Bus to KITCHENER

The Bus to Kitchener

As a small boy I was fascinated with the odd misspelling on the front of buses: the Flxible Co. (originally Flexible Sidecar Company of Ohio) manufactured highway coaches and transit buses between 1913 and 1996. Because it was a vehicle I suppose, their company logo with the catchy misspelling stuck in my mind and pops up every time I’m confronted with the need to be flexible: this bus isn’t going where I meant to go. Pull the cord, stop the bus, get off and change buses.   

Life is to be flexible and change buses or change course, not just while drafting plans, but extemp during execution, underway and circumstances suddenly go unexpectedly (ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω). It surely was so during wartime at sea when sonar suddenly pinged torpedoes closing with the ship. Over North Vietnam seeing a flash from the ground and knowing you are a SAM target. Speeding down SR65 late night, south of Hosford about Telogia or Sumatra headed for Eastpoint, several deer standing on the highway directly before you. No slamming brakes, I swerved between them, Tass, Linda and me in the car.

Hostile vestry meeting and knowing it’s time to call the bishop. Did that one Sunday afternoon years ago. Years later a parishioner threatens my life because he wasn't named Senior Warden (yep, not drawing hazardous duty pay either). Not going to Kitchener, wrong bus, pull the cord.

Confrontation with an unexpected issue and realizing that, though you’ve just replaced the downstairs floors and the upstairs porch deck, it’s suddenly time to sell the big house and find a small condo.

Car of your dreams suddenly shows up in your dealer’s used car inventory and it’s easily affordable. Pull the cord.

Thursday: we plan to vote today, but no part of Life, nor even the rest of the morning, is set in concrete. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω (the one reading, let him understand). Be flxible. 

D.Thos+

On my blog yesterday afternoon I posted my homily from the morning’s funeral. Somehow the Facebook link to it vanished. Apologies, but here it is again. http://plusmoretime.blogspot.com/2016/03/for-john.html