Keeping commandments!

If you love me keep my commandments - John 14:15

What are the commandments that the Lord is asking us to keep? Just two. There is no greater commandment than this that love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and the second love your neighbor as yourself. Let us go further and say may be just one. Love your neighbor as yourself! And the other will emerge as a result! 

Before we start loving others let us start with ourselves. This coming week, take a few minutes of each day and thank God for the wonderful blessings you are given in your life. Take a few minutes to rest and treat yourself with a cup of hot chocoloate, an ice cream, a nice restful drive, forgive yourself for some of the things of the past that still seem unforgiven, respect and care for yourself and your needs, and do those things that you would really like for yourself.

Let us apply the commandments first to ourselves so that we can effectively and lovingly apply it on others. If only I know how painful it will be when people reject me, hurt me, love me, care for me, and understand me I can probably understand the pain or joy other's might go through when I do the same to them. How can I keep the commandments if I don't know what it does to me when I keep them? So, today let us make a decision that we shall look deep into our own pains and joys so that may be we could show our love better for others. We could think twice before we say things to others we won't say to ourselves or we won't someone else to say to us.

May you blessed today and coming days to keep His commands starting with yourself.

Fr. Jos

Weekly Communiqué

Post-Convention Mop-up

The 135th Convention of the Diocese of Arkansas is history and the dust is settling.  Kudos to Mike Schaufele, Cindy Miller, Rocki Proffitt and all of the good folk of St. Mark's, Little Rock, for a super job hosting the almost-300 attendees.  The hard efforts they made to see to every detail obviously paid off.  Thank you.

There were several elections and appointments during the process, and for those who were not present, they were:

Elections

Standing Committee:

•      Mrs. Lynn Barton, Holy Cross, West Memphis
•      The Rev. Pam Morgan, St. Andrew's, Mountain Home

Executive Council:

•      The Rev. Gene Crawford, St. Mark's, Crossett (Clergy, SE Convocation)
•      Mr. Andy Peeler, St. Mark's, Jonesboro (Lay, NE Convocation)
•      Mr. Garry Roberts, St. Thomas', Springdale (Lay, NW Convocation)
•      The Rev. Danny Schieffler, St. John's, Fort Smith (At-Large Clergy member)

Ecclesiastical Court:

•      The Hon. Robert L. Brown, St. Margaret's, Little Rock (5-year term)
•      Mr. George Talbot, Grace Church, Pine Bluff (3-year term)

Camp Mitchell Board of Trustees:

•      Dr. Robert Seibert, St. Margaret's, Little Rock

Trustee, University of the South:

•      Mrs. Pan Adams-McCaslin, St. Mark's, Little Rock

 

Appointments

Commission on Constitution and Canons:

•      Mrs. Sherry Furr, St. Luke's, North Little Rock (filling an unexpired 2008 term)
•      Mr. Barry Coplin, Christ Church, Little Rock (2010)
•      The Rev. Danny Schieffler, St. John's, Fort Smith (2010)

Commission on Ministry: (reappointments to terms ending 2013)

•      Mrs. Shellie Bailey, St. John's, Harrison
•      The Rev. Steve Thomason, St. Thomas', Springdale

We heard inspiring words from Bishop Benfield as well as from the Rev. Mike Kinman, Director of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, who shared stories and information about our role and responsibility to respond to the Millennium Development Goals.  Of note was the news that All Saints', Bentonville, has had it's organizational meeting and Bishop Benfield will meet with the Standing Committee soon to ask them to designate All Saints' as a mission station in the Diocese.  The biggest news was that the members of convention approved the resolution to move St. Thomas', Springdale, from mission to parish status.  Congratulations to all!

 

Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines

Parochial Reports are due today!

The Canons (1.6.1) of the Episcopal Church state: A report of every Parish and other Congregation of this Church shall be prepared annually for the year ending December 31 preceding . . . and shall be filed not later than March 1 with the Bishop of the Diocese.

Guess what, folks.  Today is March 1.  We have always been lenient in the past about this deadline, but due to the fact that we plan to publish both the 2006 and 2007 Journals of the diocese as one document and we hope to have this available sometime next month, we need your Parochial Report right away.  The Parochial Report is not contingent on your audit or anything pertaining to this year.  This is information for 2006 that you are reporting.  IF you have lost your copy, please be in touch with Beth Matthews and she can send you a copy and/or give you your ID and password so you can file your report online.

Also, each congregation recently received a survey from the Church Pension Fund requesting information on lay employees.  This is a very important survey that will impact, and hopefully help improve, the role of the lay person employed in the work of the church.  The deadline for this survey is March 5 and thus far we still have 35 congregations who have not responded.  If your church has no paid lay staff, they need to know that, too.  [Editor's note:  I am part of the task force that is working on this and we are working hard to find out, for one thing, just how many lay employees there are in the Episcopal Church, so please respond to this survey as quickly and accurately as you can.]

 

New Face of the Diocesan Website

Have a Look!

You are invited to visit www.arkansas.anglican.org to view the recently updated diocesan website.  Many thanks to the Rev. Jos Tharakan, Missionary Chaplain at Christ Church, Mena, for his expertise and diligence in getting this updated site up and running.  We welcome your comments and ideas about our website.  It still is in process, but the basics are out there and updates will be frequent, so visit often and let us know what you think.

Upcoming Events

March 2-4       Happening #18, Camp Mitchell

March 12-24    Executive Council overnight meeting, Camp Mitchell

March 16-21    House of Bishops' meeting, Camp Allen, Texas

March 18        Arkansas Day at the National Cathedral

The Weekly Communiqué

The Diocese of Arkansas    The Weekly Communiqué for Episcopalians Throughout the State February 1, 2007 A Statment from Bishop Benfield  . On February 19 I read with interest the texts of the draft of a proposed Anglican Covenant and the primates' communiqué following their meeting in Tanzania. I have not read any comments from the participants in that meeting, and I look forward in three weeks to hear from the presiding bishop about what she heard and saw and shared at the meeting. The Episcopal Church's House of Bishops will be meeting in Texas at that time, and it will also give me a chance to hear from some of the more experienced bishops about their take on the proposals and how we might best proceed.   We Anglicans have always said that we best discern the will of God as we gather in community, and any opportunity that people take to sit down and listen to one another and share their stories will be helpful, indeed holy.   One of my disappointments with the communiqué is that the primates gave little attention to issues of hunger and war and poverty, and how the church is called to respond through the eyes of resurrection to a world that suffers from those afflictions. When we take the focus off proclaiming that sort of good news, I think we lose credibility among people both outside and inside the church.   No matter what happens in the larger church's governing councils, we in the diocese of Arkansas will continue to focus on proclaiming resurrection, a proclamation of the good news that nothing is stronger than God's love. We will do so in ways that are needed in this state and appropriate for our people and culture.     Larry R. Benfield Bishop of Arkansas Camp Mitchell Crawfish Boil St. Margaret's to Host Event The First Annual Friends of Camp Mitchell Crawfish Boil will be held on Friday, 27 April 2007 at 6:30 p.m.  It will be held at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church at 20900 Chenal Parkway in Little Rock.  It will be a great outdoor event.  We will have musical entertainment more than 1,000 pounds of crawfish, a beer garden, and a ton of fun.  Come one, come all and enjoy!    Convention Week   Due to the busy-ness surrounding our diocesan convention, this week's Communiqué is coming to you today instead of Thursday.  Of course if we have any late, breaking news, you will hear about it.  For those of who who will be at the convention this Friday and Saturday, registration begins at 10 a.m. on Friday, the first business session is at 1 p.m., and we hope to be finished by the time we have the Eucharist on Saturday at noon.  (Note the word "hope" is not "promise."  For those who won't be at St. Mark's with us this week, have a great week and please keep all of your fellow Arkansas Episcopalians in your thoughts and prayers. Upcoming Events February 23:     Clergy meeting with the bishop. 10:30 a.m. at St. Mark's Church                       in Little Rock. February 23-24: Diocesan convention in Little Rock. Begins at 1 p.m. Friday                        at St. Mark's Church.   March 2-3:      Happening #18 at Camp Mitchell   March 12-13:   Executive Council overnight meeting at Camp Mitchell   March 16-21:   House of Bishops meeting at Camp Allen Beth Matthews The Diocese of Arkansas

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Genuine Love - here and now!

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Rom 12: 9

Genuine love is a love that transforms oneself and others. Such an emotion is not motivated by selfish interest. It is motivated by what is best within us towards the best in the other. Genuine love does not have terms and conditions. Anyone who is capable of loving other this way is loving oneself the way God created him or her to be. Therefore such moment of genuine love is also a moment of spiritual enlightenment and transformation.

A person who loves oneself as God created him or her, will soon recognize that sometimes in his or her life there are things he or she does that are  bad, sad, painful and shameful. This is what I call the moment of "Paul-ization" meaning, this is a moment of recognition human sinfullness and divine forgiveness. Instead of falling into depressing guilt they learn quickly that without holding on to what is true and eternal, good and genuine in others, they won't be holding on to God in this world. Life is not any more focused on bad, sad, painful and shameful things and acts, but truth, goodness, beauty that are real here and now.

Fr. Jos

New Virus - Trojan.Peacomm

Dear Reflections Blogger

I usually do not send these kinds of emails. But I thought this will be very
useful since I was informed of this directly by Norton Anti-Virus company.
Here is the latest threat to computers as informed by Norton Anti-Virus
company.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
In order to ensure you are informed of the latest online threats, we wanted
to alert you that Symantec Security Response raised the risk level of
Trojan.Peacomm from a category 2 out of 5, to a
<http://nortonmail.symantec.com/ct/ct.php?t=443178&c=713361894&m=m&type=1&h=
E373ECED4D1F1A1F6268381336EC60D9> category 3 threat, due to the speed and
volume in which it is being aggressively spammed across the Internet. The
Trojan, which was first spotted January 17, 2007 has been raised to a higher
category following a sustained increase in new versions of the attack which
appeared over the weekend as the malware author responded to improvements in
protection made by security companies by adjusting his tactics.

Trojan.Peacomm is one of a number of spamming Trojan horse programs Symantec
has seen lately that appear to originate from Russia and are clearly aimed
at making money for the author by pumping up penny stocks. The victim is
enticed through social engineering techniques to open an attachment, which
typically appears to be a video clip on a recent, newsworthy event.

The trojan horse arrives as an attachment to an email purporting to contain
a video of one of several different recent news stories. The email itself
will have no message body, but will have one of several subject lines such
as "A killer at 11, he's free at 21 and kill again!," "Fidel Castro Dead,"
"Re: Your Text." For a complete list of subject lines, please
<http://nortonmail.symantec.com/ct/ct.php?t=443179&c=713361894&m=m&type=1&h=
E373ECED4D1F1A1F6268381336EC60D9> click here.

--------------------------------------------------

Well. So the simple thing to do. DO NOT OPEN ANY ATTACHMENT REGARDLESS OF
WHO IT COMES FROM unless you really really trust the person who sent that to
you.

Sincerely

Jos Tharakan

TEst

Test

Bright Stars

Do all that has to be done without complaining or arguing and then you will be innocent and genuine, perfect children of God among a deceitful and underhand brood and you will shine in the world like bright stars because you are offering it the word of life. Phil 2:15

People wonder at stars. They look at stars all the time. No one understands the mystery of stars. It is absolutely fascinating to look at stars every night and if we can we might do so during the day. If we look for them we can see them.

Bright stars are always in our midst, here on earth sometimes and not up in the sky. Who are they or what are they? They are those who do what they are supposed to do in life without a whole of noise around them. People who care for others, love others, forgive others, and those who do the small things for the sake of others. Word of Life is simple and incarnate. It is real, here and now through me and you.

Blessing your daughter

God of love and compassion, today I pray for (name of your neighbor). Bless their efforts this day. Let no evil fall on them. Watch over their children. Give them a love for God. Bless them with the best of things in life if that would enable their spiritual well being and redemption. We ask this in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen.