Bonfire

Those men sure did cut down a lot of overgrown trees and branches for yesterday's outdoor "work day" at church. You can actually SEE the sign on the front of the building now -- it's no longer covered by humongous bushes. It looks nice!

They didn't take down my cherry tree. Last June or July somebody took a chainsaw about 1/4 of the way through the base of my cherry. Don't know who. Don't know why. Don't know when. But it sure looks sorry. There are buds, but I'm not expecting it to recover. It will probably have to join the brush pile for a future bonfire.

One of my two elderberries was taken down yesterday. That surprised me. I don't know whether that was a mistake, or if somebody found it dead after a hard winter and decided to cut it off clean down to the ground.

We should've had Smokey the Bear here to keep an eye on the pastor. He let the fire get big enough at one point that it set a nearby tree on fire. Yikes! Well, it was an old thing anyway, on its last legs. It got taken down quickly and added to the pile of burning brush. Some of the folks from church who helped clean up the place yesterday joined us for hot dogs and S'mores cooked over the fire. It was a nice evening.

Cast Party

Last night, the local middle school put on their production of Fiddler on the Roof. One of my favorite kids from church was playing Tevye, so we went to the play. Lots of thoughts...

Seeing all the folks in town, and their relationships with one another through school and work and 4-H and just being neighbors, etc, kinda sorta made me feel like I'd like to be part of that. There's a community there that I'm not part of. I have my own community, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be part of this local close-knit group. A lot of them are such nice people!

The Sunday School superintendent (who is Tevye's mom) invited us to come over to their house for the cast party afterwards. I was impressed by the ability of the kids to be friendly with us strangers. This group of 7th and 8th-graders was not opposed to interacting with adults like most kids that age are.

Tevye's cousin didn't see the play last night. She was at a dance. She is Maggie's age. She's 12, and she spent her evening wearing jewelry and make-up and pop-style clothing, and dancing with boys. She's not a bad kid by any means. It just makes my head swim, though, to think of 12-yr-olds playing grown-up like that.

One of the boys at the party needed to go home just when we were leaving. He happened to live right on our way, so we offered to drive him. He seems to be a little slow, and his speech isn't very clear, and he was tremendously concerned when we were leaving because he'd lost his money. Perfectly nice kid. Turned out the lost money was 50 cents. I could very easily see Maggie in his position if she were attending school. The other kids were really much kinder to him than I expect from 13-yr-olds. And yet, you could see it -- there were a few rolled eyes behind his back, and the dumbfounded question about "you're that worried about 50 cents???" So then the pendulum swung back to being somewhat relieved that we (and Maggie) aren't so closely tied into the mainstream community.

Moon Phases

Some of y'all will laugh at me for posting something that you find to be SO obvious. But no matter how well I learned the material in school, this didn't sink in. I read an astronomy article in our county weekly after a few years of living out here in the boonies. Then I watched the sky for what I'd read about, and it began to make sense.

The full moon is up for the full length of the night. It rises in the evening and sets in the morning. The half moon is up half the night. It rises around midnight and sets around noon (or vice versa). A skinny little sliver of the moon is up for only a sliver of the night.

Sometimes I think this is goofy for me to be so tickled to have figured this out. But apparently not everybody has it figured out. It's not uncommon to see children's picture books with an illustration of a full moon low in the sky at 2 a.m., or a story that tells about people finding their way through the forest at midnight by the tiny bit of light that came from a sliver of moon overhead.

Tonight, one of the boys noticed the big, pretty evening star. So I showed them Sky at a Glance, my favorite astronomy website, and its weekly planet round-up. Venus is looking very bright in the western sky in the evenings right now.

Always Good?

What God ordains is always good.
His will abideth holy. (TLH 521)

The will of God is always best
and shall be done forever. (TLH 517)

It is part of our sinful nature that we get angry when people sin against us. It is sinful to hold grudges, or to become bitter, or to despair over our mistreatment.

So it is true that we respond sinfully when we are sinned against. And it is true that God will work for good in the situation, even when sin is committed against us. But that doesn't mean we can say the sin itself is good.

The ultimate example of this is the cross. It was not good that Judas betrayed his lord. It was not good that Peter denied his Savior. It was not good that the Sanhedrin delivered up Jesus to death. But it was good. The sin was not good, but what God accomplished was good.

When we struggle with our sinful response to those who sin against us, it isn't exactly helpful to be told that the sin is actually good. If, instead, the sin is recognized as sin, it's easier to forgive and to love and to endure in spite of the sin, even giving thanks for the good that God is accomplishing through the difficulties. But when the sin is called "good," it just really messes with your mind. Sometimes it seems like Job's friends have been reincarnated. When something is a mixed bag of good and bad, do we really have to claim that the bad doesn't exist just to extol the good that is there too?

Adult Bible Class

Samuel was in Bible class again today. He's 4 or 5. The huge majority of people in class are over 70, but there are now several of us who are merely middle-aged. Except Samuel. He's a kid.

He was sitting across the room from me. When we started to pray, for some reason I noticed his face. He was looking at Pastor, watching intently. Then he glanced around the room, looking at all these grown-ups, singing the versicles, praying the psalm and the catechism, singing the hymn.

I know that kids garner some benefit from Sunday School. They are educated in God's Word, and that will not return void. But kids get something very valuable from being in class with the adults too. They probably miss a lot of what's being taught. But they do catch some of it -- probably a lot more than we realize. The one invaluable lesson, though, is what Samuel saw today: THIS is what grown-ups do. Praying together, reciting the catechism together, studying God's word together. This is what grown-ups do. Learning about the Bible isn't some childish activity that occurs in Sunday School and is outgrown. This is not something you graduate from. It's what sustains life all your life long.

I love seeing kids in the adult Bible class.

Today

Don't know what happened today. We managed to get most of the house cleaned, made a nice dinner, and did a good job with schoolwork. How'd that happen?

The thing that's hard, though, is that my voice doesn't last. Ever since that year-long bout of laryngitis, I've had to be careful of my voice. Whenever I get diligent about doing schoolwork with the kids, I end up driving my voice into the ground. Still haven't figured out how to resolve that. My brain knows that I have to find a "different" way to do school that doesn't involve much of my voice, but a "new way" hasn't seemed to work. The "old way" is a good way for us. But there's the little problem of my voice sabotaging my homeschool efforts. Gotta lower the bar on my grand plans. Reading aloud together and discussing books is such a great thing! How do I give that up?

Self-Confidence

Sanjaya wasn't one of the best on American Idol. The first few weeks of the top twelve, he seemed timid. Each week, it seemed like he expected to be sent home. He acted like he thought he didn't belong in the group. But the weeks have gone by; he has not been voted off; he hasn't even been in the bottom three. It's almost like he's become the heart-throb, especially for teeny-boppers. And his confidence has grown. For the most part, I think our society overrates the concept of self esteem. But watching Sanjaya improve over the last weeks shows that confidence actually does make a difference in ability and performance!

Dickens

Back when I was in school, I never much cared for Charles Dickens' works. I know he's one of those authors we're "supposed to" study. But you know the saying -- "So many books; so little time." His books were never ones I wanted to foist on the kids. But I always felt like I was leaving them with a big gaping hole in that area.

Then I saw that American Players Theatre was going to be doing a play about Dickens and his works this summer. I thought this was a great chance to fill in that educational gap. So we plowed into the Dummies version of studying Charles Dickens, without desiring to give it serious time or attention, but just enough to give us a bit of a nodding acquaintance with these works. (Turns out, in the end, that the play about Dickens is a one-night fund-raiser that isn't available for the school matinees anyhow. Bummers.)

Having other topics that took higher priority, I decided we'd just watch some videos to get the gist of a few stories. We had already seen the Muppet version of A Christmas Carol repeatedly, as well as some other versions. So the kids knew what "Scrooge" means. We'd also seen Nicholas Nickleby, which my husband and I found quite enjoyable even before we watched it for "educational reasons." The kids weren't as impressed with Nicholas Nickleby as I was, but it was an okay movie even for them.

The first thing we watched was an educational video from our library. It was called The World of Charles Dickens and was only 17 minutes of non-fiction. It touched on the politics and philosophy and history that impacted Dickens and his writing. Although we often hear that Dickens was protesting the shabby treatment of the poor, it seemed to me that his stories soemtimes went further than that, as though he may have bought into certain "progressive" ideas of the second half of the 1800s.

The first movie we got for our introduction to Dickens was Oliver Twist. Boy, that didn't rank very high in our opinion. Too depressing. Too dark. What a bummer of a movie. I wish we hadn't spent the time, even if we did gain some cultural literacy out of it. I wonder if the book is as bad as the movie made it seem?

The next movie we watched was the Masterpiece Theatre version of Great Expectations. That was significantly better than Oliver Twist. A little convoluted and hard to follow in some spots. Not something I think I'd want to bother watching again, but not terrible either.

We were beginning to think that we really didn't need any more exposure to Dickens, but the next movie in our Blockbuster queue arrived in the mail. So we watched David Copperfield. This one was a good movie. I think we liked it even better than Nicholas Nickleby! The host of Masterpiece Theatre pointed out that this is one of Dickens cheeriest stories. On top of that, we liked the way the story was told on film. The kids especially were interested in the actors they knew from the Harry Potter movies. Some of the key characters in this version of David Copperfield included the folks who played Harry, McGonagall, Umbridge, and Madam Hooch. I thought we counted five people from the Harry Potter movies, but right now I can only recall those four. But Gandalf was in the movie too. I was glad that we lucked into seeing the best of the movies as the last one: it left a nicer concluding touch to our brief foray into Dickens.

Thomas, the Twin

The story for Quasimodo Geniti (today) is the second half of John 20, also known as the "Doubting Thomas" story. The particular verse being discussed was 24:
"Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came."

The question to the child was
"What was Thomas called?"

The answer?
"Tom."

Naturally!

Copycats and Inspiration

We know that there are lots of places in the New Testament where the Old Testament is quoted by Jesus or Paul or somebody else. Psalm 118:22 is quoted by Jesus during Holy Week (Matthew 21:42-44), but is also referred to indirectly in Matthew 16:18 (by Jesus in response to the Confession of St Peter). And then Paul picks up on it later in Ephesians 2:19-22.

But I've been finding it surprising (although I don't know why) that New Testament writers quoted other earlier New Testament writers, and Old Testament writers quoted earlier Scriptures.

For example, the canticle in the Service of Prayer and Preaching (LSB 261) is from Isaiah 12: "The Lord God is my Strength and my Song, and He has become my Salvation." But that is a quote of Psalm 118:14. And the psalm quotes the canticle sung centuries before on the east side of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:2).

John (Revelation 21:5) quotes Jesus' statement, "Behold, I am making all things new." Paul (who wrote before John) brings that up at the end of 2 Corinthians 5. That's why I like so much that Mel Gibson's movie put that quote in the mouth of Jesus on the way to the cross.

We know the words in the catechism from Mark 16:16 about baptism. But I just noticed recently that John includes that same statement when he records Jesus' catechesis on baptism (John 3:18, as He spoke to Nicodemus).

I knew Jesus would often apply OT Scriptures to Himself. But His preaching would also be based on OT Scripture. For example, in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) one of the things He says is based on Psalm 37's theme (vv 9-11) about the meek inheriting the earth.

When the Babylonian captives returned to Jerusalem, they prayed and confessed their sin and listened to the Bible readings. Their words (recorded in Nehemiah 9) included the confession (v 17) that God is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness" which is a quote from the prophet Joel (2:13) three centuries earlier. There are also lines in their confession which sound almost identical to phrases from Psalm 78, as well as the whole overall shape of Nehemiah 9 being very similar to Psalm 78.

Another example: Psalm 90 (written by Moses) is quoted in the Isaiah 40 passage about the grass withering and the flower fading. Then later Jesus refers to this in the Sermon on the Mount (end of Matthew 6).

These are just a few of the "copycat" examples I've noticed recently. I guess the reason I never saw these things before (and the reason I see so few now) is that I know so little of my Bible. But when I do notice these things, it's neat to see how the inspiration of Scripture is so much just the repetition of the words God has given before. And it underscores the importance of thoroughly knowing those words -- memorizing those words -- so that they become our own too.

Good Friday in the One-Year Series

The one-year lectionary from LSB lists the Good Friday epistle as 2 Corinthians 5. The Good Friday epistle for all three years of the three-year series is listed as Hebrews 4. The LSB altar book says that the epistle is Hebrews 4. There is no mention that the 2 Corinthians passage is an option. They just left it out of the altar book. The altar book just defaults to the 3-year series there.

Congregations using the 3-year series hear the 2 Cor 5 passage every Ash Wednesday, as well as on Lent 4 in series C. They use the Hebrews 4-5 passage every Good Friday, as well as hitting the Hebrews 4 part for Propers 24 in series B, and the Hebrews 5 part for Lent 5 in series B.

Congregations following the 1-year series will hear the Hebrews 4 passage on Lent 1, and the 2 Cor 5 passage on Good Friday. But if the one-year series is used in conjunction with the Holy Week services out of the altar book, then they'll hear the Hebrews 4 passage on both Lent 1 and Good Friday, but would never hear the 2 Corinthians 5 passage again.

How Long Do You Homeschool Each Day?

A common question from non-homeschoolers concerns how much time it takes to homeschool children. Some people are "checking up" to see if they approve of what a homeschooler is doing with her children. Others are interested in homeschooling their own children, but are fearful that they won't have enough time to commit to the endeavor. In her article "How Many Hours?" Barbara Frank discusses the difference in time needed to teach in a homeschool versus teaching a group of children in a typical classroom setting. She's got a lot of good things to say in this article.

Jokes

Catching up on some blog reading recently, I was reading the last month's worth from Chaplain to the World. I really liked his report of church on Easter Sunday at his brother-in-law's congregation.

On a lighter note, I also thought I'd pass on a few teasers from his Good Humor list.
What do you call cheese that isn't yours? Nacho cheese.
How do you get holy water? You boil the hell out of it.
Why do gorillas have big nostrils? Because they have big fingers.
There are 19 more like this at Pastor K's site. Click on the link above.

Kantorei

We attended the Easter Choral Vespers in Milwaukee last night, led by the seminary Kantorei. It was the best one of those I've been to yet -- that probably has something to do with there being five Gerhardt hymns.

Tonight (Friday) they're at St Paul in Lockport IL (near Joliet) at 7:30.
Saturday at 7:00 they're at Zion in Grant Park IL (just northeast of Kankakee).
Sunday morning they'll be at St Peter, North Judson IN.
Sunday afternoon at 4:00, they'll be praying vespers back at the sem chapel.

Definitely worth attending if you can get there with a drive of an hour or two.

Critical Thinking Skills Press

We have used some materials from Critical Thinking Press. Although they are highly touted in many homeschool catalogs, I haven't been as impressed as many others.

The Mind Benders seem fun as well as being beneficial for developing thinking skills. But, hey, they're mostly just logic problems. And you can get those in puzzle books for a lot cheaper than you can from this educational publisher.

We bought Building Thinking Skills when the older kids were younger. I was seriously underwhelmed. Some friends have been impressed with these sets of books. They give practice in analogies (both verbal and figural-spatial) that would probably help a kid practice for annual standardized tests or the SAT. But since that's not important to us, I wasn't finding anything valuable in these books. Now, that is probably due in part to having kids who are more right-brained than average. The Building Thinking Skills books seemed way too easy, and almost entirely pointless. However, when Kid#6 came along and exhibited some learning difficulties, I started learning about non-verbal learning disorders. I figured she would need some help in areas that came naturally to the older kids. So I purchased another copy of Building Thinking Skills. Maggie seemed to enjoy it, and it may even have helped a little. Once or twice a year she asks to go on to level 2, but I haven't let her yet. I want her to get a little older first. But someday we will use that book with her, whereas it seemed pointless with the other kids.

I used Critical Thinking with a group of three teenagers (aged 12-17). It is a logic course. It's fairly decent. It covered things like "and" and "or" and "if-then." It talked about reasonable arguing versus unreasonable fighting. It had a section on truth-tables. It covered propaganda techniques, advertising schemes, and common errors in reasoning. It wasn't something we looked forward to working on during our time with the course, but, hey, it served a purpose.

I thought their history books looked more intriguing. So my friend Barb loaned us her copy of Critical Thinking in United States History Series: New Republic to Civil War. Paul and I were excited to start it. We loved the concept of studying logic in the context of American history. But as we got into it, we had some complaints. The lessons seemed to us to come from too liberal a slant. But worse, it was just plain hard to follow. There were lessons in logic on one page. Then there were worksheets to practice the skills elsewhere, with the answer guide somewhere in the teacher's book. Then there were the history readings to analyze, along with questions and answers. Then the answer guide for those were in a different section of the teacher's guide. And along with a gazillion bookmarks for those things, there was the part of the teacher's guide that showed what sections needed to be done in preparation for which lessons. And I tell ya, my head was spinning. I need something easier than all that page-flipping.

As we worked our way through the book, it got more and more painful. About 1/3 of the way through, I finally decided I was ready to quit Critical Thinking's New Republic to Civil War, and the boys cheered! One reason was because it was purporting to teach us something we'd already learned in a MUCH clearer way from the book Fallacy Detective. Although I deeply object to the theology behind the first three chapters of the Fallacy Detective (equating biblical "wisdom" with intellectual smarts instead of the "fear of the Lord"), the rest of the book is done superbly and is not necessarily pro- or anti-Christian. The book makes its points. It does so clearly. It does so in an orderly manner. It's easy to teach from. It's easy to refer back to when that becomes necessary. It has practice problems that teach new concepts and review old concepts. It has the answer key in the back of the book instead of scattered in different places in a separate teacher's guide (like the Critical Thinking books do). We learned a lot more from Fallacy Detective than from any other logic course we've tried.

Snow

Why is it that whenever my husband leaves for a conference, I seem to end up soaking wet, cold, and dealing with problems that take a man's strength? Rachel and Philip didn't go to work today because of weather conditions. I was glad that Paul -- the least experienced driver -- made it home from work safely. Andrew and I managed, cautiously and slowly, to get to town for paper routes. But once we got home, it took us 40 minutes to get into the driveway. And that was with three of us shoveling and trying to dig the car out of the drifts. We had the same problem getting into the driveway on the day back in December when Maggie was sprung from the hospital after surgery. As bad as it is out there today, it's nowhere near as bad as the storm the last weekend in February, which was nowhere near as bad as the storm the following week (which was the worst we've seen since we've lived here).

The snow and high winds caused power outages -- something to which we are NOT accustomed here. I think this may have been the longest we've been without electricity since living here. Being without electricity isn't good. But out here, no electricity means no water. That's really really not good. We suspected electrical problems were on the way because the power was flashing off and on for about half an hour before it went down altogether. We were reading schoolwork when I suddenly realized that the bleeping electricity was a sign of things to come. We stopped schoolwork and started gathering buckets and filling them with water: drinking water in the kitchen, buckets of water for washing dishes, buckets of water for flushing, and enough to be able to do a little personal clean-up in the event that showers/baths were unaccessible later. Happily, by mid-afternoon it seemed like the electricity was back on for good. At least until the storm picks up again later today (if the forecast is accurate).

Boy oh boy, I guess this is what winter looks like when the drought ends, huh? It's been dry so long that I can scarcely remember what Real Winter is.

Psalm 118:24

"This is the day which the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it."

That has oftentimes been sung as a song around the campfire or in Sunday schools. It's usually taught as a song about "ain't this a nice day that God gave us" or a "cheer up and be happy" kind of song.

But when you look at it in context, the day is the day when the Stone which the builders rejected became the Chief Cornerstone. This is a Passover psalm. This is the psalm chanted on Palm Sunday by the crowds welcoming Jesus. This is the psalm we still sing in the Sanctus every Sunday.

If we actually understood this campfire song, we'd realize that this song isn't a "cheer up" song, but is really telling us why Good Friday is good.

"Oh, give thanks to the Lord
for He is good,
for His mercy endures forever."

Vanity Plates

I picked up a fun book at the library recently. Leonard Wise put together The Way Cool License Plate Book, published by Firefly Books in 2002. It's full of pictures of license plates, with exclamations, or indicating the person's profession or something about his pets or vehicle. I don't think it has any redeeming educational value, but it sure is fun to browse!

A Capella Math

My kids linked to some of these things recently. I don't know how to post a You-Tube picture, but I can post a link to the Klein Four's song Finite Simple Group (of Order Two). These guys are mathematicians from Northwestern University, and they sing a capella. They're good singers. And they're hilarious. And they're mathematicians! "Finite Simple Group" is a song about love, but it's drenched and steeped and riddled (pun intended) with mathematical terms.


Under "quick links" on the Klein Four website, you might want to click on "Bottle Choir." They came up with a 27-note set of bottles to blow into (beer bottles, wine bottles, etc). They play Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming in parts sort of like a handbell choir would operate, only they're blowing into partially filled bottles instead of ringing handbells. We sat here in awe last night as Gary played the song, and even applauded the guys when it was done.

Just Desserts?

My son tells me that when somebody gets what's coming to them, they get their "just deserts," not their "just desserts." But, I told him, a desert is a dry place, and it's pronounced differently, and "just desserts" is pronounced like the word that has two S's. We looked it up in the dictionary. Deserts is a noun that means "what you deserve" or "merits." Makes sense when you see it that way. But who knew??

And as long as I'm on this theme, when you do what you're told, you "toe the line," not "tow the line." And when a person measured up, he "passed muster," not "passed mustard."

We have a potluck at church next Sunday. Probably nobody will have to pass the mustard -- there are seldom ham sandwiches. People usually only bring just desserts.

Wedding Gifts

I suppose this is entirely tacky for the mother of the bride to comment on. But some people have asked, so I'll answer. Rachel and Matt are registered at Target.

Upside Down

Imperfect Homeschooler had a post about a movie that offended somebody. In the movie about an advertising executive, this fellow happens to meet up with Jesus in the desert near Emmaus. He gives Jesus a Coke, and Jesus happily drinks it.

Now, is the Church upset by this? No outcry there.

Who's upset? The Coke folks. They aren't "interested in this kind of product placement." It could give Coke a negative image. The Coke folks insisted the movie be pulled from distribution until the scene can be edited out.

Vigil

I missed the Te Deum last night.
I missed the hymns and chorales we used to sing interspersed with the Old Testament readings.
I missed the 2 Corinthians passage for the Good Friday epistle.
I wish the committee had chosen the NKJV (instead of ESV) for the Romans 6 passage in the Baptism service.
I don't like Beethoven in church.
The hymn committee for LSB was compelled to include some praise choruses in the new hymnal. They did a great job of picking ones that have good words. But even so, the music itself (apart from the text) just SAYS something. It makes me uncomfortable.

Kantor can do awesome things with the organ.
I sure do like the Easter hymns by John of Damascus.
Matt was confirmed and is now communing again.

Church

The two best services of the year are last night's and tonight's.


Behold the life-giving cross,
on which hung the salvation of the whole world.
Oh, come, let us worship Him.


Oh, how wonderful and beyond all telling
is Your mercy toward us, O God,
that to redeem a slave
You gave Your Son.

Forgiveness of Sins

Some of my friends say that justification not all-important. They think there are other things we need to talk about; they seem to agree with the paper Art Just presented at the 2006 symposium (which can be found at the seminary's website.) While working at church last week, I found some Lenten sermon series that Dr Korby was involved with during his years at Valparaiso. The sermon preached by David G Truemper on 4 April 1979 (Wednesday of Lent 6) was the last in a series of sermons on the Six Chief Parts. One of the concluding paragraphs follows.

Recently a fellow theologian took me to task for making so much of the forgiveness of sins. "There's just more to it than that!" he insisted. He had pretty good sense, for it would be a terrible oversimplification to see the Lord's Supper as the forgiveness of sins -- unless we can come to see that the forgiveness of sin IS the whole of the Christian life. And that is precisely what we may come to see. The mystery of our redemption is that our sin is forgiven, our enmity with God is changed to peace and love. The presence of Christ, crucified and risen, is the confirmation of His word, "Cheer up! Your sin is forgiven!" The communion in His body and blood is our share in what He gave His body for, in what He shed His blood for -- "for you, for the forgiveness of sins." The Eucharist or thanksgiving is the celebration of thanks for our redemption. The sacrifice is always only His, in us and through us and for us. As Luther put it, we offer Christ when we plead His merits as the grounds for the Father's forgiveness, and thus when He offers us to His Father as those washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. All is forgiveness, and forgiveness is all.

Fasting

A lot of confessional folks advocate fasting for Lent. Sounds like a nice idea in theory. But I can't imagine how it would play out in real life for a family. When a huge part of a mommy's time is spent in meal preparation for growing children, how does that work for fasting? I know that according to the "rules," children and pregnant women are not to fast. But when you've got bottomless pits to fill (aka: teenage boys), a lot of time is spent cooking. Maybe I'm just hopelessly short on self-discipline, but I cannot imagine chopping and cooking and stewing and baking, and smelling those delicious smells wafting through the house, setting food before my family, and then not eating it.

I had to do that last week one day because the doctor needed me to fast for some tests. That was awful to have to do my job of cooking and then walk away.

But even if I could do that, then what becomes of family mealtime during times of fasting? If you're not eating, then the family is not gathering at the table to talk each day either. I guess I just can't picture how this would work unless it were a situation where a person (or maybe a couple) normally ate alone, so there was not so much family "fellowship" to forego.

A New Commandment

This morning at Matins, we were reading and discussing tonight's Gospel (John 13). Kantor wondered why Jesus said it was a "new" command that we should love one another. After all, even in the Old Testament the law was summarized by loving God and loving the neighbor.

Pastor responded that the newness is in the fulfillment of the law. All the things in the Old Testament pointed forward to Christ's death on the cross. In His death is where all things are made new.

We wondered too if the newness had something to do with the pastors no longer sacrificing sheep and goats as in the Old Testament, but instead being willing to sacrifice themselves, laying down their lives as their bore the burden of preaching about the One who laid down His life for atonement for sin. Pastor was not opposed to that thought either. But mostly he wanted to make the connection of the "New Commandment" tonight to tomorrow's epistle (the end of 2 Corinthians 5).

Spring

When I was in kindergarten I learned:
Summer is when it's hot, things are growing in your garden, and you get to go swimming.
Fall is when it's no longer so hot, leaves are falling from the trees, and when we pick apples and carve jack-o-lanterns.
Winter is when it's cold, and we go sledding in the snow.
Spring is when it's warm, and the flowers are blooming, and the birds sing and build nests and have baby birds.

Either the people who write these books live in California and Tennessee, or they hibernate through March and April, only to awake to see the part of spring that occurs in May.

Real spring is mud in prelude to green grass. Real spring is crazy weather changes. Forty degree fluctuations in temperature during winter will take you from -15 to +25, all of it cold. Forty degree fluctuations in temperature during summer will take you from 60 to 100, all of it warm. But forty degree fluctuations in spring takes you from 35-degree coat weather to 75-degrees for t-shirts and shorts.

Real spring means enjoying a 70-degree Monday and putting pork chops on the grill, enjoying a 60-degree Tuesday and putting hamburgers on the grill, and then going out on Wednesday to jog in snow flurries while the windchill makes it feel like 5 degrees outside.

Can't wait till May.
Can't wait till May.
Can't wait till May.

At least the sun is up for more than 12 hours a day!

Day Care Study

Probably lots of us heard the big news from last week about the study on day care. The story reported: "Youngsters who had quality child care before kindergarten had better vocabulary scores by fifth grade, but the more time they spent in child care, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report problem behaviors." The media takes care to report that the behavior problems are not large, and they are not anything for parents to worry about.

But did you notice what was considered day care? The article mentions, "In the study, child care was defined as care by anyone other than the child's mother who was regularly scheduled for at least 10 hours per week." Anyone other than the child's mother? Even for 10 or 12 hours a week? That means if Grandma is scheduled to watch the child for 2-3 hours a day, that's considered day care. If DADDY is with his kids for 2-3 hours a day on a regularly scheduled basis, that counts as "day care" in this study.

Interestingly enough, Saturday's follow-up article mentioned that "the study’s lead author, Jay Belsky, is no stranger to controversy. He says he was vilified for an article he wrote in 1986, saying there was 'slow and steady' evidence that non-parental child care, no matter the quality, could lead to developmental problems. Critics called him an ideologue."

When you do sociological research, you have a whole bunch of raw data. What does all that data mean? How can it be put together to make sense to anyone, to show trends, to show differences between groups? First thing to do is to make the groupings, to decide which individual pieces of information are lumped into a "group."

The study's author chose to call it "day care" when anyone other than the mom watched the kids. And still the study showed a difference in behavior!

What would've been the results of the study had the researchers lumped together kids who were A) cared for by a close relative, versus B) kids who were cared for by non-family? In other words, if Munchkin stays with Dad while Mom works, that wouldn't have been considered daycare. Likewise if Munchkin stayed with Grandma.

What would've been the results of the study had the researchers lumped together kids in A) family settings such as a child with a neighbor who watches only the kids from that one family, versus B) a day-care center where there are several babysitters and many many children coming and going throughout the day?

The lead author of the study took his lumps twenty years ago when he released information which indicated that day-care was bad for kids. Now he's sitting there again with a pile of data which shows how harmful day-care is to kids. But he doesn't want to be vilified again. Parents don't want to hear the results of a study that show day-care is bad for kids. Big corporations and the government don't want evidence that day-care is bad for kids. So what to do? What to do? Ah ha! I know what to do! We'll rig the groupings in this research. If we include in the "Day Care Group"
-- the kids who have stay-at-home dads,
-- the kids who stay with Aunt Susie two days a week,
-- the kids who stay with Daddy two evenings a week while Mom waitresses,
-- the kids who stay with Grandma while Mom works full-time, and
-- the kids who stay with the nice neighbor lady who doesn't watch anybody else's kids,
THEN
the "Day Care Group" won't really represent the kids in day-care. Any negative characteristics of that group will be toned down by the fact that a lot of kids in the "Day Care Group" weren't really in day care.

So the really big news of this study is NOT that there was a slight difference in behavior between the kids who were in day-care and those who weren't. The big news should be that even with their incredibly restrictive definition of what it means to NOT be in day-care, there was still a difference in behavior between the two groups of kids. The study results would have been vastly different if they had grouped
-- kids at home with family members, versus
-- kids in small home-like day-care settings, versus
-- kids in day-care centers.

That would not have been popular news!

The Streets of Rome

Bible class ended late that Sunday 18 years ago.

As it so happens, there must've been something going on in the congregation that I was unaware of. Pastor Wieting had been talking about closed communion a lot, making a case for it. One of the things he'd discussed a few weeks previous was the difference between "closed communion" and "close communion." The term "closed" came from the early church when the pastor would say, "Deacon, the doors! The doors!" That was the time in the Divine Service when all the not-yet-confirmed members would be required to leave. They could not be present for the sacred mysteries found in the Lord's Supper. The doors were closed behind them. They were welcome for the preaching, but shut out of the building during the Eucharist, until they had been baptized and received into membership.

Also, as it so happens, in recent weeks there had been a child abduction less than an hour away. A stranger abduction, not a family quarrel. A little girl nabbed off her bike in the daylight, less than 1/4 mile from home. In a Mayberry-like town not far from our own Mayberry-like village.

As I said, Bible class went a little long that Sunday. I came upstairs to find the doors of the church open, and my children nowhere to be seen. They weren't in their Sunday School rooms. They weren't in the narthex. They weren't in the nursery. And the outside doors were standing wide open. My three children, aged 2-7, were not in the building. Panic grabbed my heart. I soon found them, playing outdoors on a gorgeous sunny morning, unharmed, and unaware of any reason for Mommy to be having the conniptions fits that ensued.

Wait a minute! What did those mommies do in the early church? After all, the non-communicants were put outside the doors of the church during the communion service. The streets of Rome were decidedly less safe than the streets of small-town central Wisconsin ... even with a child-nabber was on the loose. Did they have church-nurseries in Corinth and Ephesus? If so, who was skipping the Lord's Supper to babysit? How did that work? This just didn't make sense.

Within a week or so, we saw friends, one of whom really knows his church history. I asked Pr Eckardt about it. His response was shocking. He told me that the children weren't sent out in the streets unattended, and they weren't sent to the nursery with a babysitter. They were IN there, partaking of the Sacrament with the adults. (Now, don't anybody tell me that Eckardt is in favor of infant communion. He ain't. And back then he wasn't even real keen on the idea of kids younger than 8th grade communing. So this is not a fellow who was revising history to suit his viewpoint.)


This week Pr Weedon's blog included a quote from St Augustine:
Those who say that infancy has nothing in it for Jesus to save, are denying that Christ is Jesus for all believing infants. Those, I repeat, who say that infancy has nothing in it for Jesus to save, are saying nothing else than that for believing infants, infants that is who have been baptized in Christ, Christ the Lord is not Jesus. After all, what is Jesus? Jesus means Savior. Jesus is the Savior. Those whom he doesn't save, having nothing to save in them, well for them he isn't Jesus. Well now, if you can tolerate the idea that Christ is not Jesus for some persons who have been baptized, then I'm not sure your faith can be recognized as according with the sound rule. Yes, they're infants, but they are his members. They're infants, but they receive his sacraments. They are infants, but they share in his table, in order to have life in themselves. (The Works of Saint Augustine, Part III-Sermons 5:261.)

I've been told that, although it is true that infants were sometimes communed in the early church, it was an unusual thing, a rare thing, something that happened only in certain pockets of heterodox practice. But this quote is from Augustine, for crying out loud. Even Augustine says the babies receive the sacraments. Not just the sacrament of baptism. But sacraments, in the plural. The infants "share in His table."

Is it really so hard to recognize that, through most of church history, wee children were communed when they were baptized? I mean, if people want to argue that what they did for 1200 years of church history in the West (and 2000 years in the East) is wrong, that's one thing. But to argue that it didn't happen?

Vista

My computer is nearly five years old, and when I bought it, it wasn't a state-of-the-art machine, but one of the el-cheapo models. It's slow. And it's been in the basement, down there in the dark. I've been considering getting a laptop so I can work outside in the sun, or maybe take it to church with me to catalog stuff in the file cabinet. We had figured we'd stop at a computer store while we were in the city yesterday, and look at some possibilities.

But then we heard about Nathan's computer woes while installing Vista. Add that to my aversion to learning anything new on the computer, and my total clutziness and forgetfulness with regard to cyberthings. When I recalled that all the new PCs have Vista, I decided pretty quickly that I was not interested in computer shopping for quite a while yet!

So today my men disassembled my computer components and took them upstairs to the living room. The computer with the educational programs (spelling drill, math drill, typing tutor, etc) was relegated to the basement. Now I can do some of my work up here where there's sunlight and less frigid temperatures.

But it does seem very very weird to go downstairs with a load of clothes for the wash machine, or go put something away in the pantry, and NOT stop to hit "download mail" on the computer as I go past. If I can't expect to learn Vista without significant brain exertion, why should I expect to get used to checking email in a different location without likewise taxing the brain cells?

Dinner Today

Courtesy of our parents who sent checks for Gary's birthday presents, we went out to dinner today with the family. Yummy! Red Lobster! Thanks, Moms and Dads!

We felt really bad about the miscommunication with Katie. We thought we said we'd be leaving home at 12:00, but she thought she was supposed to meet us at the restaurant at 12. She had a very very long wait. And she had to wait by herself because Nathan was unable to attend. (I don't think Nathan could possibly have come up with a better way to put the final nail in the coffin with regard to the phrase "Nathan's not invited???") Cassie and Paul were also unable to attend, so we had only nine of us. But it was a fun group of people. And we had a really fun waiter too.

We set off the bug-bombs before we vacated the house for the afternoon. Came home to find the floors relatively clean of insect corpses. I fear that is not good. Will bug bombs work when the critters are all in hiding due to cold weather? On the first warm day, will we be overrun again?

On a Clear Day

Gary picked up another movie last night. He prevailed upon me to watch for a bit. The kids and I needed to do some schoolwork, but one of my victims students was in the shower. So while we waited for the victim child to arrive in the living room, we figured we could catch the opening scenes and setting of On a Clear Day.

We couldn't stop for something like a mere history book on the Dust Bowl.

It was a good movie. The basic plot was about a man who'd lost his job and didn't know what to do with himself. He decided to swim the English Channel. There were amusing parts and touching parts. At one point in the movie, I just laughed because I wanted to bop several characters upside the head and say, "You people are NOT being as sneaky as you think you are." (Sneaky about leaving a present. Or sneaky about a private dream/goal.) There were parts about dealing with grief and loss, and parts about restoring strained relationships, and parts about forgiveness, and parts about male friendships.

On the whole, I thought it was just a really nice wholesome, sweet movie. I was surprised when Gary pointed out that it's rated PG-13. Then Philip pointed out that there was some "language." I guess he's right. But it's the kind of profanity that has to do with bodily functions, and not the kind that breaks the second commandment. So it didn't register in my brain as the Truly Offensive kind of profanity.

To justify myself with regard to skipping the book on the Dust Bowl, we developed questions and found answers about
- how far it is across the English Channel,
- why there had to be an official observer in the boat,
- where Dover and Calais are,
- why you ought not eat before swimming,
and other things.

An Abusive Wife

Call the cops.
Have them come arrest me.
My family is SO abused.

Do you know what my poor miserable husband endured this week? He didn't get a cherry pie for his birthday. Can you believe it??? How much abuse can a man be expected to endure?

And then, to rub salt into his wounds (and because there are no cherries in the house), his abusive wife made banana cream pie. How can he be expected to eat his second-favorite pie in the world, when he hasn't yet eaten his cherry pie this week? Oh, the horrors!

Okay, seriously now....
You have to wonder about how well you're feeding your family when you begin to realize how spoiled they are. Oh, the veggies should've been boiled for about one minute less. Or it would've been nice if the food had been cooked in a shallower pan so that it could develop a crunchier crust. Or the cantaloupe should've ripened one day longer or one day shorter.

It's almost enough to make me intentionally give them cruddy food, so their tastebuds aren't so outrageously spoiled and so the bar isn't set so high! Like the line in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer," when you get really good at something, people expect fantastic results all the time. Anything average becomes disappointing. Maybe it's better to keep expectations low. Anybody for PBJs on white bread for the next 26 meals??

Brian's Song

Short movie that we managed to make time for last time, partially by turning it on during supper. Brian's Song is a movie I saw when it was new back in the 70s. I remembered the part about the friendship. Back when I saw it the first time, I didn't realize what a big deal it was that a black man and a white man became friends and even [gasp] roommates when they played for the Bears. I remembered the part about Piccolo dying of cancer at the end. What I didn't remember was how funny the movie was!!

Going off totally off on a tangent now: Watching the movie sure made me realize something about the change in language in our society. When somebody near the start of the movie expressed surprise or shock, he said, "Golly!" Golly? Wow, that was a nice change from the "oh my god" you hear all the time on tv and in movies now. There was also a scene that would never ever make it in a movie today, where Piccolo was trying to egg Sayers on to do his exercises to get back his strength after an injury. He called his friend a particular N-word (a 6-letter pejorative for a black person), and the two guys ended up laughing uproariously over the stupid attempt to anger Sayers. Definitely NOT something you'd see in a movie today!

Something else we've had the last week or so from our Blockbuster membership is the first disk of the second season of The Flying Nun. The kids and Gary have seen more of it than I have. But I've caught a few episodes when I've been working in the same room. And these are just a crack-up too. Fun and light-hearted and silly and wholesome.

Infant Communion

My husband tells me there's an interesting discussion going on over on Pr Petersen's blog. I'd love to go look, but laundry and cooking call. Looking forward to reading later.

How can it be that I have accomplished so much nothing today? Okay, Maggie and I did some schoolwork. And we have a nice dinner: stroganoff over noodles, hot fresh whole-wheat bread (with homemade peach jam), roasted carrots, and homemade banana cream pie. I sure do like eating, but sometimes I wonder if I oughtn't be doing something else with my time other than cooking.

"Third Use" and Penance

There's a difference of opinion within our synod about whether the "third use of the law" needs to be specifically and pointedly preached. Some pastors think that preaching the law is what is necessary, and that the Holy Spirit will also use that damning law to inform Christians of how to live. Other pastors think that an important part of sermons is to say, "Now that you've been forgiven, thus-and-such is what you should be doing."

Regardless of what he intends, when the pastor "preaches third use" his people are hearing that good works are more important than forgiveness. A pastor who "preaches third use" (as opposed to "preaching the law") definitely thinks forgiveness is important; he also knows that it is the Gospel that causes us to want to obey the law. But somehow, nevertheless, the message still comes through that Christianity is mostly about being good.

How does this effect his people's desire for private confession?

When pastors "preach third use," do they have people clamoring for the pastor to "hear their confession and pronounce forgiveness to them in order to fulfill God's will"? When pastors "preach third use," what goes through their people's minds when they dare to begin thinking about the possibility of maybe considering going to confession?

Even though my father-confessor does NOT tell me what to do or how to be good, even though he does not "preach third use," even though he does not give penance, I still sometimes fear what he might say. There are times my sinful nature wonders, "Can I really say this in front of him? What if he comes back with a line, 'Well, if you're really sorry about that, then you'll do' yada-yada-yada." And I know I'm incapable of doing whatever-it-is. But then I grab hold of myself and think about the sermons. In his sermons, the point of the law is to slay the sinner, to leave the sinner no means of patting himself on the back, no means of thinking that I'm doing an okay job of being a good little Christian, no means of planning out "better obedience" (which would allow me to pat myself on my back later, if'n I can't do it quite yet). In his sermons, the point of the law is to smash our self-righteousness so that Christ's righteousness is the only thing we can cling to. So I know it will be the same in the confessional. The point of his absolution is to assure me of what Christ has done for me, assure me of Christ's love, assure me of His promises. The point is not to make sure I start behaving properly. Pastor trusts that the gospel will do that of its own accord, in God's time, and in God's way, and with God's measure of good fruit.

But if a pastor's sermon preaches "third use of the law" to make me into a good person, then how would I ever know to trust him with my confession made in private? How would I know that he would forgive instead of giving me law to perform ("third use" though it be)? If I am weak and sinful and cannot perform the law, what good would it be to go to the pastor, suspecting that I might just to be told what I should do? Does the commitment to "preach third use of the law" among us undermine the yearning of the people for that Sacrament of Private Absolution? Does "preaching third use" teach us to shy away from that Sacrament?

American Idol

Bummers! Chris left tonight!

My plan was for Sanjayah, Haley, Chris R, or Phil to leave soon. I didn't care which order, but it was okay with me if they didn't come back. Jordin and Lakisha were on my next tier. I wanted Chris S, Gina, Blake, and Melinda to be the ones who held out till May. I figure the final night should come down to a choice between Blake and Melinda, even though Chris S is [was.... boohoo] my favorite.

Well, I've managed to discipline myself much better this year, and not get totally hooked on this season's Idol. But with Chris getting low-votes last night, the show just lost much of its draw.

Encouragement

The organist wasn't at church on Sunday. So tonight she was asking Pastor how it went: if there had been a substitute or if we'd sung a capella. She mentioned again about how his wife should be trying her hand at accompanying the congregation.

I know she's intending to be encouraging. But it just doesn't come off that way. It's pressure. Unwanted pressure.

There are people who have free time to devote to reading or to learning new things or to hobbies. I would dearly love to spend time learning the organ, or at least getting good enough at piano to be able to accompany the congregation on organless Sundays. I would love to get my German back and learn it well enough to be able to read Gerhardt's hymns without having to puzzle through them auf Deutsch. I would love to have the time to take care of the yard properly and to grow a vegetable garden. Maybe even an orchard and an herb garden and a flower garden. I would love to get my Greek back. I would love to read a book that I want to read to myself, instead of reading only what's necessary for the kids' schoolwork. I would love to sew again. I would love to write articles for magazines and the local newspaper. I would love to catch up on projects (like photo albums). I would love to rest.

But I can't. So I don't. I do what's necessary, just like a lot of other moms. And that's okay. Really, it is. But what makes it hard is when other people presume that I'm as bored as they are, and they have suggestions for what I can be doing in my spare time to "serve others." And what they intended as encouragement just becomes another weight, another load, another discouragement.

Hospital Update

We spent the day at the Cleft Palate Clinic. We saw an x-ray video of Maggie speaking, and we saw the aerial view of the top of the back of her throat while speaking too. She's got very good movement in her palate, as well as lateral movement in the sides of her throat that's nearly average. The speech pathologist rated her as having "moderate hypernasality." One small point of her palate can reach all the way to the back of her throat to shut off air supply to her nose while speaking, but WAY too much air is leaking through into her nose.

So she will be having another surgery. For those of you who know about vcfs surgeries, it'll be the sphincter, not the flap. It allows for less obstruction of the airway than does the flap surgery. Basically, she will have some muscle tissue near her tonsils cut and wrapped around the back of the inside of her throat. That will fill up space, making it easier for the palate to reach to the back of the throat, and also make for less work to pull in the sides of her throat too.

Both the pathologist and the ENT are totally at a loss to explain the sudden onset of the hypernasality on the day of the open-heart surgery. They said that adenoids decrease in size at puberty, and so the palate-length she was given during her Furlow surgery is no longer adequate, due to the changes in her pharynx. Basically, they expect the back wall of her throat to move a little further from her palate during puberty. But that doesn't explain why she was fine on the morning of November 28 and hypernasal after she was extubated. But they do know how to fix it.

The doctor understood our leeriness of scheduling surgery soon, since it's only been four months since the open-heart. So we're planning for it to be in August, after the wedding and CCA symposium and HT conference and LCMS convention. This is a "little" surgery, only three hours in OR, and probably only a one-night stay in the hospital. The lung problem I see on the horizon is that she may not be able to blow up balloons post-surgery, as it would be too much pressure on the stitches in her pharynx.

I was pleased with what the speech pathologist reported. Maggie is quite understandable, given the amount of air that's escaping through her nose during speech. If she speaks slowly, enunciates clearly, adds a little volume, and opens her mouth wide while talking, she can compensate nicely for the hypernasality. But it's more work than it should be for her. Hence the need for surgery. Maggie's tests with the pathologist demonstrated very good articulation of sounds. The only thing she had ANY problem with whatsoever was a smidge of laziness on the s-sound. But her r-sound and all the others were spot-on. Yippee for that!

The other nice thing is it sounds like we're not necessarily going to need speech therapy. "Just" surgery. So it's not going to have to be two or three trips a week to Milwaukee for therapy. Another yippee!

Podunkville

The doctor needs me to go to the hospital for some tests. She couldn't get me in to the local hospital today. But tomorrow I have to be at Children's all day with Maggie for speech pathology, x-ray, and ENT. So I floated the idea of having me take the tests while we're at the big medical complex in the city tomorrow. Doctor thought it was a great idea. She called to make the appt. They laughed at her! The first appt available is in two weeks. She needs test results sooner than that, so she called around the urgent care facilities in our county until she could find someone who could fit me in today. Goodness gracious, the big city sounds like the Canadian health care system: you better not need anything right away. Emergencies are not permitted because they weren't scheduled in advance. ;-) It sure is different out here in Podunkville where there aren't so many people to fit in.

The Strain of Multi-Tasking

Mom: Maggie, you didn't finish your apple. You ate less than half of it. Get back in here and eat the whole thing so it's not wasted.

Daughter: But Mom, right now I'm doing my schoolwork with the pictures of the body, and putting the parts where they go on the big piece.

Mom: You can come in here and eat your apple AND play with the anatomy felts.

(But she couldn't. She stood there and began to eat the apple.)

Son (coming to the kitchen closet to fetch a broom): Hey, the vacuum cleaner is sitting in the hallway instead of being in the closet. Hey, Maggie, come put the vacuum away.

Daughter: I can't. I'm eating my apple. MOM TOLD ME TO.

Mom: First, you were supposed to put the vacuum away without being told. Second, you can chew a bite of apple while you put the vacuum away now, and then come back and get another bite of apple.

(Daughter managed, with great pains, to accomplish this 3-second endeavor of multi-tasking.)

Mom: Now, you need to mop the floor.

Daughter: But, Mom, you told me to eat my apple!

Mom (just a mite exasperated): Take a bite of apple. Chew it while you go to the closet and get the mop bucket. [Task is accomplished.] Now take a bite of apple and, while you're chewing, go fetch the ammonia for the bucket. [Task is accomplished.] Now take a bite of apple and chew it while you're filling the mop bucket with water. [Task is accomplished.]

(Mother wonders how long these minute & detailed instructions will have to be given before child figures out that two things can be done at once. Can you even imagine how hard it would be to accomplish anything at home if you had to WAIT -- doing nothing else -- for the wash machine to get done before you could change a load of laundry??)

Bugs

On those few warm days we had a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the centipedes had gotten really bad in the basement again. But then we dropped down to freezing temps, and the situation improved. But now we're having nice, pretty, warm days again, and they're back. Walking on centipede corpses (or the live bodies that you are turning into corpses as you be the Bigfoot Godzilla tromping on the little dudes) sounds like walking on a floor littered with potato chips. All that crunching... yuck!

The Asian beetles are back too, but not in such massive numbers as the box elder bugs. It's just plain disgusting when bugs crawl on you, in bed, during the middle of the night. Yuck again! We've sprayed so much poison in the south end of the house that I can taste it. We bought bombs but can't find a time until next weekend when we can all be out of the house for the necessary amount of time for them to take effect. I'm hoping that within a week this will all be a bad memory.

Stay-at-Home Moms

Having always been a stay-at-home mom, even when I had part-time jobs here and there, I never experienced the difference it makes in a person's lifestyle, attitude, health, income, etc. My friend Elizabeth posted some really great stuff about her life in the corporate world and her decision to run away from it and find a life at home. It's encouraging to those of us who take our at-home lives for granted and wonder if maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go out there and play the career game. Things like what Elizabeth wrote bring some sound perspective to such silly notions.

Parents Who Drug Us

Seen at the Imperfect Homeschooler's blog:



The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county, and he asked me a rhetorical question.

"Why didn't you and I have a drug problem when we were growing up?"

I replied that I had a drug problem when I was young:

I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials, no matter the weather. I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity. I was drug out to pull weeds in Mom's garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of Dad's fields. I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood; and, if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

~author unknown~

God bless the parents who drugged us.

Worthily Lamenting Our Sins

The catechism says: That person is truly worthy and well-prepared [to receive the Lord's Supper] who has faith in these words, "Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." But anyone who does not believe these words or doubts them is unworthy and unprepared, for the words "for you" require all hearts to believe.

My ears keep tripping over the new LSB collect for the Lenten season. It says, "Create in us new and contrite hearts that lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness we may receive from You full pardon and forgiveness." TLH said, "Create in us new and contrite hearts that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness." The first time my ears were shocked by the change, I figured the change was for good reason. It is altogether too easy to assume that "worthily lamenting our sins" means that our contrition is the good work that makes us worthy.

However, this Sunday's collect clarifies. TLH's Laetare prayer goes, "Grant that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished...." (The LSB collect is altogether different.) On the same Sunday, we pray that we "worthily deserve to be punished" AND that we "worthily lament our sins." When those two are prayed in conjunction with each other, it becomes obvious that "worthily lamenting our sins" means NOT that we have obtained worth in God's eyes because we lamented our sins. Rather it means that we are the type of people who have sins that ought be lamented.

At first I thought the LSB change was a good one, even if it did mess me up every single time I heard it. (Hey, I figured I'd get used to it eventually, given enough years.) But now I'm not so convinced that it was a beneficial change; the old words dove-tailed nicely with the catechism on worthiness.

Double Standard

As part of the anti-war protests on Monday, a group of youths vandalized an Army recruiting office in Milwaukee. (There's also information on the report on Charlie Sykes's blog, posted on Tues, 3-20, at 8:05 a.m.) Today Charlie is commenting both on his blog (article entitled "Frustration? Juvenile?" at 9:41 on 3-21) and on his talk-show about the media response. He bemoaned the fact that there's not more outrage being expressed over this vandalism and the hatred being shown toward the soldiers.

I thought about that. And I think the answer to the lack of outrage is because it's what we've come to expect from liberals. No, not all liberals engage in such ugly behavior. In fact, most don't. But we have come to expect lies and cover-ups. We have come to expect cheating from the left. (Just look at what's been going on with voter fraud in Milwaukee!) We have come to expect that the media will slant coverage of stories so that we hear about the heinousness of any conservative group that engages in violence, and yet we hear excuses for liberal groups that engage in violence. When a fringe conservative group commits an evil (such as bombing abortion clinics or Klan-ish activities), conservatives denounce such crimes. When a fringe liberal group commits this kind of evil, the liberal media excuses it as something kinda sorta bad but not with an all-out renunciation of such activity, and certainly not for a call for prosecution of the evil-doers. As a generalization, conservatives hold themselves to a higher standard than do liberals. (Just think of the gun-control liberals who have their own guns and shoot the intruders who break into their houses, and the legislators who enact laws about the cars we drive while they drive big gas-guzzling SUVs themselves.)

Likewise, in the church, my husband has noted that parishioners with a high respect for the Office of the Ministry will often honor a pastor, even if he comes in, ditching the liturgy and wanting to change from the pattern of sound words that have been handed down. Those who do not honor the Office will agitate to get what they want (such as contemporary worship), and will fight a new pastor who may want to restore the hymnal and liturgy to the congregation.

It usually comes down to a matter of fascism and expediency and getting my way, versus a matter of submitting oneself to the orderliness of the law and having respect for those in office. Which basically means that Charlie is right about how sad it is that there's no outrage over the vandalism of the Army recruiting center. But the sad situation is not that people don't care about the vandalism. Rather the sad situation is that we're not surprised by wretched behavior from certain segments of our society, as well that we no longer expect fair reporting from the media.

Math

A friend mentioned Homeschool Math Blog which I checked out. It looks like it's got some good advice, some helpful teaching hints, and a lot of nice links. I'm going to set Maggie to some of the games whose links were posted on March 11.

And you might want to check out a few math funnies from students' tests.

Shopping Today

Looking for something as exciting as Benedryl and jogging shoes today, we were in Shopko, Walmart, and Kohls. Oh my goodness....

It seems to me that when a shirt or dress or undergarment has its own figure, all by itself on the hanger, it can't be very healthy for a woman's body to wear. But when I saw those undergarments with their own figures in the little girls' department, that was something that made my eyes pop. C'mon, does ANYBODY think that padded training-bras with underwires belong on the shelf right next to the little undies made of cotton prints with kittens and Dora the Explorer? Good grief. What is wrong with us?

Psalm Sequence

When the psalm chart came out in Lutheran Service Book (page 304), I tried using it for a few months. However, I found myself missing going through the psalms in consecutive order. When I was praying the psalms straight through, I began to realize that there's something important about the order they're in. Just like Matthew and Acts are inspired by God, and the order of the stories matters, I think it matters in Psalms too.

This is not to say that we can't skip around in the gospels or epistles or prophets ... or psalms. Of course we skip around and read parts here and there. But there's also something precious and edifying to be had by going in order. There are connections from one psalm to the next that we miss out on if we hop around in the psalter.

That said, though, I'm finding the Lenten psalm rotation to be the most satisfying of the appointed seasons.

VCFS and Rhyming

I am quite fully aware that my 12-yr-old with VCFS learns differently than most kids. Unlike my older children, this is not necessarily a good and beneficial sort of "different." But today I realized something that I hadn't noticed before.

We were driving to town, playing a rhyming game. We had come up with several rhymes for pole, and she was a little stymied coming up with another one. She thought bowl might work, but she said it wasn't right because it was spelled with o-w-l instead of o-l-e. So we talked about the sound being the important thing, not the spelling. A little later we ran across another word that she suggested as a rhyme. But it didn't rhyme; the ending was spelled the same. (I can't remember what that one was, but it would've been something like clown and thrown.) When she was smaller, she couldn't figure out rhyming for the life of her! She still struggles with it, not being able to distinguish between similar sounds (b/p or m/n or f/v or various short-vowel sounds). But it's improving. And what I learned today makes me realize that she learns better by what goes into her eyes than by what goes into her ears. Seeing the spelling sure sticks better than does the soundwaves.

This was reinforced a few hours later. She had picked up her "how to be good" books at the library. And they made a difference in how she spent her afternoon! There is a series of books by Joy Berry on how to deal with a wide variety of problems: bullying, stealing, messiness, dawdling, tattling, gossip, etc. These books are written at about a 2nd-grade reading level. My older kids disliked them: the books were too preachy. And boring. But Maggie loves them. She checks them out of the library again and again, working her way through all 40-50 books of the series each time she goes on a jag.

Today she was reading the book about laziness and recognized herself in the pages of the book -- especially the part about asking people to do for you what you are perfectly capable of doing for yourself. There were hints on setting the timer to race the clock on doing a particular chore, or setting the timer to pick up for just 5 minutes or whatever. Maggie read these ideas and set herself to do them. She picked up all sorts of stuff this afternoon that she usually just tosses anywhere. It's not like she hasn't been taught these things. (Been taught them over and over and over!!) But reading it in a book (seeing instead of hearing) and figuring it out for herself (rather than being told by a family member) seemed to make a significant difference in what she did.

Now I just hope it lasts longer than one day!
And I hope that I can figure out ways to use today's discovery when it comes to academics too, and not just life skills.

Reprieve!

Because there's no church choir here, I have LOVED being in choir at the three Higher Things conferences I've attended as a chaperone. This year they were planning to have a mandatory choir workshop the day prior to conference. Because I couldn't bring the kids, chaperone them during choir practice, and pay for the extra length of stay, I had sadly resigned myself to the fact that I couldn't be in the choir. But I was just downloading housing registration forms for the conference, and they changed their mind! Yee haw!! I get to sing after all!!! The last time I was in a church choir was so long ago that I only had three children. So being in chapel choir for Higher Things really is a precious treat. Oh boy!

Crying over Onions

I had heard long ago that you were supposed to cut one end off the onion first, but I could never remember which end it was supposed to be. After loads of mistakes, after many a tear, I finally began to figure out that it makes it a lot better to cut off the root end first. (Funny. My "tip book" says to cut the root end off last.) I put a note in the spot where I store my onions, reminding me to slice the root end off before peeling the onion. After a few months of that, I had finally gotten it through my sieve-like skull. Every now and then, with a kid helping me, I end up with one onion where the stem-end was cut before the root-end. And, oooooh, wow, do we end up sobbing over that mistake!

TLH 446

But while watching, also pray
To the Lord unceasing.
He will free thee, be thy Stay,
Strength and faith increasing.
O Lord, bless in distress
And let nothing swerve me
From the will to serve Thee.

Free us? And be our Stay? At the same time?

A stay is a prop, a support. Maybe a fastener on a garment. Maybe the whalebone in a corset. Whatever particular use a "stay" might have, it always boils down to the "stay" being something that keeps something else in place, keeps the other thing sturdy and solid and where it belongs.

So what is this about a stay freeing? If you think about it in our terms, it doesn't make sense. A stay does just the opposite of freeing something, setting it loose. So there's that ol' paradoxical stuff again: there is no real freedom unless we are slaves to Him.

Some Movies

This week we watched Christmas with the Kranks. Now, you don't need to tell me that it's not exactly the right season to be watching a Christmas movie. I'm fully aware of that. But I have this husband-dude who found a Tim Allen movie that looked funny, sitting there on the library shelf, pleading, "Take me home and watch me. I promise to make you laugh." So he did.

It was funny. Not entirely devoid of foul language, but nearly. (Okay, Mom?) I found it amusing to see the peer pressure and societal reactions toward the family who decided not to "do" Christmas. For societal misfits like us, it was enjoyable. Another thing neat to see was how the neighborhood could all come together with love and graciousness toward the misfits when they needed the help, due to a change in plans. Just a real nice, fun, wholesome movie. Even if it's not Christmas. I had to laugh, though, at the way the techies arranged the fake-snow piles on the lawns. The techies never lived where they had to shovel much snow or observe drifts or watch piles melt!

Last night, I was teaching Gary how to fill out a 1040. He wanted to watch Invincible, a story about Vince Papale who joined a losing football team during open try-outs and brought back some spirit and life to the team and to Philadelphia. Whenever I had to run to the computer to download another set of tax forms+instructions, he'd grab another 10 minutes of the movie. So I didn't see the whole first half, but I did watch all the second half. It appears to be a new movie: the date on the DVD says 2006. But it's got an "old" feel to the coloring and the way it's done. The true story the movie was based on was from the mid-70s. It was fun to see people in a movie need a phone booth to make a call, or crank up the car window with the handle. (We just recently gave up on our rotary-dial phone, and we still have a car with non-electric windows.) Somebody said this was a formulaic movie. I suppose it is. But it's decent enough for kids to see, and it's a feel-good movie with a sports theme. We really liked it.

Tonight, we will be working on the state tax forms -- another lesson for the guy who never does those sort of accounting things. Maggie turned on Ice Princess. When we watched this once-upon-a-time, I loved it because it was about a mathematician. The girl in the story decided to do a science project on the physics of ice-skating. She studied the math and science behind it, and then proceeded to learn to skate, using the physics. The movie was good in showing the pettiness of some of the competitors. It had a nice "homeschool" touch (even though it was set in a school) in that the main character didn't start skating at a ridiculously young age, but waited until later and then learned much more quickly than the others had. Another nice decent happy feel-good movie. We batted 1000 for our choices during our Too Much TV Week.

Eggplant in Lasagna

Julee had mentioned a long time ago about using eggplant slices instead of noodles in lasagna. I tried it a couple of weeks ago, and it worked really well. The lasagna is free of refined white-flour noodles. And it's much quicker and easier to slice the squash than it is to boil the noodles. And best of all, it tasted just the same.

I tried it again on Friday, and it didn't work as well. The difference was that this time I sliced the eggplant lengthwise. It seemed to change the texture of the finished lasagna: it was stringier, and hard to cut with the fork. I noticed too that it was harder to slice the eggplant very very thin, as skinny as noodles, when I was slicing the long way. This left us with some bites of lasagna that were noticeably eggplanty, instead of being nearly identical to regular lasagna.

The only problem with slicing crosswise is that you have to piece together more round slices than if you use the bigger lengthwise slices. But I think we can handle that small inconvenience.

Elvet Banks

When I saw that the new hymnal had an alternative tune to To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord (LSB 407) and May God Bestow on Us His Grace (LSB 824), I wasn't happy. After all, those texts have been attached to their old tunes for quite a while now. Why neglect a perfectly decent 500-year old melody and go off in our own direction? There's something just plain nice about singing the same words (albeit in a different language) to the same tune that other Christians have been using for centuries and centuries! So I was all set to dislike the melody "Elvet Banks" which is brand spankin' new.

Dang it. I like it in spite of myself.

I hear that it's supposedly an easier tune than the originals for those two Luther hymns. I'm skeptical. I don't think it's any easier. But neither is it harder.

I must confess, though, that there is one small glitch to the tune when it's used for the Baptism song. The tune just seems altogether too chipper for the sixth stanza: "But woe to those who cast aside this grace so freely given...." The incongruity between the tune and the text gets even stronger at the end of the stanza. But other than that, I'm afraid I really like this particular tune.

Peanuts

Jenny may consider this to be sick, but I thought the picture was a hoot!

Global Warming

On You Tube, there's a video called The Great Global Warming Swindle. Thanks to Lu and Julee for pointing it out. It's 75 minutes, so I haven't found time to watch the whole thing yet, but it certainly is a start on "equal time" in opposition to the prevailing politically-correct beliefs about global warming.

Crowns

A week or so after our dental appointments last fall, the corner of one of my molars broke off while we were attending a homeschool outing. I intended to call the dentist when we got home, but it was too late in the day by the time we returned home. I didn't get around to calling the next day. By the third day, I was beginning to realize that it seemed kind of silly to call the dentist when there was no pain. I figured I'd just wait until the next regular check-up.

The dentist tells me I need a crown. I don't know whether to believe him. Our dentist back in St Louis had mentioned once that my husband had a cavity, but it was small enough not to need a filling. The dentist said it would probably heal itself. Heal itself??? We'd never heard of such a thing. But it did. Our current dentist told my husband several visits ago that he had a small cavity that needed to be filled. Gary has put it off, and it too appears to have healed itself. Web-surfing, I found an article from Prevention Magazine on teeth healing on their own from cavities. Another article (relying heavily on Weston Price Foundation information) advocates scrupulous attention to nutrition as a way to achieve dental health, even healing cavities.

When asked why I need this expensive crown that would be painful, the dentist's response is that I might get a cavity in the broken tooth, and it might get deep enough to cause a toothache prior to my next dental visit. I've never had a toothache, and I've heard they're worse than I can imagine. So I don't know that I want to risk decay in a place where the nerves are already so close to the surface of the tooth.

This website discusses alternatives to crowns. And this one mentions some problems that arise, including the possibility of an abcess, the likelihood that the crown will need to be replaced about once a decade, and the likelihood that the tooth will end up needing a root canal.

I'm not sure what to think. I fear that the dentist wants to just "follow standard procedure" whether that is the best or not. I fear that his motivation is more about income for his dental practice than concern for my dental health. But what if he's right and I end up with a misery-inducing toothache? And yet, it seems pretty drastic to grind most of my tooth into oblivion now because I might later get a cavity that turns into a toothache at an inconvenient time.

Cyberspace

I was interested in Pastor Cwirla's blog post from early last week on "avatars." (Whatever they are! Something to do with internet communication. Try telling that to an inept techno-dunderhead like me.) The part of his article that interested me most was about being with people in the real world as opposed to interacting in cyberspace. One paragraph begins, In my opinion, it isn’t terribly healthy for human beings who are made by God for communion to spend inordinate amounts of time engaging in compulsive, raw communication in a virtual world. In some cases, it can be psychologically debilitating.

This fits with my opinions about television. Addicted to it though I may be, my reasonable brain says television is not a good thing, as discussed in Marie Winn's book The Plug-In Drug. We've struggled back and forth with tv, banning it, allowing it, banning it again, trying to control it, then back to admitting our failures and attempting (with varying degrees of success) to harness our addiction to achieve a little bit of something good.

The computer games seem even more addictive. So are email lists and forums and blogging and a variety of other ways to spend time on the Internet. So we pendulum back and forth, trying to find a comfortable middle spot of allowing such things without being consumed by our lack of self-control over them.

So tonight, as we're talking in the half-hour between "American Idol" and "Lost" [TV shows, doncha know?], I realize that five people are sitting in the living room with THREE computers lined up in the space of a few feet. And munchkin is using a cell phone to call the kitchen, a whopping 10 feet away. I probably should cry, but instead it just made me laugh!

4 Hours = 1 Day

Several years back, I discovered that any project that takes four hours is an "all day" project. Now you may have learned in your elementary-school math classes that there are 24 hours in a day. And you may think that 24 hours is significantly more than 4 hours. If you think that, you would be wrong. Or uninformed. OR you would be invited to use your free time to come clean floors and do errands for me. Because for a frugal homeschooling mom of several children, a 4-hour project definitely sucks up the whole day!

(Do you know that there are people who think there's nothing to do at home all day? I hear tell that there are women who think they'd be bored and have nothing to do if they stayed home with their children instead of going to a place where they are paid to work. Those are clueless women. If they need a clue, they could come play Cinderella at my house for a week or so. No, wait. I take that back. If I told such a person to go scrub a floor or bake some bread or stew a chicken or mend a sweater, that person would make such a mess of the job that it would take me longer to fix it than to have done it right in the first place myself.)

Last week I had a board meeting for the state homeschool group and was gone for 11 hours that day. An 11-hour project counts as nearly 3 days. Another day last week I was away for 11 hours, mostly working on editing projects. That's another 3 days. Wednesday was my job and church, which kept me gone for most of the day. But because I was in and out, with the chance to cook and change a load of laundry and tell children to pick up their stuff, Wednesday only counted as 1 day. Friday was dentist appointments. Two hours there equals another half-day. And then we were gone for the weekend. Because I was already so behind, and because I was leaving competent adults at home to fend for themselves, the two days did NOT count as six days out of commission (like I would normally expect), but only as three -- a half-day to prep, two days gone, and a half-day to get back to Operating Mode. So in the space of six days, I used up "eleven days" of time. No wonder I'm so out of sync.

I remember my mom telling me, back when I was a mom of toddlers, that Mom could only have one thing per day on the calendar, preferably less than that. But at that point my grandma could have only one thing per week on her calendar without getting overwhelmed. I'm beginning to learn that lesson. I'm beginning to realize that I have to watch what goes onto the calendar, realizing that two 11-hour days is going to take all my free time for a whole week. It makes me feel old. I'm beginning to learn to control what I schedule for our week. What really messes me up, though, is when other people schedule things for me (dentist appts, cardiology appts, my boss needing something done right away, etc). Next job is going to be learning to say no to the boss or to the medical receptionist.

This explains why we don't have any pictures yet from Katie and Nathan's wedding last summer. That job will take nearly a week when I get to it.

This explains why the taxes are not done yet. Although I've already done a lot of the work, it'll take nearly a week (several 4-hour stints).

This explains why I hate to let the insurance salesman come by for "just an hour." It's never just an hour, but 2 or 3. Which gets to taking nigh onto the "whole day."

This explains why fieldtrips with the homeschool group are so tremendously time-consuming. An outing that takes from 9:00 to 4:00 consumes two days, not half of one.

I'm tired.

A House Someday

There was discussion about the housing market at the dinner table. Daddy makes a comment that there is no way Mommy & Daddy will ever be able to afford a house, should disability shove us into retirement rather than "dying with our boots on." Daddy mentions Mrs Benke from his first congregation. She and the siblings all went together to buy Mom & Dad a home after Dad retired and moved out of the parsonage. When the home was no longer needed, the kids sold it. Daddy mentions that our kids will have to buy us a house if we should ever need one.

Twelve-yr-old responds, "WHAT??? I can't buy you a house! I'm saving my money for a radio."

Laughter ensues.

"I mean, a good one. A radio that plays CDs and tapes. I can't buy you a house!"

And so goes the communication around this place.....

Bad Moods

It amazes me sometimes how such little things can make me so whiny. Ever since the pipes broke at church a few weeks ago, I'm just at the end of my rope. Little things seem so big. Three times in the space of a week I was in the middle of a recipe and found that someone had finished off a key ingredient without writing it on the grocery list. I broke two glasses. We had the worst blizzard we had since we've lived here, in addition to two other hefty snowfalls in the same week. Discovered that Bible class on Sunday was canceled for a voters meeting. Stuff like that -- certainly nothing to become distraught over.

Things always seem out of whack when we're gone from home too much. With being gone all day last Tuesday and Thursday, as well as being gone most of the day (in and out) on Wednesday, things like keeping up with the housework just got lost in the shuffle. That puts me in a bad mood when I get too far behind on basic housekeeping.

It also crossed my mind today that things can be hard around "anniversaries" after a loved one dies. It's been enough years now (four) that it doesn't seem like I'm hurting over that. But maybe there's some cosmic subconscious clock that puts us into bad moods over such memories.

Happily, though, we had a very nice visit with friends in Indiana this weekend. And the robins are back, the days have been sunny and warm, and we sat outside while we read schoolwork this afternoon. Tomorrow should be another nice chance to get outdoors and soak up some rays.