silkworms and diamonds

“Diamonds do not dazzle with beauty unless they are cut. When cut, the rays of the sun fall on them and make them shine with wonderful colors. So when we are cut by the cross we shine forth as jewels in the kingdom of God. -- Sadhu Sundar Singh

His parable on the necessity of suffering:

“A silkworm was struggling out of the cocoon and an ignorant man saw it battling as if in pain, so he went and helped it to get free, but very soon after it fluttered and died. The other silkworms that struggle out without help suffered, but they came out into full life and beauty, with wings made strong for flight by their battle for fresh existence.”

Robert Ellsberg. All Saints. New York: Crossroad. 1997. 275.

Reformation Readings

What I've been reading: Among other things this spring I was reading a lot about the Reformation. Along with some Lutheran pastors and a Presbyterian minister and many lay people, I participated in a University Humanities Seminar taught by the head of the division of late Medieval and Reformation studies, Dr Susan Karant-Nunn. Among the "strongly recommended" readings were:

Wunderli, Richard M. Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. ISBN: 978-0253207517.

Oberman, Heiko A. Luther: Man between God and the Devil. New York, N.Y: Image Books, 1992. ISBN: 0385422784.

Calvin, Jean, and Hugh T. Kerr. Calvin's Institutes: A New Compend. Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1989. ISBN 0664250807.

Marshall, Peter. Reformation in England: 1480-1642. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. ISBN: 978-0340706244.

Ignatius of Loyola, and Anthony Mottola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. New York: Image Books, 1989. ISBN: 0385024363

These selections were easily supplemented with older books, from St Philip in the Hills and Pima County libraries, including:

Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (life of Martin Luther)

Owen Chadwick, The Reformation

A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation

New books continue to come out as this year is the 500th anniversary observance of the beginning of the Reformation:

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, All Things Made New: The Reformation and Its Legacy (2016)

Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (Yale, 2017)

Roper, Lyndal, Martin Luther: Renegade And Prophet (2017)
Of these I've enjoyed most the heaviest and latest, the book by Peter Marshall, which seems to be the narrative history to which our "strongly recommended" reading in the seminar by the same author was prolegomena.
And older books, including sections of 

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, The Reformation

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Christianity: The First 2000 Years

Rowell, Geoffrey, Kenneth Stevenson, and Rowan Williams, eds., Love's Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford, 2001)

And novels, including:

Mantel, Hilary, Wolf Hall (2010)
Mantel, Hilary, Bring up the Bodies (2012)

Also of interest (for future reading):

The Library of Christian Classics, published by Westminster John Knox Press.

T. H. L. Parker, ed. English Reformers. (Library of Christian Classics) Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. January 1, 1966.

Wilhelm Pauck, ed. Melanchthon and Bucer (Library of Christian Classics) Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. January 1, 1969.

G. W. Bromiley, ed. Zwingli and Bullinger (Library of Christian Classics) Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. January 1, 1953. 

John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion. (Library of Christian Classics) John T. McNeill (Editor), Ford Lewis Battles (Translator). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press (June 1960).

Other volumes in the series include writings of Martin Luther and Erasmus.

Other publications:

Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings. Timothy F. Lull, ed. 1989.

William J. Bouwsma. John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait. 1987.

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Tombstone and Bisbee Bibliography

Tombstone and Bisbee Bibliography

Journal of Arizona History

Summer 2016 (JAH 57:2, 197-220)

Hampton, Hunter M. “Religion is Truly Manly”: Endicott Peabody, Muscular Christianity, and Reform in Tombstone, Arizona.

Summer 2014 (JAH 55:2, 145-166)

Osselaer, Heidi. On the Wrong Side of Allen Street: The Businesswomen of Tombstone, 1878-1884.

Autumn 1974 (JAH 15:3, 223-248)

Walker, Henry Pickering. Preacher in Helldorado.

Autumn 1965 (JAH 6:3, 101-115)

Wallace, Jerry. How the Episcopal Church came to Arizona.

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Preacher in Helldorado

Henry Pickering Walker

The Journal of Arizona History

Vol. 15, No. 3 (Autumn 1974), pp. 223-248

Published by: Arizona Historical Society

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41695198

JOURNAL ARTICLE

TOMBSTONE IN FICTION

C. L. Sonnichsen

The Journal of Arizona History

Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 1968), pp. 58-76

Published by: Arizona Historical Society

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41695470

JOURNAL ARTICLE

John C. Clum, John D. Gilchriese and Matia McClelland Burk

It All Happened in Tombstone.

Arizona and the West, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Autumn, 1959), pp. 232-247

Published by: Journal of the Southwest

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40166963

Reprinted from Arizona Historical Review 2:1 (April 1929)

JOURNAL ARTICLE

HOW THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH CAME TO ARIZONA

Jerry Wallace

The Journal of Arizona History

Vol. 6, No. 3 (AUTUMN, 1965), pp. 101-115

Published by: Arizona Historical Society

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41695324

The Earps of Tombstone: The Truth About the OK Corral Gun Fight and Other Events in Which Wyatt Earp and His Brothers Participated. By Martin, Douglas D.  Tombstone, Ariz. The Epitaph, [1959]  979.153 M363e 1959

Silver, Sex and Six Guns: Tombstone Saga of the Life of Buckskin Frank Leslie. A Story of Tombstone's Early Gunmen. By Martin, Douglas D. Tombstone, Ariz., Tombstone Epitaph [1962] 92 L5655m 1962

Tombstone's Epitaph. Martin, Douglas D. (Douglas DeVeny), 1885-1963. [Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 1951] ISBN: 9780806129822

TOMBSTONE BOOKS

(https://pima.bibliocommons.com/list/share/363505048_johnnybyrd/937517427_tombstone_bookshelf)

And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight, By Marks, Paula Mitchell 1989.

Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest, By Burns, Walter Noble 1929 (reprinted by University of New Mexico Press)

Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, By Lake, Stuart N. 1931

Tombstone, Arizona, "too Tough to Die": The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of A Silver Camp, 1878 to 1990, By Bailey, Lynn Robison 2004

A Tenderfoot in Tombstone: The Private Journal of George Whitwell Parsons : the Turbulent Years, 1880-82, By Parsons, George Whitwell 1996

The Devil Has Foreclosed: The Private Journal of George Whitwell Parsons : the Concluding Arizona Years, 1882-87, By Parsons, George Whitwell 1997.

Bonanzas to Borrascas: The Mines of Tombstone, Arizona, By Devere, Burton 2010.

Preacher in Helldorado By Walker, Henry P. 1974.

Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite, By Breakenridge, William M. 1928. The R.R. Donnelley & Sons gift edition (1982) edited by Richard Maxwell Brown has excellent notes.

A Church for Helldorado: The 1882 Tombstone Diary of Endicott Peabody and The Building of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. By S. J. Reidhead. Wyatt Earp Books. (2006) 978-1892508188

Peabody of Groton: A Portrait. by Frank Davis Ashburn. New York: Coward McCann.1944. 2nd ed.: Cambridge, Mass.: Riverside Press, 1967.

Monahan, Sherry. Tombstone’s Treasure: Silver Mines and Golden Saloons. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2007

MOVIES (imdb.com)

My Darling Clementine

BISBEE BOOKS

Bailey, Lynn Robison. Bisbee, Queen of the Copper Camps.

Tucson, Ariz. : Westernlore Press, 2002. (979.153 B1538b 2002)

Shelton, Richard. Going Back to Bisbee. Tucson : University of Arizona Press, 1992. ISBN:9780816512898

Houston, Robert. Bisbee ‘17: A Novel. Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1979.

Love needs that to which it may give itself

The Christian position ... is that God is love; love needs that to which it may give itself; and the universe is created as the object of the infinite love of God....

The essence of the Christian religion … is an experience of the power of the love of God in Christ changing our hopes and desires.

William Temple, ca 1910, in Highway magazine, quoted in William Temple: Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and Letters, by F. A. Iremonger. London: Oxford University Press, 1948. 85.

What we need desperately in our country is to cultivate independence of mind and fellowship of spirit, and what we are developing through the present machinery of our political life, and developing very fast, is herd mentality with the spirit of pugnacity. You have got to try to invert that and teach people to feel together and to think for themselves, instead of thinking together and feeling for themselves. It is going to be done in the realization of the idea that we are all children of one family, and that our Father is the God of love.

William Temple, in a sermon preached for the I.C.F at Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, in October 1928. Op. cit., 509.

Trinity Sunday 2017

To me these lessons say that God is not distant but is active and involved in life, from the moment of creation. Jesus brought home the message of love and the active presence of God by what he did and said. And at the last what he left us with was a command: you take this message now as you received it from me and spread it around the world. And he assured us he is not leaving us bereft of hope or ability.

He sent the Holy Spirit who manifested immediately the power and grace of God by giving each of his followers the miraculous ability (and charge) to speak to others in a language they would understand - and in actions more powerful than words he called upon us to act toward one another and to the world in ways that show that love of God: creative, empowering, generous, liberating.

We see God in Genesis gently calling forth - and making room for - all things that be, greatest to smallest, mountain to mountain flower to bee that rests on the flower to pollen on the leg hairs of the bee. How much more then does God love and look after each human person?

The Christian position, then, as William Temple wrote long ago, is that God is not a remote watchmaker or first cause uncaused: God is love.

Creation is an act of love. For this infinite love of God needs an object - and that object is us, and all creation. We know that in the mystery of the Trinity there is an eternal dance of three persons, Son, Spirit, Father: an exchange of love more fierce than sun’s fire. But we also know that God’s love has made room for more than this mysterious communion: that his grace spills over into the large and small acts of daily being.

And so the charge to us today: live that love, proclaim that grace. And in the doing and the speaking, come to know in ourselves the truth of the matter: that God, in father, son, and spirit, is love - and that love will fill the universe.