Pax 7H
Pax 7H: clear light blue sky and calm Bay on a Tuesday morning, osprey hovering to peer down for a mullet breakfast, pelicans gliding by heading east for their day, seagulls speeding in the other direction.
Maybe you do, but I do not understand this: weather just down the coast at Santa Rosa is 69°F & 95% humidity, while weather here at W Tenth Street hit me smothering warm at 79°F & 85% when I stepped from cool 7H out onto the porch to survey my dominion, St Andrews Bay to the east beyond Millville and the Tyndall Bridge, west beyond Thomas Drive and the high rise condos, and south over Shell Island and beyond into the Gulf of Mexico. This is a retirement place I might only have dreamed of all my years of life, and only started thinking and hoping into reality in, what? June 2007 when I officiated a wedding down south on the Atlantic side of Florida and our hosts graciously put us up in a hotel room looking down and out on a paradise of marina and bay, and I thought, "I want never to leave here, I want to live in a spot like this forever," and now I do. Level 7, and 7H is dying and going to heaven.
We're somewhat above the mosquito and gnat level, which, IDK, must top out at what? about Level 3 or 4?
How do I remember it was 2007? because a week or ten days later we headed back in that direction for Cape Canaveral to board Disney Wonder for our fiftieth wedding anniversary with all our children, their spouses, and grandchildren. A love treat of a lifetime! There are photographs here of memorable moments, including that one, and also including my retirement from the U S Navy a February morning in 1978, and one snapped in June 1957, I think by Walt, of Linda and me in that red 1957 Thunderbird,
leaving for our honeymoon. Life has its moments, doesn't it. A week later I was in Newport, Rhode Island to begin another new chapter of life.
Did you ever notice that Time, life and Time, unrolls in chapters? Well, think about it.
Sunday afternoon I wrote, Monday morning decided not to press Publish, a blog about where I am. Born in 1935, I'm eighty-seven, nearing eighty-eight. One of the things I've found is that age does not enhance wisdom, all age means is that I have more experience than you; but I concede that you are wiser than I. But now,
Born and bred an Episcopalian, I have seen the traditional, reliable, careful and historic Episcopal Church of my youth evolve over my decades into an institution that almost seeks to shock in taking on cutting edge social issues. Growing up in what I mistakenly assumed was as constant as the old eternal rocks, I watched as a minority brought up their same agenda on vote after losing vote until they arrived with a majority and took over. Ultimately in my own Time, I left the Episcopal Church and went, alone without my family, with a new breakaway group until I realized that their principle concern was hatred of the Episcopal Church, where my loved ones still were. Taking to heart my father telling me that he'd realized that the Episcopal Church was entirely new, he told me that, "if I had to join a new church, it might as well be my own," I determined to be comfortable, and came home. When was that? after my Navy retirement, in the 1978 - 1980 timeframe, which I can date by the new prayerbook and by the car I was driving every Sunday morning from Harrisburg to Lancaster and back.
A Buick, of course, what else?!
The Episcopal Church is like the television commercial "Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" of a generation ago. Wearied of fighting up to and concluding with our change to The New (1979) Prayer Book, I years ago decided to go with it and be okay. My father would be surprised at where the Episcopal Church is today, my grandfather would be stunned, my great-grandfather, who was rector of St John's (now cathedral), Jacksonville after the Civil War and is buried in an old, historic cemetery in Jacksonville, would die again of thundering apoplexy and roll over in his grave. But here we are, changed and changing; it's the way of life. In my Time I've experienced the Episcopal Church changing from my father's Oldsmobile into what? somebody's Tesla. Or a spaceship for the Moon.
To be honest and claim it, I've also seen my own faith do that. My faith did not, as I put it from the pulpit I was serving at the Time, "survive the death of William Hall." It became something far less certain and more tentative, in the spirit of Hebrews 11:1. For me, it's something entirely fresh and new, and infinitely more credible and complex,
perhaps for me somewhat expressed liturgically in our Rite Two Eucharistic Prayer C,
God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of
glory and praise.
Glory to you for ever and ever.
At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of
interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses,
and this fragile earth, our island home.
By your will they were created and have their being.
From the primal elements you brought forth the human race,
and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us
the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed
your trust; and we turned against one another.
Have mercy, Lord, for we are sinners in your sight.
Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets
and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the
fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to
fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace.
By his blood, he reconciled us.
By his wounds, we are healed.
And therefore we praise you, joining with the heavenly
chorus, with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and with all
those in every generation who have looked to you in hope, to
proclaim with them your glory, in their unending hymn:
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
++++++++++
Who or What am I? IDK, I'm still evolving with the rest of Creation, but I'll get back to you as soon as it clarifies. Don't call me, I'll call you.
RSF&PTL
T
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