he started it

 

Early Sunday morning, but not early enough: having decided yesterday to go to the eight o'clock service at Holy Nativity this morning, Father Nature thwarted that with an oversleep such that we've changed plans to attend the ten-thirty service. 

I don't think it was God telling us to go to the later service, but it reminds me that back in 1978 I had a small hobby-type business in which I could order cars at dealer invoice price, basically "cost" and a woman had phoned me to order a new 1978 Chevrolet, a red sedan of such and such specifications. The next day she called to say Jesus didn't want her to have a red car, so she had to change to a different color. 

Maybe your religion works that way, I don't think mine does; although I had a sense of "vocation" to ordained ministry starting from age ten, as I recall, and on and on for the next thirty-five years until at age forty-five I'd finally said, "Oh, what the Hell, I give up," and started theological seminary. 

So IDK, maybe I do, maybe mine does: in Universal terms there's no difference in whether Jesus wants a woman to have a red car and whether God wants me in ordained ministry, is there? No, there isn't.  

++++++++++

The IT ALL STARTED WHEN HE HIT ME BACK continues in the Middle East, with today's massive exchange between Israel and Hezbollah Lebanon. When you stop to think, you have to realize that this is all because of different religions - - WE LOVE GOD MORE THAN YOU DO - - which keeps me mindful of my seminary theology professor's comment, "How does God stand us?" 

My theology professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg was a Lutheran who'd studied in Germany and England, who years later lived in Princeton, probably taught at the Presbyterian seminary there, became a member of an Episcopal parish in Princeton, and was buried from that Episcopal church. 

My only semi-serious contemplation about changing church was, when I was a Freshman at the University of Florida and on Sunday attending First Presbyterian, Gainesville along with Bill, Scotty, and Philip, deciding I'd be a Presbyterian minister instead of an Episcopal priest. At the Time, I don't think I ever told anyone but Linda. 

A couple years later Philip, Scotty, and Bill had switched to other colleges and I'd switched to First Baptist, Gainesville with different friends. I'd also, as a Freshman, sometimes attended Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, where the singing was too slow and the sermons boring. Of the three, the sermons were best at First Presbyterian, but the music, hymns and singing were best by far at First Baptist, where we always left during the closing hymn so as to be first in line at Tower House restaurant.

There at Tower House I had my first salad with blue cheese dressing, and my first and only Black & Gold pie. As I recall, the Tower House restaurant was on, or adjacent to the Square downtown. I think it disappeared long decades ago, but it was Gainesville's restaurant of first choice my years there. I even took Linda and her mother there for Sunday dinner once when Mrs Peters was visiting us, when I was a senior and Linda a junior transfer student from Randolph Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia. 

I think by then, Linda's mother had probably realized that she was stuck with this small town Bubba as her future son-in-law, so had about given up on finding Linda a nice Birmingham doctor. 

Linda's mother, of Birmingham, Alabama, who once said to me about one of our prominent physicians, "If he was any good he wouldn't be practicing in this little town." 

So, do you think we'll have rain?

+++++++

At least here on St Andrews Bay in Panama City, Florida USA it's a lovely late summer morning. Cloudless sky, but light blue, telling something about the humidity. As I understand it, a deeper blue sky like yesterday afternoons with towering, shimmering white clouds indicates lower humidity. 

Time is moving on, boats are heading out into the Bay, and I need to stop and get ready for church.

RSF&PTL

T88&c