Posted on 05/24/2005 5:23:10 PM PDT by sionnsar
I guess I've been doing this sort of thing for too long because this cracked me up:
Listening and learning are gifts shared widely among Anglicans -- Christian people who number some 77 million in 164 countries around the world. Together these Christians form the Anglican Communion.
Oh, so you're going to make fun of listening now, Johnson? No, just Anglican Listening, the title of this page. One assumes that there are subtle distinctions between Anglican listening and Roman Catholic listening or Methodist listening or Presbyterian listening but I don't know what they are. I'll bet Quaker listening rocks, though.
But don't get me started on Pentecostal listening. Those people can't hear a word you say through all that tongue-speaking they do. But Anglicans apparently don't listen all that well if a page about Anglican listening has to explain to Anglicans who Anglicans are.
In the United States, Anglicans are known as Episcopalians. The terms are interchangeable: all Episcopalians are also Anglicans,
For the time being.
all part of a spiritual tradition that dates to the year 597 AD in England with St. Augustine’s arrival in Canterbury,
Um...hello? By any chance, do any of you remember 1533, 1534, around in there? England? Mr. H. T. Eighth of London boinking the help? Couldn't get a divorce? Act of Supremacy? Bye-bye Pope? Taking over English monasteries? Book of Common Prayer? Any of this ringing a bell? Hello? Anybody?
and to the early 1600s in the United States with the formation of the Jamestown Colony nearly 400 years ago.
The Episcopal Church -- which today numbers some 2.4 million people in nine provinces and 110 dioceses -- is now in a new time of listening and learning with its Anglican counterparts, and of affirming its deeply valued Anglican heritage.
"The Episcopal Church...is now in a new time of listening and learning...and of affirming its deeply valued Anglican heritage." Yeah. Riiiiight.
Part of the distinctive tradition of Anglican listening and learning is identified by the 16th century English theologian Richard Hooker, who described Anglicanism as rooted in scripture, reason and tradition.
Well, at least they didn't mention that damned stool again.
This triad of interrelationships is central to current conversations across the Episcopal Church as it seeks to respond faithfully to the request of Anglican leaders, via the 2004 Windsor Report, to learn more about sister and brother Anglicans internationally by participating in a careful process of intent listening.
And judging by ECUSA's response to the Windsor Report, Episcopalians are also "participating in a careful process of" even more intent total ignoring. If you'd like to punch up your listening, there's a Listening Center which was founded by Episcopalian named Kay Lindahl.
There seems to be an almost universal yearning for personal spiritual growth and development, which is nurtured in the experience of listening.
To God.
The Listening Center was called into being as a response to this need. The Center is your center - that inner most part of you where in the silence you remember who you are.
That's never really been a problem for me.
You become the center for listening.
Whatever that means.
The premise of this work is that listening is a creative force that transforms relationships. Listening is being fully present. Listening is a sacred art.
Well, of course it is. Darn near everything is a "sacred art" in the Episcopal Church these days.
It is what happens when two or more people are deeply listening to each other. It is an awareness that not only are we present to each other, we are present to something that is spiritual, holy, sacred.
If "listening...is what happens when two or more people are deeply listening to each other," then "The Sacred Art of Tautologies" should be hitting the bookstores any day now.
The Listening Center designs and presents programs throughout the United States and internationally. Kay Lindahl conducts classes, workshops and retreats on the sacred art of listening for religious, spiritual, community and business groups.
Judging by how little ECUSA listens to the rest of the Anglican world, the Listening Center might want to set up something remedial in New York as soon as possible.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. "Any of this ringing a bell? Hello? Anybody?"
LOL! Hey, the RCs remember!
If that helps, and I'm not sure it does.
But, offered in good fellowship.
See tagline!
"Well, at least they didn't mention that damned stool again."
Hey, at least they didn't mention "the cooling saucer"
Sorry, I'll stop now.
"Well, at least they didn't mention that damned stool again."
Or add that fourth leg, EXPERIENCE, to it. "Experience may very among people, but all are valid and equivalent."
A priest told me that.
Later
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