Vacare Brain

After today's sermon I need a "vacatio" (per Webster, etymology: Middle English vacacioun, from Anglo-French vacacion, from Latin vacation-, vacatio, freedom, exemption). The wonderful thing about Latin is that since there are no Latins left, we can argue the meanings of their words endlessly. I think Charlie meant to say during the announcements that vacation derives from "vacare" which means lack, to be free of, as in vacant, or vacuum. Therefore, we are excused (with the Church's blessing) to take some time off and be vacant. My mind went vacant after the first 10 minutes. The rest of the time I had a nice vacation without ever leaving my pew.

Tear down the Walls!

I got a call from the renovations committee the other day wanting to schedule a time for a personal interview about the planned destruction/reconstruction of the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour. The Pewster does not do personal interviews, nor can I take time out from my busy schedule to meet with yet another paid consultant about this project. I offered to meet at night, but there are no after hours consultations available. Therefore, the interview process will be biased towards persons who have idle time during the day. I propose that since these persons may not be the donor pool for the 1+ million dollars requested, the results of this survey will not provide an accurate assessment. My suggestion of course is to do a free web based survey using the following questions: (feel free to add more)
1. Are you willing to pay for a new roof for the parish hall every 7 years since that seems to be what we are averaging?
2. Would you be in favor of simply replacing the peeling paneling and worn carpet?
3. Now that the breezy porticoes have been replaced with "historically accurate" porticoes, do
we still need them?
4. Will you continue to contribute if you or your parish leaves TEC?
5. Is there anything better we could do with all that money?

New Link

I liked this site so much that I added it to the links list. Let me know what you think.

10 years

This Sunday we celebrate Charlie's 10th year at Our Saviour. The program notes indicate that this is the longest continuous run of his career. Some one needs to tell me the average tenure of an Episcopal priest. It seems that there is a shortage of priests out there, but fortunately our new ex-governor/seminarian from New Jersey will be available in a few short years for those of you who are priestless at present. We are lucky to have Charlie and Gwen for the past 10 years. After all, he could stand up there and say that he is tired of Sunday afternoon quarterbacks like the Pewster posting comments on the Sunday sermon. Speaking of which, "brown people?" (twice) Oh well, as he said during the announcements, sometimes the wrong words come out. We should remember the good words of the anthem, "Oh my God, bestow thy tender mercy, blot out my transgressions, cleanse my sins...." While more appropriate for Lent, the Pewster will take them to heart and beg forgiveness for my transgressions. Still, I wonder what Green people think of Brown people.

Jesus Jambalaya

Holy Gumbo! Fr. Dunbar in his sermon today reminds us that Jesus was executed in part because he broke the laws that separated people and did not permit mixing, a practice we still see today. Does Judaism have discrimination built into it's core? The old laws were discriminatory, but isn't that the nature of man? As babies we automatically discriminate between faces we accept and those we reject. As children we learn the prejudices of our culture, as teens we divide into cliques, then as adults we get to write the laws. Laws by their nature discriminate between right and wrong, and they have been used to the point of creating separate water fountains, swimming pools, and schools for persons of different race, who can sleep with who, who can fight in the military, and who can vote. Jesus' message was one of inclusion except when he picked his 12 (in whom we do not exactly have the diversity of the star ship Enterprise). He picked his crew carefully. I think Fr. Dunbar's point is that there is room in the pot for a wonderful mix of peoples, of shades of belief, and the "Ya Ya" of everyone speaking at once. The end result could be a great dish. Just remember that even a good Jambalaya can be spoiled by including bad ingredients.