Fun Sidelights at the Creation Garden

 Feeding birds has its limits.

Sassy insists on going outside, front-yard, where she sits down in the garden and guards against any threats.

Today I was sitting on the porch, looking over the Rose Garden, when a bird flew in and landed momentarily on my leg. I was startled and made a noise, so it took off. I was flattered. 

In the backyard I filled one kiddie pool with fresh water, a few inches, so birds could perch, bathe, and horse around. Starlings are the best at that. They rest on the flimsy plastic edge, dip their beaks for some water, then jump in to splash around. Bathing and preening are essential for bird flight, and starlings make a great game of it.

I flipped the other kiddie pool over to provide an above the ground feeding tray, large and clean.

These are not the blow-up kind, but the thin plastic ones that sell for a few dollars at the end of summer. That is also the best time to buy bird baths for almost nothing, especially the heavy concrete ones.

Pastoral Shortage in ELCA

 

ELCA faces criticism for posting prayer to 'Mother God' on Facebook, Twitter 

This is normally called a thesis without a warrant - no reason given for the declaration.

Evangelical Lutheran Church short ‘at least 600’ pastors as many step away from ministry amid pandemic

Since their former Pastor Darren Paulson resigned last September as the COVID-19 pandemic raged into its second year, congregants of Atonement Lutheran Church in Billing Heights, Montana, have been waiting patiently for their local synod to replace him.

With a national shortage of “at least 600” pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America under which the Atonement Lutheran Church operates, according to lay leader Kristin LaVe, it might be some time before their wait for a new pastor is over.

Laurie Jungling, the ELCA’s bishop for Montana who has filled in as a preacher at Atonement Lutheran Church, told The Wall Street Journal in February that the departure of pastors from their pulpits started accelerating in the summer of 2020.

“Pastors are tired,” she said. “They’re giving a lot of themselves to help folks deal with the trauma of the pandemic. They’ve had to face polarization in their own congregations, people’s anger and frustration about masks and vaccines, whether to have worship or not.”

 Anders danced at a chapel at Luther Seminary, the campus selling off land to stay solvent - like Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Seminary friends hooted and clapped during the performance, posted on Facebook.