Sassy Invents the Double-Lovey - All On Her Own

 Norma A. Boeckler took this photo at the dog park when she visited us.

Sassy had trouble jumping up on the bed as she got older. She could do it most of the time, but she liked being encouraged. I even put my foot near her tail to encourage her. She did her, "Rar, rar, rar!" warning bark but did not mean anything by it. She is known for being gentle but very loud.

She kept making fake attempts at jumping up one night, and I got angry. Then I sat down and petted her, telling her how much we all loved her. She gave me a gentle little lick of affection.

 Sassy jumped, ran, and fetched better than the four-legged dogs.

That - I learned to my sorrow and laughter - was the beginning of the lovey needed for the jump. She no longer jumped for any reason but pushed her chest up against the bed, looked up, and grinned at me for a lovey. That had to be fairly wordy and effusive in language about her many friends, her gentleness, and her love for everyone. 

So that immediately became a requirement. Her fake run turned into parking her chest against the bed. When we took off the legs of the bed - for her - she continued pushing her chest against bed and grinning. I took that as the new expectation, but I was wrong.

Soon Sassy began to park her chest against the corner of the bed. I thought maybe she was saving time. No. After that was done, she pretended to get her fun going, but pushed her chest in the same place again. She began giving me really big grins for this. (I gave her an M.A. - honoris causa - in adult education - for training me so well. The honorary doctorate will come later, I am sure.)

Tonight I tried to get her to jump after the first lovey, at the corner of the bed. She wiggled around and stopped with her chest against the bed again - big grin. She likes a longer bout of petting for the second time, and she wants an elaborate discussion of her merits, friends, and awesome reputation. I get a second gentle lick for being such a good student at her academy.

 People loved seeing Sassy in the back seat, with me as the chauffer, in the Lincoln Town Car. It was a beautiful, smooth, dependable car that went 205,000 miles for us and then provided transportation for a friend's mother.

The More Sources We Find, The More Objective Justification Fades Away, But It is Still Going Strong in Calvinism, Various Quasi-Christian Cults, And WELS-ELCA-LCMS-ELS-CLC

 David Hollaz, aka Hollatz, a Lutheran theologian

Among the great dogmaticians of the Lutheran Church, there is great unanimity in maintaining that predestination takes place in view of foreseen faith. It seemed necessary to teach this to guard the doctrine against Calvinistic error. Though all our writers did not use the same terms in designating faith as necessary to predestination, as Baier punts out, yet they agreed in the substance of the doctrine, that God predestinated whom He foresaw in Christ by faith. Hollaz, whose celebrated work was published in 1685, says: Our theologians in explaining the eternal decree of predestination, agree entirely as to the matter, teaching with one consent that God, to whom also the future is objectively present, by the infinite light of His intellect from eternity foresaw the faith of certain men, who had fallen into sin, and in view of their faith thus foreseen elected them to eternal life. They differ only in the mode of speaking and in the use of some technical terms.” Exam. P. III. Sec. 1, cap. 2, qu. 9.

From “Election in Foresight of Faith” in The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1, 1881, Matthias Loy, editor. LutheranLibrary.org

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

F. W. Stellhorn and Others Stood Up Against Walther's Calvinizing Hypocrisy

1 Pet. 1:2, where Luther explains “foreknowledge” by “ordination,” because God in election had respect to the order constituted by Himself, in which order not our works, but Christ, together with all His merit, is included. Contrarily, the interpretation of the Calvinists is false, who interpret this “foreknew” by “recognized as His, loved, elected.” For then there would be no difference between foreknowledge and predestination or election, whereas they here must be accurately distinguished one from the other, as distinct steps in procuring our salvation.

From: “Rom. 8:28-30. By Prof. F. W. Stellhorn” in
The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1, 1881, Matthias Loy, editor. LutheranLibrary.org

Birds Know Where the Food Is Abundant

We had two brief episodes of sleet, which melted fast, then experienced the edge of the Sno-Pocalypse, which was relatively mild all the way to Maine. The snow melted from the roads and driveways as it fell, but accumulated on the ground and birdfeeders. Now we have a week of 60 to 70 degree days.  

The starlings knew where to search for food under the snow, so we hosted most of the starlings in Springdale, almost like Hitchcock's The Birds. It did seem as if their relatives from Fayetteville joined the food line. They pecked through the snow and found corn and peanuts galore. 

The shy male cardinal landed on the kitchen window sill, where food is always placed. Like the squirrels who know their rights, the cardinal looked into the kitchen to remind me of our long and affectionate relationship. I was only two feet away, the reward for having food there most days, extra food for extreme weather.

The blue jay stopped on the other window sill to scream at me. Yes, yes, you are hungry too. I removed a lot of snow from their feeding zones - garbage barrel lids, window sills, the hanging wire bun baskets, and the cinder block.

The single purchase of suet lasted all winter. I had it hanging from an extra birdfeeder (squirrel proof, hahahahaha) in the mild fall weather, and it was totally ignored. Suet eaters, like the chickadees and woodpeckers, want suet when it is very cold and when they feel secure about the source. So when the snow and sleet were falling I saw the bug eating birds use the suet to tide them over.

Mulch is the best bird feeder of all, but more awkward to enjoy at ground level. A layer of leaves and wood mulch is a choice zone for all the critters birds love to devour. 

I leave the garden trashy into the spring, to let the beneficial insects thrive, which also feed the birds and even the squirrels.