Yesterday afternoon, Linda brought me this blogpost on The Almost Daily eMo from the Geranium Farm by Barbara Crafton. An extremely popular, much admired, and vigorously thinking Episcopal priest, Barbara's retired now, her husband Q died, and she's living in Colorado, where her daughter lives.  I think this post is inspired, almost oracle, as is everything I've read that Barbara writes. She's extraordinary, a prophet. My mind doesn't go where hers goes, I can't write as she writes, her spirituality and perceptions are far beyond mine. But that doesn't matter. If I could choose, I might rather be where she is spiritually and faith-wise than where I am or am not; but as I say, no matter, we're as different in our Beings as we are in DNA and fingerprints. Barbara is an example of why it's a shame the Church delayed ordaining women as priests for so many centuries, an example of what the Church missed in excluding half of humanity. Of how blessed we are...

  Chocolate, all kinds of it, and all good, no specific number one pick - in my all Time favorite class at UnivFlorida in the middle 1950s, my German professor spoke of "die wundervollen schokolade" - and yes, it's wonderful, it's all good. This morning's morsel, two little squares with my third mug of hot & black, is 100% cocoa with some sort of nibbly bits to give it a crunch. Folks give me chocolate at Xmas and I make it last, a little most days, most commonly early mornings with hot & black to bring me to my senses. Today chocolate was later, mid-morning elegance. For early morning wakeup with coffee I did online games of two-suite spider solitaire and a couple games of easthaven solitaire, both good wakeup exercises. Churchill solitaire has been recommended to me, but you have to pay for it, which I won't do, I like free games. If I can't get it free, I take a nap, nomesane?  Other investments of Time. Several (several is three or more, two is...

  My mother was sort of my champion, standing up for me at important Times, and all my growing up years trying to boost me in my own mind. But the truth is, I am neither as bright as Mama made me out to be, nor  as dumb as I know I am . Still, if it's somewhere in between, it's toward my end of the spectrum. I've now known me nearly a dozen years longer than Mama did, although, granted, on this end it's been the declining years that I'm experiencing rather than the developing years when she saw me more closely than I was  aware of myself. Certainly, I'm no philosopher (that's my disclaimer, same idea as the gospel writers have John the Baptist disclaim being the messiah so as to have John himself clear him out of the spotlight and off the stage) any more than every one else is her/his own philosophizer, though observations come to me just as they come to anyone who gets this far in life. At eighty-six you're aware that you've lived beyond most people...

  Good morning, My plan for our combination Confirmation and Sunday School class this morning is to do a short Bible study on today's Old Testament reading, and on The Shema and its relationship to the traditional opening rite of our liturgy, then go into the BCP and topic Worship & Theology. RSF&PTL Tom Exodus 3:1-15 Moses at the Burning Bush 3 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the ...

  Saturday morning begins with apologies for neglecting to turn our phones back on when, having slept in unusually late, we woke up at six-thirty. The bed was warm and snuggly, and we had no clue family and friends would be trying urgently to contact us and finally panic, and neighbors were sent, and Kristen came and let herself in see if we were okay. It made us feel bad, guilty, and loved. We've recoded our phones to allow emergency breakthrough even after we silence them at night.  But today. As a reward of love for Kristen coming, we are spending part of her inheritance to take her out to Sunday dinner after church tomorrow,  Yesterday was quite a jerk-around, what with Ross Whitley coming in to staff the WMBB emergency broadcast during the tornado warning. When Ross says it's offshore, moving toward coming ashore across South Lagoon and North Lagoon and Magnolia Beach, I can see all that from where I'm sitting right now, except of course in yester...

  Two readings for Sunday, threatening as the dickens. The Epistle 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play." We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain as some ...

  It's a great idea to cease the stupidity of shifting the clock back and forth twice a year, leap forward an hour to Daylight Savings Time every spring and fall back an hour to Standard Time every fall. The spring leap forward turns a Sunday morning into hell, but I'm not willing to forego the yearly delight of the autumnal fall back, the stuff of heavenly genius. So my compromise idea for the perfect Time arrangement is to only cease half of it: stop the agony of springing forward every March, but keep on keeping on with falling back an hour every November for that delicious extra hour of sleep that I so look forward to on a chilly Sunday morning once a year. This is my concept, and the mathematicians, philosophers and politicians can work it out.  News this morning: Russia steps up bombardment of Ukraine. Some scholarly columnist has it right: if Putin wins Ukraine he will continue moving west. Time to put a stop to him. Pay now, or pay later. Choose. Either way it won...