1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  2  And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness  was  upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1,2 KJV) 1  When God began to create the heavens and the earth,  2  the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1,2 NRSV) 1 At the first of ELOHIM creating the skies and the land —   2 and the land was desolate and emptiness and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of ELOHIM was hovering over the face of the waters — (Genesis 1:1,2 Transparent English Bible)    +++++++ My all Time favorite seminary professor was at Virginia Theological Seminary, the Rev Dr Reginald H. Fuller (24 March 1915 – 4 April 2007), an English-American biblical scholar, ecumenist, and Anglican priest. In my final semester...

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a wonderful day in the neighborhood, early with my hot & black I watched a dark storm cloud approach from the east, completely cover the sky, and pass quietly on leaving a light blue sky with a few wisps of clouds.  Temp was 79° earlier while it was yet dark as Wednesday shifted colors and got underway, temperature now rising, and the humidity is my favorite Florida salt muggy.  Breakfast on 7H porch, a lettuce and coleslaw salad with bits of broccoli, Linda's ranch dressing.  The electrician may come today, or more likely tomorrow, to do all the work reconnecting our renovated kitchen plus several other items - - a faulty kitchen overhead light, a faulty dining room light switch, the electrical outlet here on 7H porch that hasn't worked in years. I could do some of those things myself but Linda says It ain't no way in Heck.  Heck is the place people go whose only sin was profaning the Christian Sabbath by thinking bad wo...

"Seek the Truth, come whence it may, cost what it will" gang aft agley, at least with me as a oneTime someTime partTime amateur astronomer reading all the English language astronomy textbooks in Japan and gazing with my telescope into the night sky over Tokyo Bay decades ago in my twenties; and now again in the second half of my life as I finish my eighties and start my nineties, having a mainline theological seminary education that was meant to yield more questions than answers and stirring its stories and doctrine with images coming back from NASA's Hubble and JWST peering into ever more distant vastness of the Universe - - as I enjoy tension among life experiences of religion, cosmology, myth & mystery, faith, hope, knowledge and love of God, confidence, science, heaven & earth - - my search for infinite Truth, whatever or Whoever Truth may Be, continues to intrigue me - - thinking of last Sunday's responsive Psalm 85, "mercy and truth have met togethe...

  AI is not my friend, sometimes she (is AI gender specific? IDK) says stupid things about religion or the Bible, but I am appreciating that when I Google a question these days AI instantly gives me an answer, and if it's reasonably credible, acceptable, and adequate it saves me a lot of Time digging deeper.  Research has come a long way in my lifeTime with the electronic age, in ancient Time the archaeologists had to go dig, in my Time I could look it all up in textbooks or Encylopedia Britannica, anymore I don't even need my old seminary notes and textbooks since the internet came along. And now with AI coming into his/her/its own, research is further simplified when I'm willing to accept AI's first up response.  AI is like that obnoxious showoff kid in class who always had the answer, always shot her/his hand up first, eager to answer every question the teacher asked.  As I ate my breakfast this morning after returning from the lab where they drew m...

A huge anvil cloud up there is moving slowly east to west. I think if you're a pilot, this is a cloud you don't want to challenge, fly around it instead.  Just so, I'm wondering whether our parish will be challenging Hosea, the book of Hosea, who is one of the four eighth century prophets of doom (Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah). God calls Hosea to a wretched life of dealing with unfaithfulness, the metaphor being Hosea's prostitute wife Gomer, who bears him three children. God names each child, choosing a name that signifies something about both the child and God's intentions that are the subject of Hosea's prophecy. The third child is named Lo-ammi, "not my people," meaning that he's the child of Gomer's vocation as a prostitute.  Israel has sinned by turning away from the Lord, both by mixing with the surrounding foreigners and by its governing class brutalizing the common folk. God is furious, and expresses his anger and his intentions through ...

  Breakfast this summer Friday morning outside on 7H porch, pint mug of ice coffee and a tin of sardines from Portugal, packed in olive oil with teriyaki sauce, tasty and sweet. The strong temptation, to which I may yet yield, is to sop the sauce up with a morsel of bread.  Scattered thunderstorms at work over the Gulf to the south and west of 7H, as well as drenching downtown PC and the Cove and coming my way. Often the rain headed this way detours off to the south and over Shell Island and we don't get a drop.  Rain and the sun shining: when we were small my cousin Ann used to say it meant the devil is beating his wife. Same source that taught Ann and me that if there's enough blue in the sky to make a Dutchman a pair of pants, the weather'll clear up.  Raining on the porch here now. It'll pass. If it doesn't, we still have a beautiful July day, mild temperature and a light breeze up here. Life Is Good, Better, Best. Four nice sardines, and now a small slice of wh...