In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God. All things were made through the Word, and without the Word was not anything made that was made. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth. John 1:1… ΕΝ ἀρχῇ - - in the beginning - - logos, Word. I’m thinking of Diagon Alley, that scene in The Sorcerer’s Stone , the first book and movie, when young, innocent, new to power, naive Harry Potter stands in the yard behind the Leaky Caldron, staring at an ordinary old high brick wall, and goggles incredulous as Hagrid says Word and waves Motion, and the brick wall quickens, clicks to obedience, moves; bricks shift around and adjust precisely, repositioning to form an open gateway into a new creation. No metaphor of the Divine is adequate, but metaphors and similes are what we have.  bə·rê·šheeṯ , in the beginning, Word, Song - - from The Chronicles of Narnia , I’m thinki...

6:07 AM, still dark outside but sky lightening (growing lighter, not lightning) toward sunrise. And, rats, cloudy totally overcast, cannot see the lineup of three planets in the eastern sky, mars, jupiter, mercury. Mercury seldom visible because, being so close to the sun, it’s just a flash at sunrise or sunset and gone.  Time wasted this morning? IDK and really don’t care either, interesting anyway. From “this date in history” the USSR formed on this date I had a thorough mental rehearsal of the cold war and our toughness, worries, and fears of nuclear war, and enormous joy when the Soviet Union fell with a whimper and overnight ceased to exist. In some measure the USSR turned out in retrospect to have included a bit of bluster and not quite the military threat we had feared. A subscriber to the maxim that all government is always all ways all bad, it's governments that take us to war with its hatreds and horrors. Tentatively an anarchist, I hate all government and all gov...

Yesterday, indeed all our Happy Holidays weather this Holiday Season, could be an inspiration for Longfellow’s poem “The Rainy Day.” Though I might have been up and out walking - - if the weather is grim one nevertheless can walk down and up the stairs and around the underground garage, or go downstairs and work out in the gym - - my Happy Holidays role has been to survey StAndrewsBay from my favorite bayside window chair, myself being no more a good and healthy sign of energy than the day itself.  Yet at 82 one who is aware and able is still and always mindful, thanks to the outlook of a brother-close friend who will be that forever, that every day is a beautiful day. Grateful for Time and memories and for having shared in Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed an earthling from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the earthling became a living being.” Here’s that poem to go with the image of Depression that yesterday spread ou...

Dr. Oz and Dr. Roizen recommend an exercise in brain gymnastics, which I opened this morning but, it seeming to require sound and everyone but me is asleep, saved it for later. Maybe I fear I can’t do brain stuff anymore. Maybe I can’t. Maybe I have nothing to fear but fear itself. Maybe I don’t give a damn. Maybe I'll come back to it later, either when everyone is awake or with my earbuds. Writing this blogpost, some days when my mind is occupied elsewhere and otherwise, has been my attempt at mental exercise, but most days it’s the same level as the physical exercise of lifting my fork. This morning after sleeping 7 pm to 3 am, sitting here at Bay window watching the lights flash, sipping black coffee, half-dozing and contemplating going back to bed. Joe arrived from NC last Friday, returns home tomorrow morning. This always takes me back to the endings when Nicholas would be returning home for school after spending the summer with me. But it’s like all of life. 4:27 am ...

What, no blog today? Busy with family. And with delivering a kitchen cabinet to my office, we bought it as part of a kitchen renovation of the rectory in 1984 and it has been an extra here and there ever since, will be the new coffee mess cabinet in my office conference room. But especially today with catching up on sleep, nap.  Truth, I believe it’s not possible to catch up on sleep, if you miss it you miss it and there’s no making it up. But a 2 or 3 hour nap set upon me today and I slept until well past noon on our livingroom sofa that we bought at a furniture store in LaJolla, California one Saturday morning the fall of 1969 before my ship deployed to WestPac. Over the years it’s moved from showpiece to centerpiece and now that the living room is our only sitting room, it gets all the action, including where everyone crashes for a nap, and is showing wear. Both it and we are entitled.  What? we finished the beef tenderloin about noon, not “lunch” because while...

Interesting and fun Christmas Day, continues on with whatever elegant Tuesday breakfast Linda is stirring up, and the turkey (yesterday we had a beef tenderloin from which early today I enjoyed a sandwich) for noontide feast.  Deliciously, lots of chocolate in my section of the excitement. Uniquely, astonishingly even Linda in on the secret, the Spinks arrived with an ice chest containing a couple dozen oysters, beautiful, uniform even to the dark stripe across the top shell, clean, from Outlaw Oyster Co. of Panacea. My ancient oyster knife dug out from its drawer, I towelled up and instantly began opening these for whomever. Joe had several, Ray had at least one, Kristen had one, Britany had one, I had the most and will finish the remaining six or seven for breakfast this morning. Delicious, briny and perfect, they are farmed oysters that are amazingly clean, no dirt or grime, because they are raised at or near the surface instead of oysters’ usual bottom living, loving and f...

Xmas, it’s early keep the Xpistos in Christmas morning, predawn dark, cold, and clear as a bell farther than the eye can see. Christmas tree lights are on, with a tiny watercolor of our beloved rectory in the background, as holy to us as any crucifix. One might think the holy man should be having spiritual thoughts, yet what is going on? first things he spots are not Santa’s reindeer drawn sleigh dashing out of sight, but a 1930 Viking Eight and a thirty years later 1960 Cadillac hardtop coupe, retrospectively an ultimate in debauchery from the General at the height of the long trunk tail fins craze.  1960, where was I, were we? Early making a Navy career, as a Navy lieutenant (junior grade), called “jay-gee” assigned to Naval Station, Mayport, Florida. December 1960 my boss, a Navy commander, had just reached me by phone, we were on leave at home here in PC, to tell me my name was on the selection list for lieutenant. Malinda was her daddy's baby, a...

Luke 1:26-38 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be...

Sans organized thought, some wandering nonsensical this morning, but the process may wake me up, and when all is done and said that’s the idea.  Of course, all is not done and said, I must have another look through sermon notes for eight o’clock and ten-thirty worship. This morning is Advent Four, Mary Sunday, about once a year to remember the BVM, a piece without which the Xn jigsaw puzzle is incomplete, especially the Xmas riddle. In fact, when does Xmas start: well, sundown, as in the evening and the morning were one day. Easy. It’s Advent Four until sundown at which point Merry Christmas. Decent breakfasts around here, yesterday and again today, delicious sausage with toasted extra thin ww bread. Dinner, as Sandbar wasn’t open we went to Hunt’s and brought home more than we ate there. Supper, cup of tea and slice of panettone. Elements of the holiday feasts are beginning to assemble, meats for Xmas and BoxingDay, sweet potato something, two pecan pies, frozen dessert c...

Initials, two or three initials, yesterday I woke up with the start of a cold - - which I’ve scrupulously tried to avoid by staying out of stores and when can’t be helped, by taking one of those alcohol hand wipes at the door. Evidently somehow I missed, or perhaps touched the handrail in the elevators here at Harbour Village. So, initials, Linda is plying me with cold capsules, they come in daytime and nighttime, that ID themselves by two or three initials or something. Intial capsules to swallow and zinc hard candy to suck. The cold’s still here, settling in firmly, but the symptoms are suppressed. Don’t get close to me. Don't mess with me. This morning, “Sir Banana” in my coffee. Joe brought a qyart of it, real bananas and reduced fat milk. Delicious if one likes bananas, I do. This concoction makes an interesting coffee whitener.  In about an hour Joe is going to take Linda to the church so she can set up her arrangement on the chest in the foyer (in the church it’s ca...