[Magdalen] Psalm - Whither Goeth Thou?

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Love and hate don't come into it.  I'm sure Fr. Will was trying to break
into what he thought was an undesirable cycle, but he wasn't able to
consider that the man had a reason for what he did. And we don't get to
judge that.  I'm sure, knowing Fr. Will (God be good to him) that the man
obviously felt ambushed, and responded in kind.  Still, it's an
illustration that we all come, wounded, to the church, and no one can judge
the battle the other is fighting, just to keep his head out of the water.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:38 AM, <sally.davies at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, it probably doesn't need saying but he's not actually talking to God,
> just to some self-projection that he calls God (maybe we all do that,
> frequently).
>
> As the Good Book says, if we can't love our brother that we can see, how
> can we love God whom we cannot see...
>
> IN terms of time, ourr traditional early service with Gloria, Psalm and all
> gets through in just over an hour. The "contemporary" 9.30 takes more than
> an hour and half, minus Gloria, Psalm and Creed but PLUS a string of
> choruses, some repeated several times, a stand-up Testimony session, and a
> lengthy (though usually interesting and well preached) sermon.
>
> The Communion is done before the Word so the children can share and then
> they go out to Youth and Sunday School. It's a very large church, many
> young families, three services on a Sunday and all well attended.
>
> Many Evangelical churches in this Province have a similar structure though
> IME doing Communion first is a bit unusual, the children usually go to
> Sunday School from the start and then come in for Communion. St John's does
> it this way to include them in the "praise and worship".
>
> The evening service is all "Scripture and song" though once a month there's
> a Eucharist as well. A fairr number of older people go to that one, too.
>
> Sallly D
> On Mon, 16 Mar 2015 at 03:00 James Oppenheimer-Crawford <
> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This sort of reminds me of when we had an interim a few years ago, Fr.
> > Will, as we called him, noticed a man who was a fairly regular attendee
> at
> > the early service.  However, he generally came just as the service was
> > starting and left just before it ended.
> >
> > So Fr. Will, desirous of making some contact with this faithful member of
> > the congregation, one Sunday managed to get things so that he was
> actually
> > at the back of the church as the man was leaving.  He approached him and
> > said that he had seen him at the services often but never was able to say
> > hello, and he just wanted to talk with him.
> >
> > The man fixed him with an icy stare: "I didn't come here to talk to you;
> I
> > came here to talk to God." And he then walked out.  Fr. Will was sad, but
> > realized the man just wanted to be there and not be engaged any further
> at
> > this time.
> >
> > James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
> > *"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
> > except in memory. LLAP**"  -- *Leonard Nimoy
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 12:19 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
> > magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > In a message dated 3/14/2015 10:17:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> > > jguthrie at pipeline.com writes:
> > >
> > >
> > > But  there will always be couch-potato parishes where the expectation
> is
> > a
> > > morning entertainment by the choir (and clergy), occasionally
> interrupted
> > > by
> > > talking.>>>>
> > >
> > >
> > > Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!   :-)
> > >
> > >
> > > David S.
> > >
> >
>