ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Sitting in mud to plant the bare root rose, being stabbed by thorns, bleeding, pruning, watering - is it worth it? California Dreamin - yes, it is worth it when people gasp, especially when the jaded rose gardener feels the same rush, again and again.
Where that file goes from there - God only knows. Everyone who encouraged the project, illustrated it, supported it, helped to edit it, readied it for Amazon, and cheered it on - every single person is part of placing the Gospel in Pakistan, the Philippines, and many other places.
Let's give credit to obstruction too. Things happened that were extremely annoying on the print side. That led to the decision to make everything non-profit and public domain. Obviously, the best way to make that happen world-wide was through PDFs lodged in DropBox, a fantastic software program for large files.
I talk with a few people in and around India on Facebook. This week I was enabled to send a pdf to a pastor in Pakistan - your volumes of Luther's sermons. He didn't think paper would come through, but was eager to download the Sermons file. Interestingly his church name include 'Presbyterian".
I did get a mailing through to India this week. Took about a month for airmail to get there. But it got there. The primary item was my book including Luther's small and large catechisms and Jacob's Q/A dogmatics.
Honeysuckle's aroma is often mentioned in Southern nostalgia, much like the citrus blooming in Phoenix and other areas.
We went to the diabetics office, where Christina had a great blood sugar result - A1C. We brought our first rose of the year, May 1, a rugosa rose, very fragrant, plus one iris and one alium. The diabetics specialist is one of our favorite medical people in the area, and she loved the flowers. The rest of the staff oohed and ahhed over them. One said, "I love seeing your name on the patient list, Chris, because that means we are going to get some fantastic, fragrant flowers."
We pass around Creation Gardening often with our floral visits. At one office, 10 copies were given away - to the waiting room and some in line at the pay window.
Tonight the stormclouds broke loose again, just as Sassy and I started our evening walk. Low light brings out some of the plants against their backgrounds. The hostas are up and spreading. Last year's tender little leaves have proven the value of rain, followed by supplemental rain from my buckets and barrels, then 3 inches, then 1 inch of rain, and now another storm.
I found a starling taking a serious bath in the rain - in one of two kiddy pools I use for birdbaths. One pool cost me $3 on sale. The other was donated by John, one of Sassy's dear friends. I have four birdbaths together. Why? I should ask you why you do not! Birds push and shove in the birdbath, so the extras mean room for a lot more. They hunt for grubs and bugs for me, and plant their favorite foods.
The robins are feeding in the rain, which suggests a long storm. They go through the back gardens, which are carpeted with rotting leaves. Robins and starlings flip the leaves with their beaks to expose earthworms and bugs.
The butterfly bushes are leafing out now - as well as most crepe myrtles, both Clethra cinnabon trees, and all the chaste trees.
I am getting mellow about weeds. Some have to go, like the seven foot woody shrub. I trimmed that near the ground. I will do the same with poke weed, which has its own little circle of friends. It can grow tall, get cut, and grow again. Deep roots are good for the soil. Poke and hog peanuts are with us for good, and hog peanuts build the soil by fixing nitrogen.
In the backyard, I encourage, mulch, and water poke weed, as a tall, productive, berry producer.
So many serendipity results come from Creation Gardening. We had a dying tree that our granddaughter posed in. A year later it fell down and became a rustic fence, after being cut up. The stump remained, so I planted honeysuckle to climb up the trunk. Various weeds competed and I gave up sorting them out. Finally I realized the most obnoxious one was helping to support the honey suckle. Rabbits were born at the base.
I approached it, wondering how the honeysuckle was progressing this year. A robin flew screaming away from me, just like the exits from the crepe myrtle. "I see. Mrs. Robin has a nest in the tangled weed and honeysuckled stump."
My watering hose ends at the honeysuckle, so it will be watered in the dry spells. "Watch out. Honeysuckle will take over your back yard!" Mr. Gardener said. I replied, "That is my plan."
I thought this instrumental was better than the vocals I found. Fats Waller wrote it.
For one thing, it's a converted bar. Walking in, you might think of it as more of a lounge to hang out with friends than a house of worship.
And it's about to take center stage on the nationally-syndicated broadcast program "Time of Grace" as its pastor, Mike Novotny, takes the role as its lead speaker.
Eight WELS clones, including the rotten Appletons, attended the same Andy Stanley re-education camp. Andy denies infant faith but he has a big D-Day for dedicating babies, with professional photographs. Oh, Andy, you came and you gave without taking.
"It’s humbling in a sense," Novotny said. "I’m just a dude from Green Bay who loves Jesus and I want to talk to people about it. It’s a really amazing opportunity for me."
Novotny will replace founding speaker, the Rev. Mark Jeske of Milwaukee, who served as lead speaker for 18 years.
The 38-year-old Novotny said his mission at the CORE is not to preach, but to invite others to learn about faith and work toward building a relationship with God. He wants to bring that same message to TV viewers.
Lutherdom is waiting anxiously for Starr to find a new topic.
