Monday
Monday 6:22 AM from 7H, looking across StAndrewsBay toward Davis Point, and on to Shell Island, and over Shell Island into the Gulf of Mexico and its horizon. Some sunrises are brilliant, some subdued, but it's all good and every day is a beautiful day.
We went to Tanya's Garden the other day for tomatoes, and, remembering from seventy-five or eighty years ago that my father liked hoop cheese and enjoyed cutting off a hunk and eating it, I bought a wedge. But I like sharp cheese, and it's not, which I had forgotten even though it looks like sharp cheddar. With hoop cheese, even the black-wax one, I have to savor it on the tongue to get any flavor at all. It's so mild in fact, that for sharpness, it might compete with American "cheese", the slices of yellow-orange plastic that Americans like on a hamburger. However, I paid for it, so I'll eat it.
What I'm missing for cheese is an extra sharp favorite that so far comes only from Trader Joe's. Aldi's has some sort of sibling or cousin origin with TJ's, and one of two new Aldi's in Bay County is opening next week; I'm hoping they may have an equivalent cheese. If not, no worries, I can Wait: so that we can get to a Lincoln High School football game this season and see Charlotte as drum major directing the marching band, we have an October reservation at Waukulla Springs Lodge that's shouting distance from Rudd/Cox Stadium on the south side of Tallahassee. That visit may enable a shopping trip to TJ's. Which also has a favorite unique chicken liver pate.
Wait. Weight. Watch the weight, Bubba. I made my goal for my 1 August doctor appointment, no creep-ups allowed. Grading myself B-minus so far.
With Bubba it's all about food, isn't it. Who gets his exercise pushing a grocery cart, following Linda around Grocery Outlet, Publix, Sam's, and The Carousel. I always get my own walker, passed off as a grocery cart.
Hey! If you can't see yourself as a joke at this age, don't even bother coming here.
On the calendar for this week: work up a sermon for next Sunday. Here are the Propers:
The Collect
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament Jeremiah 2:4-13
Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?
They did not say, "Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that no one passes through,
where no one lives?"
I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things.
But when you entered you defiled my land,
and made my heritage an abomination.
The priests did not say, "Where is the Lord?"
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal,
and went after things that do not profit.
Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord,
and I accuse your children's children.
Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has ever been such a thing.
Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for something that does not profit.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
The Psalm
Psalm 81:1, 10-16
1 Sing with joy to God our strength *and raise a loud shout to the God of Jacob.
10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, * "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."
11 And yet my people did not hear my voice, * and Israel would not obey me.
12 So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts, * to follow their own devices.
13 Oh, that my people would listen to me! * that Israel would walk in my ways!
14 I should soon subdue their enemies * and turn my hand against their foes.
15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, * and their punishment would last for ever.
16 But Israel would I feed with the finest wheat * and satisfy him with honey from the rock.
The Epistle Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." So we can say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?"
Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
The Gospel Luke 14:1, 7-14
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."