Tomorrow in the Church is All Saints Day, once called All Hallows, could be All Holies, as in hallowed be thy Name, your Name is holy. If western culture makes it a fun, chilling, spooky event, All Saints Eve, All Hallows Eve, Hallows Even, HallowE’en, that’s not my problem, nor is it an issue with me if society appropriates any Holy Day to make it its own.  From the Christian calendar society has long done that with Easter and Christmas as major festive and commercial events, and also Halloween; and the Church has turnabout done that with Independence Day and Thanksgiving Day. And our holy Christmas Day was a secular and pagan event that the church appropriated and converted in order to turn attention from its paganism while also taking advantage of an existing fun and loved winter celebration that, because everybody loves a party, could have been difficult or impossible to stop, just as it would now be difficult to stop trick or treating and all the spooky stuff. Halloween i...

Jonathan Turley releases onto the internet so much writing, so often, on so many different topics, that I no longer try to read all of him even though so much of it is so valuable and so worth attention. Most mornings I glance, delete and move on; but his piece this morning so catches my eye that I not only stop to read it but wonder why I did so, and I pause to ponder, not only George Yancy for his interesting combination of correct but hostile and therefore less effective; but also myself for stopping by to read.  Yancy in a moment, first myself: I stop to read because the title catches me up in a not so hasty generalization with which I agree and have agreed for as many long years as I’ve been contemplating both the subject and myself. Two subjects, in fact, related, coming from Turley’s article and Yancy’s position: All males are sexist and All white people are racist.  https://jonathanturley.org/2017/10/30/emory/#more-129995 Yancy is correct in both propositi...

van Gogh's painting a lifelong favorite, and when all is said and done something of a doubting cosmological theologian, I like today's meditation from Richard Rohr better than anything I might write this morning; and he gives permission to repost and share. Image credit:  The Starry Night  (detail), Vincent van Gogh, Saint Rémy, June 1889. Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York. Cosmology A New Cosmology Sunday, October 29, 2017 When I was growing up, the common perception was that science and religion were at odds. Now that we are coming to understand the magnificent nature of the cosmos, we’re finding that many of the intuitions of mystics of all religions are paralleled by scientific theories and explanations. All disciplines are just approaching truth from different angles and levels and questions. It's easy to imagine the delight Francis of Assisi found by turning skyward. I can picture him filled with wonder at...

Somewhere from years ago on a television show that obviously wasn’t serious, I remember seeing someone, a singer maybe, remark about a line in a song, “thassa darlin’ part.” Ridiculous, it was funny, and meant to be. It returns to mind this morning as I read our second lesson for tomorrow that, though a darlin’ part, to me somewhat irritatingly has nothing to do with Paul’s occasion for writing 1st Thessalonians, responding to that congregation’s concern about those who die before the promised Second Coming: Jesus will bring them with him when he returns, and all faithful living and dead will meet in the clouds. That could be a sizable crowd, maybe even more than the countless motorcycles currently here for “Bike Week.”  Paul’s answer in the letter may be assuringly suited for people of his time, I reckon; it does not satisfy 21st century me. I didn't even find it assuring when I first read it sometime along in the middle of the 20th century. Seems worth exploring in Sunday ...

Yesterday, Thursday, last night, Evening Prayer at St. Thomas by the Sea Episcopal Church, Laguna Beach, where I was vicar August 2004 to April 2009, nearly five years good and happy of my life as a human, priest and friend; then supper. Fall of each year, in the mail comes a personal invitation, the only one sent out, everyone else is invited as parishioner, from Harry & Gwena Sweezey to Italian Night, a popular evening in which they lay out on long tables across Jewell Hall, a mouthwatering spread of delicious Italian dishes. I’d have to struggle to identify favorite, but last night most scrumptious eggplant parmigiana. And a beautiful creamy casserole of pasta and chicken. And the tomato soup. And the Italian cheese pie. Not to mention the meatballs in tomato sauce. Lovely red wine from the Carousel. But always to mention dear friends who welcome us back, how it is to feel loved. One of the things that shows up in my email mornings is DelanceyPlace.com , with an excerpt fro...

This is part of our gospel reading for Sunday, the "Question about David's Son" - - Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: “What do you think of the Messiah (τοῦ χριστοῦ, the Christ)? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,  until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. MT 22:41-46 NRSV +++++++++++++ Sounds like a riddle, doesn’t it, a play on words. They aren’t speaking English. Matthew has Jesus quoting Psalm 110:1, from the Septuagint (in the LXX Psalm 109:1), the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible; the verse begins, ΕΙΠΕΝ ὁ Κύριος τῷ Κυρίῳ μου, Kyrie says to my kyrie. The Hebrew reads נְאֻם יְהוָה, לַא...

Man alive, did Anu Garg have it lined up for me this morning. First his word, which is proxemics, the study and field of closeness, seemingly should be proxemology, but after all, it’s homiletics when it maybe should be homilology, so okay, I like it anyway and’ll come back to it because even closer than his word is his thought: A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me, for it is your duty to tolerate truth; but when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you, for it is my duty to persecute error. -Thomas Babington Macaulay, poet, historian, and politician (25 Oct 1800-1859)  A truer thought never, and better intellectual base for my yesterday’s careless blogpost castigating both the political rise of...

When I was a boy going to the movies at the Ritz Theatre, it was not unusual, common in fact, for people to get up and leave halfway through or in one part of the movie or another. It wasn’t a protest or an emergency or boredom, but simply “This is where I came in” in a day when the entire film, newsreel, previews, cartoon, and main feature, ran continuously over and over and over from opening to closing, and you left when you realized it was repeating, you had seen this part, this was where you came in. Movie theaters aren’t like that now. They turn the lights down, they run a threat to throw you out if your cellphone rings, run a stupid popcorn and soda ad, run loud obnoxious previews, run the main feature, then the lights come up, the place empties out and closes down for a while until people start trickling in for the next showing. “This is where I came in” no longer has any meaning. Yesterday, Monday I thought to get away with claiming a sermon post for a blog...

Good morning again, as you may have noticed, the church lectionary puts the Caesar’s Coin gospel here in Stewardship Season so we can preach a pledging and tithing sermon. But I did that quite enough over my years, including a number of times here with you. So, hoping you might be a student for a few minutes, I shall teach about 1st Thessalonians. I will be repetitive so you “get it” - - and there will be homework, so listen up! I shall speak in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  You may be seated. You know this: First Thessalonians is Paul’s oldest “extant” epistle, his oldest letter we have. Paul may have written earlier to this or other churches, but this is Paul's oldest letter that was saved. What happened is that, as the Gospel began to spread, in no small part because of Paul’s missionary journeys, Paul going city to city establishing house churches, staying awhile, and moving on - - Paul would write back later: we don't have the other side of any co...