Welcome, happy morning!

 

"Welcome, happy morning!" age to age shall say. My favorite Easter hymn, and here it is another Sunday morning: why is this Sunday morning different from all other Sunday mornings? For one, because I'm still not accustomed to being retired on Sundays. For another, because this is the first Sunday morning in my life that I've been this old, Jiminy Jeepers, where did the Time go? It went where all Time goes: slipped away into our memories!

People, relationships, events, things, Time and life itself slip through what you thought was your grasp, and are gone. Gone and cannot be mended. And when you put your mind to it, you never had them in your grasp in the first place, even at the Time. Nothing is ours, all we have is Time. Time is all we have.

Not sliding into the maudlin, just been looking at old pictures, pictures from twenty-five years ago and longer. Linda has been cleaning out old stuff and doing her favorite thing, which is throwing things away. Linda likes to have a task and be doing things; I like to be sitting here looking out across the Bay.

She came across the bulletin for the funeral of Morris Slingluff at Nativity, Dothan. It was September 14, 2010: I had forgotten that it was my birthday, my 75th birthday. That was the last Time I saw George Dennis, younger brother of Jack Dennis, who was one of my life's all Time closest friends. 

What else I remember is that, like the funeral of Charlie Lahan in that same Time period, Morris Slingluff's funeral was during my acute angina period, before my Sunday, October 17, 2010 trip to the hospital for the heart episode that defined the rest of my life!

A memory of Charlie's funeral is, after following the honor guard from St Thomas, Laguna Beach to Greenwood Cemetery, being struck immobilized with angina pain as I crossed the roadway from the parked car to the gravesite. You pause pretending you've stopped to appreciate the day!

My memory of Morris' funeral in Dothan: the angina pectoris visitations were frequent, startling, and so cripplingly excruciating that day that they would stop me in my tracks. I was one of the celebrants for the funeral mass, including being a reader, and I managed to do it because of our friendship with Morris and Louise. I remember going outside with the other clergy after the church service, leaning against the building in pain as I watched the casket being loaded into the hearse; and then, as the other clergy urged and motioned me to hurry and get into the car to follow the hearse to the cemetery, I stood there immobilized, paralyzed with pain, trying to look nonchalant and casual as though there was no hurry. Slowly, got into the funeral car; and on our ride to the cemetery, as the chief officiant divided up what we clergy would read and do at graveside, I asked that I not have a part, I'd just stand by. Along with losing Morris as a friend, that funeral bulletin brought all that back.

In my Time, that was the first of two funerals I was involved in on my birthday. The second one was nine years later, September 14, 2019 at First Baptist Church, Panama City, for Richard Youd, who had long been a favorite student at Holy Nativity Episcopal School. How do families, parents, even live into these losses? Frequently, in fact, the death of a son or daughter precipitates divorce and family breakup. Richard's funeral was on my 84th birthday, my angina long corrected, my heart issue under control and still under its ten year warranty! 

As I've said recently, the warranty is several years expired, and this is a bit more +Time! 

Why have I not told these things before? I suppose maybe because they aren't "memoirs" until the passage of Time?

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Our plan for this morning is to attend the eleven o'clock worship service at St Patrick's Episcopal Church on East 15th Street, Tyndall Parkway. Several memories of their startup, including that the church was sponsored by Holy Nativity, and that Holy Nativity Women, including my mother, sewed paraments for them, and I think, needlework covers for the kneeling cushions. Time was in the Episcopal Church when we were big on kneeling: kneel for prayer, stand for praise, sit for instruction. Seemed like a good idea until I phased into extreme old age, when all the getting up and down proved wearing. Nowadays I pretty much do what I DWP, nomesane?

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In her cleaning out, Linda also came across a 2008 photo directory of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, which has been good for browsing through and stirring memories.

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Yesterday, Saturday the storm was so present, lightning, thunder, and rain so endless drenching down-pouring, that we never got out, and I Farmers Market was likely cancelled. 

Epistle and Gospel readings for this morning. Reading, you may see why you seldom hear sermons focusing on readings from Paul's epistles. In the gospel, there is a question, as always, about who Jesus means by the Son of Man when he says "the son of man is lord of the sabbath" - - sometimes he's talking obliquely or modestly about himself, sometimes he's referring to the cosmic Son of Man figure in Daniel 7, sometimes he is simply using it as a figure of speech meaning human beings in general. Many scholars say that, in this case it's that last use, that Jesus is saying the sabbath was made for us humans therefore we humans own the sabbath the Sabbath does not own us; but it's arguable and it's your choice! 

The Epistle 2 Corinthians 4:5-12

We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

The Gospel Mark 2:23-3:6

One sabbath Jesus and his disciples were going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

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Every Day Is A Beautiful Day.

RSF&PTL

T88&c