Povey Prattle

3 rd December 2011 TPA/DFW/SYD (arrive there 5 th December) 5 th December 2011 SYD/ADL 7 th December 2011 ADL/MEL 12 th December 2011 MEL/SYD (by train) 16 th December 2011 SYD/DFW/TPA

As you have previously read, my home is very quiet.  The T.V. is never on.  I can live very comfortably without background noise. However, when I go out of the house, I turn on the radio and tune in to our local classical music station WSMR.  This is for the benefit of my wonderful dog Penne.  She seems to be a bit more relaxed if the radio is on when I am absent. It’s also for my benefit.  For, when I return home, I sometimes leave the radio on. Thus it was that yesterday I heard one of the two “Romances for Violin and Orchestra” by Beethoven.  As I listened my mind was filled with memories. For when my Dad lay a dying in 1974 (before he went to Ham Green Hospital near Bristol for his final hours on this earth) I sat with him in our “middle room” and we listened to the two Beethoven Romances on an “E.P” (extended play) records (remember those E.P’s?). ‘Twas a bittersweet time.    I cannot be certain that Dad heard and enjoyed the music. B...

Last night I had one of those miserable asleep/not asleep night:-  semi insomnia, with a bit of frustration.  By 4:00 a.m. I’d had enough and got up to face the day with a couple of cups of coffee, and Penne’s enthusiastic welcome. I was weary enough to think for a moment that I would not go down to Resurrection House for the weekly prayer service.  But then again, many of the friends who would pray with me there had doubtless slept out last night – and it’s beginning to get chilly in this part of S.W.Florida. So I arrived at Res. House, shot the breeze with some of my homeless friends; kidded around with others.  I announced the prayer service – and gosh and be-golly the little chapel was filled – standing room only. The sense of the presence of the Holy One was palpable.  There was a gentle stillness in that room. And old gospel song came to mind, and I read the words of one of the verses to my brothers and sisters in the Chapel. The “story’ is that these...

Penne's shadow Ibises and (?) Little Blue Heron 1 Ibises and (?) Little Blue Heron (2) Ibises usually feed in flocks.  I often notice that what I think is a little blue heron joining them. Does anyone if there is a reason for the apparently symbiotic relationship? (Sorry the birds are at a distance. The ibises are very skittish and it's next to impossible to get near to them)

 The Revd. J. Michael Povey at St. Boniface, Siesta Key FL Isaiah 64:1-9, Mark 13:24-37 The bible is not the “Old Farmer’s Almanac”, a manual of common sense good advice, and of dubious predictions about the weather.  Nor is the bible a prototype for the Mayan calendar. Jesus is not Nostradamus, an obtuse and confusing so-called prophet whose visions of the future are capable of a million and one interpretations.  Nor is Jesus Ann Landers, giving helpful advice to helpless people. The bible is a library.  It consists of 66 books which are conveniently bound into one volume.  My friend the Revd. Andrew McGowan writes this “like any library, the Bible was collected, not composed”. He goes on to say: “But what difference does it make that the Bible is a library? When you read one book, it may be fair to ask “is this true?” or “is this right?” But such questions, .......are the wrong ones to ask of libraries. It is both impossible and insufficient for a library...