The Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

The lections may be found here.

The Trinity Art Show: This Year's Humble Offering From Yours Truly

Each year, Clements Custom Guitars produces one signed work of the luthiers’ art that commemorates a certain period in the development of guitar-based music. Last year a baritone guitar entitled “Blond On Blond” was presented at the Trinity Art Show, capturing the era when folk music surrendered its traditional acoustic presentation and controversially embraced electric instrumentation.

In acknowledgement of the recent passing of popular music legend Les Paul, this year’s guitar recognizes his achievement in the development and construction of the first professionally viable and desirable electric guitar. Manufactured by the Gibson Guitar Company beginning in the early 1950’s, the Les Paul model has been played by musicians such as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, The Who’s Pete Townsend, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, and, of course, Les Paul himself. Until last month, Paul could still be found performing weekly at New York’s Iridium Jazz Club, showing the audience the range and power of his eponymous guitar. As with its originator, the Gibson LP remains more popular than ever.

Using the familiar Les Paul shape and design, this work utilizes traditional media in its arch top mahogany body, maple top and neck and rosewood fingerboard. Additional appointments include trapezoidal perloid inlay, Grover Die Cast tuners, and a Stop-Bar tailpiece. The original and singular tone and sound is replicated by the use of vintage-style wax potted ceramic humbucker pickups, regulated by two volume and tone controls and a three-way adjustor. As 1952’s “Tiger Rag” was one of the first recordings to make use of the Les Paul guitar, the laminate is finished in a tiger stripe pattern.

"He Looks Like A Deranged Easter Bunny"

A proud historical site in my hometown marks a milestone:

'A Christmas Story' house greets 100,000th visitor

Tell Me About It

It's hard for New Jersey surfers to get respect

New Call; New Home

It occurred to me the other day that I've lived in our current house longer than I have anywhere else in my life. Wasn't that long, really, but that's testimony to my transient upbringing.

What sparked this realization is that I am moving yet again.

This weblog will continue, of course, as it is mine and not tied to a specific congregation. While I'm hopeful that my new parish will use this site for information and other things relevant to our common life, The Coracle has morphed into a site with a far flung readership less interested in parish announcements than in links to articles relevant either to contemporary Christianity or contemporary silliness [hard to tell them apart sometimes].

Anyway, the new position awaits and I have much work to do. We will be offline for most of this week, save for a few photos of the new art show guitar and whatnot. We will return to regular broadcasting next week, though.

Headline Of The Week. Maybe The Month.

Chihuahua With Earrings Stolen At Gay Bar
Police Seek Man With Britney Spears Tattoo

The Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost

This week, Solomon auditions for HGTV, Paul relates strength and prayer, and Jesus pushes the lesson plan just a tad too far for some. All this and what happens when you listen to the music of your youth forty years later. No, it isn't pretty.

The lections, for the final time, may be found here.

Click to enlarge the very interesting picture above.

Today In History

August 22, 565: Celtic missionary and abbot Columba reportedly confronts the Loch Ness Monster and becomes the first recorded observer of the creature. "At the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified," wrote his biographer, "and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes".

August 22, 1670: English missionary John Eliot founds a church for Native Americans at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

August 22, 1800: Edward B. Pusey, author of Tracts for the Times and a leader of the Oxford Movement to renew the Anglican Church, is born. He wrote several works promoting a union between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, but the Vatican I Ecumenical Council (1869-70) dashed his hopes when it declared the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Or, You Could Simply Say To Your Child "No". Works Every Time.

When Parents Scream Against Ice Cream

Today In History

August 21, 1741: George Frideric Handel shuts himself up in his home to begin writing "Messiah." He finished the composition 23 days later. "Whether I was in the body or out of the body when I wrote it, I know not," he later said.

There's Gonna Be A Tragedy

Ferret on the loose in downtown Port Angeles

Today In History

August 20, 1153: Bernard of Clairvaux, French theologian, monastic reformer, and hymn writer (O Sacred Head Now Wounded), dies. His motto was "To Know Jesus and Jesus Crucified".

Scots Wha Hae

'Global warming could mean Scottish wines are best'

Stand By For News

An English knight finally gets proper recognition:

Rat-eating plant named for Attenborough

As Attenborough used to teach on his BBC nature shows [which I watched slavishly during my UK years], nature constantly tests its constraints:

"I have never seen this before," said Service Manager Mike Vecchio."I mean bears don't usually attack motorcycles."

The Feast Of Dubose

William Porcher DuBose is considered by many as the greatest theologian that the Episcopal Church has ever produced. He was born in South Carolina in 1836, and attended the Military College of South Carolina (now the Citadel) and the University of Virginia. He served as a chaplain in the Confederate Army, and after the Civil War as a parish priest. In 1871 he became a professor at the University of the South (an Episcopal institution) in Sewanee, Tennessee, became Dean of the School of Theology in 1894, retired in 1908, and died in 1918.

He was fluent in Greek, well-read both in Greek philosophy and in the early Christian fathers. Among his numerous books, the best known are The Soteriology of The New Testament, The Gospel in The Gospels, and The Reason of Life. (Soter is the Greek word for "Savior", and soteriology is the branch of theology that deals with such questions as, "What does it mean to say that Christ saves us?" "How does his death and resurrection do us any good?" "How are the benefits of Christ's work applied to the individual?" and so on.) A quote from one of his articles follows:

"God has placed forever before our eyes, not the image but the very Person of the Spiritual Man. We have not to ascend into Heaven to bring Him down, nor to descend into the abyss to bring Him up, for He is with us, and near us, and in us. We have only to confess with our mouths that He is Lord, and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead--and raised us in Him-- and we shall live."

No Surprise, Really

Things like this happen when religion is politicized.

Taking the President on Faith

The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost

The lections may be found here.

The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost

Ditto last week; lections are here.

Short Ride

As I have no computer, this is being posted via my nephew's video camera phone two-way wrist radio, so who knows? [Hands up, Flat Top!]

Today In History

August 1, 1779: Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and a devout Episcopalian who helped establish the American Sunday School Union, is born.

The Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

Can't tell you about the sermon, but the lections may be found here.