Friday the Tenth

 

Friday morning 5:29 a thunderstorm bowling through, lighting up the Bay with flash after flash of lightning, some of them jump out of your skin close with simultaneous flash and crash. Looks as if it'll pass quickly through and be done with us before I can contemplate what to post this morning, if anything.

Picked up in my office at the church and brought home to read again, "Lamb" by Christopher Moore. 

It was recommended to me by Anthony MacWhinnie the year we worked together at St Thomas by the Sea Episcopal Church in Laguna Beach, PCB, I think it was summer 2008 through spring 2009. An interesting year, when the bishop designated me as Anthony's mentor for his year of training as a newly ordained deacon. Bright and overflowing with stories, Anthony was a marine scientist in his life before going to seminary. And he was a hunter, a fisherman, a cook who brought fascinating dishes to parish suppers. Anthony never shot anything he didn't cook and eat.

He was kind too, I remember his first morning with us at St Thomas, there was an enormous spider on the floor in Jewell Hall, the fellowship room for meetings and parish meals. Instead of first having a heart attack and then squashing it as I would have done, Anthony set a glass over it, pushed a paper under it, took it outside and set it free. He was 38, turned 39 the year we worked together.

Anthony, who died in 2023 at age 53, was born and raised in the Pensacola area, and he needed to get back home to Pensacola, which is exactly what he did. 

Anyway, "Lamb" is about Josh (Joshua/Jeshua) as a teenager, his best friend Biff, and Maggie (Mary Magdalene). It's borderline innocent, funny, improper, sacrilegious, would be wonderfully offensive to the stuffed shirts of Christianity. Poor Josh cannot bring himself to sin, but is delightfully curious, envious, and totally fascinated with Biff's experiences as an adolescent male. 

Anthony and his colleagues read it while they were in seminary and loved it; I've not looked at it in fifteen years or so, and look forward to reading it again in my imminent final retirement into the depths of St Andrews, Florida - -

- - land that I love. Stand beside her, and ... 

Little dings keep coming up on my cellphone signaling lightning strikes here and there, and tornadoes on the ground east and northeast of here. Yes, the storm has passed on by.

We are geting a grim assessment of what Hurricane Season will be like for 2024, which starts officially three weeks from tomorrow.

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It sometimes happens in warfare that political considerations trump military judgment. in 1945, Ike let de Gaulle enter Paris first and Ike held back to let the Soviets take Berlin. At the moment Biden is holding back on weapons for Israel, an action that I hope does not result in disaster down the line as Hamas bounces back in full force with their unrenounced policy of eliminating Israel. But in their rush to vengeful war, Israel did not have a sound strategy anyway, on the border with Egypt and an opening for Hamas resupply, Rafah should have been neutralized early on

Says the G-mo.

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Breakfast. Hot & black and half a club-like sandwich of ham, cheese, turkey, mayo on whole wheat bread. Sans bacon, not a fully qualified club sandwich. I like to cut my sandwich diagonally so as to bite into the pointy triangles, makes for less mayo on the face, nomesane? Eyes too big as usual, I could only eat half of it. 

A dog will eat anything, would a cat eat the other half of my club-like sandwich, or only pick out the turkey and ham? IDK.

RSF&PTL

T88&c