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I carried that lesson back to my own life and parish. It’s all too easy for us Americans to switch jobs, switch neighborhoods, heck, even switch spouses when things aren’t going our way. I learned…

A new website opposed to Diocesan church-and-school closures. From their description:

A Group dedicated to ensuring that quality Catholic school education is available to Cape May County families, and endeavoring to save Wildwood Catholic and its traditions for the children.

They have two Facebook groups: SaveWildwoodCatholic and Keep Wildwood Catholic High School Alive. Here’s some pictures from a recent rally:

From Chuck’s post:

It isn’t that I’ve turned against “nurturing,” or what the term is supposed to evoke. It’s rather that the word has become like the tires on my car: they’ve gone round and round so many thousands of times the tread is worn off and they won’t hold to the road anymore.

My reply to Chuck:

The vagueness of it all seems usually to be the point. We want to sound deep and spiritual without really laying out what we believe or what spirit we’re actually talking about (I was a bit more rantery about the subject when I wrote that about Sodium Free Friends and followed up that we need a testimony against community). I saw with some amusement when my former employer spent hundreds of people hours to craft the most banal “nurture”-filled mission statement possible–there was a good use of time and funds. It’s not limited to Friends of course. My wife is fighting the good fight against banality in the Catholic Church, where “vibrant” has become the leading cliche among the bureaucrats. The rising tide of mediocrity is everywhere it seems.

Have you ever seen the Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator? It’d be fun to write one of these for Friends. The trouble is, people would probably start using it!

From Lizopp, talk about Lloyd Lee Wilson’s notion of “the Quaker gestalt”:

I would say in my earlier days among Friends, I yanked the “Quakerism is a part of Christianity” thread pretty hard, insisting that Quakerism could exist just fine without it being Christian. In hindsight, that was my way of saying I felt I belonged and was accepted by my local Quaker community, and it therefore followed that a belief Jesus didn’t have to be a requirement for being Quaker. Nowadays, as a more mature Friend, others have held my feet to the fire, saying that to be Quaker, I have to at least be willing to wrestle with the faith’s Christian roots. And I do.

My comment: I always thought LLW’s use of “gestalt” was a odd word choice but a very useful concept.

I end up at Catholic mass a lot these days. I’m in no danger of converting but I do appreciate a certain unity between the theology and form (not necessarily the actual practice) and I find myself get agitated when I see someone do something that shows disregard for the symbolism in the Catholic gestalt.

When we find another religious path interesting, or talk about a “golden age” in our own tradition’s past, I think we’re talking about a moment when the faith and outward practiced balanced in a complementary way—at least from our perspectiv.

I’m reading John Wilbur these days. Interesting to see him describe the problems with nascent Gurneyism. A lot of the worries he’s cataloging aren’t really all that serious, things like speakers that are a bit too charismatic, meetinghouses a bit too grand, too much or little emphasis on particular Quaker teachings. But I think he’s saw them as an imbalance of the Quaker gestalt that would quickly bring along major changes. When you think of faith and practice as a balance you can peer into the future sometimes.

“The cloud of speculation over Martino’s future first appeared in June after the 63 year-old prelate was spotted in Rome, where, according to multiple reports, he met with officials at the Congregation for Bishops after the dicastery’s intervention was sought.”

Nathan Schneider writes in the NYTimes:

Modern arguments and evangelists and New Atheists have duped us into thinking that the interesting question is whether God exists; no, what mattered for Anselm was how we think about God and about one another.

The answer I found in his proof is no answer at all, no truly abstract, autonomous assurance that I can have all to myself. I have to stitch it out of memories, hopes and loved ones, as he did. It is no self-thinking thought; it’s a pleasure built out of language and sharing.

Like so much else in the slow economy, a regional Catholic high school for Gloucester County is going to have to wait. “The project is on hold because of the recession,” said Andrew Walton, spokesman…

Quakers and Calvinism have had a long and difficult relationship. The Quakers appeared in England during the difficulties between the Puritans, the Anglicans, and the Roman Catholics, and as each group struggled for political ascendancy, the Quakers ended up being persecuted by each in turn. The Quakers killed in Boston in the 1650s were done in in the name of Calvinist Christianity. Today, many of the disputes seem dated, but not all, of course.

When the Diocese of Brooklyn proposed the closings last month, the move touched off outrage and tears among parents of students. Although religious instruction would be prohibited at these schools —…