Something to Learn

A few weeks ago I got to go to Church of the Apostles (COTA) in Fremont, Seattle, on my visitation, actually on Pentecost. I always love going to COTA for its creativity, and the fact that it is a place that truly draws many who have been wounded by the church and are trying to find their way back, and it is a place filled with joy, so a good place for just that. I like it too, because as the traditional guy in the purple shirt, which in this world is getting odder and odder and is also getting more suspect, here I am even more of an odd ball. While I am treated with great respect, there is a refreshing air of equality and simple, and uncensored indifference to the "bishop being present." I bring that up only to say, if you have never been there, you ought to give it a go, if you are an "in church" person, or not, visit.

So, on this Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the "birthday of the church" when tongues of fire came down on the gathered disciples and the Holy Spirit was said to descend and infill those present so as to move the Body of Christ into its new, more cosmic, pervasive, and shared reality, I had the tremendous privilege of spending it at COTA.

Even here, I do something that I have been doing wherever I can do it, on my visitations, and that is immediately after the service ends, I head out the door, to stand on the street. If I am vested, I stand there in my vestments, if I am not, I don't. On this Sunday, I was not. I had a collar and my purple shirt on but no ornate vestments, and I walked out on the front porch of the church, which is across the street from Burger shop and a coffee shop. It is a rather busy intersection. While my wife and I stood out there, with most other members inside, a couple came down to the bottom of the long stairs and looked up, and shouted, "hey, what is going on up there?" And I said, "hey, come on up and find out!" And they did! And my wife and I introduced ourselves to them, and they did the same for us, and they told us they lived about two blocks from the church and had always walked by it but wondered what it was, and what it did. They laughed and said, we just had two margaritas and so we have the courage to come in today.

"The courage." WE should not miss that. So, Ivar, the Pastor at COTA was introduced to them, and they toured the building and met some people, and said they might come back.

I don't know if they did or will, but I think of them often. I think of what they said, "so we had the courage today." We should not lose that. Some of the sordid history of the church, of how we have shared our story, our purpose, our intent in the world has left so many frightened. Though interested, they have to "muster up courage" to come in. This same conversation, as I stand outside the church walls in my identifying collar has happened over and over, in Darrington, in Burien, at St. Mark's Cathedral. People asking, so what is going on in there? And I ask if they want to go in and look, and they say they do. That interaction, and that little bit of movement, deserves our attention. The dismissal, "Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Spirit." (which I have called the Great Beginning) is calling us out the doors. Maybe we ought to do it, right away, go out, outside,... the doors, and stand there and greet the world that is walking by. Maybe we should move the altar out there once in a while, and hold our services on the front porch? We would take one small, or actually for many, large barrier away. I am going to keep doing it, and see what happens, because I don't just have something to share, I have something to learn.

Bishop Greg

Share: How We Ruined Worship

Another fascinating article
http://thegospelside.com/2014/06/21/how-we-ruined-worship-the-church-of-me-for-me-and-about-me/

What Would You Say?

June is pride month. For as many years as I’ve attended Pride in one place or another, still wince when I see the usual signs being held up by some Christians at Pride:

God Hates You!

Sometimes I want to scream out to all those that have been targeted by other Christians. I am so sorry: not all Christians believe in a God of hate.

In March, a friend of mine invited me to collaborate and organize an interfaith worship reflection time for Pride. A number of my clergy in our area got together, planned out and worked on it. What would we say?

Our Rabbi offered the local synagogue as it was close to the Pride Festival.

I want to say that I’m sorry, I told my fellow clergy. I’m sorry for all the times that LGBT people are targeted and hated by religious folk. The team agreed and I was pleased that they agreed to have me write a prayer of lament and regret.

What would I say? I prayed and thought about what I longed to hear all of us say in one way or another:

“Source of all life, Creator of compassionate love, the love that compels and holds all humanity to living life fully, was never meant to be forceful or violent, mean-spirited or exclusive and yet, in our human foibles, we stumble into fear, into ignorance, into dividing people into camps: us and them. We manufacture hate.

We stand by silently in our fear while voices for hate make demands out of ignorance and false hope that by silencing the ones deemed different, the whole will be somehow SAFER. Such actions are nothing short of evil and the only response is light cast onto such actions: courageous compassionate defiance that stands up to hate with fierce love.

How often the LGBPTTQQIIA community have been targeted by the manipulation of religion and love has been deviated into a force for perpetuating hurtful divisions and hate.

That is not the compassion of God, YHWH, Allah, Buddha Christ, the compelling way of love. That is human fear and hate no matter how sophisticated or based in tradition or sacred text, hate is hate and it is not the product of the compelling love that all faith traditions point toward.

For all those times of targeting, for all those moments of shame, for the residue of hate that lives in any bit of your soul still today, in the back of your mind, for all those times you’ve thought to yourself, maybe they are right. Maybe I’m slated for hell or exclusion or I am an abomination.

For all those awful doubts planted by the seeds of hate and shame, we, the spiritual leaders of faith communities lament and stand against such actions, such words.

(Would my fellow clergy please stand at this time and face the LGBPTTQQIIA community at this time?)

We, agents of religious establishments tell you that we are truly sorry and regret that such hate lives on in religion.

We stand opposed to such acts of hate. We stand affirming that all humanity straight and gay, transgendered, bisexual asexual and CIS was created for good and for love, created and held as holy—an image of the divine compelling love that we call God or Spirit. We affirm that all are made in the divine image. ALL.

We stand today in solidarity. We stand in love. We stand in the pain. We stand today and say, oppression has no dwelling in love. We stand in the dignity and pride of all human life. In the unity of love, in the one common air we share, in the life that is compelling and compassionate and as abundantly diverse and beautiful as a rainbow. So be it. May these Words be True. Amen.”

What would you say?

There’s a poignant expression in the gay community that points to our dilemma as a church—it arose from the dusty horror of the pink triangle that homosexuals were forced to wear during the occupation of Nazism during World War II, it became the motto for ACT UP, an activist group that arose during the Aids Crisis last century: Silence=Death.

For too long, the Episcopal Church has been silent to those that speak up in hate, we have been silent before those that are targeted, those that don’t know the church or the message of the Gospel.

We have been timid because we might offend someone that doesn’t like Christians or we might offend an Evangelical neighbor or an Atheist co-worker. Silence =Death. We have sat silent as a stone because we don’t want to appear foolish or anti-intellectual when friends assume that church and belief is irrelevant or ignorant.

Our silence implicates us in ways we can’t begin to imagine. Our silence makes us complicit with those that hold up signs about God hate, our silence reveals our smug, dispassionate tired approach to the living God that we have come to know in Jesus Christ.

When did we become so dull? Unwilling to walk out into our neighborhoods and say, how can the people of the good news be good news right here, right now?

Truly this silence will equal our death. So may its about time we stop and think:

What would you say?

It doesn’t matter if you have a gift for language. It doesn’t matter if you have a degree in theology, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t read the Bible (although I highly recommend that every Christian do this) what matters is that we not remain silent now or ever, starting the conversation, asking yourself: What will I say about/to those that say hate is a Christian value? How will I witness to the grace and love that I have come to know in Jesus Christ? What will you say?

And then start saying it.

George

Share: What Else Needs to Die In Church

http://theyoungcurmudgeonpriest.blogspot.com/2014/05/what-else-needs-to-die-in-church.html

Share: Seven Habits of Outwardly Focused Churches

Another interesting article that we have been reading

http://thomrainer.com/2014/05/28/seven-habits-outwardly-focused-churches/

“Passing The Peace” On A Spaceship???

On Sunday morning June 8, 2014 at St. James Episcopal Church, Kent, WA I listened to a sermon by the interim priest, The Rev. Joseph Hickey-Tiernan, on traditions. He said the most important generation in any traditions is the present one. If the present generation merely mouths the words of the past and goes through the motions of the past, the traditions die with them. If they bring it into their life, as their life is in the present, new challenges, new engagements, new people will enable them to translate it in a way that makes sense for that generation. They are worthy of handing it on to the next generation.

As Robert Ogden, one of the acolytes and fellow OCW member, passed the peace he said “I think I have my next blog for OCW”. But, I had no idea that I would have climb aboard a 1978 NASA (ISEE-3 Space Craft) to make the connection of tradition in our Church and this space craft given a shutdown signal in 1997. Well done Robert! See OCW blog, dated Wed. June 18, 2014, titled “Space Ship Church”.

Traditions of the Church, traditionalism, and traditionalists have been a part of many of our discussions, pro and con. Finding the core values that breathe life into the generations that must pass them on is a very important part of this concept.

Chuck

Share: The Most Common Factor in Declining Churches

Over the next week or two, we'll be sharing out some thought-provoking links in addition to our regular posts.

Here is one that is very interesting and a good place to start
http://thomrainer.com/2014/05/31/common-factor-declining-churches/


Robert

Spaceship Church

If you haven't heard by now, let me enlighten you. Back in 1978, NASA launched the ISEE-3 Spacecraft, which was successfully sent on several missions before finally being given a shutdown signal in 1997. To the amazement of many, 17 years later in the present, engineers have discovered that the spacecraft never actually shutdown.

The spacecraft still has plenty of fuel to be sent on another mission. All onboard systems seem to be working fine and its orbit around the Sun has brought it within range to potentially orbit Earth, be sent on another mission, or even be captured and brought back home. -- On the other hand, this also means that scientists are not sure yet that ISEE-3 won't also crash into the Moon. --

However, the equipment used to communicate with the spacecraft is obsolete. NASA doesn't have that 80's technology anymore and they don't feel its worth the investment to piece it together again. It follows that the commands and protocols used by the spacecraft is knowledge that has also been lost to time.

With NASA unwilling to continue the project with this currently viable spacecraft, a team of scientists and engineers have spent the past two month assembling the technology to communicate with and take command of ISEE-3. 

This news and its progression has filled me for the past month with excitement that borders on euphoric. (If you too want to follow their progress, bookmark this. I'll confess I check it far too frequently to be healthy). It's really hard for me to not dance across the room everytime contact is made with this beautiful old machine, flying through space towards home. Something in me deeply resonates and celebrates with this machine, despite it being retired before I was out of diapers.

Through this whole thing I've sensed something familiar about this situation. As if it bears resemblance to another body I love dearly and dance when it also successfully engages with the world. I think today I finally figured it out. The church is no different from this forgotten spacecraft.

The church is also long lost in the mind of society. Our changing culture and society's regard towards church should have been our shutdown signal all those years ago. Maybe it would have been best to shutdown and let the church die as it fell away from popular favor. Maybe not. Either way, the church did not shut down. And as we hurtle through a formless void, unable to see ahead and unsure of where we are headed, there's no little anxiety in the midst of that. This anxiety permeates into every church meeting I've ever been to, without exception: a deep concern that we might not be here in 5 years.

Our liturgy and tradition is a language all to itself. A language that the world forgot long ago, much like the commands needed to control the ISEE-3. The church was a more integral piece of society back when ISEE-3 was launched, and our shutdown signals both came several years ago. We've both been flying blind, but surviving, since.

I do find hope in the ISEE-3 Reboot Team, as they have been called, that even an old and obsolete spacecraft can still find relevance to people in the modern day. There's nothing wrong with the spacecraft, and I don't think that there is much wrong with the church. Our common problem is that nobody knows how to engage with us. It doesn't matter whose fault this is, only that we work to fix it now. Before we too crash into a celestial object. We must seek to translate our life and vitality in a way that makes sense to the rest of the world.

I want to close with a passage of a sermon spoken recently by my Interim Priest, Rev. Joseph Hickey-Tiernan:

"With any tradition, the most important generation is always the present one. If the present generation merely mouths the words of the past and goes through the motions of the past, the tradition dies with them.

If they bring it into their life, as their life is in the present: new challenges, new engagements, new people, and they are able to translate it in a way that makes sense for that generation, they are worthy of handing it on to the next generation."

Robert

My Village Is Disappearing

What would happen if we asked our church communities to be honest?

Honest about their faith, about their life, about what matters to them. On Pentecost Sunday, I did just this. I took a chance.

I invited my community during the sermon time to reflect on their own spiritual practices as well as being Christian and attending church. I’m fortunate that my congregation is use to talking back during sermons. Some actually dialog and if I ask people to respond on to something in writing or dialog with another person at church, they do so.

This time was no exception. The response that haunts me most comes from a young woman in her 20’s. She’s been faithful to our church since childhood. She was baptized Christian at age 4 in the church where I now serve. She loves the place and people.

Here is some of what she had to say.

“As much as I love this church, I don’t have peers or friends here anymore and I don’t know how to bring them here. I don’t want to attend a senior church. I know the people I grew up here but my village is disappearing.”

That’s honest. That’s as real as it gets.

The question is what are we going to do about it? What can we offer to those that are young millennials with barely a foot in our door and so much to offer us?

What I notice about my few young adults that hang around the edges of my congregation is that they yearn to actually “DO” something. And that something is usually not being an usher or serving on our governance board.

I’ve read so many articles on generational stuff and I find some of the information useful like the statics that something like 37% of all young people are moving back in with their parents as the economy continues to dramatically shift. Information about the crippling debt that we are selling our young into frightens me. You can pretty it up anyway you want: I see it as a contemporary form of indentured servitude. Our young and middle aged owe their souls to the company store. We are strapping on a burden on the backs of our youth while University Presidents, and CEO’s and other “top people” make exponential salaries at an alarming rate. That catches my attention.

Generalizations about work ethic or taking selfies, or technology making people more selfish is bunk. My Gran shared stories with me about the “dangers” of radio and newspapers and television. Generations often seem to be derided for this or that. Mine was the generation of Nirvana, tattoos and whatever dude. Does that sum me up as a person? As a child of God?

Rather than reading about people or whole generations, I prefer to talk TO people and listen. And listen. I wonder when is the last time we took the time to listen to someone younger than us—and not in some patronizing way of oh how darling or dismissive as in oh to be young again or wouldn’t it be nice if you joined the altar guild or painted the Sunday School room or served in our nursery every Sunday for free. I mean really listening.

Allowing that disappearing village to be mentors to us, the church. I often find that I need to meet my young mentors of mine out in the community where they live their lives. And no, I’m not using the word mentor incorrectly. I know I am older but they have more experience in their world that I do. So I listen and learn from them.

One young person is off to start his college career. He recently wrote a research paper on creating a just economy. When I asked him what bits of faith he takes with him to university he responded with this:

“Living a Christ filled life doesn’t mean I simply focus on Jesus—it means I focus on the people that Jesus focused on: the marginalized and poor. If God is love and we are to love our neighbors then all of us need to work on eradicating poverty as an act of ultimate love and therefore our work becomes God’s work.”

The young woman who wrote of her disappearing village is passionate about bees and the loss of them. I have invited her to speak about bees to our church. She would love to see us start a hive at our church. She even is thinking of a particular strain of bees that don’t sting.

Another young person is passionate about Icons. He gave a workshop on Icons at our church. Green hair tattoos and all. He is passionate about sacred music, the daily office, and icons. He and his partner yearn for Christian practices that are intentional and distinctly Christian. He and his partner keep goats and sheep.

It is my experience from listening to the few young mentors that have taken me on is that there is a great deal of energy around making a difference but not a lot of energy for propping up an institution. They long to BE church rather than do tasks for the organization structure that we call the Episcopal Church.

My mentor that is off to university to be Christ centered recently kvetched to me about the Episcopal Church.

“Why don’t we talk about social justice?” He asked me. “I went to the national church’s website and put Social Justice and Economic Inequality into the search engine there and you know I got back? NOTHING. We have worship down cold and we love science and all people but… “ And then dropped the other shoe.

“I don’t know if there’s anything here for me.”

The village is disappearing. What are we going to do about it?

George

Knowing the Bible

As a priest, I tend hear more confessions than I make; it goes with territory. But during our Outside Church Walls meeting last Friday, I started to get the sneaking suspicion that I had a confession to make, as well. We were talking about the practices of discipleship are, and how we nurture our lives of faith. And I realized something I'm a little embarrassed to admit: I'm terrible at bible study.* (I'll explain the asterisk in a minute)

Let's be honest: Episcopalians are known far more for our attention to liturgy than our knowledge of the Bible. I grew up in the Episcopal Church, and always knew about the rhythm of the liturgical seasons, and got an amazing theological education through the hymns we sing during worship (The Hymnal 1982 is one of the most important teaching tools we have in the church). I also came to know scripture in the way we tend to encounter it as Episcopalians: the snippets we hear in the Sunday lectionary, and the phrases that come to us through the Book of Common Prayer (which has a ton of scripture in it).

But until seminary, I'd not ever read the Bible systematically, digging deeply into the stories, and making sense of the whole scope of the book itself. It wasn't really done, at least not where I'm from. Once I got to seminary, I dove in head first and swam through my internal conflicts with Paul, and the Gospels, and how they relate to the Hebrew Bible, and what it all means for me, as a Christian today. And I spend lots of time with scripture each week now, especially since I preach pretty much every week, too. But I am not great at just sitting with Scripture as a good unto itself; I'm still working on making that a part of who I am (and that's the asterisk; I spend lots of time with the Bible now, but usually with the eye toward what I'm going to say on Sunday, and not usually as a devotion unto itself). I'm still horrible at pulling quotes and verses out of thin air, unless it's one of the verses that we use in liturgy. (Just today, I came up with a great example for a conversation I was having: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." But I had to turn to the Compline service in the BCP to place the chapter and verse in Matthew's Gospel (11:28-30, in case you're curious.).)

Having been an Episcopalian all my life, I know lots of Episcopalians who have the same sort of story. So often, the actual markers of a life of faith end up falling on the priority list because other things keep popping up, other things become our priority. But if we're going to be serious about our life of faith, as Christians and disciples, knowing the Bible is pretty important; how can we proclaim the Gospel if we don't really know it? And how can we invite others into that life, especially people who have never heard the Gospel before, if we aren't living the life of faith ourselves?

These were all questions we talked about on Friday, and questions that have hounded me through the weekend. I'm grateful to be challenged to engage the Bible more directly, even though it means moving admitting when I'm not as good at something as I think I should be, and things around in my day, and really examining my other priorities. But at its core, this challenge is to be closer to Jesus, to live a life of deeper discipleship, and to proclaim the Gospel by knowing it, and living it.

What is the next step in discipleship for you?

RC

Owning the Gospel

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the Global Episcopal Mission Network conference in Seattle.

GEMN (gemn.org) is an association of Episcopalians who are active in mission work in other cultures.

I did not agree with everything I heard there. But that's to be expected whenever imperfect human beings get together. But what really impressed me was the sincerity of everyone at the conference, each of whom is earnestly and intensely attempting to move beyond our own cultural constraints (church walls, if you will) and to discern what is truly the essence of the Christian message.

In the past the Church has failed to do that very well. More often than not, missionaries sought to transform the people they encountered, and the cultures in which they found them, into versions of ourselves. Our predecessors sought to “Westernize” other parts of the world, with rather predictable long-term effects.

Personally, I distrust linguistic politics. I resist-- and urge others to resist-- the tendency to put more energy into policing words than into to changing the underlying situations represented by those words. Otherwise, there is no real progress, merely new terminology that will soon be found to be as wanting as what it replaced. Nevertheless, having said that, I think that the term “missionary” (and I am one) is completely bankrupt. Outside of church walls, and even within them, the term carries with it the heavy baggage of cultural conquest and self-righteous (and self-centered) notions of religious and moral supremacy. We would do well to distance ourselves from that aspect of church history while at the same time honoring the positive contributions made by missionaries over the years. In order to do so, I think we may very well need a new term to describe those of us called to serve in other cultures.

What we are seeking to do today is radically different from what missionaries did in the past. Nevertheless, all ideas are not equal; there are some very bad ideas floating around out there, and not just within church walls. As Christians, and specifically Episcopalians, I feel that our duty when we cross cultural borders is to identify and make common cause with the good ideas that we encounter, and the people who espouse them. This isn't syncretism; it's growth. By the same token, we should join others in resisting the bad ideas that we encounter. This isn't elitism; it's integrity. We have much to learn from other cultures and experiences, and I think it is important to remember that we don't own the Gospel. Even Jesus doesn't claim to own the Gospel. Instead, He seeks through the Church to reconcile everyone to God.

“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”

Peace,
Brad

5 Things An Atheist Taught Me

It was many years ago that I met Bob. He and I shared an interest in writing and we both belonged to the same writer’s group. We have been friends, for about ten years.

Over those years, our friendship his beliefs has taught me a great deal about my faith.

1) Atheists have just as much potential to be ethical honest people I feel a little bit like captain obvious making such a statement, but I am a bit taken aback when I hear fellow Christians make broad generalizations that because someone has different beliefs or ideas, they can’t be ethical. I have watched Bob struggle and bristle over the some of the same issues that I struggle with: unjust treatment of people, the environment, greed, etc. Bob struggles like I do over things that are wrong in our society. While we have differences, we have much in common.

2) Most Atheists know their Bible BETTER than Christians Ouch! Believe it or not, Atheists tend to be better versed in the Bible. Every Christian is called to struggle with scripture and study it. If you really want to understand the Bible and your faith, I challenge you to read and study your Bible in a small group and then find out what it is Atheists believe about the Bible. Respond to that in your heart or with others. Are you disturbed? How would you answer questions about the Bible? Also why are we so afraid to study the Bible? Are we afraid that we might have to change our mind or heart or worse yet our beliefs? I once had a conversation about violence in the Bible with Bob. I walked away deeply disturbed and angry. He made me think about violence in scripture and what I think about violence overall. How do we talk about violence? Are we uncomfortable with the level of violence in scripture? How about in our country? Better yet, how do have a conversation about violence in the church and our community. It is worth having the conversation and thinking about scripture carefully. Too often, I think people hide in churches without ever engaging in Scripture or prayer for that matter. Struggling with scripture thinking critically about its meaning and questioning is an essential part of being Christian.

3) Our elevator speech sucks The strength of the Episcopal tradition is also our failing. As a contemplative people who delight in mystery, tradition and values practice of common prayer, common meal more than literalism or black and white thinking, it can be challenging to be succinct in our testimony. We often make apologies for being followers of Jesus because of our shame of how other Christians behave rather than asserting the beauty of what we love. Some years ago, a study was done on mainline traditions. Episcopalians were named the least likely to share their faith with others—even their own children. Faith is apparently a private matter. Add all this together and what do you get? People who struggle to tell their story and articulate our love mystery, yes and thinking, science, silence, love of common prayer, love of Jesus the Christ and the Gospel into a five minute or less elevator speech. Ick! Many of us would not relish the idea of a faith in five minutes or less. Yet, in a world of sound bites and shortening spans of attention, maybe such approaches are necessary. Yup Bob, is right our elevator speech is not so good but it doesn’t have to be that way.

4) Sunday Assembly Holding up a single sheet of paper, comedian and musician, Steve Martin declared, “This is the entirety of the Atheist Hymnal. One Song! Christians have hymns and art, but Atheist have nothing!” Oh how that has changed. Over the last two years, Sunday Assembly (that is Atheist church) in England and North America has grown even while our own assembly dwindles. There is something about the power and wonder of gathering, about becoming more than the sum of our parts. We’ve lost that sense of power, awe and mystery because we are way to anxiously busy being weighed down with our massive institution and structure; of doing church the way we always have rather than loving Jesus and standing in awe of transformation and mystery that is our common prayer and life blood. We are wearied from holding together church as it was instead of church as she longs and yearns to be. Where’s the fire and where’s our passion for our gathering?

5) Authenticity I admire the honesty and integrity that Bob stands in. He is honest about what he believes and why he stopped attending church. I may not agree with him, but I respect him for his authenticity. The church could learn a great deal from such honesty. All too often we in the church aren’t very honest about where we are or how we feel. We sacrifice authenticity for nice. We must be nice above everything at church and be sure to smile. A LOT. Nothing breaks my heart more than having members of my church community say, “I can’t come to church because I might cry or I’m so angry or I can’t be happy right now.” Recently I say a post from a young lady that read, “I am a Christian and the loneliest place I go is to church.” If we can’t be authentic in our communal body, if we can’t bring our whole selves to church from questions to anger to problems in the community to political outrage, then we aren’t following Jesus anymore. 

 I suppose that some Christians would take me to task for consorting with a non-believer, one outside the tribe. Of course, I heard tell that there was this crazy amazing teacher who talked to all kinds of unlikely sorts—even sworn enemies of the state. Maybe we can learn from those different from us.

George

Life and Death in the Church

A piece on the death and life of church by Laurie Brock

http://www.dirtysexyministry.com/2014/05/what-needs-to-die-in-church.html 

(courtesy of Jim)