Pentecost

I drove up to the cathedral in San Francisco for the Pentecost vigil yesterday.  Lara and I arrived early and had a picnic in a public garden a couple of blocks from the church.  Sandwiches (sharp chedar and dijon mustard on sliced San Francisco sourdough bread), gala apples from Washington, California navel oranges, and a rose from Reatta Winery.(The rose is their best wine.  Don't ever buy their pinot noir!)
It was beautiful to be in the Cathedral for the first praying of O Heavenly King in weeks, to greet all my friends, to venerate much loved but seldom seen Icons.  I didn't meet the Metropolitan, but I did get to talk briefly with Archbishop Benjamin. 

Heart Attack?

For the past couple of weeks I've been having horrible pains behind my sternum. I thought it was just gas. Beginning yesterday the pains were accompanied by dissiness.  I just had another one.  This one lasted about a minute and I felt pain in my jaw and upper arms.  It left me shaky, too. I think I might be having heart attacks. I have no medical insurance, so if it is a heart attack it could be the answer to a lot of my problems.  It will be good to see my parents and my son, Billy again.  I only wish I hadn't cashed in my life insurance.  I guess, I'll just have to wait and see what happens.  In the meantime, I'm working as a temp cleaning buildings, sleeping on an old army cot at night, and wondering where I'm going to get the money for my car payment.  And my ex wife is constantly demanding more money. Oh, please, be a heart attack.

Do you think Joel Osteen has read this?

"And after he had spoken these things to me, he said to me, "Let us go into the country, and I will show you the shepherds of the sheep." "Let us go, sir," I said. And we came to a plain, and he showed me a young shepherd dressed in a suit of yellow clothes. He was feeding a large number of sheep, and these sheep seemed to be well fed and very frisky, and were happily skipping about here and there.... And the shepherd himself was quit happy over his flock, and even the very appearance of the shepherd was exceedingly cheerful as he was running about the sheep. And he said to me, "Do you see this shepherd?" "I see him, sir," I replied. "This the angel of luxury and deception. He crushes the souls of God's servants who are empty and turns them away from the truth, deciving them with evil desires in which they perish. For they forget the commandments of the living God and live pleasurably in worthless luxury, and are destroyed by this angel, some to death and some to corruption." I said to him, "Sir, I do not understand what 'to death' and what 'to corruption' mean." "Lisen," he said. "The sheep that you saw happily skipping about are those people who have been turned away from God completely and have handed themselves over to the lusts of this world. Among, these, therefore, there is no repentance leading to life, because they have also blasphemed against the Lord's name. For such as these, there is death."

- Hermas (140-154 A.D.) 

Success

Last night as I was reading The Wind in the WIllows to Basil (though he hears the Christmas chapter every year he has not heard the whole book since he was 2 or 3) we read a description of Badgers underground house.  There was a description of tunnels like roads, many rooms like buildings, and arches.  Mole asked Badger how he had ever built it all, to which Badger replied that he hadn't built it.  Rather it had been built by people of long ago. 

When the chapter was finished I asked Anselm who he thought built badgers house.  He said, "Was it the Romans?"  It was a small thing, just four words.  I was so proud of him.  Then he said something that made me very happy. "I'd like to go to England so I can see the Roman ruins; and Stonehenge, too."

Blessed Assurance

I just read a story about press coverage of a Broadway revival of A Trip to Bountiful.

It made me happy to read these words again.  And if you grew up like I did that means you heard them, too.

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain: This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

Here are two versions I love!

Alan Jackson is here is here.

Kinetra Dixon and Southside are here.

It's big in Korea, too!

Bonus Comentary:  Do you know what black choirs have that, in my experience, all other choirs don't have?  Absolute control at all times.  No matter how emotional or even boring some of the music is, the choir does what it is supposed to do.