So What Else Is New? muses journalist, author and social critic Harry Golden as he sits in his rocking chair on the front cover of his book by that title. Harry Golden, who styled himself "The Carolina Israelite" and published a newspaper by that name, taught me to love books whose chapters are individual stories, essays, articles. I have, or had , I think I’ve given them to Joe, and one to Kristen when she was studying Judaism in America, just about every single Harry Golden book. Maybe they’re in Joe’s room on the bookshelf that we try to keep loaded with titles we think he may enjoy; he likes to read when he’s here during his December and July visits.  So what else is new? Getting used to the idea of death, for one thing. When we're young, that old or older people die seems perfectly natural to us. When you get there, their dying around you brings grief, sometimes more than might have been expected, and one may find that it's not only because of the death of ...

A widely scoffed bit of writing is the section of the Gospel according to John that scholars commonly call “the farewell discourse.” Starting in chapter 13 and going all the way through chapter 17, the evangelist quotes a long speech (well, it isn’t entirely a speech, is it, there are sections where the disciples ask questions or make comments and Jesus responds) that Jesus gives to his disciples as his way of telling them that he is leaving. He will be going to the Father. They don’t need to grieve; he will not leave them alone and desolate, even will continue to be with them himself. As they need guidance on how to live after he is gone, he gives them a “New Commandment,” love one another. The discourse moves through the Last Supper, he concludes by praying to the Father for his disciples, and off they go out across the valley to the garden. Basically, the scoffing is set in a question. How does the evangelist know what Jesus said so precisely as to quote him verbatim at such g...

That was insane. And a rarity that surfacing to near consciousness I sank back into the same scenario several times. Nobody is interested in somebody else’s dreams, but this my blog, isn’t it. I don’t know what my age was, but recalled into the Navy yet one more time again. Was it an anxiety dream? I wondered that every time I “surfaced.” Not a ship this time, an office in, like a bombed-out warehouse full of people milling around thousands of desks piled high with documents. I couldn’t tell my rank, which over the years has differed from such dream to such dream. Seems like I showed up with three stripes, was handed a new coat with four stripes, then had to take it off because we were not permitted to wear the uniform lest someone realize we were military. So there I was in black pants and a blindingly white shirt with black tie and everybody else dressed like slobs, so they knew anyway. My boss was Captain Hurt, whom I knew long years ago. He had worked for Admiral Rickover. My ass...

What a dumb thing. Wakened from sleep at three-twenty-something Monday morning by a dream discussing with some obviously bored person, reasons the Gospel of Peter was excluded from the New Testament canon of Scripture. Rather have had the sleep. Better, to have continued the preceding dream of a car in the garage out back, ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω, foolishness of an old man.  A passion narrative based, like the canonical gospels, on oral traditions, and said to date from the mid-first century, the Gospel of Peter is a fragment. Or perhaps this was the entirety of it, who knows: could its opening and closing be literary devices? Unlike the canonical gospels, which are anonymous (except see the secondary ending of John 21:24 ) it directly claims Simon Peter authorship -- which would explain its early acceptance by some. After early acceptance, why would the Gospel of Peter eventually have been excluded from the canon? One reason could be because a criterion for inclusion may have...

To stave off hunger, and healthier than creamer and sweetener -- at least that was what I got from it watching without my hearing aids -- a couple of days ago, Dr. Oz recommended whisking a spoon of butter in hot coffee. Sounded gross, but the women on his show liked it, so I have tried it, this is the second morning. Puts a froth on top like melted whipped cream, hardly affects the flavor, and softens the black dark roast Italian coffee hitting my stomach so early in the morning. Dr. Oz said a tablespoon, but I’m doing a teaspoon.  Try it, Sam I Am, just plop the butter in and twirl the whisk. Fifth Sunday of Easter and our Scripture for this morning is the best. Acts 7, Luke the author tells about the horrid stoning of Stephen at the hands of those who are wickedly certain, and introduces Saul, who never suspects what the Lord has in mind for his life as St. Paul. In response, a bit from Psalm 31. Then a beautiful passage from First Peter. Finally, our gospel readin...

Not quite full, the moon is large enough, close enough and high enough in the sky over St. Andrews Bay and my front yard to lighten the path from porch door down steps to the newspaper and return. The lawn looks beautiful in the moonlight. By day it’s all weeds and clover and spiders and fire-ants like my certitudinous soul, but the lawn service folks keep it trimmed and neat, truth concealed. Those bright red-orange lilies I’ve been after with the string trimmer won’t give up: we may just have to watch them do their thing again. They are lovely but spread thick and out of control, they block the sprinkler system from doing its thing, they enable horrendous growth of tall weeds throughout them. With lilies that blaze like the fires of Hell, Mother Nature is insidious, of this I am certain. My contempt for certainties constantly puts ill at ease my certainty that certainty is the ultimate evil, the greatest of all sins. In Sudan a judge condemns to death by hanging, for a...

If anyone asked me, “Could life get any better than this?” I might have to answer, “Don’t think so.” Middle of May and sixty something Fahrenheit. 46% humidity at this sit-down with a glass of cabernet from the Black Box I didn’t take to church after all. On my upstairs front screen porch looking out at clear sky, light breeze, blue Bay. Sailboat under sail across the Bay. Why do I always capitalize Bay? Because of all bays on earth, this Bay is sacred, holy. St. Andrews Bay.  Thursday five o’clock in the afternoon, taking note of life. My house is on the mostly quiet dead end of W. Beach Drive that gets hardly any traffic. When my parents first bought the house back into the family in 1962, the road down front was not paved and every car that buzzed by raised a cloud of dust that kept both porches covered with dirt. Inside too, because it was before air conditioning and the windows were open. I didn’t want the street paved, but my parents did and they and the neighbors pressed...