Wesley Evans

Forgot the ⚓️ above

This years new Ezekiel Angel wreath for “Spirittide” going from (I was late this year) Michaelmas through All Souls.

Anyone taking bets on us now having Anglican sedevacantists?⚓

...People can just opt out and leave. At most clergy can be fired. Legally we can't touch their pension, and any financial renumeration will have to be via civil courts. I think our disciplinary cannons can be made more effective once we come to the realization of that they actually are able to be.

I think that's the bottom line of much about Title IV. We have an undercurrent mindset which believes our Canons are, like a Medieval Church, actually "Law". But in practice in the US they're equivalent to the HR policies of Dell or Goodyear....

My speculative belief (coming up this week to St. Francis Day) is that in the New Creation after the Resurrection we'll be able to resurrect our dead pets. This assumes my belief in a very physical and material (though glorified) resurrection as was that of Jesus ⚓

.. perhaps more simply: I think the "cross" in that context is a byproduct of pursuing Jesus' way as his disciples; not a tool we use on ourselves to prove we're worthy in the first place *or* we put on others as a means for them to prove by artificial endurance.

Was pondering this. I think the point of that, different than what I'm trying to say, is that Jesus is giving a warning that following him will be hard. The cross is "taken up" when it's imposed on us as needed for being a disciples; vs seeking out suffering and a cross b/c we think it's needed..

Book recc on the political and social background of time of Jesus? History and relationships between Pharisees, Sadducees; Galilee & Judea as political and social regions; what exactly the Scribes were, and politics between the Priesthood and Rome, etc? More recent than my seminary stuff?⚓

The idolatry of gender roles Genesis 1 is primarily ancient polemic, not cosmology, so is intended as a denunciation of beliefs and practices found in the surrounding culture rather than information over how things came to be.…

Perhaps literally? My earlier musing on gender roles as a form of idolatry based on the Hexameron. frwesleyevans.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/t...

We ended up doing a baked chicken with blackberry sauce, potatoes, and sauteed squash. Prayed the Collect for the feast day before dinner.

It'll be late this year, as I'll not finish today, but working my new Spirittide (what I'm calling. Michaelmas through All Souls) Cherubim Wreath! Got plenty of eyes to glue!

Last year it fell and broke. Yes, it was a fallen angel wreath. No comment.⚓

I like that!

Following the Celtic Way: A New... book by Ian Bradley Buy a cheap copy of Following the Celtic Way: A New... book by Ian Bradley. A quarter-century after writing the acclaimed The Celtic Way, Ian Bradley, one of the foremost experts on the spiritual beli...

Yes! Ian Bradley, "Following the Celtic Way". Not his old one (just "The Celtic Way"), but the new one that reassess his older stuff and goes over the historical issues with much of modern Neo-Celtic ideas. It's the most accessible I know of for this.

Thrift Books link below (might find on Amazon)

By the later I mean - it creates a caricature of a monolithic idealized "Native Spirituality", realize (rightly) such are not appropriate to claim without that heritage, project those ideal traits onto the Celtic peoples, then claim that to also distance themselves from abuses by the modern Church

Haha, yeah. Modern "Celtic Christianity" is mostly an ahistorical search for an idealized Church that never existed by imposing what people wish we were back onto mythical/exotic "Celts".

I also have a growing suspicion it's a way for many white suburbanites to play act as "Native American".

How are you celebrating Michaelmas today? Any great blackberry recipes for dinner? ⚓

Certainly! On that one I think Jesus' point was that Rome was irrelevant. They can imagine themselves as mighty as they'd like, but to God they're insignificant. So give them their little shiny metal, but humans are made in the Image of God and we give ourselves to him!

Fair. And FWIW the Sunday that prompted this (Feast of St. Matthew!) I did attempt in the sermon to point out the TC were hated not just as IRS but as "traitors" which I think is accurate (?). And point out the Pharisees weren't unreasonable to be opposed to them. Yes, NT is messy wrt Rome

I'll ponder this one. Perhaps an interesting experiment for me to read them and replace "tax collector" with something else more sinister in the modern context. Being separated culturally by 2000 years does influence reading!

.. I'm just not seeing that exactly in how Jesus and the early movement are portrayed in the Gospels. At least not in how we modern era might expect such a movement to be. Gospels are more ambivalent? Complicated? Subtle? Something I wanted to think more about.

Huh. I'd not thought about this analogy. Tax collectors in the cultural context isn't something I know much about and didn't have immediate sources for. What prompted the question was thinking of Liberation Theology that often paints Jesus as leading a direct resistance movement to Rome...

Thank you that context on that! I didn't have a good resource on them when the question crossed my mind. Any sources you'd recommend for this sort of background? I only vaguely knew about the quota system, but not many details.

Jesus went to the cross so that we don't have to.

How often do we hear that following Jesus is about suffering? (Challenging, sure) Or that faith is somehow really about us doing more or being "better"? As if we need get on the cross with him?

Climb off that cross, we're not Jesus ⚓

As my wife and I learn MTG we're spending more time checking rules than playing. Still think we're doing a couple parts wrong. Fun game, but learning curve.

That's fair. I think there's something to that, but wish people would be more accurate as well.

The idolatry of gender roles Genesis 1 is primarily ancient polemic, not cosmology, so is intended as a denunciation of beliefs and practices found in the surrounding culture rather than information over how things came to be.…

My new article on the idolatry of gender roles. Cleaned up from my Facebook post. ⚓

frwesleyevans.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/t...

This is very true. Sometimes frustratingly so!

Here's a random thought on it: are people saying it now out of genuine belief..

...or is a push away from clergy leadership and hierarchy a result of more woman and minorities in positions of real power so now "we" want clergy to have less of it?

I've absolutely heard it! It was even on a "basics of the Episcopal Church" handout by a parish when I was Confirmed long ago. It seems to be "hierarchy is bad, we're good, so we can't have a hierarchy". It definitely crops up a lot!