TGBC Saturday, March 31: Luke 24:36-53  While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.  Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them,...

Breakfast: second cup of black and eight royal reds, shrimp for which’ve developed a taste. Beautiful, boiled, colored like, texture like, taste resembling lobster. Or at least my memory of lobster, need to resume my AmTrak daydream of returning to Maine. Maybe summer? Maybe. Maybe not. Late blogging, raining out, slept late, brain slow roused to useful consciousness even with black and dark, and still so. This morning for the first time, TGBC email and my own were identical, generally differed somewhat from what I wrote for the email two or three weeks ago, but car wouldn’t start and brain in neutral. There are those who, with good reason, monitor my daily +Time+ blog to chart Bubba’s downslide into whatever’s down there, alligators, swamp demons and other dark things. Friday: what? Political ugliness, a CinC who lacks the guts to face a man personally and fire him so resorts to social media, enjoys humiliating, threatening, intimidating. A bumbling, bleating, pompous, sub-hu...

TGBC Friday, March 30: Luke 24:13-35  Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.  While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third...

Why is this night different from all other nights? The issue this evening is a sermon on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, that leaves us feeling good, including about ourselves. Which is easier for me to do for you than for myself, because I live inside the creature you are looking at, and even when I see it, it’s reverse, mirror image, some old man I no longer recognize, but whom I know better than I know myself.  There is an Easter gospel, which we do not read this year, scholars call it a “post-resurrection account,” the afternoon of Easter Day, when two disciples, Cleopas and another, are walking from Jerusalem along the Road to Emmaus, Luke (the gospel writer) says that Jesus joined them on the way; but they did not recognize him until finally they knew him in the breaking of the bread. All my life, my question has been, “They were Jesus’ disciples, Jesus was their Lord, how could they possibly not recognize him?” And there’s got to be a deeper answer than simply that th...

Up early, way too early, at the call of Father Nature, I rose up and glanced at the large red digital clock on Linda's bedside table: 2:57, "ah, it's three o'clock," I sez to myself, I sez, sez I, "my favorite time for rising and using what's left of my brain." But as softly I pull the bedroom door shut and turn round to the kitchen, I see the rest of the clock: 12:57. But oh what the hell.  Black coffee with a packet of dark chocolate cocoa tumped in and stirred. Light outside over the Bay, half moon high and starting to slide down the other side; overly bright planet chasing it, not quite to zenith. Cool, damp.  Why do I love 7H so? It's private, just the right size after all those years of thirteen rooms in a beloved but hundred-plus year old house with seven bedrooms, four-plus bathrooms, four separate HVAC systems, a generator against hurricanes, plumbing, always something rotting or leaking somewhere, a roof, and raccoons. 7H is high an...

TGBC Thursday March 29: Luke 24:1-12 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but wh en they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  Remember  how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.  Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they ...

TGBC Wednesday, March 28  Luke 23:44-56  It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.  Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’  Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.  Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and...

First things this morning. Smoke laying over the Bay and reeking the atmosphere up here at 7H. A controlled burn, IDK, maybe; no the TV said a forest fire. My memory of a forest fire is when, seems to me it was a Sunday afternoon in the mid-1980s, Tass was in Apalachicola with our Trinity youth group, Linda and I were heading back home from Panama City and got stopped because the road was closed, the fire crossing the road at various points and we couldn’t get to Apalachicola, and I went off almost insane frantic about her as usual. My life held nothing else as frantic as loving a daughter.  In the NYT, discussion of the Japanese torii gate.  We loved those our years living in Japan, mid-1960s. A red gate at every temple entrance, but I remember best a torii over a lake we visited during one vacation down to southern Japan. Beauty doubled by its reflection in the water. Good days and other. We are in Holy Week, to me not so much a time to reflect on Calvary as a time...

and make haste Thoughts shifting, churning and won’t focus, so concentration is faulty. Part of it is the right ear, problem is being treated, ear being tolerated and led along to, in due course, repair the eardrum or let it repair itself. That’s a hopefully. Affects all kinds of things, surprised at the permeation. Keeps me feeling groggy somehow. Black coffee. Boat slowly circling just offshore from 7H, three men standing at the gunwales (gun’l) with rods, lines in the water, trolling for - - what? Shallow, they’re not in the channel. What’s out there? Good Friday just brightened for me. My brother, a widower, and his high school girlfriend, a widow, have reconnected and their romance resumed. They are coming to PC this Friday. I’m so excited for him, can’t wait. While I was trying to wake this morning, Linda had the television on Channel 13, sound on mute, glancing up from trying to post my version of TGBC for the day, I watched a Sonny’s commercial, mouth water...

TGBC Tuesday, March 27: Luke 23:26-43  As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus.  A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.” Then they will begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us”; and to the hills, “Cover us.” For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?’  Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his ...

Monday morning, 26 March, delightfully cool and Florida damp, looking south across StAndrews Bay, shrimp boats gliding back and forth in front of 7H all night long and still. Diving birds out for breakfast. Overcast sky, yay I showed up again this morning, thank you, God, and every day is a beautiful day.  Great God - - “Parkland students should learn CPR, not protest,” says one imbecilic politician quoted on television this morning - - Almighty damn. And what beyond the pale that appeared on my FB page yesterday before instantly deleted, something beyond human stupidity to the effect, “They can’t name the three branches of government but are trying to dictate gun policy;” as though you need a course in civics in order to know that you don’t want someone coming in to your school and shooting, but the adults won’t stop it so you have to do something yourself. Holy God, we are immersed in a sea of blithering idiots as in idiot, imbecile, moron, have mercy, deliver us. But God wi...

TGBC Monday, March 26: Luke 23:1-25 Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate.  They began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.’  Then Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’  He answered, ‘You say so.’ Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, ‘I find no basis for an accusation against this man.’ But they were insistent and said, ‘He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.’  When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him off to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time.  When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him for a long time, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him pe...

Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died.  Our God is dead. And we have done it.  You may be seated. On Palm Sunday, the Sunday of the Passion, I never preached a sermon, because the liturgy was overwhelming, and once the Passion Gospel was read and heard, and then the hymn, Glory be to Jesus, who in bitter pain poured for me the lifeblood, from his sacred veins - - in the stunned silence and numbing shame that followed, I was too broken to preach; it was all I could do to preside at the Table.  This Bread means Jesus loves you, will you remember that? 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. In the Word was life, and that life was the light of the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. … The Word was in the wor...