Povey Prattle

The Bishop of New Hampshire, the Rt. Revd. Gene Robinson is in Sarasota for the weekend, as a guest of St. Boniface Church. His visit will mean a great deal to us.  Gene is not the first gay bishop in the Anglican Communion  ( far from it! ) but he is the first bishop to have been wonderful honest about the gift of his sexuality.  And St. Boniface is a church  where gay and lesbians christians participate fully in the life of the parish. Gene and I have known each other for almost thirty years.  We worked togther on various collaborative efforts for the seven Episcopal Church Diocese on New England. I'll see him tonight at an intimate and exclusive reception alongside 60 other St. Boniface folks .  And I'll be ministering in some small way when the Bishop preaches and presides at the 9:00 a.m. Eucharist tomorrow morning.

Let's make one thing clear.  Abortion must ever be viewed as a medical issue, to be discussed and determined by women with their physicians. It is never a theological/political issue,  to be decided by (mostly male) priests, pastors and politicians. Have I made myself clear? I'll put it another way. Decisions about abortion should be made in Doctor's offices, and NOT from pulpits, or in parliaments.

Starting from the time when he was five and three quarter years old my youngest brother Martyn would get up at 5:45 a.m. each day to cook breakfast for his eight siblings and our parents.   Thanks to Martyn we would feast on eggs, bacon, lamb cutlets, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, and toast every single morning. I would have been “up and at it” at 4:00 a.m. to bake the eleven loaves of bread we ate each day.  As the dough was rising I would churn the butter, and grind the coffee. Dear brother Stephen would forgo his school lunch break. Instead he would ride his bike to deliver freshly made sandwiches to his brothers and sisters at their schools, and to our Dad at work. Thanks to Mum we feasted each evening.   Roast beef on Sunday, Lamb on Monday, Pork on Tuesday, Ham on Wednesday, Goose on Thursday, Lobster on Friday,and  Spam on Saturday.  Dessert would always be an overflowing plate filled with fresh fruit and scrumptious cheeses...

It made me very sad.  I was down at Resurrection House, the day shelter for homeless people here in Sarasota.  It’s Wednesday, so I was there to facilitate the weekly prayer service. “He” came into our small Chapel.   “He” is Ian (not his real name).  Ian is a thirty-something man.  He is well dressed, and looks quite unlike our stereotypical image of the “homeless”. N.B.  There are no “homeless”.  There are “homeless people”. “Ian” began to speak.  Together with the other three men in the Chapel, I heard a non-stop and unfocused “speech”.   Little of what he said made sense. But there were phrases  here and there which spoke of his longing to be accepted “just as he was”. “Just as he was”  is not “just as we are“.  For it became clear that Ian is mentally ill. He lives in his own world:- a world which makes sense to him, but which seems to be nonsense to others. I used my soft and gentle voice to try ...

It began to rain here at about 5:00 p.m. today.   In fact since that time until now (just before 8:00 p.m.) we’ve had 1.40”.     That’s good, cos we need every drop in rain-starved Florida.  It’s unusual because we are not in the rainy season (June through November).  The rain was preceded by strongish winds which reached 28 mph. At just about 5:00 p.m. even though he lives less than half a mile away, I drove over to visit with my friend Ben, preferring not to be soaked in the heavy rain. At about 5:30 p.m. our mutual friend Bob arrived.  He announced that our County was under a tornado watch .  That was a bit of “news” that I’d missed, since I do not watch T.V., and rarely listen to the “wireless”  at home. But it did not matter. After all, what could I have done even if I had heard about the tornado watch? The correct answer is “not a damn thing!”. Our nations spend countless dollars, euros, and pounds in the quest for th...

Psalm 127:2 says that  "He  (God)  gives sleep to his beloved". Oh how I wish!   I would love to be able to have better and longer sleep. But my sleep is most always fitful.  I move in and out of good overnight sleep, ever being awakened by dreams  (funny, fanciful, and fearsome).   How I wish that I did not dream! How I wish that I could get at least eight hours of undisturbed sleep. That wish was at the top of my mind when I finally hit the sack at 10:00 p.m. yesterday  (23rd Jan 2011)  after a day filled with great activity.   (Regular readers will know that a 10:00 p.m. bedtime is very late for me!) But I did not get those eight hours of un-interrupted sleep.  For my senior cat Ada decided that 4:30 a.m. today was the perfect time at which to scratch on my bedroom door.  She scratched with great verve and energy.   She scratched and scratched  so  much that I gave up the idea...

What a day!     I preached this morning at the 8:00 and 10:00 Eucharists at All Angels Church on Longboat Key.  I had gotten writer’s block earlier in the week, so simply could not preach from a full script as is my wont.  So I preached from notes.  Just before the early service I was in a bit of a panic since I felt sure that my  notes were inadequate.  So I put out a heartfelt plea to God the Holy Spirit, asking for the grace of inspiration. Even as I preached I felt a surge of energy.   I do believe that I experienced the presence and power of that Holy Spirit, for which I can only say “thanks be to G-d”. It was gratifying to hear many worshippers says that the sermon “spoke to their condition” (as the Puritans would have said), so again I was able to be grateful for the presence and power of the Spirit. After lunch my neighbour Ed and I went to the Florida Studio Theatre to see  a play: “The 39 Steps”.   It is a bit o...