Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

  • It was an undemanding start to the morning, as the usual Mass time at St John the Baptist, Mt Carmel is not until 10:30. Got there in plenty of time for a good visit with Fr Brant Hazelett before we had to get ready for church.
  • The liturgy was in celebration of the parish's patronal feast--the Nativity of St John the Baptist. After a tasty repast in their newly-remodeled basement parish hall, I shared with them the broad strokes of the diocesan mission strategy, and how it will affect them.
  • Shortly after 1pm, I headed north on Illinois 1 as far as Paris (where we had a congregation for several decades, until last December). Spent some time walking around the picturesque courthouse square, musing how county seat towns like Paris all across the country have largely turned into nostalgia-inducing artifacts of an era that will never come back, even as I told the people in Mt Carmel that Christendom will never come back--at least not in the lifetime of anyone now 98.6 and vertical--so we'd best be about the business of learning how to be the church in the world that actually is. 
  • Headed west on IL33, then through some cornfields on county roads, ending up in Urbana for a 5pm dinner engagement with David Krooks, a parishioner and vestry member from St John the Divine, Champaign. Wonderful conversation and meal at Philo's on South Philo Road.
  • Home around 8:30, where I'm "bachin' it" until Thursday while Brenda visits her mother in California.

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