Lasix and One Blue Candle
Count on it: settled comfortably, chair leaned just right, warm lap blanket spread, laptop ready, strong black coffee perfect temp for sipping, reach for a bite of traditional Thanksgiving Friday breakfast turkey white meat sandwich, furosemide kicks in. Let the reader understand. Or look it up. Still and all, the moment, the coffee and the sandwich are as good as life gets.
So is Betty's homemade mayonnaise.
Preaching and celebrating at St. Thomas by the Sea, Laguna Beach this week, First Sunday of Advent. Notice, it’s Sundays of Advent unlike Sunday’s in Lent when the season is penitential, no Gloria in excelsis, no alleluias, you’d better have given up something that you shouldn’t have been indulging in the first place, and the Sundays don’t count either in the Forty Days or in the Fast. No, this is Advent, long become far less penitential than Lent. Advent’s history is interesting for those who are interested, a total bore for those who are not. There was a time when Advent was fully as penitential as Lent, was forty days instead of four weeks, and was called St. Martin’s Lent -- because it was signaled by the feast of St. Martin of Tours, 11 November, thus Advent began on November 12th. No more, no longer. The only liturgical symbols I see are that the color changes to purple (blue for Episcopalians who have bought into the marketing strategy of the church supply houses), and there’s a hint of apocalyptic, and the church has adopted from the Methodists or whoever, what was a home devotional of the Advent wreath and lighting an Advent candle.
Again, ecclesiastical supply houses have scooped this one up big time, their hope for the future being that eventually a pope will add the BVM to the Godhead, necessitating a universal shift from triangles to squares.
Finally, our mark of Advent is we don’t sing Christmas carols until Christmas Eve -- which is frustrating because Santa Claus and Christmas carols are blaring in the culture at large. However, the frustration of waiting is itself a symbol, keeping us mindful that Advent tells us Christ is near. Wait, watch.
Finally, our mark of Advent is we don’t sing Christmas carols until Christmas Eve -- which is frustrating because Santa Claus and Christmas carols are blaring in the culture at large. However, the frustration of waiting is itself a symbol, keeping us mindful that Advent tells us Christ is near. Wait, watch.
Enough for this morning. At any event, the furosemide has just kicked in insistently for the third time.
TW+