This And That

 

Get a haircut, fool

Well yesterday was fun, all about a standing rib, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and carrots, delicious gravy and all of that. A young soldier and his Canadian pal approved of the feast. 

But today struck with a dead battery and headlight bulb in the kid's car and I tell you, removing a battery and replacing a bulb in an '04 Chevy Trailblazer isn't as easy as you'd think. Canadian friend likened it to "heart surgery." He had a point.

Big Baby

Then the kids went fishing and drove off to Austin to hang out with some Polish people and, I guess, hippies, it being Austin and all. I did not go to Austin but stayed at the Compound, where it's safe, and RV'd with some Mexicans at the church.

What good people, who set up the church's "sound system" for the new Spanish Mass this coming Sunday. I do not use a "sound system" because I kinda hate them in church, but for them it's important. So hey, carry on and el Senor sea con ustedes.

That aside, I find this... hypnotic, perhaps you will too:

Cheers,

LSP

Austin

 

When people think Austin they mostly think "hippy" and keep on walking, totally understandable. But not so fast, punters. St. Francis Anglican Church on Oak Creek is definitely an exception to the rule, and I know this because I visited the church this morning for Mass and the institution of their new Rector.

What a friendly, warm hearted congregation and I was taken aback by the quality of the music, led by an excellent little schola cantorum (choir), really very good and, sadly, all too rare. Then, after an edifying 1928 BCP Mass, we retired to the church hall for a delicious lunch of several sorts of sandwiches and a good time was had by all, not least the church's many children.

Well done St. Francis, and congratulations on finding a faithful new priest and pastor. I feel the future is bright for this faithful parish and will pray to that end. Speaking of bright, it might be a good idea to compliment the church's beautiful Crucifix and Tabernacle with six tall Office Lights. Use existing candelabra for Benediction, sort of thing. Just a thought.

Then, uplifted by the experience, I drove back down murderous I35 to the buccolic rural haven of the Compound only to discover my dog eating a German Bible. "Take that, Luther," he seemed to say, chowing down contentedly on the "Paper Pope." He was suitably reprimanded.

Wicked Bible devouring dogs aside, if you're looking for a friendly, traditional, family oriented Anglo-Catholic church in Austin check out St. Francis. What good and faithful people.

God bless,

LSP

The Trinity - Sunday Sermon

 

If you wanted to make up a religion for, say, profit, fun and a seat on a private jet you wouldn't come up with the Trinity; the doctrine's too hard, that God is a trinity of Persons in unity of substance. Not three gods or three aspects of god but one God who is three distinct Persons, each one of which is fully divine. The Athanasian Creed puts it thus:

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost.

 

It goes on to say that unless you believe this you will, without doubt, “perish everlastingly,” which sounds harsh and is doubtless why this Creed's hidden away at the back of the 1979 Prayer Book.  It's just not very polite, especially for modern Anglican sensibilities. But there it is and if we aspire to heaven we'd better worship God as He's revealed Himself to us, as triune. Can we make any sense of this or must we fall into reverent silence in the face of the mystery?

Both, surely, and perhaps the African Doctor St. Augustine comes to our aid. He teaches us that the act of love, human love, necessitates three things, a lover, the beloved and love itself. This, he believes, is analogous to the Trinity, where from all eternity the Father pours out his being to the Son in an act of perfect love. 

The Son returns the Father’s love and gives himself to the Father perfectly. So they are one in essence or substance, yet distinct as persons in their relationship one to another. And from their love, this timeless interplay of perfect being, proceeds the Spirit. The love of God personified, distinct by virtue of his procession.

Benedict XVI describes the relationship with admirable clarity: 

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one because God is love and love is an absolute life-giving force; the unity created by love is a unity greater than a purely physical unity. The Father gives everything to the Son; the Son receives everything from the Father with gratitude; and the Holy Spirit is the fruit of this mutual love of the Father and the Son.

 

Per B16, St. John sums it up in three words, "God is love." Reflect on that for more than a moment and silence, to say nothing of fear of the Lord ensues, "Remove your sandals for you are on sacred ground." But we can say this, God, in the Trinity, has revealed himself to us as an infinitely loving communion of persons. So what? So a lot. Consider some of the other options.

What if your higher power is the enigmatic "Life Force," a popular deity in San Francisco, Portland, and Austin, which sounds suspiciously like electricity, doubtless solar. But however green, electricity doesn't love you, it can't, it's not a person. Stick your finger in a light socket and find out.

Again, what if "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" by you is simply the universe, the world writ large. The good Texan soil, the trees, the sun and moon, the stars glittering in the night sky, galaxies cascading out into the icy void of deep space. Such grandeur and all good in itself but here's the thing, the atoms don't care when they're smashed together and obliterate a city. Lake Whitney doesn't shed a tear when you tragically fall off the boat and drown along with your guns. Again, this version of God doesn't love us, it can't, it's not a person. 

So what? So a lot. People become like the gods they worship and an unloving, impersonal god produces unloving disciples; followers of the Life Force become just that, all about force. You'll note that "we just want civil unions" moved to "bake the damn cake!" at warp speed.

The doctrine of the Trinity saves us from this tyranny and the despair which goes with it. God, the ultimate reality, the great I AM, is love and He loves us. He dies for us on the Cross, he reconciles us to the Father, He restores God’s image in us, He adopts us as sons as we rise reborn in the waters of the font, the Spirit anointed Sons of God, beloved by the Father, heirs in Christ of everlasting life.

What can we do but fall down in humble adoration, wonder and praise before the God who loves us and has revealed Himself to us as love, as He who is, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

God bless you all,

LSP

Filthy Hippies

 

One of the things about hippies is they don't wash. But sometimes they get near water and even in it, like a crew of motorcycle hippies chancing it out of Austin who ended up in my friend's stock tank. His Mossberg pump told them to leave, along with the snakes, and they did.

Speaking of which, the last trailer full of stuff left my friend's (RIP) place today. I tell you, he sure collected and where is all that going now? Hey, you get the sermon. Moral aside or perhaps reinforced, we found his old '60s service dress uniform. Neatly pressed. Respect.

My friend was a member of an experimental US/AUS chopper unit which saw action in Laos and Cambodia. Their motto? Get The Bloody Job Done. And they did. Utter respect. Anyway, we got the job done today and all was good.

A friend, RIP, landed at LAX during the conflict and a hippy punched him in the taxi rank, shrieking "baby killer." He hit that hippy right in the face and a cop came up, "Do you want me to book her for assault?"

Your Best Pal,

LSP

Austin Goes Lock Down

 

Austin, Texas, twinned with Portland, Seattle, Chengdu and San Francisco has gone full Level Five Lock Down, with city authorities telling people to stay at home and businesses to go "contactless." The recommendations come after a staggering rise in COVID related hospitalizations.

The Level Five emergency advisory followed Monday's catastrophic surge of 56 people reportedly admitted to area hospitals with the China Virus, bringing the total of WuFlu hospitalizations to 333 persons, of which 84 were in intensive care.

Here at the Compound, numerologists have been hard at work on the data and note that 333 is exactly half of 666, the notorious number of the Beast in St. John's Book of Revelation. Does this mean that Austin, the capitol of the Lone Star State, is half way to becoming a satrapy of Antichrist?

Possibly so, in which case it makes sense for the City's rulers to lock Austin down and lock it down hard. Go further, build a wall around the city and forbid movement in or out. It's for the good of the state and the country as a whole. C'mon man, be safe, spread hope.

In the meanwhile, Austin Mayor Steve Adler has nothing whatsoever to do with China, at all. Don't say stench of treason, chicanery and corruption.

Cheers,

LSP

Stop Whining And Complete The Mission

I was sitting in the front office porch of the Compound drinking coffee and feeling sorry for myself, all because an appellate court had ruled against our diocese and I was looking down the barrel of being down one house and two churches. Whine, whine, whine.

EMU

Then a churchperson showed up for a talk and unwound about some of the things he'd experienced in Vietnam as a Crew Chief. Horrific and Hell don't do it justice, no fooling. 

That put things into perspective and I didn't feel so miserable after the Chief's tale.

Motorcycle Hippy

In related news, the same man once chased a crew of motorcycle hippies out of his stock tank a while back. The thieving hippies were probably chancing it out of Austin and landed in the wrong territory.

Moral of the story? Stop whining, the mission continues.

LSP

Manicorn -- Warning, Graphic.

A well known member of the intelligence community has alerted me to a new threat, "manicorns."  

Typical Manicorn Park Scene

Experts suggest that manicorns are related to the horned predators we're familiar with today, which are possibly mutations of the medieval unicorn or another species altogether, such as the Baiste-na-scoghaigh of Scottish folklore.

If you google manicorn you'll find some 69,000 results. How many of these are in San Francisco and Austin is, at present, unclear.

Mind how you go,

LSP

Ripped Off

Yesterday's fishing was hijacked by locksmithery and I thought I'd make up for that this morning. First things first, put a couple of rods in the bed of the rig and stop by Walmart to pick up a lure and some worms. 

Simple, and so it was until I returned to the truck from the store, looked in the bed and lo and behold, no rods. Some goon had ripped them off, so I drove 'round the car park looking for rod thieves but they were long gone.

Some Thieves Ripping Off a Crop

Maybe it was some crew of freaks, chancing it on their way back to Austin, trying their luck down the I35 corridor. I don't know, it's possible, but one thing is certain.

It takes a special kind of wickedness to steal someone's fishing rods.

LSP

LL Flies to Texas

Some people don't have much to say and what they do say is depressing, negative, boring and stupid. None of these things apply to LL, and I know this because he broke free of California and visited Texas this week.

The conversation was varied, ranging from drones and kukris to Atlantis, soteriology, and everything else in between. Of course most of this is classified, but not all; here's a paraphrase, as we were taking a break at the range.

  "I say, old chap," I asked, adjusting the settings of my thermal visioning monocle, "What d'ye think of Preppers?"

  "Preppers?" Growled LL, channeling General Patton, "I've always been a prepper, because I've always been prepared, but some of these guys are too narrow. Their plan lacks perspective."

  "How's that?" I replied, cutting the head off a snake with a handy, razor sharp kukri.

  "Well, I turn up at their fort with a canon, a Civil War cannon, that has a range of not much less than a mile, and I start pounding that compound with hot shot. What then? Yeah, maybe they run out, perhaps they sally forth. I want that, I want them in my kill box."

  "A Civil War cannon?"

  "Right. A Civil War cannon. Maybe a trebuchet. I could make both of them, so could you."

   "So perhaps the redoubt should be underground?"

   "Exactly."

After some ranging about we drove south to meet friendly forces. Rumors of hedgehogs are entirely without foundation.

Texas, which is perfect, is nonetheless a poorer place without LL.

God bless,

LSP