Circumcision
Winter is back: 55F 94% or maybe earth is turning over on its side to put the north pole at Key West. If there is global warming, pray it does not happen in election year.
One is to turn 81 in September, another is to stay out of trouble, my new year’s resolutions are the usual. Don’t ask what the rest are and I won’t ask what you’re giving up for Lent.
On the eighth day of Christmas …
Church calendar today is The Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Old calendar today is The Circumcision of Christ:
The Collect
ALMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through time same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Not one of seven Principal Feasts, Holy Name is one of three holy days taking precedence of a Sunday, but anybody’s guess why the church changed from Circumcision to Holy Name. Maybe we became too squeamish, or delicate.
Joe is gone now, left just before five o’clock on his way home to Winston-Salem, NC. He says a nine or ten hour drive, traffic and/or weather could extend that. His leaving always reminds me of, what year would it have been maybe 1980 that he left home around Christmas, to Vegas because his girlfriend was there, and from there enlisted in the Army. A parent has to realize that once they leave they’re gone, and from then on it’s just an occasional visit and your home is never theirs again.
This is not maudlin, just reflecting on how life works. My own break was September 1953 when I went away to college. There, I claimed my independence and freedom and was never again home and accepting parental authority. This I recognized when I would come home on school breaks and summer vacation, when my parents thought they were still in charge of me and I knew otherwise. A tense time for both sides, it may take the college years to work through the transition; or the break may be sudden. Every society of humans experiences it. Every loving parent, every devoted child.
Time for my walk.
Truth, my intended topic for this morning was football, the FSU debacle, and to say the Clemson and Alabama games came out in accord with my will, though I never thought the Tide defense would be so effective against Michigan State, it didn't start out looking that way. Today I'm up in the air with Florida and Michigan except for wanting Harbaugh to light Michigan's star again. So either way, I win. Or lose.
Truth, my intended topic for this morning was football, the FSU debacle, and to say the Clemson and Alabama games came out in accord with my will, though I never thought the Tide defense would be so effective against Michigan State, it didn't start out looking that way. Today I'm up in the air with Florida and Michigan except for wanting Harbaugh to light Michigan's star again. So either way, I win. Or lose.
Thos+ in +Time+