Every once in a while

Every once in a while I need to tell new readers why this is called "Under the Castor Oil Tree".

I love the biblical book of Jonah!

I am Jonah!

Jonah was called to go to Nineveh but got on a boat going the other way.

Then he was thrown overboard during a storm God has caused because he wanted Jonah to go the other way.

And he was swallowed by a whale and spit up on the shore of Nineveh!

I am like Jonah. I had no intention of being a priest in the Episcopal Church. I wanted to get a Ph.D. in American Literature and teach students in a small liberal arts college in the Mid-Atlantic states about the great books of our nation.

But my whale was a Rockafellow  Fellowship to study Theology that two of my favorite college professors convinced me to interview for.

Two years at Harvard Divinity School for free.

After that I was a TV cameraman and a social worker until I went to Virginia Theological Seminary and got ordained.

I was carried to my "Nineveh".

And like Jonah, I sit under a castor oil tree and ponder what God has done.

I ponder and ponder--as in this blog--and come to no conclusion.

Just like Jonah.