Thirty days hath Septober, April, June, and No Wonder; all the rest have peanut butter,     except C hifforobe (it's a tall thing, with big drawers). Early, pitch black dark, and all white outside, no channel navigation lights visible through the fog. I love fog season. But what the Aitch, I love all seasons, except Hurricane Season, which consumes three weeks of Spring, all of Summer, and most of Fall up to within three weeks of Winter. In fact, now that I think of it, once the half year of Hurricane Season is over, Thanksgiving is history, we are into the Holiday Season, the lights will be up in Oaks by the Bay Park next door, and there will be only what? twenty-four shopping days 'til Christmas. Fully vaccinated but still wearing the facemask in most closed spaces, still haven't been to a restaurant to Eat Out, a once favorite Time2Time pastime, except for that one Sunday afternoon some months ago, outside at Uncle Ernie's with Beloved Brother and Fami...

“'THE great tragedy of science,' as Victorian biologist Thomas Huxley observed, is 'the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact'. He was talking about the origins of life, but scientists of all stripes would have agreed – perhaps more today than ever."* Huxley also might as well have been talking about theology or, more specifically, about Theodicy, which F Buechner addresses in his following essay:  ++++++++++++++ God Makes Himself Scarce WHEN JESUS WEPT over the dead body of his friend Lazarus, many things seem to have been at work in him, and there seem to have been many levels to his grief. He wept because his friend was dead and he had loved him. Beneath that he wept because, as Mary and Martha both tactlessly reminded him, if he had only been present, Lazarus needn't have died, and he was not present. Beneath that, he wept perhaps because if only God had been present, then too Lazarus needn't have died, and God was not present either, at lea...

  Y APRIL 27 4977 B.C.  APRIL 27  UNIVERSE IS CREATED, ACCORDING TO KEPLER On April 27, 4977 B.C., the universe is created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, considered a founder of modern science. Kepler is best known for his theories explaining the motion of planets. Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Germany. As a university student, he studied the Polish astronomer  Nicolaus Copernicus ’ theories of planetary ordering. Copernicus (1473-1543) believed that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system, a theory that contradicted the prevailing view of the era that the sun revolved around the earth. In 1600, Kepler went to Prague to work for Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, the imperial mathematician to Rudolf II, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Kepler’s main project was to investigate the orbit of Mars. When Brahe died the following year, Kepler took over his job and inherited Brahe’s extensive col...

Scrolling back through my +Time Weblog of more than a decade turns up any number of posts marked "draft", that I didn't like, or that failed to communicate what was on my mind at the Time, or that at the Time I realized would offend someone who did or did not deserve to be offended, and that I'd be called on to apologize and would refuse!, or that I'd posted and then, upon second or thirteenth thought, maybe because it could have made me a target, thought good better best of for whatever reason, so tapped "revert to draft" and left it hanging for the heir who cleans up my affairs to deal with. This may be one of those blogposts, because  along with the monarch elephant, who like Dumbo the Flying Elephant surely can fly if s/he gets a running start, it reminds me that I'm not at all like you! Our worldviews are vastly different! I don't share your religious certainties! I vehemently differ with your politics and your social views! And your opinion...

This from Fr Richard Rohr is good. Not that apocalyptic covid is divinely laid on us, but that we have the wisdom to face and deal with What Is. T   Monday, April 26th, 2021     Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation From the Center for Action and Contemplation     Week Seventeen: Apocalyptic Hope   This Is an Apocalypse       In April of last year, I was invited by the Call to Unite [1] to share my thoughts about what we might learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. I knew it might be a risk, but I felt a strong urge to speak about the much-misunderstood meaning of biblical apocalypse. Here is a portion of that conversation: What apocalyptic means is to pull back the veil, to reveal the underbelly of reality. It uses hyperbolic images, stars falling from the sky, the moon turning to blood. The closest thing would be contemporary science fiction, where suddenly you’re placed in an utterly different world, where what you used to call “normal” doesn’t ...

Good morning, SundaySchoolers!  Our topic last Sunday morning was the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus as reported in the four canonical gospels. We did not finish, so agreed to continue along the same line today. Here's a handout that may help us pick back up and get into discussion, listing the place in each book where the gospel writer reports Jesus appearing and conversing; and, for discussion, suggesting what each writer means to convey. Which is to say, the writer's agenda - - as for example, Mark's agenda is to so frustrate his readers that those around Jesus don't "get it" as to who and what He is, that they are driven to proclaim Christ themselves. My suggested agenda items for each evangelist's Resurrection report may not be complete, and may have items that other class members don't agree with. Notice how the reported appearances increase as time goes on and the early church develops (and maybe encounters problems). Remember that every...

Atlanta priest takes her place at the ‘well’ of state politics Kim Jackson is the Georgia Senate’s first elected African American out lesbian By Michelle Hiskey Posted 7 hours ago The Rev Kim Jackson, vicar of the Church of the Common Ground in Atlanta, counsels a homeless man in early March at Woodruff Park. The park is a few blocks away from the Georgia State Capitol, where Jackson serves as a state senator. Photo: Allison Shirreffs [Episcopal News Service]  When the Rev. Kim Jackson recently addressed her 55 peers from the well of the Georgia Senate, she did so as an Episcopal priest elected as Georgia’s first openly LGBTQ state senator. “I want to be honest in saying that being Black and lesbian in the Georgia State Senate feels scary,” Jackson told Episcopal News Service in an interview in early March. “I’ve always been out as a priest, but here it kind of feels like I’m walking a careful tightrope to not upset the status quo.” For People Podcast Atlanta Bishop Rob Wright rece...