Blessed are the Concise

Hold the chicken salad! Today we went into extra innings with the sermon despite the fact that the clock was ticking on the chicken salad lunch that was sitting in the parish hall (one should not leave chicken salad out > 30 minutes). I guess that's what happens when you put an agenda (raising money) into what should be a service glorifying God and remembering the souls of the Saints and the dearly departed. Seems to me that if we stick to the fundamentals of Christianity, then the money woes will take care of themselves. I did catch Charlie with at least one factual error when he said the average length of stay for hospice patients in York County was 48 hrs. I think the national average was 67 days in 2005, while here in York County the average is 46 days. Also, there are not 15 hospices in York County, I the figure is 9 licensed hospices due to a recent surge in for profit hospices (not all are active as one died peacfully from natural causes recently and some of the others are candidates for hospice care themselves).

Did anyone notice that the words for the anthem (in bold italics) actually came from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 431-413 B.C.?

"Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action. . . . So they gave their bodies to the commonwealth and received, each for his own memory, praise that will never die, and with it the grandest of all sepulchers, not that in which their mortal bones are laid, but a home in the minds of men, where their glory remains fresh to stir to speech or action as the occasion comes by. For the whole earth is the sepulcher of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives. For you now it remains to rival what they have done and, knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy's onset." [Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 431-413 B.C.]

Now that's a sermon we won't hear at ECOOS. Too warlike.