Looking out from 7H high tide below and across the Bay out toward the Pass, Tuesday morning, watching and waiting as storm bands pass over. Rosh haShana is just a week away, and as all human holidays are mainly about Food, there will be holiday Food ads on my computer, indeed, already are.  Breakfast this morning: when we have a hamburger for (noon) dinner, there’s usually a vegetable side, meaning I can’t eat but half of my hamburger that I made so huge, and the leftover half gets set aside then refrigerated until its moment arrives. A nice burger, pressed out before going into the sizzling pan, then further flattened, this one I pressed roasted garlic buds (Fresh Market) into it while the other side was searing, then flipped over and seared the garlic side, new, hadn’t tried that before, good one though. Bun toasting while. TJ’s extraordinary cheese on one side of the toasted bun and into the toaster oven to melt a bit while. Press minced Vidalia onions into melting cheese. Hambu...

sermon/homily, HNEC 32401, Sunday 29 Aug 2021. Proper 17B The Epistle: James 1:17-27 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the ...

  My regular spring summer fall fascination over the past seven or eight years failed to climax again this year, the osprey nest at Boulder County Fairgrounds. Last year they laid early and their first eggs were killed by a late blizzard, then the second clutch of chicks died.  It's been fun to check the nest from Time to Time and see if anything is happening. Apparently the Mom bird has already left on her migration south. A veteran of the nest, I think she's getting on up there in age and I won't be surprised if next spring sees a delay and then a new female bird, that's the way it works.  A longtime favorite and beloved, and maybe he'd been the resident male for twenty years or so, the regular dad bird failed to arrive in the spring, never returning from last winter's migration. After not too long, a new male took his place, but their eggs failed, a real disappointment.  Checking the nest today, I saw this osprey sitting on a perch, but I don't know if he...

  Today is Friday the 27th, not Friday the 13th, which was two weeks ago, so today I don't have to worry and take care not to step on sidewalk cracks, or about spilling salt. In fact, not adding salt at all these days, rather, along with Furo40 to reduce my feet two sizes, lightly using NoSalt to restore some potassium. Torpedoed by BP 78/40 ten minutes after simple breakfast of black coffee and goat cheese on five tiny pieces of toasted German rye bread. If this isn't it, what would be a stable breakfast for an octogenarian who's a decade into his replacement heart valve and four years from nonogenarianism? Maybe a Bloody Mary and can of anchovies. A banana? Creeds have been in mind and on blogpost, so this creed caught my eye on poem-a-day. The poet obviously knows the Nicene Creed and its construction, and so likely did her mother whom she memorializes here.    Brown Girl Creed Barbara Jane Reyes I believe in my mother, the mother almighty,  ...

When in early Spring 1984 I decided to "go for it" and change everything about my life situation by being true to my Southern heritage, turn down a call to be rector of a Pennsylvania parish, and apply for the vacant pulpit at Trinity, Apalachicola, the second thing I did, after writing to Bishop Duvall, was, on my next trip to Florida to teach one of my courses at the University of West Florida, call on him at his diocesan headquarters, in Mobile, Alabama at the Time. We had a good meeting, interview both ways (this had to please both of us and I was as much in control as he), and then the archdeacon, Sam Hardman, took me for lunch and a longer chat.  Some years later, Fr Sam commented to someone that "there are two priests in the diocese whom I do not understand: Jack Wilhite and Tom Weller", and I appreciate not being understood, especially along with Jack Wilhite, a hero. But the thing I recall about that Spring 1984 afternoon lunch conversation, other than taki...