Good afternoon on this Fourth of July 2025. Here at 7H we have a gray, overcast day, warm and close outside. Not as many small boats on the Bay as I'd thought - - maybe everyone is waiting to turn out for this evening's fireworks display. I suppose it varies from year to year, but I remember one Fourth evening when the report was that there were over seven hundred small boats out there. I've been out there, and it was scary when, after the Grand Finale, every boat roared up its motor and set off top speed for home.  We don't need to go anywhere! Our outlook here from 7H is straight to the left, east, to where the fireworks barge is moored, or anchored, IDK how they secure it. ++++++++ Unable to change what the world around me is becoming, my thoughts today are wandering off to the lectionary propers for this Sunday, Proper 9, Year C. The Collect, or official prayer of the day, which is meant to gather the thoughts of everyone in the congregation to the worship liturgy...

Supper on 7H porch, about 6:15 to 8:30 pm as the day closed out, then late to bed, it was ten-thirty last night when we turned out the light. Supper: if it doesn't drip off your hand and ruin your pants you're not living. Tuesday the WOW technician came and corrected the television issue.  Hurricane Season is no Time for the TV to be out.  We placed the order for our new kitchen countertop and ratified the amended cabinet order. Changing from dark cabinets and black countertop to white. A nonagenarian cannot see anything on a black countertop, we should have done this ten years ago before moving in. Meantime the place is chaos, as we've emptied all kitchen cabinets and stuff is spread throughout the dining room and livxingroom, every flat surface covered. Thursday: haircut. Then, considering the quality of my tomato sandwiches, to Tanya's Garden to see if they had Slocomb, Alabama Tomatoes: luck! I bought ten or twelve, every one ready to cut, so I have to move fast wit...

  Evil happens, including Evil in Life and Evil in the Nature of Things. A young man sets a brush fire then shoots and kills firemen who respond, then kills himself: Why, God? Something is terribly wrong. Why, God? A tornado touches down and kills innocent people, Why? A hurricane, an earthquake, a tsunami. A wildfire. Cancer, Why, God? Evil in the Nature of Things. Years ago, my most perfect and innocent-ever parishioner died of brain cancer and I remember that, during my funeral homily I turned in tears and rage toward the Altar and shook my fist at God, shouting, "What the hell's the matter with you?"  Years ago someone was challenging me to defend God when, I don't recall the details, but someone had died unfairly and unTimely, perhaps the death of a child and grieving survivors were blaming God for the outrage. My response was, and probably still is, that I refuse to defend God who is big enough and old enough to defend Himself; and further that if God is ascribe...

  Shehecheyanu when I am sitting on 7H porch and a flight of several dozen pelicans glides by close, so close as to fill the porch's picture-frame of my view; close, level, and, before I can grab my camera, tilts up to the right and sails off toward their dayTime fishing perch - -  shehecheyanu. Baruch ata, Adonai Eloheinu Melech haOlam, blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, shehecheyanu, who gives life.  Top pic: I did manage to snap a little flight of a few, and one of an osprey arriving to fish for breakfast.  That's today, Monday after Sunday: שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה, אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Haolam, shehecheyanu Blessed are You Lord our God King of the Universe, who gives life Sunday: just after five o'clock this morning I was outside on 7H porch sipping hot & black, when I realized I'd left my phone inside. I'd picked it up first, carried it to where the coffee was filling the ro...

In the old days of Summer my panic would be starting to set in because a third of summer vacation would be over already. God help the poor kids today, they only get two months, so it's HALF over for them. There may be some disagreement, and I'm certain of nothing, but when I started at Cove School back in September 1941, our Bay District Summer Vacation was four months, which I ya ya ya'd at my Pensacola first cousins, who went to school nine months to our eight.  All that has been said here before and not been contested. I'm thinking of May 8 as a day Summer Vacation started one glorious Summer eighty-some years ago. Bubba was not an enthusiastic student. Summer Vacation was my Happy Place, and Christmas Vacation second happiest. The notion of MLP, My Laughing Place didn't come to me until "Song of the South" came to the Ritz Theatre and I watched Brer Rabbit tricking Brer Fox and Brer Bear out of roasting him on a barbecue spit over a hot fire. Brer Bear...