Monday notintas

 

Nap after Sunday dinner, physically unable not to, several hours, which is not uncommon for my high priestly nap after Church on Sundays. Well, for my any nap, truth be told. I'm not into the sleep "experts" so-called, who counsel a ten minute nap and arise refreshed and invigorated. Of course beloved family were long gone when I awoke.

The long nap could have kept me from falling asleep at bedtime, which at our house is either eight o'clock, or nine, depending. "Depending on What?" you ask: depending on whatever, don't press me with questions. Just as Mary Poppins, I never explain anything. So at eleven o'clock I got up, opened the computer, played four different kinds of solitaire, and by the time I finished the last one was so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open. Voila!

Black coffee this morning, perking one of the tasty Xmas Coffee Club brews. Have found favorites among them. When they make the final shipment, the Club no doubt will invite me to renew, and maybe I will, who knows! There's another one on the way!

Flight of a dozen or so pelicans heading east close by 7H porch, circling back by, that's not unusual for them. Beyond delighted to see the pelicans, the hurricane seemed to have swept the area of our pelican population, some recovery, then recently the Red Tide did a number on them. And the hurricane's clearing our "mullet hatchery" didn't help feed the birds.

Osprey's shrill chirp makes its way inside 7H even when I can't hear thunder. The osprey too swings by, wide wings within reach of 7H window, circles out high over the Bay, then I just watched him lift high carrying a fish. Nature, but if you're into Life Itself, watching an osprey rip apart a live, flopping fish, starting from its mouth end, can be unsettling; in fact, it precisely one of the situations of Nature that so challenged Darwin's faith. Your heavenly father loves each sparrow, but we make ourselves more beloved to Him than the osprey's mullet. Or MY mullet for that matter, or living oyster. 

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Today is Monday in Easter Week and, as with every remarkable day, the Church has a collect, a prayer for the day:

Monday in Easter Week

Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with awe the Paschal feast may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We had lots of visitors at church yesterday, first Time I remember the worship space being that full since before covid, the little slip that came up from the greeters read 353 as I recall. Only a few folks wearing facemasks, I respect their caution, which is apt as apparently Florida is one where a strain of covid is on the rise. Back to mandatory masks inside? 

The church's collects fascinate me. I enjoy doing a quick theological discourse on them, including perceiving implied prejudice for us (only we who celebrate with awe are to be found worthy?). I'm fortunate, makarioi, blessed, happy, to have Hatchett's "Commentary" here. Of this collect, Marion (page 179) says it dates to the Gallican books, which means we're praying the theology of the seventh century, so-called Dark Ages of human life and intellect. Marion says that in the Gregorian rite this collect prayed "grant that we who have kept with reverence the Paschal feast may through it be found worthy to arrive at everlasting joys" and observes that it "links ... the ancient Passover or Pascha, the celebration of our Lord's resurrection and our own new life in Him, and the anticipation of the heavenly banquet". I'm going someplace with this, not quite sure where, but it's in my mind, has been since a conversation yesterday.

Here and elsewhere I've confessed my own faith: Doubting Thomas (his Sunday coming up next, on Easter Two) clinging to a strained skepticism from observing Life Itself, and the so-called problem of theodicy, and a solid lack of religious certainty from (1) having spent so many hours over my years with eye glued to telescope and mind in astronomy textbooks (Calvin and Hobbes recently: Calvin is into astrology, sore when it fails him, and Hobbes says maybe the astrologer was looking through the wrong end of the telescope); and (2) taking to heart the church's claim to theologize based on Scripture, Tradition, and REASON, I'm not into all the doctrines and dogma the Church has wrung out of Good Friday and Easter. For me, the "Will You's" of our Baptismal Covenant say what needs to be said, affirmed, and believed, I'm not into ransom, parousia, banquet, nor anyone's dogma. Much of what various denominations of Christians have been taught to be certain of over the church's two millennia fits Jesus' category "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit". Teachings, beliefs and certainties that leave people appalled at God.

Wandering too far afield and again saying too much, I may not press "Publish" at all this morning, we'll see.

So anyway, a conversation yesterday. Someone expressing horror at God the Father "doing this to his Son". "This" being Good Friday. And I get it because I've been there too. Like many people who have accepted a vocation and made a Life of exploring creation and Creator, I've been there too. Nothing is served, solved or saved by ten minute mealtime chat about Good Friday between strangers, so I let it go by just saying I wish you were in our Sunday School class, that'd be a great discussion.

And it would. How do you work your way out of personal faith-certainty that is naturally and understandably horrified at God the Father sending the Son of God into the world precisely for Good Friday specifically to ransom us from sinners' damnation to Hell? It's not that I'm so sophisticated and superior of intellect that I've cast this absurd doctrine aside. Rather, it's more that I've spend the second half of my life realizing that it doesn't at all define my life view. Theodicy itself, which drives many Christians away, asks the wrong question based on false premise that has raised a God of human construct.

How does one who seeks the Truth find God who is not what humans create to answer perceived human need, but God who is Wholly Other? Not to presume to answer, but maybe Exodus 3, "I Will Be What I Will Be". You can't pin such a One down to what you think God ought to be. Evidently, Whoever or Whatever God Is, God is God's Own Being. 

Certainly not bound by the theology of our various collects for the day. 

IDK.

RSF&PTL

T  

pics not mine. thanks Bert & John