Dick Cheney dies, age 84. A mediocre college student (don't worry about it, there were lots of us, most of us made it through life anyway), he matured into a gutsy, outspoken man, including as Secretary of Defense. I remember his anger later as Vice President when President Bush fired Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld had been Cheney's man, and Cheney was furious at Bush and expressed it. Most of all I remember two different occasions at Tyndall Air Force Base, airmen coming very respectfully up to me and asking, "Sir, aren't you Vice President Cheney?" That was in 2007, and after the second Time, I went to the VA clinic and enrolled in a supervised exercise and diet regimen and lost 47 pounds in twelve months. It's easy, weight drops off and energy increases if you do it right, and by spring 2008 I no longer looked like Dick Cheney. No, I'm absolutely dead serious.  The weight loss and continued heavy exercise and careful eating program turne...

"Welcome, happy Monday!" week to week shall say. And below, as promised, is our Handout for yesterday's reading discussion of Secret Mark.  +++ A couple of isues that scholars notice about the Gospel according to Mark Mark 10. The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus 46  They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.  ?! Mark 10:46 has this awkward wording about Jesus coming to Jericho and leaving Jericho, saying nothing about anything that happened there, thus creating a “gap” that leaves observant scholars puzzled. (Note below that both Matthew and Luke evidently saw the issue and solved it by wording that avoids creating the “gap”.) Matthew 20. Jesus Heals Two Blind Men 29  As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. 30  There were two blind men sitting by the roadside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, “Lord, have mercy o...

Sunday, and our church is celebrating it as All Saints Day, with those hymns and those lectionary propers. "I sing a song of the saints of God" is a regular hymn now, in our Hymnal 1940 it was grouped in the category "Children's Hymns." Always popular for this day - - "and one was a doctor, and one was a priest, and one was slain by a fierce wild beast, and there's not any reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn't be one too." Linda's cooking our breakfast, which happens on Sunday morning, not other days. Other days we do our own thing twice a day, graze the refrigerator and/or pantry for breakfast and supper, with usually one prepared meal together, generally noon dinner which we sit down to at one o'clock or as late as two o'clock. About once a week, usually Fridays after visiting Malinda at Pruitt, we go out to eat, most often at a seafood restaurant but last week at Enzo's for pizza. Supper at home is a salad or a couple of...

Some days, for lack of whatever, I don't write a +Time blogpost. There was a Time when it bothered me to miss writing, but that has passed, it no longer bothers me in the least - - I write when I write and when I don't write I don't write. Today, Thursday was one of those days. Which? When I don't write. Exhausted from yesterday's activities, I fell into bed about seven PM, woke at 12 something midnight and was up for a couple hours to contemplate Secret Mark, then back to bed and slept until nine o'clock. Linda had something on the calendar, and we no longer go out and drive just one of us alone, so dress and go. But I read Arthur C Brooks' weekly life improvement essay, which brought again to mind, as so many things do, F. Schleiermacher, his essays, his criticism of the Nicene Creed, and his theological assertion that "there is implanted in each of us a sense of the infinite" as the reason that, as a species, we cannot resist being religious. Th...

Which to read: Fr Richard's guest on his Daily Meditations or John McWhorter's column in The New York Times, "These Are the 10 Old Television Series Every Kid Needs to Read" - - not that there's a limit of only reading one, and of course I read McWhorter because glancing down his favorites I see more than ten, including some of my own, "The Carol Burnett Show" and "Fawlty Towers" and "The Amos 'n Andy Show" although I remember it better as a radio show. "The Honeymooners" and "The Twilight Zone" Maybe television is still good, IDK and don't need to know, because I can scroll and find Carol Burnett, Ralph and Norton any Time I want to lose myself in the twentieth century. "The Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour" is not as funny as it was in the late 1960s, nor is "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In." Once, I searched and found Red Skelton, it was sad, lower and worse than pathetic. Jack Benn...

12:35 am, then 1:22, now 1:49 am, instead of being sensible and letting the under-desk eliptical exercise my legs and feet for thirty minutes or an hour and sapping my energy so I can go back to bed for a long autumn's nap, I'm sitting here with the early mug of hot & black and three saltine squares, each with a smear of a soft cheese from Zingerman's Jewish deli in Ann Arbor and thinking to blog for a few minutes.  Or not thinking. At ninety and not counting I need all the physical exercise I can muster. This is a tart cheese, could be goat milk cheese but it's not. We bought steak yesterday, and will cook it probably early afternoon; Kristen is coming over for Sunday dinner. Weeks ago we'd made the family commitment for Saturday and Sunday and we're keeping it, everything else will have to wait, is suspended, off the calendar.  Steak, and Linda's made a salad. There'll be a couple kinds of mushrooms, collard greens, chocolate chess pie from Zingerm...