g g g g g g gG g gG g g g g g g  Wunderlich or American Typewriter then. Or Chalkduster. No. Unless the font is the message, and it isn't. Sometimes the font is distracting and Chalkduster is that unless Tom is what? selling ice cream on the boardwalk? For what one might use Chalkduster, IDK, I like its  g  though it obviously can't hear, and I prefer the ear of AT's g that reminds me of a California quail. But looking at Chalkduster, I hear a fingernail scraping on the blackboard in a classroom somewhere early in the twentieth century, and cringing. Twelve-something with the blue moon at zenith, now two-oh-three. A small glass of milk and back to bed. Or maybe, having worn the battery down nineteen percent, close the thing and doze in the blue lift chair. My mother used to wake in the night, get up, read awhile then turn out the light and go back to sleep. Seems like eighty is old enough, but I’m forty-five days short. For some reason, yesterday, browsing online...

Who knows where this will go, nobody do, not even The Shadow. Making my coffee in the dark this morning, I decided to have one of Linda’s little creamer pods for a change, picked it up, pulled the top back, and poured it on the coffee machine instead of in the cup. So there was a mess to clean up. When a day starts like that anything can happen, so I’m keeping it strictly under prayerful surveillance. Anyway this. A couple weeks ago I noticed that those who are using Lectionary B Track Two were reading from Jeremiah instead of the David stories from 2Samuel. Jeremiah comes along after the so-called Eighth Century Prophets of Doom (Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and Micah), and I always enjoy reading Jeremiah, especially because I like the prophet’s story of his call. It’s pretty abrupt and “make-no-mistake-about-it, BuddyBoy.” Jeremiah 1:4-7. Listen: 4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrate...

Sunset 20150727 Everybody who’s going to stop watching or reading the news until this pathetic, humiliated woman Joyce Mitchell is no longer the headlines say “aye.” In Pennsylvania thirty-something years ago, one of our diocesan priests was chaplain at Camp Hill prison. His name escapes me, but he was retiring and I talked with him about the ministry. He said long years of dealing with selfish people whose only interest was manipulation had exhausted him to a burned out cynic. He did not recommend the ministry to anyone.  This morning my mind stirs that memory, and Mitchell the Pathetic, and Sunday’s gospel, into a nasty gravy that I don’t want on my grits. In John’s gospel (pasted below) Jesus is offering signs (semeia) of who he is -- the one sent from heaven by God -- and he realizes that the people are not interested in the sign or in what the sign signifies, which is eternal life; all they are interested in is free bread. They have followed him home to Capernaum hopi...

PCNH this morning, Linda showed me, front page of the B section, has an interesting article with pictures of what is being done along Lisenby Avenue (east of Lisenby, north of 11th Street, south of K-Mart, and west of Lake Caroline, to box it in). Watching the construction happen, I thought it was just fancy fenced-in drainage, but turns out it’s another nice park with a walking area, and intended to improve water quality in Lake Caroline and ultimately to help improve water quality in St. Andrew Bay. That is good news, and impressive. My further thought is that if the authorities truly want to improve the Bay they must open the Old Pass so that circulation is possible instead of stagnancy and the slow filling in with marshy area and that makes Shell Island actually a peninsula not an island. What was the name of that barrier before the new Pass was cut, when you would have been able to walk from the Long Beach Casino all the way down to the (Old) Pass? I’d have to ask my grandfather....

Looking up across St. Andrews Bay from the city marina halfway through our walk about six-thirty this morning. We’ll probably go on starting at six until the weather cools a bit. Also, as days dawn later. Anyone looking to my nonsense for help or spiritual guidance will go unrewarded: crossing the mind in spite of itself is the one called “The Donald,” I sure hope he's having Gulf Coast Pest Control come out and spray that head of hair for mice and roaches.  I have a nonsensical theory. GovernorPresident C. and SenatorSecretary C. attended one of TheD’s wedding ceremonies. And TheD, according to something I read last week, it may have been a lie, IDK, made a healthy contribution to her last political campaign, and apparently they are friends. I say apparently, because TheD doesn’t seem to remain friends with anyone for long.  Anyway, my theory is that there’s a strategy. TheD is currently the Republican frontrunner, a sign that a fourth of Republicans like him. An...

Jesus feeding the five thousand is one miracle or sign that all four Gospel writers remember. It’s “re-member” in the sense of putting the old Sunday School story back together. Each evangelist assembles it differently, with a result like Johnny Cash sneaking out parts from the factory and building a Cadillac one-piece-at-a-time. The synoptics, Mark, Matthew and Luke are most alike — seeing the Savior’s chesed , his lovingkindness, as a powerful act of compassion responding to tired and hungry people in a deserted place far from home. The Gospel according to John re-members differently: to witnesses in John’s multitude it’s Jesus’ sign that he is the one prophesied by Moses — Moses who also led them and fed them in the wilderness. Regardless which gospel story we hear, it’s the same event, re-membered differently from writer to writer; but tradition actually identifies a spot high on a mountainside overlooking the Galilean Sea where this took place, and it’s so beautiful t...

This morning we read Gospel John’s account of Jesus Feeding the Five Thousand. This story is in all four canonical gospels, slightly different in each of the three synoptics, Mark, Matthew and Luke. But writing later, a full generation after Mark when things were changing for and within the church both sociopolitically and theologically, John has it quite different from the others. We’ve talked about this before and often, and it never gets old.  For John — unlike the synoptics where Jesus is pictured responding compassionately to a crowd of hungry people — John sees Jesus giving the people a sign that he is indeed the prophet like Moses whom Moses prophesied centuries earlier — Moses who led them and fed them in the wilderness, where they are again on this isolated mountainside, led and fed in the wilderness.  We’re going to look at this in Sunday School this morning, and among other things, we’ll compare John’s story of a sign to Mark’s story that has eucharistic ov...

More sleep all in one batch would be nice, but predawn has for years been my favorite time of day, and I wouldn't miss it. The silence, and magnificent lightning in the southern sky far off over the Gulf of Mexico, too distant to hear even the faintest rumble of thunder. Terrific photo ops here, but my camera is on my iPhone and I've not been able to capture the lightning, or zoom shots of birds carrying fish. For better pictures I'll have to do better than iPhone. At any event, about the sleep, if it's really short at night there are morning or early afternoon naps. I mean, I'm retired, baby. One of an infinite number of enjoyable things about living into this electronic age is the endless availability of information, instantly retrievable. And with that, the discovery and rediscovery of my clueless ignorance, which makes me rejoice that there’s so much more to learn. It's far better than the long gone Britannica we bought in 1968. And just this week two thi...

Not a clap, a loud, loud deep rumble of thunder woke us at 4:23, then at least one flash of lightning bright enough to light the Beck bedroom even with blinds shut and curtains drawn. So loving a storm, up and at ‘em for the day. Linda inside reading her PCNH with coffee, me outside here on the porch with coffee. Still black dark, can’t see the Bay, but wave action below is quite loud, though not rolling crashing ashore, just lapping up on the beach. And enough wind to breeze around me beautifully. Photographs were last night at sunset, and judging by this morning’s sky activity, it must have come true somewhat. Friday: walk day and breakfast after. We take turns paying, I don’t remember whose turn to pay this morning, but not mine, I paid last Friday. Coffee, glass of water, eggs over medium, dry wheat toast. Not dry for health, dry better to soak egg yellow. If raining at Cove School, we don’t walk. Golden groves and crystal waters with their waves so bl...

Thursday is coming alive to be nice as imaginable. Right now I’m inside at my magical Window by the Bay after an hour outside on the porch enjoying the cool breeze at seventh floor height, watching as sun and clouds urge the day into being. This is a spot on earth where one could happily be forever, looking south, east and west across St. Andrews Bay as blue, white, pink and gray eternally shift colors. As flights of pelicans glide close by, between their island at the Port and wherever they go each day. Osprey and lover circle, dive, fly up and away clutching a mullet, shrilly shrieking “Look at me!” Not just themselves, they must be feeding young, otherwise why the two here early morning and just before sunset —  The day just keeps getting better and better. How does it go? There are several, here’s one Morning has broken like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.  Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning! Prais...

Keeping a blogpost, somewhat like keeping a frog, is in the same stadium with a journal and a diary, but has a different name because it’s not the same as either just as a frog and a toad are different. We don’t eat toad legs, so in the Resurrection, better be a toad than a frog if those are one’s reincarnation options. Better yet, be a pelican if that's offered, or an osprey.  Outside on the porch this morning, sunrising in the east, and to the west, gazing right past Courtney Point, those high-rises at Bay Point and on round to the Gulf-front high-rise condos along Thomas Drive. It was not so when I was a boy here, and while the old ways were best, I also love it the way it is this morning. One blessing I love most is that Tyndall Field came to us with WW2 and has stayed, thus preventing greedy development of the land across St. Andrews Bay that I see between Redfish Point and Davis Point. Here comes a shrimp boat, heading in from all night at sea, someone will eat good ...

This morning I’ve been doing to suit myself rather than grousing about life and my own being and all the fools at large including the stupid, arrogant alphabet POS who only  likes people who weren’t captured — such as himself slithering out of military service and riding around Manhattan in his father’s limo during the Vietnam War. Anyway, the blogpost is for self, take it or leave it. Psalm 14. Dixit insipiens . A psalm of David. THE fool hath said in his heart, * There is no God. 2 They are corrupt, and become abominable in their doings; * there is none that doeth good, no not one. 3 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, * to see if there were any that would understand, and seek after God. 4 But they are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become abominable; * there is none that doeth good, no not one. 5 Have they no knowledge, that they are all such workers of mischief, * eating up my people as it were bread, and call not upon the LORD? ...

shall be well Almost every Sunday afternoon is a joy. Large ship leaving port. Sunday lunch with Malinda and Kristen. Glass of red wine, yesterday the bottom of the zinfandel bottle. After, a nap, then wake to look out just as another large ship leaving port heads out to sea. No secret I've detested television, especially what some call “sound” but to me is static between me and possibilities for peace. Weather is the exception, or a major news item. But now with no potato vine to pull out of the azaleas, I’m checking out movie channels. An evening last week we watched (something) Destiny from 1941, an unmemorable cast of nobody we ever heard of, rated about four stars and we resolved never to watch a 1 or 2 star movie, it was terrible, terrible. But keep checking. The late thirties and early forties cars are usually worth the watch. End of one movie last week starred a 1940 Buick Limited limousine. For lack of a TV channel movie, after Sunday nap I found a movie on Yo...