O holy night: happy Christmas to all. Not getting out into anything that lasts until we have to drive home after dark, we are at home here in 7H watching online our parish church's Christmas Eve spectacular long titled "Holy Commotion" and living up to its name. They are all good, but in my memories, the absolute worst most pathetic have been the sweetest, dearest and best.  There was a Time, Christmas 1984 to Christmas 1997, when I was very sure that Christmas did not happen anywhere in the world but Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola, the worship, liturgy, spirit, music, choir, musicians were that perfect. That feeling held on in me for many years after my October 1998 retirement. But watching and loving the little characters on show at my old home parish, Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, stole my heart away. We have a beautifully decorated Christmas tree here at home and loved ones are coming tomorrow to open presents and for Christmas dinner, and it me...

Calvin and Hobbes is a permanent favorite comic strip, especially including Calvin's occasional forays into theology, always on the mark if a step over the line for many folks. But the humor in religion, often hiding subtly waiting to be seen, can be what makes religion credible and tolerable at all, that's each person's call. Anyway, here's our gospel reading for church this morning: Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name h...

Earth is just one of 3.2 trillion planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone. Our sun is just one of 200 billion stars in the Milky Way. The Milky Way is just one of 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. What may lie outside the observable universe in the entirety of the Pantokrator's creation boggles the mind incomprehensibly.  ++++++++++ It's just you and me, Lord. A man IS an island after all, isolated, an island, it's just us, it's just you and me. And then nothing - - unaware dust - - not even the darkness of oblivion. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return - - to disperse in a whiff of breeze, Ruach, the breath of God. ++++++++ Now and then, from Time to Time, an essay, meditation, or other sort of article appears that is so exquisite to me as to warrant copy and paste into my weblog. From the NYT, today's Opinion essay by MDC Drout is such, beginning with my identification with what he says about JRR Tolkien and his Middle-Earth, a real...