Mon Sep 8 6:39 AM

 

Full moon to waning gibbous at 99%, next full moon 29 days. Pleasant outside, a little cool, 72°F, 62% humidity, wind NNE 10 mph gusts to 19 mph, lightning in the clouds offshore to the SSE of me here on 7H porch. Going inside, as it's sneeze-Time, more likely the pollen than feeling a bit chilly.

Good hot & black though I don't take my magic mug outside on the concrete deck of the porch. The plastic measuring cup for coffee water doubles as a drinking cup if I'm going outside.

Tap the weather icon on my phone and it says thunderstorms this afternoon. September 8, still two weeks of summer left before the autumnal equinox Monday, September 22.

Yesterday September 7 was, would have been, Linda's father's birthday. 1905, Pete was born 120 years ago in Birmingham, Alabama to Dr Urban J W Peters and Mary Shaw Peters. In memories a gentle, kind man of the Old South. Shared my loving preference for Buick cars! My first Buick ride was in Scotty Fraser's mother's 1941 Buick Special sedan, a carload of grade school boys being driven somewhere, maybe to the Ritz Theatre, and the car was so much quieter, and soft-smoother riding, than our 1942 Chevrolet that I was instantly a Buick convert and it stuck lifelong!

Breakfast plan this morning: sardines. Maybe sardines and toast with a second mug of hot & black.

Yesterday's first discussion reading session about Mark and Mark's writing went okay. I'd prepared twenty sets of handouts, Linda counted thirty people around the table in the parish library. This was half again larger than expected and, based on experience, tells me there will be thirteen to seventeen at the next session, so twenty handouts will continue to be sufficient. 

The class is as much or more about the anonymous gospel writer whom we call "Mark" as it is about the red letter words of Jesus in Mark's story. Almost everything of a literary nature that one could observe about "Mark" is revealed in chapter one, and chapter one observances can be carried forward through the rest of Mark's good news story. So, we read chapter one with discussion, then read chapter two quickly, noting Mark's writing eccentricities. The gathering of thirty folks was not as feisty as my usual classes of fifteen to twenty used to be.

There was a sign-up sheet for the names and emails of those interested in receiving the information I usually send out in advance of each upcoming class session. I'm anticipating that for September 21 it will include Gospel of Mark chapters five and six, as yesterday's take-home package of handouts already included chapters three and four. Until/unless I find out different, I'll assume that folks who return for subsequent class sessions are interested enough to do a bit of reading at home as "homework" before our next meeting. 

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Incoming: Monday, September 8 as a ship glides by arriving loaded with containers from Mexico. 

RSF&PTL

T89&c