45  Eructavit cor meum 1 My heart is stirring with a noble song; let me recite what I have fashioned for the king; *     my tongue shall be the pen of a skilled writer. 2 You are the fairest of men; *     grace flows from your lips,     because God has blessed you for ever. 3 Strap your sword upon your thigh, O mighty warrior, *     in your pride and in your majesty. 4 Ride out and conquer in the cause of truth *     and for the sake of justice. 5 Your right hand will show you marvelous things; *     your arrows are very sharp, O mighty warrior. 6 The peoples are falling at your feet, *     and the king's enemies are losing heart. 7 Your throne, O God, endures for ever and ever, *     a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of...

Proper 17     The Sunday closest to August 31 Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. This lovely collect from the Gelasian (c.a. 750 AD) and Gregorian Sacramentaries and our early prayerbooks has been called an image of the gardener or farmer: the fruit of good works brought forth by God who plants, nourishes and continues to care. Marion J. Hatchett ( Commentary on the American Prayer Book ) says that the address might better be translated (from the Latin) “God of virtue whose is all that is best,” and the next to last phrase “nourish what is good in us.” Both of those seem better theologically.  Cranmer apparently added “true” before “religion,” reflecting religi...

What was it like, what did we get? Ominously dark, angry Bay, churning like unto chaos, hurricane surge lapping up close to W. Beach Drive in low areas down front, blustery wind and gusts. Little rain.  Still a hurricane making landfall at this moment. May some drought areas be blessed by rain as Isaac moves inland. And let all the people say -- Amen. Speaking of Isaac -- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob -- this coming Sunday morning we begin five Sundays of reading through the Letter of Jacob --  ιακωβος θεου και κυριου ιησου χριστου δουλος Jacob God and Lord Jesus Christ slave  Hebrew Yaakov to Greek Iakobou translates through several language strains to the English names Jacob, James and Jack. James is said to be the Anglo-Saxon strain of Yaakov and Iakobou that emerged nearly a century before the King James Version in the 1525-26 New Testament of William Tyndale, reportedly first to translate the Bible direct from original Hebrew and Greek into Engli...

Suffering Fools Not Gladly Isaac. An American meteorologist goes to Cuba to monitor and report a hurricane: ice is broken and more can happen. Politicians run scared of their shadows, but relations with neighboring humans should be based on national interest and what's right, not dictated by angry exiles. If we can be friends with Germany, Japan, Vietnam, we can have a decent relationship with Cuba again after this past half-century. Some folks never change. A recent conference reminded that some people are criminally overbearing. In the extreme case of insufferable obnoxiousness capped by thick, dense and dim of wit, one can’t help thinking of going for a rope. Suffering fools not gladly. Next time: pass, give it a miss. Though made a scapegoat and unwelcome in Tampa, Todd Akin is not the problem but the symptom: he knocked the scab off the fester, so stuff him back in the box before people wake up. A pack of certitudinous men making laws for women makes as much sens...

Don’t Shoot After an electrical outage left us without power for a dozen or more hours one day some years ago, my mother insisted we have a generator installed and the three of us share the cost. Resembling an HVAC compressor beside the house, it’s a big, ugly thing with a one-cylinder natural-gas-driven engine like a car motor that, despite its size, only handles a couple of rooms -- kitchen and appliances, one other room and one HVAC system. It comes on within a few seconds of the electricity going off; and for maintenance turns itself on and runs for a minute or so about once a month. It’s helpful for power outages plus gives us options when there’s a hurricane in the Gulf, before, during and after.  October 1995 when Hurricane Opal came in, we had boarded up early morning and departed for Tallahassee, driving thirteen hours in the bumper-to-bumper traffic nightmare, finding overnight shelter there only in the parking garage of Tallahassee Medical Center. The next morning ...

For seasonable weather, and for an abundance of the fruits of the earth, let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy. A tradition of our Church is the Prayers of the People as part of the Liturgy of the Word during Holy Eucharist. The prayers may take any form at all, from the sets written in the prayerbook to prayers offered extemporaneously by members of the congregation, as long they include intercessions for the Universal Church, its members, and its mission, the Nation and all in authority, the welfare of the world, the concerns of the local community, those who suffer and those in any trouble, and the departed.  As part of our Sunday morning services of Summer Eucharist meant to be educational and experiential for our congregation, we have tried a little bit of nearly the range of possibilities. This morning, as summer draws to a close for us, we are returning to The Book of Common Prayer , with Form II selectively printed in the worship booklet.  Our summer ha...

Hurricane Isaac has its eye on us. My tracking maps update every three hours, and the projected landfall point keeps jiggling east and west, currently into our neighborhood Wednesday, August 29 about 2 a.m. with 90 mph winds. Anything can happen between now and then, but it bears watching, and clearing the yard of potential flying objects. Coffee, black with a couple twists of the pepper mill, fragrant. Tomorrow, Sunday morning, will be special. Guest preacher is Holy Nativity parishioner Jane Burkett, who is studying at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin. One of my relatives went to seminary there and in fact is buried in the cemetery there. Jane found his grave for me a couple years ago. Looking forward to welcoming Jane home and to our pulpit.  Our new kitchen is finished sufficiently that coffee will be made there instead of across the street in the office/parish house. The entire space is air-conditioned now, and cushions are on the window bench sea...

Some weeks ago we received a letter from the bishop to all clergy inviting and encouraging us to attend a one-day health conference at diocesan Camp Beckwith. Linda and I decided to come, in part because, starting at 9:30 a.m. and lasting until 6:00 p.m., it would necessitate coming over the day before and staying two nights. We stayed at the Quality Inn in Foley, Alabama at a bargain $62 per night, and are reckoning this was our summer vacation. Held in Beckwith's bay-front building (which we didn't know existed) the conference will help us give increased attention to health matters of diet and exercise and to continued vigilance about weight. Ending the conference, the last two hours, the bishop had a “called clergy conference” to discuss and lay down policies and procedures regarding the adoption by General Convention 2012 of a liturgy for blessing same-sex unions. The bishop is an uncommonly patient man: if some of these sailors were in my ship I'd call the assign...

From 1st Kings chapter 8, our Old Testament lesson for Sunday, August 26 completes our summer Bible Story of the Adventures of Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon. In this episode, about 960 BC, Solomon’s Temple has been completed and King Solomon has the Ark of the Covenant moved to the Temple, into the Holy of Holies. There it will remain until the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple in 586 BC.  In Sunday’s chapter, once the Ark is placed in the Holy of Holies, the space fills with a cloud, dazzling bright with the presence of God, so thick and bright that the priests cannot remain in there to do their work. Solomon then offers his great prayer praising God who is too great to be confined to one space. Solomon’s prayer concludes asking that God hear the prayers of the people when they face the Temple and pray. In our liturgical tradition, the psalm that follows the first reading, the Old Testament lesson, is meant to respond to the reading in some w...

This coming Sunday is the last of five Sundays in which our gospel reading is from John chapter 6, the so-called “Bread of Life Discourse.” It is an intriguing read for any number of reasons. Some that interest me -- The semeia (signs) of miraculous feeding of five thousand and of walking on water are part of a hypothetical “signs gospel” pointing to who Jesus is: for those present in the story, the prophet foretold by Moses; for John’s audience, the divine One come down from heaven. The feeding account in John is different from that in the synoptics. In the synoptics, where all three accounts are close to identical, the feeding is one of a series of eucharistic feedings in which Jesus takes and blesses and breaks and gives the bread -- not so in John, whose agenda is different: the feeding is semeion , a sign. Jesus identifies himself, his body, his message, his being, with the manna, bread from heaven, that God gave through Moses to the Israelites in the wilderness. ...

In the News? Augusta Admits First Women Members Another barricade falls. Next? Congressman Scolded After Skinny Dip In Sea of Galilee He’s in saintly company. John 21:7 Prince Harry Parties Unrecognized in Las Vegas Might as well, he’s not going to be king anyway. Rep. Todd Akin ...  Abysmal ignorance hides behind the cloak of stupidity.  Ukrainian Commission Wants To Ban SpongeBob Apparently SpongeBob is gay. Pakistan Mentally Disabled Girl, 11, Arrested And Jailed For Blasphemy In America it would be for flag burning. Battle of the great minds.  iHurricanes: The “I” Jinx Reduce hurricane violence by skipping the Evil “I” 13th floor syndrome  Florida Gators Open 2012 Football Season at No. 23 FSU at No. 7, can’t stand it.  Wearing my Gamecocks cap for Amy this season except Oct 20 2012 Associated Press Preseason Poll Rank Team Pts 1 USC (25) 1445 2 Alabama (17) 1411...

We had a happy ten-thirty worship service yesterday with the Children's Choir, and all the kids and their backpacks, and a wonderful back-to-school Altar arrangement, good hymns and good scripture, an old time Sunday School Bible story about Solomon and the Lord, and a Gospel about Jesus as the Bread of Life. It was a riot. Something the Rector does from time to time that is always fun is having all the children come up inside the rail and join him around the Altar for The Great Thanksgiving , which is the Eucharistic Prayer. Standing behind and watching the children is a trip, they enjoy it so, and sometimes it’s possible for me to snap a picture. The last time I did so was Pajama Sunday, and the little boy right in front of me had a head of hair that looked like he’d just got out of bed.  Our ten-thirty service yesterday was the Blessing of the Backpacks, and while the major morning rainstorm seemed to dampen attendance, there was still a respectable crowd of chil...

Our ten-thirty worship this morning is our annual “Blessing of the Backpacks.” Everyone who is starting school, students, teachers, children, young people, adults, bring their backpacks and lay them before the Altar, symbolizing the offering of our year to God and praying God’s blessing on us as we go forward. A happy event, it may be a riot, children will sing, Scripture will be read, including that most apt Bible Story in which Solomon prays for wisdom and a godly sense of ethics; some aged priest no doubt will try to be the center of attention from the pulpit, God love him. The Mass will be said and That Most Holy One who claims to be the Bread of Life, even the great I AM, will be broken and shared. It will be a holy occasion. In the midst of the excitement, one of the most holy parts of it will be the offering and blessing of the backpacks that we will use in our Backpack Ministry this year. Once again, Holy Nativity will participate in the local ministry of filling backpack...

The A narchist T imes During Ramadan, Pakistanis dodge tax collectors. During Lent, Americans should refuse to file 1040s.  FRC shooting suspect had 15 Chick-fil-a sandwiches in a bag, FBI says: weapons, corpus delecti evidence against the cows’ vicious EMC campaign, or his lunch.  Egypt’s Mursi moves to stifle opposition. The generals are surprised? Too thick to have a coup scenario ready to implement. U.K. threat to Ecuador a ‘big mistake’. Yep. Assange? Swap an apology for custody, send him to Sweden to face sexual assault charges, everybody hug, say “peace” and down to the pub for a few pints. Talk of charging an Australian with treason against the U.S. is beyond stupid. Justice in Sweden, then exile to Oz.  Anti-Putin Stunt Earns Punk Band Two Years in Jail. Four legs good, two legs bad. All are equal, but some are more equal than others. Four legs good, two legs better. In Israel, speculation rises of pending attack on I...