Povey Prattle

Not for tender ears. Edgy. Not a bit subtle. Raunchy.   "Adult" language. Very funny! (tears in your eyes at times). Unmemorable "formula music" (You don't leave whistling a tune!) Under it all, a telling critique of western colonialist  missionary efforts in Africa.  Mormons get the rap in this show, but it could have been about any christian fundamentalist missionary group. ----------------------------------------------------------- With the wonderful bonus of leaving the Van Wezel by the Bayside entrance and exit, to be greeted  the lovely bay.

Funny, despite grammatical errors! (Photo' via my neighbour Barbara B.) IF DOGS COULD TEXT 2:00 p.m. you leave the house.  The dog gets testy and texty. 2:05 p.m.    "Papa, you've been gone FOR EVER". 2:10 p.m.     "You promised that you would be back SOON. 2:15 p.m.    "There's a MONSTER outside the house/ i'm scared". 2:20 p.m.    "   You say that you love me, then you leave me".                           2:25 p.m.     "I am  hungry.  You haven't fed me  for three                                    whole  days ".                               2:30 p.m.      "The cat is looking at me.  Tell her to stop ". 2:35 p...

What did the 15 year old John Michael Povey know about anything? Not as much as he thought he knew. More than adults believed he knew. So it was that sixty years when the Synagogue in Bristol, U.K. was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti I know that something was wrong.  So I wrote to my best high school friend Stephen Meyer and his parents to express my sadness and disgust. Stephen's parents had escaped from Germany in 1939. A mere twenty years later they encountered hatred in England. I don't know why I wrote, so I take no credit  -  it was just that something in me told me that something was wrong.  (Maybe that was because I had spent so many happy hours in their home.) They wrote back, saying that my letter had been like a breath of fresh air. Sixty years later I am still in touch with Stephen. I last saw him in Shrewsbury, Shropshire about five years ago,  Two old men re-united and reminisced. Sixty years later the venom of an...

This morning on the locally broadcast WBUR programme "On Point",   Gideon Rose of Foreign Affairs Magazine said that the President had Unleashed a can of worms . (That'll larn them Iranians!) Makes the imagination run wild.

So, I've told you about Bishop Tompkins, Dr.  Visser 't Hooft, and Archbishop Bloom.  They  might  as well be ancient history! The best was yet to come. Before I get to the juicy bit ,  you will remember that due to the oddities of the Church of England I met my sponsoring Bishop (Tompkins) only once. The same was true of the Bishop who ordained me as Deacon in June 1976.  Oliver Tompkins had retired and the new Bishop was John Tinsley. The one and only time we met was when he ordained me to the Diaconate.   The Universe intervened, so that after this ordination I made my way to serve a parish in the U.S.A.  (My move to the U.S.A, in 1976, and my  naturalization in 1984 changed my life for the good.  I am grateful.  Never forget when you met me that I am an immigrant!) NOW the juicy bit  -  which still brings tears to my eyes. 'Twas in about 2002/2003 that one day I was having lunch with my fr...