DAILY MORNING AND EVENING PRAYER FROM NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

One of my favorite virtual worship sites, the National Cathedral is now providing daily morning and evening prayer:

Daily Online Worship

As the Cathedral remains closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, we invite you to join our online services:

• Morning Service of Prayer – posted 7 am EDT Monday–Saturday
• Evening Service of Prayer – posted 7 pm EDT Monday–Saturday

In The Works

Though doctors and scientists don't want to raise false hopes that there are any quick or easy weapons  on the immediate horizon against COVID-19, I think it is important for people to know that work is progressing in an all-out effort worldwide.

Ohio Governor's Corona Virus Press Conferences

I have begun to watch these daily which occur sometime between 2 and 2:30 pm. They are very informative and very well done. The governor has his role but so do many others. Dr Amy the Director of Health is particularly impressive. Glad to see an impressive team effort that brings together many aspects of what is taking place..

March 17th Update

March 19th Update

The Governor has taken many strong actions, e.g. shutting down voting on Tuesday, to get ahead of the virus.

Living in the Time of Distancing

What do we do while spending with ourselves "sequestered afternoon"?
We explored a hiking trail (pictured above) that we hadn't visited in a while.  It was a decent day yesterday; either a very late winter day, or a very early spring one. We had the place to ourselves, except for one person we met going the other way. We weren't tempted to disobey the "no diving" sign on the bridge. The blackbirds were singing their hearts out. Today we walked a different path closer to home, and heard cardinals and collar doves.

Primary election report

Today Illinois is holding its Democratic and Republican primaries.

Barr surrenders to a pair of shell companies

 Concord Management and Concord Consulting sound as American as "the rude bridge that arched the flood." But they are Russian disinformation shops who financed interference in our 2016 election. Although hardly anyone bothered to pay attention to them when Robert Mueller investigated the election, he and his team did get the two Concords indicted.
  And the Justice Department did take them to court. Although hardly anyone bothered to pay attention, the Justice Department dropped the case on Monday.
 Since the indictments against them were products of a presidentially-designated "witch hunt," and were drawn up by the presidentially-designated "hoax," there was no reason to think the pursuit of the Concords would go anyplace after Robert Barr became attorney general. Actually, it took him awhile to get where the president wanted him  -- off their backs.
 But he came up with a good, plausible excuse. It's one that will send one class of criminal attorneys to their law books to see if they can cash in.
 Concord -- according to the articles of Barr's surrender -- was using the documents it obtained from the U.S government under discovery and other legal means to expose "how the United States detects and prevents foreign election interference." It also wasn't forthcoming about its methods of interfering.
 So the case against the Concords was helping them and others they may share the information with to do more efficiently what they were on trial for.
 No alternative. Have to let the bad guys go if they do that. Any problems?

Televised mass

As I mentioned a few days ago, the Chicago Archdiocese has suspended all masses because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  This has changed my weekend rhythm pretty dramatically.  A typical weekend for me would include serving as deacon for 1 or 2 masses, along with baptisms once a month (although we don't do those during Lent).  In addition, I've been providing music accompaniment at one mass per weekend since November, as our music director has had serious surgery with a lengthy recovery time.  Taken together, these duties represent a big commitment of weekend time for me, as this is all on top of my family life, day job and other ministry duties.  But those weekend liturgical activities are now on hold.  This past weekend was the quietest one I've had in years - in fact, I can't remember one in which I had so little to do.