Quite an afternoon yesterday with the severe storm line driving through and a tornado or waterspout moving from about Hathaway Bridge down StAndrewsBay passed us here and into downtown Panama City, Harrison Avenue area. Hurriedly as Ross Whitley said it was coming ashore, we moved plants and furniture from 7H porch into the adjacent living room and bedroom to keep from having thrown through sliding glass doors. We did not see its rotation, only no visibility rain driven by wind, but, judging by the evening news, a mess downtown. It's what's for life, Springtime season for severe weather preparatory to hurricane season June through November. I would say the weather definitely seems to be changing, whether short term or longer IDK.  Clear and calm and then another violent display of lightning moved through at bedtime. Meanwhile the plague. I appreciated the article linked below. The world situation is fraught with uncertainty of course. Indications or...

Our responsive psalm for next Sunday, Easter 3A, 26 October 2020, is Psalm 116 verses 1-3, 10-17. Why the lectionary framers omit verses 4-9 I cannot tell, but their reasons are not always clear for what they do. What bothers me about Psalm 116 is verse 13, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his servants" יָקָר, בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה--    הַמָּוְתָה, לַחֲסִידָיו. where for  יְהוָה  y'Vah the reader would read adonai or maybe haShem, in English, Lord. So, our death is precious in the Lord's sight.  An odd expression, it brings one up short.  I prefer the rendition in the Good News Bible, "How painful it is to the Lord when one of his people dies!" although when I think of it, the theology of it would not seem to confirm our modern Christian view of what happens to us at death, "this day you will be with me in paradise" does it, rather that at death we are lost to the Lord, unless it means to say that the Lord is pained along wit...

Yes, a promised study of some sort, Bible or amateur theology, or other, but if your mind ever picked up and latched onto a song that wouldn't go away, you know how this is. On WMBB Channel 13 this morning there was the trivia question, something like Which of the following art critics coined the term Impressionism? and listed four names. Well, who knows? Coming back a few minutes later, the answer was something Leroy.  Leroy. Leroy? The only Leroy I know is Bad, Bad Leroy  Brown, baddest man in the whole dxxx town.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPRm5UMe1.A Whoever remembers Jim Croce** and his songs remembers the day he died. A solid Jim Croce fan (he must have been every teenagers' superstar at the moment), our daughter Malinda was 15, in high school in Columbus, Ohio, where we were living at the time. See, I'm relating this because it's one of our family memories of living with a teenage daughter. The first daughter at any event, the second daughter I...

My old Navy buddy sent me this article (scroll down). The source isn't cited**, but it's wise insight into human nature.  Its main thrust, where I realized some weeks ago that I was foolishly presuming myself, is that we humans aren't alarmed by statistics such as Covid-19 death forecasts. If vast numbers will die, it's still a minor percentage of the population, and it's Them, those who will die not us who will die, so we don't much worry about it. And, as we are now seeing, we become impatient with such as social distancing, stay at home, and out of work, pressing to end this nonsense and get back to work even if it does mean that a few more of Them may get sick and die, it's just a statistic.  Airplane crashes are only a statistic. We board an airliner for our flight, knowing this plane will not be the one that crashes. And it never occurs to me that the story in the Local News this evening will be about me. Bad news is what we read about happen...