Last night we had a heavy rain and a bit of hail. Today we have rain and snow predicted. My computer has an icon for weather, so I saw it claiming "temp plummeting" when that only meant a few degrees colder.
This kind of weather is my hardest working time for the garden - not that I lift a finger. I look out the window or sit on the porch to watch the garden green up. I know that hundreds of hundreds of bulbs will bloom in the near future. They extended their roots soon after planting in the fall. Now they have reached up to burst into bloom when the bulbs, more reliable than the meteorologist, sense it is time to flower.
Daffodils and grape hyacinths flourish and bloom a long time, increasing their numbers a little bit each year. The bulb catalogs for 2024 arrive with the advent of the blooms. They know many of us are too weak to resist buying just a few more bulbs for the next spring - to remind us of the currently blooming flowers. The murmuring breezes say, "Don't you want your neighbors to fall over in a faint, enjoying more of the colorful, exotic, bizarre, and graceful bulbs?"
One member said about our congregation, "Just a few here and there." I responded, "It only takes one here and there, over time. And we have no way of knowing." One printed, full-color book was recently delivered to an individual 9,000 miles away. Others travel over the Internet, thanks to ones and zeroes, PDFs that mimic an entire book yet arrive for free. There is no way to measure them.
 |
| Matthias Loy is now easily accessed at the Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry. |
Alec Satin has put together over 300 books online with more than 70 of them in print form - and low in cost for the print versions. Many of them are rare, fragile, and very difficult to find. A good way to start is at lutheranlibrary.org.
That site with no ads outranks the LCMS version, with their small collection costing $300. Oh my! The LCMS has created a free site for various books and essays. Their "ultimate package" of printed books is valued at $539! - for nine books!
Readers have told me that they never heard of the efficacy of the Word of God until they began reading materials from this blog. If the leaders would learn and teach Isaiah 55, and make it a priority, they could flourish.
 |
| Luther always taught the efficacy of the Word and cited God's Creation by the Word, so why do Luther-ans (sic) ignore Biblical efficacy and Creation? |
