Sunday, July 14, 2019 First Full Day In Edinburgh Mass And Then A Walking Tour Of The City

I started the day by attending the 9:00 AM Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

I prayed extra hard for my sister Anna who is having a difficult time battling Non Hodgkin Lymphoma. If you have a prayer to spare please send it Anna’s way. I also prayed extra hard for Garon Coriz and his family and friends. Garon was a gifted, skilled and caring physician. He was an amazing athlete, a gifted artist and musician, and a dedicated conservationist and civil rights activist. He deeply loved and was deeply loved by his family and friends. He was also a skilled and experienced mountaineer. Yesterday Garon died while climbing in the Sandia Mountains. Everyone who knew Garon is in shock and is mourning his loss.

The service at the Cathedral closely followed the services I have been to in the States, until we got to the sermon. Today’s gospel reading was the parable of the Good Samaritan. Before he started his sermon, the priest noted that not a one of us qualifies as a Good Samaritan and warned us that we had better pay close attention to his sermon.

The priest started his sermon by explaining that the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, so it was more than noteworthy that the Good Samaritan helped out the Jew who had been beaten and robbed on the road from Jerusalem. This particular gospel opens with a scribe asking Jesus how to get to heaven. The priest scornfully explained to us that a scribe is sorta like a low life scum sucking attorney. When he said that I swear that he was looking right at me and if looks could kill I’d be rotting in Hell right now, instead of writing this blog for your reading pleasure. How did he know I am a member of that loathsome tribe called “attorney?” Did he see me slither into the church and up the main aisle to my pew? Did he see me covetously eyeing the money in collection box? I was dressed in my tattered and ill fitting pilgrim garb, not a natty three piece Seville Row suit. How did he see through my disguise and call me out for being a slithering snake of an attorney?

After he held my gaze for what seemed like an eternity, he went on to describe the scribe’s cross examination of Jesus and the lesson to be learned from Jesus’ response to this cross examination, the parable of the Good Samaritan. The lesson to be learned is Jesus has commanded us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves and everyone is your neighbor. According to this priest we should love everyone no matter their creed, color, gender, gender identification or political beliefs. I thought it was interesting that he included and emphasized political beliefs. Maybe we should all try to be Good Samaritans and stop hating each other because we have differing political beliefs. Nancy and Mitch, are you following this blog? For goodness sake, holster your pistols and try to get along.

Today was Sea Sunday at the Cathedral.

The Catholic Church has a special outreach for the men and women who work in the merchant marine. It sounded like a good cause so I gave them a couple of pounds, or it could have been a couple of quarters. All these pounds and pence and euros have me unbelievably confused.

Abe and St. Christopher spotted this bank of candles and made me empty out my pockets and give them all my change. They proceeded to drop coins in the donation box like two drunken sailors on shore leave.

They lit a candle and said a prayer for Anna and Garon and Mary and Jay and Wiley. I need to have a little talk with Abe and St. Christopher about a candle budget.

After mass it was time for breakfast.

I stopped at a grocery store and bought a vegetable smoothie and a banana and a chocolate croissant. I used a self checkout pay with your credit card kiosk at the grocery store to make these purchases. As I was leaving the store I heard Jan ask, as she always asks after I make a purchase with my credit card, “Did you put your credit card back in your wallet?” I always listen to Jan and in this case I am so glad I did. I immediately checked my wallet and couldn’t find my credit card. I ran back into the grocery store and found my credit card still in the card reader. Boy was I relieved to retrieve my credit card and put it back in my wallet. I need to slow down and concentrate on what I am doing.

After breakfast I meandered around town to kill some time before my 1:00 PM Free City Tour of Edinburgh.

I walked by this escape room. I didn’t know they had escape rooms in Scotland.

Then I walked through another section of Princes Street Gardens. What a beautiful green oasis in the middle of the city.

They are trialling a robot mower in the Gardens. Is trialling even a word?

The trial didn’t seem to be going very well. The robotic mower looked like it was very confused. It would start and stop, go forward and backwards and, in general, aimlessly wander around the park with no robotic idea of what it was supposed to be doing or where it was supposed to be doing it.

Beautiful flower beds in the Gardens.

This is Great Aunt Lizzie’s. What beautiful roses she has in her yard.

I took a quick lunch break before starting my Free City Tour.

This is a picture of the counter guy fixing me a sandwich. No vegan options at this restaurant.

I finally made it to the spot on the Royal Mile where I met Zenon, the tour guide for our Free City Tour.

This is the Heart of Midlothian, set in a sidewalk on the Royal Mile.

According to Zenon, it is good luck if you spit on the heart of Midlothian. Although this makes no sense to me, I saw plenty of people spit on this alleged good luck charm.

This is a statue of David Hume on the Royal Mile. Notice the shiny right foot. You guessed it, it is good luck to rub his right foot.

This is festival season in Edinburgh. We had to walk through this Mardi Gras like parade where everybody was dressed up in flamboyant costumes and beating on different types of drums.