Povey Prattle

for the Consecration of Sam Rodman as 11th Bishop (Episcopal Church) of North Carolina at Duke University Chapel.  I've known Sam since circa 1978. I'll also see old Pittsfield MA friends George Blaisdell Jr and Kadi Kool I'll be incommunicado until Monday 18th July Neighbour Barbara B is taking care of my cat and my home

Two videos , one from a law professor at Regent University (a conservative school founded by Pat Robertson, and by no means a bastion of  liberal ideology!);  the other from  a Virginia Beach policeman. Long  but important for viewing (even if, like me, you find the prof's "style" to be a bit annoying. https://youtu.be/i8z7NC5sgik     The Professor. https://youtu.be/08fZQWjDVKE  The Policeman

Among the Reeds. The true story of how a family survived the Holocaust by Tammy Bottner Amsterdam Publishers 2017 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Among the Reeds"  ( c.f. Moses in the bulrushes) is the harrowing and tender story of the Offner/Bottner family during the Nazi occupation of Belgium.  The family were Jewish refugees from eastern Europe. It's a story of efficient brutality. If the Nazis were clear about anything it was about "The Final Solution" - the extermination of every Jew in the territories they controlled, often aided and abetted by local anti-Semites.  It's a story of misplaced trust.   Jews often went along with Nazi demands  (e.g. registering as Jewish, wearing the infamous yellow star), reasoning that if they complied their persecutors would "play nice". Queen   Elizabeth of the Belgians put all too much stock in Hitler's pe...

Last Thursday I went to my local 7/11 to get a newspaper and some cigarettes.   The cigs were not for me, but for my friend Bob who is in a memory unit in a retirement community. I was a dollar short, so started to use my debit card.  The clerk/assistant said  "You don't need to use the card, I'll make up the difference as I go along". I protested but she was firm. Later in the day I found the missing dollar bill in my pocket.  I went back to the store to hand it over to the young woman who had waited on me. She smiled and said "I knew you would be back". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday I went to the gym. The man who checked me in had the most delightfully resonant baritone voice. As I left I told him that he speaking voice was so mellifluous and delightful.  He was grateful.  He told me that five years ago he had been offered a job as a radio announcer on the basis of his gorgeou...

The Church SRQ is located on the east side of Clark Road, just north of Beneva. I pass it on the days when I attend the Health Fit program  at Sarasota Memorial Hospital's facility on Rand Boulevard/Clark Rd. Church SRQ has a motto:  Making Jesus Famous This is from the Church website " It’s never too early to be a world changer here at The Church SRQ! Every week Tony Faeth shows our youth that Christianity isn’t about stain (sic)  glass, pews, and rituals it’s about loving people, doing life together, and making Jesus famous!" The motto bothers me.   Whilst it is true that Jesus' fame spread (see Mark 1:28) he eschewed fame and did not seek after it. The accounts of the Temptation in the Wilderness make it clear that he rejected fame and celebrity status.   When (in John's Gospel)  Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. And when it seemed that...

My oldest sister Maureen was born in Bristol, U..K.  on 6th July 1937.   It's her birthday today. The lore is that our Mum and Dad had chosen her first name, and that it was a next door neighbour, one Mrs. Charlton,  who said "give her JOY  as a middle name, because she will always be a joy to her parents. So my sister is Maureen Joy. Mrs. Charlton  (we called her Auntie Charlton) was wonderfully and prophetically right. "Our Maureen" has been a consistent source of joy wisdom and counsel  all these eighty years: To our parents To her siblings and their spouses, children and grand children To her fabulous and beloved husband Bernard To their four children Nicholas, Louise, Emma, and Anne. To her  daughter in law Lesley, and her sons-in-law David, Brett and Stuart To her grandchildren,  James, Hannah, Imogen, Molly, Isaac, and Olivia. We, her immediate family, adore, respect and love Maureen.     And n...

Or, more likely, the newspaper no  longer employs proof readers.