Well Done, Jonathan Baker.

Pusey House

The retreat's over, more's the pity; it was led by an old friend from years ago, Jonathan Baker, the newly consecrated Bishop of Ebbsfleet. He's also chief of Pusey House, Oxford. Baker's meditations were outstanding and were themed on the Feasts of Our Lady.  

Assumption - Titian

All very uplifting and, for me at least, a welcome reminder of the role of Mary in showing us the meaning of the Christian life. Baker also quoted Hans Urs Von Balthasar, a great theologian whose writing I'm guilty of neglecting. Here's an excerpt on beauty to help make up the deficit:

"Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past--whether he admits it or not--can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love."

Blake - Crucifixion

I like that and, of course, the beauty of the Lee.

God bless,

LSP 

Clergy Deployment

Once a year the clergy of the diocese of Fort Worth go on retreat at Montserrat, which is a Jesuit house on Lake Dallas. It's a silent retreat, except for the first evening, which features the civilised custom of a cocktail hour followed by supper.

I sat with the bishops and suggested a new deployment strategy for incoming clergy. It went like this:

LSP: Bishops! I have a new deployment strategy for the diocese.

Bishops: Yes?

LSP: It's very simple.

Bishops: Good.

LSP: Yes.

Bishops: Well, what is it?

LSP: If you can't ride and you don't shoot you can't get in.

Bishops: Ah.

The assorted prelates seemed to like the wisdom of my plan and I look forward to its implementation in the coming years.

Stay on the horse and shoot straight.

Cheers,

LSP

For The Bushwacker

SBW

Despite the often frivolous content of this blog, with its emphasis on the ridiculous ACoC, fighting apes and come as you may horse riding, I do take some things pretty seriously. Namely, admonitions from the Suburban Bushwacker - who by sheer creative energy went "from fat boy to elk hunter" in one fell swoop of finger to keyboard.

SBW had this to say:

"Very pleased to hear about further riflery. If anyone should by law be

required to be in possession of a sporterised 303 it's you (LSP). chop chop,

get on with the first one."

BSA Lee Speed

Bushwacker was and is right. I have no choice but to get on with the first one. That means getting a Lee that's already been sporterised, because I'm not about to desecrate a rifle in original condition. It means bluing the barreled action, upgrading the wood - Black Walnut with plenty of checkering. The barrel will have to be trimmed and crowned; it'll have to be optics ready and in possession of a new front sight. It must, of course, reflect its owner - a Brit in Texas.

That's the project and thanks to Tom a start's been made, a No. 4 Mk. 1 sporter at a very reasonable price. I'm looking forward to collecting that in a week or so and getting right down to it.

Thanks, SBW, for the mandate and serious attention to detail.

Good shooting,

LSP

Steenson Loves Schori.

Steenson

The United States now has an Ordinariate in which Anglicans can convert to the Roman Catholic church while keeping elements of their heritage. The newly minted leader of the U.S. Ordinariate is Geoffery Steenson, former TEC (The Episcopal Church) Bishop of the Rio Grande.

In a recent article in The Living Church, Steenson had this to say about his former boss, litigious abortion advocate, Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori.

“One of the people I’m still very grateful for is Katharine Jefferts Schori. She was absolutely wonderful... I could not have asked for better pastoral care from my presiding bishop.”

Absolutely Wonderful!

Resisting the urge to say "let's all break out the cuddly toys and go hug a tree while trying not throw up," I congratulate Fr. Steenson on his new appointment. 

Someone's Parker Hale awesomness

All you need is love and a custom Lee Enfield.

I love Lees.

LSP

Oh Canada!

Don't get me wrong, I love Texas. But sometimes I get the urge to travel into the icy vastness of Canada, which is what I did on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. 

Stephen Ave - Alright By Me

I like Calgary; you can walk about downtown, go to restaurants, shops and relax under the bison head at the Hyatt bar. I always think it's a cross between England and the U.S., except of course that it's an oil and gas boomtown.

Shops

But whatever, you can also visit Pro Line Shooters in Inglewood. It's a small gun shop on 9th Ave in Inglewood, not too far from the center of town and distinguished for its barbershop. This means that you can get your hair cut and then buy a gun. Back in the day the barber was a communist called Doug and we got on well, despite divergent politics. He was a great character but died a year or so ago, may he rest in peace. They sell Sigs there, which the owner told me he didn't much like. We swapped stories of Browning Hi Powers and the force of large caliber battle rifles. He was very against the 5.56 and thought it was introduced to suit the small stature of our one time South Vietnamese friends. That was new to me.

What's that huge new NSDAP structure in the background?

Speaking of Inglewood, St. John's church, which left the bizarrely tiny ACoC (Anglican Church of Canada) to join the Roman Catholic Church, has been allowed to keep its buildings. 

If I was a betting man, which I'm not, I wouldn't have wagered my fighting monkey on the odds of that. Well done ACoC for doing the right thing. Then, all too soon, it was back to Texas and the mission field.

Fighting Monkey

Good city, Calgary. Visit if you can and say a prayer for St. John's, Inglewood. Well done them for keeping their buildings and avoiding a lawsuit.

Cheers,

LSP

Merry Christmas!

I only heard the despicable "happy holidays" once this year. Result, as was the stunningly powerful gift of a Spyderco folder from my philosophic friend, GWB.

Shoot straight, stay on the horse and may God bless you all,

LSP

North Park Mall

Those of you who know Dallas might say that North Park Mall is "hell with the lid off" two days before Christmas. A right shopping frenzy. Not dissimilar, come to think of it, to downtown Norwich on a Saturday.

Norwich

Except for the money and the shops.

North Park before the rush

Try not to stumble on those Blahniks, kids.

Note -- next year, provided there is one, get the presents before the 23rd of December.

Just sayin',

LSP

Space Alien Flogs Dead Horse!

Space Alien

Celebrity Episcopalien, Rev. Susan Russell, well known gender politician, priestess and off-world activist, has hitched her Advent star to the dying hippy movement, "Occupy Wall Street." 

Insatiable

In a sermon on the final Sunday before Christmas, Russell stated, “[Occupy] is the kind of movement that we venerate in history, yet many who live comfortably fear it in the present. Occupy is no mere ‘protest.’ The brilliance of the movement is its refusal to be reduced to specific policy demands. Occupy remains an insatiable movement of liberating creativity, an irreducible process for generating justice."

Hippy

Insatiable... liberating creativity?

You be the judge.

LSP

House Of Gold

As we prepare for Christmas and try to forget the impending fiscal maelstrom and the likelihood of a Deathstar Blockbuster Bonanza strike against Iran, our minds are drawn to the birth of Christ. It's easy, perhaps, for Christians who focus on the transcendent glory of the Word made Flesh to forget the tenderness and intimacy of the event; to say nothing of the Cross and Passion which the Incarnation unfolds into. Austin Farrer holds all aspects together. In The Crown of the Year he writes:

“WHEN Mary laid Jesus Christ upon her knees, when she searched him with her eyes, when she fed him at the breast, she did not study to love him because she ought, she loved him because he was dear: he was her Son. His conception had been supernatural, perplexing, affrighting; it had called for faith in the incomprehensible, and obedience beyond the limit of human power. His nativity was human and sweet, and the love with which she embraced it was a natural growth, inseparable from the thing she loved. She was blessed above all creatures, because she loved her Maker inevitably and by simple nature; even though it needed the sword - wounds of the Passion to teach her fully that it was her Maker whom she loved. The Son of Mary is the Son of all human kind; we embrace him with the love of our kind, that we may be led up with Mary to a love beyond kind, a selfless love for the supreme Goodness, when we too shall have climbed the ladder of the cross.”

I love that.

LSP

An Army Of One

Spurred on by SBW's urging to "shoot the Lee" I filled the truck with guns and headed off to a parishioner's range. It was beautiful, just me, the guns and miles of misty countryside. I set up a silhouette and my ancient adversary, a Marlboro Light box.

After a brisk .22 warm up I moved on to the more serious business of SMLE firepower and was surprised to shoot my best groups with that rifle. Shot less well with an AR, oddly. Probably due to a lack of concentration. Neat little rifle though.

Finished off with a blast of the .45. Ferocious fun to see the flaming flash of the shot. Then the heavens opened and I began to wish, and not for the first time, for something in the 4x4 line. Hopefully that will arrive before the impending 2012 apocalypse.

But the Eschaton and lack of four wheel drive aside, I love shooting. Good for mind, body and soul. What did they used to say about America being a "nation of riflemen"? I like that, even if it's no longer true. 

Keep pulling the trigger,

LSP

Oh dear... Piers.

Described by some as a "Dark Lord" and "more hated than Skeletor", Piers Morgan isn't just facing dismal ratings at CNN, he's on the hot spot for his role in the the U.K.'s phone hacking scandal.

You can read all about this sordid tale of criminality, vice and gutter journalism over at Guido and, you never know, maybe Piers will have to leave America...

Please send him back for Christmas.

The nation holds its breath.

Cheers,

LSP

Hitchens Is Dead

Everyone knows that Christopher Hitchens has died. He was an outstanding writer, drinker, smoker and contributing editor to Vanity Fair. VF gushed this morning:

"Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor."

Hitchens, unlike his brother, didn't believe in God. Now he will find out. 

I'll say a prayer for his soul.

Dies irae, but remember Farrer's words, Advent is a time when "judgement runs out into mercy."

LSP