Miserable Offenders

Lightened before I got out there to snap it, but this morning I missed it by less than two minutes, maybe less than sixty seconds: right before the sun came up, firmanent and sea were indivisibly silver gray but for the black dividing line from point to Shell Island to point.

Yesterday was deposit and celebrate, so we went to g.Foley’s for lunch. Linda had iced tea and the elegant crabcake. Water because I’m too cheap to pay three bucks for a glass of ice tea, I had the flat iron steak sandwich, very rare and excellent, ate one half and we just split the other half for breakfast. Later this morning we are going to Tyndall for my haircut and a stroll through the commissary, where I buy the Bulgarian Style Buttermilk.

Seriously, I’m trying to move on and not write about it anymore, but it isn’t working, the mind is distressed. PCNH Viewpoints this morning, Connie Schultz, “Gay day for Christians.” And in the Forum at the bottom of the page, “In defense of the Confederate battle flag.” Schultz should not contemptuously use “bigots” over and over, it doesn’t help anything, just perpetuates. And the Confederate flag is part of my heritage until it is waved spitefully by white trash who have got to feel superior to somebody, then yes take it down. And Jesus said not one gardenia alphabet thing about homosexuality, but he sure as hell damned divorce: instead of picking out bits of Scripture to condemn their gay neighbors, why are Christians not damning to hell themselves and their 55% of neighbors who are divorced and remarried? When I was a boy the Episcopal Church never heard of gay marriage but sure as hell damned divorce and remarriage, of course that’s all changed with culture, for which I am glad, and the joke is “why won’t Baptists commit adultery standing up? because people might think they’re dancing.” Did anybody out there who’s what Schultz calls a “so-called Christian” and a “bigot” for condemning gay marriage ever sneak off to a motel with neighbor’s husband? Or friend's wife? Gimme a break with the pointing fingers, get a life. Or a mirror. Thou shalt not judge, lest ...

A sin is something the neighbor does.

It has come home to roost in spades. Here I go, sorry, instead of using my head and deleting, I’m likely to print this. Versus my Baptist Church that was the other half of my heritage, I used to know my Episcopal Church as the church of nonjudgemental, non-condemning, accepting love who were not obsessed with Sin or the sins of others; who for sin looked in the mirror and confessed it instead of peeping in the neighbors bedroom window, or condemning dancing, playing cards, baseball game on Sunday afternoon, bottle of beer, glass of wine, cigarettes and whiskey. No, not cigarettes, they all smoked, so that sin was put on the shelf. Whiskey was still a preachable sin, but you hid the bottle when the preacher knocked at the front door in the middle of the poker game Sunday evening. Lovable and beloved hypocrites like all Christians who condemn the sins of others.

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

Here’s the homestyle blindness of our own self-righteous bigotry that has totally frosted my beeyouteetee last week and this. At General Convention they legalized gay marriage in the church: I’m okay, I’m good. They made gardenia fools of themselves by wanting to divest everything about Israel and maybe Palestine, fine, go ahead all it will do is create more prejudice and hate. They called for removal of the Confederate flag, were rumored to have discussed chipping out of the stained glass historical windows in the National Cathedral all Confederate flags and pictures of General Lee, okay fine, erasing and denying our history will help us forget and deny what we were, have been, and are. Social injustices were mightily resolved against. Then the piece de resistance: in their haughty theological sophistication of ultimate antiscriptural arrogant, blind bigotry, bishops of the church who are so down on the sins of society killed a resolution to open the Altar, Holy Communion, to everyone. Scorning the Roman church for their announcement that only members of the Catholic community are invited and welcome to receive the Sacrament, we do the same thing ourselves: baptized Christians only. “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.” Never once did Jesus, compassionately and hospitably feeding, say only his baptized friends were welcome to the meal. Nothing but this total blind stupid hypocrisy would drive me out of the Episcopal Church, and only then if, instead of just continuing to sit on the shelf, the closed Altar is enforced, in which case I'm gone. In my lifetime, the main changes that this church has made have been because people ignored and disobeyed the bad rules. In time perhaps that will happen with this one.

T+ in +Time