Dear [name]:

I am writing you in your capacity as president of the standing committee. It is my request that you relay to the membership of that body that they consider, seriously, withholding consent to the consecration of the Rev. Thew Forrester as Bishop of Northern Michigan. While I believe the process of his election to have been flawed and reason enough to withhold consent, that is not the primary concern I have. The Rev. Mr. Forrester is a practicing Buddhist, "ordained" as it were, into their "lay order." While eccentricity of this sort is to be expected amongst some of our clergy, a bishop is the defender of the Faith, and in the line of the Apostles. I believe the Rev. Forrester to have abandoned the Communion of this Church, and therefore unfit to be considered for the office of bishop.

In a separate email I will send a copy of our parish newsletter with more on this matter as its topic, Thank you for your consideration of this issue.

The Rev. Dr. Walter Van Zandt Windsor,
Rector,Trinity Episcopal Church, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

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Comments:

Glad to see a “grass-roots effort” starting to withold consent…just doesn’t pass the smell test at all.

[1] Posted by B. Hunter on 03-09-2009 at 07:35 AM • top

[Not really off topic] I’d like to use this thread to clarify that previous posts from me on the Bishop-elect of Northern Michigan were my own opinion and were not meant to reflect the position of the parish I serve.

One of my more liberal members has objected that he felt misrepresented. I see his point. In the restaurant business we were taught “perception is reality.”

I stand by efforts to reach our Standing Committee and to note it on Stand Firm. The nefarious plotters who put forth this website have been the only big-audience, focused voice for traditional believers about the crisis of faith in TEC. While some commenters get off-track from the real issues, even they are showing us something—grief and anger over the turn in the national leadership of TEC away from the faith this church received from historic Christian faith and practice.

The Rev’d Jim Workman
Easley, SC
Diocese of Upper SC (TEC)

P.S. Please be clear—I’m not speaking for the Diocese of Upper SC
(8^)>[] Smiley for smiling, bald-headed priest with beard

[2] Posted by Jim Workman on 03-09-2009 at 07:57 AM • top

Is there a quick and easy access to an email (or snail mail) list for TEC diocesan bishops? Rather than needing to hunt and peck and search through the net to find them.

[3] Posted by tjmcmahon on 03-09-2009 at 08:07 AM • top

One of my more liberal members has objected that he felt misrepresented. I see his point. In the restaurant business we were taught “perception is reality.”

Frankly, I don’t see his point. Too many priests, both conservative and liberal, have told me that “the church” is not a democracy. A rector leads and educates his parish. He does not “represent” their opinions.

[4] Posted by Nikolaus on 03-09-2009 at 08:18 AM • top

What’s the big deal about? Being Buddhist is the latest trend! Take a look at this <a >article</a>:

“Everybody’s a Buddhist now”
Have you noticed more friends and acquaintances quietly suggesting they have become Buddhists? I’m picking up the trend everywhere.
I take Buddhism very seriously as one of the great religions. There are important truths to explore in Buddhism. It is a profound and challenging system of belief.
But right now I just want to remark on how struck I’ve been by the way many North American searchers are making Buddhism their spirituality of choice. It is currently very cool to be a Buddhist.
Buddhism gets good media coverage. The Dalai Lama. Thich Nhat Hanh. Jack Kornfeld. These caring and charismatic men are high profile. Many Hollywood stars are also into Buddhism, spreading the word.
Unlike some of the world’s two billion Christians, Buddhists are not linked in the public’s mind with extremism or war or aggressive proslytizing (even though, believe it or not, there are Buddhist militants).
In contrast, it is definitely not cool now to be Christian, especially in Canada, despite the diversity of the faith.
And it’s still not really socially acceptable to be a follower of Jesus in Canada despite Barack Obama being a liberal Christian.
Even Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and in some quarters Islam seem to be more cool these days. Yet nothing seems to touch the popularity of Buddhism

[5] Posted by jamesw on 03-09-2009 at 01:26 PM • top

Sorry, I thought I had put the tags in for the link. Try again, then: [a href=“http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2009/03/09/quot-everybody-s-a-buddhist-now-quot.aspx”]Buddhism article[/a].

[6] Posted by jamesw on 03-09-2009 at 01:30 PM • top

Okay, apparently the html tags are not working. I tried the <> brackets, but they don’t even register that there is a link (as in post #5). The [] brackets come out as in post #6.

[7] Posted by jamesw on 03-09-2009 at 01:32 PM • top

Guys, I’ve got SF loading up using a record-low number of database queries, and in a record times - as little as half that at our previous host. I’m aware of the link issues in comments and I’ll be addressing those in due time. Meanwhile, how about loading the main page, looking down under the copyright notice in the left sidebar, then copying and pasting the [XX:YYYY] numbers you find there. It would help me to get a sense of the speed we’re doing from a number of different users.

[8] Posted by Greg Griffith on 03-09-2009 at 01:38 PM • top

54 : 0.3231

[9] Posted by oscewicee on 03-09-2009 at 01:41 PM • top

[24 : 0.1198]

[10] Posted by ToAllTheWorld on 03-09-2009 at 01:42 PM • top

[24 : 0.0810]

from here in my undisclosed location

—elfgirl

[11] Posted by The_Elves on 03-09-2009 at 01:45 PM • top

[26 : 0.0833]

[12] Posted by Maria Lytle on 03-09-2009 at 01:54 PM • top

[23 : 0.2251]

[13] Posted by tired on 03-09-2009 at 02:00 PM • top

[52 : 0.3972]

[14] Posted by Chris on 03-09-2009 at 02:00 PM • top

[23 : 0.1466]

[15] Posted by tjmcmahon on 03-09-2009 at 02:00 PM • top

[54 : 0.3520]

[16] Posted by GillianC on 03-09-2009 at 02:03 PM • top

55 : 0.3667

[17] Posted by Athanasius Returns on 03-09-2009 at 02:07 PM • top

Father Workman…what a shame that you do not speak for the diocese, and the entire Episcopal church…but thank you for speaking up as an individual.

[18] Posted by ewart-touzot on 03-09-2009 at 02:12 PM • top

I’ve been going online to the news organization CNN, CBN, ABC, FOX, etc., I’ve given up on NBC.. and sending articles from Standfirm… Wish others would.

[19] Posted by FrVan on 03-09-2009 at 02:14 PM • top

[54 : 2.8848]

[20] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:17 PM • top

[25 : 0.0796]

Please disregard last post. I forgot to go to the main page and copy.

[21] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:19 PM • top

Fr. Van,

Our hats are off to you for your letters. God bless you!

[22] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:20 PM • top

Greg,

I notice that my three comments did not show up in the Recent Comment section. If you already know this, disregard.

And thanks for your kind comments earlier. We continue to pray for you and this transition.

[23] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:23 PM • top

Fr Van, I have been sending them on to my sleeping Episcopal friends but the news would surely make a greater impact..thanks for the suggestion

[24] Posted by ewart-touzot on 03-09-2009 at 02:26 PM • top

23 : 0.0755]

Comments now showing under recent comments.

[25] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:35 PM • top

25 : 0.6778

[26] Posted by jamesw on 03-09-2009 at 02:38 PM • top

but not loading last cooment yet

[27] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:38 PM • top

Posted last comment more than a couple of minutes apart.

Submit is taking 10-20 seconds to complete.

[28] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:41 PM • top

25 seconds that time. Let us know if you want more info.

[29] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 02:42 PM • top

For what it’s worth:
[23 : 0.2335]

[30] Posted by Jill C. on 03-09-2009 at 03:00 PM • top

Those numbers make me smile - the ones after the colon, especially, because they indicate the time in seconds it take for the database queries to make the round trip from your browser, to our server, and back to your browser. You’ll notice that most of them are in the sub-one-second range, and some are even in the sub-one-tenth of a second range. This is blazing fast by any measure.

Here’s an explanation of how the site now runs so fast, as well as the reason your comments aren’t visible the moment you post them:

Up to now, the main page, the article page, and “Around the Web” have all been served up by querying the database upwards of 50 times, for each page, for each user, for each pageview. When we get 300-400 people online at once, which is normal traffic for weekdays, this creates a huge load on the database. Our new host was reporting a steady load of about 170 simultaneous queries, created just by people arriving at the main page, going to an article page, going back to the main page, etc. Our previous host did a great job of handling this simply by scaling us up on a striped server configuration, where several machines and a lot of memory were all hooked together to act as one big computer.

There’s no reason, though, to refresh every single section of the site every time someone loads a page. The “Features” section changes only once every few days. “The Week” changes only once every few hours. The “Who’s Online” list changes only every few minutes. The “Recent Comments” changes once every one or two minutes depending on the time of day.

What I’ve done is to take these four sections and extract them from the templates that create the pages for viewers. I then set up a scheduled script that triggers the creation of these pages - “Features” and “Who’s Online” every ten minutes, “The Week” and “Around the Web” every 5 minutes, and “Recent Comments” every minute. These files sit on the server as static HTML files which, aside from their scheduled creation every few minutes, don’t put any load on the database. The main page, the articles page, and “Around the Web,” when you load them, simply reach out and assemble these files into a single page in a simple operation called an “include.” All the includes are done using JQuery, which also makes it easy to automatically update the recent comments sidebar every 60 seconds, without creating a strain on the database. The recent comments file gets updated via a CRON task every 60 seconds, and your browser gets updated by a JQuery load that fires off every 60 seconds.

This is also the reason your posted comments aren’t visible the moment they’re posted. In the old setup, your comment would go into the database, and then as the page loaded, the recent comments sidebar would go into the database and get the 20 most recent comments. Yours, being the latest, would get plopped on top, and voila - instant indication that your comment “took.”

But under the new configuration, your comment is going to be visible only after the CRON task has fired off the recent comments script, and after your page has been refreshed (by you manually refreshing, by you posting a comment, or by JQuery doing it automatically). Theoretically the delay should be no more than 61 seconds, which I think is plenty fast given the tradeoff in server speed and auto-updates we get. You can think of the recent comments sidebar as kind of assembly line belt, continually moving, with your posted comments being like delicious little bon-bons placed there a’la Lucy and Ethel. Your comment is on the belt, but it won’t be seen by the person down the line for a minute or so. (OK, I know Lucy and Ethel were picking the bon-bons UP, not putting them down, but the analogy was too good to pass up).

I don’t know what’s going on with the links in the comments themselves. There’s a setting buried deep in ExpressionEngine’s config that I’ll need to check, but that will have to wait a little while. Right now I need to turn my attention back to T19, and chase down a couple of more minor issues with the new host.

Thanks again to everyone for their patience.

[31] Posted by Greg Griffith on 03-09-2009 at 03:07 PM • top

L2 - Yep, comment submission delay is one of those issues. I’m seeing it, I assume everyone is seeing it. I’m hoping to juice it up before long.

[32] Posted by Greg Griffith on 03-09-2009 at 03:08 PM • top

24 : 0.0752

[33] Posted by the snarkster on 03-09-2009 at 03:18 PM • top

[25 : 0.0755]

Thanks for the update and info, Greg.

[34] Posted by The Lakeland Two on 03-09-2009 at 06:22 PM • top

I am thrilled that you are working the kinks out on this thread, it makes it seem as though it is getting more hits…Check on!

[35] Posted by FrVan on 03-09-2009 at 07:25 PM • top

But, Fr. Van, it merits some real hits, too - thank you for these letters you have written, which serve as good examples to those of us fumbling for words that are direct and convincing.

[36] Posted by oscewicee on 03-09-2009 at 07:29 PM • top

Well I have noticed a disconnect with some in TEC: a desire to play up being part of a world-wide Communion when they want to have their views taken into account; and an isolationalist assertion of their sole right to manage their own affairs including electing bishops not only for themselves but for the whole Communion.

Whatever the ultimate merits and outcome I think it is to the credit of Fr Windsor that he and others of different persuasions have shown that they take their role seriously in ensuring the suitability of candidates for the episcopacy, a responsibility for the local and the international church.

So I would say a respectful bravo - it is to the credit of TEC and to such priests that they will do their duty.

[37] Posted by Pageantmaster on 03-09-2009 at 07:43 PM • top

[53 : 0.6213]

[38] Posted by Scott+ on 03-10-2009 at 04:01 AM • top

23 0.2246

[39] Posted by Allen Lewis on 03-10-2009 at 08:45 AM • top

<a >Safe Church List</a>

Greg,
You may be aware of this already, but I have noticed that when I do a “Preview” of a post where I have used the “Anchor” tags that in the editing box the beginning and closing tags are left and everything starting with href= is stripped out. So it looks like the following:

<a>Safe Church List</a>

Hope this helps.

[40] Posted by Allen Lewis on 03-10-2009 at 09:10 AM • top

<a >Anchor tag test.</a>

[41] Posted by Greg Griffith on 03-10-2009 at 11:36 AM • top

<a >Anchor test</a>

[42] Posted by Greg Griffith on 03-10-2009 at 11:47 AM • top

54 : 0.7926

[43] Posted by BCPchurchmouse on 05-11-2009 at 12:02 PM • top

32 : 0.2807

[44] Posted by john1 on 06-30-2009 at 11:19 AM • top

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