probably, at this point, a lot of it is traced back to the gospel roots, you know. ‘Promised Land,’ ‘The Rising,’ I use a lot of gospel which is where a lot of rock music came from. The first front men were really the preachers. So I was drawn to…

After having somewhat gathered the forces of my concentration over the weekend, I had a very full day today tackling the backed-up papers that I’d been ignoring while I worked on my lecture from last week. Consequently, I don’t have anything particular left over to say here today. I devoted a lot of my spare…

During Question Time at the end of my lecture, Tim Safford (whom I knew from old times in seminary) asked me what I meant by “emergent church” (did I mean, you know, emergent-church as in candles-and-coffee-shops, or something else)? I explained that I meant Emergent as in Emergent/emerging church, the kind of congregation I’ve learned…

I thought I’d heard it all, about the new Pope — until I read Fr. David’s story.

What ever happened to hook shots? Did they change the rules, or the way games get called, in a way that made hook shots less legal? Did Kareem Abdul-Jabbar make the Skyhook so much his own, that lesser mortals don’t even try hook shots? Or are they still plentiful enough, and I happen not to…

Closing Panel Originally uploaded by AKMA. It’s been a long, busy week. I finally finished up my Winslow Lecture, and delivered it to a very full house on Thursday. It went well — a number of people gave very kind feedback about it — and I’ll post a summary in the “Extended” window below (it’s…