The Anglican Cathedral of Second Life

It’s funny how things come together and guide us towards a course of action. It can happen in our personal lives and it can happen to organisations. I would say it has happened to the Anglican Cathedral of Second Life recently.

My RL vicar asked me if I would pray at home at the same time as he was saying Morning Prayer in church. As I live 10 miles from my church, it made no sense to travel there each day but I was happy to pray as requested. I had found my routine of daily prayer had been disturbed for some time, so this seemed a good way to get back to a pattern. My vicar and I settled on 8am UK time (midnight SLT) for Morning Prayer and at first I simply prayed at home in my study at the beginning of the day. It then occurred to me that I could go and sit in the Meditation Chapel on Epiphany Island and say the office. Having done that for a few days I decided to send an IM to say I was doing so, and one or two people joined me. I then decided to say Evening Prayer at noon SLT (8pm UK).

At that point I thought it best to tell the Leadership Team what I was doing and ask for their approval. They were happy to support this and so I carried on. Very shortly afterwards, two other service leaders also suggested we look at saying the Daily Offices on Epiphany. It became clear that God was nudging us towards this and who am I to argue with God!

Currently, I say Morning Prayer Sunday – Saturday and Evening Prayer Monday – Saturday and am joined by community members and others from all over the world. The largest number there so far has been 6 though sometimes no one comes. Caoilin is now saying the office of Compline at 8.30pm SLT on Monday – Thursday. Similar numbers are attending those services too. We are using the Common Worship services which are available from the browser in the Meditation Chapel.

Already others are reading in these services. It is my hope that teams will be built of those who are confident enough to read the services in voice because then it will spread the load and not leave this part of our ministry dependent on just two people.

I hope you will have an opportunity to attend sometime. You will receive a warm welcome.

Times of services are going to be altering as clocks are changed across the world. We will make sure that we keep everyone informed of the times. 

Meanwhile current times for the offices are:
Midnight SLT Sunday to Saturday
Noon SLT Monday to Saturday
8.30pm SLT Monday to Thursday

Yes, it’s that time of year again.  The leaves are starting to turn (or the buds are coming out, depending on where you are), and the clocks are once again conspiring to make me crazy.  Time for the bi-annual tweaking of the Anglican Cathedral schedule.  So here we go…

The first of the schedule changes will affect those in the Pacific Rim area, and/or those who attend the Saturday evening service aimed to serve that region.  We are actually adjusting the time of this service to both accommodate the time changes and to move it to a more convenient time for that part of the world.

The Pacific service will move to Saturday at 11pm SLT on October 4. This will be the same time as Sunday, October 5 at:

• 2pm in Perth
• 3:30pm in Darwin
• 4pm in Brisbane
• 5pm in Canberra, Melbourne & Sydney
• 7pm in Auckland & Wellington, New Zealand

These times will remain in effect locally until the next time the clocks move (approx. 6 months from now).  However, be aware of the fact that on November 8 the US will return to Standard Time.  When that happens, the service will move to  Saturday at 10pm SLT in order to correspond to these same local times.

I hope this isn’t too confusing!  Stay tuned for further service and event time adjustments as the rest of the world changes clocks, and let me know if you have any questions!

Jesus was not one to mince his words. He stated clearly what he thought so that there could be no misunderstanding. He took a very serious view of sin, so much so that he used graphic language to draw our attention to how ruthlessly we should deal with it in our lives. Of course, if it was so easy to deal with sin, surely we would all have sorted the problem out a long time ago. Sin is hard to defeat at times. We often do better with the help of a community, something that James recognised in his letter.

The readings at the noon service on Sunday in the Cathedral were Psalm 19:7-14, James 5:13-end, Mark 9:38-end. The reflection follows:

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The message today is taken from Jesus’ words to the disciples in Mark’s gospel: “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

I hope that this message can be taken in deeply by the many Christian groups in the world today. Too often the phrase is turned around to say “whoever is not FOR us is against us”. This creates a very insular outlook, where everyone and everything is measured by my standards. If they don’t fit in, don’t look ‘right’, don’t say the right things, don’t believe the EXACT same things, then THEY are not right. Like a formula for creating gold from straw, they must become like me, in order to be acceptable, and of course that is not possible.

Turning the phrase around, as Jesus did, has quite profound effects. “Whoever is not against us is for us.” How do you measure if someone is not against you? Like the measure of the enemy in C.S. Lewis’ “Last Battle”, it is no longer about which football team you follow, and whether you are wearing the right ‘colours’.

It is much more a matter of really knowing what is it that we stand FOR, what are the things that are really important.
What are our values, priorities, and relationships, with ourselves, with each other and with Jesus -and how do we express these?

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Herod Antipas, tetrarch in charge of Galilee and Peraea, didn’t know what to make of John the Baptist and seemed equally confused by his cousin Jesus. He had plenty of opportunity to meet and talk with John but met Jesus only once, during his trial. Herod had asked the question: ‘Who is this about whom I hear such things?’ People are still asking the same question about Jesus. It’s up to each of us to decide on our answer.

The readings at the 2pm SLT service on Thursday were Haggai 1:1-8, Psalm 149:1-5, Luke 9:7-9. The reflection follows:

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Who would you like to attend a party with, I wonder? Parties are more fun when you are with people you know, people you have things in common with. The banquet in heaven, the biggest party ever to be held, will have guests at the table with whom we have little in common at first glance and yet they will all be family, the family of Jesus. They won’t be family members due to their birth but due to a choice they have made. Jesus said that his family comprises those who hear the word of God and do it. Will you be at that party?

The readings at the Tuesday 2pm SLT service were Ezra 6:7,8, 12, 14-20, Psalm 124, Luke 8:19-21.

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Jesus has given some astounding teaching to his disciples over the past few weeks, and He continues to do so today. Some of the challenges that the disciples faced are so far removed from our world view that it is difficult to conceive HOW challenging it must have been for them.

We have the advantage of two thousand years of reflection and engagement across human experience.

In our time the taboos, misunderstanding, and the natural instincts of societies built by and for the strong and beautiful, no longer openly supports the outright suppression of foreigners, women and children.

These attitudes do still exist though, and don’t be mistaken about that.
We tend to hide our racism and prejudices economically and socially in a number of ways that make it less obvious how poorly our world is structured still. I wonder how each one of us would cope with our world views’ being DAILY challenged in the words, example and life demands that Jesus is putting his disciples through.

For myself I can say that whilst this is perhaps not DAILY, it is certainly constant, as I engage with the scriptures and prepare for this service every week. I hope that I bring some of that journey to this service in a meaningful way for each of you to take a piece and reflect upon in your own lives.
The key depends on our life circumstances and just how close to the rubber hitting the road that our life actually brings us to these examples Jesus is giving.

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This weekend, the (US) Public Broadcasting System’s renowned Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly program will broadcast an episode on “Living in Second Life.”  This episode includes segments that were filmed at the SL Anglican cathedral, including an interview of Rev. Mark, Helene Milena and myself.

A video preview of this episode may currently be viewed at the program website http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/.  It is my understanding that the full episode will be available to be viewed on their website later today.

ETA:  The full episode is available here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/september-18-2009/second-life/4243/.

Jesus had a habit of doing things his own way, much to the consternation of those around him who preferred to be more conventional in their behaviour. Even being a guest in the house of a prominent pharisee didn’t cramp Jesus’ style. His values and behaviour were consistent wherever he was, all growing out of the love of God for each individual. When a sinful woman (for sinful read promiscuous) came and ministered to Jesus in the middle of a dinner to which he was invited, his host was shocked that Jesus could not detect what kind of woman this was. Jesus knew full well what kind of woman she was but he used her love and devotion as an object lesson for Simon. Whether he took it to heart or not we will never know, but we can learn from it still.

The readings at the 2pm SLT service were 1 Timothy 4:12-end, Psalm 111, Luke 7:36-end. The reflection follows:

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How is it possible to read of the many marvellous deeds of Jesus as told in the Gospels and not be amazed? I found myself in that position as I read about Jesus raising to life the son of the widow of Nain. If I can get to this point, how do ‘professional’ Christians avoid it? As we were remembering Cyprian, bishop and martyr, I looked to his writing to help me.

The readings were Psalm 101, 1 Timothy 3:1-13, Luke 7:11-17. The reflection given at the 2pm SLT service follows:

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