a noise and a rattling

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The death of our beloved Beverly McDaniel is a perfectly natural but most sorrowful Time in our human life cycle. We met Beverly soon after arriving in the diocese as new members of the clergy family the summer of 1984. My best recall is meeting Beverly at the February 1985 diocesan convention in Mobile. At one event Linda and I were seated at a table with several Holy Nativity folks, and I made instant and lifelong thereafter friends with Beverly, who was sitting next to me. She was HNES Head of School at the Time, and I worked with her during the admission of my grandson Ray Kelly, and my Kristen, as students. Ray started in third grade, Kristen started in K3 and graduated eighth grade eleven years later. We are a Holy Nativity family. 

After retiring from Trinity, Apalachicola late in 1998, we came home to Panama City and Holy Nativity Episcopal Church where we had been members since its founding in 1955. Soon after coming back, I reckon it was early 1999, I got involved with Bill Lloyd in renovating the Cove School building for Holy Nativity Episcopal School, and with the Holy Nativity School Foundation board of directors. I became a member of the school board, was vice president for several terms over the next decade and worked closely with Beverly as friend, confidant, and co-conspirator all those years - - including through what we called "The Troubles" and thereafter as a member of the school staff and faculty, chaplain and religion teacher. For me, those were extraordinary years, vocationally my best years, the most rewarding and enjoyable years of my life, working closely with Beverly as Head of School all that Time. I will say that Beverly's treatment of "The Troubles" was forgive and move on, so very admirably different from my own long simmering unforgetfulness. 

Beverly was an extraordinary person, absolutely extraordinary. To say "she will be missed" is such a profound understatement that I hesitate to put it that way. I am blessed to have shared life and HNES with her, and years later working together on staff at Holy Nativity Episcopal Church.

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Life goes on, and at my age I need to keep moving and make the most of it, so this morning I'm thinking to blog about another thing or two.

The host and hostesses of clergy luncheons that I've enjoyed twice in recent memory, in Byrne Hall at St Andrew's Episcopal Church, served inconceivably spectacular rare beef tenderloin, along with scalloped potatoes and green asparagus. I was intrigued and impressed and asked about their preparation, especially of the beef. On both occasions their answer was sous vide, which I'd never heard of, and they said "it's a water bath" which confounded me.

More recently I've been watching online cooking shows about sous vide cooking, and've become so interested that I ordered a sous vide cooker. About $65, it's an electric plug-in device about the size of a long old fashioned D battery flashlight. It stands upright in a pot of water, that the device heats to precise temperature and circulates for precise or not so precise timing, to cook all kinds of food. As a beef and lamb enthusiast, those are my two main enthusiasms, though for an uncostly first run, Saturday afternoon I cooked two large chicken breats sous vide. We seasoned them, put them in the plastic bag, sealed it, heated water in a large pot to 150° Fahrenheit, and let the sous vide cooker go for two hours. The result was the most tender, beautifully cooked chicken breasts we've ever tasted. I'm sold and enthusiastic, have been scrolling and watching online demonstrations of sous vide cooking, and my next undertaking is to be a round roast - - demonstrated to cook to the red or pink rareness and mouthwatering tenderness of prime rib; then a leg of lamb. I'll cook the round roast 130°F for twenty-four hours, and I'm not quite settled yet on my leg of lamb specs.

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Finally, something Bible. Here's our Old Testament story for next Sunday, Lent 5:

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise and a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

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The prophet's experience of the scene of what may have been a great battle from long ago, which God reimaged as the house of Israel, "Ezekiel and the Dry Bones" Is a wonderfully vivid story for probing in a small Bible study group such as adult Sunday school or mid-week Bible study; and over my years as a parish priest I worked up more than one decent sermon out of it. About death and being remembered to life, It's a good selection for Lent as we head on toward Palm Sunday the Sunday of the Passion of Christ, Holy Week, the Paschal Triduum, and Easter. 

And it brings to mind this evening that my longstanding practice for Lent has been to get out and watch again my copy of Mel Gibson's masterpiece 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ," an emotionally overwhelming experience again every Time.

For life and loved ones,

RSF&PTL

T90