stop, just stop
Recently - - well it was last week, wasn't it - - something had an article about impressionist painting, with pictures of several, and this one especially appealed to me. I'm not enough of an art enthusiast even to remember the artist's name, but there it is. Oh, it says "Claude Monet" doesn't it.
The first Tuesday of the second half of September, eh? And autumnal equinox 2024 is Sunday, September 22 at 8:43 AM EDT, 7:43 Central. What's that all about? Here's a diagram; it explains the results,
but it doesn't adequately clarify the causing fact that at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, Earth is straight up flat level to the Sun in its tilting process. I could find a better diagram if I would, but I won't, so I can't.
Here at 7H we can tell the seasonal shifts and extremes easily, with the Sun over our heads during the summer, and out to the south over the Bay during winter.
January is extraordinarily glare in here. In fact, the direct sunshine and the winter glare serves to so heat our condo that we tilt or may even close the shutters, pull the curtain to keep the sun off the furniture, and turn on the air conditioning.
Some winters we've not run the heating system at all.
But I do remember the bitter cold wind the winter 2018-2019 hurrication when we were living at The Point across the bridge in South Walton those months after Hurricane Michael. 7H and Panama City were a mess, so my fond recollections are of exploring eating places along 30A. Favorite: Stinky's, hands down, no contest. The Oyster Log. Open with a couple dozen raw half-shell, then the Oyster Log
They also had a fantastic mac'n with triple cheeses and shell pasta.
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But, Monday (when I started this blogpost). This morning, a thinking, seeking day for some reason. Maybe that we're already in the second half of 2024 and I'm working on the Collect for the upcoming Sunday:
Proper 20 The Sunday closest to September 21
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
And I'm moved to counter with a line in Eucharistic Prayer C,
"Lord God of our Fathers: God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Open our eyes to see your hand at work in the world about us. Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. Let the grace of this Holy Communion make us one body, one spirit in Christ, that we may worthily serve the world in his name."
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Ever since I started theological seminary on September 14, 1980, I've been freed by the advice that I've mentioned here so many times, the line in the lintel over the library door at one of my theological seminaries, "seek the truth, come whence it may, cost what it will."
"come whence it may" is, with astounding scientific instruments, peering deeper and deeper into the Universe that we call Creation, and farther and farther back toward the Beginning, the Big Bang when "God said, 'Yeh-Hi'" and it was so.
"cost what it will" is the risk that the cost may be total, or nearly so, disillusionment - -
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.
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- - but is it better to be illusioned or disillusioned? Faith is not knowledge, faith is hope (Hebrews 11:1f), and I'm finding that (whereas only an imbecile will adjust knowledge to accommodate faith) faith can be adjusted to accommodate knowledge. Once again for the umpteenth Time, was it Mark Twain who wrote, "Faith is believing what you know damn well ain't so"? To which I'm adding, "Doubt is going with it anyway."
Because, unlike my brother Doubting Thomas the Twin, I cannot be there the evening of Easter Day to see and touch the scars.
Yesterday I came across a blogpost "Bang and Being" that I published on October 15, 2015, in which I was hashing over this same puzzlement that I've been hashing and rehashing since my seminary days opened my eyes. I wonder that people get sick of reading it; but, as I say, +Time is my weblog.
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A motivating scripture for me is at John 18:37, with Jesus telling Pontius Pilate, "... the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.” And then verse 38, “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.
Come whence it may: truth comes in pictures sent back by JWST, of distant reaches of creation, the Universe, almost back to "Yeh-hi."
from Eucharistic Prayer C,
God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise.
Glory to you for ever and ever.
At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.
By your will they were created and have their being.
From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another.
Have mercy, Lord, for we are sinners in your sight.
Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace.
By his blood, he reconciled us.
By his wounds, we are healed.
It is not Creator's chief concern with us that "we are sinners in your sight." That there are trillions of galaxies in the vast expanse of interstellar space, and our relative place, consigned to a spiral of an ordinary galaxy that we call the Milky Way, where even here inside our own galaxy the distances are so humanly incomprehensible, and our spot so miniscule
that we gaze up at night at our own galaxy as a distant smear of light; and yet, relative to the Universe, we are all crowded up into the Milky Way as part of it.
Bang and Being: as creatures in this remote but splendiferous situation, it is ludicrous human arrogance of self-importance to believe that Creator's great concern is that we are sinners in need of such extravagant forgiveness as Anselm reasoned it.
But then, Anselm was a product of his Time, a geocentric Flat-Earther for whom all Creation revolved around the Earth.
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Stop, I'm going to stop. Rehashing my same old riddle, I'm going to stop. With happy plans for today, I'm going to stop. Stop here, without even rereading to edit and correct, I'm going to stop right now.
RSF&PTL
T89&c