hymn & ham

 

We had a great hymn at church this past Sunday. Noticing that many gave up singing and put it down, I'm guessing it was because our particular tune "Nun danket all und bringst Ehr" does not repeat and the second half takes you by surprise every time and you stumble and finally give up; but Arthur Reed's poem makes for a magnificent hymn, and it is:

1 Spirit divine, attend our prayer,

And make this house thy home;

Descend with all thy gracious power;

O come, great Spirit, come!

2 Come as the light; to us reveal

Our emptiness and woe,

And lead us in those paths of life

Where all the righteous go.

3 Come as the fire and purge our hearts

Like sacrificial flame;

Let our whole soul an off'ring be

To our Redeemer's name.

4 Come as the dove, and spread thy wings,

The wings of peaceful love;

And let thy Church on earth become

Blest as the Church above.

5 Spirit divine, attend our prayer;

Make a lost world thy home;

Descend with all thy gracious pow'r;

O come, great Spirit, come!

Sometimes if you don't like singing a hymn, it's because of the tune. Then it may be well to check out the words. Most of the songs in our church's hymnody are really good: apt theology and lovely poetry. This one is so.

We don't always, but we do have a plan for today. We're going to get our flu shot for the season. Generally we get it at Sam's, it's close and convenient; and as well as professional, the folks in the pharmacy are both helpful and kind. When the covid booster is ready though, we'll need to find who's giving the Moderna vaccine, as that's what our first two shots were, according to our vax cards.

As with wearing the facemask, which I despise, I have no issues with those who decline to get either the annual flu shot or the covid vax, but we think they're positive things for us, especially at our age. And we appreciate when others go ahead and do these things in order to do all they can to protect others, including us. 

Chicken for breakfast. Not the fried chicken that Sean of the South wrote about, I think it was yesterday, on fried chicken I'm with Sean all the way, this was leftover from the rotisserie chicken Linda brought back from Sam's the other day. Chicken warmed up 14 seconds in the microwave, with a touch of mayonnaise on each bite. No added salt, I'm trying, albeit not very seriously, to cut down on my salt intake because of the swelling feet, nomesane?

Alphabet spellcheck keeps changing the words I type, nomesane being one, keeps changing it to namesake. I could turn spellcheck off, but it does catch me in a legitimate typo now and then. 

Obviously I don't have much to say this morning, indeed should not even have let the dancing fingers start tippy-typing out this blogpost, but there you go. As my clergy colleague Jerry used to say, "don't should on me", I'll do and say whatever I DWP, especially if it delays getting dressed to go get a shot.

More on food. Yesterday we warmed the ham and had sliced ham for dinner (noon, remember). Don't follow their directions. The ham is already cooked and only needs warmed. We cut the directions in half, because the two times we followed their heating directions we dried the ham out and the disappointment was huge. Our way makes for perfection: preheat oven to 300F, insert meat thermometer probe, put the ham in the oven and, closely watching the thermometer readout, remove the ham from the oven at 122F. Let stand for about ten minutes, and start slicing. Exquisite. I like to leave the fat on my ham, Linda does not:

Jack Sprat would eat no lean,

his wife would eat no fat.

Betwixt them both they ate it all,

so what do you think of that?

RSF&ABC&PTL

T+