If you just looked out the window behind my computer, you would think "what a nice sunny day".
But if you go downstairs and out on our back porch you better have a hat, gloves and a big coat--a scarf wouldn't hurt.
It's almost 4 p.m. and the temperature is about 15 degrees.
It's sunny and cold all at once.
Weather says the cold is with us for a few days.
Bundle up. Stay warm. Admire the sun out a window....
Martin Luther King day should bring joy, wonder and thanksgiving to our hearts.
But our current president (God help us!) is doing all he can to reduce both the appreciation and presence of people of color.
He wants museums to take out relics that recount events of racial awareness.
He wants to deport as many folks of Latin-American decent as possible--greatly hurting farmers and industries.
In southern West Virginia, my senior year of high school, 6 black students (3 male athletes and 3 seriously smart girls) joined my class. Up until then I'd never gone to school with people of color. The next year white and black schools were united.
That was 1965. Lots got better since then in racial matters, but some things have recently gotten worse.
Celebrate the life of Dr. King.
And pray God to bring true equality to our nation--True Equality....
I ran out of windshield washer fluid the other day.
Weather being what it has been, my windshield was getting nasty.
I went to a gas station where I buy things and got some fluid.
Today I put it in--the whole big bottle went in--and it worked!
I almost went to English Auto who work on my car to get it since I am so incompetent about anything to do with my car.
But I didn't.
I bought fluid and found where to put it in.
I did it!
Yea, me.....
I haven't posted for a few days.
It doesn't mean I haven't been thinking, having opinions and tearing my hair out over the President.
I just haven't posted for a few days.
Every day seems to bring a new trick from Tumpy--take over Greenland, cut funding for student lunches, send more ICE agents to do more harm, on and on it goes....
We need to stand up to his autocracy and say "NO!!!" with all our might.
Pray God it's not too late.
Pray God Democracy can survive until the mid-term elections and that they will turn things around.
Pray....
I felt bad about being so hard on vestries--all those I have served with over the years.
Maybe I've gotten over it a little.
It's like complaining about car engines.
Complain all you want--your car won't run without one.
And Episcopal Churches wouldn't run without Vestries.
So if you're a member of a vestry, be proud--you keep your church on the road! Yea, you!!!
(Hope that makes up some for my harshness yesterday....)
I know they are important--parishes have to take care of business.
I know all the members mean well--that's why they are there, to serve their parish.
What vestries do is vital to the church.
We need vestry meetings to keep the parish going.
But Vestry meetings might just do it for me--make me 'really' retire!
I sat through one today. I know it was necessary and that all the members are doing their part.
But having been a part of vestry meetings for all these years, I may have had my fill.
I'm being unkind to vestries everywhere, I know.
I'll try to behave better about the meetings.
I'll try....
Really try....
It comes tomorrow.
My sermon is about a conversation I had with my Zoom friends (Bern calls them 'the boys' since they are all male) about baptism.
But what I really talk about tomorrow is how the altar can lead to the font rather than the font leading to the altar.
As a priest, I'm supposed to only give communion to the baptized.
But in my long tenure as a priest I've never once refused to communion to the un-baptized.
And I've had over a dozen people ask to be baptized after they had tasted the Body and Blood.
It has always humbled me.
I feel the way John the Baptist felt in tomorrow's gospel when he tells Jesus that he (John) should be baptized by Jesus.
The font and the altar should be side-by-side.....
I went to my Cardiologist today.
He's on Barnes Ave. in a neighboring town. Don't get me started on that--there are 4 different left turns for Barnes Avenue!
The last one I tried was right only after asking a policeman to direct me.
Barnes used to be all connected back in the farming days, but building other things broke it up. What a mess!
But my a-fig (whatever that is) is gone.
My blood pressure and cardiogram were great.
The doctor even patted me on the back for keeping my weight down--40 pounds less than when he saw me 4 years ago.
So my heart is fine for now.
And I have so many things in my heart that matter so much to me.
Lucky guy--me....
Tuesday is a sort of busy day.
From 9:45 until 11 I'm on a zoom meeting with friends and colleagues in ministry.
I have to take out the trash.
I have to make a large salad for dinner.
All of that should translate into improving life.
Friends and colleagues are obvious--we need human interaction even if it's on a computer to keep our thoughts and goals on track.
But we should also take the trash out of our minds--things we don't need to ponder, things that scare us and hold us back, things that turn good-work into no-so-good.
And we should make a salad of our lives every day. Slice up and add those things we need to get done, things we've forgotten, things in the back of the refrigerator of our mind and heart.
And dress it all with hope and wonder and love.
Take out the trash, beloved.
And enjoy your salad....
Looking in a drawer for something else, I came upon a photo of my Grandmaw Jones. (I know my computer doesn't like the spelling of her title, but that's the way I said it in my youth!)
She lived up on a long hill in Conglentown, West Virginia, across a dirt road from my uncle and aunt's house.
She had an outhouse, which I thought of today when I went to the bathroom at Trinity Church and found the heat wasn't turned on in there. At least in the outhouse, old bowel movements warmed things up a tad.
Her name was Lina Manona Sadler Jones.
The picture I found looked like a school picture, but she was at least 80 in the photo, so I don't know what it was from.
She was a great cook and a great Grandmaw.
At the end of her life she lost some of her sensibility and was out wandering around when aunts and uncles and cousins found her.
I miss her even now, all these years later.
Maybe I'll see her again if there is a heaven when we die....
I hope so....
Bern when to the grocery store this morning and was checked out for over $80 when she realized she had forgotten her purse.
She asked the clerk to set it aside and she'd go home ("I live close to here....") to get her credit card.
But the man behind her said, 'I'll pay for it.'
Bern told him she'd only be a few minutes but he insisted and paid for her groceries.
She told him, "I'll pass it on...."
And he replied, "I know you will".
The kindness and generosity of that total stranger was enough to thrill Bern to her inner being.
She almost cried when she told me about it.
Nothing is like kindness and generosity--we need more and more and much more of that in our world.
Be kind.
Be generous.
It will make a big difference....
The year began 'cold' here in CT.
The warmest temperature yesterday was 21 at 9 a.m. It went down every hour from then!
We didn't watch the 'ball drop'. We never do.
Did watch some football--Go Indiana!
Still cold today and more football to watch.
Hope your year started well and gets better.
2026, for goodness sake!
Time flies when your having fun--or even if you're not....
Today I passed 9 hundred thousand views on my blog!
Thank you for being part of that. I appreciate it greatly.
Today, also, lots of wind and chill.
I long for June or July on days like this.
I took out the trash and re-cycling this morning, hoping they don't take New Year's Eve off.
But taking it out is part of my re-gaining what I did before my illness and surgery.
I'll also cook two dinners this week. Bern and I used to share them equally, but I'm working my way back.
Bern is scared of salt--for my sake--since I was told to avoid it.
But I'm coming back, beloved. I am!
Next year I'll be 79 years old in April. I never imagined what it would be like to be this old.
It's not too bad, but I feel the years.
Stay young, beloved....
Thankfully it's not cold enough for the rain to be snow. But it has been raining ever since I woke up and it's early afternoon now.
With all the snow on the ground--that the rain isn't melting much--the whole landscape seems wrapped in low lying clouds.
The year is almost over. A new one hovers near.
In all that, I read a hilarious interview with Steven Colbert on line.
He was asked who he would change bodies with for 24 hours.
Immediately he said, "President Trump. And I would resign."
Then he wondered if Trump--who hates Stephen like he hates all comedians--would be in his body?
Not a good thought, I'd say....
Sunday without church is both a 'day off' and a conundrum.
Sitting at home on Sunday is, after so many decades, strange.
But I like a day off.
Caught between my two different emotions.
Sure, I could go to church here in town.
But I don't.
I've told you before, I keep practicing my priesthood SO I'LL GO TO CHURCH!
I'm an odd priest, perhaps....
It snowed 9 inches last night.
Bern had shoveled the walks and back deck and cleaned off my car and her truck by the time I woke up and had a shower.
She's worth keeping!
Our neighbor has a snow blower and did our shared drive-way.
Cornwall Avenue is cleared, pretty much.
That same neighbor and his wife lost their second dog, Finn, only a few weeks after their dog Daisy died.
Lost two dogs, but the wife is pregnant.
Two dogs for a child.
Lots of folks would make that trade.
Not sure I would.
I won't figure that question out until the snow is long gone.
I'm a slow decider....
I was right about the Christmas Eve service--we had 80+ attendees. Where are these folks on Sunday mornings?
Christmas was very simple at our house. We opened gifts Christmas Eve night so we didn't have to get up early.
We drove to New Haven to pick up our friend J. for Christmas dinner. It was low-key but great fun. We then drove him home.
Left-overs from a great meal for dinner--no JEOPARDY this night...football instead. I stayed up watching the Chiefs/Bronchos until 9:45 then to bed.
Not a lot going on in our lives--which is great!
It's Christmas Eve.
I have a 4 p.m. service to do.
Charlie and Ann, from the church, pay a man to drive me on Christmas Eve. Very thoughtful and generous of them.
There will be a much bigger crowd than the 20 or so we average.
Christmas Eve brings folks to church.
I hope your day and tomorrow are full of wonder and joy--with some thoughtfulness and prayer mixed in.
Joyous Christmas Eve!
The stuff Trumpie is doing makes it hard to watch the news.
People being arrested and deported for no reason--some of them citizens.
The bombing of 'drug boats'--with no proof of any drugs.
The health costs some are going to experience next year.
Renaming buildings after himself.
Ignoring laws and not releasing all the Epstein files when ordered to by Congress.
And watching members of the administration being questioned in congressional hearings and lying or refusing to answer the questions.
It's all too much.
And that's not all of it.
At least he's gone so far that MAGA seems to be tearing at the seams.
God help us.
We need good news....
Tomorrow is the day we put out our garbage and re-cycling. It will be picked up early Wednesday (unless Christmas Eve is a holiday for the workers).
That was my job for years.
But Bern has been doing it for months because of all my health issues.
I hope to change that tomorrow.
I'm hoping she'll let me try,
I'm pretty sure I'm up to it.
Here's hoping.....
