Above:  My Desk, June 21, 2017

Photograph by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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To recognize (at least partially) what one has and to give God thanks for it is to pursue a positive course of action.  Too often we human beings become grateful only after the fact and mix gratitude with regret for not having x anymore.  Frequently that regret overshadows our gratitude.

I have been spending perhaps excessive amounts of time with Google Earth recently.  I have been looking up places used to live, examining street views, and stirring up old memories, some of them faint because they come from my early childhood.  (I have consistently clear memories from about seven years of age forward.  I have sporadic memories prior to 1979/1980.)  I spent much of my early life in a series of United Methodist parsonages scattered across the South Georgia Annual Conference.  Often my family and I lived in small, provincial communities–sometimes in small towns, sometimes outside them, in the county.  This annoyed my father, who expressed himself frankly in private, in journal entries, as he complained about how small many minds were.  The experience of having to muzzle himself in public frustrated him.  The lack of intellectual stimulation outside my bookish home certainly frustrated me.

If, for some reason, fate will ever be so cruel as to require me to live in any of these communities again, I will not join any of those congregations, which will have nothing to offer to me.  I am of a particular spiritual type (Anglican-Lutheran-Catholic), which a rural Methodist church cannot satisfy.  Also, I abhor Southern Gospel music.

I am preparing to commence my thirteenth year in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, and at St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church in early August.  These places are where I belong, at least for the time being.  I acknowledge the possibility that perhaps I should leave both of them one day and pursue opportunity and spiritual fellowship in another location, but I have no desire to relocate needlessly and foolishly.  As of now, grocery stories are plentiful and adjacent to my home, I lack no intellectual stimulation, I get to speak my mind freely in church without anyone accusing me of having committed heresy, and I take communion twice a week.  (I have long felt closest to God in that sacrament.)  I am the parish librarian, presiding over a splendid collection of books in a room I have transformed into a sacred space, complete with Marian iconography.  Also, no longer do I live in a proverbial glass house, living under the expectations of others that I at least appear holier than they.  Life as a layman and just another member of the congregation is wonderful.

I know at least some of what I have and thank God for that of which I am aware.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JUNE 22, 2017 COMMON ERA

Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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My father served as pastor of the Warwick United Methodist Church, Warwick, Georgia, from June 1998 to June 2001.  Here is one of his columns from the Cordele Dispatch, Cordele, Georgia.

Scan by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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From June 2001 to June 2003 my father served in Fort Gaines, Georgia.

WILLIAM WINBURN (1806-1886) (I)

George Washington Winburn

James B. M. Winburn

Sarah Jane Winburn Barrett

Sarah Jane Winburn Barrett (1838-1883) and William Wesley Barrett (1835-1911) were my great-great-grandparents.  Thus William Winburn (1806-1886) and Elizabeth Pendley Winburn (1811-1851) were my great-great-great-grandparents.

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JOHN R. “JACK” BARRETT, SR. (I)

Frank B. Barrett

John R. “Jack” Barrett, Sr., was a son of John Barrett (born circa 1776) and his second wife, one Ms. Stanton.

I descend from John Barrett and his first wife, Milly Rebecca Chastain Barrett through their son, Elisha Chastain Barrett (1806-1886).

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UPDATE

Courtesy of cousin James Parino Barrett, of Texas, I offer this information:

“Perino Barrett” was actually Isaac Parino Barrett, born July 15, 1865.  Isaac Barrett, his older brother, died July 23, 1862.  Isaac Parino Barrett moved to Mason County, Texas, and died in Fort Worth.  According to findagrave.com, he died on February 4, 1936.

KRT

JUNE 22, 2018

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JAMES TARRANCE BARRETT (1803-1867) AND DESCENDANTS (VII)

Lewis Barrett

Mary Barrett Lodd Palmer

Nancy Barrett Martin

Eliza Barrett Hope

Martha Jane Barrett Jackson

James Tarrance Barrett (1803-1867) was the second son of John Barrett (born circa 1776) and Milly Chastain Barrett and brother of Elisha Chastain Barrett (1806-1886), grandfather of George Washington Barrett (1873-1956), my great-grandfather.

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Faithy Adaline Barrett Smith (1840-1915) was the seventh child of Elisha Chastain Barrett (1806-1886) and Nancy Mabry Barrett (1810-1849).

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CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, AND GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN OF ROBERT WESLEY BARRETT (1860-1924) AND SARAH JANE WINBURN BARRETT (1838-1883), PART I

Scans Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

Robert Wesley Barrett (1860-1924) was the first child of William Wesley Barrett (1835-1911) and Sarah Jane Winburn Barrett (1838-1883) and the father of George Washington Barrett (1873-1956), my great-grandfather.

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Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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I have, to the best of my knowledge, added all extant and complete sermon outlines by my great-grandfather, George Washington Barrett (1873-1956), to this weblog.  Many others did exist; this I know beyond a shadow of a doubt.  The ravages of time and human carelessness have denied many of these documents to me, one interested in family history.

Barrett, an active Minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, then the reunited Methodist Church from 1899 to 1945, was a man of his time, as I am a man of my time.  A century separated my birth from his.  One hundred years made a great deal of difference.  He was well-acclimated to old-style Southern Methodism with a Pietistic streak.  I, in contrast, seemed born to become an Episcopalian, given my penchant for ritual formality and my spiritual need for frequent Holy Eucharist.  These differences have led me to occasional fits of frustration with my great-grandfather Barrett, especially when I have typed one of his denunciations of “externals” (a frequent topic of consternation among Pietists) or playing cards, and I have not been shy about expressing myself in writing regarding such issues.

I make no excuses for such criticism.  If the fact that I have expressed an opinion different from his offends someone, so be it.  Such a person, offended by the reality of subjective differences, will experience life as a series of tizzies, I suppose.  That is not my responsibility.

I do thank my great-grandfather Barrett for doing his part in maintaining the Christian faith in my family.  This faith became part of my inheritance.  It nurtured me until I claimed it for myself.  The rituals marking that faith journey include baptism (by the hand of my father, John D. Taylor, III, at North Newington Baptist Church, Newington, Georgia, in 1979), confirmation into The Episcopal Church (at St. Anne’s, Tifton, Georgia) by Bishop Harry Shipps in 1991, reaffirmation of faith (at Trinity, Statesboro) in the presence of Bishop Henry Louttit, Jr., in 2003, and reaffirmation again (at the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, Georgia) in the presence of Bishop J. Neil Alexander in 2008.  Although my spiritual path differs from that of my great-grandfather Barrett, it exists in large part due to him.  So he, warts and all, was a positive (even if indirect) influence on me.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

APRIL 27, 2014 COMMON ERA

THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER, YEAR A

THE FEAST OF GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF NEW JERSEY

THE FEAST OF SAINTS ANTONY AND THEODOSIUS OF KIEV, FOUNDERS OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX MONASTICISM; SAINT BARLAAM OF KIEV, RUSSIAN ORTHODOX ABBOT; AND SAINT STEPHEN OF KIEV, RUSSIAN ORTHODOX ABBOT AND BISHOP

THE FEAST OF THE EARLY ABBOTS OF CLUNY

THE FEAST OF JOSEPH WARRILOW, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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Seldom do I like a formal portrait of myself, but this 2002 image, from the photographic directory of St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, Statesboro, Georgia, worked out well.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR