Thursday: Nut Case
A moving patriotic celebration at Summer Wednesday Evening last night, beautiful music and best-loved national hymns, including I’ve not sung the National Anthem in very many years, probably since patriotism became politically incorrect. We sang two verses and I remembered all the words, including “war’s desolation” and “conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto: in God is our trust. And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave ...”
After worship it was hamburger and hotdog night, my favorite, but I ate my peach cobbler dessert first while everybody else was going down the hamburger line, then could only eat a fourth of my hamburger, so had the rest for breakfast. Minus the bun, which this morning after overnight in the refrigerator was squishy, runny, liquid bread. Last evening someone brought fresh homemade cucumber pickles, delicious, don’t recall ever having them before, though maybe a faint memory of mama making them; I never put pickles on my hamburger, but these I loaded on.
Returning home after, we drove out on St. Andrews Marina and admired the Venus-Jupiter conjunction, high in the northwestern sky. They are moving apart, as happens after any union. Somehow, googling the conjunction put me into the blog of somebody Fr. Z, an RC priest who had an excellent discourse on what one could see with a telescope including all in one field of view, Jupiter, the moons of Jupiter and the crescent of Venus, which as a one-time amateur astronomer I appreciate. But then, Father metaphorizes the heavenly union to Obergefell v. Hodges and goes off into what Catholics and Catholic politicians are obliged clearly and emphatically to oppose. My own view, which is not a response in part because internet comments instantly degenerate into anonymous hate-filled skybalon, is that if who other people marry is an obsessive part of one’s religion, one has a problem, perhaps traceable to the fertility rites of ancient pagan gods that demand a Nut above and a Geb below; or even a real problem of denying oneself and should open the door a crack and peek into one’s own closet (ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω). Most likely the latter, but If the former, one should remember that Atum started all by himself. In one version, it's just Atum (again, ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω) but in the other version Atum mates with his shadow.
Today is Thursday, sermon prep day I reckon. At seminary we were taught and required to select one of the lectionary readings and not try to weave all three or four together into some grotesquely unintelligible fabric, so I’ve pretty much done that over the years. Seldom do I preach on the gospel lesson, already over more than three decades having preached on every one of them ten times already. Often the old-time Sunday School Bible Story in the Old Testament reading is good, and with 2Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 we’re still with David, until Jesus the Lord’s favorite and mine; but if I do the OT reading I’m obliged to answer the question “why did we skip over verses 6-8?” and I’m not going there (neither should you, BTW). So unless I do something with Psalm 48, highly unlikely, there’s 2Corinthians 12:2-10. It’s that bizarre passage when Paul talks about knowing some Christian who fourteen years ago was caught up into the third heaven. Or we could all go back to Shell Island for the Fourth of July holiday weekend: see you there.
W+