"...The content and significance of the Christian experience preserved in this Apostolic Faith and Order transcends all individual perceptions and defies all final rational analysis. For it contains within itself a truth more adequate than the world's own and therein lies its authority and influence. It comes in all its saving power to identify with the world, but as soon as the world attempts to accommodate and trim that Apostolic Faith and Order to its own limited insights, it is lost, and the Church with the world ends up like a ship aground on rocks. The Fathers in every age have been aware of this and that the only way of salvation for a shipwrecked Church and world is to be conformed to the Eucharistic self-giving of God. Let this be our ministry of reconciliation, the way for people of the tradition today, living and working for the reintegration of the whole Church 'Eastern, Western, our own'. In this Third Millennium we will need to hear less of individual denominations and more of the Una Sancta, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, in whose catholicity all our fragmentation can be made whole."
from Father Arthur Middleton's Fathers and Anglicans: The Limits of Orthodoxy
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Meandering Thoughts on the Fathers
When I was a child, I went to Church in an independent bible Church that claimed to be the Church of the New Testament. In other words, we were discarding all the traditions of men that had crept into the Church since the time of the Apostles and were going to live life as the New Testament Church did--straight from the Scriptures (emphasis on the New Testament, please)!
Of course, little did I realize at the time--nor did anyone else, I think--that the early Church had no New Testament written, but only the written Old Testament, as we would call it, and the oral tradition of the Apostles for at least the first 20 years of her existence. Now what?
Tradition, as you’ve guessed, was considered a bad thing, so I don’t know what I would have done had I known of the conundrum. Of course, no one had actually done any historical study, so the way the New Testament Church worshipped, worked, dealt with discipline, etc., seemed to be made up when the need arose in our congregation to know that information.
When I found out much later that the New Testament Church looked a lot like those traditional Churches with their “dead” liturgy and empty prayers; looked a lot like the Jewish synagogues and the Jewish Temple liturgy, I was quite shocked. This made so much more sense than the “make it up as you go” school of liturgy which I had been a part of all the way through college.
So, then, if the Scripture was my authority, and the early Church looked something much different than I had been taught in Church, what had I learned? I had learned that the past, the history of the Church, shapes the Church now--or it ought to. I had rather be doing, living, continuing steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, not someone else’s.
Thus, we have a need for the authority of tradition. I’m not talking Advent Wreaths and Christmas Carols. I am talking about the need to listen to what the Church has always said about the Scriptures, in particular. There is much more to be talked about, for sure, but let’s just stick there for a moment.
The Church I grew up in had little to no use for anything labeled “tradition.” Yet, if I want to know how to interpret the Apostles writings, who am I to listen to? Do I trust myself? Do I trust the Pope? Do I trust the pastor down the street?
Of course, in contemporary America, this becomes a real dilemma for a lot of people, because everything under the sun is said to be the doctrine of the Son.
I’ve learned that the Fathers of the Church are to be trusted. As a son of a Church that went through and was shaped by the Reformation, I have to own the desire of the English Reformers (and many others, by the way), however poorly they managed to work it out in certain cases. And that desire was to return to the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church. To do so, they returned to the Fathers, and argued their case against the anabaptists, the Roman polemicists and the Puritans.
In today’s world of polemical arguments amongst the Catholic traditions (Eastern, Roman, Anglican), in particular, the Fathers are constantly called in to buttress or make an argument, to defend a practice or doctrine, etc.
In defense of the Anglican view and use of the Fathers, let me again quote Father Arthur Middleton, who says of the Fathers of the Church: "They are not infallible, but are seen as the best-appointed judges since the apostles, and it is not the role of a judge to make laws, ...but to interpret those already made” (Fathers and Anglicans, 229).
We are not looking to the Fathers to be the revealed word of God, but we look to them as the authoritative interpreters of the same. Obviously, many of the Fathers were involved in making canon law, etc., but Middleton is talking of the the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures are the final authority and that final authority needs an interpreter. This is a happy place to come after so many various authorities asserting themselves, particularly in American Christianity.
Many want to make much more or much less of the Fathers. I leave you with 18th century Anglican divine Daniel Waterland’s thoughts:
We allow no doctrine as necessary, which stands only on Fathers or on tradition, oral or written; we admit none for such, but what is contained in Scripture, and proved by Scripture, rightly interpreted. And we know of no way more safe in necessaries, to preserve the right interpretation, than to take the ancients along with us. We think it is a good method to secure our rule of faith against impostures of all kinds, whether of enthusiasm or false criticism, or conceited reason, or oral tradition, or the assuming dictates of an infallible chair. If we thus preserve the true sense of Scripture, and upon that sense build our faith, we then build upon Scripture only; for the sense of Scripture is Scripture. Suppose a man were to prove his legal title to an estate, he appeals to the laws; the true sense and meaning of the laws must be proved by the best rules of interpretation; but after all it is the law that gives the title, and that only. In like manner, after using all proper means to come at the sense of Scripture (which is Scripture), it is that, and that only which we ground our faith upon, and prove our faith by. We allege not Fathers as grounds, or principles, or foundations of our faith, but as witnesses, and as interpreters and faithful conveyors. (qtd. in Middleton, ibid.)
Of course, little did I realize at the time--nor did anyone else, I think--that the early Church had no New Testament written, but only the written Old Testament, as we would call it, and the oral tradition of the Apostles for at least the first 20 years of her existence. Now what?
Tradition, as you’ve guessed, was considered a bad thing, so I don’t know what I would have done had I known of the conundrum. Of course, no one had actually done any historical study, so the way the New Testament Church worshipped, worked, dealt with discipline, etc., seemed to be made up when the need arose in our congregation to know that information.
When I found out much later that the New Testament Church looked a lot like those traditional Churches with their “dead” liturgy and empty prayers; looked a lot like the Jewish synagogues and the Jewish Temple liturgy, I was quite shocked. This made so much more sense than the “make it up as you go” school of liturgy which I had been a part of all the way through college.
So, then, if the Scripture was my authority, and the early Church looked something much different than I had been taught in Church, what had I learned? I had learned that the past, the history of the Church, shapes the Church now--or it ought to. I had rather be doing, living, continuing steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, not someone else’s.
Thus, we have a need for the authority of tradition. I’m not talking Advent Wreaths and Christmas Carols. I am talking about the need to listen to what the Church has always said about the Scriptures, in particular. There is much more to be talked about, for sure, but let’s just stick there for a moment.
The Church I grew up in had little to no use for anything labeled “tradition.” Yet, if I want to know how to interpret the Apostles writings, who am I to listen to? Do I trust myself? Do I trust the Pope? Do I trust the pastor down the street?
Of course, in contemporary America, this becomes a real dilemma for a lot of people, because everything under the sun is said to be the doctrine of the Son.
I’ve learned that the Fathers of the Church are to be trusted. As a son of a Church that went through and was shaped by the Reformation, I have to own the desire of the English Reformers (and many others, by the way), however poorly they managed to work it out in certain cases. And that desire was to return to the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church. To do so, they returned to the Fathers, and argued their case against the anabaptists, the Roman polemicists and the Puritans.
In today’s world of polemical arguments amongst the Catholic traditions (Eastern, Roman, Anglican), in particular, the Fathers are constantly called in to buttress or make an argument, to defend a practice or doctrine, etc.
In defense of the Anglican view and use of the Fathers, let me again quote Father Arthur Middleton, who says of the Fathers of the Church: "They are not infallible, but are seen as the best-appointed judges since the apostles, and it is not the role of a judge to make laws, ...but to interpret those already made” (Fathers and Anglicans, 229).
We are not looking to the Fathers to be the revealed word of God, but we look to them as the authoritative interpreters of the same. Obviously, many of the Fathers were involved in making canon law, etc., but Middleton is talking of the the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures are the final authority and that final authority needs an interpreter. This is a happy place to come after so many various authorities asserting themselves, particularly in American Christianity.
Many want to make much more or much less of the Fathers. I leave you with 18th century Anglican divine Daniel Waterland’s thoughts:
We allow no doctrine as necessary, which stands only on Fathers or on tradition, oral or written; we admit none for such, but what is contained in Scripture, and proved by Scripture, rightly interpreted. And we know of no way more safe in necessaries, to preserve the right interpretation, than to take the ancients along with us. We think it is a good method to secure our rule of faith against impostures of all kinds, whether of enthusiasm or false criticism, or conceited reason, or oral tradition, or the assuming dictates of an infallible chair. If we thus preserve the true sense of Scripture, and upon that sense build our faith, we then build upon Scripture only; for the sense of Scripture is Scripture. Suppose a man were to prove his legal title to an estate, he appeals to the laws; the true sense and meaning of the laws must be proved by the best rules of interpretation; but after all it is the law that gives the title, and that only. In like manner, after using all proper means to come at the sense of Scripture (which is Scripture), it is that, and that only which we ground our faith upon, and prove our faith by. We allege not Fathers as grounds, or principles, or foundations of our faith, but as witnesses, and as interpreters and faithful conveyors. (qtd. in Middleton, ibid.)
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Archbishop Laud is loved by at least a few....
Another quote today from Father Arthur Middleton’s Fathers and Anglicans: The Limits of Orthodoxy. Middleton is reviewing Archbishop William Laud’s legacy and impact on the Church of his day and ours. Of course, Laud is well hated by many who find themselves enamored of the Puritan camp—no matter what the stripe of Puritan. Middleton, however, cuts to the chase and deals with the theological realities of the disputes between Puritans and High Churchmen. Essentially, is the Church going to follow the patristic and ancient Church (High Churchmen, such as Laud) or is it going to follow the contemporary model of Geneva (Puritans)?
Here, Middleton deals with Laud’s legacy of the Altars at the East end of the Church surrounded by rails and the theological implications therein.
...The greatest triumph for Laud is the adoption by the whole English church of a prominent position for the altar at the east end, fenced by communion rails where communicants kneel to receive the Sacrament. This illustrates the central focus of Laud’s theology in the Incarnation as an objective fact and its organic connection with the Church as Christ’s mystical body. This is patristic and quite alien to the Puritans, whose theology was certainly Christocentric in making the value of Christ to the soul a central and dominating idea, but their emphasis was on our experience of Christ as Saviour, rather than on the Incarnation as objective fact. Hence for them the efficacy of the sacraments was dependent upon the preaching of the Word, reducing the sacraments to a position of inherent inferiority, so that the sermon becomes more important than the Sacrament. The logical consequence is…that preaching becomes valued by the Puritans almost to the exclusion of worship, prayer, and sacrament. Therefore to Laud the position of the altar and the ordering of the Liturgy is crucial in demonstrating that the Christian life and ministry must be centred in the sacraments, whose efficacy does not depend upon an instructive imparting of knowledge, but on divine grace. (154-155)
Here, Middleton deals with Laud’s legacy of the Altars at the East end of the Church surrounded by rails and the theological implications therein.
...The greatest triumph for Laud is the adoption by the whole English church of a prominent position for the altar at the east end, fenced by communion rails where communicants kneel to receive the Sacrament. This illustrates the central focus of Laud’s theology in the Incarnation as an objective fact and its organic connection with the Church as Christ’s mystical body. This is patristic and quite alien to the Puritans, whose theology was certainly Christocentric in making the value of Christ to the soul a central and dominating idea, but their emphasis was on our experience of Christ as Saviour, rather than on the Incarnation as objective fact. Hence for them the efficacy of the sacraments was dependent upon the preaching of the Word, reducing the sacraments to a position of inherent inferiority, so that the sermon becomes more important than the Sacrament. The logical consequence is…that preaching becomes valued by the Puritans almost to the exclusion of worship, prayer, and sacrament. Therefore to Laud the position of the altar and the ordering of the Liturgy is crucial in demonstrating that the Christian life and ministry must be centred in the sacraments, whose efficacy does not depend upon an instructive imparting of knowledge, but on divine grace. (154-155)
Thursday, July 05, 2007
A man is what he prays.
A man is what he prays. The person who prays is a theologian and a theologian is a person who prays, or to put it in the words of St. John Klimakos, the climax of purity is the threshold of theology. ...The character of [Lancelot] Andrewes’s theology can only be grasped when it is realized that for him the mind and intellect must also be offered to God. Human reason must be subjected to prayer.
This quote is one I would like to have used in my workshop at the conference mentioned in my last post. It points us back to prayer as the experience which shapes everything--importantly, theology.
As we remember to pray for our country this week, perhaps we ought to remind ourselves that until we Christians get on our knees and start getting first things right, we will have little impact on our culture and society.
To continue the quotes, from the next page, Father Middleton continues talking of Andrewes, particularly referencing his private devotional prayers, published after his death:
There is no evidence here of our modern pseudo-problem, a conflict between personal and public prayer; not only is the liturgy Andrewes’s theological teacher, it is also his tutor in prayer. Dean Church has commented on the liturgical quality of these devotions,
Father Arthur Middleton, Fathers and Anglicans: The Limits of Orthodoxy, p. 154
This quote is one I would like to have used in my workshop at the conference mentioned in my last post. It points us back to prayer as the experience which shapes everything--importantly, theology.
As we remember to pray for our country this week, perhaps we ought to remind ourselves that until we Christians get on our knees and start getting first things right, we will have little impact on our culture and society.
To continue the quotes, from the next page, Father Middleton continues talking of Andrewes, particularly referencing his private devotional prayers, published after his death:
There is no evidence here of our modern pseudo-problem, a conflict between personal and public prayer; not only is the liturgy Andrewes’s theological teacher, it is also his tutor in prayer. Dean Church has commented on the liturgical quality of these devotions,
...incorporating bursts of adoration and Eucharistic triumph from the Liturgies of St. James or St. Chrysostom, recalling the most ancient Greek hymns of the Church, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Evening Hymn preserved at the end of the Alexandrian manuscript of the New Testament--all this is in the strongest contrast ot anything that I know of in the devotions of the time. It was the reflection, in private prayer, of the tone and language of the Book of Common Prayer, its Psalms, and its Offices; it supplemented the public book, and carried on its spirit from the Church to the closet.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Anglican Way Institute Conference
We know things were busy this year when none of my faculty’s blogs were touched for months at a time. Mine has been DOA since January. I’m breathing a bit now that school’s over and the choir tour is done and my trip to Dallas is completed.
I am now hoping to be just a bit more consistent in my posts. The first thing I would like to make mention of is the Anglican Way Institute Conference. This was the reason for my trip to Dallas. The Institute
Perhaps the most encouraging thing for me was the number of attendees. The conference did not have exceptional advertisement, nor even lead time, yet there were some 60 attendees between the ages of 18 and 35. Add in the old priests and their younger wives, and there were almost 100 in attendance.
The topic under discussion by Bishop Ray Sutton was worship. In the keynote addresses, Bishop Sutton walked through the topic from a number of angles. He showed the basic, biblical pattern of worship and how the Anglican liturgy is in historic continuity not only with the biblical pattern, but with the oldest liturgies of the Church--especially the connection with the liturgy of St. John the Divine of Ephesus. He talked of the shaping power of the worship of the Church and the types of prayer that Churchmen have always participated in--Eucharistic, daily corporate prayer, and family or personal prayer. He connected a lot of dots for a lot of people and that too was encouraging. Perhaps some notes of Dr. Sutton’s talks will appear on the Anglican Way Institute website.
All the old priests were there to give workshops. We had them in evangelism, incarnational theology, architecture, the arts, education, courting, John Donne, and my workshop, which was titled “ Everyday Anglicanism From Worship to Work: Embodying the Counter-cultural Ethos of the Gospel.” Perhaps in my next post, I’ll sketch out what we talked about.
The only thing missing was a call to arms, so to speak. I’m sure that will come later, but I missed the call to follow Christ no matter what. What has God called each of us to? Have we listened? Are we too afraid? The young folks at the conference are just idealistic enough and perhaps trusting enough to follow God where He leads. Let us hope that we all are. After all, we only go around this merry-go-round once. Will we consider the calling God gives us? Will we seek to join those ordinary people that have done great things for the Kingdom merely because they were obedient to God? That might mean joining a monastery for one and managing billions of dollars for another. What we do know, though, is that God has something particular for us to do; we need to listen to the Holy Spirit and then to act.
All in all, a great start to something that needs to continue, not just in a yearly conference, but organically, amongst those who attended and those who they will pull into the orbit of the conversation. I trust and pray that it will be so, as the Church desperately needs to have a strong foundation of young people serving and leading.
I am now hoping to be just a bit more consistent in my posts. The first thing I would like to make mention of is the Anglican Way Institute Conference. This was the reason for my trip to Dallas. The Institute
Perhaps the most encouraging thing for me was the number of attendees. The conference did not have exceptional advertisement, nor even lead time, yet there were some 60 attendees between the ages of 18 and 35. Add in the old priests and their younger wives, and there were almost 100 in attendance.
The topic under discussion by Bishop Ray Sutton was worship. In the keynote addresses, Bishop Sutton walked through the topic from a number of angles. He showed the basic, biblical pattern of worship and how the Anglican liturgy is in historic continuity not only with the biblical pattern, but with the oldest liturgies of the Church--especially the connection with the liturgy of St. John the Divine of Ephesus. He talked of the shaping power of the worship of the Church and the types of prayer that Churchmen have always participated in--Eucharistic, daily corporate prayer, and family or personal prayer. He connected a lot of dots for a lot of people and that too was encouraging. Perhaps some notes of Dr. Sutton’s talks will appear on the Anglican Way Institute website.
All the old priests were there to give workshops. We had them in evangelism, incarnational theology, architecture, the arts, education, courting, John Donne, and my workshop, which was titled “ Everyday Anglicanism From Worship to Work: Embodying the Counter-cultural Ethos of the Gospel.” Perhaps in my next post, I’ll sketch out what we talked about.
The only thing missing was a call to arms, so to speak. I’m sure that will come later, but I missed the call to follow Christ no matter what. What has God called each of us to? Have we listened? Are we too afraid? The young folks at the conference are just idealistic enough and perhaps trusting enough to follow God where He leads. Let us hope that we all are. After all, we only go around this merry-go-round once. Will we consider the calling God gives us? Will we seek to join those ordinary people that have done great things for the Kingdom merely because they were obedient to God? That might mean joining a monastery for one and managing billions of dollars for another. What we do know, though, is that God has something particular for us to do; we need to listen to the Holy Spirit and then to act.
All in all, a great start to something that needs to continue, not just in a yearly conference, but organically, amongst those who attended and those who they will pull into the orbit of the conversation. I trust and pray that it will be so, as the Church desperately needs to have a strong foundation of young people serving and leading.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Regarding the use of icons...
This was part of my response to an emailed question regarding the use of icons and the general Anglican position. I confess that I do not pretend to know the general Anglican position these days...but I do value the traditional Anglican position as a creedal and conciliar Church. Thus, I find this snippet of Bishop Grafton's, which follows, helpful.
Contra Rome...
...The belief of the East is different. "The Eastern cense Icons, but they never pay either dulia or hyperdulia to them, neither does the work of any Eastern divine of authority advocate more than due reverence." In the Orthodox Catechism these questions are asked:
"Q. Is the use of holy Icons agreeable to the second Commandment?
"A. It would then, and then only, be otherwise, if anyone were to make Gods of them; but it is not in the least contrary to this commandment to honor Icons as sacred representations, and to use them for the religious remembrance of God's works and of His saints; for when thus used, Icons are books, written with the forms of persons and things instead of letters.
"Q. What disposition of mind should we have, when we reverence Icons?
"A. While we look on them with our eyes we should mentally look to God and to the Saints, who are represented in them."
At the Reformation the Anglican Church, while repudiating the "Romish doctrine," never repudiated the Seventh Council, but continued to pay reverence and honor to holy persons and sacred things. She has never yielded to Puritanism or Quakerism in their rejection of the reverence and titles to be given to the saints. She formally sets buildings apart from all common and secular uses by solemn acts of consecration. Unlike Protestants, she, with Episcopal benediction, hallows her churches and treats them by outward signs with reverence. We bless our fonts, altars, instruments of music, bells, holy vessels, and vestments We place the holy sign of our redemption and the representations of the Saviour and the Saints on our Church walls, over our altars, and on the church windows. We bow, according to our old English custom, towards the altar, kiss the word of God, sign our children with the sign of the Cross. By the permissible use of incense in our churches they are censed, and so all that is within them.....
Contra Rome...
...The belief of the East is different. "The Eastern cense Icons, but they never pay either dulia or hyperdulia to them, neither does the work of any Eastern divine of authority advocate more than due reverence." In the Orthodox Catechism these questions are asked:
"Q. Is the use of holy Icons agreeable to the second Commandment?
"A. It would then, and then only, be otherwise, if anyone were to make Gods of them; but it is not in the least contrary to this commandment to honor Icons as sacred representations, and to use them for the religious remembrance of God's works and of His saints; for when thus used, Icons are books, written with the forms of persons and things instead of letters.
"Q. What disposition of mind should we have, when we reverence Icons?
"A. While we look on them with our eyes we should mentally look to God and to the Saints, who are represented in them."
At the Reformation the Anglican Church, while repudiating the "Romish doctrine," never repudiated the Seventh Council, but continued to pay reverence and honor to holy persons and sacred things. She has never yielded to Puritanism or Quakerism in their rejection of the reverence and titles to be given to the saints. She formally sets buildings apart from all common and secular uses by solemn acts of consecration. Unlike Protestants, she, with Episcopal benediction, hallows her churches and treats them by outward signs with reverence. We bless our fonts, altars, instruments of music, bells, holy vessels, and vestments We place the holy sign of our redemption and the representations of the Saviour and the Saints on our Church walls, over our altars, and on the church windows. We bow, according to our old English custom, towards the altar, kiss the word of God, sign our children with the sign of the Cross. By the permissible use of incense in our churches they are censed, and so all that is within them.....
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Dr. James Taylor's Response to Lake Almanor and St. Andrew's Academy
I was thrilled, as was the rest of the faculty and the St. Andrew's Family, to have Dr. James Taylor visit us in November and be our speaker for our St. Andrew's Day Conference as well as visit the school and sit in on classes, join discussions, etc.
Below is his response, which he wrote as his weekly column in his local paper in Kansas. Thank you Dr. Taylor for such kind words.
NOTES FROM NORTHEAST KANSAS… and Lake Almanor, California
By James S. Taylor
The name is enchanting – Lake Almanor. It could have been used in a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, but when I arrived at this destination nearly two weeks ago in northern California, I was informed otherwise.
According to local historical sources, in 1914 the vice-president of Great Western Power Company was persuaded to finance a hydroelectric facility that, with the building of a dam to catch the flow of the Feather River, became one of the largest man made lakes in California. It is approximately 52 square miles, rests at an elevation of 4,500 feet, is thirteen miles long and six miles wide, and is 90 feet deep at its deepest point.
There was something of a poetic and romantic history to the lake after all: Guy C. Earl, the vice-president, named the lake after his three daughters, Alice, Martha, and Eleanor – thus, Almanor.
And 1914 was truly an explosive year for the region. The Mt. Lassen National Park sources record that in May of that year the volcano Lassen Peak burst into eruption, beginning a seven-year cycle of sporadic volcanic outbursts. The climax of the episode took place in 1915, when the peak blew an enormous mushroom cloud some seven miles into the stratosphere.
My two room shore side resort apartment at the Dorado Inn offered a wide picture post card view of the Lake, the mountains and Mt. Lassen. The sunsets were such a palette of pastels melting into deep reds spreading over the purple mountains and reflected in the Lake, a tourist, like me, will pull the car off the road to watch, and the locals never tire of commenting on the beauty.
But the lasting impression for me were the trees, Ponderosa pines, Sugar pines, cedar, rising 100 and 150 feet high on both sides of the highways and standing like brave and stalwart sentinels up the sides of the mountains. They are so silent and calm in the morning fog and mist, so deeply green and imperious against a blue sky and high sun. Logging has been the business up here for a long time, but if there have been abuses like clear cuts, I did not see them from the road and suspect over the years laws have been enacted to protect against such destructive greed. These silent giants are obviously thoughtfully thinned to space them just enough not to choke or clutter the growth. As a result, the eye is led over the tawny colored pine needle floor and into the cool darkness of the forest.
The highways, which are in good shape, snake around the sides of mountains through the tall hallways of the pines. Now and then a logging truck grinds up a grade then roars down the other side carrying its stacked load of harvested trees, the circumference of the smallest log bigger than a 50 gallon barrel drum.
I had not come here just to look at the trees and the mountains and the Lake, though that would be a perfectly good thing to do and nothing else. My immediate purpose was to visit a school, a rather special one now in its sixth year. It is small by some standards, maybe by any standards. There are about 30 students, K – 12. There are six teachers. Each morning before school and every day after school, they sing together. They sing hymns according to The Hymnal of the Anglican Church and they say prayers from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The boys and girls of St. Andrew’s Academy wear uniforms and are among the happiest and most cheerful group of students I have met. After listening to their singing, seeing how song transforms their faces and their behavior, there is no question in my mind where their composure comes from. Oh, they have their mischief and weaknesses, and they have some of the particular wounds children carry in the modern world; and like other students they need direction, correction, and encouragement.
But I came as an educational consultant or some such inflated title, and as is usually the case, I am the one who learns. And what was that? I saw that the school has sought to be a faculty of friends and the light of this friendship naturally extends to the students who, by the way, stand when teachers or adults enter the room and address them formally, more or less naturally and without stiffness. They have developed a curriculum based on the liberal arts appropriate for grammar and high school. This can be seen in their grammar school writing program based on Aesop Fables and their high school Latin class now translating Caesar; the richness of the literature and philosophy classes; the approach to math and science that along with the rigor does not neglect seeing the beautiful in numbers and order. And they sing, sing and sing. Every student is a member of the school choir under the direction of the headmaster, Fr. Brian Foos.
The morning of my return to Kansas my airplane lifted up to clear the mountains around Reno, Nevada, a little over a hundred miles from Lake Almanor. I looked out the window at the rounded tops of the sparse Sierra Nevada range flattening out as we gained altitude and I thought about how bright the students would have sung in choir that morning, shoulders squared, chins slightly lifted, standing straight and strong as the tall green pines in the forests around Lake Almanor. It seemed that all of creation was singing then. And maybe it was.
Below is his response, which he wrote as his weekly column in his local paper in Kansas. Thank you Dr. Taylor for such kind words.
NOTES FROM NORTHEAST KANSAS… and Lake Almanor, California
By James S. Taylor
The name is enchanting – Lake Almanor. It could have been used in a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, but when I arrived at this destination nearly two weeks ago in northern California, I was informed otherwise.
According to local historical sources, in 1914 the vice-president of Great Western Power Company was persuaded to finance a hydroelectric facility that, with the building of a dam to catch the flow of the Feather River, became one of the largest man made lakes in California. It is approximately 52 square miles, rests at an elevation of 4,500 feet, is thirteen miles long and six miles wide, and is 90 feet deep at its deepest point.
There was something of a poetic and romantic history to the lake after all: Guy C. Earl, the vice-president, named the lake after his three daughters, Alice, Martha, and Eleanor – thus, Almanor.
And 1914 was truly an explosive year for the region. The Mt. Lassen National Park sources record that in May of that year the volcano Lassen Peak burst into eruption, beginning a seven-year cycle of sporadic volcanic outbursts. The climax of the episode took place in 1915, when the peak blew an enormous mushroom cloud some seven miles into the stratosphere.
My two room shore side resort apartment at the Dorado Inn offered a wide picture post card view of the Lake, the mountains and Mt. Lassen. The sunsets were such a palette of pastels melting into deep reds spreading over the purple mountains and reflected in the Lake, a tourist, like me, will pull the car off the road to watch, and the locals never tire of commenting on the beauty.
But the lasting impression for me were the trees, Ponderosa pines, Sugar pines, cedar, rising 100 and 150 feet high on both sides of the highways and standing like brave and stalwart sentinels up the sides of the mountains. They are so silent and calm in the morning fog and mist, so deeply green and imperious against a blue sky and high sun. Logging has been the business up here for a long time, but if there have been abuses like clear cuts, I did not see them from the road and suspect over the years laws have been enacted to protect against such destructive greed. These silent giants are obviously thoughtfully thinned to space them just enough not to choke or clutter the growth. As a result, the eye is led over the tawny colored pine needle floor and into the cool darkness of the forest.
The highways, which are in good shape, snake around the sides of mountains through the tall hallways of the pines. Now and then a logging truck grinds up a grade then roars down the other side carrying its stacked load of harvested trees, the circumference of the smallest log bigger than a 50 gallon barrel drum.
I had not come here just to look at the trees and the mountains and the Lake, though that would be a perfectly good thing to do and nothing else. My immediate purpose was to visit a school, a rather special one now in its sixth year. It is small by some standards, maybe by any standards. There are about 30 students, K – 12. There are six teachers. Each morning before school and every day after school, they sing together. They sing hymns according to The Hymnal of the Anglican Church and they say prayers from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The boys and girls of St. Andrew’s Academy wear uniforms and are among the happiest and most cheerful group of students I have met. After listening to their singing, seeing how song transforms their faces and their behavior, there is no question in my mind where their composure comes from. Oh, they have their mischief and weaknesses, and they have some of the particular wounds children carry in the modern world; and like other students they need direction, correction, and encouragement.
But I came as an educational consultant or some such inflated title, and as is usually the case, I am the one who learns. And what was that? I saw that the school has sought to be a faculty of friends and the light of this friendship naturally extends to the students who, by the way, stand when teachers or adults enter the room and address them formally, more or less naturally and without stiffness. They have developed a curriculum based on the liberal arts appropriate for grammar and high school. This can be seen in their grammar school writing program based on Aesop Fables and their high school Latin class now translating Caesar; the richness of the literature and philosophy classes; the approach to math and science that along with the rigor does not neglect seeing the beautiful in numbers and order. And they sing, sing and sing. Every student is a member of the school choir under the direction of the headmaster, Fr. Brian Foos.
The morning of my return to Kansas my airplane lifted up to clear the mountains around Reno, Nevada, a little over a hundred miles from Lake Almanor. I looked out the window at the rounded tops of the sparse Sierra Nevada range flattening out as we gained altitude and I thought about how bright the students would have sung in choir that morning, shoulders squared, chins slightly lifted, standing straight and strong as the tall green pines in the forests around Lake Almanor. It seemed that all of creation was singing then. And maybe it was.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Clericus in Houston
A gathering of clergy in Houston this last week was a wonderful time to see old friends, make new ones, and see the new Cathedral of the Diocese of Mid-America.
The Cathedral. The window was commissioned in the late 1800's and gifted to the cathedral from one of the oldest parishes in the diocese. The bottom pane contains a censor with the smoke from the incense ascending upwards through an Alpah and Omega to the diadem above. So our prayers ascend through the Son to the Father.
Old friends, Father John and Father Scott.
New friends, Mike, who will have his orders regularized soon and Father Rusty, priest in Houston.
The Cathedral. The window was commissioned in the late 1800's and gifted to the cathedral from one of the oldest parishes in the diocese. The bottom pane contains a censor with the smoke from the incense ascending upwards through an Alpah and Omega to the diadem above. So our prayers ascend through the Son to the Father.
Old friends, Father John and Father Scott.
New friends, Mike, who will have his orders regularized soon and Father Rusty, priest in Houston.
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