Facebooger ruined my first attempt at yesterday’s blog post by deleting a meme I wanted to write about. Eileen and I can’t exactly figure out why. Neither of us can remember the meme exactly, but it was an anti-Trump one. What caught my attention was the vituperative comment a high school friend put on the meme defending Trump.

I thought I should respond because the comment was full of misinformation and misunderstandings. Bad information and reasoning are threatening are democracy right now.  At least I think so. I wrote a response to my friend without posting it, deciding as I often do to let some time pass before sharing my reaction and ideas. This helps me.

So when I returned to it yesterday morning, the meme was still in my browser. Unfortunately as I began to look through Facebooger for a bit larger version of it, it (the meme, the comments, the whole shebang) went away. Now Eileen (who also saw the meme) and I cannot determine in our own minds what caused Facebooger to exert this censorship. Was it the meme itself? Since we can’t remember exactly the content, it could be that it went over the top. Was it my friend’s comment which was not obscene but full of incendiary words that might flag it on Facebooger? Words and phrases like “one world government crowd” and “Donald Trump is admired and even loved by those who know him.”

Who knows? It’s just a tiny little mystery which confused me enough that I didn’t put in the blog yesterday.

I did, however, spend several hours writing a bulletin article for this next Sunday’s Eucharist. Rev Jen and I have been talking about how unfocused the beginning of our Eucharists are at Grace. Rev Jen thinks we may have swung too far on the pendulum from a “me and Jesus” quiet moment before worship to loud and extended conversations that create chaos.

When Jen brought this up to me, I said that one idea would be to suggest (via bulletin notes?) how this time has changed in worship. Previous to the liturgical reforms and its evolved understandings, the prelude time was often a time to come very quietly into church and pray while soft music was playing. Now I am not that bothered by the rambunctiousness because I understand the beginning of the service as a process of gathering community which some silly liturgists say begins when one awakes on Sunday morning and starts getting ready to go. Those silly liturgists make sense to me.

But the gathering does not necessarily need more than a greeting to each other. What then, I asked Jen, shall we teach people to do at this time? I suggested encouraging them to greet each other then sit and prepare for Eucharist. I think it would be good to encourage them to look at the readings for the day. These readings are available to parishioners in leaflets. They could look over the bulletin and begin to see how the service is usually built around ideas in the readings and the specific feast. They could, of course, listen to the prelude.

I have been thinking about how wonderfully Leonard Bernstein helped listeners understand and appreciate music. I often notice that not many people seem to be zeroing in on what I am doing at the organ. Many times what I am performing are wonderful pieces of music. Why not help people or at least provide them with a window into the profundity that is often happening in their vicinity? This is what I’m attempting in next Sunday’s bulletin note. I see it as a very small step toward what Jen and I have been discussing. Here’s a link to what I am emailing the office this morning. I think it’s pretty good.

A Tale of Two Parties – The New York Times

Krugman thinks there’s a difference between the two political parities in the USA. He could be right.

Cathleen Schine’s ‘They May Not Mean To, but They Do’ – The New York Times

This looks like an interesting read to me.

A. B. Yehoshua: By the Book – The New York Times

This is worth reading and noting books that this guy recommends. It’s a bit more thoughtful and informed than this column often is.