See, there's no obligation to stay up late and celebrate new years, turning of clock and calendar which is entirely a human construct. There were those who thought, 24 years ago, that the arrival of the year 2000 would trigger the End Time. Their God is too small! Top. In son Joe's living room in Louisville, Kentucky, where he lives, two kitty cats warming before the fireplace. New Years Eve. Breakfast, soft-scrambled eggs, one slice bacon, one slice pan-cooked tomato, pretty much our standard Sunday morning meal. After church to Pruitt to visit Malinda. On the way home,Linda remembered someone telling online how they had come from Alabama to eat at Bayou Joe's and had a superlative seafood dinner, so we headed for Massalina Bayou; but we do not do queues, stand in lines, wait for our table to be called, so off to Captain's Table: no wait, two dozen raw half-shell oysters, a whole mullet, fried, OMG. Topping it off, Linda had the mullet fillets instead of the whole mu...

You do what you will, I've never been into New Years Eve parties, will be asleep when you cheer, watch the ball go up (or is it down?) and weepingly sing "Auld Lang Syne" as fireworks birth 2024 and you think how great 2023 was (which it wasn't necessarily).  Online much earlier I may watch the fireworks over Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I crossed many Times during business trips there in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the Sydney Opera House, which I looked at from the apartment of a business associate, what? forty some years ago. A charming city, Sydney was easy to fall in love with, and I did, even had thoughts of moving there! Rambling, Bubba, digressing.  No matter, eh?  Pic: Bubba Likes Red. That's me as 2023 fades into memory. Right now I'm sipping hot & black from my new Xmas coffee mug as it keeps my coffee hot, and reading some of this morning's lectionary. Sunday, 31 Jan 2023, First Sunday after Christmas Day, Year B: Old Testament Isaia...

  A book, I'm reading a book. TJCC gave it to Linda for Keep the Xpistos in Xmas, but the title appealed to me, "Before the coffee gets cold" and most especially the subtitle, "What would you change if you could travel back in Time?" because - - well, just because, so I picked it up and started reading. "What would you change if you could travel back in Time?" - - if that has never occurred to you then you are not a daydreamer like Bubba, or you are too busy with life, or you are lying!!! I put three fools' marks there so as not to offend anyone. What would you change? What I would change is neon of your business. This little book, by a Japanese author and set in a remote, somehow magical little coffee shop in Tokyo, stirs the imagination. There are three or four chapters, each a different short story on its own, I have finished the first one, and - - when I find fiction I especially like, I try to read it very slowly so as to keep on living inside...

Sometimes as Time and its day slip by outside my window, I sit here and write, as a draft blogpost, something that's on my mind, my reaction to something I've read, or a thought that leads to "a stream of consciousness" or mental dump, to use overworked commons. Going back, if I perceive anger or a rant I'll edit or delete it, or I may set it aside to age and moulder before coming back to have another look. That has happened with this writing, which was started a couple of weeks ago. I think I'll just post it and be done with it. ++++++++   The essay from Patheos (scroll down) says what needs to be said. Some things are too profound and basic to be written by fools like me, who try to explain that which cannot be explained because it's so simple as to be ineffable! And also because I may tiptoe around what makes me different that may offend, when it is never my purpose to offend: s ome sort of Progressive Christian among literalist fundamentalist Christian...

  So, breakfast, then, about breakfast this awesome Thursday morning, the only one of the Year that's sandwiched between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve, between Christmas Day and New Years Day. A hearty serving of my incomparable oyster dressing. Cold, straight out of the refrigerator chilled this morning: it's just as delicious cold as hot. There are two servings left, maybe one heated for noon dinner today, or I may have another turkey sandwich like the turkey sandwich I had for breakfast yesterday. Thanksgiving and Christmas are about two fixed immovables: (2) special dishes that we don't have other Times of the year; and (1) people we love, having them around. If it's different for you, that's fine. Holiday contents vary from one to another, person to person, family to family, religion to religion, culture to culture. It's all a package: the religiosity of it is the book cover, the facilitator, the prime mover like the sleeper-cab truck powering the eightee...

At this age of life one's awareness blossoms, of things I should have been noticing all along; one reason being that I served for some years on the bishop's Commission on Aging, where our attention was called to things I'd never seen before: font size in typed material such as church bulletins; markings on steps and stairs to make them more visible; grab bars in places such as steps and stairs where someone might trip and fall; thick area rugs that elderly people could trip over; low toilets that can be hard to get up from. In fact, a parish needs a Safety Person to be alert to such matters, otherwise it's easy to get the feeling that others not only can't be bothered noticing, but actually just don't give a good holy damn; though it isn't really that, it's that people are naturally oblivious to things that are non-issues for them.  Also, naming a Safety Person who's responsible to the parish Vestry could help avoid lawsuits and insurance claims from...

  We do things right in our church, including Christmas this morning, our annual children's Christmas pageant, which has been Christened "Holy Commotion." It's a unique event in which the worse it is, the better, and this morning's may have been the best of all. It got off to a slow start in which nothing happened because nobody knew who was supposed to do what, when. Then people started beckoning, and a flock of children emerged to set into motion the glory of God. God is a child, and the shepherds were and are children, and the angels are children, and the lambs are children, and our church is filled with children; all of which is amplified by Jesus saying Unless you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. That's really Good News, in fact, Good, Better, Best, it's the Best News there is. The Star in the sky behind the manger welcoming the three kings is always a child, covered with the star costume,   standing on a low step ladder....