Posts

seek v wait

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Wait v Seek. Seek v Wait. Here is a thought from Simone Weil that strikes a note with me as I contemplate that seemingly for me everlastingly tormenting proverb that I learned looking out the window of my Episcopal seminary classroom and reading it inscribed in the lintel over the door of the adjacent library building, Seek The Truth, Come Whence It May, Cost What It Will. New to the idea at the Time, the proverb struck me as liberating that my denomination's seminary, which I'd expected to Teach Me The Truth, was open enough to signal that they were not the repository of Truth, but the place where I might begin my own search for Truth.  A reason that Simone Weil's thought appeals is that instead of seeking God that is Truth and/or Truth that is God, I might relax and let the Truth of God seek and find me instead, if God wishes and not if God does not wish. At any event there is surely no rush, for God is never in a hurry and I have no expectation of a successful end to my ...

Thursday: the letter P and the number 16

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  Shredded Ralston for your breakfast starts the day off shining bright, gives you lots of cowboy energy, with a flavor that's just right. It's delicious and nutritious, bite-size and ready to eat; take a tip from Tom, go and tell your mom "Shredded Ralston can't be beat."  Our final Navy tour and transition into USN (Ret) and on to theological seminary, we lived a short distance from a Purina plant that, when the breeze was in our direction, made the world like my mornings as a boy when the kitchen had the wonderful aroma of Hot Ralston cereal cooking.  About myself as a retired person. An old friend and parishioner, herself now retired, posted the story below, which is too good to not share not only as almost incomparable but also, as a retired person myself, as a sample of what we retired person might visit upon society around us.  Myself, I type these +Time blogposts and after posting on Facebook leave them online for only a day or so lest someone who thinks t...

a Happy Days morning in 7H

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  Long years since I rode in a DeSoto. Walter, a colleague in my Charlie-Four Company of our OCS class in Newport Rhode Island the summer of 1957, owned a 1953 DeSoto six sedan exactly like the photo above, same two-tone colors, a popular combination that year. A heavy automobile with automatic Fluid Drive and a six cylinder engine, that was one sluggish car on the take-off. Walter's last name I don't remember, but he very kindly rode me in his DeSoto one Saturday morning, from the naval base, across the Jamestown Ferry, across the Jamestown Bridge and on over to South Kingstown, RI, where Linda was waiting for me.  Driving through South Kingstown on Main Street, Highway 1A, Walter dropped me off at the intersection of our road heading south, and I walked down the several blocks to the brown clapboard house where Father David Damon, first Rector of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, PC,  had lent us the upstairs apartment.  Anyway, the DeSoto, as we drove from Newport t...

Tuesday: waiting

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Breakfast on 7H porch of a Tuesday morning: caesar salad enriched with red and green bell pepper, half a can of mildly spicy tuna in olive oil, and a tablespoon or two of sauce: ranch dressing that Linda makes, along with a slight pour of the olive oil from the can of tuna. Oh, a handful of pumpkin seeds. On the side, a mug of tap water mixed with the final half-ounce or so of earlier morning's hot & black.  Will I stick with these health breakfasts after my annual weigh-in at my doctor's office on Monday, 4 August? Maybe: I've been crafting them to be unique and really tasty not nasty, so I can stand the month or two of this regimen. Always I start the routine too early, in June, quickly reach my goal, then struggle to keep it there through July. I will admit that our first stop, annually, upon leaving the doctor's office is iHop or Golden C for a festive outrage.  But I do enjoy these imaginative meals, which I allow to wander with something off-course about once ...

Blue Sky Friday

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Friday the Eleventh of Linda's birthweek, we're hoping to hear from the kitchen cabinet folks about scheduling installation, our POD includes two o'clock this afternoon meeting Kristen to visit Malinda at Pruitt. Malinda asked for donuts, so it'll be a donut birthday party. Time 8:49 am, promise of rain as high clouds cast their dark shadows on the Bay, which has been gray and brown for a week and more. Not a problem, Life is Good, and Every Day Is A Beautiful Day.  +++++++++ Whilst (word overused by Australians and the British) I've never let a "theme" develop in my wandering nonsense on +Time, I'm thinking I want to add a word now and then, about my developing theology. First, though, recalling that the General Ordination Exam I took at Virginia Theological Seminary that January morning in 1983 asked the question, "Do you feel that your theology is settled or developing?" There may be preferences but there is no right or wrong honest answer...

July Tenth 2025: Thursday

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2025 - 1936 =89 Today is/was Linda's 89th birthday. We had a quiet day doing a couple of errands and having lunch out. At supper we may cut the small NY style cheesecake I bought at the TAFB Commissary deli day before yesterday.  My next step is working forward to success for my weigh-in at my annual appointment with my PCP on 4 August. I keep getting within a pound of it, then Mothers Day or Fathers Day or a Birthday comes along with its feasting.   Years ago a colleague and friend who now lives far away had a sign by her desk, "Nothing tastes better than being thin feels!" and I believe it's True even though the last Time I was thin was when we returned to the US from Japan in July 1966. Fifty-nine years ago this month: I was thirty years old, six-foot-one, a newly promoted lieutenant commander weighing 146 pounds. Nearing ninety years of age, I am not thin, I have not been thin in decades, I am trying to stop letting being overweight torment me, and I know for a fa...

peace & silence

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  A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people. -Jean de la Fontaine, poet and fabulist (8 Jul 1621-1695) from Anu Garg's word-a-day. The thought strikes at the center of Truth as we have it in America these days.  +++++++ Up early after a vivid dream, hot & black outside on 7H porch, to the 94% waxing gibbous moon in the western sky. Along with my coffee, a couple slices American "cheese" and straining a bit to discern any taste in them. Read a faraway friend's latest blogpost and pressed the heart for like. Looked up to a huge cloud that wasn't in the south half an hour earlier, then came "heavy rain" though I didn't have my ears in and could not hear the rain at all. Silence and peace. No lightning or thunder.   It's sort of nice being hard of hearing, because I can choose peaceful quiet that better hearing peopl...