The Ballad of Whisky
You warm me from the inside out And fill me to the brim. You charm me with your Scottish clout, With your amber color dim. Now stoke the fire and pack your pipe, Fill your glasses well. Your drink is not of common…
The Clergyman and the Prayer Book
This piece is taken from “To My Younger Brethren: Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work” written in 1902 by Handley Moule, at the time the Bishop of Durham. Moule was one of the leaders of the “Evangelical” party alongside J.C. Ryle, what today we might call “Old Low Church,” although by the standards of modern…
Re-Visioning Lancelot Andrewes: A New Course at the Davenant Institute
Published in partnership with The Davenant Institute. My first encounter with Lancelot Andrewes was by accident. I admit (somewhat reluctantly) that I was actually on the trail of a Puritan and instead I happened upon the “stella praedicantium” (the star of preachers), as a contemporary once called him. It was in the lady chapel of…
Bleak Midwinter: why we need an Old High Church Advent
Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring….
Ecphrasis on ‘Tree Growing from Adam’s Grave’
(Friday Hours of the Compassion—Terce) in The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, vol. M, p. 87 Seasoned scenes release their power in yellow. Toward the end the sunset folds away all Footpaths to the city. A pale opossum Lumbers by as if the night will always Fall. There’s a lid—it looks some like a door—laid…
The Teeny Ghosts
Once I had a friend with a rollicking head of hair and shining eyes and an air of mischief that came from the turned-up nose and the near-laughter look on her face. Maeve saw no reason not to love and be loved, and she once confided in me that she had been pregnant seven times…
Finding Christ and Salvation in Job
Job was a righteous man who had it all, that is, until Satan was given full access to Job to test his faith. At his lowest moment–without family, health, or home–was Job blessed or cursed? Simple answers are simply inadequate. It is obvious that Job was blessed in the beginning and end of the narrative,…
Tract IX – Anglican Biblical Interpretation
Introduction My plan is to discuss in order the elements of Anglican Spirituality that I presented in Tracts 7 and 8, beginning with Holy Baptism. However, it occurs to me that to lay a foundation for a discussion of baptism, I should first offer a discussion of Anglican biblical interpretation. Not only is such a…
Altar and Offering
i. Through November’s arterial horizon traffic flickers. Mountain bare but for a bent cloud clipping the ridge. What would it mean to see clearly— to know nothing’s there other than what is. ii. A clearing between scrub and birches peeling (white sheets flagging) where sunset sparks. And those hollow tones: geese gathered at the river’s…
Hymns ‘of’ Thanksgiving and ‘for’ Thanksgiving
As we near the end of a surreal year of turmoil and disruption, it may be a little harder for Americans to give thanks this year (other than for a temporary cessation of political advertising). But of course God’s people have been commanded to give thanks for thousands of years, whether Noah’s family after the…