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This early, dark, predawn morning I am busily occupied with last minute efforts, still working to convert from nonsense to sense, what I hope to say from the pulpit to the folks at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church later today. 

There's a lot to think and rethink, so I won't blog long. My sermon on Sunday, April 28 was to be my last preaching assignment; but here I am, trying to sharpen a skill that I wore down and out over the decades, especially the final years, when so much about me advanced into extreme old age, and I went farther and more costly into that proverb that was on the lintel over the library door at my theological seminary, "Seek the Truth, Come whence it may, Cost what it will" - - and its corollary caution, "No amount of belief makes anything True."

I remember my theology professor in seminary admonishing us, "it's really true, never say, 'it's TRUE FOR US,' it's really true." But I also remember him warning us not to make light of other people's beliefs, saying, "They may be right and we may be wrong."

So, beyond the doctrines and creeds of others, I read, study, think, and seek my own Truth; and in those final years at pulpit and altar, preaching was challenging at Times, and often became a Bible study instead of a gospel proclamation. 

Life is more relaxing in retirement, for example, reading in The Atlantic about Franz Kafka's view of parables, including the kingdom parables of Jesus, which we are to read in church this morning, in Mark chapter 4. Kafka is quoted saying, "All those parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible." Kafka said Jesus preached parables to crowds "because, they don't understand them," which indeed, Mark, Matthew and Luke ratify, a hard saying to rationalize to oneself, much less preach. However, not only the crowd, it's clear in the gospels, especially Mark, that Jesus' disciples themselves don't understand Jesus or his parables either. Kafka says no one can, that in fact the parables are not meant to be understood. 

All of which is okay, because Kafka himself was far from balanced and comprehensible; he was way beyond eccentric into a weird psychiatric diagnosis, and he seems to have enjoyed it. Waking up one morning as a huge insect?

To understand the parables, you have to get outside the stories and contemplate Mark's agenda. You have to rise a level from seeing yourself as a face in the crowd or even a disciple, and become Mark the writer; and it doesn't really matter whether Mark understands or not, he's just rushing through it as he writes it down. If Mark leaves us with questions, no big deal, because in the Episcopal Church it doesn't bother us to have more questions than answers.

Which leads me to again wander off down the thorny path to the comic strip "Dilbert" where everyone is seated at the conference table and the Pointy-Haired Boss says loftily, "The best advice I ever received was 'Be True To Yourself.'" To which Dilbert scoffs, "That really doesn't mean anything." And Wally, holding his coffee mug, asks, "What was the worst advice you ever received?" 

Coming as I did from two decades in government service, including tours of duty in Washington, the Dilbert strip was for me an affirming ongoing trip back into the deepest possible ineptitude, oblivion, and irrelevance. I'm sorry the Dilbert strip is gone, but that's what happens in today's politically correct world when you cancel yourself, as the Dilbert author did. I guess you have to not care, as the Dilbert author did not care, and I'm not there yet.

Parables? Mark 4:11 & 12? Growing up, I idolized Robert E Lee for our Truths about him: you never know, General Lee has been canceled. And George Washington, also a slaver: our eponymous ancestor, the Father of our Country? What to do? IDK, take Washington off the One Dollar bill, bulldoze Mount Vernon, and rededicate the Washington Memorial to Astarte or the next President. 

Anyway, lots to smooth Over and Out before we leave here in Time to be at church not later than about seven-thirty, so I'm outa here.

RSF&PTL

T88&c