Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Monday, August 27, 2007. The Church calendar remembers Thomas Gallaudet (1902) and Henry Winter Syle (1890).
* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm * Today in History: On this day in 1952, The Community of the Holy Spirit was formally instituted when the Sisters' vows were transferred from the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine.
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MISSION
Two years after Katrina, Mississippi struggles to rebuild
By Lauren Auttonberry
[Episcopal News Service] Driving along what is left of the beachfront boulevard in Bay St. Louis, one sees a lot of green. Nature has reinvented itself; flora and fauna are prolific along the Mississippi coastline. A few people dot the beaches in between ruined piers. Houses, however, are missing. Miles of vacant lots dotted with concrete pipe sections and new septic tanks bear silent witness to the ever-present loss.
Heading west from New Orleans, across the water's edge to Mobile, the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi has coped with its own losses and has struggled to mitigate the spiritual, emotional and physical deficits of the coast area clergy and residents pummeled by Katrina.
"Residents are still numb from the catastrophic forces which turned their world upside down on August 29, 2005," said the Rev. Canon David Johnson, Canon to the Ordinary in Mississippi. "The work to recover will be at least a decade in being accomplished. For many, the magnitude and long-term impact is just now setting in."
Many coast area clergy sustained major or total damage to their homes. Six of 11 coast churches on their beachfront properties were destroyed by the storm. Trinity Church, Pass Christian; St. Mark's and St. Peter's, Gulfport, have made long term plans and are building or rebuilding. Church of the Redeemer, Biloxi; Christ Church, Bay St. Louis; and St. Patrick's, Long Beach -- among the hardest hit congregations -- are continuing with their planning processes.
St. Thomas', Diamondhead; St. John's, Ocean Springs; St. John's, Pascagoula; St. Pierre's, Gautier; and St. Paul's, Picayune, have all participated in recovery and rebuilding projects of their own, having sustained comparably minor damage to their own structures. Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) grants facilitated the funding of projects through St. Peter's, Gulfport; St. John's, Pascagoula; and Coast Episcopal School, Long Beach, aimed at helping the wider community. ERD, as a major partner with Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi (LESM), has allowed Camp Coast Care and Mission On The Bay to function as volunteer work camps. Later this year, LESM will take over as the directing body for other established work camps with ties to Lutheran Disaster Response. LESM and ERD funds have permitted five-to-eight year plans to be put in place for these volunteer facilities.
ERD funds, in partnership with the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta/Hope Community Credit Union and the Unity Homes Project, have created the "Hallelujah Housing" initiative to facilitate construction of affordable housing in Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_89476_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice" from Augsburg Fortress, edited by Curtiss Paul DeYoung, 186 pages, paperback, c. 2007, $15
[Source: Augsburg Fortress] What impels a Mohandas Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, Jr.? How does religious experience animate a lifetime of dedication and drive for social justice?
In this instructive and inspiring account, Christian ethicist Curtiss DeYoung profiles three of the most dynamic and influential religious activists of the 20th century: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Malcolm X, and Aung San Suu Kyi -- each from a different generation, a different faith community, and a different continent. His portraits show how their mystic faith drove them to justice commitments and beyond customary boundaries between people from other traditions, countries, and ways of life.
Living Faith is more than a set of inspiring portraits. It also powerfully analyzes how these figures -- along with such other luminaries as Rigoberta Menchú, Nelson Mandela, Winona LaDuke, Fannie Lou Hamer, Elie Wiesel, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama -- shared a fiery core experience and common characteristics that empowered their lives and work.
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