First Saturday in May

Happy Derby Day!

This is a photo of the first Saturday in May, circa 1926.
And this will get you started mixing your juleps.

Lilies for the Fillies

Happy Oaks Day! It might not be the Derby, but it's the day Kentuckians head to the track. No school, half-day at work, a day to taste-test your julep recipe.

The Kentucky Oaks is a 134 year old stakes race for 3 yr. old filies. The winner receives the garland of lilies in the winner's circle and a piece of the $500K purse.

In 2006, Lemons Forever won as a 47-1 longshot. Gotta love it.

Shining Like the Sun

Today marks the 5oth anniversary of Thomas Merton's epiphany on the corner of 4th & Walnut:

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race … there is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun."

"I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed..."

"The Unity Declaration"

Project Canterbury offers this sermon (1894) by the Rt. Rev. Thomas Underwood Dudley, 2nd bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky.

"Adaptation there must be, and adaptation there can be, because adaptation there has been. Sometimes in visions of the night, to the soul weary with the din of controversy--controversy in general about matters of mere opinion--weary with the thought of disaster caused by division, of the slow progress of the Kingdom because of the lack of unity of movement, of the waste and weakness in the administration of Christian truth by reason of the jealous maintenance of opinions as principles, of practices and methods as the very essentials of the Gospel--to such a soul comes the vision of reunion, even here in America, of different administrations by the same Spirit, and in one Body."