Father Stephen, Mother Mandrine

Father Stephen, Mother Mandrine

It was fifty years in the past

When Stephen and Mandrine wed.

A marriage expected to last

Far into the future, this love has led.

Our Lord’s blessings upon them flowed

Like God’s love for His lamb.

This couple’s love for each other never slowed,

Yielding another generation in son Sam.

The gospel in marriage lives through people,

Each with their own praise to carry.

With their marriage bound under a steeple,

Mandrine gave birth to daughter Mary.

With two children delivered through grace,

To their mother with honor we curtsy.

But all was not yet complete in this case,

Until the arrival of baby Mercy.

There are grandchildren and generations to come,

For God has blessed this family with His love.

Stephen and Mandrine follow God’s sacred drum

Sharing our Father’s Spirit like a dove.

Family, mission, and service – their calling.

This is not some idle theory.

Any different work would be appalling.

This is the family Ireri.

May God the Father bless their marital union.

May God the Son be their salvation,

And May God the Spirit advocate in Holy Communion.

The Holy Trinity, their Foundation.

© Worth Earlwood Norman Jr

September 17, 2016

Birmingham, Alabama

Our parish, St. Peter's Anglican Church in Mountain Brook, Alabama, has had for more than a decade Kenyan families as members. Stephen and Mandrine Ireri celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on September 17, 2016 at our church. The ceremony was fully Christian and fully Kenyan. The Ireri's are parents to three adult children and many grandchildren. For them this celebration was also a family reunion as relatives came from near and far for this special occasion. Stephen is an assisting priest and has been active in Torati Vision International Torati Website click here.

The Emerging Chamber

The Emerging Chamber

Its parents were Athens and Jerusalem.

One the abstract, of logic and beauty.

The other the real life, hope, and love.

Sages provided concepts of order.

Patriarchs followed created order.

Jerusalem gifted Athens.

Heraclitus and Anaxagoras were on to something:

Science, philosophy, the cosmos.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle their beneficiaries.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob:

Obedient, patriarchs, wrestler.

David, Solomon, Jesus beneficiaries.

The marriage of Athens and Jerusalem,

The thought, the idea, and the true reality:

“The Way” the beneficiary.

“The Way” from the two cities

Westward tamed barbarians.

Europe the beneficiary.

Two thousand years

European mission.

The world, the beneficiary.

Two millennia passing,

Followers losing their way,

Forfeiting their benevolence.

The formerly Holy now deemed offensive,

Positive law overshadowing “The Way.”

Hush or be taken to jail!

Despite appearances,

No separation between secular and divine.

But secular subjugation close at hand.

Excluded from public square assembly,

Holy spaces soon to be quashed.

Prepare “The Way” for a new chamber.

A new catacomb.

A Tale of Two Restaurants

A Tale of Two Restaurants

Every once and a while

My love and I go out to eat.

We do not dine in high style,

A reasonable restaurant is more our beat.

One mostly a burger place,

The other southern border cuisine.

The first a fairly recent face.

The latter with well-tested corn, salsa, and bean.

Considering both with quality food,

Service reigns as the organized ship.

If servers to customers be rude,

We have the basis for leaving no tip.

Many visits went well,

Our 20% minimum thus exceeded.

But one day service went to hell,

And our 20% offering not needed.

Upon entering, we were placed at a booth.

I said, “No, I prefer over there that table.”

Silently she complied, it was her youth,

But for the servers to get our orders seemed unable.

After fifteen minutes waiting,

I began to shake and bake.

My patience grating,

From the premises we escape.

Then there is the other

So efficient and good,

No problems to bother

With, just good service and good food.

One wonders how that burger place thinks,

With poor service in this era.

Although both conduct business in our precinct,

We prefer to dine at Frontera’s.

Personal Truth?

Personal Truth?

At some point you’ve heard

“What is true for you may not be true for others.”

That statement is logically absurd.

Unfortunately, most people accept it and don’t bother.

The statement, though groundless in its assertion,

Requires an agent external to truth

Who simultaneously lies through verbal assertion.

Logically not truth, a sleuth.

Truth by its nature objective,

Not proven of its own, but revealed.

Belief in truth subjective,

Truth is for all. Thus our appeal.

Epistemology of Enlightenment Science

Epistemology of Enlightenment Science

Enlightenment or modern science rests

On faith-commitments

Which cannot themselves pass the tests,

The very methods of science being insufficient.

Two beliefs are foundational

On the development of science, the infringement?

That the universe is rational,

That the universe is contingent.

Rationality itself cannot be proven

By the methods endeared by science.

But it must be an assumed conclusion

That a faith-commitment is starting point compliant.

If contingency were not creation’s groan

But an emanation from an absolute spirit,

Then all would be totally known

Thus to science, not sincere it.

Pure contemplation, if thus so,

And not of scientific explanation,

Ultimate reality directly accessed, though,

No need then for laborious, scientific experimentation.

But if the Spirit of creation

Were a personal God, an alliance

Gifting a degree of autonomy through incarnation,

Then contingency is foundational to science.

Therefore, let it be known in our memories

That Enlightenment science motifs,

In a culture of centuries

Were born and shaped by these two beliefs.

A versed interpretation and re-presentation by Worth Earlwood Norman, Jr. of

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI 1989, page 20.

Beeson Divinity School Installs Anglican Chair Professor

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA August 30, 2016

The Fall Semester 2016 of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University began today at its morning Convocation. Two significant events occurred at the gathering in Hodges Chapel.

First, forty-two incoming first year students were welcomed by Dr. Timothy George. The new seminarians and their families come to Beeson from many states and from several nations around the world.

Secondly, the Reverend Dr. Gerald R. McDermott was installed as Anglican Chair of Divinity, one of five academic chairs at the school. Assisting Dr. George in the order of installation was the Most Reverend Doctor Foley Beach, Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America.

Although the service today was noticeably Anglican, Dr. George reminded everyone that the school is interdenominational.

Participants leading the service in addition to Dr. George were Dr.  Andrew Westmoreland, President of Samford University; Archbishop Beach; Bishop Alphonza Gadsden, Bishop of the Diocese of the Southeast (REC-ACNA); the Rev. Katherine Jacobs, Cathedral Church of the Advent-Birminghan (TEC); and Dr. Mark Quay, Rector, Saint Peter's Anglican Church-Mountain Brook, Alabama (ADOTS-ACNA).

Also attending the service were members of the Board of the Anglican Institute.

Prior to the installation portion of the service, Dr. Beach delivered his sermon on "Prayer." He told incoming students, and all present, that Christian leaders must always be "praying leaders." The Archbishop said that "prayer is work, not preparation for work."

Following the service a luncheon was given to honor Dr. McDermott and Archbishop Beach. In the late afternoon the Archbishop met with a gathering of Beeson Divinity School students for a question-and-answer session.

L-R: Dr. Timothy George, Dean, Beeson Divinity School;

Dr. Gerald R. McDermott, Anglican Chair of Divinity;

The Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach, Archbishop and Primate

Anglican Church in North America

The 42 Incoming Divinity Students

Fall Semester, 2016

Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

Birmingham, Alabama

ODE TO A COOL AGE

ODE TO A COOL AGE

It was a wonderful epoch of oversight hardly noticed,

Without scandal nor coerced compliance of the masses.

A Cool Age free from elite restraints and shackles,

A bountiful normalcy.

But it was followed by a chain of progressive rules

Led by those who claim to know all the better,

Forcing their active thoughts into mandatory adherence

Through the son of Abinoam.

In the interim was the City on a Hill,

Giving rise to promising normalcy again.

But its life once bright grew steadily dim.

Where went the Cool Age?

WENjr 8-27-2013