Resurrection isn’t having their Ash Wednesday service today until 6 PM, so I trotted up to St. Alban’s for my annual visitation. Again, it is so soothing to have the words of the 1928 BCP wash over my soul! I can tolerate the new Rite I, but our current Priest in Charge has announced he will be doing Rite II and Prayer D during the Easter season. If I want to do penance, I’ll have it before Easter, not after, THANK you very much.
Ahem. Where was I?
Ah. In spite of all the things I like about that little church, I had to take the rector to task over his sermon, which was primarily about the “nonsense” of Ashes to Go. I asked him to take a look at the congregation he had this morning: retires, younger women and two school aged children. There’s not a church – of any denomination – in the area that has an early morning service. If you are a working adult, or even a high school student – it’s either Ashes to Go, or nothing at all. “You don’t know what’s in people’s hearts. If they didn’t know what they are about, they wouldn’t even want ashes.”
Here endeth the sermon.
My dad’s grandfather was a Scots Presbyterian domini who went to Australia to serve the convict population there. He developed a bad habit of going after reluctant converts with an axe, and they had to lock him up. As you can imagine, Daddy took a fair amount of teasing when he decided to go to seminary himself.
n Monday for the County to worry about. Now, the birds have decided to drag what’s left of the carcass onto the lawn, so they don’t have to worry about being hit by cars themselves. The deer was originally in the ditch by the mailbox, and what’s left of it is now about halfway between the road and the pond. The Squire walked out to get the mail, and said there is nothing left but the spine, the ribcage, and what looks to be most of the pelt. And, like Lazarus, it stinketh. Lovely. Just lovely.
The old Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In show had an award they called The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate.
thisendoftheswamp 