Answering the Big Question

St. Ted posted a comment that was a question. "Can I take you off my prayer list now?" In brief, "Yes."

I knocked out better than a couple of miles in less than 30 minutes today while the kids were pre-occupied with Latin. I couldn't have done that pre-cardiac stent, and would have blamed it on the back (scoliosis) and who-knows-what. I didn't know what was keeping me so tired, and it was quite puzzling. I didn't like it, either. Now I know. Now it's fixed. Now I can keep up.

And no, I didn't nearly collapse afterward, either. I was still rarin' to go for it.

It is bedtime now, though. Morning comes early for me.

Thanks for askin'. Night, night.

Jumping Ship and Joining In

All this talk of late regarding which societies and organizations I might belong to has gotten me thinking I might as well come clean.

I belong to as few of them as I can get away with. I don’t care for them. They add extra Rules & Time to my life—specifically time required keeping up with the Rules for each organization.

I was a member of the Wittenberg Trail for a while. It’s a good place to meet and talk. But I found I had to leave for the same reason I couldn’t comply with my daughter’s and granddaughter’s wishes to be on Facebook or put up a MySpace. It takes time away from other things I need to be doing. There are still some great books I want to read, and it takes me a long time to read. I still have teaching to do, and I can’t be spending a great deal of my home time on the computer instead of with my husband. There is a good reason why I’ve been able to blog to freely this week, the first week of school. So, I’m no longer a member of the WT.

My father taught me early not to join in with cliques. Looking back now that my son’s in the Army I can see how right he was. Army life is filled with cliques, from the Masons to any tiny sub-social group you can imagine. Johnny was in the Navy before he joined the Army. While on the now-decommissioned Belleau Wood, an LHA-3 “Gator Freighter”, he counted no less than five gangs. He’s not a joiner, either, and it’s done him well.

Of course, cliques and gangs are not organizations and associations. I do belong to a select few. I’m a member of the Concordia Deaconess Conference. The women of the CDC are very precious to me. I haven’t been able to attend the annual meetings in quite a long while, so they probably don’t realize that. Their schedule and mine scarcely seem to coincide. While they do have a set of Rules, it is in the form of a Code of Ethics. It’s still Law, but Law in which every Deaconess should be abiding anyway. It simply covers things like being faithful to the altar of Christ, remaining faithful to one's consecration vows, and wearing the Deaconess garb.

I’m also a rostered member of the LCMS because I am a deaconess commissioned in the LCMS. Ma MO considers me to be a Commissioned Minister. She can think what she wants of me, but I’m just a plain old deaconess/teacher. I’m no minister at all. I certainly wish my own Ma would think better of me than that!

The AAA is another membership I hold—don’t leave home without it. I don’t. They came out to the house to fix a tire last month after my granddaughter clipped a storm drain just around the corner and tore a tire. Nice folks.

The Libraries at CTSFW and CSL were both kind enough to give me cards. I’m hold one of CSL’s books hostage until I finish reading it. It’s a doozy!

I’m a member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Brandon, Mississippi. The Rev. J. Richard Sawyer admits me to the altar there.

When the Augustana Ministerium opened up to laity, I became a member there. Their rules were easy.

I am listed as neither Republican nor Democrat, nor even Independent. I vote whichever way I chose. That may sound ridiculous, but these days even Independents are a block unto themselves.

This week I became a card-carrying member of a new group. After being implanted with this doohickey I’ll need to carry the card for it forever, and ever, and ever, amen.

I'm a member of the Body of Christ. Have been since August 3, 1950. That's why all other memberships are just plain skubalon compared to that (Phil 3:8).

Tree Hugging, Money Loving

A friend of mine passed on an e-News letter from the LCMS. It had a special “Focus on Workers in the Church.”

It was so special. It included a Bible verse, of course. “Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matthew 13:8 (ESV)

Too bad the rest of the letter didn’t stay in context with Christ’s parable. Instead we were treated to a piece from Psyche and Spirit titled “The Thing About Trees.”

The short essay invited us to commune with trees and receive the benefits of being in their presence.

Summer is a great time to be outdoors and commune with nature. In the past few years, Japanese researchers have verified what most of us know with certainty - that there are significant psychological benefits to being in the woods. Bless them. But rather than sit at my computer and read their research, I'll try to get outside and find some trees to hang out with so I can experience it myself. Whether being in the forest feels creepy and strange or majestic and inspiring, it is the community of trees, the composite, which helps us feel that we are in the midst of what is greater than ourselves. A community of living things so thick and vast that we fear we could even get lost in it, entering farther and farther into our own and the collective unconscious - the thing of fairytales and great adventures. In our part of the country, many men and women, find greatest peace sitting for hours in tree stands, ostensibly waiting for animals to pass.

Now, this Miss’ippi (Colorado born, Germany raised, Arkansas/Texas livin’, Utah toted, Memphis hailin’) gal don’t need any Japanese researcher to tell her that being outdoors is the best cure for whatever ails her. That’s what God created gardening for—especially azaleas.

And there isn’t anything like a vast Rocky Mountain forest— or a German one like pictured above—to make one aware of what C. S. Lewis called the Numinous Other. He’s the one who is Greater Than Ourselves, who makes the forest feel creepy and strange. We know He’s watching. We can feel Him. But when you get right down to the bare bones of it, the Numinous Other is just more Law. Feeling Him doesn’t bring comfort. He causes the hairs on our neck to rise. We are in awe of Him. We know we don’t want to see Him face-to-face, at least not without a mediator. He isn’t the Savior.

The rest of the LCMS eNews letter had info about financial matters, managing debt and so forth. I can’t fathom that verse Mt 13:8 has anything to do with taking a walk in the woods and financial management, unless it is this way: “Take a walk in the woods, clear your head, and then go clear up your financial management.” Now that's just plain eisegetical silliness.

Jesus' parable and its context and its use in this letter have lost any relationship to each other entirely. Perhaps it’s that 2,000 year gap we’ve got to span. I reckon nowadays that parable refers to sowing money wisely? Maybe this is the new LCMS parable for financial investment:

A church worker took a walk in the woods and examined the beauty of her surroundings. She marveled at how the roots tangled over rocks and broke up the soil before the lofty trees finally took flight to the heavens above. Sitting among the glories of the trees, and the beauties of the flowers, she could feel the soft breeze of the wind. It was almost creepy. Besides, break time was over, so she beat it back to her desk before she got fired.

Duly refreshed, she took another look at her finances. She invested some of her finances in savings accounts where it earned less than prime rate. She invested other money in poorly held stock accounts where they soon failed. Other money she invested in a rising artist who ran off with his homosexual lover and all her investments. Other moneys she invested wisely in secure bonds, some producing at 6.2 over prime, others at 7.9 over prime, and still others at 8.5 over prime. (Gimme a break if I get this wrong. I don’t know financial terminology.)

OK, so is that how we are to read this verse in context with this letter? Otherwise I don’t know how it even fits!

A walk in the forest is a tremendous way to find temporal respite for the body and mind, but it does nothing for the eternal soul. For that, take along a small Bible, too. Meditate on God’s Word while among those things He created. The earth can inform you that there is a Creator; only God’s Word can inform you of your status before Him, and of His intentions toward you in Christ. Then do not separate yourself from the community of saints in worship gathered around the altar of Christ receiving His Gifts in Holy Absolution, Baptism, His Body and Blood through the bread and wine, and in the Word spoken in your ears by the pastor.

Financial matters are managed after one has been first fed from the Tree that gives eternal Life, forgiveness and salvation. Just as our First Parents ate from the fruit of a Tree and died, so now we eat of the Fruit another Tree and live, that of the Cross. Those who are first in Christ make better decisions as Christians. I think this is what the LCMS wanted to say. They just somehow couldn’t find the words for it. They got tangled up in Japanese researchers instead of going to the Source Himself. Whenever Jesus went off by Himself for refreshment by communing with (praying to) Someome, He communed with His Father, not trees. His prayers always began with His Father's Word. There's the lesson to learn from.

Reading Wisely

We’re going to do this one more time. Folks, it’s been a week which God has called me to repentance in more ways than one, and I’m a bit tired tonight. And it is also a week in which it takes me much time to sift things through. Bear with me. So let’s get this straight finally.

Does it matter at all whether the New American is the voice of JBS as long as it publishes the facts correctly and without bias? As for the friend I mentioned who reads the New American, she did know it was from the JBS, contrary to what I presumed. But did it really matter whether the story came from a JBS source or the AP as long as the facts were reported correctly?

I don’t think so. In fact, while that’s important to this particular issue, it’s not so important in all issues. Another dear friend of mine cautioned me years ago, “Learn to argue their case as well as your own.” That simple Aristotelian logic. That can’t be accomplished without reading widely, and from the other person’s own perspective. But beware! It might get you called out as something you aren’t. Don’t take offence, though. It’s simply a misunderstanding on the other person’s part.

I have a whole section on my bookshelves dedicated to feminist literature. When my husband is looking for something to read he knows not to search there. He questions why I purchase “that stuff.” He knows it often makes me angry when I read it. Still, it constantly leads me back to the Gospel because the errors are so glaring. To read those femmies doesn’t make me one, even though folks coming into the house would certainly have cause to suspect it of me by looking at the bookshelves.

I have Gnostic literature, and I’ve read Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I have another section of my library filled with Eastern Orthodox materials. I read the Ancient Fathers, preferring them over more recent offerings. Still, I’m not turning East (despite my icons!), nor am I an atheist.

I found agreement in my position on temporary restraining orders from a feminist author. She had a different presupposition, of course.

Why should we limit ourselves by what we read? Rather, should we not remain “un-parochial” in our minds by reading as wide a variety of materials as we can? I say this within certain limits, of course. I don’t mean to fill my mind with overtly pornographic or vile materials. But what I do mean to say is that just because a magazine is associated with a certain (politically objectionable) organization does not mean it should not be read. And reading the materials doesn’t mean one will necessarily be tainted with the philosophy of that organization. The ministerial use of one’s reason says that the Holy Spirit first informs what is received according to God’s Word. Therefore, what is read even from secular sources is filtered through the lens of Christ.

So I plan to read widely, and read wisely. And I’ll reference whomever I doggone well want to as long as they have something worthwhile to say, something ridiculous to comment on, or. . . well, you get the point.

Mea Maxima culpa!

Mea Maxima culpa! That’s Latin for “My GREATEST fault.”

In my last post I referenced an article from the New American without researching any further into the background of the New American or any further developments of the case being discussed. On the first point, it turns out that the New American is the voice of the John Birch Society. That’s not an organization I consider to be either reliable or to which I’d have my name attached. I received the article via email from a valued friend and considered it trustworthy on that basis alone. I doubt she even realized the connection with JBS. My failure was in looking any further beyond that.

On the second point, Colleen Nestler’s restraining order against David Letterman was eventually vacated as frivolous. That, too, should have been reported.

However much I failed in these two points, though, they do not detract from the overall message of what I had to convey. Consider these statements:

From ifeminists .com, written by Wendy McElroy,

In Oregon, DivorceNet provides advice on TROs. As in most states, an applicant need only assert a “fear” of violence even if none has occurred. Some applications can be made by telephone.

Wikipedia notes:

Volokh's colleague, David Kopel, used the case as an opportunity to condemn the restrictions Federal Temporary Restraining Orders place on their targets in terms of self-defense, and the “feminist community” that supports such restrictions and encourages “the authorities always to ‘believe the victim’ who complains of intimate partner abuse.’ Kopel believes that the case shows that such restraining orders are issued too readily and are too restrictive.

McElroy strikes at the issue with clarity and acute insight:

The seeming ease with which TROs are issued constitutes a problem for those who wish all restraining orders to be taken seriously. Any court order that can be obtained over the phone by stating a fear, or picked up at Window 3 in a little over an hour, trivializes the process.

But a TRO is not trivial. It is a legal constraint upon another human being’s freedom. It should be issued only in the presence of a real threat. False or frivolous applications should be viewed in the same manner as are false police reports.

False police reports—much like Potiphar’s wife’s report to the palace guards against Joseph—still result in the restraint of a person’s freedoms when they are received as though they are the truth. This is why this issue is one of the Eighth Commandment.

It is sad that we Lutherans no longer read the Apocrypha as often or as eagerly as we once did in Luther’s day. The books serve well as devotional material, to teach the soul and train it well for spiritual warfare. Luther found the story of Susanna a good illustration of the Eighth Commandment, and used it as such in his Catechism.

So while I do not stand by my previous source, I do stand by what I wrote. The facts of Colleen Nestler’s TRO against David Letterman can be verified through several resources. The New American need not be one. I should have also included the conclusion to the story. My apologies for not doing so. But unless convinced I’m wrong on other points, I’ll not apologize for anything else I wrote. There are two sides to every story, no matter who’s telling the tale.

Restraining Original Sin

An article from the New American barely gave me pause. It should have, but it didn’t. In various and sundry ways I was prepared for it.

Along the pathway here and there I was told, “If a woman comes to you and says she has been abused, take it as the truth.” The first time I heard it I took a deep breath, pondered it for a moment, considered my station in life, and let the situation stew for the while. (Don’t let the floor hurt some of you on the way down in your laughter.)

It would be twice more that the same phrase would hit my ears before I was in a position I could respond. “Excuse me. Are we saying that original sin has been suspended in women?”

Ah, the fury that was unleashed by that! Women receive abuse, and that’s the truth. Th-th-th-that’s all folks!

Now, it is a fact that when a woman is abused and finally cries out for help she is in a dire predicament. If she is not believed, more abuse is heaped upon her. Those who would be her helpers now join her abuser as being an offender against her. This is especially painful for women who have suffered familial sexual abuse. Family members who do not believe her instead become her accusers—of tearing apart the family needlessly.

It is also a fact that when a wife has suffered the abuses of her husband she too often requires much courage to escape from him. The circumstances may not be dramatic. They may not always involve children. Yet they always require the courage to confront one’s abuser and demand to be treated better.

So when a woman come forward and says she has been abused, she must be treated as if she is telling the truth. All care and caution must be exercised for her safety, and that of her children. Listen to her, counsel her, provide for her. However, the ear must be an open one, not a closed one.

There is always another person involved, the one she has accused. According to the Eighth Commandment, he deserves a hearing also. I didn’t ask if original sin had been suspended in women just to be a thorn in some folks’ side. The answer I received didn’t settle me. There was an insistence on listening to the women, because “In this case [abuse] no, women never lie.”

I beg to differ, and did. I cited precedence, and the discussion ended. Potiphar’s wife made use of the same deceit (Gen 39:7-15) the New American article warns us against. One of the lies of liberalism is that those who have been abused cannot themselves be abusers. It is also one of the great lies of feminism: Women cannot be abusers, or sexual harassers; they’ve suffered too much of the same from men. In fact, they are the arbiters of the abuse and sexual harassment through its definition, "whenever you feel threatened by another person's authority." I reckon a TV signal is enough of a threat to effect a restraining order.

So the question is still asked: Has original sin been suspended? If so, then Jesus is not needed, for He only came for sinners (Mt 9:13).

Mama Mia!

Yesterday we went out to see Mama Mia! and have dinner out. We’d already seen the latest Batman release—if you’ve not seen it, it’s a good one!

In a word, Mama Mia! was fun. A friend of mine had warned that it was “estrogen-based” and “overflowing with feminist sensibilities.” That wasn’t a surprise. The commercials pretty much gave that one away.

What was a surprise is, given that estrogen-feminist foundation, that Mama Mia! is a classic fairy tale with a bit of a twist. The Grimm Brothers liked to convey truth in their stories. So be cautious when the sisterhood spins a tale for you. It has the classic elements:

Girl is oppressed by evils

Girl is rescued by rich prince who returns to her side

Then a twist:

When the springs poke through the mattress, anything goes.

So let me get this straight… (Oops, gotta watch the use of dot, dot, dot. No double entendres intended here.) The message of feminism now this: The Autonomous Wonder Woman icon (career, babies, big house, husband and all the candy that supports this lifestyle) of feminism is by and large a failure. Does it break apart by middle age, or is it not achieved at all? Sophie rejects not only her mother’s choice of single motherhood, but also reveals the emptiness of one of her “father’s” own marriage because he didn’t enter into it with one to whom he was whole-heartedly committed. Sophie’s (Amanda Seyfried) own capitulation to feminist ideology is revealed later, of course, but that was increasingly expected.

Granted there is an ironic inconsistency in the title “Autonomous Wonder Woman” for someone who has both a husband and children. But if we grant that even among those who consider marriage to be a 50%-50% proposition rather than a 100%-100% vocation, then from the get-go neither is either giving nor receiving the best from the other. Something is always held back, much like Cain with his sacrifice rather than Abel’s with his. Feminism advocates the former, Christianity teaches the latter.

The point that nearly slid by in Mama Mia! was the undercurrent running like a riptide. Donna (Meryl Streep) wants rescue. A proper one is suggested by her friends—from a wealthy male which would put Donna back into the position of every classic attribute of male dominance that traditional feminism openly abhorred (although insidously appreciated). The fact that Donna’s rescuer shares her dream, and has from its beginning, enhances his willingness to rescue her. But that doesn’t answer the essential feminist dilemma. Is autonomy worth sacrificing for the sake of security? Is autonomy only for the young woman?

Apparently when her back is against a mattress with springs poking through it, feminism has two answers. What’s up with that? Same old, same old.

Additional Comment

Ain't it great we have a pastor who requires the daddies to be present for their child's catechesis prior to admittance to the altar, wherever possible?

He's not alone. It's a growing trend among faithful pastors.

Anonymous Fatherhood

A friend sent me the above photo. It was titled “Terror Strikes Harlem.” While there are a variety of socio-political facts that led to this obviously photo-shopped social commentary (the rise in absentee father hood among African-American males in the last decades), there was also a deeper theological commentary hidden within. While perhaps not immediately noticeable in the size of the icon on this blog site, the sign on church in the background identifies it as Lutheran. An alternate title might be, “Terror Strikes Lutheran Catechesis.”

My own children are giggling behind their hands right about now. Their father worked shift work in order to put clothes on their backs, bread in their mouths, and keep a roof over their heads. He was often at work when they came home from school, asleep when they awoke in preparation for an evening shift, and worked days on Sundays. So where was he when it came time to their catechesis? In fact, he often argued that he liked the Navajo way: Children, particularly the males, were best kept under the care of the mother for seven years, and then were sent to their fathers. He changed their diapers and fed them bottles, but right now they can’t remember it. Ain’t that the way of it?

There is a certain wisdom in that Navajo way. For, it perceives that moms stayed near the home and hearth, teaching the littlest ones from the very cradle the ways of the faith while men defended the home and put meat on the table. This is not to say the fathers are absent from or are free to absent themselves from the responsibility of the catechesis of the home. When mothers catechize their children, they are speaking in the stead of their husband and the father of the home—and at his behest and with his blessing. This assumes that father and mother are of one mind with regards to matters of the Faith, and in truth whenever possible, it is the father who leads the catechesis in the home no matter how old the children. Luther gets it right when he heads each Chief Part, “As the head of the family should teach them to his household…” By that he didn’t mean that 1Cor 11:4 is undone as a matter of “quaint Pauline tradition.” Timothy was taught by his mother and grandmother, and Paul commends this (2Ti 1:5). That doesn’t mean that God’s order for households is undone. The Fourth and Sixth Commandments still hold for Christians.

Women’s Lib undid all that, donchaknow. The Pill and abortion and we can control our own bodies because they are ours and not anyone else’s and that entire socio-political machination to sustain it. Set women free to be as depraved as men could be in their lowest instead of being the ones who lifted men up civilizing them. (What an icon of the Church that is! Whoever does not have the Church as his Mother cannot have God as his Father. With the feminization of society and the church, daddies are mommies, mommies are daddies, and God has breasts! That’s not a new Christianity; that’s idolatry.) Now men can wear high heels as well as women and women can show off their bare fannies on the streets as well as men—and their bare breasts—and still cry and weep because the streets are simply NOT SAFE any longer for man, woman, child, nor beast. Modesty is as quaint as that antiquarian Pauline tradition, and as practical as that Germanic monk’s Catechism.

Unless we use it, that is. Daily and much, for we sin daily and much. I cannot encourage it enough. The beauty of it can only be known through its continued use. We break it down into simple “chunks” every day:

M Commandments & Apostles’ Creed

T Commandments & Lord’s Prayer

W Commandments & Baptism

Tr Commandments & Confession

F Commandments & Lord’s Supper

I don’t know the circumstances of the original photograph before it was photo-shopped. I don’t know why those folks were running as they were on the lawn of that Lutheran Church. Perhaps the Ablaze! ™ promoter was coming ‘round? Who knows? Photo-shopped as it is, it’s an icon for us to learn from.

Liturgy, Fatherhood, and Secularism

Pr. Sawyer is leading us through a study of the liturgy on Sunday mornings. It is a Power Point presentation with video. Sunday morning we watched a Shabbat in a Jewish home. The most striking fact of it was how it was the *head* of the household, the *father*, who lead the prayers, and conducted the catechetical meal. It was all quite mindful of Luther's instructions regarding the use of the Catechism, "As the head of the family teach his household..." Liturgy begins in the Divine Service where the Holy Spirit has called and gathered the household of God the Father, the ecclesia, to be taught by the Living Voice of His Son, Christ. But it doesn't remain there. The Liturgy of the Divine Service becomes the service of vocation, Christ in service to neighbor. This is the ecclesia sent out by the Holy Spirit in their daily lives.

With all the hoopla of "Batman" lately, here is a perspective worth noting. It describes well what has become of the sacred office of fatherhood when it is taken outside of God's sacramental use of marriage and the home, and thus in Christ. Alexander Schmemann wrote, “Just as Christianity can– and must–be considered the end of religion, so the Christian liturgy in general, and the Eucharist in particular are indeed the end of a cult, of the ‘sacred’ religious act isolated from, and opposed to, the ‘profane’ life of the community.” Secularism, then, is the end of Christianity.

Teaching the Apochrypa

Do any of you pastors catechize your congregation on the Apochrypha? It would seem to me that if not, once again this is a bit of "lost Confession." By that I mean, what is good and right is lost to the dustpile of history. When attempts to recover it are made, it is done so only with great pain and effort, much like with the recovery of the practice of Private Confession among us.

The Apochrypha is often labeled as "books that don't belong in the canon," when quite properly they *do* belong there, but properly used and understood--just as the antilegomena are. In fact, the antilegomena are called the apochryphal books of the New Testament by some resources (Chemnitz). Other books clearly do not belong in the canon; their heretic influences are so strong inclusion precludes inclusion. Still, the Apochypha *may* be included with caution, and has been. They are considered good books, albeit not entirely reliable. So they may be used devotionally.

So why teach the Apochrypha? First, for the reason stated above. Hebrews 11:35 makes a reference that seems to be resolved only by turning to the story of the seven martyrs in 2Maccabees 7. While a doctrine wouldn't be built from that text (nor would one go to James to begin arguing justification!), it still teaches the Christian what it means to suffer to the point of blood for the sake of one's confession of Christ.

Second, we teach the Apochrypha for liturgical reasons. We have hymns written from its text: Now Thank We All Our God (LSB 895), Sirach 50:24; It Came Upon a Midnight Clear (LSB 366), Wisdom 18:14-15. At the Easter Vigil we sing LSB 931, All You Works of the Lord (Benedicte, omnia opera). The text is from the song of the three young men, which can be found only in the Apochrypha, The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Three Young Men, 35-68. The hymn is listed under "Biblical Canticles." The antiphon for last Sunday and the gradual for tomorrow are both taken from the Apochrypha. We use other words in our worship life which are extra-biblical: the ending to the Lord's Prayer and the Creeds being chief among them. While the words themselves can be found in Scripture, their specific form is not.

I recognize that introducing the Apochrypha in the congregation must be done with patience and delicacy. Still, It is worth the doing for the sake of a greater depth of worship and devotional life in the congregation.

Garden Time at GSLS

This time of year my students are more rowdy than ever. They have Spring fever; they have test (ITBS) fever; and they have end-of-year fishing trip fever. This year I found a project to keep them occupied after the ITBS in the April 2008 issue of Mississippi Gardener (I know all of you get that one!) Hopefully the pictures here will demonstrate enough of what we did so if you want to do it, too, you can.



Here's my happy crew. You will need one of those with what they have in their hands. Also, you will need supplies. We had:

8 curved scalloped-topped cement garden edgers (red)
2 straight scalloped-topped cement garden edgers (red)
3 bags garden and bedding soil
weed fabric
1 flat bedding flowers (we had 36 begonias and one amaryllis)
root stimulator

First we set up our design, which was a fish, an ICHTHUS. The boys knew that we are all little fishes attached to our One Fish, Christ--or, as my oldest student said, "branches living from the larger Branch." After that I scribed the soil with a knife. You don't have to use a knife. Just use something to mark the outside of the dimensions. Then we dug into the soil.


This was so we could set the landscapers into the soil, not merely upon it. That way they'd be solid.

After that, we lined the area with weed fabric.


Here you can clearly see the outline of the ICHTHUS shape. We used the soil dug out from the middle to backfill around the pavers. That way they were stable from the outside. The garden soil we added kept them stable from the inside. We used only three bags of garden and bedding soil to fill our planter. It was even a bit too full!

Here is the final "product" and the proud crew. The amaryllis planted at the center was a gift one of the boys gave me two Christmases ago. It finally bloomed this year. It needed a larger space to grow properly, so we moved it to a new home. They did a great job, and not one dirt fight in all of it!

Office, Baby, Office

Get Office straight, and everything else falls into place: from Office follows all other offices or vocations, and from that station. Office is, first of all, located in Christ. It is the keeping and living in the First Commandment, the First Article, and the First Petition. What do these have to do with Christ? No one comes to the Father except through Christ (Jn 14:6). When Christ is one’s Head, then living as one in the Body of Christ means that love toward neighbor is the habitus of daily living in one’s Baptism (1Co 11:4; Eph 5:23;). This is the lesson Jesus taught the young lawyer with the parable of the Good Samaritan when He turned his question around. It is not “Who is my neighbor?” but rather, “To whom am I a neighbor?” (Luke 10: 25-36).

Last night John and I watched Gone Baby Gone. Ben Affleck both co-wrote the screenplay and directed this film. His younger brother, Casey, was cast in the starring role. Ed Harris, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Madigan, and Morgan Freeman also star in this film of a little girl who was reported missing, and the young man who was hired to search for her. I will try not to reveal too much of the movie’s details for the sake of those who have not yet seen it.

The movie is a fascinating study of office and vocation. There are those who have God-given vocations, yet abandon them. Some take up vocations that are not properly theirs to have. Others are given offices into which they have been place with trust, yet through which they have been abusive. Another is like the last of the Old Testament faithful women, Anna, praying and fasting, faithful in her vocation. She lashes out in righteous anger, “You are an abomination!” Her pain stings the greatest, for she sacrifices all she has, and loses all in the end.

There is, too, a Christ-figure—one who sacrifices his own life so that another might live. Fascinatingly, there is also a hireling. The twist-ending allowing for “What would you have done?” questioning reveals who the hireling is, who the Christ-figure is. Christ said, “Feed My sheep” (Jn 21:17). Certainly the primary meaning of this is directed to the Office and the administration of the Mysteries, the Sacraments. Still, in Gone Baby Gone, we have the distinction between doing right because it feels right, and doing right because it is right.

“If you do this thing, I will hate you forever,” said the tempter in the movie. How many prayers have ascended to God in this way? And yet Joseph declared, “You meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Ge 50:20). A religion centered in the heart; a religion that does not rely solely on what God has done and gives for us; a religion that cannot be satisfied with Christ’s declaration, “It is finished!”; is a religion that can lead one to hating God when He does not give one the desires of one’s own heart. This is why we pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” When we pray these words, we literally ask God that He carry us away, even if it means into an early death rather than into even greater evil than we currently face.

Gone Baby Gone is not merely a fascinating movie; it is also a genuinely Lutheran movie. It gets Office straight, even if by demonstrating by way of the negative, and through instances of the positive through vocation. It’s a movie worth watching for the sake of its theme. This must be said with a great caveat: the language is very strong. Some might find that offensive due to the volume.

Are We There Yet?

With Missouri's pragmatism and idolatrous self-assured congregational autonomy, we are nearly so, if not there already.

Infant Baptism in Baptist Country

We live in Baptist Country. That's rightly capitalized in these parts. Then again, with the way things are going with regard to the general protestanization of the Lutheran Church, Baptist Country is in every pew in every local congregation--despite the efforts of faithful pastors.

Rev. Rick Sawyer of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Brandon, MS, has written an excellent website responding to the favorite retort of the Baptist Country's refutation for Infant Baptism. You can access it here.

In fact, while you're there, take a look at his piece on Historic Faith. and then at his one titled He is Risen.

What Grows Up, Must Blow Down

Before the storm.... April, 2004




After the storm finished its destruction in Little Rock on last Thursday, it headed on over to Jackson, Mississippi, where it unleashed five more tornadoes on Friday afternoon. In fifteen minutes, Jackson and its environs endured more damage than Katrina did to it in a day and a half.

I was at school. The sirens had gone off, and the weather radio alerts were advising a severe storm. We had the students hunkered down in the hallway. They weren't frightened until the electricity went down. That hallway gets mighty dark! So we sang our chapel songs and the Matins liturgy. That puts eyes and minds on Jesus and off fear.

I learned later that John was on the back porch having a cigar. Typical. On the way to the hospital to have bypass he had one more cigarette. I do love that man! In his favor, he'd watched the tv channels and they'd been saying the storm was well away from us. Rankin County is very large. When the order to sound the alert comes down, it doesn't matter what corner is being pinpointed, the whole county sounds alarm. The actual tornado might well be several miles away and never come near us.

John said he knew we were in for it when it suddenly began to hail. Then he saw one of our trees begin to lean. He thought, "Awwww, now don't do that." But it did, taking the one beside it with it. We lost two oaks, both 65-70 ft. tall. At least they fell East, not South. Falling South would have been through the middle of the house. Neighbors weren't so fortunate. They had trees severely damage their house.

Wind noise was so strong no sound was heard of falling treed or breaking fence. Immediately after the wind left our place it began to twist. Neighbors across the street received the twister effect. Their trees were broken from the middle, as were trees on the golf course. A large dead tree was stripped of its bark, bit it's still standing. Probably a red oak, not a white. Reds dig deep roots. Whites, like the two of ours that fell, have shallow roots like pines. We have a large red, about 80 ft tall, that didn't even shudder in this wind. Of course, if it had received the twisting wind, it might have been another story.

We now have the start of two fish ponds in the azalea bed. They quickly filled with water, which hasn't yet drained. This is Mississippi, of course! The root balls on these fells are enormous. Some of my azaleas are now growing horizontally. Squirrels are running across their favorite nesting places instead of up them. We don't know if they had any babies up in the branches. There is nothing that can be done about them now.

So now we are looking to replacing the fence and planting some crepe myrtle. Natchez whites. They'll grow the tallest. Large elegant and shapely. The kind that won't fall on a house. Oh, they get blown over, but they don't crush anything.

And by the way, the trees missed the bluebird's house by a few feet. They had just finished laying their first nest of the season, too.

Sarah Comes of Age

The tornado ripped through about 1/4 mile from her home near Little Rock, Arkansas, last Thursday night. The most memorable damage was to her high school, Sylvan Hills. So on Saturday Sarah went over to a friend's house to commiserate their mutual loss. 

Eventually he told her he had to dress for the prom that evening, and "Oh, aren't you going, too?" No, she wasn't. A string of boys had asked her, but she'd declined. She wasn't much interested in them and where things generally headed with them. 

Now, Kit's a nice young man, but a bit on the shy side. He didn't have a date for the prom, either. His mom and dad began to meddle. "Sarah, you really ought to go. Why not go with Kit?"Well, that was impossible. She had no gown, no shoes. 

Pshaw! Kit's mom put all that aside. She'd been a bride's maid at more than a half-dozen weddings. Still had the dresses and shoes. She and Sarah were the same size. Sarah could go into her closet and pick out something to wear. As for flowers, she could quickly arrange that, too. With a florist in the family, an orchid for Sarah's hair and a matching boutonniere and wrist corsage appeared in no time. A silver ribbon wrapped her hair, matching Kit's tuxedo vest. 

Sarah called her mom and dad, said, "I'm going to the prom with Kit. Is that OK?" It was all arranged in two hours. She had a grand time. Kit was so proud.

The picture says it all. 

     

Feminism That Leads to Christ

Mary writes a beautiful post at the Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition titled Why pregnancy is good for me. It is a gripping confession of a young Christian woman rejoicing in her pregnancy.

 

Æons ago when my own babies were very young, I picked up C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. Apart from whatever else it is, it is the finest treatise on feminism that I’ve read—especially That Hideous Strength. I’d not suggest reading this last volume without having read the first two, but it is in this final work that the previous two come together.

 

In That Hideous Strength, Jane considers herself locked in the opposite of what she regards marriage to be. Marriage ought to be a source of mutual comfort, but she finds hers to Mark to be a source of solitude. They have mutually consented not to have children. They are a mutual source of small unspoken irritations to each other. The silence between them is the greatest of solitudes.

 

Jane is confronted, at last, by her decision not to have children. The Director, a sort of Father-figure, reminds her that she is not a Christian wife. And since she chooses not to have children from this married union, she is living as though she were a virgin. She is a neither-nor.

 

“You mean,” said Jane slowly, “I’ve been repressing something?”

 

The Director laughed; just that loud assured bachelor laughter which had infuriated her on other lips.

 

“Yes,” but don’t think I’m talking of Freudian repressions. He knew only half the facts. It isn’t a question of inhibitions—inculcated shame—against natural desire. I’m afraid there’s no place in the world for people who won’t be either Pagan or Christian. Just imagine a man who was too dainty to eat with his fingers and yet wouldn’t use forks!”

 

Reading this Trilogy was when I began to really understand the insidious grip of feminism on myself. Ask me truly and I will tell you sincerely: the greatest feminist alive today is me. I do not say that for bragging rights. I tell you this because in all my years of trying to combat the feminism within me, I am unable to do so.

 

There is a simple reason for this that is not so very simple. Although feminism and original sin are not the same, because feminism mocks original sin, it is nearly impossible for anyone now living today to escape the influences of this all-pervasive worldview. First, feminism is a deception. It deceives the hearer to thinking that is an authoritative voice for woman and her needs, as well as society in general.  Second, because feminism considers itself to be authoritative, it presents itself as a movement for empowerment. The individual is her own authority. This is the key to the wrongful use of individualism. This is the same thing that the serpent promised our First Mother when he said she would be “like God.”

 

Eve was deceived into thinking she had to do something in order to be like God, when she was already made in His image. We spend much energy trying to do anything but our vocation—that which God has placed in our hands to do—and trying to take credit for it as if that is what will grant us salvation. This is the core of feminism, and its root is original sin. Mary speaks eloquently of how God has reclaimed her through the repentance of pregnancy.  

 

I can no more free myself of my feminism than I can free myself of my sin. Still my pastor frees me of it, often and much with his word of Absolution in my ear and his hand upon my head. And daily and much my Baptism keeps me free of it, daily and much. In this there is much to rejoice about feminism, as Mary has found—for it brings women back to Christ.

  

Azaleas

Spring has been a bit topsy-turvy this year, much like a wash cycle: warm, cold, warm, cold. The azaleas have shown the effects. Instead of blooming all at once like in past years, they've been blooming in spurts. The earliest bloomers even suffered some frostbite. Still, they are beautiful. here is a picture to prove it.

Excellent Easter Sermons

For some excellent Easter sermons, take a wander over here. 

While you're there, you might take a look at the material on this page, too. 

Pr. Sawyer knows how to keep us all well-fed.