A Reflection on and for the Church of the Advocate
The Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck, Vicar

Part I

Part II

Part I
September 9, 2007

Today I begin the first of two reflections on the Church of the Advocate -- "Why are we here?"

It seems appropriate for us, on the verge of the fourth anniversary of our launch, but more importantly, it is appropriate in this season of our life as a church when we realize that many of those in our launching congregation have moved on, and many new people have come.

We need to discern anew who we are.

It's also appropriate for us to seek an understanding of who we are in this season when the prospect of acquiring land and building a building or two is becoming more viable. Before we make such a potentially large investment of resources of every kind, resources that could just as easily be used elsewhere,

It's also good for us to be reminded of how we got here, what was intended for us, and to discern in the thick of it all why we are here now, and to what we might be called into the future.

To that end, my intention is to engage us in this process by offering two reflections -- the first today on why we are here from the standpoint of our sponsors and our first four years. A sort of how we got to where we are. In the second reflection, next week, I plan to offer some possibilities for why we might be here for the future.

I want to frame both of these reflections in the context of the biblical story -- the Biblical story as given to us in the Book of Genesis, the Book of Exodus, and the Gospels:

The Biblical story is the story of our creation -- We were created by God, in God's Image, to love and serve God, to love others who were also created by God in God's image.

The Biblical story is the story of the fall -- We realize that there is a gap between the world as it is and the world as is could be, the world as it meant to be, between each of us as we are, and each of us as we could be, as we are meant to be.

The Biblical story is the story of the Exodus -- We are a people who have been enslaved, enslaved by all kinds of things. But our God is a God who moves us, who leads us, from our slavery to freedom -- who shows us, and gives us, the Promised Land. Along the way, we are a people who regularly stiffen our necks and go after other Gods.

And the Biblical story is the story of the Gospels, of Jesus -- God so yearns for us to be in that Promised Land, that God became one of us in the person of Jesus. And if we want to know what God desires for us, and not just us, us, but us, all of humanity, if we want to know what the Promised Land is to look like

We look to the life and teachings, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is good.

I want to frame these reflections on "Why are we here?" in the context of the Biblical story because we are not here as an school or a non-profit agency or an NGO or a corporation or a family, but as a church -- the Body of Christ, the people of God. The Biblical story is our story.

So the first answer to the question "Why are we here?" Is to place ourselves in the heart of the Biblical story.

The second answer to this question is found in our conception and birth.

At the turn of the new millennium, there was a confluence of circumstances in the Episcopal Church here in Orange County North Carolina. The three established Episcopal congregations in the County were all flourishing.

- St. Matthew's church in Hillsborough, founded in 1742 by an act of the colonial legislature because there needed to be an Anglican Church in this region of the British colony of North Carolina.

- The Chapel of the Cross, founded by St. Matthew's in 1842, because there needed to be an Episcopal presence on the predominantly Presbyterian University of North Carolina campus.

- The Church of the Holy Family, founded by the Chapel of the Cross in 1952, because in the post war baby boom, Glen Lenox and other suburbs were growing to the south.

By 2000, all three of these churches were healthy and thriving. All with strong, capable, established rectors and lay leadership. All in a region of steady growth -- in both numbers and diversity -- with no end to that growth in site.

At the same time, a movement was stirring in the Episcopal Church nationally for the creation, or "planting", of new churches in areas of growth. And along came a new bishop to our Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, a man passionate about the Gospel and justice and social change and following Jesus "for real", a man passionate about inviting all people to live into the Dream of God and to make that dream known. Everyone got inspired.

The three established churches in Orange County, together with the Diocese, determined to go in together and give birth to a new mission. This says something significant about why we are here. We are here to provide extend the Episcopal/Anglican mission and witness in this region. We are a mission of the Episcopal Church, which is historically part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Which means we a part of a tradition of rich and thoughtful liturgy, theology, and spirituality -- a liturgy, theology and spirituality that is distinct from the prevailing Christian theology and spirituality of this region.

At its best, Anglican theology is a theology welcomes questions, that respects individual conscience, that looks for truth in the comprehensive, rather than the particular. It is a theology that is embracing and challenging, intellectual and nuanced. We are here to be an Episcopal Mission.

And at a time when many new churches were and are being born of anger, mistrust and schism, this new church of ours was born of generosity, health and adventure.

I was hired as the gathering priest for the Orange County Mission in the fall of 2002. Everyone started asking "What kind of church will it be?" Some wanted to know if it would be high church or low church. Others, if it would be liberal or conservative. Wouldn't it be a mission to the Hispanics in our midst? What about the growing population of retired people in this area? What about the Gen Xers? What about the growing population of Mebane? My answer was always the same -- What the church becomes will depend on who is part of it.
If you are part of it, it will be different than it would be if you weren't.

Of course I had a few passions of my own… No PowerPoint, no pews. Lots of water at Baptism, lots of a capella congregational singing…

The first brochure for The Orange County Mission included these "anticipated characteristics" of the new Church:

Central to the church's mission will be to actively engage in reaching out to, and welcoming, those who do not have a church home, especially those who are unlikely to be drawn to a more established church setting.

The church will strive to practice radical hospitality, being actively aware of, and in relationship with, its surrounding community. The church will strive to reflect the diversity of that community in its fellowship as fully as possible.

Liturgy will be simple and transcendent. The Eucharistic liturgy will be understood to be both a gathering of the community as the Body of Christ and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

Teaching, accountability, growth and nurture will occur in seasonal small groups, which will meet in parishioners' homes ….

Every effort will be made to enable those who participate in the life of the church to comprehend both the comfort and the challenge of the Christian faith.

Every effort will be made to empower and support the people of the church in their life and work in the world -- in their homes, in their places of employment, in their places of service and of leisure.

People began to identify themselves as being interested in being part of the new church. Many were from the sponsoring churches. Some were new to town and heard about the mission forming.

By the spring of 2003 we had our own hard-working steering committee, and by summer we had engaged in a process for discerning our name which culminated in our officially being given the name "The Episcopal Church of the Advocate Mission."

In September 2003, on the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Anglican/Episcopal presence in Orange County, we were launched.

Of the original launching congregation, consisting of 54 adults and children, only 24 remain.
It seems that people who are drawn to being a part of a new congregation are also drawn to other new adventures in life, even more than is usual for a transient university town. But many new people have come our way. By this week's count, we have 132. And maybe that tells us something about why we are here.

To always be something new. And always to be in the process of integrating new people and ideas and listening to what God is calling us to by bringing new people and ideas into this community year by year.

I regularly hear myself saying -- "Nothing is set in stone." And that's true, for the most part. But we are also a congregation that takes traditions of the church seriously. Especially in our liturgy.

We have developed a liturgy that is unique and engaging. It seems contemporary and informal on the one hand, but at the same time it is very much rooted in things ancient.

Two or three years ago, I shared with our vestry a paragraph of a book written by Diana Butler Bass called The Practicing Church. She tells of something called "re-traditioning":

"It is a process wherein … congregations … [create] communities that provide sacred space for the formation of identity and meaning…. In its more fluid forms of rejuvenation, adaptation, and invention, re-traditioning implies reaching back to the past, identifying practices that were and important part of that past, and bringing them to the present where they can reshape contemporary life. In this mode, congregations will tend toward reflexivity (willingness to change through engagement with tradition and an equal willingness to change the tradition through engagement), Reflection (thoughtfulness about practice and belief), and risk taking. (p. 50)

Reflexivity, reflection and risk taking. This is certainly true of our liturgy. And, I believe, our liturgy both expresses who we are as a community, and shapes what we become as a community. What we do in the liturgy should, at its best, effect what we do in the world. We will take some time in the months ahead to reflect further on just what it is that we do in our liturgy, but for the purposes of this reflection, I simply want to underscore this point: What we do in the liturgy should, at its best, effect what we do in the world.

We are here to be a "re-traditioning" congregation, A congregation of reflexivity, reflection and risk taking.

Here at the Advocate, we have tested and tried and re-traditioned various forms of liturgy, each rooted deeply in the broad traditions of our faith -- the list is long and wonderful. We have also tested and tried various forms of engaging with the community, notably with and for the mentally ill adults at Club Nova and through our sponsorship of Alternative, a young adult ministry. We've tested and tried all kinds of way of empowering and restoring people for their life in the world -- with small groups, book studies and Christian education -- Sharing our Journeys, racism, Act IV… We have cared for one another -- sometimes more effectively than others. And then there has been the evolution from savory snacks to table fellowship. We are not anxious about trying things new. We are not worried about things not working right. And we're really happy when things fly. Reflexivity, reflection and risk taking. That's us.

Why are we here? Every church reflects the time and place, the context, in which it was started.

We exist in a particular corner of God's Kingdom -- Orange County North Carolina in the United States of America. We are in a region called the New South -- a region exploding with innovation, education, and technology, with immigrants, newcomers, suburban sprawl, and socio-economic divide. We are in a relatively liberal pocket of the New South -- Carrboro/Chapel Hill -- which means that Bible Belt Protestant Christianity that dominates the Old South is probably not the dominant spiritual force in the community around us. There are other forces in play. We are in The USA -- currently most powerful and affluent nation in the world, with all the resources, temptations, vices and virtues that go along with it.

We are here to be an Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill/Carrboro North Carolina, USA. We are here to bear witness to the Gospel in this place.

We were launched in September 2003, three years after the pre-dominantly white, southern Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina elected a black man to be our bishop -- a black man who came of age in the south during the Civil Rights era, who was shaped by it and preaches from it.

We were launch in September 2003, one month after the Episcopal Church voted in it's General Convention to approve of the consecration of an openly gay and partnered man to be a Bishop of the Church. There is no doubt in my mind that these two events, each part of our season of incubation, inform why were are here. The Episcopal Church of the Advocate is called to be an open and inclusive church, bearing witness to the radical hospitality of God, to the assurance that in the Promised Land to which we are being led, all God's children have a full and equal place at the table.

We were launched in September 2003, two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- attacks which raised us all to a new level of awareness of the complexities and realities of diverse powers and cultures and religious passions in the world and of our place in the thick of it all.

We have also been blessed with a worship space in a synagogue! Do you realize how unusual that is?

I believe we are here to find new ways to relate to those of other faiths and identities in this world in which we live.

Why are we here? In our first years, we have been blessed by gifted people coming our way right when their gifts have been needed -- From the liturgical to the musical to the financial to the organizational and administrative. We have also been blessed with generous care and support. I believe we are here to be a community that gives witness to a spirit of abundance and trust, generously caring for and supporting one another and those beyond our selves.
We have been blessed with a name -- the Church of the Advocate. I believe that means we are here to welcome the stranger, to respond to injustice, to give new fire to the lifeless and mundane (the Advocate is the Holy Spirit after all.)

We are also a community of people who are striving to be attentive to our households and other commitments while taking seriously the call to work for the restoration of the world. I believe that means we are here to discover and nurture our own need for our restoration and peace.

Why are we here? In 2005 we engaged in a communal process of discerning our core values. And we concluded that the values we share as a community are Compassion, Justice and Transformation. Those are pretty splendid and strong values. And they certainly connect with the Biblical story. Creation, Exodus, the Gospels all speak to God's Compassion, God's justice, and God's desire for our transformation as individuals and as a people in this and every age. We are here to make that known in what we say and what we do, in who we are -- the People of the Advocate.

With all we have been given, with our passions and the world's needs, The Episcopal Church of the Advocate is clearly has a mission and ministry, here and now.

How are we being called as a Christian community as we move into the future? How will all this effect our considerations of community engagement, growth, organization, programs, land and buildings? That is the stuff of next week's reflections.

For now, in the Name of the Holy and life-giving God, let all God's people say --

AMEN!

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Why Are We Here? -- Part Two
September 23, 2007

Change, change, change, it's all around us -- roads, communication and information systems, how we shop and buy… And it's happening faster and faster. The accelerated change of the last 25 years has been almost dizzying, hasn't it? I suppose you could say that our society became one of accelerated change with the advent of the industrial revolution in the 18th century. Certainly things have been changing at an increasing since then. But the last 25 years… oh my goodness! Hallmarks of the last quarter century include:

- the end of the Cold War and reshuffling of world economic and military power.

- the advance of communication technology, including cell phones, satellite tv and, notably, the internet. (Bill Clinton noted in a post-presidential address that when he took office in 1993, there were only 50 registered websites. When he left office 8 years later, there were 350 million.)

Hallmarks of the last quarter century also include:

- time-saving devices and gadgets galore, but longer and longer work weeks, and fewer and fewer hours of leisure. More to do, more to do….

- a booming global market economy and a dying local market economy.

- a surge in consumer product production and marketing that gives us choices our parents -- or even our older siblings -- never thought possible. These choices include everything from news sources, to insanely packaged food to music to shoes to spiritual practices…

At the same time, through the amazing evolution of megacorporations, our American culture has been exported to the world -- McDonalds hamburgers, Levi's blue jeans, rock and roll and rap, Starbucks coffee.

There is a deception that a world culture exists, and it is ours. But not everyone is ready to accept it. So that as globalization emerges on the one hand, increased religious fervor and sectarianism emerges on the other.

Indeed, it has been said "globalization divides as much as it unites". Human beings, presented with so much change and so many changes and choices, begin to hunker down. We migrate towards those who are like us. Transportation advances and telecommunications allow us to do that as never before. So that, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks puts it in his book, The Dignity of Difference, "we no longer broadcast, we narrow cast." We see what we want to see, listen to what we want to listen to.

Add to this, that at the same time, there is an ever-increasing chasm and caste system between and among participants in the global market. Economic disparity is extreme. Now, economic disparity is nothing new,

But in our world the rich do keep getting richer -- it's stunning. And the poor get poorer still. And in today's world there is a very real anonymity about it all. Used to be those who owned the mills, saw the mill workers every day. Even if they weren't friends, they knew that their action, or non-action, had an effect on someone. Now the people making decisions in the corporate world, or the world of government, or even entertainment, have no contact with those whose lives they make or break. Used to be, those who drank the milk, saw and knew the farmers. Today, those face-to-face contacts and relationships are virtually gone.

At the exact same time that all this separation is happening, we are more aware than ever before of what is going on in other parts of the world. And those of us who have any moral sensitivity, are stymied. When a Christian in 1920s small town America heard from the pulpit the call to feed the hungry, they knew who in their town was hungry and they found a way to feed them. Or they supported a missionary who was "doing the work of the Lord" in some far-off place that they themselves would never see. But today, as Rabbi Sacks points out, "…television and the internet have … brought images of suffering in far-off lands into our immediate experience. Our sense of compassion for the victims of poverty, war, and famine, runs ahead of our capacity to act. Our moral sense is simultaneously activated and frustrated. We feel that something should be done, but what, and how, and by whom?"

Globalization has also challenged our traditional ethics, which heretofore were based so very much on a relatively immediate cause and effect -- if I do this, that will be the outcome. But today we are far more aware of the long-term effects of our behavior, not only on our selves and our children, but also on the environment.

Add to it all that most Americans live in a world in which the adjective "busy" is a constant descriptive of our lives, And time is something that we don't have plenty of, but rather wish we had more, much more.

It is easy for a sense of helplessness, guilt and despair to settle in on us.

This is the world in which each of us gathered here today lives. And this is the world into which God has called for the creation of an Episcopal mission called the Church of the Advocate. And how we do church as we move in and through this world into the future has got to take all this into account.

Last week I offered a reflection on Why Are We Here? And the list of answers was pretty lofty and lengthy. We are here to do it all in a world dizzy with all the changes and circumstances I described above,

While we ourselves our dizzy with all the changes and circumstances I described above.

There's a tension here, isn't there? Several tensions in fact:

- So much to do, so little time.

- And called to work on the restoration of the world when we are in need of restoration ourselves…

- And here's another one: called to be an open community. Called to welcome the stranger when we, like everyone else in the world, need and want a place of our own, a place to belong.

Tensions, tensions….

I've lived long enough to know that tensions, when acknowledged and tended to, yield creative growth.

So I want us to tend to acknowledge and tend to the tensions as we look to our future together as a mission church. And I want to suggest we go simple. Because anything more than simple is likely to overwhelm us, so that we end up doing nothing but feel bad. So I want to suggest we go simple:

1) By becoming pilgrims rather than tourists

2) By creating buildings -- literal and liturgical -- with porous walls

3) By developing intentional practices that shape and define us.

First, becoming pilgrims rather than tourists. This doesn't require any more time than we already have.

It's an attitude thing. It comes from realizing that the exact same experience can have a different outcome if it is approached in a different way. A tourist goes to an old church, guidebook in hand, and notes the architecture and the historical timeline of the place. Whether it's a church or castle or a museum doesn't really matter. A tourist takes pictures to add to the slide show to be able to tell others and remind herself where she has been.

A pilgrim goes to an old church, guidebook in hand, and sees the Spirit of God at work in that place through the centuries. And he is moved by that experience to further open himself up to the Spirit of God at work in his own life. If he takes pictures, it is to remind himself of the presence of God that he felt in that place. A tourist goes on vacation, to vacate, to get away. A pilgrim goes on holiday -- holy day -- seeking to be connected with God anew.

If we become pilgrims in our daily life, we will look for that of God in the people we meet and in the circumstances that come our way. A hospital room can be one of the coldest, most sterile places on earth,

Or it can be one of the most holy. If visitors go into a mosque and treat it like a tourist attraction, talking noisily, taking lots of flash photos, wearing bikini tops and flip flops, that mosque won't seem very sacred.

But if those who enter cover their heads, refrain from talking above a whisper or taking flash photos, it feels a lot different. Same building, same visitors, different experience.

Let us be pilgrims.

Second, let us be a church with porous walls. Oftentimes throughout history -- and even today -- the church has been a place set apart. Which is good. As a society we need sacred spaces. Ever increasingly we need objects and actions and spaces that help us to see and know the sacred that is beyond ourselves and beyond the transient and superficial of this world. We need objects and actions and spaces that remind us that God in Christ is the anchor in the midst of this life's storm. But too often the church has become a kind of fortress to protect those within from the forces of the outside world -- a place to give them an escape from the outside world. And too often those who are outside feel shut out, excluded, or filled with a kind of awe and dread that inhibits them from crossing the threshold.

Oftentimes the church has created a liturgical fortress as well, making things so "holy" and mysterious, that those who aren't a part of the in crowd feel very out of it indeed. At the same time, this fortress approach to buildings and liturgy can give the people of God the erroneous sense that God is only in those buildings, only in that liturgy. That what goes on outside the buildings and liturgy is secular, not of God.

My hope is that the Advocate will instead be a Church with porous walls. That whatever liturgy we create, whatever buildings we rent or build will be designed to welcome and include those who are not "insiders".

In fact, they will be spaces and places where outsiders are amazed at how accessible and welcoming it all is. That's why we may get redundant in introducing the liturgy from week to week or season to season.

That's why we'll stick with the binders for a good while, so we can all be on the same page, so to speak.

That's why our buildings, whatever they are, should lead with comfort and hospitality rather than religious institution.

This doesn't mean our space and our liturgy is void of religious symbols -- quite the contrary. In our world that grows ever more complex and busy with the here and now, we all need images and experiences of the simple and transcendent. But we need to be a church with porous walls so that those who are not like us, or are not "us" however we are defined, can come in, flow in. And so that we can flow out.

I recently heard it said that "Church isn't a place we go to, it's who we are." This connects nicely with the first point about being pilgrims, not tourists. The work of the Church, the being of the Church, is what happens where we go -- out there. And the measure of the Church's success is not necessarily how many people pledge (though we do need to grow to a point where we are financially independent). And the measure of the Church's success isn't necessarily how many people attend on a Sunday (though we do believe that we are shaped and formed by our participation together in the liturgy on Sunday). Rather, the measure of the Church's success is how the people of that church are participating in the great Restoration Project -- helping to restore all people to unity with God and one another in the world God has made.

That's a big part of the book The Celtic Way of Evangelism, which several folks have been reading together this past season -- People who are of the church, like St Patrick, going out and dwelling with, being in relationship with, people who are not of the church -- like all those 7th century Anglo-Saxons….

Dwelling with them, being in relationship with them, not to get them to come to church, but so that they may know what God in Christ is like.

At the conclusion of the racism discussion held at the Advocate last winter we realized that rather than lead with the question "how can we get people of color to come to the Advocate?" Perhaps we should lead with "how can we people of the Advocate go where the people of color are?" For us to go forth from this liturgy on a Sunday and find ways to be in conversation with, to be in relationship with, people who are different from ourselves during the week, is being church. And being good church, too. Let us be a church with porous walls.

This brings me to the third way I see for us to tend to the tensions of our lives as People of the Advocate -- By developing some simple but intentional spiritual practices and being accountable to one another about them.

Some of this comes from a reading of the widely acclaimed book The Practicing Congregation, by Diana Butler Bass (the same book that gave us the concept of "re-traditioning" that I talked about last week). Some of this comes from my own flailing experience with practicing, or trying to practice, contemplative prayer. If I choose to do something, especially something of a spiritual nature, I am far more likely to do it if I have some company, or if I am accountable to others about it. I am more likely to attend Contemplative Prayer, a practice that I know nurtures my life in God, if I know others are there to do it with me -- or that I am accountable to Char if I am not there. She knows that I want the practice, but that I need support in doing it. Besides, whether we need others to do these things with us or not, we feel and become more formed as a community if we are doing these things together and/or with one another's awareness and support.

Now as a faith community, the Advocate has three pretty clear practices already -- Our Sunday liturgy together, and the table fellowship that follows. And giving from our financial resources -- striving to tithe. These practices shape us individually and corporately as the people of God. They help to form our identity as People of the Advocate. I wonder how we might expand our practices in the year ahead.

"Practicing" Muslims don't eat pork. Neither do practicing Jews. For centuries, practicing Christians didn't eat meat on Fridays. We light candles on our Advent wreath during the season of Advent, What about lighting a candle to mark the beginning of the Sabbath on Saturday at sunset? Finding ways to pray and be mindful of God in the midst of things we are already doing doesn't take more time, but it can become a practice, a discipline, that shapes us.

One idea that came up recently as an idea for a simple practice for us as a congregation, is that we give up grocery bags for Lent. By using canvas bags with the Advocate logo on them, we can be reminded that we are doing it for the environment, sure, But more so because we recognize the earth is God's creation and we are stewards of it.

Individually we can commit to going to a store or restaurant or a gathering each week, or each month, that is frequented primarily by people different than ourselves -- and engage at some level in conversation with someone there. That is a profound yet simple form of community engagement. And it is being a pilgrim rather than a tourist in this world. (Especially if we wear and Advocate t-shirt when we go.)

I am increasingly convinced that the future of our world will depend on how much people of one race or nationality or religion or generation are in relationship with people of another race or nationality or religion or generation. That's part of what we are doing by developing a partnership with the people of St Innocents Church on La Gonave Island in Haiti. The world will be different and more the world that God intends for us if we are on the lookout for the opportunities, large and small, simple and complex, to engage with people who are different from ourselves.

What we do seasonally may get us started on something that endures. And finding ways to talk to each other about our practices is a big part of making them work. Accountability makes a difference. If you are interested in pondering how we might become more of a "practicing congregation" in the seasons ahead, let me know.

Everything else I've mentioned doesn't take more time, it's just tending to the tensions by being intentional and alert, responsive and accountable. There will always be more that can be done, of course. And we should sing praises and thanksgivings for those in our midst whose stage and phase of life allows them time to work for justice and engage more fully with the community around us on our behalf. Thanks be to God for them! But most of us can feel pretty overwhelmed if we aren't mindful. And the danger of being overwhelmed is that we end up doing nothing but feel guilty and inadequate.

My hunch is, if we start small, and simply become more intentional about what we are doing, if we start to develop small practices that make us more mindful of the Spirit of God at work in things around us, then the time we now struggle to find for "God's work" will start to show up in our daily rhythms and cycles of life. So that we will no longer be trying to squeeze something new into an already full schedule, but the schedule itself will begin to shift and change. We will be transformed.

Why is the Advocate here? For the time being, I believe we are here to be an intentional faith community, showing the changing, swirling community and the world around us the compassionate, reconciling, transforming love of God. By our conversations and relationships, by our Sunday liturgy and fellowship, by a candle lit at sundown, a canvas bag full of groceries, by a warm and hospitable building with a cup of tea brewing inside, a prayer uttered on behalf of another, a hand extended to offer assistance, and advocacy by those among us who are able. Beyond that, we do not yet know, do we?

People of the Advocate, let us be pilgrims, not tourists. Let us be defined and shaped by our practices and simple, faithful actions. Let the walls of our church be porous, so that others may come in and we may go out to see and know the Way of God in Christ, the one true anchor in the ever-changing world.

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