So many Wednesdays

Hello to another Wednesday morning.

I’m impressed and amazed at the number of Wednesdays there have been in my life. The days and weeks flow by like a swollen river, unceasingly.

Do I treasure each Wednesday, each day? It may be easy to take them for granted as they roll by but each one is precious to me.

Do you know the effect of your church's website?

Here is part of a message from a customer in Belgium.

I already got my book this Friday, July 20 (7 days delivery time). It was even faster than the previous order, maybe because the package was smaller. Thanks a lot and I have to say I appreciate very much the personalized way you make contact with your customers. I wish everybody would do as you do.

You may be surprised top have a customer in Belgium who is not even a native speaker of English, but the story is this. I discovered the Episcopal church by chance (or by the Grace of God?) in 2004. I watched the funeral service of former president Ronald Reagan at Washington national Cathedral on television and I was impressed by the beauty of the cathedral and the solemnity of the service. I tried to re-watch it on the web and so I discovered the cathedral's website and from link to link I learned more about Episcopal liturgy and I began reciting the daily office first on the Internet, than with a BCP I orderd from the cathedral's webstore.

... We have an Episcopal congregation in Waterloo, Belgium but it is not really close to my home so I go on attending my local Roman Catholic parish church but I use the BCP for my personal prayer and this combined trans-denominational worship fits me well, since I've always believed we are all christians in our common faith and catholic, anglican, protestant or other depending much more from our historical background or the place we live in rather than from a personal choice.

An alternative health care story

Today, the 5th of July, I joked with our FedEx delivery driver about having all of his fingers on the day after The Fourth Of July celebration. He removed his glove and showed me that he is actually missing his thumb.
Then he told me more of the story. In the country where he comes from he worked in a factory that made wheels. In an industrial accident his thumb was badly injured. At the hospital they had two choices of treatment. Those who had money had their fingers repaired. For those who could not pay for the repair the treatment was amputation. And that is why he has nine fingers today.