Now is after church, church is over and folks are at lunch. Our gospel this morning was from John 1, John the Baptist acclaiming Jesus as Lamb of God, Messiah the Christ, the day after the baptism scenario. John says "ide! (idou), which means "BEHOLD! the Lamb of God". And again the day after that. Well, Gospel John reports John the Baptist saying that. It's Gospel John's way of having John the Baptist himself dismiss any claim that John the Baptist's followers and later generations might have accorded John the Baptist of being Christ, the Messiah and moving on into Christian Heilsgeschichte, holy history, with Jesus the Messiah of the Jesus Movement, of which we are members today over two thousand years later. This will not be understood outside the Episcopal Church, but notwithstanding the most tempting menu offered at Tap Room, StAndrews, Sunday afternoon begins with a martini (formula to follow), an incomparably delicious bit of venison brisket,...

The scaffolding has been taken down on the park side that faces downtown StAndrews. Scaffolding is still up on the Bay side, where hurricane repair work is yet to be done. We're in no hurry, although it will be nice when squirrels and other animals cannot come up onto our porch; and also when we no longer have to lock the sliding doors as security against possible intruders. Also, the sky is blocked, it will be great to use my new Xmas telescope for moon and star gazing. The five years since I gave away the telescope I'd had since 1964, I missed being able to look at the moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and especially Saturn, but we were moving from a 13-room house into a three room condo apartment, and nearly everything had to go. Meantime, the Bay side scaffolding makes for interesting snapshots as well as geometric patterns.  From an online magazine "the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in northeast Indiana has received the first Duesenberg passenger car sold to the p...

Total fog out, fog and 70°, it's the season and welcome, glad and happy here. This time last year was hurrication exile in Walton County, which is unhome. Bay County is home, StAndrewsBay is home, looking out on the foggy white Bay is home. Indeed is not all nor even the main, but one reason I no longer live in Harrisburg, 44° at the moment. No cat 5 hurricanes in Pennsylvania though. WashDC and Northern Virginia. Places near the heart. Do you remember ... Trying to pick back up on Hebrew, this time with a book. And my practice with Exodus 3 and Genesis 1. Besides an imbecile IQ, my problem with Hebrew is that being able to sound the letters through to make a word is more difficult when the Hebrew has no vowel markings, then not knowing what the word means anyway, so have to go to an interlinear or look at the picture in an ad on Haaretz. A related problem with English pronunciation, works better if you speak the language and already know a word and in its context in order to...

Sure enough, it's fog season, time is after seven o'clock and the fog is retreating, maybe as the air is warmed by the sun, but still out there. From 7H porch, looking across StAndrewsBay, past Davis Point and onward into the whiteness.  Our bible story for this coming Sunday is John's account of the baptism event in which he, John, skirts any mention of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. So, if John was our only canonized gospel, it would be arguable at best. Gospel John slides by the baptism to the next day and the next, when, both days, John the Baptist sees Jesus walking by and remarks to his disciples, "Behold the Lamb of God", which sets one element of Gospel John's agenda in which Jesus is crucified on the day of preparation for the Passover, when the lambs were slaughtered for the feast, thus becoming the Lamb of God. John's gospel is far different to the Synoptics in almost every way and of the four, at least to me, Gospel John has the...

In my email this morning is a notice that calls to mind an awareness that we live into and through a season and then all of a sudden we realize it's history, part of our past: With sadness, we report that former Interim Rector of Holy Nativity, the Rev. Arnold Bush, died on January 10, 2020.  Arnold arrived as Interim Rector in January 2003 and brought relief, smiles, happy faces, happiness itself, the happiness that is the experience of love, back into our parish. As nearly all parishes do at some time in life, ours had been going through a rough period that those of us who were there and cannot forget, or worse, worst, will not forget, a time we call The Troubles. From April 2000 until January 2003, Linda and I had been away at Grace Church PCB where I was Interim Rector for awhile, and then at St Andrew's Episcopal, returning home to Holy Nativity on Arnold's first Sunday. Looking at the calendar and reconstructing events, it would have been Sunday, January 19, ...

What to say, write, this morning, it's 5:04 and I've been up an hour. Evidently (what's the evidence? a full cup of cold coffee sitting under the brewer spout), I brewed my cup of coffee unintentionally, pushing the button by accident last night, so it was cold and didn't well melt the square of wake-up chocolate. Why not brew a fresh cup? because the machine sounds loud in the utter silence of predawn, and I didn't want to wake Linda, who's still asleep. Things have changed for me in the past thirty or forty years, and I no longer enjoy getting up at four o'clock in the morning to begin my new day. Busy morning ahead, or I'd have my eye on a nap. So reading, what? BBC news online, why? because it's not Fox or CNN. News often not Of General Interest, but there it is. Rebels in the Royal Family. Canada PM raging about Iran mistakenly shooting down the airliner (in 1988 the American guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air passenger...

In This Way Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on Sunday, January 12, 2020, The Baptism of Christ. The Rev Tom Weller. Text: Matthew 3:15. Matthew 3:13-17 Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “ Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness .” Then John consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were  opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” ++++++++++++++++++++ “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us In This Way to fulfill all righteousness.” Did you know that those are Jesus’ first words to us? Did you know that every word in the Bible is intentional? And the v...