From the Hand Of All That Hate Us To my ongoing consternation, the time is gone when Anglicanism could be defined as a sound, a sound of worship and especially the sound of Anglican Chant, which is exquisite four-part harmony in singing canticles. Now I live with Alice in Wonderland where “you are old, Father William, the young man said” and who cares. Truth, even today’s best musicians are incapable of Anglican Chant that is not part of their being . One of my favorite canticles in the old time was the Benedictus Dominus Deus (Song of Zechariah, Luke 1:68-79) which we sang in Morning Prayer on Sunday mornings, often enough that nobody needed a book. The tune and words are in my head this New Years Eve morning for particular reason that is particularly unholy.    Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, *     for he hath visited and redeemed his people; And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us *     in the house of his ser...

Ages of Ages Thus saith the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Isaiah 57:15      Our time passes from year to year, for me, through ages of trains, cars, wars, planes, electronics. I wouldn’t want to have missed the electronics age, especially the age of weather satellites and the incredible internet, but if I had lived before satellites and WWW I wouldn’t have known to miss them. There is something incredible out there in another age, but I’m content here. A friend recently introduced me to the marvel of a virtual tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on the Mall in Washington, DC. http://www.mnh.si.edu/vtp/1-desktop/ . Living in Washington two Navy tours of duty and afterward the first year of Navy retirement, I have been to the NMNH ...

No Carry-On Out&About in Saturday’s PC News-Herald headlined a piece by Michael Lister, “Kindness never out of fashion.” He includes a quote by the Dalai Lama, “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” Shades of the Savior! Sounds like Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago: Love. Love God, Love Neighbor. This is my commandment, that you love one another. The luggage of doctrines, dogma, creeds, rubrics, canons, tradition, denominations, customs, organizations, councils and beliefs the church has tossed into its baggage car have little to do with Jesus of Nazareth whose disciple we claim to be. Much to do with authority and control, little to do with everyday life, naught to do with Jesus.  Christianity should be a jumbo jet with roomy comfortable seats, no baggage compartment, no under-seat storage or overhead compartments. No carry-on luggage. Only the Word, carried in the heart and on the lips, and lived on the journey --  chesed agape’...

It doesn’t really matter to a dummy like me because I watch little TV except the weather. Still, it’s a relief A&E lifted their suspension of Phil Robertson, who is neither more nor less guilty than I, and though what he said was outrageous it was predictable, and anyone who was surprised is naive to the max. Maybe it’s that PhilR and I have different innocences and ignorances. I may even watch a Duck episode to see if it’s funny.  What’s funny changes though, or we change. Long years ago one of my favorite programs was Red Skelton, but I eagerly watched a re-run sometime in the past five or ten years and couldn’t believe I ever thought such pathetic inanity was funny. Jiminy Christmas. Jack Benny was funny then too, but PC can be so virulent that Rochester would be banned -- which would be a shame, because Rochester chauffeured the Maxwell. So were Amos and Andy funny. In no order, my funniest of all time. Sgt Bilko with Phil Silvers. Carol Burnett and company. ...

Damp and chill weather when bluejeans are the only thing to keep legs warm. When cold wind whips through, Levis protect windstoppingly. Outdatedly snobbish, elitist obsession with something provincially called "good taste" are school rules forbidding bluejeans. Freedom is wearing what you DWP. And jeans do not have to be washed frequently, they can be worn like a skin until they smell like the animal that's wearing them. An Op-Ed in the New York Times online this morning helps me realize something about myself, why my being was never at peace those years of living away from the sea or at least water of some sort, even creekside in Pennsylvania. The best: where I grew up on Massalina Bayou in the Cove, Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, Mayport a block from the Atlantic, but most especially where I live now and foreverafter, where this very moment I hear light surf because of either the tide or some silent craft passing offshore in the dark. Akiko Busch calls it ecotone...

One of my season enjoyments is with Joe, watching at least one screening of the annual The Christmas Story  set in the early 1940s in a snowy Indiana town with Ralphie longing for a Red Ryder BB gun. I know the longing and had at least one just like it. Some may, like me, be more focused on the Olds sedan parked there beside the house and Ralphie’s remark that his father was “an Oldsmobile man” -- as was I also for a decade of the century long Olds run that ended with the death of the venerable American brand in 2004.  Our first Olds was a 1973 Custom Cruiser station wagon that I ordered from Key Olds in Columbus, Ohio just after Tass was born. By today’s standards it was a large car, cream yellow with the wood applique like a Ford Country Squire (a classy car and probably the most popular station wagon on the road at the time), cream-tan leather or vinyl seats, seated nine. The clam-shell tailgate that GM offered several years.  The c...

MX! which is to say, “Merry Christmas!” My thought was Where Shall I Go? during the Prayers of the People at our late Christmas Eve service last evening, opening memories -- waking up from the nap my mother made me take so I could stay awake through my first Midnight Mass as mama handed me a cup of hot chocolate. December 24, 1948 driving to church with extra caution on icy, snowy roads after a near-blizzard in Pennsylvania. 1976. I had dropped Linda and family at Mount Calvary, Camp Hill and was on my way to St. Luke’s, Mechanicsburg for smells and bells .  going to sleep in my stateroom, USS TRIPOLI somewhere in the miserable Pacific Ocean, December 24, 1969, missing the three people I loved most in the world back home in San Diego. Naval officers don’t cry and one day at sea is like the day before and the next. baking a large mackerel for our first XMAS Dinner in Yokohama because we’d always been home for Christmas before and had never cooked a turkey. 19...

Read Me A Story, Papa 1 And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. 2 ( And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) 3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) 5 to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. 6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. 7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. 8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon the...

Love Came Down 20131222 Advent 4A Sunday, Dec 22, 2013. Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, FL. The Rev. Tom Weller “Love came down at Christmas” and Christmas is different in every family, with different memories every year. You may want to remember some of yours while I share some of mine. Please be seated. As a boy, the happiest two days of my year at Cove School were the first day of summer vacation, and the first day of Christmas vacation, long days of freedom spreading out before me. The two worst days were the last day of summer vacation, and Christmas Eve. The last day of summer vacation, obviously. But Christmas Eve -- I’ll come back to that!  When I was a boy the first sign of Christmas was around Thanksgiving when the Sears Roebuck Catalog arrived and I’d pour through it endlessly, lusting over the toy section and picking out what I’d include in my letter to Santa. As Christmas came near, our home filled with the aroma of candy. My mot...

Merry Advent Four. Walking out on to the upstairs screen porch I meet a beautiful day, perfect Florida predawn -- warm, humid, 76F and the wind blowing in across the Bay from the Gulf. Four o’clock and still dark as pitch. Lights of the upstairs Christmas tree are glowing, making it light enough to sit out here on the porch to think and write; however, it is windy, so back inside where the air conditioning is on to calm the humidity. But the blinds in the door are open so I can watch for the day. Yesterday while we were at St. Thomas by the Sea for a funeral, Joe arrived. I love for him to bring me things from his company store, sometimes a shirt. This time he brought me a travel mug with his company’s name on it, which I filled with coffee when I went downstairs for the MacBook a couple hours ago to rewrite my pulpit nonsense. Now enjoying a second coffee made in the upstairs Keurig, typing while sipping from the travel mug, and trying to be quiet because Linda is still asleep i...