The Arrow's Path

Mondays are usually my day off, and I try hard not to go into the office or do any work on my day off. (Well, work I get paid for.) As it happens, Michaelmas fell on Monday this year. I thought about offering mass on Michaelmas, but seeing as it was Monday, I assumed someone somewhere was offering mass. For my liturgically handicapped readers, Michaelmas is the feast day of St. Michael and All Angels. If you think you have heard of it, you may have come across the name in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Scrooge uses it in the beginning, ironically, when he is ordering his clerk, Bob Cratchit, to go and collect money from a man named Poppegill who has "owed me money since Michaelmas." Bob meekly protests, as apparently Poppegill's wife has been ill. Scrooge then tells Bob to forget it, as "Nevermind, he's probably closed up for Christmas like all these other fools." In any event, Michaelmas (pronouced Micklemas) traditional was a major feast day in ...

I am amused that my boss came into the office today to write out his annual fund raising letter for the year's pledge drive for the church's capital campaign. In Episcopal Churches, this is usually done in the fall so the budget can be worked on and finalized for the next year. Nothing like writing a fund raising letter on the day after the stock market had the single biggest one day drop (770+ points) in modern history. Yeah, good times...

I can't say I am all that surprised at some of the losses this weekend. USC lost to Oregon State, which chronically gives Pete Carroll problems. But I must say that for a team that was a virtual unanimous No. 1 a week ago, they dropped like a rock in the new poll all the way to No. 9. How quickly people get on and off bandwagons. I am inclined to believe USC might still play for the national title at the end of the year, and that Oregon State was a brain cramp. Florida and Georgia both lost. I am not surprised Florida lost, as they were grossly overrated. I am a bit surprised Georgia lost as badly as they did. 31-0 at halftime. I didn't think Georgia would get through the next 5 weeks unscathed (Alabama, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, LSU, and Florida in 5 weeks). I didn't think it would be the first game of the stretch run though that they would lose. I pity already bumbling Tennessee next week, as they have to play Georgia who will be out for blood. The new AP poll that came out...

One day while I was on vacation at Edisto Beach in South Carolina, we buzzed up to Charleston, which is probably one of my favorite cities in the world. This is the bridge going across the bay. This is a section of Charleston known as Rainbow Row because of the many colors of the houses there. The houses were built in 1680. Notice the double doors in the front for horse and carriage. Rainbow Row has a special place in my heart as my parents had a framed painting of it in their living room for many years. This is Fort Sumter in the bay, where the Civil War began. This is one of the many cobble stoned streets in the Battery area of Charleston. And for fun, we took this picture. Be sure to read the sign.

As I promised yesterday, I am including a few pictures I took of a sunrise on Edisto Beach, South Carolina, which is about 30 miles south of Charleston. This one is of the marsh and the beach. The lowland backbay water is great for growing rice. Tomorrow, I will upload some pictures of Charleston, aka God's Gift to the Eastern Sea Board.n Today, you will have to be satisfied with the above picture of the bay in Charleston.

I apologize for the lack of posting for the last week and a half. I am finally about done with my vacation and should be back in blogging action with pictures of said vacation to Tennessee and South Carolina tomorrow. Cheers...

1. LSU (until they lose, they are still the reigning champs) 2. USC 3. Oklahoma 3. Georgia 5. Missouri 6. Florida 7. Auburn 8. Texas 9. Texas Tech 10. Wisconsin Oh yeah, and mediocrity...thy name is Ohio State football. Despite what the ESPN clowns were saying, I predicted they would lose by 25 points or more. I'm just saying.

After a good retreat, my time at Blue Cloud Abbey is ending. I thought I would share some of the pictures from this truly beautiful place. This mural is on the side of the main chapel. Here is the abbey church, monastery compound, and retreat center. It was all built by hand by the monks since the 1950s. I have no idea what that is reflecting in my glasses. Look closely at the sign. Yes, its apparently a holy water dispenser. I have never seen that before. This is the main stained glass window in the Abbey church. You can't really tell from the photograph, but it is a 3-D stained glass window. I am not usually a huge fan of contemporary stained glass, but this was pretty neat. This is the lower pond. I like this shot. The wind was blowing hard, but it turned out well.

The monastery I am staying at is up on a hill overlooking two lakes, green fields, and small wooded areas. I was sitting on a bench near the front of the monastery chapel looking down into this big field. I saw one of the brothers walking at the very far end of the field. He was far away and I did not have my glasses, so I could not tell exactly what he was doing. He appeared of have something rather large on his arm. As I watched, he raised his arm up and the large object preceeded to fly up in the air. It was a hawk! This particular monk, it turns out, was the monastery falconer. He apparently rehabilitated birds of prey that people from the surrounding community bring to him. His current project is apparently a hawk that hurt its wing. The monk was teaching it how to fly again so that it can eventually be released back into the wild. A monastic falconer...now that's just awesome.

So I started my retreat today by driving to Blue Cloud Abbey in Marvin, South Dakota. It is a beautiful place that sits on 1500 acres that the monastery owns. This is quite possibly the coolest monastery in the world. Its the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Roman calendar, so it was a big feast day here. Which meant that the monks could talk at dinner. Usually they do silent reading or something during meals. And, after the abbot gave me a tour of the building, he showed me the library where they apparently have internet access. And the Abbot said, "Yeah, if you need anything, just come in here to the kitchen and help yourself. There's beer in the fridge... Take that Name of the Rose .

So, my father calls me randomly last night, and asks if I get Fox Sports South, which is the Fox Network alternate sports channel in the South. Apparently my Division II Alma Mater, Carson Newman College, was on playing football against North Alabama. I replied that we get a Fox Sports channel, but its the Mid West version. I could not imagine they would be showing a Division II football game from the South out in Nebraska for free on regular cable, but I checked anyway. I have one of those interactive cable TV boxes that is very similar to a satellite TV interface. As I was scanning way down the guide in the channel 300+ range where they have the Western Channel where they play the same 4 western movies over and over and the weird channel that always plays dirt bike racing, I discovered, much to my surprise, the football game. So there I sat, sitting in Lincoln, Nebraska, in my lounge man chair watching the old alma mater play a live football game. Only in 21st century America do yo...

I found this interesting little bit in my research today. I thought it was quite thought beautiful. -The Archer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM THE BEGINNING of the Church the divinely inspired psalms in the Bible have had a remarkable influence in deepening the devotion f the faithful as they offered to God a continue sacrifice of praise, that is the tribute of lips that acknowledge his name. moreover, following the custom of the old law, they have played a major part in the sacred liturgy itself and in the divine office. From this there derived what Saint Basil calls ‘the voice of the Church’, and the psalmody, which our predecessor Urban VIII describes as ‘the daughter of the sacred chant which is sung without ceasing before the throne of God and the Lamb’, the sacred chant which, as Saint Athanasius says, teaches those whose primary concern is the worship of God how they should praise him, and in what words they can glorify him wort...

It's been a while since I have had a good blog rant, maybe because my universe has been running fairly smoothly of late. But I have noticed an increasingly irritating trend that really annoys me: billing statements. Wait! Before you tune me out, hear me out on this one. I am not ranting about having to get statements or having to pay bills. That's just part of life unless you are mooching a cave somewhere. My beef is with multiple companies unrelated in any sense other than that I owe them money have started a very irritating trend: they've stopped wanting to send you actual paper bills. What's irritating is that they masquerade their being too cheap to pay the printing and postage costs for mailing you a bill under the guise of being green. "Go to paperless statements and save trees," they say. Giving you a guilt trip when they are the ones sending you the bills and charging you predatory usury for the privilege. Well...if you are suddenly so eco-friendly, th...

So I was doing my daily reading in the Patristic Fathers, and opened to the section in the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers series on Gregory Nazianzen, which shares the volume with Cyril of Jerusalem. This is the title on the cover page for St. Gregory: ------------------------------------------ Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen Sometime Archbishop of Constantinople ------------------------------------------ I was amused at the modifier "Sometime." I know bishops who would love to be a Sometimes Bishop but not always... -The Archer

I have a rule on my blog that I try very hard to avoid discussing or posting about politics. I have the same rule with my parishioners. The fact is not that I do not follow politics or have no personal opinions on the matter. I took quite a few political science classes in college and was a speech writer at the time for the local US representative, parts of which were used in a speech on the floor of the US House. So it is not like I am a political flyweight or, what I call, a politically avoidant personality. I certainly do have political opinions; I certainly do read a lot of newspapers so I believe I am relativity well informed as Average Joe's go. I'm a registered independent, and I believe I always have been when I have lived in states where you have to list a political party preference when you register. In Tennessee, you do not have to list a party affliation when you register to vote because the primaries are open; so, there is really no point unless you specifically wa...

So, the first weekend+ of college football gluttony has ended. I find myself somewhere in between happy (for the Huskers) and disgruntled (for the Vols). I'll start with the bad news and work towards a happy note. I went to the Huskers game against Western Michigan. The Huskers won pretty handily, but they were certainly improved. They were not perfect by any stretch. Here are my impressions of Ye Olde Huskers. First, the good: The tackling for the Huskers was much improved, as they were doing full tackles and swarming and not the arm tackling garbage of yesteryear. Also, the offensive line did not have a single false start the entire game. That's phenomenal for a first game of the season. Next, the bad: I was a bit concerned about the lack of a running game, considering Western Michigan's defensive front was not all that great. They supposedly were going to be running more this year with a good running back. Maybe they were just using the opportunity to test the readiness ...