Teaching video: a shortened form of Evening Prayer

Welcome to my first “teaching video” – in this case, on a rubrically-correct but condensed or abbreviated form of Evening Prayer.

The rubrics of the The Book of Common Prayer 1928 permit a significant degree of reduction in the length of Evening Prayer (Vespers) while retaining its form and a lot of its contents, making it perhaps easier to fit into our often hurried, harried, and hectic early 21st century lives.

If you have the time and opportunity to say the full Office on a regular basis, more power to you! Give thanks to God for that blessing. But if you do not, here is a way to say a shortened form of the Office which is, nonetheless, fully in accord with the rubrics contained in the 1928 Prayer Book.

And here is the very interesting and informative blog post which inspired this teaching video: Evensong at Home: A New Shortened Form for Busy Families. I encourage you to check it out – especially if you found my verbal explanations confusing.

Gun News of the Week: ATF Says “Assault Rifle” is a Bogus Term | Outdoor Life

A Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) “white paper” correctly identifies “assault weapons” as a politically contrived term with no real meaning and recommends dramatic federal law revisions in how they are regulated.

Source: Gun News of the Week: ATF Says “Assault Rifle” is a Bogus Term | Outdoor Life

The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms – now Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, but still usually called by the older nomenclature) finally gets it right!

“Authored by ATF second-in-command Ronald Turk, the “white paper”… says the agency is interested in reforms that ‘promote commerce and defend the Second Amendment without significant negative impact on ATF’s mission to fight violent firearms crime and regulate the firearms industry.’

“Turk wrote that the misleading ‘assault weapons’ term to describe AK-and-AR-style rifles should be replaced with ‘modern sporting rifles,’ to reflect how the use and popularity of these firearms has grown. In fact, he noted, their use in ‘sport shooting’ has grown ‘exponentially’ and such guns ‘are now standard for hunting activities.’

“The ATF official also argued in favor of changes in policy for the import of WWII-era military weapons, such as M1 Garand rifles.”

Hallelujah! Now, it’d be nice if this would have some practical effect on the absurdity of some states’ gun-control laws, including Maryland’s…