The Arrow's Path

I posted on my facebook status update yesterday morning that I "was told the plumbing drama would end today." Huh huh. Right... I knew better. As I was driving up my street yesterday after getting off work, I noticed the plumbing truck was still there. It was not the normal flatbed plumbing truck that had been there on and off the last few days. It was a van. I knew as soon as I saw that, seeing as it was after 5PM, that something was not right. I hoped I was mistaken and maybe they were just finishing up or something. Huh huh. Right... I knew better. So I walk into the house. My wife was not on the main floor. Maybe she was down in the basement with the plumber looking over the finished project? Huh huh. Right... I knew better. She comes up the stairs, and I could tell by the look in her wild eye that something was wrong. It can't be that bad, can it? I mean they are done with all the drilling and the water was turned back on the previous night. Huh huh. Right... I knew ...

Last week, I was interviewed as part of a religion beat article on area Campus ministries and churches by the Nebraska student newspaper, the Daily Nebraskan. Due to that interview, I had a few interesting conversations via e-mail with the Daily Nebraskan religion beat reporter, and I got her interested in the Study Lounge that St. Mark's runs. She came and interviewed a bit on Sunday evening, and the article came out today . Congrats to Kelly and the Study Lounge folks. Good press and no one appears to have been dreadfully misrepresented or misquoted.

The following is my final newsletter article for St. Mark's. -The Archer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sabbath Snapshots" There is a certain view in the main chapel at St. Mark's that virtually no one, save perhaps the celebrant at the Eucharist, gets to see. Since I have been ordained a priest, I have gotten on several occasions for the Liturgy of the Word to sit at the prayer desk facing the pulpit when I am the presider at mass, and I have come to appreciate this particular point of view. If you look up from the prayer desk from the vantage point of the priest, you can peer out of one of the windows on the east side of the chapel and see the very top of a lonely tree that resides in the University parking lot next to the church. The view from this angle is by no means a spectacular or Epiphany-inspiring view, and you have not really missed much if you have never noticed it. Really, all you can see is ...

Apologies to my blog readers. I have been wicked at not blogging as regularly as I usually do. I try to average one blog entry at least every other day. I just have not had the time of late due to many complicated factors in my personal life. My stress level is through the roof these days. We're getting ready to move and all that. I hate moving, so that's one element. I'm also having to spend virtually every off hour working on my house to get it in shape to sell. The latest in the saga is the plumbing issue in my house. What began as a minor leaking shutoff valve in the basement (basically about a ten dollar part) has morphed into having to redo the entire water main to the house. To fix the value, we needed to turn off the water to the house. Usually that is a simple matter of going to the water stop box on the street and simply turning off the water to the house from the main. Turns out a previous owner when putting the driveway in simply cemented over the stop box. So w...

Fr. Jeffrey Steel on his blog notes that Bishop Tom Wright's Christmas sermon has been posted on the Durham Cathedral's website . It's quite good and worth reading.

I was interested by one of the student reporters who does the "religion beat" for the Daily Nebraskan a few days ago. The Daily Nebraskan is the University of Nebraska student newspaper. The article came out today , ironically on the day of the inauguration. I am always a bit leery of giving media interviews to journalism students, as you have to cross your fingers and hope they don't horribly misquote you. I had a good feeling about this interview though as we had a rather lengthy discussion. Anyway, see what you think... -The Archer

Well, this is surprising... -The Archer You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers !

The episodes of Battlestar Galactica finally begin again tonight. The Sci Fi Channel has run the Battlestar series in odd mini-arcs, sort of like half-seasons with apparently long hiatuses mid-season. Season 4, which was billed as the final season, began back in the fall and ended in mid-September. All that was ever listed on the website during this period was "New Episodes coming soon..." At Christmas, the air date for the final mini-arc finally was posted. If you have not been keeping up with the series, its probably too late now to just in because its a very complicated storyline. If you have never watched the series though, I highly recommend getting it from Netflix or something and starting from the beginning. Make sure you watch the original 4 hour movie pilot before jumping into the regular Season 1 Episodes. The movie pilot is very helpful and found in the Season 1 DVD set, but is on a disc by itself. Its easy to want to just jump in with Episode 1, which is a fabulo...

The three finalists for the Heisman trophy this year are all staying in school and not bolting for the NFL. Oklahoma's Bradford is returning for technically his junior year of eligibility. He was eligible to go pro, as he redshirted a year. Texas' Colt McCoy and Florida's Tim Tebow both return for their senior years. As the article I linked to above points out, this is the first time all three finalists for the Heisman can and will return for the next season. Usually they are either seniors who cannot return, or else they bolt for the big money of the NFL and go pro early. I think that's politically shrewd on their parts, if nothing else, as they will cement their long term prospects of running for governor of their respective states years down the road. Tennessee great Peyton Manning stayed for his senior year, and I am virtually certain that because of that, he can return to Tennessee one day and win any political office he cares to run for. I have no idea if he'...

This little meme is making its way around Facebook and other places. Apparently the rules are as follows: "Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you." I resisted for quite some time but can't do it anymore. 1. I love bacon. 2. I call Facebook "The Oracle of All Social Knowledge." 3. If idle hands are the devil's workshop, I think Facebook must be the operating system of hell's entire computer network. 4. I one time filled out an application by saying my occupation was "foole." I added an "e" at the end to hack them off. 4a. I actually got what I applied for, which was disturbing in itself really. 5. A guy came up to me trying to sell me alien abduction insurance, and I ran away. 6. I collect...

I comment on baseball from time to time, and given that another batch of baseball Hall of Famers have been elected to Cooperstown, this is one of those blog entries where I put on the Baseball Writer's Cap. This election was a bit of a dome scratcher for me on first hearing of whom got elected. The Baseball Hall of Fame voters elected Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice to Cooperstown last week. There was much hoopla about this being Jim Rice's last shot because you can only go on the writer's ballot for 15 years. Thereafter, I suppose you have to be voted in via write-in or some other special election. I never did understand that, personally, as sometimes you need more than 15 years in retrospect to weigh the gravity, pro or con, on voting someone into the Hall of Fame. But it is what it is, and I do not have a say in it. Jim Rice did, of course, get elected. I think he had the sympathy vote of a few fence sitters who might otherwise have continued to blackball him. Rice was a v...

You Will Not Be a Cool Parent You know, I'm okay with this... -The Archer And that's pretty okay. While your kids may not think of you as a friend, they will respect you. You know that kids need discipline and structure, and you're not afraid to give it to them. Just be careful that your strictness doesn't lead to rebellion. It's good to have standards and rules, but you don't need to have an iron fist when enforcing them. Would You Be a Cool Parent?

Revised Common Lectionary Year A Readings: Genesis 1: 1-5 Psalm 29 Acts 19: 1-7 Mark 1: 4-11 “Baptized in Dirty Water”- A Sermon preached on the Baptism of E.S. I'm going to hazard a guess (I could be wrong...one never knows I suppose) that there are probably not that many people here at St. Mark's on-the-Campus who are, shall we say, avid country music fans. I've been here enjoying the musical talent at St. Mark's for about a year and a half now, but that's just my gut assumption. Like I said, I could be wrong. And that's fine. I grew up in the South, and not being your normal Episcopal clergy personality type, I am known to listen to Country music on occasion. In fact, I was redoing the floor in my basement over over several days during the Christmas break and had the radio on for background music. The channel happened to be on one of the Country music stations here in town. There was this one particu...

Ah, delicious irony...

And yet it's bizarrely amusing on numerous levels. -The Archer

The game is over, and Florida is apparently the national champion. Even though I was born and bred in SEC country in Tennessee, it makes me sad that Florida won another championship. It brought back bad memories of Steve Spurrier. An era at Tennessee ended, and I am still a bit sad about it. Phil Fulmer, a truly fine individual, was unceremoniously run out of town. I'm honestly trying to give his replacement the benefit of the doubt, but I am dubious about NFL coaches trying to make a go of the college game. His press conference sounded too much like a Bill Callahan @Nebraska press conference with all the Raiders lingo that means absolutely nothing. I still don't know why he hired that goofy guy that Ole Miss fired after a few seasons and are paying him several hundred thousand dollars when he is not even one of the major coordinators. I think this new regime with either do well or will completely tank. As I stipulated earlier, I think Utah and USC have legitimate gripes. (Texa...

7-7 at halftime. I guess my score prediction (as most people's) is slightly off unless the defenses forget to come out of the locker room for the 2nd half. Both D's looked good, although Florida's looked really good keeping the Sooners out of the end zone twice on the goal line. Florida's secondary did become momentarily frazzled in the 2nd quarter when Oklahoma put together a short yardage, hurry up offensive drive. The Gators will either have to make some adjustments on that or it could be a long 2nd Half. Tebow threw 2 INT's, foiling the announcers' repeated attempts to proclaim him god. Bradford was solid, but also threw a few bad passes. The jury is still out on whom will adjust to the defense first. Revised prediction: Florida 24-Oklahoma 18

Tonight, the college football crown will (likely) be placed upon the collective heads of either Oklahoma or Florida. This is one of the few intriguing match ups of an otherwise fairly uninteresting bowl season.  There were some interesting bowl games, but they were interesting despite the BCS' best efforts at pairing seemingly mismatched teams. For instance, the Clemson/Nebraska and Texas/Ohio State bowl games were really quite entertaining in the end, although neither looked like much on paper.  I count only one New Year's Day or later bowl game that was decided by 3 points or less (Texas/Ohio State), and only two more that were 7 points or less (aforementioned Nebraska/Clemson and the major heavyweight match up that was Eastern Carolina/Kentucky (?!?!), which was only played after New Year's Day because no one would have watched it otherwise as there were 11 losses between the two team. There were a few surprises, albeit largely blowouts: Ole Miss smacking Texas Tech and ...

So I was packing up the Christmas stuff from the Chapel at St. Mark's today, including the Christmas tree next to the pulpit and the  crèche . (For my liturgically impaired readers, a  crèche  is a manger scene.) As I was packing up the pieces, I was wrapping them up in newspaper sheets, The set is a very a very slick, white ceramic. When I got to the manger with the baby Jesus, I accidentally dropped it. The Bambino rolled across the carpet and came to a screeching halt on the tile under one of the pews.  Luckily I was in the chapel by myself and no one witnessed it. Needless to say I still held my breath. No harm done, the baby Jesus was intact.That was a close one.  I almost made the baby Jesus cry.

Read this article and tell me what you think.  Call me naive, but it's supposed to be disturbing.  That's the whole point.   

I forgot to wish everyone who reads this blog a Happy New Year!  I have been busy redoing my basement, so I have not had a lot of time to blog. I have discovered I hate plumbing, however. I knew this before, but the bump on my head from the side of the drain yesterday reminded (and is reminding) me that plumbing is not really one of my gifts. I did however fix the leaky toilet intake after much  harangue  and fussing.  The end is near though. I finally have all the floor tile chiseled up, and the carpet guy is coming Monday. A little more floor to re-tile, touch up paint, and put up some floor trim and I should be good to go.  In a solely unrelated issue ;), if you want to buy a house in the Lincoln area with a nicely redone basement, please feel free to contact me.