Second Reading for Lent5A, Sunday, April 2, 2017. Romans 8:6-11 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law-- indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. Our liturgy for “The Burial of the Dead” includes a verse from Romans 8* for the Committal, our words at graveside where we take final leave: All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; ...

From the Tyndall Bridge at EastBay, to west over Thomas Drive, from the high meridian straight down, south over StAndrewsBay and Shell Island beyond the Gulf of Mexico’s horizon, the sea is silver and streaked with speeding yellow boats, gray sky abuzz with jet fighters. And here’s the Bubba, peaceful on 7H porch until the morning array of pills strikes like a sniper’s bullet: sudden as the word "instantaneous", heavy head, achy neck across the shoulders as BP bottoms out and Bub drags to the sack. But no complaints, it’s morningly, a cheap cost of being.  Morningly arrives and I read The Jerusalem Post . Haaretz if it comes, which seldom unless I call it up online. In JP today a series, beginning with http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Never-before-seen-document-penned-by-Nazi-leader-Himmler-uncovered-by-National-Library-485539 and an article on the anti-Semitism of Jewish self-hatred that extended to three essays by Michael Laitman. What, 72 years on and personally ne...

Somewhat religious, or at least taken with Bible study on my own, and with theological assertions, rejecting ancient superstitions to think for self beyond the clouds and firmament, I see me as no spiritual being. Which, said often, surprises me not. But I do like to worry stuff. Such as our collect for Lent5: Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  Shifted variously among Sundays over the centuries, this collect appears in Gelasian, Gregorian, and Sarum, dating it to the late 7th century*. I love the old collects, as I love the good old hymns, though many are neither good nor old, and someone obviously loves...

Reading various gospel stories convinces me that the Jesus of the canonical gospels came to kick our gospel garbage cans upside down; upside down, tump them out, and show what skybalon we believe, are, do, and impose on others. Jesus did this again last Sunday in our gospel reading for Lent4A. John 9:1-41 is, to me, the gospel writer's most clever work: obscure, abstruse, perplexing & incomprehensible, to the glory of God, all subtly capped, like a red cherry atop an ice cream sundae, by the use of mud to clear the eyes.  (Lord, give us this mud). We worked it over in Adult Sunday School, but only laid a background. Sitting outside on 7H porch this morning I’ll have another go, unscholarly, repetitive, rambling, disorganized, back and forth, but WTH, it's my blog and my +Time+ isn't it. Linda wanted to discuss the gospel after church while we were having Sunday dinner together, and both before and since then I’ve had more inquiries, seekers who, hearing and rea...

What am I doing this morning. Been up an hour from sleeping on a board hopefully to dissuade Captain Sciatica, now I know why he wears that lightning bolt on his costume,  the conniving gardenia-sniffing alphabet sun on the beach. But lots of suggestions at church yesterday so I’ve switched from a dozen aspirin to an Aleve regimen. Yesterday I’d swallowed so many aspirin (melt on tongue and gulp down with coffee or hot water) that the brain felt anesthetized while I was in the pulpit; not woozy, just absent, all mouth no brain; and gulping more during Sunday School, even less present at ten-thirty than at eight o’clock. If anyone wondered “is that really Father Tom up there?” I noticed too, as I sat in the back of the church watching the imposter who resembled me but much older. That's probably how I'll look as an old man, but I certainly hope not. But anyway, Captain Marvel, I could be wrong, but it seems like in my earliest memories earnest little Billy Batson wa...

The Lord is my shepherd.  David: shepherd king! Why David?  Why David? Now, I've heard there was a secret chord  That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” The old Sunday School story that begins today, with our mental pictures of David the Shepherd Boy, who slays Goliath, David the psalmist of whom the Israelites chant “Saul has slain his thousands but David his ten thousands,” David faithful friend of Jonathan, David at whom Saul threw a spear and nearly killed him - - stories of David the Shepherd King go on and on, and we rejoice in them.  But David grows up, doesn’t he, grows up out of cute shepherd boy: and be sure thy sins will find thee out. +++.  +++.  +++ In church history the 4th Sunday...