Tuesday

Sometimes events unfold in ways that are difficult to either anticipate or explain. When I was newly ordained, some 25 years ago, there was a parishioner who even at that time was beginning to become prominent on the Episcopal Church stage nationally. Eventually, David Pitts would chair the board of the Church Pension Group, among other accomplishments. David is turning 75 this week, and is throwing a big bash at which his family foundation is honoring some really wonderful people, and to which he invited a long list of greater luminaries and lesser luminaries, among which (in the latter category) are YFNB and Mama Askofu Brenda. When I received the invitation, my first response was to decline in as humble and gracious a way as I know how, primarily because the celebration is five days long .... and it's in Bermuda! The invitation was then rearticulated in such a manner as made it exponentially more difficult to persist in my "regrets" mode. So here we are in Bermuda, having left our home by car this morning (if one can call it that) at 2:30, having learned that our 6am flight to O'Hare from Springfield had been canceled due to weather last night in the Chicago area. Having successfully negotiated a monumental traffic jam created by a flooded roadway into the airport, and having miraculously made a very tight connection in Newark made even tighter by a late departure from Chicago, we touched down on the island at 3pm local time. To call it merely "beautiful" seems an understatement. We look forward to reconnecting with some old friends and probably making some new ones. And, truth to tell, I'll be wearing my Nashotah board chairman hat much of the time in what I hope will be some significant conversations on behalf of the House. Of your charity, please hold Brenda in your prayers, as she is suffering a nasty bout of reactive airway coughing brought on by ... we know not what ... except that it's in its third day now.