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Thursday was special to me

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  Yesterday, Thursday, we had what for me turned out to be the treat of treats. An invitation to the soft opening of our newest restaurant, Harrison's out on the downtown marina that has been under refurbishment since Hurricane Michael. In addition to the welcome and continuing hospitality, let me splainify. High on the north wall inside the front door is a large photograph of my grandfather's fish house, workplace of his company Bay Fisheries, which he founded, owned and operated in the early years of the twentieth century.  A D Weller, and my grandmother Carrie Lee Godfrey Weller, came to St Andrews from Pensacola with their children Alfred Daniel Weller, Jr and Evalyn Godfrey Weller (whom we called EG) and Ruth Weller. A friend sent me their page from the 1900 census, in Pensacola, when it was just Mom and Pop and Alfred. The St Andrews, Washington County census of 1910 shows them living here by then. My father was born in 1911. The family first lived in the blue house that&
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IDK

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  The sky darkens this morning - - from where I sit it appears to be coming my way from the west, southwest maybe, gray, grayer clouds over the Gulf of Mexico beyond Thomas Drive. But I'm certain of nothing, everything is perspective, and from where you are, the morning sky may not look that way at all.  A favorite Bible line is Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?" And my response is that I'm not sure, I don't know, I know nothing. I'm not sure I saw two rainbows out there, but I did get a hint of a second one, more a suggestion or a hope; or maybe it was my imagination, my mind messing with its old man. I'm certain of nothing. I do know that anything can happen, all the more so the six months of hurricane season, and if we plan to be away more than a night, we need to clear all decks for action, porch side on the Bay and sidewalk side on Beck. You know, there's no rainbow at all out there, what was I thinking. Seeing. Morning now, daytime, solid gray out
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six things: what counts and what doesn't count

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  Dear Diary, or Journal. Or self. Or whoever you are. 1:51 AM is way too early to be out here on 7H porch drinking hot, black coffee in the light breeze and watching a shrimp boat glide back and forth in the far channel of the Bay, under the light of what in a night or two will be a full moon. Why up so early? Linda warned me when I got in bed at 7:38 PM last evening, but the day's weariness had settled in and there was little alternative. Tuesday we violated our one-thing-a-day rule. We had a great visit to Kristen's classroom, which was our event for the day. But then we drove out to Office Depot to leave a computer return at FedEx and drop off a box of cellphones going to a charity to provide phones to people in crisis and/or phone cards to soldiers overseas. The computer was a refurbished one I order from Mac-of-all-trades that, from the moment I opened and set it up, would not run five minutes until it cut itself off and rebooted; I gathered, they didn't actually test
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clouds and plans

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  What with the images coming from the new Webb space telescope and the wonder of living here in 7H with the continually changing weather panorama, I've pretty much decided I don't want to miss any of it, which means deciding to live forever. As someone said, "so far, so good". Today, for instance, this morning. When I came out and lit off my coffee machine a bit after three o'clock, it was pitch black dark outside, except for lightning in clouds to the south, out over the Gulf. Then a lovely, bright day being promised with sunrise; then back to dark, threatening skies, with lightning, rumbling thunder, and raining off to the westsouthwest beyond Bay Point. I have to keep scooting back out on the porch to get a picture. What the sun and clouds do together is fascinating.  High school football season developing, so I'm fiddling with the "Episcopal Church Year" calendar for 2022, got it marked up to show Sundays when I'm scheduled for the pulpit, w
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Paul?

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  Watched last evening, a favorite, colorful scholar, James Tabor, author, recently retired professor, expert in Paul, dead sea scrolls, new testament, history of religions, & more, in a fascinating discussion, "What the Apostle Paul Really Thought About Jesus and Cosmic Salvation" online. It was an August 6, 2022 interview that went over an hour. Wide-ranging and sometimes rambling conversation in which I heard both confirmations and surprises.  A surprise was Tabor on Paul's narrative in 2 Corinthians 12, " I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows". Clearly, Paul is telling his own experience, he was the "man" and, as Tabor says, our only reliable first person account of a known NT figure telling such a vision experience (yes, Re
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Sunday: now faith is ...

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  In the news this morning. What doesn't really bother me all that much: that Prince Charles may have dozed off at Harry and Meghan's wedding. So, ... Our second reading for today, which for us is Rally Day when leaders of the various ministries put up displays showing and telling what they do, and inviting folks to participate; Backpack Sunday, the Sunday before school starts the fall semester, when students bring their backpacks and leave them before the altar for a blessing to be prayed for those who wear them; a dinner that is a grand feast, the oyster guy at his booth opening cold and salty ones, Fr Steve's pulled pork, fried chicken, everyone brings something, Linda made Southern style cornbread, chocolate brownies, and we are taking a ten-layer caramel cake. It you miss this, don't worry, I'll make sure your oysters don't go to waste. Back to the reading, one of my favorites, where it's made clear that faith is neither knowledge nor certainty.     Heb
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sabbath Seeing

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  Good morning! Second only to Friday evening quittin' Time, Saturday morning used to be my favorite Time of week, so from the end of first week of first grade in September 1941 until about fall 1980 when I first got put on the preaching schedule at Mount Calvary Parish in Pennsylvania, and Saturday became a prep day and Sunday a workday instead of my Sabbath day of rest. My years as a parish priest I designated Monday as my Sabbath, but it didn't work the years we lived in a rectory at the corner of Trinity Church and U S Highway 98, until after my father died in July 1993, and I named Sunday afternoon to Wednesday morning as my Sabbath so as to look after my mother living alone in The Old Place, and to raise my Kristen, who was six months old at the Time and living with her mom and brother in our house next door. Looking back, maybe those were my best Sabbath years, though after retiring from Apalachicola, I continued the Monday Sabbath while serving the next three parishes. 
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