Weather should be cooler out here on Alfred’s Porch this morning, October 18th, but warm and humid it is. An early morning email from Mary titled Year of Your Birth lets you type in the year you were born and watch a narrative of some things that happened that year. I did mine, 1935. Then tried Alfred’s, 1899, which wouldn’t take, but I pursued it online anyway and found interesting things.  Adam Opel AG first offered automobiles for sale. In the nineteenth century Adam Opel made sewing machines, then added bicycles, the high wheeler  penny-farthing , a popular interesting contraption that could be quite deadly. Their first automobile was the Opel Lutzmann In 1899 super-cyclone Mahina (category 5) struck Bathurst Bay, Australia with a reported but arguable storm surge of 48 feet. Apparently category 5 cyclones only occur in that part of the world every 200 to 300 years. Headquartered in Russelsheim, Germany, Adam Opel AG was later acquired by General Motors. Ou...

Today is special. Well, just this instant got more special. Still dark outside. Three black & whites zipped by the house and screeching up down front, cops jump out and with flashlights surround and inspecting a vehicle in the park area down front at the foot of Calhoun Avenue on the Bay. So dark I had no idea that car was there, but it’s not all that unusual even though the sign says no parking after dark. People out of car now, male and female voice laughing, giggling. Guess they got caught. At what? Whatever. Honey, does yo’ daddy know where you at? One cop car leaves. Lots of talking. Third B&W returns. Loud but not angry conversation. If I had my ears in I could understand what they’re saying, the back and forth. But I don’t need to hear it, do I. Woops, now a tow truck rolls up, one B&W moves so the tow truck can get down to the parked car.  One B&W left now. Still dark but the sky is blue black instead of jet black. Lots of early morning walkers ru...

It’s all good, opening an email from Norm with a stack of car pictures, no better way to start a day.  This morning we have 11:30 Noon Healing Eucharist with Lunch and Bible Study, lunch will be fried chicken and I thought to tell what we’re going to discuss,  but cars take precedence.  In the stack of pics, one manufacturer jumps out uniquely.  Emile Delahaye (1843-1905) was a French engineer and early car enthusiast who built his first cars in 1894 for racing.  Emile retired in poor health in 1900, but his company was continued  and in the 1930s produced incredibly beautiful streamlined classics.  Delahaye cars are most recognizable by the front wheel fender skirts that appeared in the mid-1930s.  They ceased production in 1954. Delahaye front fender skirts remind me that the 1949 bathtub Nash covered the front wheels -- that is to say, Delahaye reminds me ...

Luke 18:1-8 (NRSV) The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge 1  Then Jesus[ a ] told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”[ b ] 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Footnotes: Luke 18:1 Gk he Luke 18:5 Or...

Jeremiah and the Monkeys                     20131013 Pr23C HolyNativityEpiscopalChurch, PC, FL  The Rev Tom Weller Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 (NRSV) Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles in Babylon 1 These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ... 4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the...

Believe? Last week our Adult Sunday School class finished reading and discussing Genesis, the first nine chapters, Creation stories, Adam and Eve in the Garden, Cain and Abel, and The Great Flood. As the class wishes, we may come back to Genesis before we’re done, but for this morning the class decided to look at the Creeds. It will be something of a theological discussion, because in the Creeds we stand up and say what we believe about God. Which is what theology is, theo logos , our word about God. Starting this morning and over the next couple of weeks we will discuss our three Creeds, Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed and Athanasian Creed -- leading into that this morning by asking “how do we know what we believe?” We will ask about the primacy of Scripture in our theology, lex orandi lex credendi , the so-called “Anglican three-legged stool” of Scripture, reason and tradition attributed to Richard Hooker (16th century), perhaps a look at the Catechism and the Articles of Reli...

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are named as the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Only the Pyramid stands. For human achievement none compare in wonder to the Weather Satellite and that I can bring its marvel into my home with a wireless device called a tablet, iPad. Weather satellite. Hardly anything is more beautiful than a hurricane, and terrible, a tropical cyclone from space in different configurations, a gorgeous, gigantic white circling donut with a hole in the center, a spiral galaxy reaching out like a crab nebula, some great extraterrestrial creeping thing. And radar images. The image of Cyclone Phailin in the Bay of Bengal approaching India as a category 5 monster, sustained winds of 161, gusts to 196 and pushing a 20 foot surge, is the only one I recall seeing for which intensity, height, or temper...