Blessed Are You Among Women

Our story today was the Visitation.  Newly-pregnant Mary goes to visit pregnant Elizabeth. 

Question:  Who was it that Elizabeth said was "blessed"?
Kid's answer: Mary.

Yes.
True.

But ...

You know how kids are so often prone to answer "Jesus"? 

That wouldn't have been a wrong answer, now would it?  "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."  In other words, "Blessed are you, Mary, and blessed is Jesus" (Luke 1:42).

We always hear this verse used to tell us why we should indeed extol Mary.  And that's not untrue.  But I don't think I've ever heard someone point out that Elizabeth was saying "Blessed is Jesus."

Errands

Yesterday began with
chapel
Curves
pharmacy.

Home for showers and getting dressed. 
Then round two:
Goodwill (where we found a flute and a clarinet!)
Salvation Army (which was closed)
Woodman's
Fleet Farm
Walmart
a neighbor's house.

Home to bake the cinnamon rolls, wash the used stroller we were giving as a gift, and wrap presents for the child our branch adopted for Christmas-giving.  (For me , it's so much happier to give a child things he needs -- like diapers or a snowsuit or a stroller -- than it is to give frivolous mind-rotting gifts that are requested by so many, things that I refused to give my own children.)
to work to drop off gifts
bookstore
another grocery store
the home of a neighbor who sells honey

Home to make and eat supper.
Church for Advent service
and choir practice.

Today I have to pick up the messies I left all over the house yesterday.

The Unruliness!

I made cinnamon rolls yesterday. 

When I ate them, I bit them. 

I did not unroll them.  I just chomped a hunk out of the side.

I do believe there's been some sort of cosmic shift in my reality....

Favorite Insta-Supper

Gary's favorite insta-suppers are
~ Aldi bake-at-home pizza (almost as good as Tony's)
~ spaghetti with a side of green beans.

My favorite?  When there's no time to cook, and you didn't thaw hamburger, and you need real food, this is what I love:
~ boneless center-cut pork chops
(skillet-fried with a rub of basil, brown sugar, chili powder)
~ buttered, parsleyed pasta
(maybe with pesto or parmesan too)
~ a side dish or two of frozen veggies

Seriously, it's about 20-25 minutes from the time I arrive home until we sit down to eat.  And it's real food.  And it's deLIcious.  Not the cheapest, so I don't plan it as part of the meal rotation.  But my tastebuds wish I would ....

Snow Storm Wins over the Symphony

Big dump of snow today.
Loads of accidents.
Thankfully, Philip made it home from church safely, and Andrew made it safely to work.

Symphony was canceled. 
It was a wise decision.
But I'm still disappointed.
I'm trying not to think about it.

Reading Challenge

The conclusion of my reading-year.   I seriously doubt anything more books will be finished in the next three weeks.

My primary list:
Anne of Green Gables   by L. M. Montgomery  Jan 24
Anne of Avonlea   (these two with Maggie) Feb 24
Christ Have Mercy   by Matt Harrison April 7
Mara, Daughter of the Nile   June 7

Love Divine   by Alan Kornacki July 30
A Great and Mighty Wonder July 31
One Thing's Needful Aug 5

Mitford's These High, Green Hills Aug 16
Out to Canaan    by Jan Karon Aug 27
A Common Life Sept 2
A New Song   Sept 20
In This Mountain   Oct 4
Shepherds Abiding  Oct 12


The list that someone else made for me:
Lutheran Catechesis   by Bender Dec 27, 2012
Old Testament Catechesis   by Bender March 1
New Testament Catechesis    by Bender  began in October
Bible Stories for Daily Prayer    by Fabrizius   still waiting



Alternates:
Kristin Lavransdatter  by Sigrid Undset  going on 2014's list
To Kill a Mockingbird   by  Harper Lee May 8
Luther, the Reformer   by James Kittelson  unread
The Right to Be Wrong   by Seamus Hasson unread
On Being a Theologian of the Cross   by Forde unread
Luther on Vocation   by Wingren July 15


Books not on the original list:
A Long Way from Chicago by R Peck audio book April 16
A Year Down Yonder by Peck audio book April 18
And She Was a Christian: Why Do Believers Commit
Suicide by Peter Preus May 7
Heaven Is for Real June 27
How to Treat Your Own Hand & Thumb Osteoarthritis  Sept 28

Eighteen books read.
Two audio books "read."
Two proofreading projects completed.
And for the last two months I've been knitting and watching movies instead of reading.

Now it's time to figure out which books will go on my 2014 list. 

The Trinity in the Second Petition

God's kingdom comes when our heavenly FATHER gives us His HOLY SPIRIT, so that by His grace we believe His holy WORD and lead godly lives, here in time, and there in eternity.

The Word became flesh

and dwelt among us ...

John 1:14

Those Blasted Cell Phones

Once upon a time, we had no answering machines.
Once upon a time, we would go on vacation, away from the telephone for an entire week.

Today people get itchy if they leave the cell phone at home for an hour or two of errands.  What if they miss something?  People!  People!  It's good to be away from the phone sometimes!

An online article recently pointed out what happens when teens have constant contact with their friends via texting.  They end up with nothing to talk about in-real-life.  And they have no incentive to spend time together in-real-life. 

Try it.  Fight the addiction.  Turn off the phone for a couple of hours a day.  Say no to the stress of always being available to dozens of friends.

Symphony This Sunday

Our church choirs have a reputation.

(That's kind of cool....)

This Sunday we're singing at the concert for the local symphony. 

At work the other day, I heard a commercial for us.  On a 50,000-watt radio station.  On one of their most-listened-to talk-shows.  A commercial for us.  I was excited!  Oh my goodness -- you can buy tickets for the concert on Ticketmaster.  To me, that's where you get tickets for Toby Keith or Kenny Chesney or Michael Buble.  One of my co-workers said, "I have NEVER seen you nearly so pumped about ANYthing."  No foolin'!

This is going to be fun.



If you're local and want to attend, it's 3:00 on Sunday at Hamilton Fine Arts Center (at the high school).  Information is available at the symphony's website.  The children's choirs are singing a couple of songs without the adults, and I don't know what those pieces are.  The adults (or adults with the kids) are singing:
Once in Royal David's City (Mann/Willcocks/Vierrege)
Up, Good Christen Folk
Praise God the Lord, Ye Sons of Men (Hugo Distler)
Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree
Your Little Ones, Dear Lord, Are We  (David Cherwien) 
Silent Night (Hal Hopson)
See, in Yonder Manger Low (Keith Veirrege)

Penance

"The Mission."
A movie with amazing music and cinematography and casting.
Docudrama set in the 1750s in South America: Jesuit missionaries going to the native peoples, and what happened when the Treaty of Madrid rearranged European "ownership" of the South American lands.

The movie has a bunch of different aspects:

Enslavement of the Guarani people even when slavery was officially illegal.

Corrupt leadership, in both political government and church government.

The shock to authorities when they find native people (so unlike themselves) trusting in the same Lord, worshiping Him with the same liturgy, and receiving the same sacraments.

The place of priests in fighting injustice: fighting militarily or not.

Persecution of the Church.

Self-defense and "just war."

The affect of the Gospel.



Whoa, that last one!  (Okay.  Warning.  Spoilers ahead.)

In the story, a slave trader ends up killing his brother in a duel.  He is devastated.  There is no hope for him.  The person who finally gets through to him partially is the priest who is ministering to the Indians who had been this slave trader's prey.  Of course, being Roman Catholics, there had to be penance.  They came up with a task, and the slave trader kept at it.  No matter how long he doggedly worked at his penance, he wasn't finding peace.  There was no relief. 

There was no comfort for him until he arrived at the home of those Indians he had hunted ... and they forgave him.  They did not take vengeance on him.  They physically removed the burden he'd been lugging along as penance.  And they accepted him into their midst. 

Penance did not save him.
Penance did not help make up for his evils.
Penance showed him that he could not atone for what he'd done.
It was mercy and forgiveness that freed him.
That mercy, in conjunction with God's word, was what changed the slave trader into a priest.




The Mission is one of those movies that is both sickening and beautiful.  The violence & gore, the bigotry, the evils -- it's enough to turn your stomach.  And yet, there's the beauty of defending the innocent, and the glory of seeing hearts and lives changed by the Gospel.

"Bless You!"

AaaaaCHOO.
Gesundheit.  That is, "good health."

One lovely day when I was sitting at the feet of John Kleinig, the good doctor mentioned that people chafe if we preach to them.  People don't want us to speak the Gospel to them.  They really don't want to hear the Law.  Some won't mind too much if you say that you pray for them.

But he said nobody gets upset if you bless them.

You know what?

I think he's right.

AaaaaCHOO.
God bless you.

And then, when you say out loud

"God bless you,"

in your heart you can also

beg the Lord to bless this person.

 

Curves

We have been at the Curves gym two-and-a-half months now.  It takes time.  We progressed past the point of not wanting to bother going.  (C'mon, really?  Audible verbal arguments with myself?  "I don't WANT to go today."  "You need to."  "No, I don't.  What difference does one day make?"  "For exercise, probably not much.  But making a habit?  Skipping just one day makes a huge difference in your mental commitment."  "Commitment schmamittment.  Bah humbug."  "Fetch your gym shoes and get moving, you lazy bum.")

Maggie finds Curves to be more fun than going for walks or using the Goodwill-purchased exercise equipment in our basement.  We were doggedly pushing each other to build this into a habit, a routine, a natural part of life.  And it was working ... until we skipped a week due to illness and another half-week due to holiday closures.  Now it's time to rebuild that habit.

Some critics say Curves is for old women.  Or for people out of shape.  Yeah?  So what's the problem?  I'm old.  And Maggie is out of shape.  We're doing something.

Maggie lost 3 pounds in the first three weeks.  Unfortunately, she gained back most of them with Halloween chocolate.  But she gained back "most."  Not all! And this morning we did our first weigh-and-measure since we joined, and she's down nearly 8#.  That's excellent news!

The Difference Between East and West

In 1951 Herman Sasse wrote to pastors about the place of the cross in the Eastern Church and the Ancient Church. 

As soon as the great question is put: Cur Deus homo? [Why did God become man?] it is understood [in the Eastern church] as a question for the rationale of the incarnation rather than of the death of Christ.

Sure enough, an EO writer says --
The Incarnation did not take place for the Crucifixion; the Crucifixion took place so the Incarnation and the eternal communion of God and man could be fulfilled despite Satan, sin, and death. Explaining that there was no necessity in God the Father that required the death of His Son, St. Gregory is telling us that, from before the ages, it was the divine will for mankind to be sanctified and made immortal by communion with the humanity of the Incarnate God, but corruptibility and death came and stood in the way. 





Sasse continues:

Thus for the Ancient Church, as even today for the Eastern Church, the cross is hidden in the miracle of Christmas and in the miracle of Easter.

How is that limitation of Ancient Christianity and its theology to be explained? Certainly it must not be forgotten that the divine revelation given in Holy Scriptures is so rich that whole centuries are necessary to understand its content fully. It cannot be expected that the Church of the First Ecumenical Councils should already have solved the problems of the medieval Western World.

As to the meaning of redemption, the Greek Fathers could not get away from the idealistic conception of man.

The lack of full understanding of the greatness of sin is the reason why the Ancient Church and the Church of the East never reached a theologia crucis.

So if you wonder what's the difference between Lutherans and the Eastern church, this is it.  In EO, sin is not quite as bad, not quite as deep, not quite as corrupting, as what the Bible teaches. 

"The Law shows us our sin
and how much we need a Savior."

Not so much sin?
Then you don't need so much of a Savior, do you?
And some of the glory goes to you instead of all the glory being His.

Andrew's Schooling

He's still waiting to hear the verdict as to whether he was accepted to the RN program at our local tech school.  Fantastic program with shockingly low tuition.  (Hey, shockingly high property taxes ... and thus the thing about "every dark cloud has a silver lining.")  I thought Andrew was a shoo-in.  Great entrance-test scores and perfect GPA. 

But then he told me that those factors cannot be considered in the decision-making process for who's admitted to the program.

Really?  I'm dumbfounded.  What DO they use as criteria to make the decision then?  Or maybe they don't make decisions, but just draw names out of a hat?

Well, he's got a good job as a CNA. 
And hopefully, in another week or two, we'll hear good news that invites him to sign up for classes for spring semester.

(Wow.  You can't use performance in pre-nursing classes to determine who's admitted to the nursing program.  Just wow.)

Thanksgiving Plans

As much as I hate to say it, I'm glad Paul and Mandy aren't coming for the holiday.  They're going to visit her mom's family. 

And I just keep wanting naps.  Those germies from last week haven't entirely dispersed yet.

Maggie made bread yesterday.  Andrew made cheesecake; Rachel is making pies.  Katie said she'd be in charge of sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes.  I'm going to cook the turkey and slice it on Wednesday.  If I can muster the strength, I'll mix together a cranberry salad and a broccoli salad.

So if I'm full of snot and crashed on the couch on Thursday, they all can still eat something and enjoy each other's company.  Thanks be to God.

(You know what?  Having a paid-job really interferes with a person's ability to rest and recuperate from illness.)

"Blessed Are the Barren"

Luke 23: The days are coming in which they will say, "Blessed are the barren, wombs which never bore, and breasts which never nursed." 

I had always thought that was, well, you know, something the Bible said.  But it's not.  It's just something Jesus reports that "they" say.  Duh -- how come I never saw it until Pastor pointed it out today?  That's something the unbelievers say.  Not Christians.  And certainly not something God says. 

"Better to not have babies" is the response of the hopeless and the despairing.

Happy Things

The same edition of the Bible. 

People were laughing at me during Bible class this week.  I had a question, but I needed to refer to another passage -- a passage whose location I could not pin down.  Poor Pastor -- how can he answer a question comparing passages when I can't even tell him what they are?  "I can't find it.  I don't have the right Bible."  (That's why they poked fun at me.)

Is it my brain being weird?  Or do other people do this too?  I can find things easier in the Bible that I use frequently.  I might know that a verse in the psalms is about 1/3 of the way down the left-hand page, in the right column.  Or I might know that it's a verse in the 30's of one of the major prophets, and it's in the bottom right corner of the page. 

Hey, that makes it loads easier to find a passage I'm hunting!

The right Bible. 
The words are no different.
But because of its layout,
its fit with my brain is different.
And that makes me happy.

Godliness

"The mystery of lawlessness" was in the reading recently from 2 Thessalonians 2. 

It seemed an odd phrase.

So how does it compare with "the mystery of godliness" (1 Timothy 3)? 

Wait a cotton-pickin' minute.
Godliness?
Paul says the mystery of GODLINESS is what Jesus did? 

We tend to think godliness is what I think and what I say and what I do and how I feel.  And Paul has this notion that godliness is Jesus' incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and that these events in the Creed are preached.

Happy Things

Wooden knitting needles.

The sound and feel is just luscious in comparison to metal ones.

Happy!

Hold the Traditions

After Paul talks about the falling away of many in the church, he says, "God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle" (2 Thessalonian 2).

Through the Church, the Holy Spirit gave the catechism.  And the divine service with the liturgy.  And solid, Christ-centered hymns preaching the forgiveness of sins.  And the sacraments.  And ministers to speak on behalf of Jesus to us.

Do we fiercely hang onto it, as if our lives depended on it?  (For of course, they do.)  Or do we hold cheap the traditions we were taught?



When the Israelites were leaving Egypt, Moses said, "Stand still and see the salvation which the Lord shall accomplish for you this day....  The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace."