Mothers Day: red or white
Big lightning to the south, as, already awake, I gave up and came out just after four o'clock this morning and made coffee. The weather is passing on to the east toward America Beach, PSJ and Apalachcola now, but 7H porch is wet a couple of feet back from the railing, indicating a south wind with the rain.
Currently 71° F, cloudy, 92%, wind SSE 10 mph, gusts to 19.
Mothers Day. Our POD is for eight o'clock church, Kristen coming about eleven-thirty for Sunday dinner, then we'll go to Pruitt to see Malinda. Seafood for dinner: oven baked salmon, pan-cooked tuna, a light salad with shrimp.
The fourth Sunday of Easter on the church calendar today, which is Good Shepherd Sunday, with the 23rd Psalm after the first lesson. In my parish priest days we always read and said the KJV setting, that my mother had me learn and commit to ownership as a small boy, and that we said at Cove School, and that the students learned later at Holy Nativity Episcopal School:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
However, in the lectionary there's a modern version that I've fairly well gotten used to even if it's not the best! Reading about slavery in Percival Everett's reimagining of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in his novel "JAMES" reminds me that America was not always so Great at all, though things of the heart are always there to be called on.
In the old days, we went to Pensacola for Mothers Day, and us children to East Hill Baptist Church with our grandfather, Walter Gentry, whom we called Daddy Walt. Needless to say, some of my memories are related to the Chrysler cars he drove us in, me, Gina, Walt, and our first cousins Margaret and Bill Gentry. Always parking in the same spot on the corner facing out, next to the 1937 Cord, Daddy Walt then turned and gave each of us a nickel for Sunday School offering. Then Walt and I went to Bill's boys' class and Gina to Margaret's girls' class. That happened often enough through each year that I came to identify with the other boys in the class. And Daddy Walt was in the same men's Sunday school class with the same men, from the early nineteen-teens until he died at age ninety in 1976. I've not been in many decades, but in those years the Baptists had almost magical Sunday school fellowship.
Wandering, not far. Remembering a few of the cars - - the light green 1942 Chrysler Windsor sedan, the light green 1946 Chrysler Windsor club coupe, and Mothers Day 1949 when we all piled into the brand new, light blue 1949 Chrysler Windsor sedan and our grandmother, got in and said, "Oh, boy! Four door!"
That car was totaled in a crash not long after, and Daddy Walt bought her a new, black 1950 Chrysler Windsor sedan.
Enough, Bubba.
Love, blessings, and peace to you, whether you're wearing a red flower or a white flower this Mothers Day morning. Special blessings and dear memories if you're wearing a white flower.
RSF&PTL
T89&c