Remembering Chaplains - There For You

Episcopal News Service has put up an article about a conference which took place at Washington Cathedral, attended by chaplains and their spouses. Chaplains are there during critical times - during disasters, in hospitals, on the scene with the armed services. Along with those who serve in campus ministries, chaplains provide services to others, yet their work and dedication doesn't often grab our attention or make headlines.

This conference focused on areas in which chaplains work - and will continue to work. It also provided an opportunity to celebrate the guidance and service of Bishop Suffragan of Federal Ministries George E. Packard, as he prepares to retire in May.

Click on this link to read the article: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_118996_ENG_HTM.htm. Thank you, Bishop Packard, and chaplains who serve so many in so many different capacities!

Trinity Institute Videos

Did you miss seeing parts of the 2010 Trinity Institute? Use this link to click in and see some presentations: http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/webcasts/videos/browse/faith-formation-education/trinity-institute-2010-building-an-ethical-economy

Dovetail of Ethical Economics and Community

This extract from A Place Called Community by Parker J. Palmer,[Pendle Hill Pamphlet no. 212, Pendle Hill Publications, 1977] speaks to some aspects, with a global perspective, of last week's Trinity Institute: "Building and Ethical Economy: Theology and the Marketplace".


In true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as that place where the person you least want to live with lives! . . .

Community reminds us that we are called to love, for community is a product of love in action and not of simple self-interest. Community can break our egos open to the experience of a God who cannot be contained by our conceptions. Community will teach us that our grip on truth is fragile and incomplete, that we need many ears to hear the fullness of God's word for our lives. And the disappointments of community life can be transformed by our discovery that the only dependable power for life lies beyond all human structures and relationships.

In this religious grounding lies the only real hedge against the risk of disappointment in seeking community. That risk can be borne only if it is not community one seeks, but truth, light, God.

Do not commit yourself to community, but commit yourself to God. . . . In that commitment you will find yourself drawn into community."

A Financial "411" on The Farm

Trinity Church, Wall Street has just concluded its Trinity Institute's 40th National Theological Conference"Building an Ethical Economy: Theology and the Market Place", which was held January 27-29th.

Carol Stone, author of the feature Ways of the World here on The Geranium Farm has written an article which covers this conference. Use this link to read her succinct remarks: http://ways-of-the-world.blogspot.com/