all of them saints

Outside on 7H porch while I wait for my coffee to be ready, Saturday begins early, dark, and quiet until the peace is shattered with the loud, raucous squawk of a wading bird in the Bay shallow seven levels below. It's a startling sound that comes in the night when least expected. One of those birds, heron or egret, used to roost overnight in the cedar tree right outside our upstairs bedroom windows at The Old Place.

Unsettling until we identified the scary noise, a dreadful cry like something suddenly about to have a go at you.

Not seeming particularly shy, now and then it would wander around the yard, including up close to the downstairs front porch, and twist its head as it peered curiously at us and strolled casually on, sometimes around back between the houses, and down the street. Marking that we are in Florida and right on the water. But for bringing on a heart attack as they bray at night, they are nice birds to have around.

Clear sky this early predawn, loads of stars, Orion and Sirius. And if I lean out far enough over the balcony rail, I reckon that lighter smear is the Milky Way, our galaxy? Though I am not a heights person, not at all inclined to lean out and look up.

A homemade banana muffin with my first cup of hot & black. Thank you Amy & Rayford, what a treat!

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As I'll be second to admit (Linda was first), this week has not turned out, is not turning out, at all as we expected, helping look after family in the absence of others who are away downstate on medical emergency. As it turns out, Kristen is on her own looking after her mom, we've not been able to help after all. We figured on our own perfect health, but last Saturday I came down - - "plunged" I should say - - with a sudden cold, my first in maybe ten years or more. An odd cold: no fever and no sore throat but severe head congestion and extreme fits of coughing such as to make stomach muscles quite sore. Last Sunday was the worst for me, but as from Monday it eased over the next several days. Slept a lot, drank lots of water, barley tea, and coffee, dropped eight pounds. By the sixth day, Thursday, it was basically gone, and I'm good now, except for some residual tiredness that shows up in four-hour daytime naps. Maybe that was the good news of it: at this age, one of the nicest parts of life is the naps.

Although as a parish priest since in my forties, I always look forward to my Sunday afternoon high priestly nap.

Late midweek, though, Linda was hit with it, increasingly hard, still this morning, and if it lasts six days again, that's early next week before she will be up and about.

With this intrusion in life, we have not been able to do what we expected of ourselves this week in helping family at home while others are away, severe disappointment to us, for us, in ourselves.

Comes with life, doesn't it! Life and aging. The longer you live, the more things, good things, bad things, and plain old things happen to you and for you. Like dear friends bringing supper over last evening. The lovingkindness way offsets feeling under the weather.

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Tomorrow we celebrate All Saints Day, "For all the saints ..." and "I sing a song of the saints of God" making today sermon final prep day: what shall I preach tomorrow morning? That we are all saints? μὴ γένοιτο! Having lived in the century with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jonathan Daniels, I don't think so.

What is a saint anyway? Someone said, "a saint is a Christian who dies." Jiminy, IDK about that. We like to say all Christians, living and dead, are saints of God, is that it? Our church calendar (BCP p.19f) names, by their holy days, saints recognized by our church, most of them Bible heroes and other players we inherited from the Roman Catholic Church as the Reformation settled down. We don't continually make saints as the Catholic Church does - - since he became pope in 2013, Pope Francis has canonized 911 new saints, and Pope Benedict canonized 45 before him, and John Paul II canonized 482 new saints before that; but we don't pick those up in our list.

What makes a person a saint? Might a saint have secret sins, skeletons in the closet? The Catholic Church has a process for recognition and acknowledgment. We don't. What marks a person as a saint?

Think about it. You may be a saint after all. Or you may know one, or several.

RSF&PTL