I Remember Mama Homily at the funeral of my mother, Louise Gentry Weller.  Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida. Saturday, July 30, 2011. The Reverend Tom Weller John 14:1-6a. Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. (KJV) With the gospel promise in mind, I shall remember my mother; in the Name of God: Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit. +++   +++   +++ Mama is now but a memory, and very different memories for each of us. Maybe some things I remember from life with her will stir your o...

Sad for me, posting to my +Time blog has ended, at least for now. Post for yesterday explains why. Anyone interested in reading may find me at CB. TW+ 17424

Good folks kindly invite me to be friends on Facebook and other social networking sites, and I generally accept if I remember; but basically I don’t “do” sites other than my blog. Rational or not, my concern has always been risk of privacy invasion and of having spyware, bugs, viruses and such planted in my computer. But it would be naive of me to assume that my postings anywhere on line, including Blogger are seen only by friendly faces. At the bottom of my +Time blogspot is a link for Comments, and when someone posts a comment, Blogger notifies me by email. Yesterday there was this comment: i j said... Dawn,Jang,Nawaiwaqt,Express Jobs ads in http://allpkjobz.blogspot.com Pakistan with all paper admission,careers and Classified Ads July 27, 2011 6:21 AM  The hyperlink is to a website about jobs in Pakistan. It may be some computer-generated posting, but it was unsettling. Paranoid? As someone said, just because I’m paranoid, that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me. My Caring...

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. (Romans 9:1-5, NRSV) Twenty five or so years ago there was a house on U. S. Highway 98, at Highland View just west of Port St. Joe, a little bungalow with a front screen porch, across the highway from St. Joe Bay, back a bit, facing the road and bay. A family lived there, not anyone I knew, but God knew. One night the house caught fire. Everyone got out apparently, until the young mother realized that her five year old daughter was still in t...

Genesis 32:22-31 (The Message)   22-23 During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He got them safely across the brook along with all his possessions.   24-25 But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn't get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob's hip out of joint.   26 The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak."    Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me."   27 The man said, "What's your name?"    He answered, "Jacob."   28 The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."   29 Jacob asked, "And what's your name?"    The man said, "Why do you want to know my name?" And then,...

Everybody’s got a laughing place a laughing place to go ho ho. Take a frown, turn it upside down and you’ll find yours, I know ho ho. My Laughing Place is under the cedar tree down front on the Bay . A place to take my children when they were little. There’s a picture around here of my father and me and Joe, down there when he was very small, sitting on the beach, digging in the white sand. Nearly fifty years ago. It has been a frequent place over the years. For whatever. Laugh or cry. Sad or happy. Think. Anticipate. Remember.   My Laughing Place beckoned several times a day October through January during the risky wait for Cleveland. One nitro walking down, one sitting on the log under the cedar or standing, one walking back up to the house. Don’t need the nitro anymore: MLP cured that. Several pines are there, tall and block the view from the house but they earn their living, everything that grows down there holds on to the land during storms. Palms and palmettos. Tall reedy ...

Proper 12     The Sunday closest to July 27 O God, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Our collect (a strange Anglican word for a certain type of prayer) doesn’t only mean that we are to, as Saint Paul says, live in the Spirit and not in the flesh , so that we can be gifted with eternal life. It’s for here and now also. I’m thinking especially of my planning for fall Bible study. My tendency has always been to focus on what’s called historical criticism, perhaps to the detriment of experiencing a blessing from it. It’s the difference in what’s edifying and what’s sanctifying. What theologians might call didache and kerygma. It's time ...

Woops, did it again, sorry. Worked on sermon for tomorrow instead of writing my blog post. In any event, the main message: we have heard that some folks thought my mother's funeral was today, and we wanted to correct that. The funeral is NOT TODAY, but NEXT Saturday, July 30th.  My second blog post for yesterday explained that, and we put a reminder notice on the church door yesterday. Sabbath.  Tom

This is the obituary my sister and I wrote and ran in the Panama City News-Herald for our mother. It will appear again NEXT FRIDAY. I’m taking this opportunity to remind folks that the funeral service is NOT TOMORROW, July 23, but NEXT SATURDAY, July 30th, eleven o’clock in the morning, at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church. A light lunch will follow in Battin Hall. Long time Panama City resident Louise Gentry Weller died Sunday, July 17, 2011 at Community Health & Rehabilitation Center, Panama City, Florida at the age of 99. Born May 7, 1912 in Bluff Springs, Florida to Mamie McClammy Gentry and Walter Henry Gentry, she grew up and attended schools in Pensacola. During her years at Pensacola High School she met Thomas Carroll Weller; they married in 1934 and moved to Panama City, where she lived the rest of her life. She was a member of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church and later with her family a charter member of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church.  Besides family, her joys in life inc...

Confession We Confess Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen. I Confess   I confess to Almighty God, to his Church, and to you, that I have sinned by my own fault in thought, word, and deed, in things done and left undone; especially __________.  For these and all other sins which I cannot now remember, I am truly sorry.  I pray God to have mercy on me.  I firmly intend amendment of life, and I humbly beg forgiveness of God and his Church, and ask you for counsel, direction, and absolution. They are not the same. The Roman Catholic Church knows this better than we...

Comeuppance at Dawn Genesis 29:15-28 The Message (MSG)   14-15 Laban said, "You're family! My flesh and blood!"    When Jacob had been with him for a month, Laban said, "Just because you're my nephew, you shouldn't work for me for nothing. Tell me what you want to be paid. What's a fair wage?"   16-18 Now Laban had two daughters; Leah was the older and Rachel the younger. Leah had nice eyes, but Rachel was stunningly beautiful. And it was Rachel that Jacob loved.    So Jacob answered, "I will work for you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel."   19 "It is far better," said Laban, "that I give her to you than marry her to some outsider. Yes. Stay here with me."   20 So Jacob worked seven years for Rachel. But it only seemed like a few days, he loved her so much.   21-24 Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife; I've completed what we agreed I'd do. I'm ready to consummate my marriage....

Black and White and Grey A duty assignment early in my Navy years was as a student in the Master of Business Administration degree program at the University of Michigan. One MBA requirement was two graduate courses in accounting. Having not enjoyed (to put it mildly) my accounting courses at the University of Florida five years earlier, my first summer in Ann Arbor before the fall semester was invested in cramming graduate accounting textbooks before taking the placement exam. It paid off by exempting me from all accounting courses, thus greatly enhancing my enjoyment of Big Blue and studying under several professors of world-renown.  Our first snowfall the autumn of 1962 was in October and the last snow was the middle of May 1963. From May to October, the ground was white, the sky was grey, and the trees were black. To a native Floridian, a bleak picture. But summer was incredibly delightful; and much to my enjoyment, part of it was even spent in a month-long indoctrination cours...

John 8:7 In the old days of the wild west, indeed in the South even in my early lifetime, justice was sometimes administered by mob. Lynch mob. Are we still there? In accordance with constitution and law, a jury of her peers tried her and found her not guilty. Now the mob is upon her. Lynch mob. All Christians, for sure. Scholars are not agreed about the source and origins, but at John 8:1-11 there’s the story of Jesus and The Woman Caught in Adultery. If guilty, the penalty is death by stoning. Her accusers ask Jesus to judge. He bends down and writes in the sand. He straightens up and judges not the woman, but the lynch mob. “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He bends down again and writes in the sand.  Shamed, the mob crept away one by one. The great human sin is the arrogant certitude of self-righteousness. We are still there. We will always be there.  If Bible and Gospel are eternal truth, let lynch mobs creep away in shame....

This was sunset over St. Andrews Bay the evening of the last day of life on earth that I shared with my mother. Today is my first day of life without my mother. Yet, to lose a parent is the most natural thing in life: it is life as the Creator meant life to be.  Yesterday, Sunday morning, a friend wrote me, “Life is fast, fun, frequently stressful, sad then happy. So much is known, more is unknown. One thing is certain - the end is really a wonderful beginning.”  To that, Amen ! Early on Sunday morning my mother went to her wonderful beginning with prayer, blessing, thanksgiving and commendation.  We are delaying the funeral service to accommodate family so that all who want to come may conveniently do so. It will be at eleven o’clock, Saturday morning, July 30th, at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City.   O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is o...

Louise Gentry Weller May 7, 1912 - July 17, 2011 The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth -- The sweeping up the heart, And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.     -- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) The call came from Community Health & Rehab Center just as I was driving off to church this morning. Please don’t be sad for our family. It was time. When my father died in 1993, mama was 81. She bemoaned that she was in good health, and feared she would live without him to be a hundred. To her great chagrin, she almost did. She was ninety-nine. Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world In the Name of God the Father, who created you; In the Name of God the Son, who redeemed you; In the Name of God the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies you. May your resting place be this day in the paradise of God.  May your company be his saints and holy angels. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make h...

Flaming Swords It has been several years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was in my lap, therefore some details had slipped my mind, and the British English dialogue is not always easy to understand (and one can’t say “huh?” and have it repeated), but HP7 Part 2 seemed quite faithful to the book. It did seem to me that in the final battle there was something about a mirror reflecting the wand’s ray so that morally the Dark Lord's death was self-inflicted -- signifying for Harry, if not innocence , at least not guilty.  Not sure though. Two hours and ten minutes is a long time to sit still, but there’s no sitting still anyway, and the seats at The Grand Theatre Pier Park are comfortable. Can hardly wait for the DVD. In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the first book and movie, The Fellowship of the Ring were my favorite. In C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, the first book and movies, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were my favorite. Just so with J.K. Rowland, my ...

Acts 13:13-25, today’s New Testament lesson from the Daily Office Lectionary, has the verse “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”  http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/devotions/bcp/?date=2011-07-16 (if it opens on Jul 15, go forward a day to Jul 16. Depending on your computer settings you may be able to listen to it as well as reading it) Luke, the author of Acts, is quoting from Psalm 2. The verse is quoted again by the author of Hebrews (5:5) in presenting Jesus as high priest, a “priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” Furthermore, the ancient manuscript Codex Bezae has the verse at Luke 3:22. The scene is the Baptism of Jesus, in which the heavens are opened, the Spirit descends upon Jesus as a dove, "And a voice came from heaven, You are my son, Today I have begotten you." This is a variant from the customary reading, “You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.” It presents interesting doctrinal and theological questions. When did Jesus become the Son of G...

Mark 3:7-19   A Great Crowd Follows Jesus 7  Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galilee and Judea 8  and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him. 9  And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, 10  for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. 11  And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12  And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. The Twelve Apostles 13  And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. 14  And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach 15  and have authority to cast out demons. 16...