Innerdriving

Snow Skiing is for other people!   Bones can be broken.   It is expensive.   You have to buy special clothes.   Mountains and snow are required and those are hard to find in Alabama just about anytime - especially in July!  No - I have lived a successful life without ever snow skiing.  No point in changing that now! Bariloche, Argentina Then Stefanie asked us to join them on a vacation to Bariloche, Argentina in Northern Patagonia.  She is our daughter - the only child - and mother to our only grandchild - Lydia.  I do not say "NO" to a vacation with Stefanie, Josh, and Lydia.   She told me we were going to snow ski!!!  My resolve was now going to be tested.  I have no experience at this.  I'm 60 years old.  I am freshly recovered from a cracked rib at Junior High I Camp at Camp McDowell.  Those snow skis are narrow - the hills are steep.  Suddenly I was remembering ABC's...

What Happened at General Convention? The 79 th General Convention of the Episcopal Church met this year from July 3 through July 14 in Austin, TX.  I have never attended a General Convention and am quite glad there are people who feel called to do so in my place.  There is a convention every three years with delegations from each of the 109 dioceses.  Add in visitors, representatives from probably every Episcopal ministry, vendors, and invited guests and the website says over 10,000 people will attend.  General Convention is divided into a House of Bishops which includes all active and retired bishops and the House of Deputies made up of lay people, deacons, and priests.  Resolutions are introduced in either house and must be approved by both houses for adoption.  After meeting for about 2 weeks, 517 resolutions were approved. Delegates from the Diocese of Alabama So, what did they do?  There wasn’t much controversy this year, al...

Proper 10B Mark 6:14-29 St. Matthias July 15, 2018            Every time I build something, whether it’s a bookshelf or furniture or even a Habitat for Humanity house, making sure whatever it is – is level – straight up and down is pretty important.  I don’t care how good you are – if it’s not straight, everything else will be off.  When building walls, you need a plumb line.  They have electronic versions, but the old ones work best.  There is a weight on the end of a line and when it hangs down straight, you can tell if the wall is perfectly vertical.                            Now Amos was an Old Testament Prophet and a sheepherder who cared for Sycamore Trees on the side.  A prophet was an everyday ordinary person like you and me who was called to bring the Word of God t...

Pentecost 5, Proper 9B 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 July 8, 2018 St. Matthias One of my favorite 4 th of July’s was the year Phyllis and I visited Philadelphia.  We did all the typical tourist things.  We saw fireworks, the Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall, and Benjamin Franklin’s grave in the cemetery of Christ Church in Philadelphia.  That Sunday we went to Christ Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey where a friend of ours was the Rector.  Christians have been worshipping in this parish since before there was an Episcopal Church or even a United States of America.  Christ Church, New Brunswick was built in 1742.  The third public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place at the foot of the church tower which is still there.  The first meeting to organize the Episcopal Church in the new United States was held at Christ Church. Samuel Seabury was the Rector before he was ordained the first American Bishop in the Episcopal Church.  ...

Proper 8B Mark 5:21-43 St. Matthias July 1, 2018 I learned something new this week!  We have all seen Fireflies in the summertime.  I used to watch them in my Grandparents backyard in Mansfield, Louisiana which was huge to me, and it seemed like there were thousands of lightning bugs.  Now what I learned this week is that Fireflies actually communicate through their lights.  Fireflies in sync with another know they are from the same species.  This is why you will often times see a group of Fireflies all blinking at the same time and if you watch long enough, the number and light will grow larger and larger.  This is particularly important because some species eat other species and the larger the size of the light in a field, the more protection. Now when I discovered this fun fact this week – the story from our Gospel lesson made more sense.  Here we have a story within a story.  Mark begins with Jarius, a leader in the synagogue...