From Twitter 04-09-2010

• 14:05:33: The quacks left my cast on for at least another two weeks. I said that if it wasn't off for May 12th I'd take it off myself.
  
• 15:17:20: @hungskateboy U could eat free at my place...no line, no waiting... ;-)
  

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The homeless…

…I am not particularly enamoured of homeless people either. They need help in order to sort themselves out, but all too often the government and social service agencies are not helpful. They often have substance abuse difficulties or mental health issues that make housing them problematic. However, take a look at the YouTube video below:

(I'll wait...)

This young gentleman is also not particularly enamoured of the homeless. However, just like many on the right who trivialise other people's problems and reduce them to one-dimensional caricatures (The homeless are all alcoholics and all the money they beg goes toward beer…) Kyle actually seems to think that the homeless are like mosquitoes or flies—they are a personal irritant of his, perhaps sent by someone who doesn't like him.

I don't know where to go with this. I didn't leave a comment on his YouTube page because I didn't know where to start. In addition, the people who watch his videos are an unknown quantity to me and I am so over engaging in pointless personal opinion ping-pong. Life is too short. I take as my motto: "Why try to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

At the end of the video I caught a caption that exhorts us all to "World peace". Now, how can someone who thinks that the homeless are on a par with a rash in his crotch actually be an effective advocate for "world peace". In fact, can someone of that opinion actually know what "world peace" means?

Now I have to write possibly my tenth sermon for Low Sunday in 20 years, and I would love to get all worked up about this and link it somehow to Doubting Thomas, but I'm afraid that even my fertile brain would stretch too far in doing so.

P.S. The thought that he might have been putting on an attitude for the video has just occurred to me. However, when you wind people up like this it's only fair to point out that you're doing so at some point, and he hasn't done that.

Sermon for Low Sunday—Doubting Thomas AGAIN!

Every year right after Easter, the Vicar of St. John's takes off (and who could blame him—Holy Week in an Anglo-Catholic parish is demanding) and asks me to preach. I thought I had escaped it this year, but he called on Tuesday and asked me to preach. Who could say no? Certainly not me. Of course, the Gospel for Low Sunday is always Doubting Thomas, and I've preached on this reading every year for many years. I thought I had run out of ideas, but I've found another one, yet again!

April 11, 2010 Low Sunday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
First Reading: Acts 5:12-16; Ps. 117; Epistle: Revelation 1:9-13, 17-19; Gospel: John 20:19-31

The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.

One of the little-known but interesting facts about St. Thomas is that he is the patron saint of architects. As a matter of fact, that is almost the only thing that is known about him. Legend has it that Thomas was sent to India to build a palace for a king. Thus he is not only the patron of architects and builders but also the Apostle of India. Traditionally Thomas is depicted in stained glass windows and statues as holding a square—people often mistake him for a sanctified Freemason. So the line from Psalm 117 that I quoted above is quite apt for Thomas.

( Cut for those who aren't called to read the rest of the sermon )