Do what you like Like what you do is on the back side of my Life Is Good mug. On the front side it simply says Life Is Good. And life is indeed good pretty much most of the time. At least, it has been and is for me. Last summer a young friend spent the day with me in my office at Holy Nativity. He called it “Father Tom Camp,” and it was no doubt pretty dull for him at age 13. Nothing special was planned. It was a work day for me, planning Sunday worship, drafting the bulletin, reading the lectionary lessons to get my brain focused on sermon thoughts. He worked too. Cleared out junk that’s not used anymore, straightened up both my bookcases, made things neat and tidy. We went to Bayou Joe’s for lunch. Asked what he wanted to do in life he said, “Something I like. I’m not sure, but something I like.” That’s a good start. At age 13 I knew what I wanted to do in life. Be an Episcopal priest like some seven or eight in the Weller family before me. But my sophomore year in c...

Strife Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. The Book of Common Prayer has marvelous prayers new and old, many of them dating back centuries. According to Hatchett ( Commentary on the American Prayer Book, page 171) this prayer for next Sunday dates back through all previous editions of our prayerbook into the pre-Reformation Sarum rite, back to the Gregorian Sacramentary traditionally identified with Pope Gregory, sixth century. Before the current prayerbook, it was the collect for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany and read as Cranmer had it, ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth; Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace ...

January temperature varies from day to day, year to year. Three years ago we had bitter cold, but 2013 has been so nice that we’ve had the upstairs porch door open most nights. When coolish, one or two clicks makes perfect the full length heating pad under the sheet. We like sleeping with the door open, but if there’s a breeze coming off the Gulf we open it just six or eight inches, with a weight stopping it from swinging wider. My hope is that this early spring will stretch through May, even into June. Maybe my brother or sister remember, but I don’t recall my father saying how Mom and Pop heated this house in the nineteen-teens when he was a boy here. My aunt EG said that winters they hung a tarpaulin round the staircase to keep the heat downstairs. There must have been some pretty cold nights in Alfred’s room, where Linda and I sleep now. My father liked floor furnaces, and in the 1960s he had a large one installed between the living room and dining room. It was effective for ...

OK, here’s the first reading for next Sunday, February 3rd.       Jeremiah 1:4-10 (KJV) 4 ... the word of the Lord הָיָה came unto me, saying, 5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. 6 Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. 7 But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. 8 Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. 9 Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. 10 See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant. The famous call of Jeremiah, it’s ...

My first effort this morning was to meditate on the gospel for today, in which Jesus, in the synagogue at Nazareth, reads aloud from Isaiah, then comments, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Our reading ends there, but Luke carries it farther into an ugly confrontation between Jesus and the men in the synagogue; with Luke opening his agenda that Jesus was one with the prophets of old, rejected by his people right from the start, beginning in Nazareth. It is a gospel in which that rejection is carried over into Luke's book of the Acts of the Apostles, such that the gospel is finally offered to the Gentiles, who unlike Jesus own people will accept him as God's anointed one.      Linda is making egg casseroles for this morning’s parish breakfast, hosted by the staff. My task is to avoid cheating and eating some early here at home.  Eight o’clock Eucharist then breakfast and annual parish meeting, therefore we will not have adult Sunday Sch...

The Greatest Morning in History Funeral meditation for Janet Davis Dowling Saturday, January 26, 2013, eleven o’clock in the morning The Reverend Tom Weller,  Holy Nativity Episcopal Church,  Panama City, Florida Scripture: John 20:1-16. Music: “I Come to the Garden Alone” You may be seated. Just over a hundred years ago, in 1912, telling about writing his hymn In the Garden , C. Austin Miles wrote, “I read the story of the greatest morning in history -- ‘The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene very early, while it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher --’ Instantly, completely, (writes Miles) there unfolded in my mind the scenes of the garden of Joseph of Arimathea.  “Out of the mists of the garden comes a form -- a woman -- halting, hesitating, tearful, seeking, turning from side to side in bewildered amazement. “Falteringly, bearing grief in every accent, with tear-dimmed eyes, she whispers, ‘If thou hast borne him hence’ …  ...

’59 eyebrow Chevy Always a fool for GM cars, most of the 65 or 70 cars I have owned have been General Motors products. Dates from early when my parents had Chevrolet cars, then 1948 when my father was shopping for a new car and my mother and I desperately wanted a 1948 Buick Super sedan from Nelson Chev-Buick.  My father ended up buying a 1948 Dodge sedan from Karl Wiselogel, W&W Motors. Eight years later, my senior year at UFla, my parents gave it to me (in retrospect, probably in defense against the shaky 1947 Buick Special sedan that a friend and I had bought for $75 our junior year). Linda and I shared the Dodge that 1956-57 school year in Gainesville and then it was our first married-life car for honeymoon adventures in Rhode Island when I first went into the Navy.  In spite of my GM lust, our first brand new car was a Ford because our friend Joe Parrott was working at Cook Ford. Then living in Apalachicola many years later we...

Mutter mutter grumble and grouse ... faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not seen a conviction ... by faith we understand the ages to have been prepared by a saying of God ... (Hebrews 11:1,3 YLT) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ... Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God ... (Hebrews 11:1,3 KJV) "Faith is believing what you know damned well ain't so" -- Mark Twain It should be pretty clear to anyone with good sense (excusing militant Islamists and the XnRt) that faith is not about certitude but about one’s willingness to go along and let it be. Let what be? Whatever. Whether it’s religious boilerplate -- which is to say the Nicene Creed -- or trust in the world around us including friends and loved ones, and the weather channel, and confidence that shortly the sky will lighten and the sun rise.  Someone said “faith is belief, ” which is fair enough ...

“I’m alive!” Two years ago this moment I finished showering with germicidal soap, dressed warmly against the bitter Cleveland winter, got on the shuttle with loved ones and friends, reported in at the main desk, was called, said goodbyes, and went through the door to my prep room. "Take off everything but your birthday suit," ordered the aide. "Shall I keep my birthday suit on?" I asked her with a futile jab at predawn humor. "Take off everything but your birthday suit," she repeated. A nurse came in. "We have chaplains here, would you like to see a minister before going for surgery?" she asked. I said, "No thank you, my priest is here with me." "Aren't you from Florida?" she asked. Yes. "You're from Florida and your priest is here with you?" Yes! Prepped, blessed with oil, and whisked away on a gurney, I was lying there in an immense corridor watching as huge machines were wheeled into my oper...