“Why don’t you go? Why don’t you leave Manderley?... Look down there. It’s easy, isn’t it?”

Sarah: A haunting parallel.

Dear Bishop John-David,

Dressed ceremonially, with your sword placed in front of you and clothed in your Official Episcopal Prayer Shawl, you should prepare for death by writing a death poem. With your selected attendant (kaishakunin, your “second”) standing by, you should open your Prayer Shawl, take up your tantō (knife) and plunge it into your abdomen, making a left-to-right cut. The kaishakunin will then perform daki-kubi, a cut in which you will be all but decapitated (a slight band of flesh will be left attaching your head to your body). Because of the precision necessary for such a maneuver, your second should be a skilled swordsperson. You may agree in advance when the kaishakunin will make her cut.  I would suggest as soon as the dagger is plunged into your abdomen.

Love, Sheriff Schori

This reminds me of the story of the elected El Presidente of I believe Uraguay when his upstairs office was invaded by the General who had just declared a coupe and had declared himself to be the dictator for life of the country.  He walked up to the the desk of the President and placed a .45 Army Automatic and looked in the eye of the President and said, “So, El Presidente, now you know what you must do.”  The president hesitated, then picked up the pistol, laid back the hammer and held it up and shot squarely in the forehead the general.  Then he strowed to the shuttered windows, threw them open and announced down on the plaza to the army that the coupe was over and to return to their barracs.

Now that’s leadership!  ImhO

I dreamed I went to 815 last night…

I think we need to add another category of posting admonition.  I would suggest to “no whining and no freaking out” should be added “no threatening with death.”  Hopefully the webmaster can identify and report violators to the last category.

Mother,

No threat of death here.  Just a really creepy parallel to KJS’ comments to +Schofield.

Here’s another gem:

If you continue along this path, I believe it will be necessary to ascertain whether you have in fact abandoned the communion of this Church, and violated your vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church.

Brrrr!  Sends shivers down my back. 
But wait!  -  Here comes the qualification…

I do not intend to threaten you, only to urge you to reconsider and draw back from this trajectory.

Whew!!!  That’s a relief! 
It’s particularly nice, in light of the fact that the PH is the sort to say what she means, and means what she says.  E.g., when she says things like “resurrection,” she really means ‘resurrection.” 

Otherwise, I’d be worried.  I mean, a postmodern reading of the word ‘urge’ could be used in contexts such as a parent <s>spanking</s> urging a child, or a police officer urging a street criminal <s>at gunpoint</s>. 

Ya’ll don’t think she’s the sort that would mince words like that, do you? 

The whole thing is rather sad. I would like to believe that Bishop Schori was sincere when she wrote that letter. At least it’s not the old form letter she used with Bishops Duncan and Iker. But I am unable to convince myself that the letter is any more than an attorney advised prelude to litigation.

What convinces me of this is that there are no admissions against interest, no suggestion of any change or accommodation. There is only a suggestion of discussion. Were she genuinely attempting to retain San Joaquin, she would have offered to meet, for a last ditch attempt to iron out the differences. This letter serves to her case in court and to show the 815 faithful that she tried.

I really wish I could think better of her.

I have a blog thingy

Last night, I dreamt I went to Canterbury again.

Suggest reply from +Bishop Schofield;

“You have no power here! Now begone, before somebody drops a house on you, too!”

Glenda the good witch to the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz.

RE: “Last night, I dreamt I went to Canterbury again.”

Ah, Pageantmaster . . . I see that you know what happened to Manderley . . .

; < (

An apt choice of a parallel, I think.

Last night, I dreamt I went to tea with Pageantmaster, an altogether more pleasant prospect than going to either 815 or Canterbury.

Bigjimintx (and Pageantmaster), I recommend a nice warm cup of chamomile tea before bedtime.

...back in the Briar Patch,

I like Bill S.‘s response.  Short, to the point.

In re Bill S’s response. I don’t know if 815 would understand that sort of talk. Judging from their actions, they apparently believe that they do now have nearly enough [url=“http://fods.members.beeb.net/”] attending these days. So it may take a while for the staff to find someone who can explain the quote to PB Schori.

<a href=“http://billyockham.blogspot.com/”> I have a blog thingy [/url]

Drat!

The above should read “In re Bill S’s response. I don’t know if 815 would understand that sort of talk. Judging from their actions, they apparently believe that they do now have nearly enough Friends of Dorothy”. So it might take them a while to find someone who can explain it to PB Schori.

My apologies.

I have a blog thingy

Brilliant!  But my favorite analogy is still Saruman talking to Gandalf.

A reply to Dr. Schori:
We have ascertained you have in fact abandoned the communion of this Church, and violated your vows to uphold the doctrine, discipline, and worship of this Church.

That’s why we choose to have another shepherd over us.

Jane, Edwin’s wife

Creepy analogy.  Totally apt.

ascertain whether you have in fact abandoned the communion of this Church

With the open communion practices of TEC, it is virtually impossible for anyone to abandon the communion of this church.  What are they going to do?  Excommunicate a bishop who has served them faithfully for decades, while continuing to recognize the communion of any person who gets off the bus at a stop in front of a church? 

Yes, I know the word “communion” is being misused in this case by TEC to mean something other than Holy Communion.  What they mean here is not “communion of the Church”, but submission to the corporate structure, which is something all together different.

Inspired!!  Here you go, Sarah.

bb

tjmcmahon,

You fail to understand the inherent flexibility of the meaning of the canons. It’s my understanding they’ve retained Humpty Dumpty to construe the canons for them.

I have a blog thingy

I see I continue to humiliate myself with my deficient posting skills. Posted in the wrong thread.

:(

I have a blog thingy

The first time I saw the film Rebecca it was at an art house cinema that was running Alfred Hitchcock double features one week.  When Mrs. Danvers first appeared in the film the auditorium was filled with a collective hiss.

Watching the BB link, I noticed that the Schori/ Mrs. Danvers parallel begins earlier in the letter.Mrs. Danvers starts the window sequence with:

You’re overwrought madam, I’ve opened a window for you. A little air will do you good.

This is like Schori suggesting that Schofield is unstable in the first paragraph:

I continue to be concerned for your health, and for your evident sense of isolation.

As mousetalker observes, everyone knows that Kate’s letter to Bishop John-David is strictly to create a “CYA” memo that willl be brought up in court. She has no intention to offer anything, least of all reconcilliation.  What she doesn’t realize, or acknowlege, from the high cost advice she gets from DBB is that when the only thing remaining is the smoke rising from the scorched earth policy, she will be left holding an empty bag as he and his firm toddle away with the money. It’s a no lose situation for him and his partners.

By the way, the mansion is called “Mandalay”, not “Manderley”.  It’s named after the former royal capital of Burma (now known as Myanmar).

One could wish that it’s-so-easy-Schori could as easily tell +VGR to shush as it is to tell +Lee to persecute his own priests and congregations and send that nasty missive to +Schonfield.

Sorry, Mr. Muller, but here’s the opening paragraph of the novel:

“Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden, the supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done. But as I advanced, I was aware that a change had come upon it. Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long tenacious fingers, on and on while the poor thread that had once been our drive. And finally, there was Manderley. Manderley, secretive and silent. Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to Manderley again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France…”
                              —the second Mrs. de Winter.

The same feeling of illusion and desolation that surrounds everything Mrs. Schori touches.

While we’re in the Department of Contrived and Arranged Suicides, let’s not forget the Chilean armed forces’ 1973 announcement that Marxist President Salvador Allende had died of a self-inflicted airstrike.

“We can never go back to Manderley again.”

Thank you, rwightman.

Mr. Muller—as to you . . . I am appalled that you would think that I would misspell Manderley.

; > )

If duMaurier herself came back to life and said it was “Mandalay” I’d still trust your spelling, Sarah.

All of it, on another level, brings to mind the Seinfeld episode and George’s fictitious firm Vandelay Enterprises….
Katharine’s bishopric is as phony as George’s career as an architect…. (Remember where he tells someone about his addition to the Guggenheim, and his main comment was “and it didn’t even take me that long!”)

Mr. Muller—as to you . . . I am appalled that you would think that I would misspell Manderley.

My sincere apologies!

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

That’s what I get for using the movie as the source, instead of going to the novel.