Helpful Old Guy

I was in Lowe's the other day pushing my cart around when I collided with a young guy pushing his cart.

I said to the young guy, "Sorry about that. I'm looking for my wife and I guess I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

The young guy says, "That's OK. It's a coincidence. I'm looking for my wife, too. I can't find her and I'm getting a little desperate.

I said, "Well, maybe we can help each other. What does your wife look like?"

The young guy says, "Well, she is 24 years old, tall, with blond hair, big blue eyes, long legs, big boobs breasts, and she's wearing tight white shorts, a halter top and no bra. What does your wife look like?"

I said, "Doesn't matter --- let's look for yours."

Most old guys are helpful like that.

I've been much too serious of late. I needed a break, and here comes Doug to the rescue.

"The Pastoral Letter" - Bishop Bruce MacPherson

Mark Harris at Preludium posted "The Pastoral Letter" of Bishop Bruce MacPherson, bishop of the Diocese of Western Louisiana, in response to General Convention 2009 in Anaheim. Mark says:

Bishop MacPherson is an honorable man and he is telling it as he knows how. His letter is one filled with concern, but also with hope. As one of the spokespersons for the Communion Partners, I believe he is speaking with clarity. That I do not agree with him is not of much interest. That he is an articulate voice for the "minority" is of interest.

Mark posted the text of the entire letter, which I will not excerpt here. Bishop MacPherson directed that his letter be read at all services this weekend.

The Diocese of Western Louisiana is not my diocese. We belong to the Diocese of Louisiana, with Bishop Charles Jenkins as our bishop. So far as I know, Bishop Jenkins has not issued a pastoral letter. All I can find about convention on the diocesan website is this incomplete account of the first days of GC09.

"No Anglican Covenant!"

Doug, at Counterlight's Peculiers, has a terrific post on - well - he covers a lot of ground that would be difficult to describe in a few words. The basis for the background information is to clarify why Doug thinks a covenant in the Anglican Communion would not be a good thing. I agree with his conclusion, as you should know if you've read my blog for any length of time.

As is often the case, Doug intersperses his words with works of art illustrative of the points he makes in his writing. I recommend his post highly. It's well-reasoned, well-written, and clear.

Thought For The Day - Richard Rohr

Grace, that experience of unconditional acceptance and unearned love, breaks through our entire system of defenses and denials and can change anything at any age. Really!


Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 388, day 403
(Source: The Spiritual Family and the Natural Family)

For Our English Friends

This post is for our English friends who believe their friends in the Episcopal Church in the US have let them down with respect to supporting the progressives in the Church of England. Here's a list of my posts referencing the covenant. You can check out each post, or you can simply believe me that I have spoken out against the covenant frequently. Note that the posts go back two years, and not one of them has a positive word for the covenant.

The list does not include the posts that I've done warning the English that the same up-to-no-good schismatic chickens making mischief in TEC, aided and abetted by certain English flying bishops, would soon take up their roosts in England to make mischief.

It's a boring post, I know, but I want to show that I've done my small part in Anglican Blogland as best I can. I've never said that we should abandon our progressive brothers and sisters in England, but I have said that it might be a good thing to stop paying attention to the ruminations of such wrong-headed luminaries as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop Tom Wright.


http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2009/05/abc-sums-up-acc-meeting.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2009/05/pluralist-speaks-at-episcopal-cafe.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2009/05/to-acc-please-vote-no-to-rcdc.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2009/04/covenant-is-to-be-used-as-litmus-test.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2009/03/who-amongst-us-is-without-sin.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2008/11/which-is-it.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2008/11/cant-sign-covenant.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2008/08/archbishop.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-therapy-session.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2008/08/thought-for-day-non-serious-i-think.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2008/05/brasilian-bishops-letter.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2007/09/padre-xico-speaks.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2007/07/seclusion-at-odd-time.html

http://thewoundedbird.blogspot.com/2007/05/archbishop-njongonkulu-ndunganes-speech.html

Charlotte - Too Good To Be Buried In The Comments

From the post titled "Politeness and the Death of the Church of England" at Of Course, I Could Be Wrong in which MadPriest says:

The Grand Tufti's response to the votes taken at TEC's general convention understandably resulted in many of my American friends saying "Well, stuff them all. We'll go it alone." As my main fear in this ongoing battle is that the US church will adopt an isolationist policy and leave the rest of the world's progressives high and dry, I called them to task on this.

Charlotte has left a new comment on the post "politeness and the death of the church of england":

Indeed we in the Episcopal Church are running out of patience with the ABC and the C of E. But that's not all. Now that the C of E is beginning to suffer the depradations of FoCA-UK, its members are beginning to see what we've had to live through. They could have avoided this by helping to defend us earlier, but they didn't. (MP, you and a few others excepted.) They loved all those lurid tabloid stories about Those Awful Americans too much. Or something.

Well, minds are changing. So any in the C of E who wish to do so are welcome to make as many polite and ineffective gestures of sympathy for TEC as they feel they have time for in their busy schedules. But perhaps we should refer these English offers of help to Dr. Johnson's reply to Lord Chesterfield:

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it: till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to do for myself."

Indeed, to his credit, MadPriest been at the forefront to stand with the Episcopal Church in the US against the depredations of our many adversaries. Pluralist, and others whom I don't mention, have stood with us. I'm grateful, and I thank them. They foresaw that what was happening in the US was a vision of the future in which the Church of England would face the same adversaries, with only the names being different.

However, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his sidekick, Bishop Tom Wright, have exacerbated the troubles in TEC by their confusing, intemperate rhetoric, thereby encouraging the breakaways and wanna-be breakaways to believe that they will soon be part of the World Wide Anglican Church Communion without the onerous burden of having to be part of TEC. Others in England, even those in high places whom we might have expected to share our concerns, have remained silent or were just not paying attention. Where were you when we needed you?

That's not to say that those of us in the US should return like for like and turn away from our brothers and sisters in the Church of England. I go on record to say that we must take note and do what we can to help them in their present hour of need.

Why I Love Jonathan Alter

From Jonathan Alter's column titled "What's Not To Like?" in Newsweek:

Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.

I had cancer a few years ago. I like the fact that if I lose my job, I won't be able to get any insurance because of my illness. It reminds me of my homeowners' insurance, which gets canceled after a break-in. I like the choice I'd face if, God forbid, the cancer recurs—sell my house to pay for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment, or die. That's what you call a "post-existing condition."

Please, please read it all. Read how little of the money that the health insurance companies take in is devoted to actual medical care and how much is devoted to "loading fees". How about the lady on Medicare who complained about "socialized medicare"? Ya gotta love her.

I Heard The Owl Call...

...not my name.

When I walk after dark, I sometimes see a barred owl in flight. The bird is usually invisible once it gets in the tree branches. However, last night I saw where one of the owls landed, and when I got closer, there it was perched on top of a high light post staring down at me, following my progression with owl eyes. Seeing the large bird follow me with its eyes was a little unsettling.

As I returned home, I wondered whether the bird would still be on the light pole, watching as I passed. Before I reached the pole, the owl, or another owl, called out with its loud owl sound - twice! - on the other side of the street. A spooky night sound, surely. To tell the truth, I was relieved to see that the owl had left its perch on the pole, and I did not have to watch it follow me with its large owl eyes once again.

Thus endeth my nightime adventure in my neighborhood.

Image from Wiki. I'm grateful for the pictures at Wiki, because they are not protected by copyright, so I like to give them credit.

What Is This Bird?

We have never seen this bird in our yard before, but yesterday several appeared at the feeders. We looked in our bird books, but couldn't find them. Grandpère said that it may be a Tree Duck. The shape of the head, feet, bill, and body of were similar, but the plumage, bill, and legs and feet of the birds in our yard was so very different in color than the ducks in the picture. We wondered if habitat could have the effect of changing their color that much.



My son said they were definitely Black-bellied Whistling Ducks from Mexico. We went online again and found the ducks, as you see, at another website. The two names seem to be for the same duck, and at the second site we found these words which solved the puzzle:

Juvenile is paler, with grey bill, legs and feet. It has duller plumage than adults, with sooty-brown belly and flanks. It reaches its adult plumage at 8 months of age.
Very young birds have very paler belly, with indistinct transversal bars.

The pictures are from a distance, because I couldn't get closer to the ducks without making them fly away, and my digital camera is not one of the finest. I bought it for its small size and its reasonable price. My regular camera takes much better pictures, but, of course, I have to have the disks developed.

UPDATE: Here's another view. I also posted larger versions of the other pictures.



UPDATE 2: And yet another, though blurred, view of the mystery bird, which I took today:



I think it's a juvenile Black-bellied Whistling Duck. The proof would have been if the bird had whistled for me, but it didn't.

The Rabbi And The Eggs

A rabbi and his wife were cleaning up the house for Passover. The rabbi came across a box he didn't recognize in the refrigerator. His wife told him to leave it alone, and she would take care of it when she finished the preparations for the holiday.

While his wife was doing so, of course curiosity got the best of the Rabbi. He opened the box, and inside he found three eggs and $2000. He was happy that it wasn't something 'bad,' but he was puzzled about the contents. He could understand a stash of money, but why hide eggs? And they didn't even smell rotten.

When his wife came home, he immediately admitted to her that he opened the box, and asked her to explain the contents.

She sighed and explained that every time he had given a bad sermon, she would put an egg in the box...

He interrupted, "In twenty years, only three bad sermons? I think that's pretty good!"

His wife continued, "... and every time I got a dozen eggs, I would sell them for $1.

From Doug, of course. I forgot to give him credit.