Psalm 23      King James Version The LORD is my shepherd; *     I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; *     he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; *     he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his                              Name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; *     for thou art with me;     thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of                              mine enemies; *     thou annointest my head with oil;   ...

A dear friend asked me on Facebook  "Do you think they should put prayer back in school?" “Prayer in Schools” is a rock-throwing, shouting, name-calling contest that has become a frenzy of “rights” far too emotionally charged on the political and religious spectrum to be a friendly back and forth on Facebook. But on my personal and private weblog here’s my view. When I was a child at Cove School we had prayer every morning, a Christian devotional, and we had Bible memory verses to do. During World War II for the first time we had military dependents at Cove School, Americans from all over the country. In one class I witnessed a teacher being unkind to a child -- a beautiful little girl from up north whose father was an army doctor -- a teacher being unkind to a child because her Jewish parents did not approve of our Southern custom of Christian devotions at school. The teacher’s hateful prejudice is branded in my mind.   In America there are private schools for Christians a...

The gospel reading for next Sunday is John 9:1-41, a story of a blind beggar. The disciples ask whether the man is blind because of someone's sin. Jesus says not for some sin but that God may do a sign. He then heals the man born blind by spitting on the ground, making mud, rubbing it on the man’s eyes, and telling him to wash it off in the pool of Siloam. Because Jesus did this on the Sabbath it brings on another struggle with the hostile Pharisees.  After the healing the Pharisees are grilling the formerly blind man, who is sarcastic with them and gets kicked out. Hearing about this, Jesus finds the man and asks him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”  In John’s gospel Jesus does miracles and the miracles bring on faith in Jesus as the divine one come from God. In the synoptic gospels he seems to use “son of man” as an oblique title for himself as a human being. But this is John’s gospel where the highly charged term has cosmic implications. This was not lost on the blind...

Books Monday morning, March 28, 2011. Five months ago I wasn’t supposed to be here this morning. That was not frightening but disappointing because I’m not finished. Especially Books. Books underway. Books yet to read.  Two books underway. The Authentic Letters of Paul - A New Reading of Paul’s Rhetoric and Meaning. A. J. Dewey, R. W. Hoover, L. C. McGaughy, D. D. Schmidt. Polebridge Press. 2010. In the Scholars Version, it’s translation, commentary, essays on the seven books of the New Testament that modern scholars agree are actually letters from the hand of St. Paul, and in what seems to be his chronological order of writing them instead of the usual canonical order: 1 Thessalonians Galatians 1 Corinthians 2 Corinthians Philemon Philippians Romans The Complete Gospels , edited by Robert J. Miller. Polebridge Press. 2010, 1994, 1992. Fourth Edition. Also in the Scholars Version. Essays, commentary, new translations of the Bible’s four canonical Gospels, plus the Gospels of Thomas...

Psalm 96 (The Message)    Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing!     Sing to God—worship God!    2-3 Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea,     Take the news of his glory to the lost,     News of his wonders to one and all!    4-5 For God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs.     His terrible beauty makes the gods look cheap;     Pagan gods are mere tatters and rags.    5-6 God made the heavens—     Royal splendor radiates from him,     A powerful beauty sets him apart.    7 Bravo, God, Bravo!     Everyone join in the great shout: Encore!     In awe before the beauty, in awe before the might.    8-9 Bring gifts and celebrate,     Bow before the beauty of God,     The...

      Venite, exultemus Domino. O  COME, let us sing unto the L ORD ; * let us heartily re- joice in the strength of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; * and show ourselves glad in him with psalms. For the L ORD is a great God; * and a great King above all gods. In his hand are all the corners of the earth; * and the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it; * and his hands prepared the dry land. O come, let us worship and fall down, * and kneel before the L ORD our Maker. For he is the Lord our God; * and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O worship the L ORD in the beauty of holiness; * let the whole earth stand in awe of him. For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth; * and with righteousness to judge the world, and the peoples with his truth. In the old days (the old ways were best) we had Morning Prayer three Sundays a month, all but the First Sunday, when we ...

TV and the NYT bring to mind that my international economics professor at the University of Michigan liked to say the only role of Congress in wartime is to criticize the President’s prosecution of the war. He was looking back at WWII and Korea. Seems still so. Friday again, eh! Tass and Jeremy, Caroline and Charlotte arrive from Tallahassee late this morning for Charlotte’s sixth birthday weekend. Nancy is baking a cake double chocolate and Charlotte the chocoholic will want chocolate ice cream to go with it. Lenten Wednesday Evening has been a favorite weekday church event since the 1940s. We had a covered dish supper every Wednesday evening of Lent at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church my growing up years. Always delicious food especially the collards often brought by Mrs. Baker, Henry Breland’s grandmother. Her collards, and the very large baked red snapper my mother brought. After supper the youth were excused and the rector had a teaching on “Love, Acceptance & Discipline.” ...

The mind varies Wanders.  Some mornings serious  Some mornings whimsical  Some mornings reminiscing Some mornings theologizing Most mornings nonsensical Always thankful. For life And love. For family Friends  Associates Far and near. For what I am Husband Father Grandfather Uncle Brother Son Friend Priest pastor preacher teacher Student Human American Christian Alive Alive And Well Thankful Always thankful Always. TW+

The Third Sunday in Lent we have a long Gospel reading, namely John 4:5-42. Jesus and his disciples are going from a festival in Jerusalem of Judea (11) back home to Galilee and as the map shows he has to go through Samaria to get there. They stop at Sychar (12), a town enroute. The reading is the story of Jesus sitting at Jacob’s well while his disciples go off to town to buy food.  A woman comes with her bucket to draw water. Jesus asks her to give him a drink and engages her in conversation, a major social blunder because Jews did not speak to Samaritans.  That Jewish snub of Samaritans goes back to when the Assyrian Empire conquered Israel, Samaria the northern kingdom about 721 B.C. The Assyrians deported much of the population of Israel to other conquered lands and imported conquered people from elsewhere to populate the land that had been Israel: bringing Gentile foreigners polluted the land God had given to Israel. Over time everyone intermarried, mongrelizing the p...

In our Adult Sunday School class a question came up about new English translations of the bible.  The Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church is published by every General Convention, the latest being 2009, and it authorizes specific translations of the Bible for liturgical use in our church. Title II, Of Worship, CANON 2 reads CANON 2: Of Translations of the Bible The Lessons prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer shall be read from the translation of the Holy Scriptures commonly known as the King James or Authorized Version (which is the historic Bible of this Church) together with the Marginal Readings authorized for use by the General Convention of 1901; or from one of the three translations known as Revised Versions, including the English Revision of 1881, the American Revision of 1901, and the Revised Standard Version of 1952; from the Jerusalem Bible of 1966; from the New English Bible with the Apocrypha of 1970; or from The 1976 Good News Bible (Today's English Ve...