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Once More, With Fire

Posted on May 31, 2012 by megancastellan

So I’ve slacked off with the sermon posting of late.

This isn’t because I haven’t been preaching; it’s because I’ve been busy writing about other things, finding a house for Canterbury.etc.  Also, I am unwilling to inflict ALL SERMONS!ALL THE TIME! on you, because even to me, who loves sermons!  That seems like a lot.

But last Sunday was Pentecost, which found me at St. Luke’s, in Prescott.  Like last year, when I was spending Pentecost on the edge of the Wallow fire, this year Prescott was on the edge of the Gladiator fire which burned up the community of Crown King.  (That whole ‘fire and wind’ metaphor is sort of agonizing in Northern Arizona, let me tell you.)

Here’s what I said:

Pentecost, Year B

Acts 2

 

I have a thought exercise for you:  right now, as you’re sitting there, think of all the words we use to describe the Holy Spirit.  All the different metaphors you can think of that you’ve heard of for the Spirit.

Go on, I’ll give you a minute.

For some of you long-time Episcopalians, this might be a trick, since we’re not what you might call a charismatic denomination.  But we do talk about the Spirit a fair amount, even so,  even if we don’t dance in the aisles, or speak in unheard of languages, or  manage to clap in time.

So what you come up with?  Show of hands.  How many got wind?  Which we definitely know something about in this part of the world. How many got fire?  How about dove?

The Holy Spirit is that one aspect of the Trinity that we seem to love giving different names to.  Even starting in Scripture– no one can seem to refrain from going off in lots of different directions when describing this thing.  There’s the spirit that descends like a dove at Jesus’s baptism.  There’s the spirit that moves like a breath over the waters at creation.

And in the gospel, that word that Jesus uses about the Spirit , “the Paraclete” in Greek is all sorts of complicated.    Sometimes translated the Advocate, sometimes translated Comforter, it has legal connotations– like a lawyer in a court who comes to your defense, and argues for you.  In a good way, not a slimy, ambulance chaser sue you into next week sort of way.

All of these images, all of these pictures we have of the Spirit’s moving in the world– what are we to make of them?  This Pentecost, we remember the Holy spirit coming into disciples and forming them into the church, how do we follow in their footsteps and seek this elusive Spirit?

Frequently it seems that when we talk of the Spirit in church, we talk about the dove.  Or that gentle breeze that comes on lazy summer days.  We talk in terms of the Comforter.  Calm,  Happy,  Peaceful, steady things.  That old revival hymn– (sung) there’s a sweet sweet spirit in this place/ and I know that it’s the spirit of the Lord.

Good old hymn, nice picture…but is it a complete picture of the Holy Spirit?

Sure, the Holy Spirit is a dove, in the gospels,  descending on Jesus at his baptism, but as that dove descends, the sky is torn apart.  And a voice declares Jesus’ identity in a big scary booming voice, and his ministry begins.

And in John’s gospel today, when Jesus speaks of that mysterious Paraclete— he says that he will come and not leave us comfortless– that’s the part that the lectionary skips!  And testify on our behalf, which also sounds good.

But then there’s this part about how Jesus has still much to say, but cannot say it, because the disciples cannot bear it now.  So the Spirit will come and lead them and us into it, bit by bit,  this new and ongoing revelation of truth.  That sounds less warm and cozy by the second.

The spirit, when we see it in the Scriptures, isn’t just cozy, and it isn’t just safe. It doesn’t protect us from change and distress, and things that might annoy us–   It comforts, in the truest sense of the word.

It gives strength.  It fortifies.  The spirit empowers for ministry.

And that’s not always a calm, or peaceful or particularly orderly experience.  The Spirit in Acts comes like a blowing gust of wind, descending like tongues of fire.  The disciples all of a sudden seemed like drunk people, all talking funny, in languages they didn’t understand themselves. One minute, quietly in a room together, the next, spouting off in Mesopotamian.

On the one hand, speaking a lot of different languages is a neat superpower to develop.  On the other hand, it invited accusations of being drunk at 9am in the morning, and missionary activity to the ends of the earth.  Because now, all the earth, all of those people were included in the embrace of the baby church.  The fall of the Tower of Babel gets undone in the blowing wind of the Spirit.  The disciples get a power, and they get it for a purpose.  They get comforted, and sent, by the Spirit.

There are times we get lulled into wanting the Spirit just for the peaceful part.   We want that pretty white dove, and not the wind and the fire that comes with it.  Living in Northern Arizona, this is entirely understandable on a literal level, but that’s not how the Spirit operates.

The Spirit doesn’t lull us into passivity. It doesn’t take away all our problems–it helps us through them.  It moves us to service.  It stirs us, even when we are tired, and sure that we’ve done all we can do.  It shows us a new path forward, when we’re sure that we’re caught in between the hardest rock, and the toughest hard place you can imagine.

 

It is our breath, as the body of Christ.  When we were dead and raised again in baptism, we were sealed with the Spirit, we were empowered and called to serve the world in Christ’s name.  Like those dried bones in Ezekiel (which we heard about/was also one of the readings today) we are pulled together by God, and enlivened by the Spirit’s breath.

So yes, at times, the Spirit may be unsettling, and yes, it may be startling. The spirit may, at times, take us by surprise, and point us into places, and challenges that look crazy at first glance.  But that’s part of the journey, part of this relationship with a triune God that gives us not just “solace, but strength, not just pardon, but renewal.”

 

And if we want to be faithful to that early, frightened, exuberant church so many years ago, then we have to be ready of all of it.

 

Amen.

 

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Kids these days.

Posted on May 18, 2012 by megancastellan

Last Sunday, I supplied for a little church in Clarksdale, AZ. (Picture a desert small town out of the 1950s. Tada! Clarksdale.)
Before he left on a well-deserved vacation, the rector called me, and asked if I would be willing to preach on “young adults and the church.” Like the rest of AZ, Clarksdale is largely retiree-centric, and these aren’t issues that are on the parish’s radar.

Believe it or not, I had never been asked this before. It had been talked about around me, or implied at, or whispered about, but me, the 20-something college chaplain, had not been asked directly to comment on the state of young adults in the church.

I was ecstatic. And somewhat nervous. Here’s what I said.

May 13, 2012
Easter 6, Year B
Acts 10, John 15

Ever since I was first ordained, people have approached me as if I hold the secret to all life. In quiet tones, they pull me aside, they whisper to me, “You, you are a young person! Tell us of the young people we have heard so much about!”. This comes out in the tone of voice normally reserved for Loch Ness monster sightings. Tell us of the wondrous and strange creature lurking in the deep!

This has accelerated since I became a college chaplain, someone working in the mission field of the 21st century. Because it is a mission field. Adults between the ages of 18-25 arent in our ballpark. The Episcopal Church, as a whole, is..more experienced at life than the population as a whole. The average age of Episcopalians is around 60. And according to most sources, the generation gap between “kids these days” and their parents and grandparents is the largest it has ever been– spurred on by rapidly development of technology, a tumultuous economy, and a constant, and never ending stream of information that we’ve never had to deal with before.

So let this be my report from the field, as it were. In Acts today, Peter returns to the council at Jerusalem full of what he’s heard and seen in unexpected places where the Spirit wasn’t expected to show herself, and it changes the church forever. so here is what I have seen of the Spirit’s movement in this new world.

First some context: the people we are talking about are young adults. They are between 18-34 years old. According to a recent survey, 94% of them have cell phones, 70% of them have laptops. They average 319 friends via social network sites like Facebook. They text, and instant message far more than they email.
They have little memory of the world before cell phones, and almost no memory of a world without computers. There has always been television, and it has always been targeted to them, no matter what age.
Information, in other words, comes constantly, and instantaneously. And from many, many disparate sources.
There has never been, for this generation, one, single, trusted voice telling you what to believe. There has never been Walter Cronkite. There has always been many, discordant, shrieking voices trying to get you to do something, buy something, believe something. All different.

Which leads me to:
In a survey taken recently by the independent Barna group, according to young adults, the most common word used to describe Christianity was: anti homosexual. 91% of those surveyed, churchgoers and non churchgoers, thought that this was the major word that described our religion. Judgmental came in second, and hypocritical was third. All over 80%.
Nothing about helping the less fortunate. Nothing about community. Nothing about Jesus, or God, or loving your neighbor as yourself. Nothing about what we are for, just a lot about what we are against. Or what a vocal portion of us are against, rather.

The take away the vast majority of young adults have gotten about Christianity right now is that we really hate a whole bunch of people. And they don’t really want anything to do with that.

And this isn’t about what you should think regarding same-sex marriage– that’s another sermon. No matter where you are on that issue, hatred shouldn’t be what Christianity is known for. Hypocrisy, Judgmentalism, shouldn’t be what we’re known for.

There are a lot of reasons why we ended up here– but the important thing is: if we want to get out? If we want to get the young people back, if we want to be church in the new milliennium, and all that stuff?

We have to actually love our neighbor.

We can’t just talk about it, we can’t just plan for it, we can’t just come up with distracting rules, to try to cheat our way around it.

We have to actually love people.

This was always our calling– Jesus’ command to us to love one another as he loved us has never changed. But it has never been more urgent, or more clear.
We can’t assume that people know that this is what we are about, we can’t take for granted that people know that we do this, that we intend to do this, and only occasionally fall short. They don’t. We don’t have the benefit of the doubt anymore– there’s too much ready information for anyone to get the benefit of a trusting public.

We actually have to start from the ground up again. In this new world, We have to live the way Jesus calls us to live, we have to walk the walk, and not just do the talking.

We have to abide in Christ’s love. We have to love our neighbor, no matter who they are. We have to do it actively, concretely, and without fear or judgment.

And the good news is, that sort of all inclusive gospel of love, that transforms the world and makes us better, more caring people– That way of life that we preach and try to live– that is what the world is hungry for. That is precisely what so many people are so desperate for, that they roam from church to church, seeking it. They want an authentic gospel of Jesus. They want an authentic gospel of love. They want us to give it to them, and they won’t rest until we do.

That story from Acts– that story of Cornelius, the Roman gentile, who wanted to become a Christian, despite the protests, and confusion of Peter and the rest of the Jewish Christian community. The Holy Spirit got to him before anyone else had. And it was through his faith, and the Spirit’s power that the whole church eventually caught up, and entered a new world.

The Spirit won’t rest until someone does the job. The Spirit of God won’t stop moving over the waters of chaos until someone preaches the gospel. The Spirit won’t give up until someone pays attention, so It might well be us.

Amen.

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All your bases are belong to Lambeth!: The Anglican Covenant

Posted on May 15, 2012 by megancastellan

And then, there was the Covenant.

Oh, Anglican Covenant!  You seemed like such a pressing issue only a few months ago.  (We were so young and naive then….) Then England staged its own small uprising, and now, no one can figure out if you are still an issue for us or not.  But to that in a second.
For the purposes of us here at home, the Anglican Covenant is a brief little document that can be found here:
This is the fourth and final draft, and it has been sent to General Convention for our acceptance, or refusal.  (Or our kicking the can down the road, which is always an option.  The Anglican Covenant: it IS a houseplant!)  This came out of the Windsor Report–that document that came from the wider Anglican Communion after we consecrated +Gene Robinson in 2003.
All that aside, there are some structural problems with the Covenant.  Setting aside the moral, ecclesiastical, and postcolonial problems that are all in this document and its assumed worldview, there are also some structural problems in there.  Just to round it out.
The Standing Committee on Constitution and Canons did an excellent report regarding these problems, and it is to this that I now turn.
They said, for starters, that the beginning is not great.  Specifically, the preface possibly conflates our communion with Christ, and our accession to the ordering of Anglican Communion.  Whoops.  This is not encouraging–at no time in our history as Anglicans have we taken a “no church= no salvation” stand, and it seems odd that we’ve chosen this point in time to start.
It’s one thing if we strive to make our common life mirror the communion we already have with Christ.  It’s another thing if we insist that our relationship with God depends entirely upon the status of our earthly relationships.  Here there be dragons.  Here, madness lies.
Specifically, saith the SCCC, our TEC Constitution does not mention the Anglican Communion,  (other than the fact it exists) or Lambeth, or anything other than The Episcopal Church, and, y’know, Jesus Christ.  Mainly because that was all we were concerned with at the time. (Revolution, y’all.)
Same with our Canons.  We don’t require accession to the Anglican Communion at ordination; we require adherence to the “doctrine, discipline and worship as this church has received them.” (emphasis mine) Right off the bat, in the Preface and Introduction even!, the Anglican Covenant suggests that it would like to change all that.  So there’s a Constitutional change we’d have to make, right off the bat.  (Keep in mind, that would take at least 9 years.)
Which brings us to: Section 4!  Such a mess, Section 4!
This section is the one that draws the most fire. It’s the disciplinary section: the part that lays out what happens if the fellowship that’s set up so nicely in Sections 1-3 falls apart.  In other words, it’s the Section of Consequences.
We already talked about the issue of autonomy;  are we bound in the Anglican Communion by love and friendship, despite our distinct differences at times, or are we bound by our agreeing on things?  It’s entirely unclear.
Amusingly, the Covenant itself seems to want it both ways.  In Section 4.1, the text says that nothing in the Covenant will override the autonomy of individual provinces, or let one province direct or guide another.
Then, it proceeds to lay out procedures by which both of those things can happen.  According to the report, the Anglican Communion at large would have to weigh in on …anything.   From changes in our Prayer Book to ordinations of bishops.  Also, we would need someone to make sure that we were toeing the official Anglican Communion line here in the States, and that person would suddenly be the Presiding Bishop.  So that canonical job description would need to be entirely rewritten.
Basically, as it currently stands, to accept the Covenant would mean placing the Anglican Communion, and its Instruments of Communion, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, above our General Convention in our hierarchy.  And it would mean a vast rewrite of our Constitution and Canons.
But!  There is, as aforementioned, a wrinkle.
For those not keeping score at home, not enough individual dioceses in the Church of England voted in favor of the Covenant to let it go to their General Synod for confirmation.  They can try again, but not before 2015 at least.
Despite the protestations of the Anglican Communion Secretary General to the contrary, this would seem to throw a major wrench in the works worldwide.
The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, in his statement immediately after the vote in England, said that basically, everything was fine, we are not concerned over a minor setback, the parrot was just pining for the fjords of Norway, and anyway, you naysayers, seven other provinces (out of 38) like the Covenant just fine.   So there!
What he glossed over in his frantic, nothing-to-see-here attempt was that the Covenant hands a lot of power to the Archbishop of Canterbury; not just the primates, and the Anglican Consultative Council.  The Archbishop of Canterbury is an archbishop with jurisdiction in the Church of England; not just a random dude in a funny outfit sauntering vaguely about Europe.  So if the Church of England has decided (as they just did) not to partake in this whole structure, it’s rather bad form to stick their bishop in charge of the rest of the Communion.
We once fought a revolution over the likes of this.
So now, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen.  Reject it? Ignore it and hope it goes away?  Pass it, and try to conquer the known Anglican world, just to bother +Peter Akinola?
We’ll find out, come July.

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Canons, Take Three: New Reality TV ideas, and Confusing Sacraments

Posted on May 14, 2012 by megancastellan

Welkommen, bienvenue, welcome…
to the third and final part of Megan’s Fun-Filled Romp through the Proposed Canonical Changes in 2012!

As I said before, I’m just hitting the highlights, so I’m going to breeze right on past the resolutions cleaning up language, and asking for revisions of Title IV (they are legion).

So we come to:

A106:Hey, Remember that time we gave you that money?
Proposed by: Standing Committee on the Structure of the Church

This resolution requires each province to give the Executive Council a detailed report of activities it does each year, and alsowhat it does with the money allotted to it by Convention. Right now, Provinces are not required to report back on their activities or spending.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and advocate for this resolution. It is a good idea that if we give someone money, they can tell us how they spend it.

And now, before I dwell too deeply on what the heck was happening for all the years before no one was reporting on the money they were getting at the provincial level, let’s look at:

A119:Let’s fire the GCO head, too
Proposed by:Executive Council

So, evidently we’re on somewhat of a “let’s make sure we can fire people” kick. And that’s the main reason I point out this resolution.
There exists an entire office to run the triennial behemoth that is General Convention, and its executive officer is selected jointly by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the HoD.

This resolution would give Executive Council confirmatory powers of that selection, and give them firing power as well. It is an interesting move. I am fine with someone being able to remove the GChead, but why make it someone different than the folks who hired you?

A041:Everyone Should Learn Things!
Proposed by: Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Formation and Education

If the standing committees and commissions were locked in some variety of cage match,* Hunger Games-style, these guys would win. I have no doubt about it. They are smart, they are well networked, and they are very intense about their jobs. Never mess with Christian educators.

They’ve got a couple resolutions up, and this one calls for every congregation in The Episcopal Church to offer instruction in the “history, structure, and governance of this church”, and also makes completing this instruction a prerequisite for holding any sort of leadership position.

This is a great idea. I really like this idea, because it will cut down on the number of people who try to tell me that Jesus was a Christian, Episcopalians believe in sola scriptura, etc. This is a wonderful idea.

This is also going to be hell on wheels to achieve, much less enforce.

Because what qualifies as enough education? What qualifies as passing? Who’s going to check and make sure? Theoretically, this has already happened– confirmation classes should cover this. But everyone knows that few among us retain that information for very long. And the content and quality of confirmation preparation varies widely.

So there are some practical issues to iron out.

And speaking of that:

A042: Whoops, Turns out Baptism and Being 16 Were Enough After All
Proposed by: Standing Commission on Lifetime Christian Formation and Education

This is an omnibus resolution which changes the canons from requiring confirmation for lay leadership in the church to: being an adult.
(In the eyes of the church, ‘adult’ is defined as ’16 years old and older’.)
In other words, you no longer have to be confirmed to run for the vestry, or run for GC deputy; you just have to be 16 or older.

Clearly, these two resolutions are meant to be taken together– the thinking is that baptism, plus education, qualifies you for wider service in the church. (Their report is very good, and is worth reading in its entirety.)

Awesome. No objection from me. That’s good baptismal theology. (Though, also clearly: we have got to nail down what on earth happens at confirmation. Ignoring it won’t make it go away. It’s a sacrament, not a houseplant.)

I am a little uneasy about the separation of the two ideas though. If either one gets shot down, the other doesn’t look so great. Suddenly, you have people (at any age) with no education in the Episcopal Church trying to run things, or, you have dioceses scrambling to maintain compliance when they are already stretched thin.

These should probably rise or fall together.

The last thing to cover has to do with the (in)famous Anglican Covenant, but that gets its very own post later this week. Stay tuned!

*Which would be awesome provided there was no actual death, blood, or violence. Think of the ratings/marketing/evangelism potential! Budget deficit? What budget deficit? General Convention:Survivor Edition! Tonight at 8pm on Fox!

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When we can’t all get along: Canons, Part the Second

Posted on May 10, 2012 by megancastellan

We continue our series of Proposed Canonical Changes: Highlights! with the next Blue Book report.

Resolution A065: 100 Ways to Leave Your Bishop
Proposed by the Standing Committee for Ministry Development
Might I pause here and express my love for the Standing Committee for Ministry Development?
Seriously. I love you guys. You guys are wonderful. I would like to line you all up and give you hit- fives. This proposed resolution adds an entire canon which lays out a process by which troubled dioceses can end their relationships with their bishops, and avoid ecclesiastical court.
I like this concept.
NOT (let the record reflect) because I would like to fire my bishop. He is very nice, and pays me twice a month.
But because there needs to be a way to end the episcopal relationship in general,in cases where it has past the point of no return. Occasionally, this happens. Reconciliation should always be the goal, but sometimes, reconciliation can only occur in hindsight, and at a safe distance. And in the meantime, the diocese has entirely shut down.
I’ve watched two dioceses now deal with troubled bishops, both to the point where ministry and mission ceased to happen. In both cases, it reached a point where it didn’t matter who was actually right, and who was actually wrong; the conflict had dragged out so long and become so contentious that until something external happened to end it, no ministry was going to get done. But the bishops held on. Because they were bishops, and who was going to tell them otherwise?

As a final note: the idea for this resolution, the committee would like you to know, originated from the House of Bishops. So, this is not a GOB Bluth-style-power-grab. From the other side of things, I can imagine that extricating yourself from a diocese that hates you has to be excruciating, as well.

Resolution A066:100 Ways to Fix your Crazy Rector
Proposed by the Standing Committee for Ministry Development, who are on fire this triennium

Told you these guys were awesome. Now that they’ve covered what to do when your bishop goes round the bend, they’ve turned to what to do when your rector loses it.
This resolution also adds a canon which would allow the bishop to ask an active clergy person to undergo an evaluation, or treatment, if in the bishop’s judgement, the clergy person is compromised. It also allows the bishop to follow up with said clergy until such time that the problem is resolved, or, in consultation with the vestry and standing committee, the pastoral relationship is dissolved.

Part of me loves this resolution to bits. Or, rather, I love the idea of this resolution to bits.
We need a mechanism in place by which someone can intervene in situations where the clergy have diminished capacity, and can’t admit it, whether by reason of addiction, or mental issues.

Our clergy are aging rapidly. I’ve dealt with several situations now where this has cropped up, and it is a serious issue. The fact that Fr. Whoever can’t remember red lights from green lights is cute in the abstract; it ceases to be cute when he insists on driving for pastoral care visits, and he totals 2 cars in a week. And more often than not, the parish leadership has had such a long, emotionally involved relationship with the clergy that they are unable to set limits, or see clearly what is happening. The boundaries need to come from outside the system.

But my concerns have to do with specifics. This canon rests almost entirely on the bishop’s judgement, at least in the initial stages. We established in the previous section that bishops are human. Bishops can be wrong. And who is going to stop the bishop if s/he decides that a certain priest is behaving erratically, and is damaging the church? There’s a small, but concerning, possibility for witch-hunts here.

Also, there are no provisions made for whistleblowers in this canon. (Again, experience here.) The bishop isn’t omnipresent, especially in 2012. Most of what the bishop knows of what’s happening is coming from contact with parish leadership, staff, and other clergy. What happens to the administrative assistant who calls the bishop to tell her/him that her boss is drinking at work? The junior warden? Right now, in our canons, outside of a Title IV complaint, people like this have no protection, or guarantee of confidentiality, outside of (I hope) common pastoral sense.

I don’t know that these concerns are enough to derail what, I think, is a good idea. They might be grounds for later revisions, especially the whistleblower idea.

And now for something entirely different!!

Resolution A072: Teach Everyone Community Organizing!
Proposed by Standing Committee for Mission and Evangelism

There are times I forget why I love my church. Then, there are resolutions like this one.

It basically does what it says on the tin: require that everyone being prepared for parish leadership in the church: priests, deacons, and lay leaders certified for ‘total ministry’ sites be trained in “1) understanding differences in cultural contexts, 2) storytelling as a practice for evangelism and community-building, 3) growing and facilitating the leadership of all God’s people, 4) building teams of lay leaders, 5) identifying leaders and their passions and calling forth gifts, 6) building capacity in nonprofit organizations, and 7) engaging God’s mission in the local community and in the world.”

None of this is bad. I learned some community organizing in seminary , which is essentially what this is. (Now we’ve lost the flyover states.) I’ve learned more since. It’s just very specific. And so it leaves me wondering if we’re going to look at this in 10 years and wish it weren’t so dated. Right now, storytelling is awesome, and the thing to do. In 5 years, it will probably be something else.

There’s another thing too, which sort of creeps in the background of a lot of these “grow the church!” conversations. We convention-type people have these conversations CONSTANTLY with each other. Lay leadership! Storytelling! Different styles of church! We come up with some bold new ideas, and it’s great.

Know who we forget to inform of all of this? The 65 year old retiree who sits in the 4th pew at church. He has no idea about any of this, and so when he goes to write the parish profile for the next rector, and to do the interviews, he will not hire anyone who uses such big scary words.

So we can train all the new leaders in this new stuff. The leaders aren’t the problem. We need to train everyone else. It’s the everyone else who are the problem. Until that 65 yr old retiree sees the value and the excitement in telling the new Spanish -speaking family who just moved to town about how great his church is, and how they should come, we’re going to go round in circles.

Next time: Structure! And we actually attempt to teach the 65yr old retiree some things.

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