The Anglican Report

Yesterday my little Anglican congregation had a day-o-Charles Wesley (on purpose; it happens every now and then by accident in the Methodist world). All four hymns were by CW: "Christ, whose glory fills the skies,""Soldiers of Christ, arise," "Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost," and "Tell out my soul, the greatness." Of course, by this point in my relationship with the Parish of the Good Shepherd, I'd be disappointed if we didn't sing a couple of hymns to unfamiliar or unexpected tunes. I was not disappointed; I think only the first was to the tune I'm used to.

This all happened because Saturday was the 270th anniversary of John Wesley's Aldersgate experience. I missed it completely, but the Church of England had a celebration of the Wesley brothers, and Padre used that and the music as a springboard for a nice little ecumenical sermon.

Speaking of ecumenism, it was Corpus Christi in the Roman Catholic world. Rita's church prayed for the day when all believers could share together in the Body and Blood of Christ. You'll be relieved to know that they did not go completely crazy and invite the non-Catholics to the Table, though.

The merry, merry month of May

As many of you know, we were back in the States for two weeks for a combination of leave and business meetings. This being May, lots of things happened in the yard while we were gone: the trees leafed out, the azaleas and rhodos bloomed, the weeds flourished, and the grass grew. And grew. And grew. When we pulled into the driveway we were stunned to see the grass was at least 12 inches high - no exaggeration! David set out immediately to start knocking it down.

So far we've spent, together, at least 8 hours mowing. David did the whole yard in a preliminary round Friday, and I went back over the front when he stopped to fix dinner. We have a mowing curfew of 9:00 PM here, so that pretty much took care of Friday. Saturday it rained, and Sunday we're not allowed to mow. So David attacked the Back 40 again this evening and got about halfway through before the gas ran out. After eating and replenishing the gas can, I took over and managed to finish the Back 40 just after 9:00. We still have the middle section to go, and by then the front will need it again.

That's the story on the grass. The weeds are another story, and one that will occupy me for the entire summer. The azaleas and the rhodos, however, are a thing of beauty, at least for now. We have a lot of rhodos, and they seem to be healthier this year than last. There are only a few azaleas, but two of them are pictured here, in colors you probably don't expect to see from azaleas. We saw the orange ones at the Royal Greenhouses at Laeken (Brussels) just a few weeks ago but didn't realize we had one of these special babies right in our own back yard. Neither of us remembers it blooming last year.

And you can see I have my work cut out for me with these weeds.

So you think you're overtaxed?

We just got our Belgian income tax information. We don't have to pay, but they send the packet to all homes. The lowest bracket, up to 7,042 euros in taxable income, is 25%. (The standard deduction is just over 6,000 euros, and they apparently do not distinguish between married and single taxpayers.) The lowest bracket in the US is 10%. The highest bracket in the US is 35%, and that doesn't kick in until a single wage earner has taxable income of more than about $358,000. In Belgium taxable income over 32,270 euros ($50,000) a year is taxed at 50%. And keep in mind that all this is on top of the 21% value-added tax, which is essentially a sales tax paid on almost everything you can spend money on, including cars.

My fellow Americans, stop whining.