Christmas Adventures

I'm glad that my older years are still filled with unexpected adventures. I think it helps to show that I'm not quite ready for the nursing home.

Yesterday morning (Christmas Eve) I drove to Salem to get a haircut. Now what can wrong in doing that? I figured, "nothing" so I took the car, my wallet, and my longish hair to Dean Fox's Barber Shop. I got my usual nice short cut and Dean and I had a nice chat about a little of everything. Then I left there and drove to the local Moto-Mart to buy a coke and a newspaper. When I got back in the car it started right away, but I couldn't get the gear shift lever out of park.

After trying the usual things - like turning the car off, restarting, and trying again with no luck, I walked next door to the church, let myself in, and called the nearest GM dealer (Max Dye). His mechanic, Barry, gave me another clue, so I went back to the car and tried that - with no luck.

So I got out the Owner's Guide for my 2008 Impala and my title papers, walked back to the church and called Barry again. He said that I needed to have the car towed in and, since it was still under warranty, there was a set of procedures in the guide to do that. He said that he would not be able to get to my car until Monday - with Christmas off and all that.

So I asked about a loaner. I got transferred to the owner, Max, who said he did have one. I finally had the presence of mind to ask how late they would be open on Christmas Eve. Max said, "Until 12 noon." I glanced at my desk clock, which indicated that it was now 11:50 AM. Max said he would stay a bit late until I got there. I called Al Lever, one of the leaders in the church, and he drove over and picked me up, delivering me in short order to Max Dye's place. He gave me a Cadillac Deville (a few years old with 108,000 miles on it, but it runs very well).

Then it was back to the church to call the Chevrolet Roadside Assistance people. I spoke with a very nice lady who took care of all my needs. Then all I had to do was to wait for the tow truck. He came out of Mt. Vernon (about 20 miles south of Salem), but he was sent to Centralia (about 20 miles to the Soutwest of Salem). He finally got to Salem and began the process to extract my car from the parking spot by literally dragging it along the surface of the parking lot, since he needed to tow it from the front!

Once he got the car pulled out, the tow driver took position in front of my Impala and tried to lower his hydraulic unit into place. It wouldn't engage. So while I stood in the ever colder wind, he called his boss and the two of them figured out a way to make it engage. That all took about twenty minutes, but finally my Impala was attached to the tow truck properly and he towed it to Max Dye's place. We dropped it off and he returned me to the church, where I picked up the Caddy and drove home, arriving around 2:30 PM.

At 4:30 PM, Sue and I drove back to the church and began preparations for the Christmas Eve service. It was a lovely service with nearly a full house. The Church was decorated beautifully, our musicians (organist and harpsichordist Martha Stiehl and assisting organist Elizabeth Shuler) made fantastic music, the "corps de Ballet" performed their roles wonderfully and most of the people said that they enjoyed the service immensely. Afterwards we had our usual Church Christmas Party and everyone stuffed themselves with fantastic food prepared by a number of the ladies. Then it was time to get home to bed.

This morning, Christmas Day, I awoke and went downstairs to feed the kitty cats. I noticed that the truck to the Caddy was open - even though I had never opened it. I must have pressed that button on the key before I went up to bed the night before. At any rate, the battery was dead. So Sue and I went to church in my pickup truck. We set up the church for the morning service, but no one ever showed up, so after a while we secured everything and came back home.

When we got home I looked around the house and found an old jump start box that I bought years ago and had never used. So I plugged it into the wall, hoping that it would take a charge. By 6:00 PM this evening, it indicated that it was ready for use, so Sue and I went out and I searched the engine box for the negative connector (the positive pole was easy to find). Finally finding it, I connected the jump unit and Sue hit the key. The Caddy started right up! Thank you, God, even though I know you aren't into jumper units.

We took a nice hour long drive to get the battery charged back up and arrived back home just before 8:00 PM tonight. I came in, did the pots and pans, started the dish washer, ate a bit of supper and am ready to quit for the day.

Tomorrow we do grandchildren and that will probably be another adventure. Until then, God Bless all of you and sleep well this mid-winter night. TAD+

A Sailor's Christmas Story

In 1959 I was attending the Nuclear Propulsion School in Vallejo, California. The school shut down over the holidays and most of the men took leave. I didn't take leave, initially, because I was in my usual state of being totally broke, except for enough money to feed myself and go the movies once in a while. But I was terribly homesick. A friend told me that I could hitch a ride to Travis Air Force Base, then get a "hop" to the east coast, where I could hitch hike home. Then I could simply work it backwards to return to California in early January.

So off I went, with only my pea coat, a small bag of clothing, and around $50. Getting to Travis was no problem, but I found myself waiting with a few hundred men to catch hops to anywhere but there. I met an Air Force guy who was driving to the east coast and he was rounding up others to help pay for gas - we would drive straight through, he said. So four more of us piled into an old Ford and hit the road.

By the end of day #1, we had gotten as far as Edwards Air Force base where the guy's old car expired. So an Army guy and I checked into the terminal and lo and behold, we got right out on a hop to New Jersey. While waiting for the plane, I had to make a quick pit stop in the restroom. When I came back out, someone had taken off with my pea coat! But I figured, well, the weather didn't look too bad and anyway, I'd being getting rides up NY 17 to my home. So off I went, only to fetch up at a now-closed AFB on Long Island (I've forgotten the name). I took a bus into New York City, another over into New Jersey and found route 17 and stuck out my thumb for a ride.

The first few rides I got were fairly short ones and after a hour or two had only gone about 15 miles. By then the Northeast Winter had begun to settle in and I found myself walking along route 17 in a blowing snow. A bit later I found myself walking past Westwood. I saw a small diner just off the highway (it was a four-lane highway even then), so I left the highway to get something to eat. It was during the diner hour.

In the diner, all the talk was about how hazardous Route 17 was becoming to the northwest, the direction in which I was heading. I was really getting nervous, since I was now without my coat and the temperature was well below freezing. I remembered that my parents knew a couple in Westwood, a Mr. Cornell and his daughter Helen. So, on a whim, I when to the public phone in the diner (most places had them, then) and called them. I explained my predicament to them and asked if it would be possible to come to there place and camp out overnight. They, of course, said, "Yes," and said that Mr. Cornell would be over to pick me up shortly.

When I hung up the phone, and turned back to the counter to finish my meal, every eye in the place was on me. They had all heard my story of trying to get home, having lost my pea-coat, and how I was getting a bit desperate for some kind of shelter. The owner would not let me pay for my meal, even though I did have enough money for that. And, before Mr. Cornell arrived, they had each given me some words of encouragement.

That night I spend in the Cornell's spare bedroom and slept like a log. I expected to hit the road the next morning, but when I got up, Mr. Cornell had already gotten me a train ticket (on the old weary Erie Rail Road). They took me to the station and saw me safely off for the holidays, wishing me and my folks a very Merry Christmas.

In January I flew back to California, but that's another story. This one is a true story that showed me that the best thing a person can have in this world is love from friends and family. Merry Christmas to all of you. TAD+

Advent

The season of Advent is a wonderful one, but we've managed to mess it up by insisting that the coming of Christ is a woeful event. Personally, I love the season and its climax on Christmas Eve when we all gather to celebrate God's coming into the world to take it on himself. So I will continue to joyously celebrate this season of the Church.

But for those of you who prefer something more somber, here is a little ditty I got off the internet:


Have Yourself a Dismal Little Advent
(An Advent Carol?)

Have yourself a dismal little Advent,
Filled with guilt and gloom.
You’ve got these four weeks to contemplate your doom.

Turn down all those party invitations;
Mustn’t celebrate;
You should stay home fasting, and self-flagellate.

Shun the lure of the shopping mall,
Where they’ve decked the hall since May.
Just recall it’s the eschaton You must focus on today.

It’s no time for singing Christmas carols;
That we can’t allow!
Chant Psalm 51, if you remember how–
And have yourself a dismal little Advent now!

Thanks to Ann Fontaine, quoting Mary Cox who, I presume, wrote this little ditty.

Peace to All. TAD+

Food Basket Day

Good Wife Sue pointed out to me that the ECW ladies had green beans on Wednesday, not corn. I had corn at my Thursday meeting with the Board of Directors for Kaskaskia Workshop, Inc., a non-profit on which I serve. I knew it was a vegetable of some kind! AND, the symphony was "Reformation" not "Revelation." Anyway, it was good music. More later......

Well, later has now come. I'm doing this on my new laptop - a Dell Inspiron. So far I like it, but the transition from XP is rather large. Vista seems to want to do things its way, not the way I have grown comfortable with. When I first loaded some photos from my camera, I didn't pay attention to where they were going. Trying to find them later was a real chore. But as I have grown more comfortable with the machine things are getting easier.

Today at church we did our annual Thanksgiving Food give-away to 16 families, which included 43 people. That doesn't sound like much, but it is a nice thing for a small family sized church (25 - 50 members) to do. Each box of food cost us $29.44 and it will feed a family of four for three days. Given the state of our economy here that three days can b really important. So I am glad to be able to do it. Helpers this year were Bill and Chonita Smith, Wayne and Sandy Garner, Marcia Lever and Good Wife Sue.

Wayne and I drove to the Save-a-Lot store in his pickup to get the groceries, then everyone chipped in to put them into boxes. After that Wayne, Sandy, and Marcia left while Bill, Chonita, Sue and I stayed to do the actual give-away. From 10:00 AM until noon, people drove into our driveway and picked up their food baskets. All were very thankful, but that isn't why we do it - we do it because we have been told to care for the least of Christ's brothers and sisters.



Good Wife Sue and I are off to Nebraska to spend Thanksgiving with family. I don't know if I'll have time to blog, so in the meantime,

Sleep well and God bless all. TAD+

People This Week

The last week has been both hectic and enjoyable. A week ago I visited Virginia Griggs in the hospital and her prognosis was still "TBD." Then, last Friday, she was released to home to continue her rehab there. Her husband, Bob, has converted a downstairs room into a bedroom for her, so now she won't ave to fight the stairs going up and down each day. She has a long way to go, but at least the first lap has been covered and now she and the family can concentrate on the rest of the race.

On Wednesday morning I drove north to Effingham where Tom Carr, my Eucharistic Visitor, entered the hospital to undergo surgery fot prostate cancer. I anointed him and visited with his wife, Margaret, for a bit before driving back to Salem for the afternoon.

A bit after 3 PM I visited Earl Moldovan at his rehab and he had fantastic news - he would be released to home on Friday. After that he would have a health care worker come in on a daily basis for a couple of weeks to get him started on his home rehab PT. In a visit to his home several days earlier, the therapist put Earl though his paces and determined that with the addition of a grab bar in the shower and a stool for him to sit on while bathing, the house didn't need any further modifications. Earl's son, Sandy, had installed a ramp for Earl to use for entry and exit to the house, but the therapist said that she preferred that he just use the steps since he now had the strength to do that and it made no sense to use a "crutch" that wasn't necessary. That is great news and all of Earl's friends at church and Rotary Club are looking forward to his return.

Wednesday evening, the ECW (Episcopal Church Women) held their Thanksgiving Dinner meeting. The main dish was pork loin and that was accompanied by salad, potatoes au gratin, and corn with a freshly baked dinner roll to accompan the meal. For dessert, everyone had their choice of raspberry pie or peanut butter pie. I settled for the raspberry pie and only gained two pounds in the meal!

I took most of Thursday off since I am already well over my hours for the month. Then, today, Good Wife Sue and I went to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for a lovely concert of Handel, Hayden and two pieces by Mendelsohn. The main Mendelsohn piece was "Revelation" which celebrated (in 1830) three hundred years of the Lutheran Augsberg Confession. Luther's great hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is our God" was a significant feature of that symphony, albeit, reworked greatly by Mendelsohn. A great lunch at Red Lobster followed and tonight I rang the bell at Wal-Mart for "Minister's Day" of starting the Ministerial Alliance fundraising efforts for the season.

We're hoping and praying for something more than $25,000 this year to use to feed the needy and help out with emergency assistance on Rent and Utilities. We've asked for the same amount every year for the last four or five years. We've always made it, but just. This year we hope that the recession doesn't cut down too much on giving - the need always goes up. Unemployment in Marion County is now over 11% - the official number. But the real rate is probably 16 - 18%. Wherever you are this year, give to your local charities. They really need your help if they are to keep helping others.

Sweet Dreams and God Bless All. TAD+

The Forever Wounded

From a USA Today news report on suicide among troops in Afghanistan:

Though findings of two new battlefield surveys are similar in several ways to the last ones taken in 2007, they come at a time of intense scrutiny on Afghanistan as President Barack Obama struggles to craft a new war strategy and planned troop buildup. There is also new focus on the mental health of the force since a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last week in which an Army psychiatrist is charged.

Both surveys showed that soldiers on their third or fourth tours of duty had lower morale and more mental health problems than those with fewer deployments. And an increasing number of troops are having problems with their marriages.
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I began the workup for my first deployment in March 1966. At the time I think almost every sailor I knew (enlisted and officer) was in favor of the war in Vietnam, each, no doubt, for his own reasons. We deployed in October of 1966 and served in the northern Gulf of Tonkin until June of 1967, when Long Beach returned to California.

My second tour began in September of 1967 after a few weeks of Terrier Guided Missile School. Our time was spend in the Tonkin Gulf and one or the other of the Search and Rescue Stations or on the Positive Identification and Radar Advisory Zone (PIRAZ) station. We served until July of 1968, when Reeves also returned to the states. During that tour, I sensed no lessening of enthusiasm for the war.

My third tour began in January of 1969 and lasted until August of the year. I was now the Weapons Officer on the Staff of Commander, Cruiser and Destroyer Forces, Seventh Fleet. We spent our time riding in gun cruisers Newport News and St. Paul, along the gun line. For the first time I began to hear officers talk about whether or not this was a good war for us to be in. There was much frustration owing to the official "Rules of Engagement," which informed us as to what actions we could take in various situations. For the first time I heard big time complaints about "having our hands tied by people in Washington." Others were increasingly aware of the rampant corruption of the South Vietnamese government and the untrustworthiness of increasing numbers of RVN troops. We began to conduct operations without first informing our "allies," since to do so meant that the Viet Cong (and increasingly the North Vietnamese Army - NVA) would know all about our plans.

Owing to injuries and school, I did not deploy for my fourth tour until October of 1971. By now I was the Weapons Officer on USS Parsons DDG-33. We divided our time between the Tonkin Gulf sations, where we would provide gunship cover for the cruiser on duty, Yankee Station, where we ran shotgun for a carrier, and the gunline, mostly in northern I Corps, near the DMZ, providing gunfire support to RVN troops in the field. Most of our time was on the gunline, where we engaged the bad guys on a daily basis. They only shot bakc at us about 3 or 4 times, without ever doing any major damage, only minor and no injuries.

By then the dissatisfaction among the enlisted men was growing into a problem. We had to check the small arms lockers numerous times each day to be on the lookout for disaffected men trying to steal hand grenades to "frag the Officer quarters or the Bridge." Some of the men talked about pressure from the wives to kiss their careers "good bye." My wife had earlier (1970 as I prepared to return to Vietnam - but was in a car accident that killed her and left me hospitalized for over four months) expressed the desire that I desert my post - both out of fear that I would be hurt or killed and out of a growing distaste for the war. Men began to report a desire to "do anything" to avoid going back into the combat zone. One man, a fellow named Teddie Short, did desert and ended up at a press conference in Moscow, USSR.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for infantry people on their third or fourth tour. Once, after a small action, someone said that navy life in the combat zone consisted of weeks of boredom and routine, punctuated by 90 seconds of terror! What the toll must have been upon the ground-pounding troops, who faced enemy action very frequently, can only be imagined. Anyone who has been in any combat is wounded for life, whether or not a shell found their body. There is no escape from those ghosts.

I sincerely hope that President Obama takes lots and lots of time to consider what to do next in Afghanistan. The life-long health of thousands of men and women depend upon his decision. He doesn't need to listen to the right-wing critics and bloviators who always urge rapid use of combat troops and some kind of panacea.

May God bless him as he thinks things through. And may God bless all of you this day. TAD+

Veteran's Day Reflection

I am ambivalent about Vietnam. It has now been almost forty years since I left the coast of Vietnam for the last time. I find that now I don’t think about it every single day – there can be periods of maybe a week when it doesn’t even enter my mind. But there are always reminders.

I used to have the wall of my office covered with pictures of the ships in which I served, but a couple of years back I took them down. Looking at them made me think about my life then and I didn’t want to dwell upon that. There are other things more wondrous that I can contemplate. The centerpiece of my wall now contains a copy of the Painting "A Welsh River Scene" by Robert Gallon.

Lately there has been an increase in the number of magazine articles and on-line items about the war in Vietnam, so it is hard to avoid it all of the time.

I’m proud of the way in which I served. From my first training sessions while on USS Long Beach (at Gunnery School in March 1966) to my final leave taking from USS Parsons in January 1973, I worked as hard as I could to learn my trade as a Naval Officer and as a Combat Systems Specialist (Weapon Systems). In the end, I grew quite proficient at my job. I enjoyed the work, the men, and the excitement of working with such "high tech" toys.

Opposed to that feeling of pride is the never-ending feeling of some (rather significant) guilt for that very role as a weapons person. Naval warfare is warfare "at a distance." Rarely does one actually see the enemy. Only once did I think I saw a North Vietnamese tank behind the sand dunes just below the DMZ. But, as best as I can recall from the actions in which I was a minor part, I was present and played a role, however minor, in the death of 1 – 2,000 people. People I never knew, but who, as Captain Wallace noted, had families and maybe even children waiting for their return home.

It is too easy to say that "it was the tenor of the times, when communism was seen as the ultimate foe." That is too easily coupled with that concept of "warfare at a distance" to yield an all-too-cheap grace, in which I forgive myself for what should not be forgiven. It’s also too easy to say that I was "just doing my job," for that is, in the end, an attempt to escape moral responsibility. I wonder if perhaps sailors, especially, have a need to consider the morality of their actions, to remind themselves that war is a violent affair between people. It’s too easy to forget that.

I know that I did. After all, we weren’t shooting at "people." We were shooting at a MIG on the radar scope, or a "concentration" of forces over in some jungle region, that a spotter had assigned to us or an enemy site at coordinates X and Y. Our targets never had faces or lives. They were just out there wishing us, and our allies, harm, so we killed them.

I think that much of the pain comes from the realization that "they" did not have to be our enemies. We were the first to arm and support Ho Chi Minh – during World War II – when he was a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese. He admired American ways, for he spent part of his young adulthood working as a dishwasher in New York City. He was familiar with The Atlantic Charter and hoped to free his people from French domination. But with the coming of the Cold War, and our acquiescence to the French colonial re-establishment, his only home was with the anti-colonial forces of communism. He had hope that his friends, the United States, would stay with him as he sought to forge a new and free Vietnam. But by then "communism" had become the boogey-man and Ho and his people had needlessly become our enemy. Ho remained true to his patriotic vision, while we lost our will to free people from colonial oppression.

My guilt stems in part from the fact that I had become aware of these historical facts by the time of my third tour, on CTG 70.8 in 1969. And most of the killing that I was directly involved with came in my fourth tour, with Parsons, from December 1971 through December 1972. My career had become more important than my basic American principles of serving the cause of freedom. I had become an American mercenary.

I have prayed for God’s forgiveness and, as a Christian minister I know that God’s forgiveness is mine. Someday I hope to be able to forgive myself.

All Saints Ends a Busy Week

What a week! It went by in a blur of activity. A bunch of people oriented events took place - none of which were expected. But that seems to be the life of a small family-sized church.

On Sunday, when Good Wife Sue and I went to the Salem Hospital to visit Earl, Tom C and family were just coming out of the ER. It turned out that Molly C., foster child of Tom's daughter Jennifer had just died. Tom told me that she woke up that morning in breathing distress and finally, at the ER, just stopped breathing altogether. Tom quickly baptised her before she was pronounced dead. Tom & Margaret were quite visibly affected by all of this as were Ryan and Teyah*, Jennifer's children. Jennifer was still in the ER with Molly's body. We visited Earl, but when we came back out Jennifer was gone from the hospital.

On Monday I had a growth removed from my forehead. I now have three stitches sticking out which my cat Serendipity insists upon rubbing with her chin when I am in bed at night! I wore a dressing on the wound for about 72 hours, but have since left it to "air cure." I'll see the doctor on Thursday to have the stitches removed. In the meantime I just have a dark spot on my forehead.

Monday night I got a call from Peppy Kay, Earl's daughter, that he had been transported from Salem to Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJC) in St. Louis. Earl's wife, Lorna, was still in Salem. Peppy Kay asked if I could bring her over to St. Louis the next day. I said, "Sure," and called Lorna who didn't want to go over until around noon on Tuesday. Lorna, Sue and I drove to BJC in the rain on Tuesday afternoon. Earl's blood tests were very confusing. In the end they figured out that he had suffered a mild heart attack, had gotten dizzy, and had fallen in the shower. His leg muscles were quite weak since he hasn't been getting much exercise lately. But all of that didn't become obvious until sometime Wednesday.

It seems that when Earl first talked with the doctors, he told them about his fall, but overlooked the dizzy spell as, in his words, "having nothing to do with my legs getting weak." When I heard that I went to GQ ("General Quarters" in military terms) and pulled both Earl's son and daughter aside and told them that the attending physician did not have a complete picture at what happened since Earl was filtering the information he gave them. They made sure that the cardiologist, Dr. Norlich, had the info, then things began to pull together.

By Thursday Earl was showing his basic strength and was improving by leaps and bounds. His blood tests, which had been "all over the map" (or so I was told) were stabilizing and it was decided that staying at BJC was not going to add anything. So Peppy Kay came over to Salem with Lorna and I took them out to one of our best nursing homes, Doctor's Nursing, to look over the rehab situation there. Doctor's had just added a new entire wing to the facility and the therapy staff was very enthusiastic - not in a "sales-pitchy" sort of way, but as professionals looking forward to helping Earl (it didn't hurt that most of them know both Lorna and Earl). Peppy Kay is a health-care professional in the great state of Georgia and knew all of the right questions to ask.

So it was decided to have Earl go to Doctor's for his rehab. He arrived on Friday night - a bit out of sorts, but who wouldn't be after all that he had been through. I went over on Saturday for a long, long private talk.

In the meantime, St. Thomas' Halloween Party for the City Kids built up to a crescendo of activity on the parts of Good Wife Sue and me. And then fell totally apart. The party - a cookout in the church garden along with games, etc. - was scheduled for Friday afternoon, to run from 3:30PM - 5:00PM. We were prepared for about 100 children plus their parents and had advertised the event with a big sign in the front yard of the church, fliers at the main businesses, and a flyer distribution program on Monday afternoon that left me exhausted (I walked about four miles putting fliers in door handles and handing them to people I met). Then, on Thursday the weather forecast called for 1 - 2 inches on rain, followed by another 1 - 2 inches on Friday.

I held off as long as I could, but early Friday morning, after checking latest weather forecast, checking the radar imagery, and looking at the motion of the storm on video, I ended up cancelling the entire thing. We had to call the radio station, I e-mailed all of the participants, and Sue called most of them just in case they weren't checking their e-mail in the AM.

Friday evening we had our semi-annual Poker Tournament. For that event, 25 guys and gals show up and pay a $10.00 entry fee. In return, they get a evening of fun and fellowship, a really neat "guy-type" supper, beer, soft drinks, and coffee. The three top "chip gatherers" get a small plaque and I take their picture with Danny S., the organizer of the event. On Saturday morning 20 Bridge players get their turn. The big differences are that they get served Bloody Marys, Virgin Marys, coffee or water, and the meal they enjoy is a small soup, a jello fruit salad, and a chicken salad croissant, along with dessert. The bridge folks also pay their $10.00. The basic income from both events was $400.00, but a few contribute extra, so altogether we got almost $600.00. Doing it twice a year brings in over $1,000, all of which is used for out food outreach to the less fortunate. Along with some other funds, I spend about $2,500 each year for food - reaching out this year to about 200 people.

Today was All Saints Sunday. That was the "normal" part of the service. At the Prayers of the People, I added a short liturgical set sending one of our young men off into the Marine Corps. I gave him a "military cross" and a "military prayer book" that Bishop Beckwith gave to me for him. Then I presented a "Remembering Cross" to Margaret C. to give to Jennifer for Molly.

After the service Sue, Sue F., and I went to a restaurant named "The Leaky Bucket," located at Forbes State Park Lake. This was their last open Sunday until around April 1. They serve, on Sunday, an "all-U-can-eat" fried chicken dinner that is very popular. I think I'm still stuffed from that! Afterwards Good Wife Sue and I visited Earl and gave him his Sunday Communion, along with his wife, Lorna.

Then it was back to the church to start getting ready for the semi-annual Episcopal Church Women (ECW) Rummage Sale. A crowd of six or eight showed up and we all joined together to pull out of storage what seemed like a ton of items for the sale, along with shelves and clothing racks. Now for the rest of the week ahead (until the sale on Friday and Saturday) the ECW folks will sort, stack, hang, display, and price the items for sale.

I always end up saying "I'll sure be glad when this is all over with." But I look forward enormously to working with the people in St. Thomas to help one another in our church family as well as so many people in the community. There remain other things I want to accomplish in my life, but this time as a deacon, then priest, has been filled with the joy of Jesus Christ.

Sweet Dreams and God Bless All. TAD+

* In the original post I had spelled this "Kayla," because that's what my 70 year old ears heard! I have much trouble with hard consonant sounds (ka-ta-pa, etc.). My apologizes to Jennifer and family.

Family and Communion

Today Good Wife Sue and I took Lorna to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis to see Lorna's hubby, Earl. Earl was transferred to BJC on Monday evening, from Salem, after they suspected that he had internal bleeding. We arrived just a few minutes after Pepe Kay, Earl's daughter from Valdosta, GA did. Pepe Kay is a medical professional and will keep to good close watch on what the folks at BJC are doing, but both Pepe Kay and Sandy (Earl's son) said that from what they had seen so far, the staff at BJC is superb. That's great news.

After we visited for a while, we emptied the tray table and I set up my portable Communion Kit. Then the six of us celebrated Holy Communion. Earl sat up in a chair, which was great to see, since he couldn't walk yesterday.

All of us are wondering if all of the excitement at Earl's 90th birthday parties (note the plural) simply exhausted him. I know that he has his share of the kind of ailments that seem, all too often, to be caused simply by aging. At least that is what we are hoping and praying for, since then physical therapy and meds can help him back on track.

Of course, growing older once one enters the "elderly" category is not just a simple thing. Getting enough exercise grows more difficult - even with gentle nagging from family and friends. Even relatively small illnesses begin to carry greater risk, since the body cannot respond the way it did when we were 35 or 40 years old. And sometimes older people grow into the attitude that it will all end soon, so I might just as well accept it and "go with the flow." I don't think Earl is in any of these categories - he is just too vibrant a man.

Good Wife Sue and I often joke about the differences in our personalities. She likes to leave the party early. So we joke about having her tombstone say, "Well, it's time to leave." I, on the other hand, love to stick around and talk. My tombstone should say, "Wait a minute! I'm not done!"

But as eternal people, just visiting this life, this body, this time, we need to be reconciled to the cycle of life that lets us one day pass from here to there. And we hope and pray that "there" is what Jesus Christ has hinted to us that it will be. We need to accept that the door will be opened to us, if only we will walk through it when the time comes.

I'm a strange mixture of the scientific person, humanly philosophical, and expectantly theological. In that place I find no fear for the future, but linger lovingly to learn even more about this creation of God's we call home. And I specially linger in the love of my wife, my family, and my church family. I pray that all of you also linger in love, and

Have sweet dreams and be blessed by God. TAD+

A Weekend of Mixed Emotions

I attended the annual synod for the Diocese of Springfield on Friday and Saturday. Not too much transpired. We'll have a "deficit budget" in 2010 after having run a deficit over the last year, the first time that has happened in any one's memory. We are just getting off the ground with the process of electing a Bishop Coadjutor (an assistant bishop with succession) to replace +Peter H. Beckwith, our current bishop. The Standing Committee hopes to have everything completed by February or March of 2011 (the Consecration of the new bishop). That may be quite ambitious, but we'll see.

At synod, Mother Molly spoke of the projects our Episcopal Church Women (ECW) will be doing in 2010. One of them is to purchase little heart-shaped medallions for mothers who lose their babies through still-birth or dead shortly after birth. She is a hospital Chaplain, so the ECW will help out at the hospital where she works. She gave a very good presentation and I spent the entire 10 minutes reliving my one CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) unit during which I had a day on which five babies died or were born dead. I baptised three of them and said prayers and blessings over all of them. Then, after I left the hospital that day I completely "lost it" and had to pull over to the side of the highway (I-64 in Illinois) and balled my head off for what seemed like forever. God bless Chaplains of whatever stripe, for their work is extraordinarily hard to do.

I got back Saturday evening and immediately got a call that my oldest parishioner, Earl, had taken a fall and was in the local hospital. So after a few minutes of rest, we headed for Salem to check up on him. By the time I got there he was in a room - infinitely more comfortable than an ER bunk! We visited for a bit and he told me that he had felt a bit light-headed before falling (in the bathroom). He hadn't told the ER doctors or the floor nurses about the light-headedness, because, "... my legs just wouldn't hold me up." so I spent last night and today's visit alerting the medical staff of that condition. Finally, today, Earl's son, Sandy, showed up and I told him and he said that he would personally tell the physician in the morning. I sure hope so. Earl just turned 90 and we all want to have him around for as many more years as possible!

Today, as Good Wife Sue and I were returning to the hospital to bring some flowers from the church to Earl, another of my folks, Tom, came out of the ER with two of his grandchildren. I called to him, "Hey, Tom, have you been to see Earl?" He said "No, Molly just died." Molly was the foster child of Tom's daughter, Jennifer. Jenn had really fallen in love with this little baby girl, even though she had some very severe health problems. We all were aware that she would die quite young, but had hoped and prayed that a few years with Jenn would show her the love and compassion she needed. But now she is gone and the entire family is in pain. Tom was able to baptise her as she died and I asked him to record that in our service register and I'll add her name to the long role of those who have gone to God before us. Jenn and her kids are now longer members of St. Thomas, but they will always be a part of us. And I will ask that all my people pray for her and the family. For all that the rest of us can do is to be present to Jenn and the rest of the family. In faith we give over to God's love, the soul of little Molly, praying that she rest for ever in God's peace.

Tomorrow I visit my family doctor to have a growth removed from my forehead. He doesn't think it is cancerous (nor do I), but it has gotten quite a bit larger in the last few months and is swelling up, so it is often uncomfortable under a cap or hat. So it is time for it to go. I'll just look even more ugly than normal for a few days!

And God's peace be with all this night. TAD+

Afghanistan - Again!

According to news reports, General McChrystal has asked for an additional 80,000 troops for Afghanistan for the "Optimal Response." Failing that he will settle for 40,000 troops for a "Middle Ground" reponse. The problem is that neither figure is realistic for a counter-insurgency.

As Frank Rich recently pointed out, General McChrystal's boss, General Petraeus, has written that a counter-insurgency strategy that has even a chance of succeeding will require 20 - 25 soldiers for every 1,000 people in the population of the nation at war. Given that Afghanistan has a population of almost 30,000,000 (that's THIRTY MILLION), the minimal troop level (using 20 per 1,000, is 600,000 troops.

In Vietnam we had over 550,000 troops in an area far smaller than Afghanistan and we were never able to stabilize the place. The local Afghanistan government is at least as corrupt as was the South Vietnamese government, so we really can't count on them contributing much to stabilize their own country. Think about how truly difficult it is to create an army. If we are really, really lucky we might see a competent force of around 200,000 Afghani troops after a 5 - 7 year development cycle - but don't count on it. In Vietnam we learned that you can make a person an E-5 anytime you want to, but it takes 3 - 6 years to develop a Second Class Petty Officer. And one needs a really competent corps of E-5 through E-7 enlisted people to have a successful miltary. Likewise with officers. You can give any fool a Colonel's Eagle, but it takes years to develop a competent Officer Corps of Captains, Majors, Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels.

But in the end, bringing long term stability and peace to that poor country (we really can't call it a nation) will be the responsibility of the people and government of Afghanistan. So what, then, is our best option - one that helps them to help themselves at relatively minimal risk to our own forces? It seems to me that it would be a rather minimal option.

We're stuck with being there because we got ourselves sidetracked into Iraq by a man who had a vendetta to satisfy, so we can't just abandon the people and place. But we need to do what we can to secure the main population centers, work diligently to get a reasonably honest government in place, and train an Afghani army to take the battle to the countryside. Those Afghani forces need to do the grunt work, slowly (very slowly) at first, then with increasing efficiency and alacrity as they gain experience. Some of our troops will be at risk as they work alongside the indigenous forces, but their role must be advisory, not combat leading, not manning the "front lines" (which don't exist, anyway).

That, it seems to me, would require some increase in the level of US forces, but certainly not 40,000 - 80,000 more. We can secure the cities. Any more than that and training puts our troops at an unacceptable level of risk with little or no real prospect for long term success. It also lets us develop timelines for achieving measurable success. If the people and government of Afghanistan refuse to play their part in this, then a drawdown and disengagement are the only recourse. But let's not wait until the casualty lists get long enough to cause the American public to lose faith in the ability of our military leadership to come up with actual workable solutions. This beats the daylights out of simply adding more, then more, then more troops to a deteriorating situation.

Truth in advertising: I was actively involved in the Vietnam conflict (getting ready to go there, being there, just having left there) from March of 1966 through December of 1971 (with four combat tours). I was an Ensign, USN, when I started and a Lieutenant Commander, USN, when it ended. It was a bottomless pit and, yes, Afghanistan has the ability to create the same kind of trap for us. Not in terms of a high casualty rate (although it could get quite bad), but in terms of sucking us into a black hole from which escape will be painful and injurious to our valiant fighting force.

My fear is that our military leadership, which is a wonderfully capable combat leadership, cannot see beyond "the military counter-insurgency option." In a place as vast and difficult as is Afghanistan, military projection of U.S. power won't work. Only indigenous forces that understand and live in that culture stand any chance at all, and even that chance has a non-zero probability of failure. Our probability of failure is probably at least an order of magnitude higher.
Pray for a wise choice by President Obama and his advisors.

Sleep well and God Bless All. TAD+

Evolution vs Creationism

Today being the first Wednesday of the month I attended the local Ministerial Alliance meeting. All was routine up until the last five minutes when the Baptist minister brought up a CD he had received, and brought in to share, about how wrong evolution is. Well, that opened the flood gates. The murmuring around the table was, as expected, strictly pro-creationism and virulently anti-evolution.

One of the minsters, from one of our Christian Churches (the denomination), brought up the new skeleton that was in the news a couple of days ago, Ardi. "Ardi" is short for Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4 million year old hominid that predates "Lucy" by about 1.2 million years. Lucy is of the species Australopithicus afarensis, closer to us in the chain of things.

The Christian Church minister was positively gleeful over finding Ardi, for he said, "It shows that we are not descended from the monkeys, something that is in all the Biology books." That was curious, since I have never read a real science Biology textbook that said that we were descended from monkeys. I collect old science books and one of my oldest Biology books is an early 1920s "First Biology" for high school students that says, to quote, "Biology does not teach that humans descended from monkeys." A college text I have does not teach that either. In fact all of the modern books that I do have note that we and the monkeys and the apes come from some long extinct common ancestor. All Ardi does is put that common ancestor more distant, structurally, from us than is Lucy.

What tickled me about the ministers gleefulness was that they were using a 4.4 million year old skeleton to "prove" that man did not come from the monkeys. To them a 4.4 million year skeleton should not exist. These guys are all "young earth" proponents! Even 1 million years ago is questionable, since "everything" was created only 6,000 years ago, in 4004 BCE (according to the creationist timetable).

It struck me that creationist's real fear is in being related to animals like monkeys and apes. If, somehow, it can be shown that there are no monkeys in the family tree, then God's peace will again reign on earth. Maybe the idea of being descended from pond scum is OK, just as long as there are no immoral buffoonish monkeys there! After all, we can't be descended from something that swings from the trees and shows off its private parts in great displays of primate sexuality, can we?

Anyway, these good folk are really stuck in an old paradigm. I think that even if God him-and-her-self were to show up and shout, "Yes, I did it using evolution" they wouldn't believe it, for they have too much invested in a literal point of view. Too bad for them, for modern Biological Science and its offshoot, medicine, are dependent upon the validity of evolutionary fact.

If the creationists were to win "the war" here in the United States, all that would mean is that meaningful scientific and medical progress would shift elsewhere. And if the reformation teaches us anything, it will move elsewhere. For in the 17th Century science left Italian and southern European schools (under the gun of the backward-looking Roman Catholic Church) and moved north to Germany, the Low Countries, and England. Galileo was the end of South European science and Isaac Newton represents the flowering of Northern Science. Fortunately, the Roman Catholic Church learned its lesson and some great science has come from later Roman Catholic scientists and scholars.

The world will survive creationism.

Sweet dreams and God Bless all. TAD+

What a week!

A really busy week draws to a close. Thank goodness, but, boy, did I enjoy myself!






Today (Saturday) we held out annual Blessing of the Animals. Here is a picture from a couple of years back, but the same folks tend to show up each year.

We do a short service in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, then I bless each of the animals. The big difference between the picture you see above and today was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit! Then it was in the high 80s. Today it was about 57 when we began. My photographer, Bill Smith will send me the photos when he has them finished, and I'll post more here.

Salem has what is called "The Little Egypt Festival" the first weekend of October each year. The story is told that years ago a drought wipped out the corn crop in northern Illinois, but the south got plenty of rain and had a plentiful crop. So the farmers up north hitched up their wagons and came south to get corn. The symbolism matching that event with the Jewish Scripture story of Jacob's sons going to Egypt in a time of famine was evident to all, so this region of Southern Illinois is still known as "Little Egypt."

One event is a large parade. During the parade the folks at St. Thomas give away free glasses of Lemonade - this year we added Hot Chocolate! Here is a shot from three years ago. I'll post this year's pictures (some anyway) when Bill gets them to me.

The fellow in the back row with the sun glasses, Dick Jackson, has since passed away from cancer, but the lady on his left, Dottie Jackson, was with us with her dog, Tess, who got a blessing and has become my new good buddy!

I like dogs and regret they Sue and I have never had one, but our two ancient cats would die of heart attacks if we tried to introduce one now. When the two cats (19 and 18 years old) pass on, we'll wait a decent period of time, get the living room refinished and refurnished, then buy a kitten and a puppy at the same time. That way they'll grow up together, not knowing that the other one is a alien being! We'll get the new pets either from our local vet or shelter or from the Pets-Mart in Fairview heights, since they handle many rescued animals.

Tomorrow I get to talk about divorce - that will be fun. But, hey, it's what Mark gave to us for this week.

In the meantime, sweet dreams and God Bless all. TAD+

Looking Glass Playhouse Review

We just got back from attending a production of "The Producers" by the folks at the Looking Glass Playhouse in Lebanon, Illinois. LGP is an all amateur group of folks who put on a number of plays and musicals each year.

This evenings production of Mel Brooks' "The Producers" was superb! For a group of people to get together week after week in rehearsals, then put on an excellent show indicates great dedication to all of the people involved. In this production the two male leads were played by Brian Shreppler, who has been involved with LGP for a number of years, and Seth Ward, a newcomer in his first musical. Brian, as always, was excellent. Seth was the surprise of the night. He has excellent timing and facial expressions that are second to none. His voice was very, very good (an upper range tenor) and his voice carried really well in the theater - no one is wearing a microphone at LGP.

Sue and I enjoyed ourselves tremendously and recommend the Looking Glass Playhouse to anyone who enjoys good entertainment. An added bonus is the frequent opportunity to interact with cast members after the show. That is a really nice benefit.

Sweet dreams, all, and God Bless. TAD+

Look at the following graphic:

George Will, in many of his recent essays, has become an ever louder global warming "nay-sayer." He, like a number of my conservative acquaintances, insist that global warming is a fraud, perpetuated by a liberal cabal of wackos who want to destroy America. Will, in his latest posting, claimed that 1998 was the "hottest year," but that temperatures have been declining ever since. But a closer examination of the data tells a somewhat different story.



Notice, in the graphic, that a short, and relatively small, cooling trend took place from 1991 - 1993. That was in response to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillipines in 1991. In 1998 there was a large peak in the opposite direction. This was in response to the 1998 El Nino. And, of course, 1998 is the year that global-warming deniers pin their hats on. They claim that it has been getting cooler since then. That is incorrect. Even removing those two events from the graphic doesn't make any difference in the long term trend. And it is that long term trend that matters.

Notice that the average temperature wandered above and below the zero degree mark from around 1979 until 1993 (that's because that period was chosen as the benchmark period - it is even more graphic if you look at the data since 1890). But the temperature since 1993 has run above and below a higher temperature by around 0.2 degrees (Centigrade). That doesn't seem like much, but the effect is much higher at the high latitudes (above, say, 60 degrees North Latitude). Which is why the Greenland Ice Cap is melting so much faster than scientists anticipated. It is also why the Arctic Ocean ice is disappearing in the summer months - something that has not happened in the last 150,000 years or so from all indications. And, since higher elevation act like higher latitudes, it is why the California snow pack is melting too early for the animals that depend upon it (including the human animal).

The problem with this kind of temperature increase is that it feeds upon itself in a positive feedback loop. It gets warmer so more water and rock are exposed, which do not reflect heat the way ice does. So then it gets warmer and even more water and rock are exposed, making the effect build upon itself. Scientists speak about trip points in this kind of action, in which a point is reached when "the system" snaps to a new stability - in this case at an even higher temperature than has been proposed before now (previously in the 3 - 5 degree range). No one knows what this new temperature regime will look like, but figures of 6 - 9 degrees Celsius are being discussed. At that point, there is a real chance that ALL of the ice sheets on the planet will melt and the oceans rise by several dozens of feet (before the present Ice Age, the oceans were about 200 feet higher). Most animal life will suffer enormously, since the time to effect evolutionary change is too long to respond to the rapid temperature changes we might yet see.

The global-warming deniers do themselves and humanity no good service by fighting this issue. The science is solid and becoming more certain every month. There is NO chance that some unknown phenomena will come along to recuse us from ourselves. We made this problem with our industrial revolution, the transportation revolution, and our continuing abuse of our environment. The claim that "jobs will be lost" is a "red herring," since the new "green revolution" will create more and better jobs around the globe. At least the Chinese think so, for they are beginning to commit to making major investments in green technology and industry. They are out to "eat our lunch." With people like George Will resisting and impeding change, they may well do it.

Sweet dreams and God Bless. TAD+

The Black Hole Named Afghanistan

From my perspective, we seem to have two choices in Afghanistan. One is bad, the other is worse. The "bad" choice is to boost the number of troops on the ground by 40,000 or so, as General McChrystal seems to be asking. Given the terrain and the historic mistrust of outsiders by the people of that sad nation, it is doubtful that an additional 40,000 troops will "accomplish the mission." With that addition, we might, just might, be able to bring some semblance of calm to some of the cities. But, then again, nobody really knows, do they?

The "worse" choice is to try to get along with the troop numbers we have (or even a reduced number). That means to surrender the rural areas to the Taliban and to try to tolerate or limit the ability of the Taliban to spread mayhem in the urban areas. But it leaves us in a "force protection" posture in which we have little or no influence over what goes on throughout the country. We would simply hunker down for the long run - and believe me it would be a long run!

Even the "bad" option of boosting the number of troops in country will put us in a situation in which the "end of the tunnel" lies so far in the future that we will see no light there for years to come.

As for the question, "Is Afghanistan another Vietnam?" the answer has to be "Yes and No." It is not Vietnam in the sense that 200 soldiers are NOT being killed each week. That situation will likely never come to pass. It is not Vietnam in the sense that the men and women serving there are having to slog through swamp and jungle. But it is like Vietnam in that we are becoming co-dependent with a government that is weak and corrupt and not likely to change. It is Vietnam in that the enemy has safe haven just across the border and recieves support and encouragement from the people, the government, and the armed forces of other nations in the region (Pakistan's IIS, the Saudi Arabian people, and, potentially, the government of Iran).

I fear that neither the NATO armed forces (which means mostly the good ole U. S. of A.) nor our diplomats will be able to even begin to effect the changes needed to bring stability to Afghanistan. The best we can seem to hope for, at this point in time, is to bring relative peace to the cities and stasis outside of them. We can hope and pray that the additional Afghani forces we are training prove, in time, to have at least a minimal capability to defend all of the nation's territory; the capability AND the will. But it will take eight to ten years to bring them to a fully trained and ready status - they are, after all, a third world nation. Creating a modern army from that start is not impossible, only extraordinarily difficult. Those are not happy thoughts.

God Bless All this evening. TAD+

Church Business

Today we held our annual "Deanery" meeting at Mt. Vernon, Illinois. In the Episcopal Church most dioceses are subdivided into deaneries that each cover a geographic part of the diocese. My deanery, the Eastern Deanery, consists of five churches (one of which is inactive) spread out over eight counties in south-central and eastern Illinois. One of the priests is elected Dean every three years and gets to have the honorific "The Very Reverend" instead of simply "The Reverend." This year we elected Fr. Gene Tucker of Mount Vernon. Congratulations to Gene.

The bishop, The Right Reverend Peter Beckwith spoke for a fairly short period of time. He said that the Episcopal Church's General Convention just past was better that he thought it would be and spoke about his move into retirement. The process to elect a replacement has begun, but is months away from completion. Bishop Peter also urged each of us to be "Witnesses for Christ" in a Church that is hurting, in an economy that is hurting, in a nation that is hurting, in a world that continues to see so many live without hope.

Concerning the election of his replacement, Bishop Peter said that there was concern, at national headquarters in New York, that he would attempt to exercise control of the process. He said he assured them that this would not be the case, since he feels that his attempting to control the process would be, at the least, unprincipled. Others with more intimate knowledge of what has been happening have told me that this is true. I can think of no good reason to doubt him on this. Since, like me, he is a retired Naval Officer (albeit him as Rear Admiral USNR, me as Lieutenant Commander USN) the need for honor and honesty in all of our dealings is strong in our lives.

No, I believe that Bishop Peter is acting with a "hands-off" policy. He and I have had a number of differences of opinion on various topics, but I have never doubted his honesty or basic integrity (even when I think he is wrong).

He made a comment that I do think is all too true - that a big problem in the Episcopal Church is our very strong tendency to act like congregational churches. I have long been disappointed by the parochialism I find in my church and observe in others. Since we are a hierarchical church with diocesan, national, and international ties (to other Churches in the Anglican Communion), for individual congregations to think and act as if they were not connected to others makes the entire structure vulnerable. That problem may be more significant in rural areas (which is where I have all of my experience), but I don't know if that is true or not.

From my personal standpoint, it is frustrating to stress in sermon after sermon that we are ALL interconnected, only to have the people talk about what THEY are doing or have done. It then becomes way too easy to blame "What THEY have done" for our local failures to florish, grow, and carry the gospel into the world. A good example is the decades old discussion on "Evangelism." The National Church periodically urges that as a program, a set of goals, and a way of life. But then nothing happens and I hear people say, "Well, the latest evangelism program didn't work, did it?" Of course, none of them did anything in response to the call to be evangelists, but somehow the National Church was supposed to wave a magic wand and evenagelism would just happen. The people in the congregation see that as unwarranted interference by THEM, but fail to see that there is a challenge to US. The feeeling seems to be, as one lady in my church told me, "If they are interested in the Episcopal Church they will find us. We don't have to do anything but be here." That's not a positive recipe for success.

'till next time, sweet dreams and God Bless All. FrTom+

Episcopal Church Rumors

A fairly large group of us from St. Thomas went to the midweek service at St. John Episcopal Church in Centralia, Illinois on Wednesday. The occasion was the baptism of the young boy Jeff and his wife are adopting. It was a lovely service and, is my usual habit, I engaged a number of the folks at St. John in conversation at the meal afterward. One man said to me, "I don't know what to think of what they (note the 'they') are doing to the Episcopal Church."

Wondering which of our current issues he was talking about, I asked him what was bothering him. He responded, "Well, the talk at General Convention was about removing Holy Communion from the service." Where that rumor came from I'll never know. I told him that I had followed the daily activities at General Convention and I didn't recall that issue ever even being discussed. I went on the tell him, "I don't know how these rumors get started, but we need to be careful about them. I would take that issue as a simple misunderstanding about what someone may or may not have said." He said, "I don't know about that."

Here in the Diocese of Springfield most of the clergy are quite traditionalist. I know that some of them are ready to say almost anything at all to disparage the national Church, but I have to wonder if some are not above spreading a falsehood deliberately, just to "knock down" the denomination. I hope not, for when a cleric begins to spread falsehood he (or she) is not siding with the truth or what is right.

And I am of the opinion that a number of clerics do have the destruction of The Episcopal Church near the center of their goal set. The goal seems to be to destroy The Episcopal Church, then replace it with a traditionalistic, authoritarian structure that will find favor with the highly authoritarian churches of what is called "The Southern Globe." And, of course, such a move will likely find adherents among the religious right wing of our denomination. They see themselves as the true "orthodox" Christians and those who differ from them as secular liberals.

One key problem is simply that the Churches of "The Northern Globe" are in a far different place from our brethren in the south - allowing for the fact that there is not total unanimity among either the north or the south. We, in the north, tend to have made our peace with the findings of science. In the south they tend to be users of technology, but are less immersed in the findings of science. So while we, in the north, tend to accept such medical science findings as "Homosexuality is part of the normal humn spectrum of sexuality," the southern folks still tend to criminalize any but normal heterosexual behavior. For example, the Archbishop of Nigeria, The Most Reverend Peter Akinola, has written strongly in support of a law criminalizing homesexual behavior as well as giving support to homesexual persons. If nothing else, this indicates that vast difference between the two regions in outlook.

Where it will all settle out to is yet to be determined. It is just a shame, however, for this to have fostered a spirit of hatred between the two camps. Jesus told us to take the gospel to all the world. Having a prolonged public fight seems to distract from that commission. We all, clerics and laity, may well be asked about our faith, our hope, and especially our love when we get to know God even as he has always known us.

Sweet dreams and God Bless All.

Update for two weeks!

It's been a while since I took the time to post some thoughts, so this is probably as good a time as any.

It has been a busy two weeks (almost). We are now into our new Church school year (September - June), so the adult Sunday School kicked off with Danny as teacher. Since becoming the leader of that group he has grown enormously. At first about all that he could do on a Sunday morning was to read the Gospel lesson for the day and turn the conversation loose. Then he began (after attending my Wednesday evening Adult Education class - a much more serious endeavor) to read multiple translations (KJV, RSV, NRSV, International, etc) as well as one or two commentaries. He brought that with him to his SS class and they have all got the benefit of that. Now he is even reading commentaries about the culture of first century Israel and referring to a "Word Study Greek-English New Testament" by McReynolds to help him understand the nuances of some of the words the NT writers used. Hooray for him!

The Bishop of Springfield paid us his annual visit, which he prefers to call his "homecoming," for several reasons that need not concern us here. It was a good visit, in fact a very good visit. I got to talk to him a bit about my post-retirement ministry plans, to which he gave his vocal approval. Of course by then he will already have retired, so I may have to revisit the plans with the next bishop. We had a great meeting with the vestry. My Bishop's Warden (the senior warden) had a fantastic informal report that she delivered. The Holy Communion was lovely and was followed by a nice dinner in our Great Room in what Episcopalians, who love traditional language, call "The Undercroft." It is not under anything, especially not the "croft" whatever that is. But it was a nice meal.

We ended last week by going out, Sunday afternoon, for a short camping trip to our favorite spot at Rend Lake. Mostly it rained, but I read the book "Old Friends" by Tracy Kidder. It is almost twenty years old now, but the true story of people in a nursing home rings as true today as it did then.

Which got me thinking about health care. I don't have a clue what kind of health care package will emerge from the federal government, but my fear is that it will do many things EXCEPT what it should do - make affordable, quality health care available to all. I minister to a goodly number of the poor in our community and, yes, they all have access to health care - via the Emergency Room. That means there is almost never any real follow-up. There is no on-going health care. There is no prescription drug plan. And, in the end, the overall quality of the care they receive is less than stellar. My conservative friends tell me that "they just need to get a job and purchase health insurance." Many of these good people have jobs - as maids at motels, local truck drivers at near minimum wage, or day laborers. They can barely eat, much less buy health insurance. They need our help, but we, collectively, seem to lost the spirit of caring, of being compassionate, of being brother and sister, to our less fortunate neighbors.

And on that soap box I'll end. God Bless all this day.

Time Flying By

We went camping after Church on August 30th. Now it is Monday, eight days later and I'm left wondering where the time went. Oh, well. I can't bring it back, so have no choice but to move on.

Here's our RV in it's assigned spot.

Sunday and Monday of our campout was nice, but a bit rainy from time to time and fairly cool. But Tuesday was the pick day of the trip. A nice sunny day with lots of fair weather cumulus clouds scudding across the sky. We tromped all over the camping area and took a bunch of pictures.

We relaxed most of the time, sitting on the concrete pad outside of our camper. I scouted out a whole bunch of firewood and used a small seven inch saw to cut it up into handy 15 - 18 inch lengths, which fit the fire ring handily. I wore my sandals and ended up collecting a ton of seeds that wanted me to provide transportation to somewhere else. They ended up being picked out of my socks and burned in the fire.

The microwave oven in the old bus gave up the ghost Wednesday morning, so now I'll have to get a new old from Wal-Mart and put it in before our next trip out at the end of September. I thought about having the RV repair people do it, but that would be pretty expensive. By having me do it, the only twist will be that I will have to build a frame around it to make it look nice in the cabinet hole. The old microwave was made especially for an RV and has a metal frame around it. My carpenter skills are, at best, primitive, but I'll do what I can to make it look decent.

There are unmistakable signs that the seasons are in transition. The solid green of June, July, and most of August is giving way to varying shades of green and the berries on some of the trees and shrubs are beginning to ripen. While it is quite warm sitting in the sunlight, there is a hint of coolness in the shade and once the sun sets in the evening, the air can grow almost chilly. These are camping trips when the evening fire is really nice. You can sit or stand around the fire and warm your front, then turn around and warm your rear!

It reminds of the days of my early youth when my grandmother would take me to what had been her home throughout the 1930s and in 1950 became my home. But in 1944 - 1947 she lived with us and would take me on trips to that Catskill mountain home. The only heat was a large wood-burning kitchen stove. Grandma would get up first on a chilly morning, go out and draw water from the well and get the stove burning for the day. My favorite breakfast was bacon and fried eggs, made in a heavy cast iron skillet. She would take a piece of bread and stab it with a fork, lift a burner out of its spot and toast the bread over the flames. Add fresh butter and homemade berry jam and you really were in heaven.

One of the things I love about out chosen camp spot is the way the sun plays on the water on sunny days. Here in Southern Illinois we don't have really clear lake or stream water. There is too much of a dirt burden in the water, so it looks brown (or sometimes green) when you look directly down into it. But on sunny days, the sun gets at good angles to make the water look nice and blue - the way water should be, right?

Here is a shot across the inlet between South Sandusky Campground and North Sandusky Campground. We have always stayed in South Sandusky, but might shift one time to try some different light.

A Day-long Trip with Friends

Here's my blog for Saturday, posted on Sunday...


Today Jeff K, Tom C and I drove to Decautur, IL for a workshop with the diocesan Mission Department which is called, for an unknown reason, the "Department of General Mission Strategies, or DGMS. Actually I do know the reason since I’ve been around for almost thirty years, but the original intent of DGMS has long ago been lost, only the name continues.

We attended a service of Holy Eucharist with the Bishop (Peter Beckwith) as celebrant. The "feast day" was in honor of St. Augustine of Hippo – yes, that Saint Augustine. A good homily by the bishop, then down to business. Archdeacon Shawn Denney spoke on the topic "God Gives the Increase." He mentioned his experiences with his church, St. Luke of Springfield, which is growing nicely by involving the people in the neighborhood, mostly black. Shawn, who is extremely High Church Anglo-Catholic, is finding himself presiding over a group of young inner city people for whom an evangelical experience is more meaningful. His point? Trust God to give the increase.

After that came a couple of workshops. I attended Adult Education which was quite informative and stewardship, which ended up being a sales pitch by an organization that lets you buy their services to help to try to improve the stewardship in your church. That was less useful. Nothing at all was said about the kind of ministry I am deeply involved with – ministry to the elderly and ministry to the mentally disabled. I don’t know why we ignore the elderly. I understand that there is no money in ministry to the disabled. Too bad. Maybe eventually I’ll tie in with some religious folk who do this.

Tomorrow Sue and I will head out for a four day camping trip. I’ll take pictures. More upon our return. Peace and blessings to all.

Life on a Country Garden Estate

I went to bed at around my normal time last night – 1 AM. Anyone of a certain age knows what it is like to be older and on Lasix, so understand that I was up several times during the night, even though I take my evening dose around 5 PM. Anyway, to make a long story short, by the time everything settled down I really fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 9 AM! Wow, like being a kid on summer vacation again.


Today began with a slight rain, but it was so light that I figured that this was as good an opportunity as I was likely to have for a while. So I spent about three hours sweeping up the grass I mowed a few days back then, applying Turf Builder Plus 2 to my entire "main" lawn. Our place is "L" shaped, with the long leg lying down and the short leg sticking up towards the north. The front part is one acre in size while the stub is half an acre.

Our neighbor across the street had a visitor from England some years back and he admired our place and called it a "Country Garden Estate." I don’t know about the "Estate"part, but we do live in a small country village and do lots of gardening – flowers, shrubs, vegetables, and fruit.
I divide the front part into sections, just for convenience. Each section is about one-quarter acre in size. The part I fertilize is the section to the West, the section around the house, and the section to the immediate east. The "Far East" is the vegetable garden (right now that’s 20’ X 20’, but will grow some next year) and the Little Orchard which consists of two dwarf peach and two dwarf apple trees. So far I’ve had only two small peaches, but they should begin to bear well in the next two years (they’re now 3 years old).


After fertilizing, I mowed the "Far East" and worked on completing two compost bins by the veggie garden. Then I applied herbicide in a number of places in the North Yard and in the Far East around the compost bins and the fruit trees.



By then it was dinner time and good wife Sue had done all of the work this time – I didn’t even have to barbecue. We had her homemade ratatouille, cucumber and onion salad, sliced tomatoes, Corn on the Cob and, for dessert, Peaches and Cream on homemade scones (that I had made a few weeks ago and had frozen). Altogether a yummy meal.


Tomorrow I’m off to an Evangelism workshop with two of the men from my church, Tom and Jeff. We had one other to go, but she had a death in the family and tomorrow is funeral day. We’ll think about her. Maybe tomorrow evening I’ll have something else to write about than my simple life. In the meantime, sweet dreams and God Bless.

A Big Celebration

Today, Thursday, I felt 100% better. I got up at 0630 after Serendipity (the grey cat) had been pestering me for about half an hour. I put on some shorts and a tee-shirt, then fed the critters. Around 0800 Sue got up and came downstairs and we had a Cottage Cheese mixed with Fruit breakfast.

After that I drove to see my family practitioner, Dr. Varanasi. His nurse Jeannie gave me my semi-monthly vitamin B-12 shot then Dr. V. came in and we went over one of my latest blood tests – one taken on 27-July-2009. The only big change from January was a drop in my platelets from 88 to 77 (thousand). That’s my damaged liver at work – or not. My TSH was 0.121, which was low, indicating that my thyroid is working overtime. He noted that there are no "in-between" doses for my levothyroid, so we’ll just let it ride and see if I begin to lose excessive weigh (in his dreams). My weight this morning was 216 pounds, up 4 pounds in three days. It was his opinion that the saline solution I received on Monday as part of the EGD (the better part of one liter which contains about 9,000 mg of sodium), probably knocked my salts out of kilter. He increased my daily dose of lasix from 40 mg, twice a day, to 60 mg, twice a day. He told me to do that for four or five days. I’ll try that since my feet are swollen to the point of pain and discoloration. I showed him the pictures Dr. Pahnke, the surgeon, gave to me after the EGD and asked him to explain what I was looking at since I wasn’t sure. Turns out I did have it right as to what was what and what it showed, so that was nice to know. I probably need to find some kind of anatomy book that can help me understand better what is going on in my own body.

This evening Sue and I went with Barney and Joyce Bruce to Mary’s Restaurant in Herrin, Illinois. That’s as close to a top-notch dining experience one can have staying in Southern Illinois. I had the wood fire grilled Salmon, Sue had the Veal Piccata, Joyce had the Chicken Oscar, and Barney had the Beef Filet. For dessert we each chose a different one, in order to share. They have five desserts on the menu, so we were talking about how we were going to miss out on the Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce.

I had metinioed to our waiter, Jeff, that we were there to celebrate our anniversary and Barney’s birthday. So when he brought out the desserts, we each got our own, plus the chocolate cake thrown in courtesy of the restaurant. So we had Cheese Cake with a Peach Dressing (Peaches are at a peak here in Southern Illinois), Lemon Pie, Flan, and Bread Pudding with Peaches topped with a Brandy sauce, Ice cream and Whipped Cream. Our bill, including the tip (no one had any alcohol) came to $103. Barney and Joyce got away with around $95. But, believe me, it was worth it!

Then a drive back home where we bid the Bruces "Good Night" and Sue and I watched an episode of an Old Testament series of lessons (on a DVD) from the Teaching Company – a really good investment of around $60. The to the computer and bed. Again, Sweet Dreams and God Bless.

Day of work and Rest

Hre's my report for Wednesday:


Today I was dizzy and a bit befuddled all day long. Sue and I went to the Rotary Club meeting in Salem where I had a Chef Salad. Then we worked at the church all afternoon. I had one woman come in for help. She needed food for herself and her young toddler. So we went a block east to the nearby "Sav-A-Lot" store where I gave her a shopping list of allowable items and told her that if she needed something more to just ask me. It developed that she also needed household cleaning items, so we added a few. The total cost for about 5 days food plus the cleaning stuff came to $40.75.

I spent the rest of the afternoon going over the mail – even churches get loads of junk mail. Then a couple of my flock came in to clean up the sanctuary and we got into a long discussion about her pending trip to France. Yes, I am envious, but I did have a great trip to the UK in the Spring, so can’t complain.

When we drove home in the evening I felt a bit better. I watered my Rose Garden and deadheaded the roses (removed the now wilted older flowers). That took about half an hour and help me to at least move around some. By then it was 7:00pm and time for supper, so we grilled pork chops and corn on the cob on the outdoor grill and had a very nice supper of summer vegetables – lots of green beans from the garden.

We’re now in the abundance of summer and harvest tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and green beans almost every day. Add to that the fresh Corn on the Cob sold by our Amish friends and we have a real feast in the making. I usually grill the corn and the zucchini and sometimes even a couple of tomatoes. Wife Sue chewed me out for putting too much salt on my corn – my weight is still up after my EGD on Monday. To bring the lesson home to this bad boy, she counted the number shakes of salt I used, then got out a measuring spoon and showed me that I had actually used about half a teaspoon - no wonder I’ve packed on liquid weight. I should know better since right now my ankles and feet are painfully swollen.

Maybe I’ll do better next year, but I doubt it. I am, after all, a male of the species and like they say, "You can always tell a man – you just can’t tell him very much!" Good night, sweet dreams, and God bless.

Life of an aging Priest

I'm getting a restart on this blog - at my significant other's suggestion. I'll start with my Tuesday, 8/25/09, personal journal entry. It shows my current mood:


I awoke, Tuesday, at 0600 in order to have time to have a small breakfast before my CT scan at SLUH. Of course I had to first feed the cats – a chicken and beef mixture that is not their favorite. They don’t like beef, but love chicken. As for me, I made a three egg omelet using Eggbeaters and a slice of toast with margarine and raspberry jam. By 0630 I was back in bed.
I awoke again at 0900 when Sue got out of bed. I got up and "piddled" around for a little while. I feel extremely tired today. On the scale I weighed in at 215 pounds! Zounds! That’s up a bunch (3 pounds overnight), so I hope that it is just an anomaly.

I was sitting at my desk in my home office when I realized that I feel extremely tired. Maybe it is from yesterday’s EGD procedure, but all I could do was sit quietly and feel that I wished the day had already ended and I could go back to bed. A real wave of lethargy washed over me and I can’t really explain the feeling otherwise.

Around 1030 Sue and I left for St. Louis with me driving. I had driven for about an hour when I realized that I was on the verge of "clicking out" the way I sometimes can when I’m really tired. So I pulled over in New Baden and asked Sue to drive the rest of the way, which she did, with my help as navigator.

We got to SLUH (St. Louis University Hospital) just before 1230, as per my instructions. I checked in and pretty soon one of the workers gave me an apple flavored "smoothie" of Barium Sulfate to drink. Around 1300, one of the CT people came out and asked if I had had a blood test recently, since he needed some of that data. I gave him the telephone number for St. Mary’s in Centralia, but it took him about half a hour to get through to the lab at St. Mary’s. It then developed that my creatinine was 1.6, while the reference range topped out at 1.25, so they didn’t think that they would be able to give me the contrast dye IV needed for the test.
After some hemming and hawing, it was decided to give me another blood test to see if the results would be different. It took about an hour all together, but the new results for me came in at 1.24, just low enough. So we then proceeded to the CT room, where William, my tester, attempted to give me an IV for the contrast dye. He went for my right arm and drew two dry holes. All he managed to do is give me a good bruise on my right hand. His assistant came out and use the inner part of the left arm and made a painful, but good, connection. That piercing left no bruise, so go figure. In about 15 minutes it was all over and I was allowed to leave.

William led me back out to the waiting area where Sue was. He walked at a fast pace and I kept up with him most of the distance, but I began to have a piercing headache and my throat felt constricted as if I was having either a heart attack or reflux. I didn’t say anything to him, but as Sue and I left I told her how I felt and asked her to stop and pause for a bit. I stood still for a moment or two, then walked slowly to the car.

We then drove to Fairview Heights, Illinois where we went to Red Lobster for dinner. I did enjoy the meal, even though I overate. Then we headed home. I pretty much rested for the remainder of the day. Getting old actually sucks!

While reading "God after Darwin" last might I was struck by two things I had read: one was idea that rather than being "up there in heaven," God, in a process theology, might be considered to be "up ahead." In that view God would not be so much an all-powerful entity, but could be seen as a persuasive and inviting entity, calling all of creation foward to become whatever it is capable of becoming. And that view encompasses not just humans, but all of creation - the "stuff" of which we are all made, the living things that inhabit the cosmos, as well as "advanced" life, however one would like to understand that.

The other thing that hit me was a comment by Hought to the effect that materialistic thought envisions the physical cosmos as "all there is" and, since the end of it now seems to be one of thermodynamic death billions of years in the future. Hence, according to this line of thought, there is neither room for God nor hope to discover any "point to it all." What I thought as I read that was that it is more an indicator of the limitations of physical science than it is a prediction of what ultimate reality is all about. Science can see no purpose behind the material reality of the universe, but that does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that there is no purpose, only that science cannot be used to determine if there is purpose. And, then, what the parameters of that purpose might be. But then, see the previous paragraph about seeing God as calling all creation to its own completion - whenever and whatever that may entail.

And, there, I think, might be some significant room for dialogue between science and religion, if both sides will simply agree that neither side posesses "all truth."