bites
Saturday, sleep until five o'clock, then up, mug of hot & black, bit of chocolate, and sermonize. Still working to get it down under twelve minutes. Someone will pound me because it's too long but I'm about done. The final iteration, however, is always Sunday morning during the walk back down the aisle from where I was reading the gospel, toward the pulpit, nomsane?
My story, I've told my sermon length story, right? Thirty to forty years ago I was friends with Preacher Bill, a holiness preacher in Apalalchicola. Bill was a migrated Canadian Anglican who still longed for "the old days" and the one true church. He invited me, and he invited our mutual dear friend Father Chuck at St Patrick & Holy Name Catholic Church, to preach at his Sunday night service.
On my night preaching at the holiness church, the place was packed, including young people who were in my daughter's class at Apalachicola High School. At Bill's church, I preached the same sermon that I'd preached that morning at Trinity Episcopal. When the evening service was over, as I stood at the door greeting folks and receiving their comments and welcomes, one teenager, a girl who was in my Tassy's class, told me, "Brother Weller, I LOVE your preaching!" My heart swelled, and my head swelled even bigger as I asked her, "Thank you! What did you like about it?" She said, "It was short."
Great way to get your balloon popped, that also told me Brother Bill's preaching likely went on and on and on and on, and on and on.
Below (scroll down) is our gospel reading for tomorrow, and here's a bit of my favorite Catholic clip-art about it,
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You can tell it's still and always Christmas at 7H, our beloved rose poinsettia, gift from friends at Christmastime. They brought it to us from Celebrations, on Cervantes in East Hill, Pensacola, a couple blocks from where my mother grew up, and where my mother and father met, high school days. Linda gives the plant close and loving attention so that it will continue its blooming as long as possible. The one we had last year went well into springtime.
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Finally, my breakfast of smørbrød, a Norwegian style feast of open-face sandwiches along with another cup of hot & black,
all on Pepperidge Farm's extra-thin whole wheat bread from Bill's Grocery Outlet, St Andrews, clockwise from two o'clock: egg salad with capers, liverwurst, chicken salad from Victoria's Last Bite; and pimiento cheese - - which, also from Bill's, Victoria's Last Bite with a layer of parmesan cheese on top to give it a bit more bite. Linda obviously having taken a bite from just that one.
Speaking of - - Downtown St Andrews and the Marina are crowded with visitors to Mardi Gras (it isn't Mardi Gras, but that's another blogpost), and a sign that advertises fried fish, fried shrimp, gator bites. I nearly got snake bit once, and I've had a spider bite, and now my fried mind wonders whether they let you choose where the gator bites you, or you just stick your hand into his pen and he chomps down.
Family lore remembers that y brother Walt once, at our summer Camp Weed with his buddy Thomas Byrne, sneaking out of the boys' dorm at night, wandering along the shore until they came to a nest with several baby alligators. Picking up a baby gator, hearing the mother gator charge, and running, dropping the baby gator as they fled. Thomas is dead these decades later, so only Walt knows whether that's a true story.
Enough, and here again is that gospel lesson for tomorrow:
Mark 1:29-39
After Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.