I'm Baaaaack!

After a nice respite, including a day with TWO naps, I have to say, I'm back at it. The last couple days were pretty slow; not much to report on that front. Fantabulously, tonight has seen quite a couple events pass us by. Primarily, as I speak, there's a tremendous thunderstorm waging war with the incredibly humid heat outside. Of course, that makes me quite happy. :D.

In all seriousness though, today also held another Hearing on the "issues" of the communion including sexuality, the Anglican Convenant and a whole host of other key words that get thrown around quite a bit. I was on duty in the Marketplace when the Hearings were going on, so I didn't quite catch most of them, but I've heard that they weren't quite as constructive as many might have hoped. Of course, if you've ever been part of anything similar on these topics, you'll know precisely how it went. Much talking, little listening, and virtually no understanding on either side of the issues at hand. Mercifully, the tediousness was broken up by one of the best presentations I've heard, certainly since being here, and quite possibly ever. The speaker was The Cheif Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, which of course scored bonus points with me before I even saw him on site. Cheif Rabbi Sacks is essentially, as I understand it, the chief rabbi over all the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. He was here to present on the topic of 'Covenant'. All I could think at one point was what a brilliant idea to bring in a rabbi to speak on the topic of covenant. The list of speakers impresses me more and more as each day goes by.

Rabbi Sacks' discussion of covenant took up the dual nature of the topic, as expressed originally by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. It described the Covenant of Fate as one of pragmatism that reacts to external forces that bind one to other people who are suffering under the same forms of opposition as oneself. This is a relationship established upon the basis of a requisite reciprocity that enables an oppressed group to further propagate itself in the face of adversity. The Covenant of Faith, on the other hand, is a positive marker that is established by a group that takes up a common identity with reference to dreams and aspirations. It is a hopeful identity that celebrates the unity of diversity. Furthermore, he added that the Covenant of Faith is necessarily predicated on the foundation of the Covenant of Fate, which is where one must begin: "the covenant of fate is the greatest tool God has given us for reconciliation". Rabbi Sacks also added that "the miracle of monotheism is that unity up there creates diversity down here" while referencing the effect of the Noachic Covenant and its symbol of the rainbow, which displays the radiance of the pure light of God manifest in a multiformity of colours. Rabbi Sacks further maintained that the nature of covenant itself is transformative and invokes the logic of cooperation, which seeks the synergystic result of mutual gain. This was contrasted with the "zero sum games" of both economics and politics.

In essence, the stress was upon the need for the communion to work through its differences and to maintain the sense of diversity that it both has and has had for centuries. Only through mutual cooperation and to a degree, affirmation, can a community continue on positively while maintaining both internal and external coherence with respective communities involved. Rabbi Sacks values the Anglican communion precisely for its ability through the centuries to do just that, and if ever there was a speech that made one proud to be an Anglican of any stripe, that would have been it. Anyways, I should have a transcript by tomorrow, so maybe I'll be able to speak more coherently about it then.

Until that time, fare thee all well,
Blessings,
Nick.