Luke 1:26-44, 56 The Birth of Jesus Foretold 26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor  with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him  Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High wil...

From Apple News, I just read this that they linked from The Atlantic. I think all of us have grown carelessly blasé about covid. Human nature, and after two solid years of pandemic we're damn sick and tired of it, and increasingly covid cases are light, but people are still dying across America.  We went out to PCB shopping yesterday and but for some employees, I was about the only person wearing a mask in the four stores we visited, Fresh Market, The Carousel, Bed Bath & Beyond, and World Market. Did not wear a mask when we went for noon dinner at Back Porch - - Linda had the fish and chips platter, I had a dozen oysters raw half-shell and the fried oyster platter. Enjoyed very much, platters piled heaping high with the meal, half of it brought home for dinner today, first genuine fresh cut French fried potatoes I've seen in many years, the cole slaw is unusual and quite good - - but we were about the only people in there, so I didn't feel it was covid risky. Last ti...

This regular morning view from 7H may be my most assuring outlook on life, another new day from the place I love to live, where I need nothing, not even the certainty of another one tomorrow, just the moment.  Now and then, after church over the years, someone going out the door has taken my hand and told me, "Thank you for that sermon, I know you didn't intend it, but it was directly to me." Of course, it wasn't so in my mind when I conceived, wrote and preached it, but we never know what someone else may hear in what we say. Such is certainly the case with Matthew the evangelist as he flips through his LXX Bible spotting messianic prophecies and writing stories about Jesus from tidbits that the original prophets never imagined would so delight generations to come.  Such also was the case for me as I read Father Rohr's meditation this morning, a phrase, a sentence, a bit speaking to me in ways too personal to say and none of your business anyway, but that move ...

Still reading and liking "The Storm of Steel", Ernst Jünger's intense autobiographical diary of his years early as an ordinary soldier, then quickly to junior officer during the Great War. This is the original 1929 English translation that smooths over nothing, and I might correct that a better word than liking would be appreciating. Intense is right though, so much so that I read a chapter then lay it down for some hours or days.  A fast reader, for some weeks evening hours autumn 1968 while a student at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, I took the Evelyn Wood fast reading course that was strongly recommended for officers because of the overwhelming reading workload required of us. So, I can read a very fast skimming or scanning, buzzing down page after page that is still well comprehended, and I generally do that with books and magazine articles; but Jünger is so dense and so very descriptive that he draws me into every scene with him and I find myself inv...

  Good morning, because this handout is long, I decided to publish and distribute it early so that any class members, in person or online, who prefer to can glance through it ahead of time.  Our Advent topic (for Sunday School tomorrow morning) is the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth, and if you will kindly let me open with a few minutes of introduction before any questions, comments, or discussion, I’ll say a number of things that to you may seem as disorganized as they are in my mind! First, that Christianity is a religion of stories, holy stories; and/but that we are sensible, observant, reasoning people, we are not a literalist, inerrantist church. For example, the Genesis chapter one 7-day creation story is one of our holy stories: a purpose of it is to show how central we are to God's mind, how much God loves us; another purpose, post-exile, is to put down Canaanite polytheism that spread among Israelites left behind during the Babylonian Exile. Very few Episcopali...

You get your news from where you trust, even though your sources are bonkers. I'll do the same, my sources being apolitical and reliable, no fake news or untrue facts. Seriously leaning toward throwing in my towel with Birds Aren't Real and am counting on them to stand members for office in the 2022 midterms.  "... reports already suggest that large indoor gatherings of fully vaccinated people can become super-spreader events in the age of Omicron" says an article "The Pandemic of the Vaccinated Is Here" that I just read. Get your booster, reorder facemasks, and stock in for upcoming shortages. Spam. A sensible role model for these Times, Stingo carried three cases of Spam up stairs on his back as he moved into his pink room in a Brooklyn boardinghouse in 1947.  Driving over to Pensacola week after next. While Kristen's car goes to the Volvo dealer way out Garden for a safety recall, my brother is taking us to a restaurant on Cervantes for pumpkin-spiced...

It cut off this morning in mid-sentence, but sometimes it's possible to livestream Oyster Radio into 7H via my laptop. Time was when everyone in Franklin County turned on Oyster Radio early morning to find out whether the Bay was open (for oystering), but I guess those days are gone? If you don't know Oyster Radio you miss a lot, which is your prob not mine. We can both enjoy pictures pinched off their website now and then though.   With the possible exception of some moments tucked away in far memories of my mind, if Father Time were to appear in front of me (the front door to 7H is closed and locked, but just as with Father Christmas in Narnia, locks and bolts make no difference to Father Time) - - this very moment, offering me a trip to another place in Time, it'd have to be summer of 1984, our arriving in Apalachicola to be their new priest at Trinity Church. If this were Narnia, that could happen, and stay there that fourteen years all over again, and return here to 7H...