Thirty days hath Septober April, June, and no wonder All the rest have peanut butter except grandmother, who was a chifferobe. It’s a tall thing with big drawers. Easily fathomed why the sermons are so bad when the mind is so cluttered. Advent Sunday is ominous, apocalyptic, the Time of the End is at hand and the Son of Man is coming suddenly and unexpected, yet the priest thinks about the thirty days of Septober. Growing up, my next door neighbor was Bill Guy. His mother Mary Elizabeth Burgin Guy was a character who brought home rhymes and ditties, “Septober” being one, often spicy limericks, and sometimes jokes we didn’t get because we were too young to understand what body parts the terms referred to. She told them to Bill, who brought them outside. We did not take them home. Brunette who chose platinum blond, MEBG was raised in Tuscaloosa and was said to have been a vivacious and popular cheerleader or majorette at the University of Alabama. Linda’s parents kn...

Utter Nonsense and Beyond* News  at YAHOO online. No worries, I’m not taking digoxin. Mitt and Barack doing lunch today, just the two of them in the White House. Maybe Mitt would like to be Secretary of Commerce or Health & Human Resources**, or maybe Mitt will get on board with the CEOs and agree he should pay more taxes, or maybe not, glass of chablis for Barry, ice water no lemon for Mitt. Dessert, tiramisu and coffee for Barry, leftover pumpkin pie and another glass of water for Mitt. Newborn baby girl named Hashtag? HRH Kate looking wow in her green dress, and wearing bangs. Mursi getting too big for his britches, stirring second revolution. No apocalyptic cosmic cataclysm on December 21 according to NASA,  so go ahead and decorate the Christmas tree. Kim Jong Un acclaimed as sexiest man alive; maybe he needs a socialite for honorary consul in Tampa, she has her vita out. Two tickets for the $580 million jackpot.  UN set to recognize Pa...

Sunday at First Lectionarian 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) 9 How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? 10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. 11 Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13 And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. We can be quick to criticize and dismiss Christians who prooftext Scripture, quoting Bible verses out of context to prove a point or as the basis for doctrine. A relative once told me that he was saved and sure for heaven because the Bible says “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord ...

First Sunday of Advent Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. The signs of Advent are first visual and then aural. As we come into church we notice a new color, the paraments, hangings, are purple or blue. The opening hymn may be the haunting plainsong of Veni, veni, Emmanuel , “O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.” Our prayer, the Collect for Advent Sunday at least as far back as the middle ages, is eschatological, speaks of the End of Time and the Second Coming of Christ. In our Gospel reading from L...

SundayMonday This can be deadly and for many people has been so -- but -- so this is the end of holiday blues cautioned about this time of year and the chill early dark doesn’t help. Sunday afternoon sudden bottoming out as my girls pack, drive away and are gone, returning to -- home -- college -- life.  Life is cycles. In Judges , creation-sin-judgment-repentence-redemption over and over. In Micah, doom-hope-doom-hope-doom-hope. At 2308, hello-goodbye. Not that the holiday is over, it’s the goodbyes and silence. Looking out across the Bay reminds that my family has done this five generations right here in this exact spot, two generations before me, then three with me, then four, now three generations, after +Time, generations beyond me. Not a time line; cycles. Waxing -- what? -- maudlin? Give it up. Cheer up. Anon, anon. Anxiety ‘til the texts come, “Home now” and “We’re home!” and “I’m here.” Cheer comes with texts of safe arrival, zonked out sleep, Monday...

Stir Up Sunday Proper 29     The Sunday closest to November 23 Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. “The Old Days” were different for each of us, and even from thought to thought. In the old days we had a full day of school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and back to school on Monday; this year the schools had a whole week off, which is better except that also having a “Fall Break” is ridiculous. In the old days we got out of school the first week of May, and reported back the day after Labor Day: the old days were best.  In the old days you went to church Sunday morning knowing exactly what was going to happen down to the last lette...

Thunderbird Along with pics of a 1938 Buick, Joe sent me a car picture recently that stirred old memories.  June 1957 I graduated from the University of Florida and was entering the Navy, slated into Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. Starting the first week of July, it would be four months, then whatever the Navy had in mind for me after that and no telling when I might see Panama City again. Life was young and its prospects exciting.  Linda and I had gotten engaged in December, but had not scheduled or begun to plan our wedding. I had asked Mr. Peters if we could get engaged and he had graciously given his consent. Upon graduation, and with Navy plans moving so fast, we decided to be married before I left for Newport. We selected June 29, which was just about three weeks away. When the wedding date was presented to Linda’s father, his reaction was, “What? I agreed to your becoming engaged. Nobody said anything about getting married.” And h...

Black Friday, Prayers, & The End Time Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 (KJV) 9 I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. 10 A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. 13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. 14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. As we come to the end of Lectionary Year B and face the Advent...

Thursday at 2308 There’s no pumpkin pie or turkey aroma in the house this morning, because two years ago we set our Thanksgiving Day as the First Saturday after the Fourth Thursday in November. Malinda is at work. Ray has gone to Tallahassee for Thanksgiving Day with Holly and her family. Joe is in Dayton with Lauren and Daniel visiting Patty’s family. Dinner today will be Nana’s Usual Meatloaf , with me, Linda, and Kristen. Now the fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving seems early because this year there’s a fifth Thursday. Having it down later in the month gives a little more time for there to be an autumn chill in the air, which seems right for Thanksgiving even here on the Florida Gulf Coast. And moves it closer to Christmas, the Holidays. Shopping Days Until. My third-favorite holiday as a boy ( #2 was the first day of Christmas Vacation and #1 the first day of Summer Vacation), my best memories are of this day starting with the spicy aroma of pumpkin pie co...

Thanksgiving Eve 32320 One of the nicest services in my memory is Thanksgiving Eve in Apalachicola. Two to three decades ago and details slip my mind, but for some years we ministers had it as a community service, moving around to different churches and always a big congregation. One year at Trinity Episcopal, First Baptist, St. Patrick Catholic, First UMC. One year we had it at a church out on Brownsville Road, either First Assembly of God or First Pentecostal Holiness, they are just a block or so apart and I can’t remember which. Pastor was a transplanted Canadian who had grown up Anglican and still secretely longed for it. One year we had it at the Love Center, an African-American holiness church, and it was nothing short of good, holy, exuberant, spirit-filled fun.  Eventually it died out, there was nothing for a year or two or three, then we tried a Thanksgiving Eve service just at Trinity, and it was well attended so we kept it going. Evening Prayer with lots of Tha...

Seems a bit circular when one’s thanksgiving is for a daughter’s safe arrival home from college for Thanksgiving as happened last evening when Kristen drove up. Looking back to Thanksgivings during other college years, when Tass was at college in Virginia and only had the long weekend, Linda and I loved going to Lynchburg to be with her. Turkey dinner at some restaurant or other. Visiting the places we enjoyed the four years she was there. One year, our motel room window looked out on the parking lot of a large shopping center where a crowd started gathering Thanksgiving Day afternoon for the Black Friday sale the next morning, my only close observation of that frantic bargain lust that has become as much an institution as the turkey. Autumn in Lynchburg was always fun. So was winter and spring. Anytime, anywhere in life is fun when someone you love is there.  My first visit to Lynchburg was Spring 1955 as a sophomore at the University of Florida. I was nineteen, same age Krist...

In easy memory, the only way to get your news was to read the newspaper, listen to the radio, go to the Ritz Theatre and watch the newsreels. This morning the news can be read and watched anywhere in the world real time as it happens, rocket by rocket, on one’s choice of sources with a magic marvel on one's lap. At the moment, The Jerusalem Post . http://www.jpost.com / Most Americans probably have affinity for Jews and the Jewish people, though not necessarily thinking Israel is always right. The brutality goes both ways in Palestine and seems beyond settling except temporarily by unending ceasefires in response to endless flareups, and why can’t everybody just be nice doesn’t cool deep-seated hatreds.  With inexcusable history an unchangeable error but fact of life, Israel needs to roll cross the border into Gaza, take down Hamas, destroy all fortresses and remove all weapons.  In a Harry Potter world a time-turner might turn history back to April 1945, th...

Apocalypse Mark chapter 13, from which this morning’s gospel reading is taken, is known as the “little apocalypse” -- The Apocalypse itself being the earthshaking events of the Book of Revelation, the word ἀποκάλυψις meaning “revelation.”  We think of apocalyptic writing as vividly descriptive revelation of violent shakeup that will happen at the End of Time. But apocalypse can happen to anyone at anytime. For myself, I knew it this past spring and summer in the earthshaking deaths of beloved friends. It came upon some Americans on the evening of election day as the electoral vote count began to shift on the TV screen and then slid into the Pacific Ocean. It came on a brilliant four-star general at some point in 2011 when he let his heart get the best of his head, and then crashed down when FBI agents walked into his office to ask embarrassing questions. It came in a fluke last week for #1 when a touchdown pass was intercepted at the goal line and the Tide rolled out. Ap...

Soon everybody may give up blaming someone else, a symptom of narcissism. Mitt blaming Barack for causing him to lose the election was over the top.  This map makes no sense. Neat but meaningless. At least, whoever did it colored in the lines. But it's meaningless -- -- because Florida is so 50/50 that if, on the way to the polls on election day, three cars had had a flat tire , we would have been Red instead of Blue. Whatever, this is a better map for the GOP to work with -- either get busy, guys, or RIP with Millard Fillmore and the Whigs. Gaza and Israel are perpetually warring because after WWII the big nations ripped the Palestinians out of their homeland, deported them to eternal refugee camps and there abandoned them, and gave their land to become Israel. The resentment and hatred are beyond time and resolution.  From the beach car show a friend sent me pics of a 1957 Ford Skyliner.  Ford Skyliner was a retractable...

Apocalypse Daniel 12:1-3 (NIV) The End Times 1 At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. Mark 13:1-8 (NIV) The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times 1   As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” 2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” 3 As Jesus...