Still Celebrating Easter

Dear Friends, the Brick Church service was wonderful this year. It seems as if every year I say, "This one was the best EVER." Perfect weather, a great sermon, beautiful music, yummy picnic, but best of all our wonderful extended family. If you did not attend, put it on your calendar for 2011 - April 30th.

Easter is a season of 50 days but it is worth celebrating every day because an empty tomb changes everything.

Here is a terrific video which makes the case far better than I can...be sure to watch it all the way to the end. Be sure to click on the "Full Screen" icon (to the far right on the bottom frame with four arrows)- otherwise you won't be able to read the words which, for this video, is important to be able to do.

Happy Easter forever!!!

A Blessed Easter to You All!

It has been said that most preachers really have only one or two sermons irregardless of how often he or she might preach.

The late Rev. Canon Samuel Fleming's was "Jesus is Lord." St. John the Beloved was known to have wearied his congregations by constantly preaching on "Love One Another." If I were to attempt to articulate my "one" Easter sermon, it would have to be drawn from these two texts: "even when we were dead through our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ ..." (Eph. 2:5) and "Death is swallowed up in victory." (1 Cor. 15:54c).

Few poets have written more beautifully on this topic than John Donne. Here is an excerpt from his Sonnet X, read so well by actor, Emma Thompson from the film "Wit".

Holy Week 2010

Such a beautiful song and just right for Holy Week....

"How Deep the Father's Love for Us" - Stuart Townend

A Lenten Message From Bishop Lawrence

February 16, 2010

Self-Examination: Spiritual Stocktaking

Dear Friends in Christ,If you have never lived in snow country where the roads are salted because of snow and ice, you may not know how salt can corrode the fenders and undergirding of your car. I remember seeing, one morning as I drove to work, an oncoming car lose its rear wheels and chassis. The trunk of the car hit the asphalt with sparks and scraping, while the rear axle and wheels went rolling off the road and into a vacant field. Since no one was hurt, I couldn’t help snickering to myself at the jocular scene, when I was suddenly arrested by the sobering thought: “Mark, when was the last time you examined the frame of your car?” Most of us, before we go on a cross-country trip, will check the oil, tires, brakes, and fill the gas tank. Yet surprisingly enough, many of us on the great journey of the Christian life, traveling over rough roads, in bad weather, icy passes and lonely barren deserts, demonstrate an all too lackadaisical attitude to the equipment of our spiritual lives.Lent is a good season to do what Evelyn Underhill calls spiritual stocktaking. In the disciplines of the Christian life this is called “Self-Examination.” It is the first discipline mentioned in the Ash Wednesday invitation to a Holy Lent. The Prayer Book reads: “I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s Holy Word.” (BCP, p. 265)Although Self-Examination, or “the examination of conscience” as it used to be called, is a long honored discipline of the Christian life, too often the average Christian not only doesn’t know how to do it, he doesn’t even know what it is. This of course is not his fault; it is the fault of us who are pastors and teachers in the Church. Ironically, 12 Step groups like A.A. and N.A. make important use of this discipline. The Fourth Step of A.A. reads: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” The Fifth Step follows up: “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.” Sixth Step: “ Were entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character.”These steps are part of the process of self-examination and repentance. As St. Paul counsels in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves....” There are two fundamental sources of help for practicing self-examination. The first and most important help, which seems almost superfluous to mention, is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit indwells us as believers. The Holy Spirit knows us thoroughly and searches the deep things of our lives. (Read for instance such passages as Psalm 139, John 7:37-39, John 14:16-26, Romans 8:26-27). To invite Him to search your heart is an invitation not merely to compile a list of sins to be gotten through; it is an opportunity for growth, learning, discovery, making new connections, receiving insight and to seek His help in putting things in order. The second help for self-examination is a written list to be worked through with self-honesty. Some people use the Seven Deadly Sins--(Pride, Envy/Jealousy, Anger, Sloth/Melancholy, Greed, Gluttony and Lust), others, the Ten Commandments, or the Litany of Penitence in the Ash Wednesday Liturgy (BCP, p. 267). One possibility that is often forgotten is to use not those lists that accentuate the negative dimensions of our lives but to ask the question about the place and pursuit of virtue. After all we have spent, as a culture and Church, far too much time with the clarification of values and given too little attention to the cultivation of virtue. So to take the Beatitudes, or the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:19-26, or even Seven Saving Virtues (Justice, Courage/Fortitude, Prudence/Wisdom, Temperance, Faith, Hope and Love) as the focus, after scrutinizing our sins of omission, can be a profitable exercise indeed. Such written forms might nudge us into areas we might be unconsciously avoiding and yet towards that which God would have us go. Self-Examination of course is not a one-time thing; something done merely before the Ash Wednesday Liturgy. You might want to do it periodically during Lent. Find a quiet place where you’ll be alone and uninterrupted. Put aside the cell phone and computer. Allow twenty to thirty minutes. Bring along a pencil and paper. Once there ask God’s Spirit to help you in your search. It may lead you to repentance, which is of course not only the result of grace but the key which unlocks the wondrous treasures of grace.
With joyful embrace of the Lenten disciplines,I remain faithfully yours,

+Mark Lawrence
South Carolina

Happy New Year, 2010! A Prayer for Peace.

Let us join our voices with those of the angels who brought us the Christmas message of Peace on Earth.

Glory to God in the Highest and, to All on Earth, Peace and Goodwill !

Here is a a portion of a prayer for peace....

"May the Lord banish from the hearts of all men and women whatever might endanger peace.
May He transform them into witnesses of truth, justice and love.
May He enkindle the rulers of peoples so that in addition to their solicitude for the proper welfare of their citizens, they may guarantee and defend the great gift of peace.
May He enkindle the wills of all so that they may overcome the barriers that divide, cherish the bonds of mutual charity, understand others, and pardon those who have done them wrong.
May all peoples of the earth become as brothers and sisters, and may the most longed-for peace blossom forth and reign always among men and women."

Pacem in Terris
Pope John XXIII, 4/11/63

Merry Christmas 2009!

A Holy and Blessed Christmas to all you...

One of my most favorite Christmas carols is the plaintive "I Wonder as I Wander." Its origins lie in a song fragment collected in Murphy, NC in 1933 by folklorist and singer, John Jacob Nies. Here is a beautiful performance. More information, including the lyrics, is below. One can surely hear the Appalachian Scots influence. I especially like the characterization of humankind as "poor or'ny people like you and I..."



While in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, July 16, 1933, Niles attended a fundraising meeting held by evangelicals who had been ordered out of town by the police. In his unpublished autobiography, he wrote of hearing the song:
A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins.... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song.
The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea". (In various accounts of this story, Niles hears between one and three lines of the song. Based on this fragment, Niles composed the version of "I Wonder as I Wander" that is known today, extending the melody to four lines and the lyrics to three stanzas. His composition was completed on October 4, 1933. Niles first performed the song on December 19, 1933 at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. It was originally published in Songs of the Hill Folk in 1934.


1. I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor on'ry people like you and like I...
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

2. When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall,
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from God's heaven a star's light did fall,
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

3. If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's angels in heav'n for to sing,
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King.

Shopmas and John the Baptist: An Advent Message from the Bishop of South Carolina

Dear Friends,
It’s a lot like bringing the boxes of Christmas decorations out of the attic or wherever you have them stored. Like pulling the Christmas sweaters from the wardrobe closet—that to my mind is the way the Church, each Advent, drags him out of the liturgical mothballs. His given name is John bar Zechariah. You know him as John the Baptist. He is completely out of step with what I have dubbed the Shopmas season. That is a word I coined some years ago to describe the season that begins the day after Thanksgiving and lasts until December 31th. It is celebrated with lights, glitter, cards, parties, presents, and most of all shopping accompanied by holiday music. It is enchanting how puissant such songs as “Winter Wonderland” or “White Christmas” can be for the shopkeeper’s business. Some preachers complain about this festive celebration. I kind of like it.

Continue reading at.... http://www.dioceseofsc.org/mt/archives/000435.html