I don't wear them all the time--but when I do, I hear much better.
Why not wear them all the time?
I guess I'm in denial.
Bern told me on the porch this morning when I was blaming 'being cold' on the non-central heat of the apartment where I grew up that I was cold because I'm 'old'!
That's my denial.
That I'm old.
But I am....
Alas.
I think I've told you--I'm always chilly.
But the past few days have brought relief. I still wear long sleeves but no jacket on top of that.
Being warm is wondrous.
I recommend it highly.
People protesting Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air worked.
Everything matters.
Our so-called President is waging war on those he sees as enemies--which is everyone that isn't in lock-step with him.
His cabinet will bend over backwards to please him
We must be ready to fight back, to stand up to oligarchy and refuse to give in.
Small things or giant things--both matter.
Make a list of what you won't stand for and what you will do when it happens.
We must stand together and remember--everything matters....
Our Bible Study meeting yesterday was to determine what we would study first.
You could have knocked me off my chair with a feather when the group decided they wanted to dive in depth into the Council of Nicea!
Granted, what happened there in 325 a.d. determined the shape and emphasis of Christianity up until today. But really, even though I have 6 years and three degrees in theology, my knowledge of Nicea and what happened there is scant.
So, I have some work to do to get up to speed.
Luckily, all the members of the group will be diving into the Council and the Creed as well.
Maybe we'll learn from one another.
That's how Bible Study usually works--learning from each other.
I went to church today for Bible Study.
I haven't been there on Wednesday for months, so on the way home it began to feel like Sunday.
I knew it wasn't but the feeling was real.
I even tried to find a pro football game on TV!
"Dope", I told myself, "it's Wednesday."
I answered myself back: "but it sure feels like Sunday...."
"Love you enemies as you love yourselves," Jesus told us over and again.
Then, at his speech at his friend's funeral, our president rejected the wife's 'forgiveness' of the man who assinated her husband and said "I HATE MY ENEMIES!"
Who's side are you on?
I took my car in for an oil change and they gave me a whole page of stuff that should be done.
I'm 78--I don't have a lot of driving years left and I don't drive that much to begin with.
To do it all would be $1400. And I wouldn't have to do it all at once.
I'm certainly not going to find a used car for less than $10,000, so I'm going to have it all fixed.
Bern agreed.
Cars are wonderful inventions--but they are a pain in the butt.
Today was my Sunday off.
So, I didn't go to church.
I know most priests who have a Sunday off attend a local church.
I don't.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm really a Christian.
But not often and not for long....
Windows 11 is coming!
And I have no idea what to do about it.
I may have to get a new computer.
I may lose everything on this one--including my blog.
I just don't know what to do.
Bern has asked some folks and gotten some ideas.
None of which I comprehend.
I just feel like I'm looking over a cliff....
Help!!!
I went to my personal doctor for a check-up today. Then I went to Marshall's for the fruit and nut stuff I love to put in yougart.
An hour or so later, I was going to go upstairs but noticed my wallet wasn't where I always leave it.
I looked around and checked the sports coat I'd worn and went out to my car to see if it was there.
It wasn't!
I began to lose my mind. All the things I'd need to do....
*cancel credit cards
*new driver's licence
*new library card
*new united health care and medicare cards
*the hundred or so dollars in my wallet would be gone
I was about to tell Bern and go back to Marshall's to see if someone turned it in.
But I checked my sports coat again and there it was--in the left hand inner pocket.
I always put it in the right hand pocket.
I'm an idiot...but a relieved one!
Well, not that great....
I stopped taking iron a few days ago and my poop is brown instead of black.
I did go to the heart doctor today and all seems to be well.
I was in the room but it was Bern who talked to her.
I realized again (as if i didn't already know!) that I couldn't have gone through the last 3 or 4 months without Bern.
She knows much more about my medications than I do. She puts them out for me every day.
And she is much more astute about my habits than I am--though they are my habits.
I thank God profoundly every day for Bern and all she does for me.
If not for her, I'd probably be in a rest home for old, sick folks.
Thank you, my love and my life....
My sermon started with the post about my father and turkey.
Then I told the story--again in Waitville--about finding my name on two gravestones in the Baptist Cemetary and realizing I was named after my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather. Which I said was good since my father was Virgil and his father was Filbert.
Then I talked about the gospel when Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for talking with sinners.
He tells the parable about losing one sheep or one coin and how we would leave the others to find the lost one.
Just like Jesus says, we must seek the lost until found.
I mean not just those who are in need, but our own lost feelings, and lost friends and lost beliefs.
We must seek the lost until found....
My father grew up on a turkey farm.
It was not until he was in his 20's, living in a boarding house, working in the coal mines that he tasted turkey.
He told the woman who ran the boarding house that it was the 'best chicken' he'd ever eaten.
She had to take him into the kitchen and show him the turkey carcass before he believed her.
He'd been told, growing up, that only 'city folks' liked turkey.
You don't eat the cash crop when you live on a farm....
I wasn't aware of Charlie Kirk being alive before today--the day he was killed by a sniper.
I don't think I would have agreed with anything he proposed. I'm as left-wing as he was right-wing.
But THERE IS NO ROOM FOR THIS in our democracy!
No one should die in our country from a gun shot.
NO ONE!
We should all look in the mirror and realize Charlie Kirk was 'just like us'--a human being with opinions and ideas and ways of seeing things.
Someone 'just like us' was killed by a sniper.
There is no room for this in our democracy.
Guns are a real problem.
Dying from a gun shot is an even greater problem.
There is no room for such things in our country.
It must be stopped.
I've stopped drinking wine because of my health issues.
But I've gotten hooked on Ginger Ale!
I drink maybe 5 or 6 10oz. cans a day.
I guess I'm a Gingerhaloic....
Thing is, I don't think I've had a Ginger Ale before this for several years.
Chablis I miss you.
But G.A. is filling in until I'm well.
Bern went to the Post Office to mail packages to our twin grand-daughters for their birthdays.
They are both in college--one and North-Eastern and one at McGill in Canada.
To send the small package to Canada would cost $56 and provide no 'tracking'. Our grand-daughter would then have to pay almost that much to receive it.
The postal worker explained it had to do with Trump's tariffs and other moves he's made.
Trump has made it ridiculous to send mail to our closest and dearest neighbor!!!
How can our country let him do things like this?
To send mail to Mexico would probably need several armored vehicles and your life savings.
How did we let him do what he's doing?
More importantly, how do we stop it?
And soon....
Some of the thunder rolled on and on. It has been raining for a while. Lightening illuminates the trees outside my office window.
It's rain we needed but we don't want the storm to get out of hand.
Tomorrow I'm preaching on a line from the Collect and something Jesus says.
The Collect goes like this: "Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts...."
So, if the prayer is answered we will Trust in only God.
Then Jesus says one of his most disturbing sayings. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple."
Wow! We must trust and when we do we must hate all we love--even our life itself....
I don't try to explain any of that. I just tell the congregation that they must seek to be "Jesus People"--to do as he did. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger and worship the Lord.
They do all that--donating food and clothing, working in the soup kitchen, have concerts and invite strangers and attend Eucharist.
They truly are--this tiny little church--"Jesus People".
Thank God for them....
I was looking at my emails and suddenly realized it was September 5th and that it was our anniversary....
Just then Bern came up the steps with a card for me.
What a dope I am! I've been so concerned with my health that I let such a vital day creep up on me...
I went out later and visited two flower shops, seeing nothing I liked, and ended up getting Bern flowers from Big Y!
Happy Anniversary to us....
Robert Kennedy, Jr. testified today to a Senate Committee.
He lied, changed his lies and avoided answering most questions.
It is a sad day for health.
He has emptied the federal health system of real experts and replaced them with those who agree with him.
Florida, among other Red states, is making it more difficult, if not improbable, to get vaccines.
He should resign.
He even had Bernie Sanders siding with President Trump on the Covid vaccine!
Not a good day to get healthier....
I've had health problems the last couple of months. I've probably told you more about them in my blog than you wanted to ever know!
But those issues have given me lots to ponder about.
One of them is 'death'.
I've never really thought I was at death's door in these long weeks, but it has caused me to ponder death and dying.
My mother was in her mid-60's when she died. My dad made it to 83.
I'm an only child of them and if you average their death ages I'm already above the average....
So, is it any wonder that I ponder dying while in and out of the hospital and surrounded by doctor appointments?
I haven't reached any conclusions yet--far from it.
And I must admit that even as an Episcopal priest I have little concept of 'heaven' and 'eternal life'. Not even close.
Death waits for us all. Patient and in no hurry for us.
But it is worth pondering....
Sometimes I like to put my thoughts (multitudes of them!) on the back burner and just look at nature.
Today I did that on the back deck looking at our back yards, the flowers and shrubs there and just be present to the sunny day.
It works, more often than not.
All my concerns, worries, fears and dread simply goes away for a while.
It's just me, our back yard and the sunshine.
I recommend you try it from time to time.
A real oasis of calm in turbulent times.
Try it.
You'll be glad you did.
The courts of the US are all that is between us and a trumpian dictator.
Several rulings lately serve to tell us they are doing their job.
For example, only Congress can make tariffs, not the President.
I just heard Ken Burns on MSNBC talking about his faith in America as the 'best country on earth'.
I want to believe him.
I want to stand with him.
I want 'our' country back....
Pray that it will be so.
I shouldn't have posted that thing yesterday about my bowels!
Sorry.
Sometimes I just write without thinking. Or, more precisely, don't think until I've written.
Sometimes good but mostly bad.
I'll try to write about things that aren't as awful as that yesterday.
I could write--for example--about our president....
Oops! that's at least as bad as black poop....