The Anglican Journal welcomes letters to the editor. Preference is given to letters under 100 words. All letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. Please include a mailing address.
I really enjoyed William Bedford’s write-up on what happens after you turn 65 [Welcome to Planet Senior Citizen, November 2009, p. 5].
He is so right. I celebrated my 93rd birthday recently, and I know getting treated differently doesn’t happen just to men.
Are you alright? Can I help you? Watch yourself! Did you take your pills? Guess she doesn’t remember, oh dear! Did you put your hearing aid in?
Dorelle S. Boyes
Port Credit, Ont.
With great interest I read the column by Harold Munn [Tales of the New Normal, October 2009, p. 9]. He rightly highlights the dangers of withdrawing from the world. Another approach that is also a concern is to simply rely on the world to tell us what we should do. The cross teaches us not simply to be nice people, but to be people that radically change the world, that are a light in the darkness. As Anglicans, we often talk about being the middle way. As one writer put it…”being in the world but not of the world.”
Alex Jakeway
Edmonton
A smile and an invitation to worship
, November 2009, p. 2.
Who’s going to come to church if the person urging them to do so is dressed as if living in the 1400s?
Why couldn’t Toronto suffragan bishop Philip Poole just wear his clerical collar and casual clothing? This is the whole problem in the Anglican church; we do not relate to people outside the church.
I am an 83-year-old woman who’s been an Anglican for a long, long time and I know the church has to change or it’s going to die.
Edith Chamberlain
Parksville, B.C.
The bishop and other diocesan officials in New Westminster claim to be tolerant and gracious [Anglican Journal News: Court rules properties remain with diocese of New Westminster]. In light of the B.C. Supreme Court’s recent decision, the diocese’s leaders should now show grace by offering to turn over the buildings in dispute to the four congregations that have left the diocese for the Anglican Network in Canada. There is no point in the diocese holding onto property for which it has no use. It’s simply un-Christian.
Garth Low
Toronto
[Bishop] Eric Bays’ statement that not everyone was forced to attend residential schools is like saying not all First Nations people were forced onto reserves in the 1870s.
In reality, residential school education ignored aboriginal world views, languages, values and so on. It created widespread social and psychological problems that continue today. And less than two per cent of residential school students actually graduated.
There have been new attempts to redefine the aboriginal people of Canada. Only aboriginal people know what will work. As stated by an elder, “We cannot change the past, but we can change tomorrow by what we do today.”
Decolonization is painful for both sides; we can only hope that it will bring closure to our people.
Carl McCorrister
Peguis, Man.
The Pope may have done the Anglican Church a great favour by offering to take in Anglicans who cannot adapt their theological thinking to accommodate female clergy and homosexual bishops.
Having a significant number who are unable to go along with the widening of the Church’s outreach is weakening the structure of the Anglican Communion.
Let us hope that as many of the discontented as possible will take up the Pope’s offer. Then the solid core of the Anglican Church will be free to be a leading progressive influence in the Christian world.
Dr. R.S. Mckegney
Toronto
Anglican Journal News: Vatican publishes plan for full communion with disaffected Anglicans
The question is not who we ordain but how we arrive at the decision. We deliberate and pray. We pray and pray some more. The Vatican’s process is fundamentally different from ours and allows for no mistakes. We vote and vote some more. Sometimes we change our minds, when we are persuaded by new evidence, scientific or otherwise. I am afraid many of us, married or not, would never fit into a system which allows no dissent.
Canon Petero A.N. Sabune
Ossining, N.Y.
Thanks for the beautiful story of Beth and Ruth [December 2009, p. 14]. You captured the facts and the spirit of their experience. Outstanding reporting!
Rev. Mary Louise Meadows
Vancouver
I am just feeling so upbeat about our church after reading the last two issues of the Anglican Journal. Just fabulous! The stories have reassured me that my beloved church will survive.
My husband and I just celebrated 50 years of marriage, and it is nearly that since Bob’s ordination in Nanaimo, B.C., in 1962. How things have changed. We are presently doing relief ministry at St. David’s Anglican in Castlegar, B.C., because the priest is on maternity leave. The days have gone when, as a 12-year-old, I offered myself to serve, and the bishop patted me on the head and said, “Sweet dear, but do you have any brothers?”
Patricia Purdy
Grand Forks, B.C.