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.
Thursday, February 15, 2024
ELCA Pastoral Gathering
Charlie Sue Time
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| Charlie Sue is a Patterdale Terrier |
A member wanted more Charlie stories.
Every day is fun with the prankster Charlie Sue. Her breed is sociable and that hardly begins to describe her. She is friends on the south fence, the north fence, and the west fence in the backyard. She loves them all and enjoys teaching them to race along the fence. She never barks indoors but she cheers the dogs on whenever they get lax.
Porchi and Dustmop are shaggy white dogs. One is huge and the other is half the modest size of Charlie. If I go out with the squeaker toys, they race with Dustmop and Charlie barking away.
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| Can Charlie come over and play? And how about a thorough finger combing from her staff? He turns around so both sides are thoroughly combed by my fingers. Fur flies. |
We are getting more 60 to 70 degree days, so Charlie stays out most of the day, often digging holes (a Patterdale skill) and always staying along the fences with various dogs.
Inside she is just as lovable, but always quiet. She does not bark for food, but twirls, which is always funny. To go out, if she is on her bed (which I lease from her), she twirls, jumps down, twirls, jumps up, twirls, just to show her joy and make sure she is going out. In the kitchen, going out is signaled by a wagging tale, especially when she hears the chatter and woofs of her favorite male friends.
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Charlie, Dustmop, and Porchie worked together to create a tunnel under the fence. Dustmop crawled under both ways and my helper quickly put down a lot of chicken wire. Even then, Charlie tried to go under the wire, so more obstacles were place on the wire. Ever have a big bucket of useless rocks? I did and they now rest over one wire roofed tunnel. |
If the Doggie Day Car residents dare to challenge her, Charlie rushes over to sass them one and all. Sometimes that gets them so noisy that they are called into their quarters. However, the chief of staff has learned that all the yakking is part of racing the fence, Charlie teaching and coaching and yipping. I have even seen Charlie walk away when a DDC dog begs to run along the fence with her.
Charlie is the ultimate cuddler. She loves to hear what a special dog she is and how much her friends love her. She must store up her kisses by the 50s, because she never wants to stop. Charlie makes it clear how she wants petting and where she wants to lie on her bed. I made a square of MyPillows and covered them with a sturdy blanket, more of a square donut with an indentation in the middle.
We watch documentaries together and she rests her chin on my shoulder. Right now we are on the series Tea, One Cup, A Thousand Stories.
If I am immersed on the computer, she rests her chin on my knee. That can be a request for a treat or a trip outside. She is more likely to go outside in the dark if her boyfriends are making some noise. A "woof woof" is a clarion call for her. Above the low "woof" I often hear the chatter of Dustmop. They may be greeting human guests, but Charlie just has to see them one more time.
We have a lot of fun tossing her squawking plastic balls - about six of them. She will bring one back full speed and then will veer away to hide it. She often carries one to do a full circle, Indianapolis 500 style race with a big grin on her face. If I reach out to catch her, she runs even faster.
I noticed her stash of multiple toys in one place or another. The DDC dogs often have a pile of colored toys on the other side of Charlie's fence stash. Charlie picked the worst and most thorny rose she could find as her little safe.
LCMS Higher Education - The Drought - Just Like the ELS, WELS, and CLC (sic)
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| Jesuit Trained Dr. Erik P. Ankerberg, earned a PhD at Marquette University. |
Straddling two universities at once, did he expect things to go well?
The ninth president of CUW and seventh president of CUAA.
The professor they canned at Mequon also had a Jesuit PhD.
The reality of higher education is two-fold. One is that the bachelor's degree finally stopped being a requirement for a job. Twenty years ago, students at the University of Phoenix (now non-profit) told me of being refused an interview for a job if they did not already have a degree. So they signed up to finish a degree. Two - higher education kept increasing tuition and letting students borrow for a lifetime of paying the loan. Three - the potential population for higher education is shrinking. (I am not a math major.)
Ankerberg only recently became president of the Mequon-Ann Arbor twin schools. But wait - I remember when - "In 1982, the former campus of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Mequon, Wisconsin, was purchased and now has become the permanent home of CUW." I heard WELS was offered the white elephant and Missouri grabbed it. Did anyone realize the Church of Rome was dumping properties?
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| "Maybe if I established a new, radical look..." |
Most universities are in trouble now, because they have been increasing their tuition faster than the cost of living, back to the 1980s. I know only two universities who have not done that and are thriving. Did anyone think the online education shift would keep those lush, country club campuses flush with funds? They invested in online equipment too, but they lost the gusher of money that comes from charging big money for old dorms and stale, greasy food. One wealthy business man told me how college dorms are money-gushers for the school. "Get a rich guy to pay for the dorm and the college gets all that money free and clear. Or they use the cash to pay off the mortgage and soon run in the black."
All higher education entities are frantic to do things that will reverse the inevitable trends. WELS and the Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie (Bethany) have recently built sparkling gyms with enormous costs. Their two colleges are 34 miles apart. Bethany cut two academic areas to build their gym. Unsound minds in sound bodies.
The Great Depression of higher education jobs is shrinking faculties, and all those under-employed scholars are looking for replacement jobs.
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| Read more from the ALPB Online Forum Ovaltines. |
Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Lent 1 - "For here stands God’s Word, which says: “He cares for you;” and St. Paul in 1 Timothy 6:17: “God giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” and Matthew 6:33-34: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow.”
Complete Sermon -> Matthew 4:1-11.
Invocavit. First Sunday in Lent
INVOCAVIT. FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
10. Thirdly, behold how Christ resists this temptation of bread, and overcomes; he sees nothing but stones and what is uneatable, then he approaches and clings to the Word of God, strengthens himself by it and strikes the devil to the ground with it. This saying all Christians should lay hold of when they see that there is lack and want and everything has become stones, so that courage trembles, and they should say: What were it if the whole world were full of bread, still man does not live by bread alone, but more belongs to life, namely, the Word of God. The words, however, are so beautiful and powerful that we must not pass over them lightly, but carefully explain them.
11. These words Christ quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3, where Moses says: “Thy God humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live.”
That is as much as to say: Since God permits you to hunger and you still continue to live, you ought indeed to grasp the thought that God nourishes you without bread through his Word; for if you should live and sustain yourself by bread alone then you must continually be full of bread. But the Word, that nourishes us is, that he promises us and causes it to be published that he is our God and desires to be our God.
12. Thus now the meaning of Moses and of Christ is: Whoever has here God’s Word and believes, has both blessings; the first, where he is in want and has nothing, but must suffer hunger, that Word will sustain him, so that he will not die of hunger nor perish, just as well as if he had abundance to eat; for the Word he has in his heart nourishes and sustains him without eating and drinking. But has he little to eat, then a bite or slice of bread will feed and nourish him like a kingly meal; for not only bread but the Word of God also nourishes the body naturally, as it creates and upholds all things, Hebrews 1:3. The other blessing he will also enjoy, namely, that finally bread will surely be at hand, come whence it will, and should it rain from heaven like manna where none grows and none can grow. In these two thoughts every person can freely trust, namely, that he must in time of hunger receive bread or something to eat, or if not, then his hunger must become so moderate and bearable that it will nourish him even as well as bread does.
13. What has been said of eating and feeding the body should be understood also of drinking, clothing, house, and all our needs: namely that although he still permits us to become naked and suffer want for clothing, house etc., clothing must finally be at hand, and before it fails the leaves of the trees must become coats and mantles; or if not, then the coats and garments that we wear must never grow old; just as happened to the Children of Israel in the desert Deuteronomy 8:2-4, whose clothing and shoes never wore out. Likewise the wild wilderness must become their houses, and there must be a way where there is no way; and water, where there is no water; stones must become water. For here stands God’s Word, which says: “He cares for you;” and St. Paul in 1 Timothy 6:17: “God giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” and Matthew 6:33-34: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow.” These and like words must continue true and stand forever firm.
14. All this one may indeed learn from his own daily experiences. For it is held, and I almost believe it, that there are not as many sheaves of wheat grown as there are people living on the earth; but God daily blesses and increases the wheat in the sack, the flour in the tray, the bread on the table and in the mouth, as Christ did. John 6:12 f. It is also noticeable that as a rule poor people and their children are fatter and their food reaches farther and agrees with them better than is the case among the rich with all their provisions. However that the godless at times suffer need, or in times of famine many die of hunger, is caused by a special plague as pestilence, war etc. In other ways we see that in all things it is not the food, but the Word of God that nourishes every human being.
11. These words Christ quotes from Deuteronomy 8:3, where Moses says: “Thy God humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live.”
That is as much as to say: Since God permits you to hunger and you still continue to live, you ought indeed to grasp the thought that God nourishes you without bread through his Word; for if you should live and sustain yourself by bread alone then you must continually be full of bread. But the Word, that nourishes us is, that he promises us and causes it to be published that he is our God and desires to be our God.
12. Thus now the meaning of Moses and of Christ is: Whoever has here God’s Word and believes, has both blessings; the first, where he is in want and has nothing, but must suffer hunger, that Word will sustain him, so that he will not die of hunger nor perish, just as well as if he had abundance to eat; for the Word he has in his heart nourishes and sustains him without eating and drinking. But has he little to eat, then a bite or slice of bread will feed and nourish him like a kingly meal; for not only bread but the Word of God also nourishes the body naturally, as it creates and upholds all things, Hebrews 1:3. The other blessing he will also enjoy, namely, that finally bread will surely be at hand, come whence it will, and should it rain from heaven like manna where none grows and none can grow. In these two thoughts every person can freely trust, namely, that he must in time of hunger receive bread or something to eat, or if not, then his hunger must become so moderate and bearable that it will nourish him even as well as bread does.
13. What has been said of eating and feeding the body should be understood also of drinking, clothing, house, and all our needs: namely that although he still permits us to become naked and suffer want for clothing, house etc., clothing must finally be at hand, and before it fails the leaves of the trees must become coats and mantles; or if not, then the coats and garments that we wear must never grow old; just as happened to the Children of Israel in the desert Deuteronomy 8:2-4, whose clothing and shoes never wore out. Likewise the wild wilderness must become their houses, and there must be a way where there is no way; and water, where there is no water; stones must become water. For here stands God’s Word, which says: “He cares for you;” and St. Paul in 1 Timothy 6:17: “God giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” and Matthew 6:33-34: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow.” These and like words must continue true and stand forever firm.
14. All this one may indeed learn from his own daily experiences. For it is held, and I almost believe it, that there are not as many sheaves of wheat grown as there are people living on the earth; but God daily blesses and increases the wheat in the sack, the flour in the tray, the bread on the table and in the mouth, as Christ did. John 6:12 f. It is also noticeable that as a rule poor people and their children are fatter and their food reaches farther and agrees with them better than is the case among the rich with all their provisions. However that the godless at times suffer need, or in times of famine many die of hunger, is caused by a special plague as pestilence, war etc. In other ways we see that in all things it is not the food, but the Word of God that nourishes every human being.
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