Yesterday afternoon was lovely spring weather, and Linda and I worked out in the front yard. She sprayed camellia plants that are covered under-leaf with some kind of mites or flies or something, then we did lots of trimming and pruning. As sunset came on we were trimming down in the lower part of the front yard, when the clear sound of the Star Spangled Banner came drifting across a very calm St. Andrew Bay from Tyndall AFB, and I snapped a photo with my iPhone. No hymn of the Church is more stirring and moving, what a perfect way to end any day of life -- and when all is said and done even life itself.  Tuesday has come round, and our morning Bible seminar. It’s a great time, and the table is always filled even though the crowd varies a bit from week to week.  During this Epiphany Season we’ve been exploring the Apocrypha and various books of the Apocrypha. Basically, it’s 14 or 15 books (depending on who prepared the list) of scripture that are in the Vulgate Bible a...

In the 1940s and 1950s a joy of going to the postoffice was the sometime opportunity to rush across the street to the Lloyd Pontiac Cadillac showroom,  look at the cars, peruse the brochure rack quickly, and take any new car folder that wasn’t already in my stash. The building is a Merrill-Lynch office today. Much of that stash is stored safely upstairs in the car trunk Joe gave me some years ago, one of my treasures. Seems to me Rayford said his father got into the car business in 1935, and they sold one car their first year, the worst part of the Great Depression.  My guess is, it was a Pontiac. The 1935 model was the first year Pontiac used the “Silver Streak” and it lasted through the 1956 model year.  From the 1935 model on, GM cars, including Pontiac, boasted the solid steel “turret top,” a huge design step forward from the old fabric tops. My friend Weldon once told me that he had a 1935 Chevrolet Standard, which did not have the turret top, and the ro...

Oh, I Didn’t Know That During the Epiphany Season our Bible readings for Sunday morning often contain something of an epiphanic nature to discover, to realize. Just so this morning with verses from Deuteronomy 18. Moses is telling the people God’s promise for the future. 15 The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken. 18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. An epiphany task in Sunday School this morning may be to discover who that prophet might have been in gospel retrospect ages later. Another task might be to explore today’s gospel a bit: Mark 1:21-28.  And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as t...

Alma Mater Last evening we went to the Luau at Holy Nativity Episcopal School, put on by the PTO. The auditorium-cafeteria-chapel was decorated nicely, the desserts were special, and the supper of bbq, beans, and slaw from Pineapple Willy’s was excellent! Beyond excellent was the company, and just plain being there. What a happy place. Oh my, what a happy place! Linda and I walked down the hall of the Bill Lloyd Building to look at the penguins the children had made, all different sorts of penguins. Lots of art up and down the hall. Flags of nations. Posters about grandparents. The 48-Star American Flag that flew in my years there. To the right of The Flag the photo of my Cove School graduating Class of 1949, yep, that’s me.  Out the new doors at the south end of the building under the clear sky, moon and a couple planets, the little red schoolhouse looks great with imaginative landscaping: the HNES arch. Cove, Cove, dear old Cove, thee we’ll never fail. Hail to thee, our Alma M...

All days are equal, and some days are more equal than others, and, looking at the sky this morning, this day looks to be especially equal. Especially for January. Clear blue sky and sixty something degrees F. The icing on the cake being that, after rising for an old man chore at one-thirty then getting back in bed with a cup of coffee and a chapter of Karen Armstrong’s The Bible , my next waking was six o’clock for a second cup of coffee in bed, while looking across St. Andrew Bay at Shell Island, and wearing my Life Is Good hat as I read the PCNH comics.  Further, the cherry on the icing being that there was a leftover piece of rare steak in the refrigerator for a breakfast of steak sandwich on that very thin 35-or-so calories per slice wheat bread that they sell at Bill’s for seventy-five cents a loaf when the Pepperidge Farm man brings it. And another second cup of black coffee from my magic machine. The only way the morning could have been even more equal would have been a san...

πεφωτισμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς καρδίας ὑμῶν Open the eyes of my heart Lord,  Open the eyes of my heart,  I want to see You. I want to see You. What goes round comes round, and one thing leads to another, especially during Epiphany Season. Many Christians read some sort of a daily devotional, some folks journal, some simply open the Bible and start reading, some have a disciplined Bible reading plan, some follow the Sunday or Daily Office Lectionary. Many have a book such as My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers. A favorite of many Episcopalians is Forward Day By Day. During my growing up years there was always a copy of Foward in the house, that tiny book, just pocket-size, that was available in the tract rack at church. It’s also offered in large size, and naturally now available online. http://forwardmovement.org/Today-s-Meditation/   In fact, the “light” image above is their banner, which I have no right using, but it happened to be so perfect this morning....

1Corinthians 8 (NRSV) Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that all of us possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; 3 but anyone who loves God is known by him. 4  Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that no idol in the world really exists, and that there is no God but one. 5 Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. 7  It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we d...

Take off everything but your birthday suit. My surgery appointment was 5:15 a.m. One year ago just now I was lying on a gurney, bundled up warm and snug, clutching a bottle of nitrostat tablets, alone in the enormous corridor of the operating center at the Cleveland Clinic heart institute. Friends and loved ones had given me a hug, Father Steve had anointed my forehead with oil, and I was wheeled away to my destiny!  Mine was the first gurney to arrive, and the only one so far. Huge sliding doors opened into innumerable operating rooms on both sides of the hallway. Large machines were being wheeled into various ORs being prepped for surgery, technicians, doctors and nurses gathering. The door to my OR rolled open, someone came out and introduced himself as my anesthesiologist, chatted with me a moment, and probably slipped me a mickey. More machines were wheeled in. Other gurneys began arriving and were parked outside other ORs. A few minutes later my gurney was rolled into the OR....

Not Sardonic   January two years ago was bitter cold. Weather now, 66 overcast, 100% humidity, perfect January dawning, Monday -- T-storms?    For eight years we lived in Pennsylvania, in the aura of Joe Paterno, and cannot help feeling the tragedy and anguish. Sue Paterno said “After sixty-one years, he deserved better.” Yes, he did. Someone said “He died of a broken heart.” Yes, he did. Are you proud, Sandusky? Shame, Sandusky, shame eternal. Sandusky to Wonderland with Alice, to face the Queen of Hearts. Image, or substance: when brass trumps integrity, and greed, honor; and power is handed to the noisiest, the brashest. Do societies actually choose political leaders based on rhetorical bluster? Rhetoric is not real. Rhetoric is hot air, signifies neither skill, nor competence, nor truthfulness, nor knowledge, nor honor, nor trustworthiness, nor a sense of justice, nor good judgment, nor personal character, nor leadership ability. One would not choose a rhetorici...

A friend sent me a connection to a YouTube video “Parking a 1951 Cadillac.” Maybe the link will open: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCrmbIC6mVM A California inventor rigged the spare tire to lower from the car’s trunk (boot) and roll the rear end of the car in and out to maneuver into close spaces. The video is nostalgic, a period newsreel, with other 1950s cars on the street and the “perfect voice” of the trained newscaster of that era. More than that though is the car itself, and the nostalgia it stirred in me for those days. During my Bay High years there was a used car dealer directly across from the school, northwest corner Harrison Avenue and 12th Street. For some weeks during 1952, it would have been my junior or senior year, there was a yellow 1951 Cadillac Series 62 sedan sitting there for sale, yellow with a black top. It was perfect, practically zero miles, and it’s my second memory of a car that I lusted after to the point of obsession, checking it out every afternoon as I...

SPEAK UP! OK, maybe this is a diary after all. Went to sleep too early, so rose way too early, for two or three hours reading. Kristen is taking Intro to Ethics , book list includes Plato’s Gorgias. Seeing it’s free on Kindle and liking to read her course material, I read it in Saturday wee hours.  Yesterday a letter came from a friend of nearly six decades who also became a priest after a career of other things. Long years ago, just out of university, I told him I was intending seminary at some point. He said he didn’t think I should do it. Hearing that negatively about myself, I backed away from it for a quarter century.  Years later during a visit in Apalachicola, I reminded him of the conversation. He was stunned that it had been my reason for denying the vocation until my forties, said I had heard him wrong. Long-closed in my mind but not his, every time we’ve met he’s mentioned it, and in his letter yesterday he enclosed an old plaque   That conversation some fif...

Something about me has always liked having two or three books or other readings going at any one time. It’s like having more than one work project (which certainly was always common not only as a parish priest in my experience, but also as naval officer, consultant, adjunct college professor!) or several hobbies: cars, astronomy, other things at various times in life.  Linda recently put me onto Karen Armstrong’s book The Bible - A Biography. The first chapter is so fascinating that I’ve read it three times including the third time in bed earlier this morning, together with re-reading Second Kings along with it, about the good kings Hezekiah and Josiah, and haven’t moved on beyond, though today into chapter two for sure. The New Yorker magazines that Joe brought at Christmas are a treasure for relaxation and enjoyment. Walking thirty to forty minutes on the treadmill every morning requires distraction, so Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is propped on the bookrack, the Kindle, i...

חָסֶד Psalm 62  Nonne Deo? 1 For God alone my soul in silence waits; *     from him comes my salvation. 2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, *     my stronghold, so that I shall not be greatly shaken. 3 How long will you assail me to crush me, all of you together, *     as if you were a leaning fence, a toppling wall? 4 They seek only to bring me down from my place of honor; *     lies are their chief delight. 5 They bless with their lips, *     but in their hearts they curse. 6 For God alone my soul in silence waits; *     truly, my hope is in him. 7 He alone is my rock and my salvation, *     my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. 8 In God is my safety and my honor; *     God is my strong rock and my refuge. 9 Put your trust...