Off on Vacation

Well we're getting ready to leave for Massachusetts Wednesday morning. We have an 8 AM flight from Boise, Idaho. We go over to Boise the night before our flight; that way we don't have to get up really early to get through the security checks. We have gotten people to mow the lawns, water the yard and take care of our sweet babboo, Sophia. She gets depressed when we leave her home for a couple of weeks. Her "Auntie" Juanita is gone, so Sophia will have to get used to a new keeper, "Auntie Charlene". I won't be writing in my blog for a while, not that I think I will be missed.

We are going to watch our Grand-daughter Alex graduate from High School. It seems like yesterday when we helped her family move from Oregon to Massachusetts. Actually, it was 10 years ago, and she has grown into a beautiful young lady. She has her college selected and has been accepted. The school is a couple of hours from home, so she can come home on a regular basis. Her parents will like that, I'm not sure she will. Her gift arrived intact last week, that was a load off my mind. I had fears of it arriving in pieces, but FedEx did a great job of handling it. I'll post a picture of it after we get back. I'd do it now, but she may be one of the 3 people who read this thing and then she would know what she was getting.

Lambeth Conference

The big news in the Episcopal Church is The Archbishop of Canterbury's snub of Gene Robinson in issuing invitations to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. Lambeth is held every 10 years and generally includes all of the Bishops in the Anglican Communion. Lambeth is the one time that all of the bishops get together and discuss the future of the Anglican Communion. In essence it is really the only time that the communion gets together and none of its decisions are binding. In recent years the bishops from the former British Colonies have flexed their conservative muscles and denounced the liberalism of the American Episcopal Church, and the ordination of Gene Robinson really set them off. They have threatened to break communion with the Episcopal Church and the conservatives in the Episcopal Church are up in arms about this possible break with the rest of the Anglican Communion. Worra, worra, what will come of us? I for one am sick and tired of all this crap. I think it's time to tell the conservatives in our church and in the Anglican Communion to kiss off. If this be schism then so be it. Let them join the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons and leave us alone. Just leave the buildings to those who choose to stay. They obviously think that we are all going to Hell anyway, so let them go their way and we'll go ours.

Peace Garden

A group of us from Malheur County traveled to Burns (120 miles or so) to help the people of St. Andrew's Church clean out an unused piece of ground behind the church to create a Peace Garden. After loading a 10 yd dumpster with weeds and junk and painting a picket fence, we erected a Peace Pole with the words "Let Peace on Earth Prevail" written in four languages, English, Paiute, and two others I didn't recognize. We also installed a bench with the phrase, "Sit awhile and let your spirit rest", an African proverb. The worker's ages ranged from 12 to 80+ and everybody had a great time. The four churches represented probably couldn't muster a total of 100 people, but we showed that we can do great things when we work together. We're trying to tear down those provincial barriers that so often separate us. I think it's working, the other three churches want their own Peace Garden, and the man who inscribed the Peace Pole with his router has offered to make one for each of us. The next step is to get a work party together at the next church on the list and build its Peace Garden. The Paiute language was used because Burns is next to a Paiute Reservation and they share the Priest at St. Andrew's with the Episcopalians and the ELCA Lutheran Church. We are thinking of using Japanese, Spanish, and Basque along with English because they represent the dominant ethnic groups represented in our community.

Juanita Meyer

This afternoon we held the funeral for our next door neighbor Juanita Meyer. She had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer last September, right after she and her husband Paul celebrated their 60th anniversary. They have been our neighbors since 1984 and they were great neighbors. They took care of our animals and our house and yard whenever we were gone. Our old cat Opie had Juanita trained to let her in when we were gone, but refused to notice her when we were home.

It was a great service, the Celebrant was a female ELCA pastor and she was assisted by a Missouri Synod Lutheran Pastor (Juanita's Nephew) and an Episcopal Priest (me). There was a good crowd, lots of family and lots of friends. I think we sent her off in grand fashion. Paul was pleased and he has decided to live by himself for at least a year. He basically told his family to back off and let him live his life. Good for him! I think we may do a bit of fishing this summer. Safe journey Juanita.

Mother's Day

I got to thinking the other day that the church gives mothers a short shrift. The BCP has no prayers for mothers except for those who are pregnant. Even Mary, the mother of Jesus, has very little said about her. She does get some exposure at the wedding at Cana, but she comes off as somewhat of a nag, asking her son to take care of the wine shortage. Then she gets to watch his crucifixion, which is something every mother wants to do. I think that the Episcopal Church should set aside the Sunday of Mother's Day as a day to celebrate mothers. At the very least they could do something for the Book of Occasional Services. I'm sure that with all of my influence I could get PB Katherine to lobby the House of Bishops to get something going for mothers. Unfortunately, the good old boys at the HoB would just think she was being self serving, you know, women can't think of anything very deep.

Well, here's to you mothers everywhere. What would we do without our Moms? I think about my mom a lot, and always thank her for giving me life and teaching me how to live it. Thanks Ma.

The Price of Gas in Oregon

I am astounded by the nearly meteoric rise in gas prices in the past few weeks. They just got us accustomed to $2 a gallon gasoline and then they have jacked it up so fast that it is unbelievable. I know that the stations here in town have not gotten new deliveries while the price goes up. They are told by the company to raise the price and they have to do it. the local station owners are not getting much out of the increases, but the companies are.

I am not surprised that Congress isn't saying much about the problem, I think every Congressman/woman is in the pocket of the oil companies. When you're making $10 billion a quarter, you can afford to "contribute" to every politician's campaign coffers.

This time the reasons given are that the refineries can't keep up with demand, and that some of the refineries are down for maintenance. They can't use crude oil prices because they are fairly stable. They know that we will stand still and take it so they just keep raising the prices. I suspect it won't stop until we're around $5 a gallon. If it was just the gas prices that are going up it wouldn't be so bad, but it causes everything to go up too. Won't be long before we're in the inflationary spiral once again.

Oh well, I'm doing what I can, my car gets 35+ mpg, but it still hurts to pay $40 to fill up when is used to be less than $20. If you can afford to keep driving your Hummer, more power to you. Exxon loves ya baby!