Voice

 

Yesterday, Wednesday, was a taste of Hell, perhaps as a way of preparing me for the moment when St Peter pulls the lever that opens the trap door I'm standing on and drops me into The Abyss, eh?

Leaving home at seven:thirty, with a detour by the doctor's office to pick up a replacement order form, a couple hours' wait at the diagnostic center; then to Golden Corral for very late breakfast while they are clearing and shifting to lunchTime; then to another appointment from eleven:thirty to one:thirty; home for a few minutes, then at two:thirty off to a three o'clock doctor appointment that I finally got ushered in at five o'clock and finished about six:thirty; then the drive home in traffic and absolute pitch black darkness; arriving home about seven.

For a nonagenarian male and late-octogenarian female who in extreme old age need to do One Thing a day, the Hell was the length of the day capped off by driving home in the darkness. There was a song, "Life gits teejus, don't it" and we've never found it tedious, but now dangerous. Likely never again will we risk being out after dark. 

Voice of the Vanquished: feeling overwhelmed with medical appointments and conquered by Life Itself, huffing and puffing and waving the white flag.

Hoping to live to ninety? I hope you do too. You've got it coming, nomesane?

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My next and final vocational commitment, should Dr Dan's adult Sunday school class decide to take me up on it, is a one-hour-only survey of the Gospel according to Matthew, as we look forward to the First Sunday of Advent, starting Church Year A, when our Sunday gospel readings take us, snippet by snippet, haphazardly through Matthew. I could wish the Church would find a way to open Matthew to parishioners that's better than reading a few verses, maybe a single out of context pericope each Sunday so as to hurry up and finish lest someone grow impatient, or so the congregation can beat the Baptists to the cafeteria for Sunday dinner. We try to squeeze far too much into our worship hour, in the way of liturgical tradition (but We've Always Done It This Way) - - 

says one who fifty years ago was furious that the Prayer Book was changed, and even, for a while, left and went to one of the breakaway Last Surviving Remnants of the One True Church. 

I returned to the Episcopal Church when I found that my new Old group's main concern was how much they hated the Episcopal Church for changing the liturgy - - hatred wasn't part of my agenda, so I gave up and returned Home - - that was the early 1980s when my own life had changed and was changing in so many ways.  

Anyway, Matthew maybe. Significantly longer than Mark and, even copy-and-pasting most of Mark, a different message from a different author, for different reasons. 

For Life Itself,

RSF&PTL

T90