Not cold out here this morning, pleasantly cool. But that slightest breeze chills the neck, so inside to get the scarf Tass made that meant so much  that freezing predawn in Cleveland,  getting on the trolley and riding over to either +time or nothing forevermore. Much better, and a blanket over lap and legs. On the scrolldown blogger menu there’s a Stats item that, click, goes to a screen showing, among other things, how many pageviews the blog got. Today, yesterday, pageviews total to date. Usually runs about 130 or so a day, sometimes several hundred, 4,603 pageviews last month, Why? I don’t understand, though a particular day’s title may cause a jump. Something over a thousand postings so far, 1,033 on +Time to be exact plus whatever was on CaringBridge up to the day we left Cleveland, something over a hundred thousand viewings so far: 103,468. Why anyone would read my nonsense I don’t understand except some are observing my state, slide into senility as mind and bod...

Another Bus to Heaven This is a great time of year, either usually or maybe it’s just this year, a few days of autumn like Navy years in Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania. All that’s missing is red, yellow and orange leaves. And clouds threatening snow.  Our first snow in Rhode Island (1957) was December, but in Ann Arbor (1962) it was October -- white ground, black trees, gray sky from mid October to mid May and that’s no joke. Snow, I can love it or list it, if you’ve shoveled one driveway you’ve shoveled them all. But Kristen hasn’t seen snow and she’s turning 21 in two months. I told her to choose Michigan for college, or Maine, but her heart was set on Emory, a junior and still no snow in Atlanta. One of those kooks who has several books going at once, current favorite is Ebert’s Life Itself: A Memoir but also going is a book about Jesus that’s by the bed upstairs, and here by the lift-chair we bought for mama that’s mine now, one of my several books by...

Grieving after Veterans Day In 1962 when I was twenty-six, the Navy sent me and two other young lieutenants in my field to the University of Michigan for graduate studies leading to a masters degree. We never wore the uniform to class, and so at university I melded into the general population and watched other students agonizing over where they were going to develop careers, most of them yearning for management trainee positions at nearby Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler headquarters; and I remember not understanding, wondering why they would give their lives there when I, perhaps naively, felt such high honor in devoting my life to serving my country. To me, young and innocent, it seemed like choosing between self and others, even between greed and honor. As I completed my degree, the university invited me to stay on in a doctoral program, and the Navy likely would have approved that, but I didn’t ask, being anxious to get back into the service. This week we observed Veter...

Standing on the Promises Isaiah 65:17-25 (NRSV) For I am about to create new heavens     and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered     or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever     in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,     and its people as a delight.  I will rejoice in Jerusalem,     and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,     or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it     an infant that lives but a few days,     or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,     and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them;     they shall plant v...

... to be Ignorant “It pays to be ignorant, to be dense, to be dumb, to be ignorant. It pays to be ignorant just like me.” Humor changes but ignorance reigns eternally supreme, ignorance and folly. Episodes are available online of “It Pays To Be Ignorant” - an evening radio show of the nineteen-forties to fifties. The vaudeville style humor was a favorite, lying on the living room floor before the tall radio  that was then as much the centerpiece of family life as the television set is today. It does pay to be ignorant, witness our heroes in Congress, which God help us says even more about our ignorance than his/theirs. Ignorance is unsatisfying though, so I try to keep it at bay at least in areas that interest me, including noticing what people think who differ greatly from me. I have a friend whose politics could hardly be farther out from mine, but who is sharper, quicker and wittier than I, and in whom I appreciate that everyone who differs from me is not a d...

Resurrection: To Die For I love the new pope, alone of all popes I have watched, Francis could be the Lord’s first step toward Christian reconciliation and unity in our time. He’s a man, a Jesuit, a real man, nothing phony and he kisses up to nobody including pompous tradition. I loved the picture this week of the pope clowning around wearing a red nose with a newlywed couple, the bride also wearing a red clown nose; that couple are in volunteer ministry that brings clown therapy to sick children. And I loved the television coverage of the little boy who wandered up on stage during the pope’s sermon, hugged Francis around the legs, was patted on the head, then climbed up in the pope’s chair and sat there while Francis spoke to the crowd. ... forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.  +++   +++   +++ In this morning’s gospel Jesus gives us an opportunity to ask what Christianity teaches about the afterlife, resurrection after death, indeed, the ...

Nobody needs my football comments this morning. The blog isn’t for nobody though, so who cares. OSU are whining they aren't #2, but with an off week they can stuff it.  They can stuff it anyway.  Persons of interest -- OSU: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan Tide: Mississippi State, Tennessee Chattanooga, Auburn FSU: Syracuse, Idaho, Florida BLUE: Northwestern, Iowa, OSU SCar: UF, Coastal Carolina, Clemson Gators 4-5: SCar, Ga Southern 5-4, FSU Looking ahead to the ... nevermind. Quarter century since UF lost to Vanderbilt: do the Gators have the worst team in 25 years? Will 2013 be the Gators worst season in memory is losing its status as a rhetorical question. Could end up 4-8 unless UF squeaks out a win over the Eagles, who even lost to the Samford Bulldogs. More depressing than the Gator season at the moment is the outlook for Thanksgiving weekend football: a good time to head for the hills or for another silent directed Ignatian retreat....