Often as not, my daily blog post begins without prior thought as I start typing while sipping my first cup of coffee. Something occurs, evolves. Maybe after walking down the front concrete path for the PCNH and, looking out across my Bay, pausing to recall the flashing green light that, across his bay, cost Jay Gatsby his life because of a dream he so passionately believed in but, even as he died, never saw was not real, an illusion. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω. His life and his dream were illusions. Was my dream real? I don’t know. It no longer matters. What matters is that I have no sermon for Sunday.
If there are possibilities in the OT reading, say a Bible story I learned as a child, I prefer to find a sermon in that instead of my old Episcopal habit of standing in the pulpit and beginning yet one more time again, “In our gospel for today ...”. Yesterday in fact I was reading the Exodus 16 story of God and Moses and the whining, complaining, grousing Israelites in the wilderness, and the flaky white goo that the Lord rained down on them as bread. “Man-hu?” they asked, “Yuck, what is it? We're supposed to eat this?” Wandering from the NRSV translation from which we read in worship, off into the Orthodox Jewish Bible, an English language version that charmingly uses Yiddish and Hasidic cultural expressions, I started to explore a Hebrew-English interlinear that would have given my seminary OT professor thundering apoplexy, and realized, why am I doing this, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here and now or anyplace and ever, so deleted that blog post and wrote about Me, Myself. Persona v. Being. One you see, one I know.
There’s the crescent moon, high. At an earlier hour earlier in the week it was nearly half, pointing to Orion. Truck door closes and voices down on the Bay. Casting for mullet? Can’t say.
See? Mind of the octopriest. Despite “often as not,” this morning’s blog post began otherwise because I couldn’t resist peeking at what delight Anu Garg might have for me this morning. Even better than I’d hoped. This week he’s serving adverbs, verily, my favorite flavor of words. Today it’s perchance but Tuesday took me back -- what? -- sixty years? His name slips my mind, but my law professor in the business school at UFlorida was -- second only to my German professor when I was pre-theology before psychology 301 or whatever number nearly decapitated me -- my all time favorite professor as an undergrad. He was captivating as a lecturer and instructor, you didn’t take your eyes or ears off him lest you miss something, and with him another chance to laugh. He kept using a fortiori until somebody said you sound like some lawyer and he said I am some lawyer and have been for many, many years, and told everybody to use a fortiori in the exam at least once.
Tuesday morning, Anu Garg thought he had me, but I was already there, have known a fortiori 60/80ths of my life. As those who do higher math know, that's 3/4 -- 75%.
Today, perchance, good. But Anu's thought for today is superb: Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784). It’s agape’ which is the New Testament word for love. To put it extreme, I can hate your guts, but the Second Commandment requires me to be nice to you. Love is not a feeling, it’s how you treat people.
And yes, that’s MLP this morning.
W+
