Not that we've lived there in forty years, 1984-2024, but it's great to see Penn State relatively high in the CFB rankings this morning. When we moved to Pennsylvania early summer of 1976, the state hero was Joe Paterno, who ended up serving as head coach for 46 years. Is that a record? Every restaurant in Harrisburg where Paterno had eaten proudly had his autographed photograph hanging in the front lobby. Believe me, I only asked, "Who's that?" once. And I remember: we were with new church friends at a really nice restaurant on the west bank of the Susquehanna River, and as we were leaving I saw the coach's picture. That would have been now 48 years ago, who would have thought! We loved our Pennsylvania years, and easily could have ended up staying there. No sooner had we moved into our new house on the Conodoquinet Creek - - creekside they call it there, like bay-front or gulf-front here - - than Linda scouted out and found our new church.  We tried out tw

  Reading this morning about folks, especially older retired people living on the Florida peninsula, west coast along the Gulf of Mexico, who are discouraged by all the hurricanes they're experiencing, looking for ways to leave Florida; and feeling sad for them, because their retirement dreams have been decimated.  My dream is alive and well here in 7H, although I well remember the massive sense of defeat after Hurricane Michael, that I could barely "do this" one Time, and wondering where to go if it happens again, as seems increasingly likely as Earth moves beyond the ice age residual where glaciers still melted, into the next warm era.  I'm not interested in arguing about whether we caused the climate change or it's part of Earth's natural cycling, but it's here. The hurricanes are growing in intensity and surprise and it's only going to worsen. Where would/will I/we go that's safer? California, maybe; or Oklahoma, eh? Or the mountains of Appalac

My senior year, Linda's junior year, she had a room in a house on University Avenue, the home of Mrs Benton, mother of Dr John Benton of Panama City. His father, her late husband, had been prominent at the University of Florida, where the science classroom building Benton Hall was named in his honor.  One other student roomed there, a girl from Pakistan who, as I recall, wore the traditional clothes of her country. I wish I could remember her name, but it slips my mind this morning. That was after summer school 1956, starting first semester, school year 1956-57. One thing I remember about that fall semester was how horns went off all over Gainesville at the end of World Series game 5 when Don Larson pitched a no-hitter for the NY Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. And, yes, I listened to that game, it was playing on every radio in Gainesville, at top volume! My first car, bought the previous school year with a friend for $75 (yes, the case I've told any num

  You do not know me, but for those who know me best, including me, myself, and I, the matter of my sanity is little argued and much agreed: it's an issue to be dealt with. For one, why did Linda marry a man who is but eleven months short of nonogenarianism?  I never "asked" Linda to marry me. We got started seventy-two years ago this fall, she a junior, I a senior at Bay High. By the Time it was clear to both of us, the summer before my senior, her junior, year of college, she transferred from her college in Virginia to Florida to be with me, there was no need for "asking." In December I asked her father if we could be engaged, and she put on the engagement ring.  Then when I graduated UnivFlorida and was about to fly off to US Navy Officer Candidate School and three year Navy commitment, the only personal matter was to get a calendar and set a June wedding date, before I left in July.  Linda's father gets all the credit: when he saw Linda and her mother lo

  Communication. Something’s off with my Wi-Fi connection this morning. Regardless of how many reboots and restarts, I can’t get to anything but email online, so instead of Blogger, I’m writing on my word processor with the idea to copy-and-paste into Blogger later after I’ve solved whatever’s going on with the internet connection. For starters, it’ll involve using a bent paperclip to reset the router and modem. That usually does it. When a call to WOW is necessary it always ends the problem, though that call is a last resort because it's the most abominable of hassles.  But, Communication: its failure is a cause of untold problems, from the marriages I talked about in yesterday’s homiletic endeavor, to Ukraine’s war with Russia, to the entire Middle East, to the divide in America’s sociopolitical scene.  Though, actually our American division is the result of deliberate stirring to create a political following by opening a pandora’s box of existing but muffled prejudice, resentmen

Genesis and Mark about marriage and divorce! Along with Revelation, Mark and Genesis are my favorites to study. I love Bible study, I love studying the Bible by my self, I loved group Bible study with other folks.  In leading Bible study groups, I always tried to trust people enough to share my formal education about the Bible, what I learned, and methods of study, at theological seminary and later. It’s risky though, and many pastors will not take the chance, because they face parishioners with absolute certainties about the Bible, people who will not tolerate inquiry, who will not risk challenging what they were taught in kindergarten Sunday school and have held to ever since. Pastors have been driven out of the pulpit, indeed, away from the church by such folks.  But opening Bible study with the clarification that “There are no issues that cannot be raised, no questions that cannot be asked, nothing that cannot be discussed” worked for me when people in my classes were eager to expl