Pew Cushions

The roof at my father-confessor's church is being redone. Crunchy stuff keeps falling down in the nave. You can't really see it come down, but it's crunchy when you walk. And the hymnals have a fine powder on them. That's why the pew cushions were removed -- to ease clean-up.

Oh my goodness! The organ sounds wonderful! The chanting sounds wonderful! The congregational singing sounds wonderful! I never imagined that those pew cushions (which aren't even on the back of the pews, but just the seats) could make so much difference!

Kitchen

You know what? It is immensely inconvenient to have your cupboard/pantry/refrigerator about 300' from your stove/sink.

The septic system was hogging our attention as the problem. And then we discovered that our propane tank is nearly empty. The gauge reads "zero," but we don't smell the skunk oil that lurks in the very dredges of the tank. Not yet. So no heat. (I am so glad for these nice warm days!) Not until the bill from last winter gets paid. But it also means I have to cook over at church. It's not easy to drag everything back and forth. But as long as I can use the stove at church and as long as I can boil water over there to use in the wash machine over here, we can stretch out the propane so as to (hopefully!) have hot water for bathing until the propane company consents to fill our tank.

By the time dinner was nearly cooked today, it crossed my mind that maybe we should just knuckle under and eat out. Then I realized that for our family to eat two meals at a low- to average-priced restaurant, we would have to spend more than Gary earns in a day. That just doesn't seem like a good use of funds.

I keep telling myself that all sorts of people struggle along without a kitchen now and then, such as during a remodeling project. But people who can afford a remodeling project can probably also afford to eat out sometimes. And people who are remodeling a kitchen still have a bathroom where dishes can be washed in hot water .... with a drain to remove the water from the house! (Ain't it amazing how a little Doing Without makes you appreciate the mundane?!?) I keep telling myself that we could make do with electric skillets and crockpots, but even with that, I'd have to be cooking in the bedrooms to avoid overloading the wiring in the kitchen and dining room which is so wacky.

Is this what we call "Making Memories"? LOL!

Pastor Prowatske

The funeral is on Saturday. Of course, we care about his wife and daughter and how much they must miss him, and we pray for their comfort. But it didn't hit me till Bible class this morning how much I will miss him. He didn't talk as much during class as certain other people do. But when he did, oh!, the sweet things he said. The insights. The exegetical help. Always pointing to the cross and what Christ has done for us.

And he loved his hymns and his hymnal. I doubt anyone but Pastor P and I would "accuse" Pastor Bender of not liking to sing. Sometimes we'd have a 15-stanza hymn for the hymn of the week, and Pastor would tell us which 4-5 stanzas we'd sing for prayers during Bible class. Then Pr Prowatske would protest that we should sing ALL the stanzas, and I'd agree. Or I'd say, "Hey, you can't leave out the 6th and the 9th & 10th!" And Pr P would back me up.

Pastor Prowatske said that they'd always sing every stanza of any hymn he chose for his congregation. His daughter liked that. I'd like that too!

We have no cause to mourn or weep.
Securely shall this body sleep
Till Christ Himself shall death destroy
And raise the blessed dead to joy.

For they who with Him suffered here
Shall there be healed from woe and fear.
And when eternal bliss is won,
They'll shine in glory like the sun.

Beach

Maggie started swimming lessons today. One of the local resorts is letting the Rec District use the hotel pool. Having never had her in swimming lessons before, we didn't know which level to choose. The teacher was impressed with her skills and suggested that she might be better off in the next level up. So next week we'll do that.

With its being such a pretty day and so nice and warm, we decided to stop by the beach on our way home. It was gorgeous. But ....

We discovered what a difference the daily grooming all summer makes. There was seaweed piled up along the shore. Normally that is raked away daily. The sand was not groomed, so there were some ant hills and there were gull droppings. During summer, those usually get disturbed and cleaned up daily. And on top of that, yowsa.... several chilly nights and one hard frost sure does make a big difference in the water temperature of the lake. Maggie swam for about ten minutes, and then couldn't take the cold any longer. That means it was too cold for me to even think about getting wet!

Summer will be back in just 9 more months.

Update

For those of y'all who've asked:
No. My backyard is not ripped to shreds yet. No, the repairmen will not be here this week. The appointment is currently set for Wednesday the 26th.

At this point, we're ready to forego all the water-usage restrictions we've put on ourselves, and just go ahead and have the septic tank pumped however often it needs it. We can't go another full week or longer without being able to drain water from our home.

Isaac

The Gospel this Sunday (in the one-year series) was from Matthew 6. Jesus invites us to look at how He takes care of everything He has made, and He promises that He will take care of us because we are so much more valuable than the birds and the flowers. Why worry when God is on our side, a God who daily and richly provides us with all that we need to support this body and life?

But then things get rocky. Maybe a person doesn't have plumbing, and thinks "woe is me." Maybe a person doesn't have heat in his home, and thinks God's falling down on the job of providing for him. Maybe a person doesn't have a steady (or sufficient) income, and frets over what the future holds.

And yet, Jesus promises to take care of us. So sometimes, through the power of the Absolution, a person may even have his little heart calmed from fear of what the future holds as far as temporal goods. After all, if you have no food or home, if you have no money, if your health is shot, "what can man do to me?" Jesus lives, and now is death but the gate of life immortal. To live is Christ, and to die is gain. The Lord gives; the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

But then,
sometimes,
there's another loss.

What happens when God withholds His word? (Or, at least, it appears that that is His plan.)

God promises to uphold us in the Faith. God promises to do this through the Word, and only through the Word. When it appears that God Himself is abandoning a person, when God Himself (who is Truth itself) is reneging on His promise, that makes the loss of income or home or family or friends or health seem like piddly little problems.


God had told Abraham for decades that He would send a Savior. A Savior that would come through Abraham's son. Nope, the heir of Abraham's house wasn't gonna be a good enough heir. Nope, Abraham's son by his quasi-wife wasn't gonna be the one either. It would be Isaac. THAT was the son who was the promised seed of Abraham.

Then God said, "Kill him."

We tend to look at that story and think about the obvious.

GOD said, "Kill him"??? But this God says, "You shall not murder." This God disapproves of human sacrifice. What's up with the "Kill him"??

We think of how much Abraham and Sarah loved their son. They love him as much as we love our children. When a child dies, the parents' heart is broken! How could they inflict that sort of pain on themselves?

But both those are temporal difficulties. BIG difficulties, to be sure. But still, temporal, earthly difficulties.

When God told Abraham to kill Isaac, that meant something even bigger. "I'm taking away My promise. I told you that I would send a Savior who would be the son of Isaac. Well, now I'm asking you to kill Isaac."

Think about what that meant to Abraham. For all reasonable intents and purposes, God was saying that He was changing His mind and not sending a Savior after all. No Savior for Abraham and Sarah. No Savior for the world. No atonement for sin. No way to restore communion with God.

The loss of the world's salvation and the loss of God Himself is a whole lot bigger deal eeeeven than the loss of one's dearly beloved child. But any reasonable person could see that that was the consequence of killing the son through whom the promised salvation would come.

But even when it appeared incontrovertible that God was going back on His promise, He wasn't. And Abraham trusted that God knew what He was doing. God grant us to trust Him even when there's evidence that He "doesn't care."

Zion mourns in fear and anguish,
Zion, city of our God.
"Ah," she says, "how sore I languish,
bowed beneath the chastening rod!
For my God forsook me quite
and forgot my sorry plight."

"Let not Satan make thee craven.
He can threaten but not harm.
On My hands thy name is graven,
and thy shield is My strong arm.
How, then, could it ever be
I should not remember thee,
fail to build thy walls, My city,
and look down on thee with pity."

Past the Boundaries

When I was a little girl, there were places I could go. Places far far away from home. There was the playground: it was three blocks away! Then I got older and went to school: it was five blocks away! The two good buddies I made at school were girls who lived (pretty much) between me and school. In the neighborhood, we just didn't play with kids who lived more than a half-block away. So having friends from five blocks away was really stepping out into the big wide world!

Now I live in the country. I drive two miles before I even come to a stop sign. Four or five miles to the nearest little villages.

We're visiting my folks for a few days. Having skipped three out of the last four days jogging, I knew I couldn't allow myself to skip it while out of town again. So today I jogged down to the playground, and [gasp!] kept right on going past it! I usually jog two miles a day, and when I got to my grade-school, I had completed only 1/4 of my jog. So I had quite a ways to go yet before I could even turn around and head back home.

It's a funny feeling to go past the boundaries. It gives an odd feeling of being all grown-up, and yet the amazingly fresh memory of how "far away" those places were -- places that were once off-limits because of being a whole mile away. It's a funny feeling to be halfway home from my old grade-school, and see the intersection near my parents' house up ahead, and realize that if I were at home, traversing that distance wouldn't even take me to the next-door neighbor's house.

I can't even imagine how it must be for Texans and Alaskans to find themselves in a small midwestern city where everything is so close by, where the FAR end of town is about 15 minutes away, where that 15-minute radius can offer nearly any store or restaurant or entertainment you could wish for. Being from a place with low population density, in my hometown I now feel like a gawky tourist.

Poison in the Cup

Today's office hymn included the portions:
What God ordains is always good.
His loving thought attends me.
No poison can be in the cup
That my Physician sends me.
and later
What God ordains is always good.
Though I the cup am drinking
Which savors now of bitterness
I take it without shrinking.

Poison usually tastes bitter. It's a protection for us: the natural reaction to the bitter taste is to spit it out before the poison gets into you.

However, medicine usually tastes bitter too. (Or at least, it did in the old days before we came up with all the chemical concoctions we have for medicine now.)

So if I am drinking the cup which savors of bitterness, I will be inclined to think that it's poisonous. But it could be medicine from the Physician. Hard to tell, based just on the experience of bitter taste. According to the hymnist, what God gives will be good, even if it appears to my senses to be dangerously poisonous and distasteful.

A Good Pastor

Once upon a time, a congregation was between pastors. They asked a man to serve as vacancy pastor. Having a full-time job, and knowing their financial plight, for three years this man did not accept pay for his weekends preaching and teaching. Years later, people in the congregation would talk about what a good pastor he was, that he gave his paychecks back to the congregation.

It was certainly a generous and lovingly sacrificial thing to do. But what happens in the future when other pastors work full-time caring for the congregation and need their paychecks? According to the Gospel, we don't get what we deserve; God always gives us better than we deserve. If people cannot pay for a pastor, should they be deprived of one? Seems to me the answer should be "no." And yet, how then would the pastor provide for his family?

Girls Cry

Back in August, my young friend Matthew and I were talking about the new Harry Potter book. I'd recently finished it, and he was about halfway through. I said something about the parts that made me cry, but of course he didn't want to hear anything about it yet.

Several days later, Matthew had finished the book. We were talking about what we liked, what surprised us, what disappointed us, how we felt about different people's deaths, etc. One thing Matthew wanted to know was "So what was it that made you cry at the end?" He understood my tears over Percy's return. I also told him that I knew, about five pages before it happened, that Neville was going to kill Negini, and that just started the tears to flowing. "But that's a GOOD thing! Why would you cry over that???" I tried to explain, and the closest I could come was pointing out that sometimes people cry at weddings. Well, Matthew could understand how people would get emotional and cry from happiness at a wedding. But this was battle. This was Neville. This was defeating evil. This was altogether different from a wedding!

We fussed with each other about that for a bit. Then Matthew pulled his dad over, "Do you know what made her cry?? When Neville killed Negini! Can you believe that?" And his pa said, "Well, yes, Matthew. She's a girl." "What's that got to do with anything?" "Well, son, girls are different from boys. Get used to it. That's the way it is."

So last Thursday at church, an envelope was handed to me. Cash from an anonymous donor. I headed out the door and took a walk and cried.

Why cry? That's just stupid. The gift was a good thing!
Girls are different from boys.

Today a friend got tapped to be a mediator for another anonymous gift. After the first phone call, I headed out to jog, and I cried (with a smile on my face).

How stupid. The present is a good thing!
Girls are different from boys.

As the day progressed and we tried to finagle some arrangements to make this surprise work out, I realized that it might not work out. But you know what? (It's so cool!) Even if the tangible physical benefits of the gift didn't come through, the knowledge that somebody(s) loved us enough, cared enough, to bother with this ... just the knowledge that they tried to pull this off was awesomely and unbelievably buoyant. It was encouraging. It meant so much ... even if it didn't pan out.

Then came the bad news from the county and the repairman. But minutes later came the good news from our local looper-mediator that the plans were all in place from the anonymous folks who desire to provide some comfort to my family. That helps so much!

Tomorrow night -- long hot showers! Here we come!

And I am the poster-child for "girls are different from boys."
Because sometimes girls cry when it makes no sense at all.

Psalm 103:13

As a father pities his children,
So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
For the Lord knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.

No matter how weary I may be of carrying water, no matter how tired I may be of walking 400' in the rain and/or the chill just to go brush my teeth or use the potty, it's still easier than thinking of my kids having to do the same thing.

It always seems easier to be sick yourself than it is to ache over your children's sicknesses.

I think Mom is not having an easy time knowing our current difficulties with water. Likewise, I keep thinking that this is easier than it will be, someday, when Katie and Nathan are going through the same thing we're going through now.

Oh, how we [Harry Potter readers] can understand Molly at the very end of book #7, going after Bellatrix!

So when David tells us that the Lord has compassion on His children, it's not just the compassion of loving them so much because, after all, they are His children and not somebody else's. But He has the compassion of one who would rather suffer Himself than see His people hurting.

Carnival

For lots of good reading and ideas on homeschooling, the new week's collection of blog posts is listed at Why Homeschool. Enjoy!

Normal?

Everybody left the house this morning. EVERYBODY! Paul went to work. Andrew went to a volunteer job working at the horse barn. Philip is on a two-week temp job and it's days this time. Gary had Winkel (circuit pastors' conference). Maggie and I headed out to do errands.

Six people. Four cars. Five different directions.

The rest of the world thinks this is par-for-the-course. Yikes. What are homes for anyway??

Plumbing Update

Problems with the parsonage septic system were discussed today at church. As if the church wasn't having money problems enough, we are facing a repair bill equal to about 3-4 weeks of offerings. And that's if we're lucky and the whole system doesn't have to be replaced; the bill could be 3 months worth of offerings.

We've been using the kitchen and toilets and sinks at church as much as possible. Given the size of our family, the repairmen expected to have to pump out our non-operational septic tank twice a week. Over Labor Day weekend, we filled it to overfull in just four days; discovering that ugly surprise on Tuesday revealed the immensity of the problem. The tank was last pumped five days ago, and it's only half full. We're doing good on curtailing water usage!! Given what the repairmen said, it'll be another two weeks of trying not to let any water slip down any drains in the house. But we've decided to loosen the reins a bit and give the kids permission to go potty at home during the night instead of making them walk next door to church.

If the repairman finds the field in bad shape too, we'll need a whole new system. Then church will need to get bids. Furthermore, the rebuilding will take longer. I'm thinking it could be mid-October before I can enjoy simple pleasures such as washing up a dirty pot and letting the water just run down the drain.

Katie, when we come to visit, I'm going to get in your shower and drain the hot-water tank!

Practicing Lawlessness

Matthew 13:41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire.

Obviously, those who will have nothing to do with the law, those who live hedonistically, those who mock the importance of the law -- obviously they are "practicing lawlessness."

But isn't it also "lawless" to use the law in such a way that one thinks one is meriting God's favor? Wouldn't it be lawless to make a god out of obedience to the law?

Which Stanza Are We On?

How ingrained is that old hymnal, in ways that I don't even realize?

In LSB, some of the hymns have five stanzas in the music score. Whenever we get to verse 4, I skip to verse 5. I finally figured out why. Without even realizing it, my brain counts how many stanzas we're on. Number 4 means I sing the bottom line of words, right above the bass clef. That's what's been ingrained in me all my life. But now stanza #4 often isn't the bottom line, but the next-to-bottom line.

Even after I figured out the problem, I still keep making the mistake. I even will make the same mistake 3-4 times in the same hymn. I wonder how long it's going to take to drive that out of me.

Teaching Singing

Some kids just learn to sing naturally. Some don't.

For the last month, my 12-yr-old and I have been spending 5-10 minutes a day trying to have her match the pitch I play on the piano. The first several days we just stuck with one note that was in the middle of her comfortable range. Then we expanded to three notes. After a month, she can hit those three notes right most of the time on the first try. As she got better and better at those three notes, we've slowly expanded to a whole octave now. The accuracy on those new notes (the ones we've only been working on for two weeks) isn't quite there, but it's improving.

We started with steps ("seconds" for those of you who know music) and now have progressed to doing skips sometimes ("thirds"). We've also added "Glory Be to Jesus" because it's a rather simple song musically -- good for starters.

It still astounds me that it can be so hard and take SO much practice to learn where the notes are, and how to make your voice hit a particular note instead of just some note somewhere in the general vicinity. But persistent practice has paid off. I'm proud of what's she's pulled off and how much she's improved!

Grape Jelly

We didn't used to like grape jelly. That's because we got it from the store. Grape jelly made from your own grapes is altogether different.

But I found something to make it even better. I tried it two years ago and the jelly was fabulous. Went back to regular method last year, and the flavor of the jelly suffered (although it was still loads better than store jelly). Today I made grape jelly again and got a super-duper product.

Instead of smashing up the grapes and cooking them in water and extracting the juice, I put the grapes through my juicer. I have to send the leftover grape-mush through the juicer again and again, until it's finally dry enough that no more juice is being squeezed out. It makes a humongous mess; seeds flying everywhere and grape-stained hands and table. (I did the work outside.) Jelly made this way has such a good strong grapy flavor because no water is added. I used the pectin's recipe for grape jam instead of grape jelly, because so much of the fruit gets squeezed into the juice.

You'd never win a prize at the fair for this grape jelly: it doesn't have that clear, bejeweled look. And it's not lumpy enough to be proper jam. Nevertheless, the results make this jelly more valuable to me than any blue ribbon.

Twenty-six jars of jelly later, I learned two things. Jelly-making really does make me happy, and helps combat depression. (No wonder we've gotten totally overloaded with jam sometimes in the past.) Second, when you work in a kitchen with counter-space, everything is SO much easier! (I had to use the church kitchen because of the difficulty we're having with plumbing at the parsonage.)

Using Games

In the past, I was a sucker for any game which could be considered educational. We didn't play them as much as I envisioned myself playing board games or card games with the kids. Nevertheless, I kept picking up interesting-looking games at Goodwill, and now there's quite a stack. I need to clear out some space in this house, and have been sorting through those game piles.

We've been a little short on geography studies recently. So about a month ago, I took a "Carmen Sandiego" game, ditched the playing pieces and the board and instructions, and saved just the stack of trivia cards. We've been using two cards a day (4 questions per card) for geography. Some days it takes a couple of minutes. "Which country is the island of Sicily part of?" "What's the biggest country that touches the Asian part of Russia?" Other days we have to do some serious hunting in the atlas or looking up information in the encyclopedias.

These are multiple-choice questions. Often I avoid giving the kids the options, at least, at first. Today the question was "Which sea (named after a color) is in eastern Europe?" The choices were Black Sea, Red Sea, and Blue Sea. "Black Sea" was easy enough, even prior to their hearing the choices. But we looked at each other. Blue Sea?!!? We all felt like dummies, not having any clue where the Blue Sea was. Then we decided maybe it was a decoy answer. Sure enough, a quick peek in the index of the atlas revealed no such thing as a Blue Sea. Eight of these questions a day sure has given us a lot of geography study in a relatively fun and painless way, in little time segments, with no lesson planning on my part.

I would like to add the cards from some other games too. "Uncommon Sense" and "Hugger Mugger" are word games that come with a box of puzzle-cards. "Tri-Bond" is more well-known, and it would serve a certain child well in learning to see connections between words, learning to problem solve and think outside the box. I bought a game about animals and environments from National Geographic that would have lots of usable science questions in it. The game "Chronology" is about putting historical events in order. All of these sound like they could serve nicely, should we decide to do a few cards a day. This makes use of their educational value much more easily than hauling out a board game that's going to take 1-3 hours to play.

Job Hunts

Child #2 didn't getten chosen for the job that looked to be a likely prospect. Major bummers. But for others who, like him, are still hunting, child #3 has recommendations about avoiding monster.com as you look for employment.