Death of God With apology to self (to self because I meander this for myself as part of contemplating where the hell I am in life, not for any reader) for the typical wandering that ensues, I press “PUBLISH” anyway.  Today is “Holy Saturday” of the so-named “Holy Triduum” of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday that precedes Easter Day, the Day of the Resurrection. To me, HS is an interesting day to contemplate that theologians in their [our] smoky mist of lofty haze actually know nothing. What they [ we , because “theology” means “discussion about God, a word about God, study of God” and we become theologians ourselves when we -- deign or dare -- to enter the discussion whether it’s with a spouse, as Linda and I sometimes do, or in Sunday School class or Tuesday morning Bible study ] do (sorry about the lost antecedent, but that’s why I added the bold brackets) is speculate, argue, debate, agree, and mostly disagree. I say “disagree” because those who “do the...

Spring Break in Jerusalem Today is Good Friday. The Christian world celebrates -- or rather honors, observes -- the trial, condemnation, crucifixion and death of a man called Jesus of Nazareth during the days of the Roman Empire. A Galilean Jew who had come down to Jerusalem in Judea for the Passover festival, he apparently had crossed both the Judean authorities in the Temple and the higher Roman authorities by having attention drawn to himself as too visible, too outspoken during the festival season. It was dangerous, not a safe time to stand out in the crowd. Thousands of outsider visitors were in town for the annual celebration, and all the authorities, civil and religious, were on edge because there was always trouble of some sort from the crowds. Not from residents. Jerusalem itself, the year-rounders, were generally comfortably settled into life as usual under calm Roman rule. But passions of nationalistic fervor ran high among the crowd “returned home to the Jewish fa...

I love life spontaneous. I like living life on the spur of the moment. While I studiously avoid starting a paragraph, much less an article, in the first person singular, just this once I'll do it as a symbol of spontaneity. Why do I avoid “I”? Because it marks one as self-centered and one’s conversation and writing as egotistical, and one's being as boring . (Humpty Dumpty would say, “yes, one, but not two, two can do it”. But HD is correct if for no other reason than that two would begin with we not one ). But as I was saying, why not begin with “I”? "I" reminds me of the insufferably egotistical author who, having bored an acquaintance to death for half an hour at a cocktail party, said to his object, “But enough about me, I’m tired of talking about me, let’s talk about you, I want to hear about you. What did you think of my latest book?” That’s where the “I word” takes me. But I do love life spontaneous. Fairly different, Linda likes everything planned, orga...

 All Things New It isn’t possible for Holy Week to become real for me until, after the horrific Palm Sunday gospel, for which no forgiveness should be pronounced except from the Cross, I watch Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ . It takes me to Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives right through to the Place of the Skull. The movie is excessive only in the vicious, bloody beating, the time focused on it, the utter savagery of man’s hatred of man.  But when it came out nearly a dozen years ago, Pope John Paul II viewed it and said, “It happened just that way.” I believe so, yes.  Just that way. Oh my God. Artist’s license is taken in the film story, yes, but neither more nor less than the four evangelists take in their presentation of the gospels. John’s gospel has intricate detail of what Jesus said, moves the events back a day so that Jesus, proclaimed as the Lamb of God at the beginning of John's gospel, dies the day before Passover, ...

Whoever knows me knows a strange person (I'm leaving the "very" out). Juxtaposed, whoever knows not a strange person knows not me. Not to say "weird" but strange. Eccentric may be more apt, my homiletics professor at Gettysburg told me, "You have an eccentric preaching style, but it seems to work for you, so OK" so OK, it's more than style, sadly, it's my  being . Thunderstorm and here I lie sitting up in bed drinking a mug of coffee, in a beloved Papa mug which I won't allow downstairs lest something happen to it. From one of Linda's keurigcups, the coffee is a bit weak because I forgot to add a spoon of crystals from the Luzianne jar that's here by the upstairs coffeemaker just for this moment. But, OK. What does the mind do. The door is open, and I'm enjoying the vigorous thunderstorm. Not violent, but vigorous. It'll be good for the yard, eh? What does the mind do? It uses the eyes to stare at the digital clock: 3:33. ...

The Heart of America Although nothing should surprise one in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, it nevertheless surprised me to read this morning of the shooter at the Jewish Center, that the KKK and its pathetic anti-semitism are alive and well in America. A contemptible, hate-filled 70-something shouting “Heil Hitler” and gunning down three people, including a boy and his grandfather, and a woman. Not in the South, either: Kansas City, the heart of America. In the South we have our own detestable bigots breathing hate grounded in religious-based certitude.  According to the media, the Reverend Adam Hamilton of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, a suburb of Kansas City, said the two male victims were members of his church -- a mild irony. An irony that reminds, some weeks ago a group of Syrian rebels raided a hospital, dragged a patient out and cut off his head, only to discover that he was one of their soldiers. Nothing is as certain as...

Another lovely spring morning, we slept with the door open. 65F outside and 84%, fair and not foggy, the flashing light directly across the Bay from Calhoun Avenue is clear. Facebook is not one of my things, but most days while posting a link to my nonsense I scroll down six inches or so to see what’s going on beyond my daze. There yesterday, a picture of John’s boat at Shell Island, with a note “it’s that time again” but beneath it a note from a cousin, “not in Montana,” so I check her weather: 23F at the moment. April is often our best month, spring weather with azaleas and dogwood in  bloom, citrus casting their fragrance all around. Azaleas are done for the season and the dogwood has gone from white flowers to full green leaves, but lemon and grapefruit trees are aromatic. There’s one citrus tree way down front that has never bloomed or given fruit, and it’s in line of sight between the kitchen window and the Bay, I may cut it down this year, if it doesn’t have a bird’s n...