Tomorrow is Fall Kickoff Sunday at St. Luke's. The idea tickles me - it's not exactly like we stopped having, or being, church over the summer. But, I am excited nonetheless. There will be a big cookout and ice cream bash after the Liturgy. During the Liturgy, the big choirs will be back, the Canon of the Mass will be sung at the High Altar, and I will make my subdeacon debut. I am really looking forward to all of this. To see what's going on there for the rest of the Fall, there's a pretty sharp looking Activities booklet available here.

Watched a lot of football today. Saw Mighigan lose to Notre Dame. Saw Wake Forest have an incredible passing game...to the other team! Seriously, if you took away all the points the 'Huskers scored on defense, the final game score would have been 10-3, Nebraska. Ok, so we still would've lost, but it would have been a much more respectable loss. Our offense was in the game all the way. Our running game was moving the ball downfield. It was just mental errors and lack of composure that turned the ball over so many times. That, and fumbling the ball on a kick off return...twice. I flipped over to TX and Ohio State when I wanted to see some decent plays.

Then, I watched Constantine. It was a little silly, with some wacked theological ideas, but that aside it was kinda fun. And a fascinating cinematic vision of Hell. In this director's view, Hell is a place constantly in the midst of the shock and heat waves of a gargantuan nuclear explosion. And the demons were cool looking.

I suspect it is a much easier movie, and far less scary of a movie, to watch than The Exorcism of Emily Rose will be. Movies that take seriously the demonic frighten me beyond words, mostly because I take the demonic seriously. Scenes from The Exorcist and The Omen still can give me nightmares. But, I will see the Emily Rose movie, if for no other reason than sick curiosity. I'm not exactly certain what the Episcopalian party line on exorcism and all that is. In our Book of Occasional Services, there is a page entitled "On Exorcism" and a subsequent paragraph that, summed up, says, if you seriously think you are confronted with a situation meriting an exorcism, call your Bishop. I guess when you get consecrated to the Episcopate, you get a packet of secret stuff. Or, more likely, we really don't know what we're doing when it comes to this. Ok, I'm going to scare myself now, so I'm signing off before I start making too much of the fact that I had to knock locusts off my window screen several times tonight to stop their infernal screeching.

-R