Our lectionary propers for next Sunday continue the Advent theme of apocalyptic nightmare at the imminent coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord, a day of darkness, not light; and warning us to prepare. Like stirring our own memories of days and times and Christmas with those we loved, at my age most of whom have gone on to whatever God has in mind for us after this mortal life, it's a wonderful Time of year to hear the old stories and read the magnificent poetry, especially of Isaiah and Psalms, and immerse ourselves in their worldview, with their fears and hopes and beliefs and knowledge that are so very different from our own.  I remember the Christmases of 1966 and 1967, after moving CONUS from Japan, living in Northern Virginia our house on Wakefield Chapel Road, then still semi-rural, across the road from a long-abandoned farm, putting my little beloveds to bed, Malinda was eight, Joe six, pausing to listen as if "hark!", and asking if they heard it too,...

  Merry Christmas! Mondays I post the lectionary propers for the upcoming Sunday: 2 Dec 2020, Advent Two Year B.  The Collect M erciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen. Old Testament Isaiah 40:1-11 C omfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her  that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the  Lord 's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the  Lord , make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glo...

  Good morning, Sunday school class!     Folks who are on the SS email list received this a few days ago.      Below (scroll down) are the Propers for today, Sunday, 29 Nov 2020, Advent One, Year B. What a shame that, working to reduce worship time together, we will not read and hear all four lessons in church this morning, because as a set, they totally proclaim Advent!      The weather prognostication for today has improved, but we shall see what really happens.  At any event, my intent is for Sunday school class to meet in the Library. The only Sundays we probably won't meet are if/when there's a parish breakfast or brunch, which during covid the bishop has put on hold, or such as the annual meeting. In a couple weeks we'll have Santa Sunday, but that normally doesn't involve adults between services, so we'll meet then as well.      Regard this blogpost as your handout for today, but expect the readings also t...

  Merry Christmas!      In forty years of it, I found that a pastor could only credibly serve if s/he/I could truly identify-with from having same or similar life experiences, such that empathy is possible. Not that one is there, but that one has been there.       Not to wander too far from my thought this morning, but I realized in “candidating” for pulpits of parishes in Central Pennsylvania (before finding out that the Trinity, Apalachicola pulpit was vacant) that a yankee blue collar, anglo-catholic-affected parish near Harrisburg would not be a “good fit”, either for me or for them. Of outlook and life experiences, we had nothing in common. Clearly, the bishop recognized this too, as I realized when he asked me after my visit there, whether I thought it was “a good fit”, his words, and the sense of it became clear.      In that spring 1984 of “candidating” and visiting several churches, I received a call (which, falling back in...

  This morning I should be (BTW, there's nothing objectively so about it, it's only "should" if I say "should") be 

       Fog! It's fog season, which I love, as well as Christmas Season started, I suppose with the close of Thanksgiving Day at sunset last evening when, evidently, the Christmas lights were switched on in Oaks by the Bay Park next door. It isn't "next door" of course, there's no door there, it's adjacent to Harbour Village.     Fog season comes 'round every year about this time, with Holiday Season, as in "happy holidays!"  Holiday season includes Thanksgiving Week, which begins the Friday before Thanksgiving Day and ends Jewishly with sunset on the Fourth Thursday in November - - this is my decision based on the Christmas lights going on in Oaks by the Bay Park, work your holiday season as pleases you, mine is NOYB. Christmas season thus starts at sunset on Thanksgiving Day and goes as long as we can stretch it, secularly until New Years Eve I suppose, or whenever the local school district resumes classes after the holidays. There is Kwanza...

  'In...interviews during the 1990s, Trump compared trying to avoid [STDS] to "my personal Vietnam." "It’s pretty dangerous out there," he said in 1993. "It’s like Vietnam." He added in 1996: "I feel like a very great and very brave soldier."'

     Sesame Street is brought to me today by the letters B and T, and the number 9       dubiously coincidental, my birth month and nicknames.       A perceptive and singularly trusted life colleague has inquired whether my stress is finally over. It hadn't occurred to me in that light, so I'm contemplating it, having myself as my own object, which may be uniquely human. In life's tragicomedy of family crisis, hurricane devastation, pandemic threat and election anxiety, it would be ingenuous and dangerous to underestimate the potential of ongoing stress. So, I'm assessing it,       and my substantial tools for relief & peace, in no particular order,          remember          blog          read          preach          Sunday School           7H ...

  What with covid19, continuing HMichael recovery, and the Election nightmare, Fall 2020 college football has not been the most exciting season in life's history. UF is above average, LSU's fall was meteoric, Alabama is on the throne as usual these years, will Coach Saban never retire! The cbssports list below ranks Michigan number 79, only Jim Harbaugh would have been retained through this debacle, but then, it's like the Bible story, Jesus asking his disciples if they also will leave him, and they respond, Lord, to whom would we go? If not Harbaugh, then who? Maybe a time comes when universities need to examine themselves and ask whether it's time to pursue greater fame, fortune and glory as a research institution instead of relying on the football business. Heresy? Fine. Go Gators. Despite the Mystery of Faith, Schembechler will not come again.   https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/rankings/cbs-sports-ranking/ The big business from here for  today is t...

  The Collect Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Old Testament Isaiah 64:1-9 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,  so that the mountains would quake at your presence--  as when fire kindles brushwood  and the fire causes water to boil --  to make your name known to your adversaries,  so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,  you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard,  no ear has perceived,  no eye has seen any God besides you,...