Povey Prattle

On Sep 11th 2001, I shared in the almost universal sense of shock and horror. It was a bad day, with bad deeds, done by bad people. Within my sense of shock and horror I had a hope. It was that our people would observe "shiva" the Jewish ... period of mourning after a death. I had hoped that we would spend 8 days in grief before we faced the new reality. Sadly the Presidential response encouraged us to go out shopping, and to take vengeance on Iraq before we had a chance to grieve and mourn. This meant that the "White House et al" in 2001 never left space for grief. There is a hole in the American soul, for our broken-heartedness was instantly politicized by the White House. That's why I am so conflicted each Sep 11th.   And it’s why I am on my way to a Christian/Jewish/Muslim Prayer service at Sarasota’s First Presbyterian Church this evening.

On Wednesday I roasted four chicken legs.  (In fact the oven did the roasting).  I cut up the meat from two of the legs to make my famous curried chicken salad. ( Well at least one person other than I like it - so it’s just a wee bit famous!). That left two cold cooked chicken legs. Whenever I opened the fridge door they called out to me, saying “do something”    So I decided to “do” a chicken pot pie. I chose the “quick and easy” recipe with cut up chicken, low fat cream of mushroom soup, frozen green peas, frozen black eyed peas, and a bit of cayenne pepper to spice things up – all to be covered with store bought pie crust.  I mixed up the ingredient in a plastic bowl, and set it aside for the peas to thaw. By then I needed to run an errand.  I turned the oven on to pre-heat it, planning to transfer the mixture to a glass cooking bowl and cover it with the pastry as soon as I got home. The errand took a while longer than I’d anticipated but when I ...

Pay attention jmp My most recent visit to Sarasota’s excellent “Selby Library” had me looking for one or more of Taylor Caldwell’s novels.   I’d heard that she was a fine writer, and I was looking for her novel “ Grandmother and the Priests”. That book was not on the shelves so I picked out another Caldwell with the intriguing title “God’s Little Acre”.   It was not until I was back at home that I noticed that this book was not by Taylor Caldwell, but by Erskine Caldwell. Published in 1933, “God’s Little Acre” is a searing tale of the lives of poor farmers in Georgia, and textile mill workers in North Carolina.   It’s a raw and tough tale which still has the power to shock 77 years after it was published. I am glad that I was not paying attention when I borrowed this powerful novel from our library, for I was utterly engaged with this book by Erskine (rather than Taylor) Caldwell.   It’s a novel whose themes are far from being historic.   They are being live...

1.       Not all the news is bad!   See for example http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2010/09/church_welcomes_new_neighbor_a_mosque.html 2.       I have mixed feelings about “Sam’s Club”, (part of the Walmart Empire). Re: Walmart.   On the one hand the big box Walmart stores have driven many local “Mom and Pop” out of business.   On the other hand, when a Walmart store is located in a smallish and poor rural town, the residents of that town are enabled to purchase food, clothing, electronics, appliances etc at decently low prices. Re: Sam’s Club.   This is the semi-wholesale division of Walmart where people can buy essential items in bulk, e.g. 48 rolls of toilet paper, or 10lbs of chicken, or 96 rolls of paper towel, at a good price. “Sam’s Club” also enables (for example) local Convenience Store proprietors or Cafe owners (etc) to buy essential and re-saleable items at reasonable prices. I ...

Why am I so tired at 7:03 p.m.? On the other hand, why was I "up and at it" at 5:00 a.m.? And so it goes.  Nonetheless I had some wondrous Brussels sprouts with my supper/dinner  tonight!  When I eat sprouts I stop asking "why?".  I simply say "wow"! The world would undoubtedly be a better place if more people, in more places, learned to rejoice in sprouts!

It was probably more than four years ago that I last ate fried chicken: that is until yesterday .  I’ve abstained for two reasons. First: because friend chicken is not a very healthy food.  Second: because it is hard to find truly excellent fried chicken.  I have been eating very healthily all this year (and have lost more than 45lbs in weight), with lots of good fruit and vegetables, white meat or fish, and next to no rice, pasta, bread or potatoes: that is until yesterday. Yesterday at dinner time my body revolted against yet more stir fry or roasted vegetables, and grilled fish. It cried out “I want fried chicken”.  Now I can scarcely pass a KFC without gagging. The smell from the exhaust pipes of the fryers is vile.  But a friend had asserted that “Popeyes” had good stuff, so off I drove there to get my three pieces of fried chicken, with a side of coleslaw, a biscuit and a soft drink thrown in. (Two of the pieces turned out to be nothing mo...

(B) Sermon for 5 th September 2010. The Revd. J Michael Povey at All Angels by the Sea, Longboat Key, FL Luke 14:25-33 25 Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far awa...