Getting Ready

Pump up the Tires and Get Ready to Preach It

In the Church, this week is a Time In Between Times, and it seems meet and right to take advantage of that in some deliberate, purposeful way. The Ascension is behind us and with it the earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth; ahead is the Day of Pentecost with the promised coming of the Holy Spirit and whatever that may bring; but not yet. 

Symbolically it’s time to adjust to irrevocable change and prepare for whatever is to come.

More than symbolic. Not Hurricane Season is over, seeing TS Alberto off Jacksonville this morning, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ though thankfully about to head northeast. Hurricane Season is ten days away, so there’s time to buy flashlight batteries, bottled water, canned food, fill up the gas tank.  

It’s more than symbolic for me personally too, because though our Rector’s sabbatical is twenty days away for him, it’s only skip--one--Sunday away for me. He’s preaching this coming Sunday, then it’s me in the HNEC pulpit every Sunday morning through Labor Day weekend. Time to check my homiletic junkyard and put water in the batteries and air in the tires of that old Nash and Studebaker and Frazer Manhattan that’ve decayed on the bookshelf lo this quarter-century and more.

Every Sunday while Fr. Steve is away we’ll pray For the Good Use of Leisure (BCP 825) and For Travelers (BCP 831). Taking those prayers to heart and mind, we’ll use the summer sabbatical to experience in ten-thirty worship some of the things we’ve discovered in Sunday School and Bible Seminar and EfM and Wednesday Eucharist. EOW. Creed w/o filioque. And other things.

All that Frazer needs is to clean the windshield, jump the battery, and it's ready to preach, eh? Sprinkler just cut off. St. Andrews Bay is flat. No palm fronds or pine needles are stirring. Upstairs porch door is open. Shell Island is still there. And My Laughing Place.

Maybe that Terraplane will start.

TW+ 

That Studebaker will preach too, if I put a set of re-caps on it: