Technically this is early autumn,

but it feels like late summer to me.

The temperatures my energies drain

each time I venture outdoors daily.

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I long to wander in the woods again

for longer than an hour at a time,

but I cannot do that yet, for the heat

deprives me of that pleasure sublime.

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Autumnal temperatures, my dear friends,

where are you?  Please speed, like Mercury

the winged, to us, and deign to remain

until winter comes gloriously.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017 COMMON ERA

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This post is related to Memories of Vidette, Georgia; Vidette United Methodist Church Parsonage, Vidette, Georgia; and Site of the Former Parsonage, Vidette United Methodist Church, Vidette, Georgia.

This afternoon, while sorting through the family archives again, I found this photograph, from Christmas 1981.

We see a portion of the den, a narrow and long room in the middle of one side of the small house, with a view into the dining room, a space of which I have little recollection.  The closed-up fireplace with the mantle, for example, surprises me.  I am, however, thinking about a space I left in June 1982, at the age of nine years, so I have a valid excuse.

I remember much in this photograph, however.  I recall the old-style cabinet television set, with the infamous needle-nose pliers, for changing the channel, vividly.  How could I forget the infernal needle-nose pliers?  I also remember the shelves above the television well.  I also recall that, in Vidette, we had few channels–three networks and PBS.  I remember that that there was often little worth watching on those.  There remains little worth watching today.  The main difference is the greater number of channels.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

JULY 31, 2017 COMMON ERA

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

All Photographs by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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All Photographs by Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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Above:  Athens, Georgia, May 4, 2017

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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Evening rainfall,

continuing watering,

feeds the thirsty earth.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 4, 2017 COMMON ERA

Above:  Athens, Georgia, May 4, 2017

Image Source = Kenneth Randolph Taylor

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After the rain the

earth, glistening with water,

sits refreshed, renewed.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 4, 2017 COMMON ERA