Before & After Monday

I'm thinking it's "cruel and unusual punishment" to make the Monday of The Week Before Holy Week (when everything you have to get done before Holy Week has to get done) ALSO be The Monday After We Turn the Clocks Ahead (when you feel like you're an hour behind all day!)

Nothing to be done about it, I suppose. But here are a few Bits & Pieces for this "Before & After" Monday:

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The bishops continue to meet at Camp Allen ... Report from Day Three is offered here by Episcopal News Service. They'll be done on Wednesday.

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An Open Letter to the House of Bishops was posted to Walking With Integrity yesterday and included in its introduction:

Prayers ascend for your work on behalf of the whole church at Camp Allen this week. I am presuming to write this afternoon to reflect briefly on the "faith based reconciliation" aspect of your work together -- a process I am very familiar with as both Brian Cox and Joanne O'Donnell are diocesan colleagues of mine here in Los Angeles.

I am deeply convinced of the efficacy of the work of reconcilers.net and believe giving the whole House of Bishops the shared experience and vocabulary of this reconciliation process is a great gift to the church and to the communion. I also want to "enter into the record" the long history which Integrity & CTB leadership have with participating in the kind of process you have undertaken at Camp Allen.

I write because I want to make sure that the hard work that has been done by scores of committed progressive leaders over this last decade+ toward reconciliation with the conservative minority in the Episcopal Church is recognized. And I write because I want to reiterate the commitment my predecessor, Michael Hopkins made in 2002 in his "Message to the Church:

"We are absolutely committed to this Church and we are absolutely committed to the Continuance of as broad a diversity—including theological—as is possible for us to maintain together. This commitment is, in part, a commitment to continued messiness and frustration … Liberals and conservatives, progressives and traditionalists, must learn to live together in this Church or there will be no Church in which for us to live. But learning to live together must mean “mutual deference” not moratoriums or some insistence that we all convert to being “moderates.”

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On this Monday-Before-Holy Week, treat yourself to The Radical Orthodox Rabbi -- a true blessing of a reflection by Elizabeth Kaeton over at "Telling Secrets."

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Finally, I invite your prayers for continued healing for our friend, priest, brother and colleague, Gayland Poole -- as he recovers in Fort Worth from the double-whammy of triple bypass followed by a perforated ulcer. Katie Sherrod (Gayland's wife partner) brings us up to date on his progress over at Desert's Child with "Pushing toward the light"

WHATEVER your Monday Before & After holds may it also hold light, love and blessing.