Adelita by Francisco Tárrega
Adelita
1
Author Archives: David
An insurance company haunted by Kafka’s ghost
This has nothing to do with the Anglican Church but I thought it might be of some interest to anyone valiantly wrestling with an obdurate insurance company.
We have had house insurance with Northbridge insurance using the broker Hub International for around 25 years. Upon a recent renewal, I discovered my rates had increased by 25%. The following is an account of the Kafkaesque experience of trying to find out why – it is a note to my contact at Hub asking her to cancel my policy (I have to sign a piece of paper, it seems):
Thanks, I presume this means you want a physical piece of paper returned via the post office? Welcome back to the 20th Century.
When we spoke I was walking the dog. Here is a more complete version of why I am cancelling:
1. My premiums have increased by 25%. Last Monday I phoned to ask why. By some fluke I did eventually connect with a real person who transferred me to someone else (not sure who). That person didn’t have any convincing explanation but she said she would look into getting a better rate and call me back on Friday.
2. She didn’t. Today (Monday) I called your office again a number of times – the 905 582 5500 #. The first couple of times I was placed in a queue. Eventually your end disconnected me.
3. Naively, I thought I’d try again and leave a message. After pressing the necessary number I was – you guessed it – disconnected.
4. I called the claims number just to see if I could reach a real person. I did. She explained she could not deal with anything but claims. She gave me another number – 877 495 8777. I tried it twice. Each time there was a ring no answer followed by a disconnect.
5. I then phoned Northbridge. They told me I had to speak you. I explained your phone system is broken. She transferred me to a Hub manager. I spoke to her voice mail.
6. With dogged determination, I called the 905 number again in order to try a directory search for someone called Silvy Wright who claims to be the “President and CEO”. Naturally, that got me nowhere and after a few minutes of generating some seemingly random DTMF codes, I was magically connected to an operator. She wasn’t too happy that someone had penetrated your company’s impressive defenses but she did grudgingly connect me to the voicemail of the “person who looks after me”: you.
7. You called me back while I was walking the dog; in hindsight, I should have put you on hold for 30 minutes.
8. Later this evening someone from Hub (Justine) in BC called me. Since I was sitting down at home I regaled her with the whole bizarre experience. She told me someone would call back tomorrow (Tuesday).
All this and I still don’t know why my premium has increased by 25%. I trust this will help you understand why, after 25 years of giving you my money, I am rather disenchanted with Hub.
Please pass this on to your management and phone technicians.
For the edification of others, I will be posting this on your Facebook site, Twitter feed, any review sites I have access to and a blog I run.Have a nice day.
Like or Share this:
And the award for the most idiotic Christian argument for abortion goes to…..
Rodney Dunklee who tells us that the “soul is mated to the body” at the “first breath after birth” so before then the baby is not a person.
This, apparently, is Scriptural because “Genesis teaches of God’s breath of life being breathed into clay bringing Adam alive thus reinforcing the union of breathing and life.”
This means it is fine to kill a baby, not just in the womb, but after she has been born, so long as she hasn’t taken her first breath. If you are quick off the mark and don’t take an immediate liking to your new daughter, just stick the knife in before she starts inhaling. A beating heart doesn’t matter; brain activity doesn’t matter; movement doesn’t matter; only the breath matters.
And we wonder why the world thinks Christians are gullible halfwits given to crass, obscene superstitions.
From here:
In response to the letter to the editor by Louis Cascarelli (“Please support candidates opposed to abortion Nov. 3,” The Daily News, Sept. 30), who was wondering why more clergy don’t preach against abortion: It may be those who’ve studied the Bible realize the pro-life position that all abortion is sin is more conservative than some Scriptures.
I believe Psalm 139:13-15 — “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb; 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well; 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth” — is referring to one’s soul being created out of a body in the depths of the Earth.
Being knit together is a process that concludes with the soul being mated to the body and it happens with a slap on the bottom and first breath after birth. Similarly, I and many others, believe your soul leaves after your lungs settle in the last exhale of death.
Genesis teaches of God’s breath of life being breathed into clay bringing Adam alive thus reinforcing the union of breathing and life.
Just as Christians believe one moment you’re a sinner but can be instantly born again as a child of God, the Bible is filled with miraculous transformations similar to a soul binding with the flesh with one’s first breath.
Yes, a woman’s egg is alive when it begins to grow. It’s internal tissue as one’s appendix is and what happens to it should be her choice.
Once the baby starts breathing and is mated with its eternal soul, the important part to God that was created in a secret place outside the woman’s body, our current laws protect it.
Like or Share this:
Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador is running out of cash and selling assets to stay afloat
This isn’t particularly surprising.
Although at the September 2019 synod, the diocese voted to marry same-sex couples in defiance of the General Synod vote that failed to approve same-sex marriage. I’m sure the diocese is shocked that this bold move has not brought in floods of same-sex couples, opening their wallets to stuff $50 bills into the bishop’s mitre.
From here:
Anglican diocese running out of cash, selling assets in ‘hemorrhage situation’
The Anglican Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador has announced it’s running out of money and may need to stem its losses with layoffs, closures and sale of assets.
In an Oct. 5 letter obtained by CBC News, the diocesan finance committee said COVID-19 lockdown measures — which prevented gathering for worship for months — had a “devastating impact” on the church’s finances.
“While a number of our parishes continued to receive offerings and donations via drop-off collections and electronic means, it is clear that COVID-19 has negatively impacted our stewardship,” the letter says.
Archdeacon Sam Rose told CBC the pandemic has exacerbated previous financial struggles resulting from a reduction in church attendance.
“Like most organizations the onset of COVID accelerated this rapid decline,” he said Thursday.
Parishes largely operate on vitally important income from collections and fundraising dinners, Rose said.
“That essentially all came to a stop. We’re seeing now … the side effects of being shut down and locked down for the last six months.”
The letter outlines immediate emergency responses by the church last spring, including the receipt of $663,000 from the federal wage subsidy program, the bulk of which the diocese used to pay staff and clergy from April until Aug. 31.
Despite federal support, the church is operating at a $65,000 monthly deficit and expects to run out of money by mid-2021, the letter stated. Some parishes have been unable to pay their clergy.
“Don’t get me wrong, we have very healthy parishes,” Rose said. “It’s the central office that is experiencing this setback right now.”
The diocese will end 2020 some $670,000 in the red, according to the finance committee’s estimate.
The report suggested selling diocesan assets as a short-term fix. Its vacant office property at 19 King’s Bridge Rd. is listed for sale with an asking price of $1.5 million.
“We must stress that the sale of property to provide operating revenue is an emergency response and must not be considered lightly,” the letter says, “as it only provides a Band-Aid solution to a hemorrhage situation.”
Officials within the diocese are hammering out a plan for the coming months, which may include building closures and layoffs. “Our way of being the church may look very different in the months to come,” the letter said.
Like or Share this:
And now for two things not completely different
The official New York ad promoting mask wearing:
Like or Share this:
Diocese of Huron in rapid decline
From the diocesan paper:
Between the years of 2007-2017 Huron witnessed the disappearance of more than fifty congregations. Each of these was a mission light that has gone out in our Diocese.
[….]
Statistics that show that between the years 2007-2017 Huron’s membership declined by 15,771 baptized members, with 5,037 fewer worshippers on Sunday, seeing 10,846 fewer participants for Easter celebrations and witnessing the disappearance of 2,346 children who had previously been learning God’s story through Sunday ministries. Trends that document that 85% of congregations in Huron were marked by membership decline in that decade, while roughly 10% were holding steady.
The article goes on to note that some may find it consoling that the rest of the ACoC is also evaporating at a similar rate. There are few things as comforting as all gurgling down the toilet together.
Some in our Church find consolation in these changing times knowing that most Anglican dioceses in Canada are in the same boat together – that widespread membership trends of decline are being experienced across the country. Researchers Brian Clarke and Stuart MacDonald have calculated that the annual decline of national Anglican membership to be roughly 22,700 members per year!
The same edition of the paper invites us all, on October the 11th, to celebrate:
National Coming Out Day. Celebrate with your queer and trans* friends and parishioners. Honour their journeys; hear their stories; lift up the voices of queer and trans* people within your community.
The author goes on to explain that ney (that’s nem’s pronoun – or perhaps it’s the other way around. It gets confusing), over the years has:
… gone by many different terms for my sexuality – lesbian, pansexual, demisexual, gay, and now the all-encompassing “queer”.
That’s a lot to celebrate.
If that hasn’t convinced you to come back to church, this workshop, described in the same newspaper, will:
A total of four workshops on allyship and the place of queer and trans* identities within the church were offered online on August 22 and August 29 by the newly-formed Proud Anglicans of Huron.
I still don’t know what the asterisk affixed to “trans” means. Perhaps it’s another pronoun for those yet to come out with more arcane, hitherto undeclared, sexual inclinations.
If, for some inexplicable reason that doesn’t halt the diocesan slide into oblivion, this video is sure to do the trick.
After watching that, I am experiencing an irrepressible urge to move to Huron myself. Just so I can attend an Anglican church there.
Like or Share this:
Lily of the Valley
A song I wrote in 2001.
For those interested in such things, yes, it does have some strange chords. Here are the words:
Lily of the Valley David Jenkins
Jesus Christ, Son of God, glory of the Father.
Name above every name, seated on the throne.
Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world:
Chorus
He’s the lily of the valley, he’s the fairest of the fair.
He is beauty uncreated, he’s majestic beyond compare;
Beloved of the Father, Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ, Son of man, loves us like no other.
Emanuel, God with us, closer that a brother.
Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world:
© 2001 David Jenkins
Like or Share this:
New Anglican anti-racism task force
The Anglican Church of Canada has formed a task force that is supposed to dismantle racism within the church. Having already dismantled Christianity, the clerics have decided to take a break and try something a little easier.
Naturally, there are some new acronyms to learn and inwardly digest: BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), ACIP (Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples) and BlAC (Black Anglicans of Canada). This will be bad news for those of you still struggling with LGBTQQIP2SAA. To avoid confusion, it might be worth lumping them all together to form LGBTQQIP2SAABlACACIPBIPOC.
Incidentally, any children reading this who want to find out more about LGBTQQIP2SAA can go to Kids Help Phone. It’s a Canadian registered charity that will explain more than your parents want you to know.
But back to our topic. In spite of the reservations of some, CoGS (Council of General Synod) will be employing certain aspects of Critical Race Theory. This, in a nutshell, tells us that all white people are racist. It’s innate: we are born that way. A pale person who claims otherwise is doubly racist for not recognising it, confessing, donning sackcloth and ashes and self-flagellating over her white racist privilege. There is no way out.
Unfortunately for CoGS, most of its members are non-BIPOCs, and thus riddled with racist bias, so the whole project is a bit of a non-starter.
Still, it’s good to see that in this time of contagion, the clergy are hard at work trying to entice congregations back to church by telling them they are loathsome racists in dire need of anti-racism training. That should work.
From here:
In a virtual meeting held July 25, the Council of General Synod (CoGS) voted to approve the creation of a task force charged with dismantling racism within the Anglican Church of Canada.
[……]
The motion called for CoGS to establish a dismantling racism task force that would:
“Review policies and processes to identify systemic barriers to full participation for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) in the structures and governance of General Synod and make recommendations for redress”;• Update and promote the Anglican Church of Canada’s Charter for Racial Justice;• “Recommend a process of anti-racism education and training for the Council of General Synod as well as Coordinating Committees, Councils, Commissions and employees of General Synod”;• Develop “a plan to engage the whole church in the work of dismantling racism, including identifying and/or developing resources and training to be offered to Provinces and dioceses”; and• Report the results of its work, at the latest, to the meeting of General Synod in 2022, “including recommendations for ongoing work to dismantle racism within the Church.”
Like or Share this:
Create in me a clean heart
A short song I wrote based on Psalm 51.