not to be anxious

It is not to laugh

What’s the news this morning? Or per the Carolina Israelite Harry Golden as he rocks in his chair smoking a cigar, “So What Else Is New?” Everybody who wishes you could go to the moon until the presidential campaign is over, get in line.

Actually, it’s over for me: just leave and go into the room where the television isn’t blaring. Not to run it into the ground, but it was also the refuge offered by My Laughing Place. I could say that I go to the other room, sit down and cry, but that’s not so. Neither is it yet clear whether America is tragedy or comedy, and is it to laugh or to cry as clowns zip around the ring in little miniature cars, running into each other and bonking each other on the head. I don’t know. Obviously, you don’t either. 

Two services this morning, their Rector is away so I’m supply priest at Grace Church, Panama City Beach, where sixteen years ago I served as Interim Rector. Both fun and a challenge, being “Interim” is a dedicated vocational specialty for Episcopal clergy and quite different from the ongoing ministry of a parish priest. Transitional, the interim priest steps into a “situation” that begs healing, whether members of the congregation are grieving the loss of a beloved pastor or are working through anger and division. 

“Supply priest” is still another specialty, but it’s generally reserved to retired priests such as myself. I retired from parish ministry October 1998 and immediately was swept up in dashing from church to church from one Sunday to the next, Episcopal, Presbyterian, in town, out of town, east or west, up the road a piece. It wasn’t for me, I like being settled, as now. Today is a favor for a priest friend, at a parish where a generation ago I had a wonderful time and felt loved and deeply appreciated.

America? Our national political scene? I don’t know. There’s that collect, “Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure,” but I’m praying that this is little-more-than-the-usual aberrance in our cyclic four year nightmare, and that America as the founding fathers gave it to us is an earthly thing that will endure. 

“I VOTED” brags the little sticker the man handed me as we left the elections office. Let’s see what comes out in the end.

Delicious dinner at Captain Anderson’s last night, but then dreams that had Linda shaking me awake three separate times. Breakfast: scrambled eggs, toast, the last four bites of her grouper imperial, heart pills, ice water. 

201603130547 CDT pitch black dark, 68F 93%, flat Bay, wind 0 mph. Hello? Is that you, Earth?

DThos+