Pentecost 6 / Friday, July 21

Gordon and I fished off the dock last evening until it got too dark to see. We've heard from Carole that her physician has reason to think she has some kind of lung cancer. A PET scan is required and after that, next Monday, a team of doctors will evaluate things and make recommendations on what to do. When I came into the bedroom, June was praying the psalms and together we said Evening Prayer, doing the Litany slowly. The reading from Matthew 20 about the two blind men whom Jesus healed was good to hear. I rose again early this morning and said Morning Prayer on the deck. Psalm 88, "O Lord, I cry to you for help in the morning my prayer comes before you." Zonnie and June have gone off to the peach packing plant while Gordon and I are at home; he's resting, trying to find some relief from his chronic back pain. Am reading "Who's Afraid of Post-Modernism? Good book.

Pentecost 6 / Thursday, July 20

Zonnie arrived. We grilled vegetables and fish and ate together. She is doing well, maturing quite wonderfully. A wind across the lake this evening. Began Thursday with evening prayer downstairs in the study room where Gordon will sleep tomorrow evening.

Psalm 81, "Sing with joy to God our strength."
Psalm 116, "You, O Lord, have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling."

Lectio: Matthew 20.17-28. Whoever wish to be first among you must be your slave.

I need to look at the church's calendar more carefully.

The Kalendar of the Episcopal Church asks us to remember the witness of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Ross Tubman today.

Pentecost 6 / Wednesday, July 19

As always the day begins in the evening, and tonight's Evening Prayer for Wednesday was full of mercies.

Psalm 125, "The Lord stands round about his people."
Psalm 91, "You shall not be afraid of the terror by night . . . ."

The lectio was Matthew 20.1-16, and it came to me that at nearly 70, I have in many ways been of last to be hired.

This afternoon, after my grocery shopping in Covington, we recei ved a call from Chris, asking us to come and talk with Stan, so depressed. We went. Later June and I took a boat ride on the lake; the air everywhere was hot. Tonight I ask the merciful Father to restore Stan. And bless Chris. We heard from Becky that Adam is now feeling the pain of the broken and reset arm. In the litany, pray for them.

I'll need to get up early tomorrow to clean the rooms for Zonnie and Gordon. May the almight Lord bless my sleep.

_____________

Early rising. Morning Prayer well before dawn.

Psalm 65, "You are to be praised, O God in Zion; you make the dawn and the dusk to sing for joy."
Psalm 147, "How pleasant it is to honor God with praise."

This morning's hymn, "O Morning Star," especially reminiscent of days past.

The reading in Numbers 16.35-50 is some Scriptures is also the beginning of 17. Wonder why.
More importantly, another of those "terrible stories." The second reading, Romans 4.13-25, more helpful. An icon of Abraham.

Cleaned up the kitchen and got things straightened out up there. My job before going to the airport is to clean the two downstairs rooms. June wants up about 7. Coffee is ready for her.

Pentecost 6 / Tuesday / July 18

Evening Prayer today, after we came home visiting Adam, getting some print cartridges and paint for the swing, began just before going to bed:

Psalm 28, "My heart trusts in the Lord, and I have been helped."
Psalm 127, "Unless the Lord builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it." Especially mindful that it's vain "rise so early and go to bed so late" unless God is building my house, my family, my life.

Lectio: Matthew 19.23-30 (It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.)

This morning up a little before seven after a fitful sleep. Carole gets the results of her medical scan today at 9:45. Lots of do. Zonnie arrives tomorrow and Gordon on Thursday.

Pentecost 6 / Monday

Up early. Morning Prayer:

• Ps. 57, "Awake, lute and harp; I myself with waken the dawn."
• Ps. 147, "Every day will I bless you and praise your Name for ever and ever."
• Number 16.-19. One of those "terrible texts" (Spong) in which Korah, Dathan and Abriam and their families are swallowed up by the earth as a consequence of their rebellion again Moses. Don't know what to make of it.
• Romans 3.21-31

Budget for the next thirty days settled; SunRocket voicemail set up; termit and pest control gentleman (Shawn) provided June with estimates; checked AC air filter (MERV 8) and found it unnecessary to exchange it. Took at look at My Morning Prayer set of CDs. Will go to McDonough later today. Must locate and return library books.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Yesterday I sent off a request to lessen the tax burden to KTRS, took a look at the mid-July budget (good work there!), and cleaned out the outside utility storage room so that it looks organized. A lot of old wood and junk needs to be hauled to the "dump."

Today it's worship at FBC, B'ville; later tonight we go to hear the Ugandan Girls Choir at Carole and Hugh's church. Should be a good day.

James Farl Powers, 1917-1999

Psalm 104 in today's Morning Prayer.

Today Keillor tells us

It's the birthday of novelist and short story writer J.F. (James Farl) Powers (books by this author), born in Jacksonville, Illinois (1917): a writer who didn't have a lot of readers in his lifetime because he wrote primarily about the lives of Catholic priests in Minnesota. Non-Catholics weren't particularly interested in his work, and Catholics tended to think he was too critical. But after his death in 1999, many critics said he should be ranked among the greatest and funniest fiction writers of the late twentieth century.

He grew up in town with few Catholics other than his own family and he later said, "The town was Protestant. The best people were Protestants and you felt that. That, to some extent, made a philosopher out of me. It made me mad." He was twenty-five when he published his first important short story, called "Lion, Harts, Leaping Does," about a priest named Father Didymus, who remains faithful even though he believes he's unworthy of God. The story was selected for the first edition of the Best American Short Stories anthology, and it was published in his first collection, The Prince of Darkness and Other Stories (1947).

As he got older, his work just got funnier, and in 1962, he published his first novel, Morte D'Urban, about a priest named Father Urban Roche, who runs a parish in Great Plains in Minnesota, but who thinks of himself as a kind of businessman, using his position to get the best rooms in hotels and spending all his spare time playing golf. Morte D'Urban won the National Book Award, but it only sold 25,000 copies. Powers was deeply disappointed. He said, "I thought when I'd finished it that it was a good book—and I guess it was, because nobody bought it."

He only published two novels and three collections of stories in his lifetime. Saul Bellow once called him one of the five great writers in America, but by the time he died, most of his books had gone out of print. But his two novels have since been republished, and his stories have been collected in The Stories of J.F. Powers, which came out in 2000.

J.F. Powers was once asked by nun in an interview for The American Benedictine Review if he had any ideas about the role of the Catholic writer. He replied, "No, I'm afraid I don't, Sister, except that obviously he should not write junk."

I'll be in McDonough this afternoon to visit the library and will try to find some.