Saturday, already raining
June 1, the Aitch word, or Haitch for Hot, Heaven, Hell, Happy, Hateful, Harassed, Hopeful, Help, Hurricane. Spring 2024, but actually a warm Summer morning here on St Andrews Bay, windy, ESE 11 mph.
First day of official Hurricane Season and weather experts are forecasting one helluva Summer and Fall. With H.Michael in 2018, our experience is sufficiently memorable that I think about someplace else to live, at least for The Season, but the only other places I'm willing to live are Apalachicola where my heart is, or Pensacola where my ancestry and my brother are, and neither of those would solve the hurricane threat.
So, where could one go? Tallahassee, but I've sworn never again to live north of US-98 nor out of sight, sound, and smell of salt water. If you're born and bred a person of the sea, where would I go?! Does the Mediterranean coast have these nightmare wind and sea storms?
One thing I will say: anyplace else in the United States has worse threats, earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, bitter cold winters. I'm a warm weather creature, another oath, taken a winter morning in Newport, Rhode Island when I was trying to figure out which lump of snow was my car, was never again to complain about getting into a hot car in August; and I've kept that promise to myself.
Oaths, promises, vows, I keep most of them. Wander Weller is at it again, but I do remember the day I commiserated with my sister that I'd promised our father never to let Mama be in a nursing home. Mama had fallen and been taken to hospital by EMS ambulance for the umpteenth Time, and after a short hospital stay had been transferred to Community out on US-231 for recovery. Gina saved my life by saying, "some promises can't be kept."
Have I broken other promises? Have you? Never mind me, how about you: have you ever broken a promise?
Wandering farther from my Track: the Episcopal Church likes to ape the Roman Catholic Church, and one example is the diocesan bishop having all the priests and deacons come to a central place every Lent, to "renew ordination vows." Well, I went a Time or two years ago, and it was fun, saw clergy friends, and there was a nice lunch afterward. But at some point I realized, I don't renew my marriage vows and I don't renew my military commissioning vows, why the Alphabet should I renew my ordination vows, to hell with this. But, then come to think of it, I'm always happy to renew my Baptismal vows, so my premise falls apart. I don't care, at 88&c I'll do what I DWP.
Mostly: after swearing to fade into the desert for forty days in the wilderness, I was caught up short being asked to serve as Supply Priest on Sunday, June 16th: I'll do it once, and restart my forty days the next morning, Monday, June 17th, eh?
Shall I take charge of myself, or drift? Something I blogged about a week or so ago comes to mind, where I said I won't be moored, "Underway, shift colors," but adrift. It has a sense of personal chaos to it, a taste of the anarchy I'm inclined toward.
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Saturday morning: the only item on our POD is to wander out, down, and around to the Farmers Market in Oaks by the Bay Park next door. We went last week looking for crook-neck squash, and found them, raised by the folks who were operating the kiosk, a couple from Marianna.
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We might seem to be adrift on our spiritual side, but not so: Sundays we're going from one church to another, first at least, the Episcopal churches in the area, last Sunday we visited St Andrew's Episcopal Church.
Our plan for tomorrow is to visit St Patrick Episcopal Church on Tyndall Parkway. Their schedule says Morning Prayer, which can be a uniquely exquisite Anglican experience if it's Rite One with Anglican Chant. Otherwise, it's pretty much normal Protestant worship but liturgical.
In our Lectionary, the list of Bible readings &c for the day, the Episcopal Church begins the Season after Pentecost, when there's a choice of Track 1 or Track 2. Track 2 is the "old way" in which the Old Testament lesson and Psalm were related to the Gospel reading in some way, usually so stretched and subtle as to be as undetectable as my PSA. But in Track 1 you read selections through an OT book, and you get an Old Testament lesson that's usually a much-loved old Time Sunday school Bible story. Tomorrow, for example, in Track 1 you hear the story of the call of Samuel, and his famous response, prescribed by his mentor Eli, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth."
Directions include that the Track is chosen by the Rector or whoever's in charge, the Senior Warden if the pulpit is empty; and that you stick with the same Track throughout the Season.
Me, I love the Bible stories, so I'm a Track 1 person.
Anyway here are the differences, for tomorrow:
Proper 4 Year B
RCL
Track 1
1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20)
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
Mark 2:23-3:6
Track 2
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Psalm 81:1-10
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
Mark 2:23-3:6
The Collect
O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
TRACK 1 Old Testament
1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.”
[Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”
Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”
As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.]
The Psalm
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17 Domine, probasti
1 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; * you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places * and are acquainted with all my ways.
3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, * but you, O Lord, know it altogether.
4 You press upon me behind and before * and lay your hand upon me.
5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; * it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
12 For you yourself created my inmost parts; * you knit me together in my mother's womb.
13 I will thank you because I am marvelously made; * your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
14 My body was not hidden from you, * while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.
15 Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; * they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.
16 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! * how great is the sum of them!
17 If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; * to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.
or
TRACK 2 Old Testament
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
The Psalm
Psalm 81:1-10 Exultate Deo
1 Sing with joy to God our strength * and raise a loud shout to the God of Jacob.
2 Raise a song and sound the timbrel, * the merry harp, and the lyre.
3 Blow the ram's-horn at the new moon, * and at the full moon, the day of our feast.
4 For this is a statute for Israel, * a law of the God of Jacob.
5 He laid it as a solemn charge upon Joseph, * when he came out of the land of Egypt.
6 I heard an unfamiliar voice saying * "I eased his shoulder from the burden; his hands were set free from bearing the load."
7 You called on me in trouble, and I saved you; * I answered you from the secret place of thunder and tested you at the waters of Meribah.
8 Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you: * O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
9 There shall be no strange god among you; * you shall not worship a foreign god.
10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, * "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."
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RSF&PTL
T88&c