While my mind is obsessed with War, the Ukraine - Russia War and the Israel - Gaza War, other things are actually still happening here and there.  For example, some folks in Louisiana believe God chose the new Speaker of the U S House of Representatives (no, really, HJJC, an XNRT election denier and who is too stupid to know that if Russia is allowed to overrun Ukraine it's just the beginning of a future that has really bad news in store for us).  Someone who writes books to sell has created a stir by concluding that people do not have free will  (and you should scan the online discussions and genius discourses). It really doesn't matter that we are evolved, wired and conditioned so that some options do not exist for us and others are closed to us. For the most part governed by commonsense and doing what's best for us in life as it finds us, we have all the free will we need and are going to have. Pakistan is busing undocumented Afghan immigrants to the Pakistan - Afghani

"What would you be if not human?" is a question I saw on Facebook just now, and I think my answer might be Saturn, the planet Saturn; or maybe a rainbow. Or a tree.  No, not a tree, maybe a trumpet vine, there's a trumpet vine currently in bloom, growing high in a tree that I see as I look out to the north and slightly west from the driveway over and beyond our parish office building. When I was a boy, a trumpet vine with its red flowers grew on the porte-cochère over the driveway at our Gentry grandparents' house in Pensacola. A wire canopy formed the roof of the porte-cochère, and there was always trumpet vine; oh, and very delicate pink vine. Maybe I'd be one of those vines. They're long gone now, but still exist in my memory, which is where all my reality is anyway, so, yes.  Or, I might be the fog that's covering St Andrews Bay outside my 7H window at the moment. I don't think I'd choose to be anything whose nature is to fight and kill, or eve

What do I have? a wandering mind that can't remember whether I put in my ears, or why I opened the refrigerator, or what I came into the pantry to get, but remembers things said to me seventy years ago, and smells and touches and tastes, and looking at. A mind that reads The Talmud because I can still learn and retain knowledge, but that has on the computer desktop a page listing words I need often but cannot remember. Words that include oracle, pagan, etiology, allegory, and several others. At this age I'm experiencing that some words slip through the crack and won't come to mind, and it's the same words repeatedly, so the list is to cut down on the frustration. And some poems. Not Robert Frost poems so far, but especially Thomas Hardy poems about God. Some of Hardy's poems are what someone has called "spot on."  Eighty-eight and counting, and the least sudden pain in the head or chest reminds me, "You are old, Father William," the young man sai

  It's a caution, ain't it. Nobody in my family will eat food I buy, much less will they touch food I prepare, "fix" is our Southern word; if Papa fixed it, ain't no way.  "Oh no, I've had gracious plenty, but thank you. You enjoy it, though." Friends sent us home with leftover baked shrimp dip, so good, so good in fact that I didn't want it to "give out" so I added crabmeat: now nobody but me will eat it because Mr Papa has fooled with it. Fine by me, nomesane?  Anything about bananas steals my heart: I bought a carton of something new to me: banana milk. That Papa picked it out makes it too suspect to taste, so I'll be drinking the whole carton myself. Of course, as the first ingredient is water, it's too thin, the color is right but the product is too thin, so add milk, but I get enough banana taste and feel that it's a success for once only. Wine, a friend put me on to a Zinfandel at Sam's Club that's a tasty bar

φιλία - - of four Greek words for love, agape, philia, eros, storge - - happiness is good news from a friend that fills my morning with sunshine - - philia is when an old friend's joy makes your heart soar. There's ἴδωσιν that favorite word in Mark 9:1, ἴδωσιν from ὁράω, I see, perceive, realize, comprehend, understand in the deepest heart of me, behold in my mind's eye, what? φιλία - - that friendship can be having as much joy in a friend's report as the friend had in sharing. No, you don't get the whole picture, but, ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω, it's about ἴδωσιν Mark 9:1,  seeing what friendship can be, the enormity of it, let the reader understand. His elegant breakfast, my own breakfast that fills my occasional need for a breakfast steak:  from TAFB Commissary, ground beef 96% or 97% fat free, seared red hot on one side, count to ten, flip, sear, count to twelve and take it off. Slice of raw onion on top, a smudge of Löwensenf on the side. Beneath, on the seeds br

  baruch ata adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam,  Blessed art thou, Lord our God, King of the universe.  Dimly, I remember a story. From the poverty of his hovel, a man prayed God to make him mayor of his village. God made him mayor. Not content to be mayor, the man prayed to be king. God made him king. Not content to be king, the man prayed to be pope. God made him pope. Not content to be pope, the man prayed to be God. "Back to your hovel," said God. We are not content to be stupid, we must also be evil. Having acquired the ability to destroy ourselves and the Earth, all we lack is the ability to destroy the Universe. Thank God, we are but specks on a speck. It was fun to watch Star Wars and Star Trek on a weekly television series in which we were the good guys, but no horror seems more imaginable than that Homo Sapiens (wisdom ones?) should master space travel to conquer our Milky Way and go to war with other galaxies. We would if we could, but we can't so we won't