Tonight (or early tomorrow morning) there's going to be a total eclipse of the moon.
In CT it will be from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. And it will be raining.
Going to miss something that doesn't happen very often.
Oh, well.
Going to sleep and (hopefully) have good dreams.
Maybe next time.
When I'll be several hundred years old.
We'll see....
The House of Representatives censured Rep. Gosare today for his video of him killing AOC and attacking the President.
Only two republicans voted for the censure.
The two who are on the Jan. 6 committee.
What is going on that one party in our democracy can choose not punish someone who showed a video of him killing another member of the House? And attacking the President?
How F***ing divided can we be as a nation?
It is really frightening to be so divided.
Be scared, beloved!
Be very, very scared!
And, more importantly, speak out and do something....
It's November in Connecticut and the sound of leaf-blowers resounds through the land.
For the most part, Bern doesn't bag our leaves.
She cuts them up with her grass cutter and lets them be the fertilizer for next year's grass.
It seems to work.
But neighbors all around us keep getting the leaves off their lawns.
Who knows who's right?
There were some tornadoes in CT on Saturday. One of them in Cheshire.
Driving around town I have been amazed at the tree damage.
First time since 1950, when I was three in Anawalt, West Virginia.
Come on Climate Change Deniers and you Vaccine Deniers.
Smarten up.
Look around you.
Change your minds--it can be done!
We had a violent rainstorm this afternoon.
Lots of bright lightening and rolling thunder.
It scared our dog, Brigit.
And wind, wind, wind.
Cable went our for a while.
As did internet.
Lights flickered.
With daylight savings time over, it was also very dark.
A bit scary.
And a bit exciting.
Nov. 21 sermon
This is a very personal sermon. I mention the gospel near the end—but it comes from me.
OK?
This week was Veterans Day.
I want to tell you about my father, who served in World War Two.
My father grew up on a turkey farm in Monroe County, West Virginia. He finished the eight grade at his local school and then had to go to a boarding school, but dropped out after a few months.
In spite of that, as I look back, he was one of the wisest men I ever knew. (I just wish I had recognized his wisdom when I was a child! But what child does that?)
He left the farm and moved to McDowell County to be a coal miner.
A funny aside: on the farm his family never ate the cash crop so my father had never tasted turkey. At a boarding house for unmarried coal miners, he told the cook, “that was the best chicken I’ve ever tasted.”
She told him it wasn’t chicken, it was turkey, but he wouldn’t believe her until she took him in the kitchen and showed him the carcass. He’d been told growing up that turkey didn’t taste good except to stupid city people!
He joined the army by lying about his age (he was too old to enlist) and spent the early part of the war in England and was part of the invasion of Normandy. By then, he was in the Engineers and spent the rest of the war building bridges across Europe so Gen Patton could drive his tanks across them. “Then,” he told me, “we would blow the bridges up because Patton said ‘we’re not coming back!’”
That was the only thing he told me about the war though I begged for stories. I’m sure most of his memories were too painful to recall.
He did come home, though many he knew did not, and became my father and a life-long member of the VFW.
Things are not good these days for many veterans. You can buy a coat at Ocean States Job Lots down the road and give it back for a gift certificate and the coat will go to a homeless veteran. People who risked their lives for us are homeless!!!
The GI Bill did not pay Black veterans of WW II at the same level as White veterans.
John Anderson, one of my oldest and closest friends, is a psychologist at The Veterans Hospital in West Haven. He spends his days counseling veterans with psychological problems in person or on zoom. Many have serious issues.
Their lives, like the Temple in today’s Gospel, are in ruins.
There is so much more that needs to be done for the men and women who served to keep our lives safe.
In God’s name, we must seek to help them.
We are so divided as a people and as a country.
It breaks my hearts.
House Republicans who voted for the much need Infrastructure Bill--which the former President promised for four years and did not deliver--are receiving death threats and being called traitors by others in the party.
How did we get here?
What is wrong with us?
And the U.S.--us?
How are we to get back to being one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all?
Why is everything political and polarized?
I'm at a loss.
Do what helps us all, America--like that bill--and forget this stupid and divisive division.
For the sake of you and me...and out nation.
I am in love with Creme de Brie.
It's a Brie spread. My favorite cheese is Brie but I can't finish a round before some of it goes bad.
But Creme de Brie--I eat one container in two days. I put it on pretzels and crackers and even made a ham and Brie sandwich today.
I love it.
And Big Bird has announced he's running for Ted Cruz's Senate seat!
He has a campaign staff with Bert at the head of it.
He promises not to fly to a foreign country with Texas in danger.
It's all a parody, but I wish it were true.
Big Bird for Senate!
Go for it....
