Sabbath is TIME. Sometimes a day. Sometimes a long weekend. Sometimes a long vacation. Sometimes a few minutes. Sabbath is TIME for relaxation and enjoyment of what brings one peace and fulfillment. This early Saturday morning, Sabbath includes lying here stretched out in bed, cup of coffee in the mug Kristen gave me for Christmas from her college.  Upstairs porch door open, bit humid as the Creator means Florida to be, slightest pre-dawn breeze, 74*F, glancing out into the blackness where, looking hopefully toward a new day, St Andrews Bay and Shell Island will appear in due course. Silence. Quiet. Cool. Dark. Sabbath includes an email from Walt, who has been keeping up with my raccoon adventures, including a telephone visit yesterday afternoon, and sent a picture.  Surely there's a lesson in a raccoon coming to the door and asking, "Did you lose a cat?" One lesson might be that any raccoon who brings your kitty home can get the newspaper and bring my coffee.  Up early...

TITLE II  WORSHIP 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 Version); or from The New American Bible (1970); or from The Revised Standard Version, an Ecumenical Edition, commonly known as the "R.S.V. Common Bible" (1973); or from The New International Version (1978); or from The New Jerusalem Bible (1987); or from the Revised English Bible (1989); or from the New Revis...

Foot Envy NYT this morning introduces a new hominum with an opposing big toe. Found in Ethiopia near where Lucy was found, they lived between three and four million years ago, contemporary with Lucy perhaps, but like Ardi man they were suited to moving and living in trees.  When I was a boy dense forest covered the entire Cove area of Panama City with tall trees and thick brush. In some places around our neighborhood there were no roads, only a few well worn footpaths that at least my imagination knew had been travelled by an earlier race long ages before. For a boy like me who loved climbing trees, having four hands instead of two hands and two feet would have been just the thing.  My father built us a -- we called it a tree house but it was actually a platform -- in the chinkapin trees in our back yard. Long gone, they were where the carport was built about 1948 because we had a new car that my mother didn’t want ruined sitting under the pine trees as the car before it had b...

Transition My mother died last year, an event still on my mind. As my car backed out of the carport on the drizzly Sunday morning in July, there was a slapping on the car trunk. Brake the car, open the window. Linda said, “Community called. Your mother just died.” Spent the next hour or so in the room with her, church’s prayers at time of death, trying to reach family by cellphone, waiting for the funeral director. A nurse’s aide came into the room, expressed condolences, said, “You must be ‘her Bubba.’ She talked about ‘my Bubba,’ is that you?”   We are trying to share her things with family members who might cherish them because of growing up memories. Furniture. Dolls she made and dressed long years ago. Weller pottery she collected. The mover is coming tomorrow morning. It isn’t that I “don’t want” these things, I want all these things, in fact, I want nothing to change, it’s simply wanting to share. There’s a big difference, at least to me; everyone doesn't seem to understand ...

Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. For each Sunday, the Propers include a Collect for the Day, which almost invariably contains specific theological assertions. In many collects the theology is simple and straightforward. But the theology of our collect for Palm Sunday is a fabric rather than a thread:  God is almighty and eternal,  God loves people dearly (implying not only that God is not  dispassionate but that the Lord is so peculiar a God as to care about humans),  God sent Jesus to become truly human,  God sent Jesu...

Philippians 2:5-11 King James Version (KJV) Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Called the Christ hymn from Philippians, in this beautiful and much loved passage, Paul is urging his listeners to live humbly, as Jesus lived humbly. That’s what it is, actually; not to say “that’s all it is,” which might unintentionally sound dismissive. For tw...

There is wi-fi in the house for anyone who brings a laptop or iPad when they come to visit. And my mother’s old computer is online downstairs for anyone to use. The girls play games on it. But the main thing is “Papa, may I use your laptop?” One girl using it stirs the other to want to use it, a law of nature that had it tied up Friday and Saturday such that my time on it had to be early before there were girl noises from the pink bedroom or light shining under their door.  Anyone who won’t let a child touch their computer likely doesn’t have granddaughters. The one with her head in the stratosphere seems more focused on it than the other.   Recently she asked, “Mom, do you know why I don’t run faster in PE?”  “No, why?” “Because the faster I move in space the slower I move in time, and I don’t want PE to last any longer than it already does.” A house is happiest for me when there are child noises. Even the sound of squabbling is better than nothing. The sound of silence ...

Surely, the Presence of the Lord is in this Place Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV) 31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.   Caroline and Charlotte are here with us while Tass and Jeremy enjoy an overnight away together. At bedtime, Linda reads th...

Raccoon War Turns Nasty It isn’t who you know, it’s who you ask. At church Sunday, Linda asked friends to suggest a company who might come do major trimming on the trees around our house, trees raccoons have been climbing to jump to the roof, thence force their way into the attic. After an initial visit to scope it out, the company came Thursday to do the trimming. What a marvelous job they did. Trimmed four large cedar trees on the east side of the house, two palm trees, three enormou oak trees, and a too tall grapefruit tree on the west side of the house. They came out with professional equipment and a crew of eight men, were here two hours and forty minutes. We are pleased beyond words. The company is Gulf Coast Tree Specialists, Inc. The owner is a certified arborist who knows trees. This is not a commercial; but yes, it is a recommendation, these folks are fast and professional. Friend and neighbor set his raccoon trap in my side yard. First night, trapped another possum. Maybe sa...

Fifth Sunday in Lent O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant unto thy people that we may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Anyone who has taught middle school students doesn’t have to look up the definition of “unruly.” But for one to whom teaching is fun and being around budding (bursting) adolescents is true joy, those years at Holy Nativity Episcopal School were the top of my life. Unruly only in class though, and perhaps only in my classes, perhaps because they could sense that almost everything they did amused and entertained me. But the unruliness could quickly be brought to order because mounted on the wall just inside the door of my classro...

A web log may be for self-expression, but if others read it from time to time one may be inclined to hold back at least on some topics and not so much in-your-face. Just so, seldom is there a +Time reference to party politics, just as there isn’t from the pulpit, where the idea is to be encouraging, never divisive. Also, nobody wants to read some idiot blogger’s view on news events when there’s already a super-abundance and over-sufficiency in the media.  Self-restraint is challenging though when things like contraception are, incredibly, twisted and blown into a national political issue and termed “conservative.” It used to be that “conservative” meant minding your own business -- in the home, domestically, and nationally, and in industry and commerce, and in foreign affairs. But in Century 21, “conservative” has been twisted to mean preemptive strikes and peeping into people’s bedrooms to make sure they’re not doing something you think is nasty. Shades of 1984 . We have met Big B...

Many Christians enjoy a daily devotional reading of one kind or another, a personal discipline of some sort. Because of our custom of “giving up something for Lent,” this is an apt season to get into such a habit; that is to say, giving up time that otherwise would have gone to something else or even to nothing. Mine is encouraged by fascination with electronics, so lifting the MacBook lid opens possibilities every morning. One, Days of Praise , appeals to me unfailingly, because the writer is bright and educated, and because coming from The Institute for Creation Research, what he says is often 180 out from me and stirs the mind. How dull life would be if lived mentally unchallenged. Which makes it seem dimwitted, for example, to watch only a television news channel that propounds only one’s own views.  This morning’s meditation, “Statement of Christ’s Purpose,” says Jesus came to preach the kingdom of God, to call sinners to repentance, to give his life a ransom for many, to teac...

Hebrews 5:5-10 King James Version (KJV)   5 So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee.   6 As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.   7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;  8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;  9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;  10 Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec. Invariably, Hebrews 5:5 “he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee” catches my eye and stirs up -- what? Well, frankly, controversy, which is always much relished. The phrase appears several places in the Bible including Psa...

Recently a friend emailed me pictures of four old cars and invited me to identify them. Two were easy, one was probably being introduced in showrooms across the country the day I was born, and during our growing up years the Sheffield family, second door down, had one, a light blue Dodge sedan. Theirs was a 1937, but the one sent me for a puzzle was a 1936 like so:  My memory of that car is the running boards, that when Mrs. Sheffield arrived home from wherever, she would always stop at the bottom of the driveway, and the five of us, Walt, Bill, Jimmy, Charles and I would run to the car, step on the running board, and hold on for dear life as she sped up the driveway. That’s likely too long ago for the others to remember, and Bill’s long dead. The last time we did it I hopped off a moment too early and the right rear tire rolled over my foot. Thereafter my mother forbade the activity. Mothers do the strangest things to boys. Another of the four cars was as easy because it also w...

Many folks like to sleep late on Saturday. Sabbath, it’s a day to be easy and not so somber, take life and oneself not so seriously. Karzai, Bales and Rutgers do stretch that possibility this morning. So does an NYT discussion of charter schools damaging NYC public schools, topic that rings bells a thousand miles south. Other hand: San Francisco Bay coffee for K-cups, Fog Chaser blend, different design, much cheaper, worth a try. Scary reading from the book of Numbers for tomorrow, “Moses and the Fiery Serpents.” Wring even a Lenten sermon out of that. And a children’s time chat.  PCNH reports this morning that Covenant Hospice will have a 15-bed residential hospice at BayMed, good news for Panama City. August 2001 Linda’s mother was stricken while we were in Tallahassee and when we were given a grim prognosis in the ER we were able to move her to a residential hospice there in town. A lovely, peaceful place and an incredible blessing. On the home front, yesterday the raccoon trap ...

The recent raccoon invasion of our attic, and ejection and discouragement measures include a radio in the attic, tuned to the world’s most obnoxius rock and big mouth talk station, top volume. It’s muffled in our second-floor bedroom, but audible anyway. So we’ve been sleeping downstairs in Joe’s room. Which has the most comfortable beds in the house. And being in the center of the long, sprawling structure, it’s away from noise. A result has been longer sleeping hours, this morning not waking up until six o’clock. Last time that happened? Maybe ten years ago. Otherwise, routine goes on, brew coffee, check email first thing. At this moment, Joe is at his office in Winston-Salem, enjoying a Chik-fil-a spicy chicken biscuit and cafe-du-monde coffee. Rowan Williams has accepted appointment as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge University, and will be stepping down as Archbishop of Canterbury the end of December. He has done admirably in a stressful decade for the Anglican Communion, t...

Panama City is defined in my heart by how it was when I was a boy. When I was a boy, Harrison Avenue ended at the Tally Ho and 15th Street was unpaved ruts out in the boonies. When I was a boy, you could get stuck in the sandy mess that was 11th Street. When I was a boy, West Beach Drive in front of my house was two ruts running through the lower part of the front yard, not only no pavement, not even a road yet, just the two light ruts through the Bermuda grass. My father’s older sisters remembered the nineteen-teens, before even the ruts, that there was no road, but a boardwalk along Bayview Avenue (as it was named then), starting east of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, running west in front of the houses, down and round into St. Andrews and north as far as I’m not sure where. When I was a boy, that long stretched out now pink building, southeast corner Harrison Avenue and Fourth Street, was Cook Ford, the Ford dealership. Seems to me the service entry on the back side of the buildin...