Friends: As you were wandering, lost, upon the barren hillside, before you stumbled into this, our humble cathedral, you might have been thinking: “Woe unto me, for I am, like, totally wrecked.” And that certainly is true, although the wreckage be wreckage of the spirit and not the body. Yet as I look upon you more closely, I wonder if it is not both?

Is it the case that you have been sipping your near-beer, wondering why all your friends have abandoned you, even your old friend Angela, who once responded to your friendly touch without calling for her bodyguards and spraying whole cans of mace into your eyes in front of the other members of the G8?

I, too, once was wandering on the barren hillside, and indeed tumbled down the hillside, over the edge of the gaping chasm, and onto the pointy rocks of unchecked pre-emptive aggression. I, too, remember looking at my bruised, spent visage in the mirror and asking myself what happened to the bouncing baby that once delighted mummsie and daddy? And it was much more than the Tequila -- although we should not discount the contribution of the Tequila – that brought this on.

Today’s reading is from Psalm 37:“For the man of peace will have a posterity.” The Psalm tells us that instead of sowing discord, you should consider sowing your seed instead.

Belligerence is often due to a problem that was also common in Luke’s day: “What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?” (Luke 12:17). For me, the solution came in the form of widow named Sheila, who became that room, nay, more of a suite with abundant closet space. Again, the Book expresses it so much better than I ever could: “And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem,” (Luke 2:38). From then on, of course, when I looked at my bruised, spent visage in the mirror, it was the fault of those womenfolk of Jerusalem. And God saw that it was good, verily, as Psalm 103 says of the stamina bestowed by the Lord: “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good [things; so that] thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” And here I would remind each of you of the immortal words of Saint John of Missouri, himself no stranger to temptation: “Let the eagle soar, like she’s never soared before!”

So lo, I found I had become a man of peace. Not just a man of peace, but “a man of peace with a posterity.” And a slew of paternity suits. But those are on the whole much easier to litigate, since the municipal court building is much more convenient than, say, the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

AMEN.