A Beautiful Day Yesterday morning started beautiful. Ordinary, ordinary as could be. Beautiful and ordinary. Thirty minutes on the treadmill, speed 2.8, incline 7, something over a mile slightly “uphill.” My plan for the morning: read psalms appointed in Lectionary B for the summer and see if they have anything to do with the Old Testament lessons to which they were meant to respond. And, oh, incidentally, a drain pipe was stopped up in Linda’s bathroom upstairs and we had not been able to open it. She called Whitehead to send a plumber, he came instantly, worked at it forty-five minutes, unclogged it with a plumber’s snake and was on his way. A few minutes later as I grabbed a BCP from the trunk of my car, Linda shouted out the back door, “Water is pouring through the dining room ceiling.” Slam went the trunk lid, “Call the plumber back,” yells I, running upstairs to turn off all the water supply lines. During WWII this house, which began with one bathroom when my gran...

1 In the year that King Uzzi'ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" 6 Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven." 8 And I heard the voice of the Lor...

Trinity Sunday coming up: one of the seven Principal Feasts of the Church, acclaimed as the only Sunday that’s about a doctrine instead of a major event. In my case, it’s my only Sunday of the year to be in the pulpit preaching about an incomprehensible while most of our congregation are across the Bay on Shell Island eating barbecue and fried chicken. Because it’s Shell Island Sunday. Our second annual. Last year a flotilla of boats carried a couple hundred people across. A wonderful time was had by all, and there were several baptisms. It’s about the grandest way to start the summer season that one could imagine.  For Sunday, the Weather Channel says 91F, wind W at 8 mph, 0% chance of rain. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch ... There was a time in the Church of England, perhaps still so, when, in place of the Nicene Creed or Apostles Creed, it was the tradition on Trinity Sunday to stand and say the Creed of Saint Athanasius, also called the Athanasian Creed and the ...

San Francisco celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday.  Smack in the middle of our 1969-1970 WestPac cruise, USS TRIPOLI (LPH-10) was found to have a cracked propeller. We were loaded up with Marines heading home from the Vietnam War and sent to homeport San Diego, thence to San Francisco for a month in Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for repairs. While the ship was in San Diego for a few days, everyone who wanted to take a car to San Francisco drove it down to the pier to be loaded onto the hangar deck. Including my 1959 Volkswagen. It was Spring 1970 when TRIPOLI sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and wonderful to have my car in San Francisco that month. Touring the city from top to bottom, one end to the other, Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Japanese shops and restaurants, driving across Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito; across the Oakland Bay Bridge to Berkeley. One of my best things to do was go to a sushi parlor, order a box of my favori...

Ananglican Just because they say it, that don’t make it so. There is, around the U.S., and indeed here in Bay County, a group who call themselves “Anglican Church.” It’s a breakaway body that, like other breakaway bodies, loves the name “Anglican” and so have glommed onto it. The fact is, though, that what is “Anglican” in the world is what is “in communion” with the Archbishop of Canterbury. That particular body, and its affiliate national connection, were some years ago singled out and named by the Archbishop of Canterbury as specifically not in communion. So they worship using the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church and call themselves “Anglican.” Anyone can hang up a shingle, but that doesn’t make it so any more than calling oneself Robert Frost poeticizes one’s doggerel, or walking around with a scalpel makes one a heart surgeon. But if they want to be FoxAnglicans, who cares.  Somewhere among Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon books there’s...

Morning Prayer. Psalm 19. Caeli enarrant .* THE heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy-work. One day telleth another; and one night certifieth another. There is neither speech nor language; but their voices are heard among them. Their sound is gone out into all lands; and their words into the ends of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun; which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course. It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the LORD is an undefiled law, converting the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, and giveth wisdom unto the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, and giveth light unto the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, and endureth for ever; the judgments of the LORD are...

Ezekiel 37 The Message (TM)   1-2 God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun.   3 He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"     I said, "Master God, only you know that."   4 He said to me, "Prophesy over these bones: 'Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!'"   5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, "Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life. I'll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You'll come alive and you'll realize that I am God!"   7-8 I prophesied just as I'd been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, th...

QUOTATION OF THE DAY "It is like honey to my heart. For the first time in my life, I feel like I have a role to play. My vote could possibly make a difference." MOHAMED MUSTAFA SEIF , an accountant in Cairo, on voting for Egypt's first freely elected president. The above from this morning’s NYT reminds. There was a time when it seemed to me that it made no difference who was our president, or whether he was elected by Democrats or Republicans. And I have voted on both sides over the past half-century and more. Plus, as long as one party is not in control of both the White House and both Houses of Congress, there should be reasonable check and balance against excess and fanaticism.  My view changed after 9/11. Nobody knows how almost-President Al Gore would have reacted to 9/11, whether we would have been at war in Afghanistan for the past decade, or perhaps worked in other ways to face and try to overcome Muslim hatred of us. But it is for absolute certa...

Wasting Time Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed and killed by law officers in Bienville Parish, Louisiana on this day in history, May 23, 1934. NYT offers for sale, reprints of their front page announcing the event. $59.95 for plain 11x17 up to $224.95 for a 24x36 in a black frame. Wikipedia has a long article on the infamous pair that may take half an hour to read thoroughly top to bottom. Reading it left me unrefreshed mentally, uninspired spiritually, somewhat down, and having squandered precious time of life. Worse, worst, it's still on my mind. A friend had an original April 1865 newspaper announcing Lincoln’s assassination and death, a historical item of interest. Why would anyone want a free copy, not to say a two-hundred-plus dollar framed NYT reprint announcing the death of Bonnie and Clyde? And what would they do with it? Their art collection might make an interesting sermon. What makes someone deliberately throw life away doing crime, petty or major. A family v...

Mainly Reminiscing ... As a young Christian going to East Hill Baptist Church (Pensacola) occasionally with my grandfather Gentry, and sometimes going with friends to First Baptist Church here in Panama City when Brother McDaniel was there (Brother Mac was a favorite pastor among local kids back in the late 1940s until he moved from the church to become the executive at Bay Memorial Hospital), it always made a strong positive impression on me that everyone was carrying a Bible. Everyone except me, an Episcopalian.    Why didn’t we carry a Bible to church? Because all of our Sunday Bible readings for the entire year were printed in the Book of Common Prayer. That was before our present 1976/1979 BCP, which gives us a three year lectionary. Three years worth of readings would be too much to print in one book together with all the other, liturgical, teaching, and historical material that’s in the BCP. Ah, me thinks upon arriving at Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalac...

Pump up the Tires and Get Ready to Preach It In the Church, this week is a Time In Between Times, and it seems meet and right to take advantage of that in some deliberate, purposeful way. The Ascension is behind us and with it the earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth; ahead is the Day of Pentecost with the promised coming of the Holy Spirit and whatever that may bring; but not yet.  Symbolically it’s time to adjust to irrevocable change and prepare for whatever is to come. More than symbolic. Not Hurricane Season is over, seeing TS Alberto off Jacksonville this morning, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov / though thankfully about to head northeast. Hurricane Season is ten days away, so there’s time to buy flashlight batteries, bottled water, canned food, fill up the gas tank.   It’s more than symbolic for me personally too, because though our Rector’s sabbatical is twenty days away for him, it’s only skip--one--Sunday away for me. He’s preaching this coming Sund...