Abortion is an issue, and heating up, on which Americans are, IDK, what?, about evenly split? I don't know, and not that numbers make right in any event. But the intensity, certainty, and fiery vehemence of conviction on each side is set in stone, each side claiming objective right. Trench warfare of World War One comes to mind, each side dug in, comfortable and secure in position, neither side moving forward or back, no negotiations only lobbing shells, neither side can be moved by the enemy across the barbwired desolation of No Man's Land.  From a moral, ethical, medical and personal issue, abortion is starting to be fought as political give-no-quarter, take-no-prisoners warfare with no rules, not even common courtesy as in Will you respect the dignity of every human being?. General Convention of the Episcopal Church has a resolution stance on abortion, but, being as political a voting institution as any church, the Episcopal Church is not General Convention, nor is th...

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtfulpastor/2019/05/27/umc-inquisition-arrived-centrists-and-progressives-fiddled/ https://juicyecumenism.com/2019/05/24/liberal-umc-leaders-cannot-affiliate-traditionalist-united-methodists/ The above internet links: I dare anyone to read both “Game Over” and “The UMC Inquisition …”. Not disgusting but disheartening because it's so predictably, unsacrificially, unlovingly human. Strife and division in the United Methodist Church, oh how "same song second verse, could be better but can't be worse" it is, two sides in the church staking out positions in opposition, rejection, certainty, bitterness. An Episcopalian, it would be none of my business except (1) I am interested; (2) there are ongoing unity discussions toward Full Communion between The Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church, and one side (my guess, the traditionalists) will want no part of us; and (3) we TEC have been in the same place with the same issues...

Somewhere sometime someone wrote, and I read, that the most pitiable thing one can do is to die with regrets, holding on to regrets, that it renders one's life a failure.  But honestly, except for a total and complete narcissist, whose arrogant being itself personifies failure, and I have known one personally, I don't see how it's possible, seems most unlikely, not to harbor sadnesses about how one has done or roads not taken. For myself, I will be scattered upon the sea, and, if my wishes are followed by those I trust, secretly upon ground I hold most sacred, still sad about.  As with you, my most privy are parked in a garage out in the back alley of my mind, the door slightly ajar so that now and then I can go back there and peek in. Those I am willing to out include having lived into a resurgence of the political and social far right or leftist - - at their fulfillment they become indistinguishable - - nationalism sweeping pathetic AntHills. Selfishness and intoleran...

What does an old man - - to tell the Truth for once, I never thought of myself as an old man, my grandfathers were old men, there were old men in the parishes I served, many of whom I buried; I never even thought of my father as an old man until the doctor who, in my presence, as he pronounced my father's death at age 82, startled me into realization and slight resentment by remarking "Yes, he was a nice old man". I've watched career politicians age into old men in office and die, have watched priests and bishops whom I knew all my years from age ten on and many of us as teenagers together, age, retire, age and die; seen many naval officers who were friends, colleagues, or superiors retire, age and die; been startled to find obits of long ago friends, only to realize their old age was printed right there in front of me; but never thought of myself as an old man, just a person being and doing as life goes on around me - - do when it slowly dawns, not suddenly, but g...

Last year we watched online the osprey cam at Boulder County Fairgrounds, Colorado, the osprey couple together for years, updating their nest. One at a time, eggs appeared, we watched as they hatched one by one, chicks were fed, grew, fledged; and at season’s end everyone flew away to winter in South or Central America. The parents return year after year.  https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/management/osprey-camera/ What with our nightmare of family and Hurricane Michael, I forgot about the ospreys until this past week, when an old Navy buddy put me back in touch with them (a wonderful change, relief, respite and escape from worries and concerns of life), the same parents (osprey mate for life, spend the season together then fly and live separately during their migration and winter south, but return to the same nest each year for mating and chick-raising). Having forgotten them, I missed the egg stage, but last week I watched three hatchlings, the father bringing trou...

No blog, conversation, or essay should begin with Well or Okay or So, as in the Carolina Israelite, Harry Golden (1902-1981)'s chat in his book "So, What Else Is New?", of Jewish immigrant life and their Yiddish language and expressions in the Lower East Side garment district where he grew up after his family emigrated, when Harry was little, from shtetl Mikulintsy in what is now Ukraine, then Austria-Hungary. There was a time, not sure but I think I gave them to Joe when we moved out of the Old Place, when I had a collection of all of Harry Golden's books; collected and read again later in life because I had so loved and enjoyed them as a young adult. So, I'll not begin with one of those base commoners. Yes, I'm an Episcopal priest, long retired, but I'm also a US Navy officer, twice as long retired, and beyond all that, I'm a white male American human being, an orphan so no longer a son, but husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, unc...

This morning I watched the mother rise from over the two (the dead chick gone) as the father arrived with a whole fish.  The mother then basically tore off and ate the head bit by bit, and entrails, as the two strained hungrily for their share, it's live and this would be breakfast. Tearing into the fleshy part, the mother began feeding bits into the gaping mouth of the larger and closer one, who throughout the feeding got well the most and more than his share! But the smaller one also was fed. Done, obviously to the mom's satisfaction, she settled back down on them to keep them warm. It's an hour earlier there than our CDT, 38°F and cloudy, rainy.  https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/management/osprey-camera/ For anyone who would like to follow their day, life in an osprey nest  T

The Osprey nest in Boulder Fairgrounds, Colorado is back on camera, and I love being able to tune in again. There are three chicks, recently hatched. I haven't looked today. No, I've been watching this morning. The father arrived with a fish, which the mother tore to tiny bits and fed two of the chicks. The third one hasn't moved and seems to be dead. Every day is new and different, and today is the same. One of many favorite breakfasts, a sandwich made with extra thin whole wheat bread toasted, spread thick with Victoria's Last Bite chicken salad we buy at Grocery Outlet. But then I opened the cheese drawer thinking to add a slice of cheese for a change and what's there but a package of what can most generously only be described as a cheese-like food-type product labeled American Cheese.  It must have come into existence as Velveeta, which in my memory first came packaged in a wooden box. Seems to me it was an answer to wartime food rationing, like th...

Cove School HNES This morning after breakfast at Big Mama's, Robert and I visited the school building to enjoy today's stage of the reclamation and rebuilding from Hurricane Michael.  We went in every schoolroom and recalled its use during our tenure there in the 1940s.  In our second grade classroom, Robert pointed out where he went to the blackboard and wrote out his first cursive, "Panama City" with white chalk. The new windows are being installed. This picture was in our eighth grade classroom with our all time favorite Miss Virginia Parker, lately the HNES classroom of Amy Moody, where Math is Fun and Good, was and will be again. The figure of Coach Spurrier is out for the duration, waiting to return to class with school year 2019-20. We walked out to the magnolia tree at the basketball courts and remembered ... the tree looks surprisingly good compared to other old trees on campus  and throughout The Cove.   Then a stroll ...

Hoping yesterday's attendance at church and Sunday School meant a big crowd enjoying Shell Island Sunday in the sun, sand and sea across the Bay. Pictures posted looked like a perfect day. All of it made possible by our prayers at both services, for a beautiful spring-summer day, not too hot, no sunburn, and no thunderstorms. What did I miss? On television, local news last evening reported introduction of the first Mac Cheese Fest in Okaloosa County. I've loved mac'n in my Time. Now and then my mother would bake a large casserole of macaroni and cheese as the main dish for supper, and it was so good. What kind of cheese, IDK. For ready made, Stouffers have a good product now, but nothing tastes as good as memories. Charlotte likes mac'n. Lilly likes mac'n, and sometimes there's a bit leftover in the refrigerator and I take a fork and eat just one bite. Other than that, I'm looking the other way and thinking of other things not so loaded with starch and f...

Everyone who wants to be is at Shell Island, and we pray for them a beautiful spring-summer day, not too hot, no sunburn, and no thunderstorms. Amen! You may be seated. In the Episcopal Church, our usual pulpit focus is the gospel reading, but as your preacher this morning, I may look at Acts instead of John’s story of Jesus laying down the law, A New Commandment I give you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know you are my disciples, that you love one another. And that’s the sum of everything it means to be a Christian here in the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement. We are not a law- and rules-bound church, like no dancing and no alcohol: the only Absolute is Love. Jesus loves you, will you remember that? And you have promised to love others by seeing Jesus in everyone as they see Jesus in you, and to love others by respecting the dignity of every human being.  So Acts today, and perhaps Revelation a...