Watering During the Dry Spells

Triplecrown Blackberries

Gardeners love rain. I view rain predictions the way Budweiser looks forward to the football season. But we also have long, hot, dry spells.

I noticed two boys watering the flower garden for their grandmother. They were waving the hose across the flowers, splashing lots on top of them, but they should have placed the hose down and let the water soak in the area for a period of time.

Like Almost Eden, my neighbor in the nursery business, I distrust predictions of rain. He waters in the morning regardless. We have been betrayed by the forecasts so often. His plants for sale are in plastic pots, so he has to water them more often. Sometimes Sassy and I find him at 6 AM, watering, with his dog Opie nearby.

If rain is predicted, I can gather more from four large garbage cans, four more paint buckets, and one small wheelbarrow. Therefore, I distribute the rainwater in advance, where it is needed most. Currently the replacement hybrid tea roses and the rugosa roses get the stored rain.

After Sassy's morning walk, I distributed the rest of the rainwater and trimmed every rose that needed pruning.

I use four long soaker hoses to save time and money. In the front, the two hoses are beneath the mulch. I can water most of the roses by turning on the water. If I overwater, the extra water flows down to the maple tree garden that Mrs. I suggested.

In the backyard, the hoses run on top of the fence on Mrs. Wright's side, among the roses on Mr. Gardener's side. He now gets free water for the Hostas and Lilies he planted parallel to my roses, on his side of the fence.

Poison Ivy

Ticks and Poison Ivy
I thought I had a skin tag when I went to the doctor's for a routine Medicare appointment. The nurse went along with that, but the blood-letting assistant said, "No. That is a tick. Look at his legs." She dabbed some alcohol on the little feller and his waved his legs in drunken jubilee. I knew his head was glued in place, so I took him out with pliers later.


That was my first tick, which I probably got from tramping around in the Wild Garden.

I went to look at the Honeysuckle when I saw a new vine growing up against it, borrowing the water from the soaker hose. The stump that supports the Honeysuckle seems to be supporting Poison Ivy as well. Leaves of three? Check. Arrangement? Check. Likely place where birds roost? Check.

That will be removed with great care and prejudice.

I have plenty of Hog Peanut -
I just identified it this morning. This plant fixes nitrogenand loves the shade.  It grows beans above groundand peanuts below.

Blooming and Fruiting
The roses are in glorious color all over the front yard. The KnockOuts are especially colorful after a 50% trim, but two bushes dropped dead - as KOs seem to do, I learned from the Net.

Rugosa roses are leafing out.

Coneflowers are attracting beneficial Tachinid flies.

Blackberries - but I never see a ripe one.

All berry plants are blooming - Beautyberry, Pokeweed, Wild Strawberry, Gooseberry, Raspberry, Honeysuckle.

Most Bee Balms (horse mint) are blooming but one just started to grow, so it was rewarded with some rainwater. The flowers have colors ranging from pink to red to lavender.

The front yard is a riot of color and fun to prune for friends and people we visit.

Beautyberries are late season treats for birds.

Bee Balm is my favorite new flower.

Asked about a PhD in Theology

The tower on the right  of Sterling Library is Yale Law School,
where Gerald Ford earned his law degree while he
coached football for the college.

Someone asked about the road to a PhD in theology. 

I took Greek, Latin, and German in college to gain the basic tools for Biblical studies. Later I took French at Notre Dame and passed the language test. I preached in German so they excused me from the German test. Notre Dame now requires two ancient and two modern languages to qualify for the comprehensive exams.

College and seminary should have taken a total of 8 years with a vicarage, but I took extra courses every chance I got and finished both in a total of 6 years. In seminary I took Hebrew 1 and 2, receiving no credit because "Hebrew was not required." I vicared at the largest Lutheran church in Canada, so that helped out in coordinating studies.

For the STM program at Yale, I took Biblical exegesis in Greek and Hebrew from world-famous scholars who emphasized the historical-grammatical study of the text. The Appleton alcoholics condemned me for going to Yale until I pointed out that Uncle John Brug took a seminar there. Oops.

PhD work in theology assumes three years of graduate coursework, so I received a one-year discount for the Yale STM when I was accepted at the University of Notre Dame.

Notre Dame assumed one year of independent study for the written and oral comprehensives. Both had to be passed. The written exams took two days, follow by the oral exam.

The dissertation time period varied for a lot of reasons, including the guidance or reluctance of the dissertation committee. It had to be accepted by the committee and defended in front of committee members and an outsider or two.

Old Main at Notre Dame - and their chapel.

Grand Total in Normal Academic Years
8 years - college and seminary. BA and MDiv
1 year   - STM Yale. 1973.
2 years - doctoral coursework
1 year  -  study toward the comprehensives. Pass - MA. 1978
4 years - finding a dissertation topic, finding an advisor, full approvals, oral defense. 1982

12 years - This is the approximate time required for a PhD in theology. Seminary PhDs are easier and take less time. A DMin is not a doctorate but an easy version of the old STM degree. Nobody wanted to say "I picked up an STD at seminary," so they simply made the STM into an expensive and simple DMin.

Fuller Seminary has mined the gold of the Synodical Conference with their drive-by DMin degrees.

Reading during this time - From start to finish, I read an enormous number of books. Like most doctoral students, my brain was so weary after passing comprehensives that I stopped reading scholarly works to give it a rest. My friend in Biblical studies said he could only read TV Guide after passing the comprehensives. The dissertation required reading books, dissertations, and journals from my field and related areas, so I overturned a library to create one more book, which was published.

University of Notre Dame Library
faces the football stadium, where we watched Joe Montana play.
My fellow doctoral students are retiring or retired.

Review of Churches That Abuse The Marks May Seem Too Familiar

https://www.probe.org/abusive-churches/ -

First, abusive churches have a control-oriented style of leadership. 

Second, the leaders of such churches often use manipulation to gain complete submission from their members. 

Third, there is a rigid, legalistic lifestyle involving numerous requirements and minute details for daily life. 

Fourth, these churches tend to change their names often, especially once they are exposed by the media. 

Fifth, denouncing other churches is common because they see themselves as superior to all other churches. 

Sixth, these churches have a persecution complex and view themselves as being persecuted by the world, the media, and other Christian churches. 

Seventh, abusive churches specifically target young adults between eighteen and twenty-five years of age. 

The eighth and final mark of abusive churches is the great difficulty members have in getting out of or leaving these churches, a process often marked by social, psychological, or emotional pain.

***

GJ - I hear from people stuck in abusive churches. The eighth mark is common. Sometimes universal shunning sets in, which is feared by many - but should be welcomed. But often there is a compulsion by the sect to keep chasing that person, blaming, manipulating, etc. Wounding people is not enough - the abusive sects feel a need to keep it up.

I have seen several examples in WELS where the individual or family was hated out, followed by a subsequent attempt to love-bomb them back in. 

Family members can really facilitate the abuse, because they only recognize One Truth Church - their sect. Therefore a departure from that sect is treated as rejection of the family. No transgression of the sect is allowed to be voiced, so those who pass on information to me also swear me to secrecy.

An abusive sect has this advantage - very few will talk. Finding the culprit among the small pool of candidates is relatively easy. Unfortunately for the failing Lutheran synods, the social media have complicated the problem. Someone sent me a link today that I posted last year. Social media posts have a long lifespan. I only had to Google this blog to find the story, which I linked back to the source.

Anyone who dares to mention this blog is condemned, followed by a stunning tirade of misinformation and deliberate falsehoods. Other blogs like Steadfast Lutherans (sic x 2) do not permit links to Ichabod. In spite of this massive shunning, writers are always referencing what they read and dislike, but often without mentioning the hideous name that describes them - Ichabod, the Glory Has Departed. 

What is that glory? Justification by Faith through the Means of Grace. The Lutheran sects today cannot stop talking about themselves - they are the greatest, the holiest, the undefiled. They should be following the Biblical example of creating and sustaining faith through the Gospel Word, but instead they are shoring up the crumbling foundations of their fading groups. They lack the vocabulary and capacity to discuss Justification by Faith because they reject the Chief Article and dance around significant doctrinal discussion.

Facebook Claims

If we seem to walk in unity (or, if you wish to be derisive, "in lockstep"), it's not by his dictate, but by agreement in the Word of God. Interestingly, having been educated in various church bodies, schools, and academic eras, most of us did not start out on the same page, but have been brought together as we have studied and confessed individually and found that our confession was the same…for which, to God alone be the glory.

Ten years now, by God's grace; may the Holy Spirit ever cause us to walk as one! 

And, suffice to say, such correction is very rarely needed. 

GJ - Sounds exactly like the fake humility in WELS.

No Persecution Here
No, I do not feel persecuted. I am honored. I was done with "Lutheran" groups a long time ago. Unlike others, who merely slip away, I decided to catalog the crimes for others who have experienced the same. 

One angry CLC (sic) leader said to me, in front of a group, "I have 105 members in my family, and every single one is a member of the CLC." I was going to ask, "Are they all Pharisees like you?" but that was too obvious.

The CLC (sic) protects their criminals while condemning 99.9% of the Lutherans who have not fallen prey to their hideous, inbred cult. I do have this commendation for the CLC (sic) - they make WELS look good by comparison.

Gutsche's LinkedIn account also lists him
as a WELS pastor for a short time.
The social media are so pesky sometimes.
No, he did not list his arrest on that account,
but he features his ELCA and ELCiC service.
Koenig was furious I obtained this photo from the Net.
Live by the Net, die by the Net, I always say.