As a former medievalist, I have what I can only describe as a soft spot for cathedrals. More than just a place of worship, more even than the seat of the bishop (“cathedra,” as many of you undoubtedly remember from your high school Latin classes, means seat or chair), the cathedral was the heart of community life in medieval Europe, a veritable of hive of social, political, and economic activity. Christ Church Cathedral will be transformed into something approaching that medieval model of aesthetic splendor and public engagement during the weekend of May 3 and 4 as it throws its doors open to the public for the 116th Flower Festival.

As the Cathedral’s website puts it:

Sponsored by the Diocese of Missouri, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Cathedral, the event celebrates the blessings of nature’s abundance and beauty and our responsibility as stewards of the earth. This year’s theme…

Choose compassion over consumption.

That’s the message of the “Give it 4 Good” campaign. Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, an organization devoted to supporting the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, has begun a push to get people to think about the money they’ll be receiving from the government this spring.

“We have an economy that is based on overconsumption, one that puts our consumer desires above all other values,” says the Rev. Mike Kinman, EGR executive director. “It has caused us to cripple the creation with which God has entrusted us. It has led us into war. It has led us to look at our sisters and brothers around the world not as children of God but as objects in supply chains.”

“EGR has always been about spiritual transformation, and that’s what this campaign is about,” says Kinman. “The money given will transform and save lives, but even more than that…