West Virginia Day

Today is West Virginia Day.

I've written about my birth state lately--some not so good.

But June 20 in 1863, West Virginia divided with Virginia to be a free state and stay with the union.

Something to celebrate!

Bless them for doing that.

 

I feel like homemade s***!

When I got to Trinity, Milton today, my car was running a little hot and the battery light was on.

After the service, Mark, who lives in a different part of Cheshire from me, offered to follow me home.

My car died and I pulled over and told him I would have to wait for a tow truck and since he had an event to attend, he should go on.

I got back in the car. It started and made it another 4 miles or so before dying again.

I put some coolant I had in it, waited 15 minutes and it went another 4 miles before dying again.

I was outside Watertown and called AAA.

They said someone would be there in 30 or 35 minutes, so I set out to find someone to come and get me. Three misses--even Bern wasn't home and doesn't usually travel with her cell.

Triple A gave the driver the wrong directions so it was almost an hour before he got there.

Route 8 is a pretty busy road, so an hour of cars whizzing by at 80 or so was disconcerting and concerning.

In all that time only one person pulled over to see if he could help. He gave me a bottle of water and wished me well. His name was Brian--I always like people named Brian! 

It reminded me I should stop when I see people in trouble on the road--like Brian.

I wasn't supposed to ride with the tow truck driver but he wasn't going to leave me on a busy highway, so he took me to the shop. As I was with him I finally got Bern on the phone and asked her to come to Watertown and get me. She put the address in her phone and came to a McDonald's next to the shop.

I hadn't eaten anything all day and it was 1:40 when she got there.

A few weeks ago, I decided I'd give up my cell phone and Bern talked me out of it.

Praise God for her doing that. I don't know what I would have done today without it.

When we got home I got 'Father's Day' calls from Mimi and Josh that lifted my spirits.

But I still feel beat up and like what I mentioned in the title to this blog. That was a saying where I came from, don't know about CT.

Happy Father's day....

 

If I ever eat McDonald''s again...

 ...it will be too soon.

    I took some really bulky items to the laundry mat for Bern the other day--things she didn't want to put in our washer. It was just after noon when the wash cycle started so I went up the road to McDonald's--though I hadn't for years--and got a cheese burger and a milk shake. The cheese burger made me feel a little queasy though I only ate half of it.

    I came home and told Bern. She said she hadn't eaten anything from McDonald's in 20 years.

    I don't blame her.

    So, why was it so popular in my youth?

    Going to McDonald's was like going to church--something good for you and to raise your spirits.

    Has it gotten worse or has my taste changed that much?

    I'm glad I didn't get a fish sandwich because I love fish so much (fixing Cod loin for dinner tonight) and would hate to be put off fish.

    I may not ever have a hamburger that Bern or I didn't fix again--although I had a Wayback Burger not long ago and it was wonderful.

    What where and what you eat.

I'm still a Mountaineer

 As upset as I am with the politics of West Virginia--I'm still a West Virginian.

After over 40 years of living outside the Mountain State, I can still do my West Virginia accent if you ask me.

Accents in the wrong places and every sentence ending at an upbeat--like a question. I can do it. It will make you crazy.

My life in West Virginia was full of wonder.

I met Bern in high school. I wandered the mountains alone. I loved the people I knew. I was kept safe there.

I went to college at W.V.U. and loved every moment of being in Morgantown. Both our children were born in Charleston.

So, in spite of the Republican take over of my once Democratic state and in spite of my home county going from 100,000 in my youth to 24,000 today, in spite of the poverty and right-wingness of it all--I'm still a Mountaineer.

I miss the West Virginia of my youth and young adulthood. 

It will never be back.

Alas and alack.

But I'm still a Mountaineer!!!

Sunday's Sermon

(if you go to Trinity, Milton, DON'T READ THIS!!!)

 

WHO WAS JESUS?

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads here.

          I’m thinking today of my son and son-in-law who are the fathers of my wondrous four grand-daughters.

          And I’ve been thinking all week about my father, Virgil Hoyt Bradley, who grew up on a turkey farm in Monroe County, West Virginia.

          When he moved to McDowell County, West Virginia to be a coal miner, he told the cook at the boarding house for miners that she had given him the best chicken he had ever eaten, she told him it was turkey. He wouldn’t believe her until she took him in the kitchen and showed him the carcass.

          He had never tasted turkey—you don’t eat the cash crop.

          He had an eighth-grade education, but was one of wisest men I’ve ever known.

          He was a life-long Republican in what was then a deep Blue state. How things change as time passes.

          He enrolled in the army and was a corporal in the engineering battalion of General Patten’s troops. He spent the war building bridges for Patten to drive his tanks across rivers and then blowing the bridges up.

          He once told me, when I asked why they blew the bridges up: “General Patton told us we weren’t coming back!”

          There’s lots more I could tell you about him, but we need to get to the Sea of Galilee.

 

          The Sea of Galilee was not a ‘sea’, it was a lake and not a big one. 46 square miles of water very susceptible to sudden storms.

          Imagine being on a first century boat on a lake when a tropical storm came up.

          Imagine waking up the only passenger who was asleep and telling him they were all going to drown.

          Imagine that person calling out to the elements of nature and calming the storm.

          Wouldn’t you, like the disciples, wonder “who that guy was that the forces of nature obey him”?

          Who is this? Who was Jesus?

          That, by the way, is the name of this sermon—Who Was Jesus?

          I typed, “Who Was Jesus?” into Google and got—are you ready for this?—266 million responses!

          I only read one of them—about eight pages—but it had 566 footnotes!

          People have been wrestling with Who Jesus Was? Since the 2^nd century.

          Scholars and theologians have struggled for centuries to distinguish between “the Biblical Jesus” and the “historic Jesus”, without much success.

          The Jesus we know from the New Testament and from the early Christian writing that are called ‘the Sacred Gnostic writings” that didn’t make it into the canon of scripture established by the Council of Nicea in 325 a.d.

          I brought a copy of the Gnostic writings to show you how much we know about the Biblical Jesus.

          The ‘historic Jesus’—we don’t know much about him.

          There’s a joke about how the archaeologists of Pope John 23^rd came to him with bad news—they had found Jesus’ body.

          “This terrible,” the good Pope said, “we must tell the world, but first I’ll call the Protestant Theologian, Paul Tillich in Chicago and tell him.”

          The Pope and Paul (who called God ‘the Ground of Being’) were on the phone, “Bad news, my brother,” the Pope said, “we’ve found Jesus’ body.”

          There was a long pause and then Paul Tillich said, with a sigh of relief, “My God, he really lived!”

          So, “Who Jesus Is?” cannot be answered with any certainty. It all comes down to ‘belief’.

          In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus asks his disciple ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they answer that some people say, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

          Then Jesus says, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God”—and Peter becomes the Rock the church is built on.

          It all comes down to ‘believing’.

          “Believe”, literally translated, means “to live as if…”

          So, in the end, “who Jesus is” depends on who we ‘believe’ he is—who we ‘live as if’ he is.

          That puts a lot of pressure on you and me.

          “Who do WE say that he is?” What do we believe about him? How does he help us to live our lives?

          That is what we must always be asking ourselves, “Who do I believe Jesus is?”

          And how do I live ‘as if’ he was my brother, my friend, my savior, my Lord and my God?

          That’s the question we must always be asking.

          Always asking.

          Always believing.

          It’s up to us.    

 

 

Juneteenth

The Senate passed a bill making Juneteenth, celebrating the end of slavery, a national holiday.

They passed it by 'unanimous consent'--no one objecting.

At least the Senate, though they won't pass the voting rights bill presented  by Biden, to overturn all the bills in state legislatures to limit the right to vote--primarily by black and brown people.

At least the Senate had the sense not to block the June-teenth bill.

So, next year, June 19th will be a national holiday.

Alleluia! 

But much more is needed.

Much more.

Racial equality is one of the most pressing issues in our nation.

Our history is sorrowful and deplorable regarding slavery, discrimination, segregation and racial inequality.

Much more is needed.

Much more.

All people are created equal.

We must make what was created the truth.

 

I still have faith

I still have faith in our democracy.

You might ask why--given that a mad-man was president for four years, Q-anon is alive and well, and our most precious democratic symbol, the US Capitol, was stormed with hatred and death on January 6.

I still have faith because our democracy seems to have survived all that.

Sensible and patriotic people are in charge of the executive branch and rioters from 1/6 (I'm sure that will come to be a thing, like 9/11) are in jail and being prosecuted.

It's certainly not over.

But Biden is re-establishing our role in the world. Harris marched in a Pride parade. Legislation in pending to restore voting rights that state Republicans are trying to limit, to prepare our infrastructure and to do something, long over-due, to make our economy more equal.

It's certainly not done yet and the fear of more violence from the extreme right and white supremacists is still possible.

But I have faith in our democracy.

I long for the day I don't have to worry.

But I still have faith.

You should too.

That will help us all.