Here's our gospel reading for the upcoming Sunday: Luke 2:22-40 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons." Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, "Lord, now lettest thou thy s...

Some people have dates that mean something to them, touch them in some way. Last week, January 23 and January 24 were a binary for me, dates circling around each other since before my memories. On January 23, 1947 I came home, I was in sixth grade at Cove School with Mrs Bowen as our teacher, came home from school and stood in the kitchen as our maid, always a Black woman who looked after us at home while Mama was at work, asked me, "Did you know your grandmother died today?" Mom, my father's mother, was my most loved person in life. I remember breaking into tears, and I remember the lump in my throat and chest that were there for months.  It was the day before my sister Gina's ninth birthday, so January 24 also shares in the dates meaning to me. Gina died at age 83 in October 2021 as the result of injuries and complications when her motor home rolled and disintegrated on State Road 20 north of Lynn Haven. Gina and I had the usual sibling rough places growing up and i...

  You can read most anywhere that in these days of religious decline, many people describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious." It seems to be a norm of self realization for many folks. But anyone who has known me for a while may recall me saying from Time to Time, that I do not experience myself as a spiritual person. That I might see myself as neither spiritual nor religious; but that if I have to choose, I'm reverse to that norm, maybe religious but not spiritual.  And I do not enjoy, and in general have little appreciation for, "spiritual writing". Yet I absolutely appreciate Fr Richard Rohr, his writing, his outlook on life, his daily posts from the Center for Action and Contemplation. It's because I identify with the Christianity of Fr Rohr's place in life as a Franciscan. Where life's focus is not personal piety, but proactive love for neighbor.  And being an Episcopalian fits me well, specifically because of our Baptismal Covenant wit...

  He doesn't know it, nor does he even know that I exist, but Bart Ehrman is my favorite Bible scholar, and one of my favorite thinkers in general. I have, and renew yearly, a subscription to his blog, which now and then I bring up on my computer screen to read a few posts. Not as often as I might enjoy if I did it more frequently, but now and then.  Most recently, his blogposts about Matthew, but also, last evening, his musing about his daily practice of meditation, which in this case was self-reflection about what it means to be himself.  Because I myself do this sort of masochistic torment, I found reading his approach to it, and the responses of numerous blog members, uncommonly self-identifying, self-related. What is it like to be me, and what about when I am gone and all that I am, which is only possible because of my physical human composition, all this will no longer Be, all that I AM dissipates? Seems a shame, like such a waste. I have all this stuff that I know,...

  Let it snow, and it snowed, and it snowed, and it stuck. Temperature outside is 24°F, no way I'm opening the door to stick my head out or take a deep breath of the frigid air, BTDT my Navy years earlier in my life.  On the concrete walkway outside our front door here at 7H, the snowdrift is easily two inches thick, and it'll be crusty and dangerous, not safe to walk on. Before bedtime last evening I went out there to snap a pic of the snow-covered garden park that's our front yard here at Harbour Village. It's Christmas card spectacular. Linda said the city announced they'd be out salting the streets. We lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they salted the streets with salt mined, as I was told at the Time, from under the city of Detroit. And then there'd be blocks-long lines of cars waiting to drive through the carwash to take the salt off, especially the underbody. Yet, every car older than a couple years was rusted out from driving on the salted streets duri...

  Copy and pasted below is this morning's meditation from Fr Richard Rohr's center for action and contemplation. With the week's theme of "Integrating the Negative," today's post is "family related," which somewhat escapes me because the writer's family situation is obviously quite different from mine; though I have no illusions that I'm considered wise by my family of beloved ones who think they know me best!  But I do apply it to life in general in that over the course of my life there have been many who called me "wise," though, again, I know otherwise, and so did they as they got to know me better.  And if they see me as "good," I know better than that as well, fully understanding Jesus' comment to the man who called him "good," "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone."  But to call myself back on course, what I get out of today's meditation is its wisdom of facing, living int...

We're in the Epiphany Season for another few weeks, through February. It's a Time to be on the lookout for epiphanies in our Sunday Bible readings, to my mind, especially the gospel lessons. So, here's the gospel for next Sunday, January 26: Luke 4:14-21 Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And ...