Our gospel reading for today is the REWARDS section at the end of Matthew 10:40-42. Matthew has Jesus promise a suitable reward to specific people for certain acts or for living a certain way. As he does not elaborate, it is frustratingly unclear what Matthew intends us to understand the rewards to be. In fact, some Christians will glom onto the "reward" as being what the later church came to promise, everlasting life in a heaven that's described at the end of Revelation - - first bodily at the general resurrection with the coming of the Son of Man to institute God's kingdom on earth at the end of days - - then, as the understood kingdom did not come, reward shifted to the soul passing into paradise at death (or to paradise through some cleansing period such as purgatory); all in compliance with and obedience to church authority.  Seriously as though an earthly institution in human life could control the workings and actions of Melek ha-olam.   So, what are the Reward...

For my own reasons, which like mañana  is good enough for me, I moved this segment out of my June 26, 2026 blogpost to stand separate. If I publish it, it won't be linked on my Facebook page. It's - -  - - an observation, to comment on something. Two somethings really. Announcement yesterday that the Italian-themed chain restaurant Olive Garden will be adopting a dress code for clients. For folks who want to dine there, no armless shirts. Shirts should have a collar. No shorts as I recall. No flip-flops. Women should wear dresses, skirts. No slacks for women? I don't think they really want "a higher class of clients," I think they just want to make dining there a bit less sloppy. I've eaten at both:  There's an Olive Garden on MLK across from Target in the NW block of Highway 77 and 23rd Street, here in town where life is pretty informal; when we've eaten there it was more a casual drop in, not a planned and scheduled family outing for which we'd d...

Basket!!! At a request, I'm recalling and writing down personal memories of my eight years as a student at Cove Elementary School, Panama City, Fall 1941 through Spring 1949, first grade through eighth grade, teachers Violet Heyward through our beloved Virginia Parker. Writing it started off with a bang, and I've roughed it out through fifth grade, then let it slide several days, with sixth, seventh, and eighth grades yet to be stirred and written.  Encouraging the memories to surface  is fun and good, and I'll get back to it in due course. Needless to say, that I'm soon coming up on my ninety-first birthday tends to give the little project a certain urgency! For a title, it's "Golden groves and crystal waters," which was the opening line of our Alma Mater song at Cove School, but memory slips and I'm missing a line of the song I thought would stick with me lifelong. I remember all the words of "On our city's northern border, reared against th...

  Was ist heute? Heute ist Dienstag, nicht wahr? Today is Tuesday, and my one commitment today is a 9:00 AM appointment with the dermatology clinic. They will, no doubt about it, cut pieces out of me and bill for it; somebody's got to make the Escalade payments, eh, nomesane? No, I'm still alive because of them and others who've known what they are doing over my years of life.  And there's always something about me that needs cutting. In fact it's been observed and said that Mr B has gone off eccentric, if not downright weird at Times. Maybe it's the meds, the little tablets in their plastic containers that ship from GOK where several Times a year: I've been taking them nearly sixteen years now, same Time span as writing this more or less daily nonsense.  My Meds, the tiny pills, started that October Sunday in 2010 when, pale green of pallor, I was delivered to the ER and The Man asked, "Has anyone ever told you that your EKG is TERRIBLE?" No. ...

  Around here we see ospreys every day, they are local here in St Andrews, circling high over the Bay and diving for mullet, often flying by right close to 7H porch, with or without a fish. But I've not seen an active local osprey nest in years. The nest I watch in Colorado, though, via the Boulder County Fairgrounds Osprey Nest Camera in Longmont, is an annual treat starting when the osprey male and female arrive from their separate migrations in South or Central America early spring. Some years there's still snow on the calendar, even heavy snow, maybe endangering the eggs; the pair mating, the mom bird laying her eggs, beginning the countdown to hatching that shows which eggs are viable; the actual hatching, which I've watched some years; the parents catching and feeding live fish to the hatchlings as they grow into recognizable young ospreys, I snapped this picture yesterday: to when the chicks fledge, are taught to fish in the adjacent waters; then in the autumn of eac...

Tomorrow's OT lesson from Genesis 21 is below, along with my fooling-with-it notes inserted. It has been some years since I taught my adult Sunday school class and the prep effort and actual presentation are in my rearview mirror anymore; but I liked to make the Sunday school hour specifically relevant by focusing on the Lectionary readings for the instant Sunday.  Just so, if I were teaching a class tomorrow I'd work on the Genesis 21 story, which is a continuation - (that's the way Lectionary Year A OT readings after Pentecost work, series of stories) - a continuation of last week's droll story about the conception of Isaac, son of Sarah and Abraham (?!) by the Holy Spirit. Last weeks' story has 90-year-old Sarah laughing when The Lord promises that she will give birth to a son, and The Lord taking offense at her for laughing. Her laugh, though, seems not to be delight, you see, it's scorn; because the promise itself is outrageously absurd. And it's on top...