Sunday On the Road
Okay, I’ll begin a sentence or conversation with okay but generally not with well or so; and one singularly avoided word is very, which signifies intellectually, a prejudice of mine long years before hashtagveryverypotusbelieveme slithered out of the shadows into the gloam.
Once, mentoring a vocational deacon, I wandered round the church listening while he practice-preached. When he voiced a phrase very, very, very touching I stopped him and said very is the most overused word in the English language, and the more you say very the less touching it gets, take out every very and say quite or most or some such. He changed it to one very, but preaching it the following Sunday had his way and it was very, very, very, touching.
Once, mentoring a vocational deacon, I wandered round the church listening while he practice-preached. When he voiced a phrase very, very, very touching I stopped him and said very is the most overused word in the English language, and the more you say very the less touching it gets, take out every very and say quite or most or some such. He changed it to one very, but preaching it the following Sunday had his way and it was very, very, very, touching.
Movies, films, a friend put me onto a new genre. Saturday evening before going to bed I watched Vernon, Florida after having driven through there earlier in the day. This might be a film for which I could say very very very - who hasn’t watched Errol Morris, a shame, tune in and turn on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxYik9RGEYo
Also found White Springs, Florida, home of Fat Belly’s cafe. Hamilton County. I had been thinking of High Springs just out of dry Alachua County, where my KA brothers used to carry a fistful of currency to buy the grain alcohol for the party.
Yesterday we left 7H on time, heading east to PortStJoe at 5:22 in pitch black dark, rain and wind, only car on the road nearly all the way cross town, Linda driving, windy on Tyndall (Dupont) Bridge. Careful but watching the time to arrive StJamesPSJ a half hour before the eight o’clock service. All okay parking in church parking lot at 7:25/6:25 Central still not completely light as yet.
We waited ten minutes alone, then decided to check if any sort of notice was posted on the front door. Yep. No Wednesday healing service in October, no eight o’clock service in October. Morning Prayer on October Sundays except October 8 when Fr. Tom Weller would be there at eleven o'clock. Okay, so I evidently wasn’t listening when the rector asked me to supply, no doubt he told me eleven o’clock only; so we’re three and a half hours early. Who has been in PSJ three hours early on a tropical-stormy Sunday morning? We drove on over to Apalachicola, noticed several cars at Trinity for the eight o’clock service, drove around Our Town a bit.
Obviously a Model-T, this relic has the corpse of a four-cylinder Ford motor.
Had coffee and shared a blueberry turnover at Apalachicola Chocolate Shop, on the way out of town stopped by friends’ home and invited them to have supper with us when we are back for a wedding in two weeks, drove back to PSJ arriving half hour before eleven o’clock service.
Checked out mic system, changed battery, scoped the church for my moves. Seventeen people present counting Linda and me, which lowered sermon formality to a chat from the pulpit. Pleasant visit including dear friend of three and a half decades, and a widow who after the service said she and her husband used to drive over to Trinity, Apalachicola to hear me preach.
Kind words count.
Me inexplicably exhausted after the service, we headed home, watching hard driving rain out on StJosephBay as we cleared Gulf County en route to 7H. May God bless us everyone.
DThos+