Friday, 20200131 and I was out on the porch early enough to watch Linea Lines vessel Progreso 326x55 glide past in the darkness, her tug standing by just around the turn. Small, a container ship, she's scheduled to leave on Sunday. Weather 55° 81% humidity, cloudy and clear, 30% chance of rain.  Now back inside, 70°F 55% here by my window on the Bay, munching blackberries and raspberries, finishing a cup of black. Favorite place on Earth, 84 and counting. Prayer for you, whoever you are: that you get to this age and enjoy Being as much as I'm enjoying this moment. Cleared of furniture, which is littering the inside living space, the porch has been pressure washed, the balcony rail covered in plastic, and the deck taped and covered with heavy thick paper prepped for painting. The Beck side is clear, the only scaffolding still standing is around the stairwell, and stack 19, the peak, and around to the Bay side. POD: walk, breakfast, to my office at the church for a bit...

Couple of things in mind as darkness gives way to dawn this early Thursday here in my office/study/den at 7H. Come to think of it, two things, and three. The room is small, just about big enough for the 9x12 rug we bought at Gayfers Home Store in 1984 for the living room of the rectory at Trinity Church upon arriving in Apalachicola from Pennsylvania. It took Tass and Linda a while to get used to leaving Pennsylvania; but Florida and I was home at last, home at last, thank God Almighty, home at last after all those years away. The rug moved with us to the Old Place when I retired from parish ministry in 1998, and was in the dining room, then rolled up and stuck away on an outside screen porch after a plumbing break that poured down through the ceiling. Having an ancient family house was Old Times Sake but constant. Though we had the rug cleaned several times, a spot remained and is still faint. On arriving at 7H we had the rug in the dining room, turning it around after I tip...

“I don’t believe that grief passes away. It has its time and place forever. More time is added to it; it becomes a story within a story. But grief and griever alike endure.” — Wendell Berry, “Jayber Crow,” 2000 https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviets-liberate-auschwitz?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2020-0127-01272020&om_rid=b230c2a222e032c8821c1e855f4a2be2c8583355c00a5c291f7f649b51a4da4f https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-happened-after-liberation-auschwitz-180974051/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200127-daily-responsive&spMailingID=41638688&spUserID=NjU5OTAwNDUxNjk4S0&spJobID=1682498165&spReportId=MTY4MjQ5ODE2NQS2 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/mel-mermelstein-survived-auschwitz-then-sued-holocaust-deniers-court-180970123/ galaxy https://earthsky.org/space/does-our-sun-reside-in-a-spiral-arm-of-the-milky-way-galaxy?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=d47fbd62e8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02...

Things happen, don't they. Some go unnoticed, some are noticed, some are notable. On the website Wordsmith.org, Anu Garg publishes A.Word.A.Day, today's word being chrestomathy, a collection of selected literary works. Etymologically, chrestomathy is from Greek chrestos (useful) and manthanein (to learn).  Contemplating, I don't see how I can work chrestomathy into a sermon to impress the congregation. But even if I could I would not, because dropping peculiar words to impress has the opposite effect of causing listeners' minds to wander off wondering "what the hell does that word mean, and who the hell is he trying to impress?" such that the speaker not only has lost his audience, who miss a sentence or two, a paragraph or two, and maybe the entire rest of the sermon; but also has irritated them, turning them hostile to his entire message, which is not the idea of the thing in the first place.   Once I knew a preacher, an Episcopal priest, it's not...

If one has a remnant of brain left it seems a shame not to use it before it's gone altogether, so I’ll give it one more shot this morning, Monday, 27 Jan 2020.  Reasonable walk for two determined octogenarians in our middle eighties, from Holy Pavilion to Cherry Street, down to W.Beach Drive, along the Bay, then bent over and dragging uphill for a grand total 1.5 miles (who thinks that’s funny, wait till you’re 84 looking at 85). But then next, drive west on Beach Drive to Big Mama’s on the Bayou for enough breakfast to blot out any possible health benefit of the walk. I brought half my breakfast to the office. Been thinking, after yesterday’s Sunday School session, about St Paul and his apocalypticism that informed the gospel he taught and preached, and further, his view of how that would come to pass. Jesus (Paul mostly says Christ) anointed as God’s Son, returning, as or instead of the cosmic Son of Man of Daniel’s night vision, to earth to judge the living and the re...

Second reading 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the...

The online Smithsonian magazine had an article on tardigrades, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/high-temperatures-might-be-water-bears-achilles-heel-180974043/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200124-daily-responsive&spMailingID=41621414&spUserID=NjU5OTAwNDUxNjk4S0&spJobID=1682260343&spReportId=MTY4MjI2MDM0MwS2 sufficiently intriguing that I did a little more searching, reading several more articles, including the apparently quite competent Wikipedia coverage of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade German zoologist J A E Goeze called them kleiner Wasserbär, so they are commonly called water bears. Creatures ubiquitous throughout the earth, land and sea, they are micro-animals of many species, some large enough to view with ordinary microscopes, making them available for study by amateur scientists such as high school students in biology class. The one in the picture above has two eyes, though in most ...

post-Hurricane recovery life goes on and on, doesn't it, and on and on and on, including here. All porch furniture is crowded back into the living room area (it's not a separate living room as, except for bedroom and study/den, we've one room, that comprises living/dining/kitchen), such that it takes us back to the stress and trauma that was 7H from 10 Oct 2018 to mid-Aug 2019. This too shall pass, and I'm in no hurry, because it uses up my Time, which we octogenarians must measure out day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, realizing that every day is a beautiful day and enjoy. So, amen then.  Fairly well done with the Park/Beck side, the HV contractor has taken up on the Bay side, where the scaffolding is up and now in use for cleaning and painting, including the porch of each unit. Porches had to be cleared for pressure wash, tape off, and painting. They came and did the pressure wash while we were at clergy & spouse (today the politically and social...

Carlos Eire, a Cuban-American author, is a philosopher or, more precisely, a student of life whom I understand because he seems to see things much as I do, did, have seen, known and remember. Unlike me, he's actually lived in the scene of life at its worst. Cuban sunshine in its good, better, best and its bad, worse, worst. From my own Gulf Coast-ness with fiddler crabs and oyster cats, I relate to his puerile sending Cuban lizards to the moon. I can identify with words, thoughts, when he drifts off into the darkest reaches of the mind: "How I wish I could let go of the images I have" he says, "of all the passions that rule me. Letting go is a worthy goal, perhaps the worthiest of all." Then he goes to Johannes Eckhart and says that Meister Eckhart "had it all figured out. The only reason we suffer ... is that we are attached to stuff and to people. What you have to do is stop loving. No attachments, no pain. The state of letting go. Letting go-ness. You ev...

Harbour Village is coming back together post Category 5 Hurricane Michael that ravished our community year before last. Our condo is back to better than okay except that twice when we had torrential rain for an entire day or so, water came up through the new vinyl flooring, starting in the kitchen and making its way, what? west, and emerging from under the flooring onto the concrete floor in the utility room. The HOA and contractor have been cooperative in trying to find the source of that, but so far have not identified it. So, it's a source of tension, anxiety for me, extreme high stress that at this age I do not need, stress that indeed was one of several reasons for selling my house and moving on into old age in a safe place. What I'm learning, I reckon, is that there's no hiding place from life as it is.  On the Park side, the Beck Avenue side, the scaffolding is down; though I didn't mind the Beck side scaffolding; for me, uneasy with heights, it was an extra...

"In the beginning" reads the NRSV, "when God created the heavens and the earth ..." my best favorite bit of scripture, where the Big Bang ignites with the opening creating Word יְהִ֣י yə·hî - - Nothing Is so spectacular as our Universe, of which over my years I have enjoyed tiny bits many nights since first becoming fascinated with astronomy at Cove School (1941-1949). Untold hours with my telescope on that ridge where we lived 1963-1966, high above Yokohama, looking out over Tokyo Bay in one direction, Mount Fuji in another, and nights looking skyward, the Universe. It was distracting and calming and brought the peace that is the essence of shalom in a time of life when I needed that, and it was enriching for a lifetime.  As from Xmas 2019 I have a small telescope that is allowing me to reclaim some of that joy of my twenties, especially finding out and anticipating magnificent celestial events coming in 2020 (see link below).  https://www.sm...

This morning's walk 1.7 miles, time the day is over probably three miles, not bad for a struggling octogenarian. Why struggling? Well in part wondering why life is still good to me and for me at this ancient age when for so many neighbors, friends and loved ones it comes to an end long before they get this far. Well, one reason I've seen is their lifetime of smoking.   Here in my large, wonderful office at the church. I have sort of a mini-kitchen, including a bar-type sink, but for some reason the water's no longer working this morning. Still, enough in the coffee reservoir to brew a cuppa. The neatness is coming together bit by bit, but still lots to do before it's home again.  My first project on arriving has been to reconnect and light off the old desktop computer that I used in here for some years. Sure enough, it still works perfectly, an old Gateway that I bought for my mother years ago but brought here after mama died in 2011 two months after her ...