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| Michael Faraday got the cage name and Franklin got the stove title, but Faraday got the microwave, the ultimate honor - for the time being. |
One version of the story has Michael Faraday showing his induction coil to Queen Victoria.
"What good is that?" she asked.
"What good is a baby?" he answered.
The story is told in Riders of the North Star, about the the beginnings of the Swedish Augustana Synod, and it is also attributed to Benjamin Franklin. I wonder if anyone imagined we would have a Faraday Cage in most homes in America. Microwave ovens have a grid that keeps radiation from coming out of the device.
Christina, her sister Maria, and I knew Augustana people who went back to the early days of the synod and college. Esther Andreen Albrecht was born at Yale University, where her father was head of Scandinavian languages, and Conrad Bergendoff became the president of Augustana College and Seminary (1935-1962), after Gustav Andreen retired as president 1901 -1935.
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| Christina and her sister Maria lived in Andreen Dormitory. |
Historic trends are like gardens, where mistakes and shortcomings leave their mark. I planted a few blackberry canes and ended up with jungle of them, two canes conveniently planting themselves into hanging pots of soil left on the ground. The opportunistic and aggressive canes bent toward the fresh soil and rooted there, as a sign and a threat.
Augustana College let the weeds take over, giving up their seminary for a bowl of soup - a token merger in the Lutheran School of Radical Theology, Chicago, now almost dead.
Augustana College room, board, and tuition is now $55,000 a year.
The LCMS and WELS once taught Justification by Faith and used the King James Version of the Bible, but the weeds of Enthusiasm were sown and nurtured. Today there is little difference between the so-called conservative (laughably "orthodox") Lutheran groups and ELCA (Every Left-wing Cause in America). They work together as a group, harnessed by the money power of Thrivent Insurance and the booty of Irrevocable Charitable Trusts.
People think it is odd that I plant roses and bulbs in rented land, but everything is rented. We pay our fees and get to use possessions for a time. The anonymous landlord got a renter who wanted to improve the yard rather than let the weeds grow skyward. The only lasting treasures are the Gospel, faith in Jesus Christ, and the hymns guiding and teaching us.
