Peace in the Church

The ruined Church of St Simon Stylites, Aleppo, Syria.

It's been comparatively quiet on the Church front these days.  Spiky Mike's went vacant in September so my Sundays are largely booked from here into next year when we sincerely hope we will get a new Rector.  The Anglican Communion is currently not too mad due to the retirement of such famed conservative pests as Archbishops Akinola and Jensen.  Their successors are currently less noisy, one because he's very new, the other because he was a Colonel in the Nigerian Army and keeping stum about an African military career is probably not a bad idea.  In the old days of course he'd have ended up as a Dictator rather than an  mere Anglican Archbishop - watching Dan Snow on telly tonight, I discovered that the legendarily corrupt President Mobutu of the Congo/Zaire loved Gregorian chant!  Their American buddies in ACNE (or something similar sounding) seem to be quiet after losing a lot of court cases on property (apart from the Texans, but Texas law is different which is why they seem to execute a lot of rather low IQ people).  The Welsh Woozer (aka Williams of Oystermouth) has obfuscated successfully to Michael Ramsey's old Cambridge College but I think is due to lurk in Edinburgh doing the Gifford lectures soon.  Archbishop Oilwelby  seems to be getting a grip and doing a pretty decent job and the new Pope is fairly putting a new gloss on an old song to great effect.

Doubtless there is both grief and joy in the Church elsewhere (plenty enough for all in Egypt and Syria).  My own little bit and the bits I look out at is all Quiet on the Western (Rite) Front at the moment.  The prayer from the Prayer Book seems to be apt: 

"O Lord Jesus Christ, Who said to Your Apostles: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you," regard not my sins but the faith of Your Church, and deign to give her peace and unity according to Your Will: Who live and reign, God, world without end. Amen."