The Youth Replies, I Can

“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  Revelation 7:14

The tradition at my high school was that each graduation speaker had to discuss as his or her theme a famous saying of an American hero.  There was a rotating series of texts, and these were assigned by Mr. Snyder, the venerable senior class advisor, who had been at it since my mother was a student.  Even by 1996, this sort of thing was dreadfully old-fashioned, but no one really complained about it—it was just how it was at Clear Spring High School. 

I wasn’t told until two weeks before graduation which text I would have to discuss.  I wanted Daniel Webster’s words from the Dartmouth College case: “she is a small school, but there are those who love her.”  Whoever got that could write the tear-jerker.

But instead, I was assigned a bit of a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Thou must, 
The youth replies, I can.

The Consequences Stand

from The Living Church, 19 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia — Though the Anglican Communion continues to face deep divisions, the Anglican Consultative Council closed its meeting today with a deep resolve to walk together.

“Our conversations were enriching, not embattling,” said the Rt. Rev. Jane Alexander, an ACC delegate from Canada.

“I genuinely felt there was an outstanding graciousness and generosity shown on all sides,” said the Most Rev. Richard Clarke, Archbishop of the Church of Ireland. “It was a real victory for the spirit of Anglicanism.”

ACC Churns Out Resolutions

from The Living Church, 18 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia: In just a few hours, Anglican Consultative Council delegates passed a flurry of 44 resolutions, with an absence of acrimony and division.

Resolution C34, proposed by delegates from South Sudan, called upon the ACC to receive the report of the January Primates’ Meeting, including consequences for the Episcopal Church detailed by the primates’ communiqué. It affirmed “the commitment of the Primates of the Anglican Communion to walk together; and commits to continue to seek appropriate ways for the provinces of the Anglican Communion to walk together with each other and with the Primates and other Instruments of Communion.” As part of the consent agenda, the resolution was received without objection and passed without amendment.

Youth Concerns Not Limited to Global North

from The Living Church, 16 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia — Anglican churches risk losing youth from their churches if they fail to respond creatively to the challenges of emerging youth culture, according to the Rev. Robert Sihubwa, Youth Coordinator for the Province of Central Africa. “The Anglican Church in the Global South shares the same structures, liturgy, and theology with Anglicans in the North. Is what happened in the North going to happen in the Global South as well? Are we headed in a direction where we will also say, ‘We used to have young people in the church?’”

Anglican Consultative Council delegates joined with church leaders from across the Diocese of Lusaka today for a conference on mission and ministry at Holy Cross Cathedral in Lusaka. Though delegates from several parishes and church organizations made presentations, a drama and following panel discussion focused on the needs of youth attracted the most attention.

The drama, which was acted out by members of Lusaka’s Anglican Youth Fellowship, featured a young man abandoning the dull fellowship of his local Anglican parish to party with his friends on Sunday morning. He was drawn back, though, by a group of dancing young people, accompanied by a pastor rapping the words to Amazing Grace.

Youth Celebrate Creation

From The Living Church, 7 Apr. 2016

LUSAKA, Zambia — Solar energy, green manure, tree planting, and forcing extension agents to get out from behind their desks to serve the people will all be in the future of “Green Anglicanism.”
That’s the word of young Anglicans from across Central and Southern Africa at a conference held in conjunction with this week’s opening of the Anglican Consultative Council.

“Young Green Anglicans: Intentional Discipleship and Climate Change” drew 75 youth from South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Angola, Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe for a three-day conference at Lusaka’s Marian Shrine Retreat Center.

It's Not All About You: CCS Baccalaureate Sermon

 

“But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" They said to him, "We are able."  St. Matthew 20:22

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

You know, this really isn’t all about you.  This grand succession of banquets, awards ceremonies, sunshiny photo-ops, and sentimental speeches, all the parties, everything festooned in orange and black—it’s not really all about you.  It is of course, largely about you.  You have worked very hard, and achieved a great deal, and there is much to celebrate as you are commenced, launched out into the big world beyond these quiet hills. 

 But this is about the rest of us as well, your parents and teachers, your friends who have watched you grow up into such intelligent, strong, and capable men and women.  If you haven’t recognized this yet, you will after that tenth awkward photo with your strange aunt Sue, and seventh time your rather formidable social studies teacher gets teary-eyed.  And let’s not even think about your mother’s emotional state next Sunday afternoon.