And a third day

 Lovely, lots of sun and blue skies until late afternoon.

Then thunder, lightening and probably two inches of rain.

Three days in a row.

Then there is the former President (I never write his name!) and his legal problems.

How can he not go to jail!

And the 14th Amendment to the Constitution--passed during the civil war--prohibits anyone who rebels against the United States can never hold elected office.

Some folks are trying to bring the former President before the Supreme Court for his role in the January 6th insurrection, to be judged under that amendment.

And he should be.

God help his blond headed soul.

(Not really....)

More of the same

More thunder, lightening and rain. Lots of each of them.

I took Brigit out at 9 p.m.--first in the front yard, but she wouldn't pee there and then in the back where she did.

I had an umbrella but got soaked. Brigit really got soaked!

Bern dried her off for 10 minutes while she had her big 'dental bone' an even after.

The weather says more is coming.

Remember my metaphors from the last post.

The division in our country in raining down on us.

How can we correct it?

How?

How?

Let me know if you know....

 

Thunder and Lightening!

This afternoon we had thunder storms for over an hour and a half.

Lightening lit the world and thunder shook our house.

And it rained like crazy.

Seems to be over now around 7 P.M.

Sort of a reflection of how our country is doing.

Lightening in the deep divides in our nation.

Thunder in the former President's indictments.

Rain in how confusing things are nationally in politics.

Hope the sun comes out tomorrow in Cheshire and in the United States soon.

Hope and pray.

 

Getting old is no cup of tea....

 On Sunday evening, I tripped in our TV room and hit my head of the door jam.

It was dark in the room and I have two bad knees that affect my balance in terrible ways.

I put a gash just above my forehead that bled like crazy. It wasn't deep enough to need stitches, so Bern doctored it. Still the blood ruined my favorite shirt....

She changes the bandages twice a day because it is high enough that I couldn't do it right.

I told her, 'getting old is no cup of tea' and complained about my balance and my arrogance about not using my cane.

She blamed to glasses of wine I'd had that night.

That certainly contributed.

I see my doctor for a wellness visit (whatever that means!) on Thursday and I'll show it to her.

Today it hardly hurts at all but isn't healed. I have tomorrow and Sunday off at Trinity, Milton, so I should be fine soon.

To rephrase my title to this blog: (don't read if you are adverse to bad language)--'getting old is a damn bitch!'

Hanna's Funeral

 I've never seen anything like it.

I did the beginning of the burial office in 20 minutes--including my sermon. The next thing on the program was 'remembrances'. The service started at 2 and the 'remembrances' went until 4!

Dozens of people wanted to tell what they had experienced with Hanna.

I know two things--I've never seen anything like that at a funeral and that it would have embarrassed the hell out of Hanna to have people praising her for over an hour and a half.

The priest at St. Paul's/St. James did away with the celebration of communion. We put Hanna's ashes in the columbarium and sang two verses of a song and we were done by 4:15.

Bern and I skipped the reception to get home to our hungry and needing to pee dog, Brigit. She was usually fed at 2 but yesterday it was almost 5. She swallowed it whole!

Good-bye, Hanna. I will miss you so, so much.

A long strange Labor Day Weekend

 Tomorrow is Hanna's funeral. She was 98 but died too soon.

Then church on Sunday.

You already have both sermons.

I hate funerals for people I loved.

It's hard to hold it together when that's true.

And being at St. Paul's/St. James, a church I served over 30 years ago makes it worse.

I'll see people I haven't seen in decades and have to deal with their feelings about me and Hanna.

Going to Trinity, Milton on Sunday will be a relief from that.

But presiding two days in a row at my age is no fun.

If you're not old like me--76--you, hopefully, will be, then you'll know what I mean.

 

This week's sermon

 

    I want to talk about the lesson from Exodus today for a while.

 

        I want to talk about the lesson from Exodus for Moses is  watching Jethro’s sheep quite a way out of Egypt. He is at Mount Horeb, known to Jews as ‘the mountain of God.’

        I hope you’ve seen a burning bush that the fire did not consume, but I never have.

        And I’ve never heard the voice of God out loud.

        I pray I’ve heard God whisper to me—but never like what Moses heard.

        He took off his sandals—one approaches God bare footed—and knelt down.

        What is really remarkable about this very remarkable passage is that Moses resists going to free the Jews in Egypt and has the audacity to ask God’s name!

        And God tells him: “my name is Yahweh”, God says.

        Yahweh in Hebrew means “I AM” and that’s how it is translated today.

        God “IS,”

        There was nothing before God created it except God. And all God created came from his ‘being’, his ‘is-ness’, his existence.

        God is the great and eternal “I AM!”

        And Moses followed “I AM’S” instructions and led the people of Israel out of slavery.

        The Hebrews thought it was disrespectable to say God’s name. And many places in the English translations of the Bible, “Yahweh” is translated as “Lord.”

        But it really means “I AM.”

        Jesus is the second person of God’s being and in today’s gospel he tells his disciples about his fate—that he will be tried, crucified, and rise on the third day.

        Peter doesn’t like that and says so.

        Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!”

        He then says to them—and 2000 years plus later to us: “pick up you cross and follow me.”

        What is the cross we should pick us?

        It is the cross of ‘doing good’ in this darkening world.

        Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, healing the sick.

        We are the agents of “I AM” in this world.

        We must do the work God has given us to do.

        We must tell Satan to ‘get behind’ us and do good.

        You at Trinity do good—lots of it.

        But our work is never done.

        So, keep at it.

        Keep at it.

        Keep at it always.

        Shalom and Amen.