From the above expression of surprise or annoyance, to ‘speak of the devil’, to ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’, to ‘the devil made me do it’, and more, the devil gets a lot of airtime. Below was published in the November 2024 Harper’s. Are they aghast at this? I think not. I think this is in-your-face Christians, see what your religion-mongering has gotten you! Continue reading
State of the Arts
I don’t know whether or not to recommend State of the Arts, a 1991 book by Gene Veith. I’m not an artist. I appreciate art, but his book exposes the limited validity of thinking “I know what I like” is a critique of art. This being said, I did learn two important points from it. One how to read the Song of Songs and definitively why rap, doctrinally accurate or not, has no place in the Divine Service, liturgy, and worship. And no, that is not just my subjective opinion that is an objective fact as Veith shows. Continue reading
Posted in Contemporary Worship, Families
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From Luxury to Necessity and Then What?
Getting rid of our landline was one of the most liberating, yet disorienting things, and then it became a necessity. No more was there a limited location for connecting to the umbilical cord of modern society. With a cell phone, you’re always attached. But it’s not my fault… Continue reading
Posted in Big Tech Big Lie or Promise?
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Is Lust Sin or Not?
Rome would say it’s the tinder for sin, but not sin in and of itself, so go ahead and book a cruise on the Lust Boat. No harm; no foul, right? Wrong. It is sin, but then we have the curious case of Luther’s Explanation to the 6th Commandment: “We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.”
Why aren’t we told to lead a sexually pure and decent life ins what we say, do, and think? I think it’s because of the nature of sin and is informed by what sins Luther would leave out of the confessional. Curious? Read on. Continue reading
Posted in Families, Missouri Megatrends
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Fire and Rain
Nope. This isn’t about James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”. That song maps the ups and downs of his life over about two years. A girl he knew who committed suicide, his career spiraled by drug addiction, and his recovery from that in a mental hospital (songfacts.com). This isn’t about that song but about my raining on The Fire and the Staff by Klemet Preus. Continue reading
Posted in For Pastors Only
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Bonus Blog – Sermon for St. Michael And All Angels, September 29
This was originally written and preached by me 29 years ago. I left it unchanged except for 2021 Word finding misspellings that apparently 1996 Word Perfect could not. Continue reading
Posted in Sermons
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DIY Thanksgiving and Forgiving
“Today’s Focus Give Thanks to the Lord” was the printed theme for this Thanksgiving service. The subtitle could’ve been “and you can do it if you try really hard”. This is my fourth visit to a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod church and my second to Holy Word, Austin. I’ve tried hard to like them, to accept them as Confessional Lutherans attempting to cross the barrier between churched and unchurched. Continue reading
Posted in Ablaze, Contemporary Worship
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Burr Under My Saddle
I don’t know who first referred to having a “burr under my saddle”, and the fact I studiously avoided looking it up while some won’t be able not to is proof of my pudding. (I forbore to look that up too, and the fact that I had to “forebear” as opposed to “chose not to” is further proof). Of what? Continue reading
Posted in Big Tech Big Lie or Promise?, For Anyone who dares
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Going Digitally Deaf
As “Tiresias instructs Odysseus that, before he can go home, he must take his oar and walk inland until someone mistakes it for a winnowing fan—a tool for winnowing grain—and asks him what it is. In other words, as soon as he’s gone to a place where people don’t know what an oar is, then he’s gone far enough” (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/05). This is interpreted as Odysseus needing to make one last sacrifice to the gods to make amends. I would do this with a smartphone, not to make a sacrifice to the true God but to show there is no place that a person will not know what a smart phone is.
On vicarage, I preached at Jesus Lutheran Church of the Deaf in Austin, Texas. Till then, I didn’t realize how isolated deaf people are much more so than blind people. With age, I’ve discovered how isolated just being hard of hearing can make you. They warn you about this.
“They” being old people doctors and agencies. As we start to lose our hearing, we have people repeat things. Then, since you can only say “what” so many times, you start pretending like you heard what they said. This will progress so that you’re missing so much of what’s really being said that people will stop talking to you. Your bubble of people grows smaller and smaller. “They” say this creeping isolating and cutting off can lead to dementia.
I don’t know about that. I do know that I am hard of hearing digitally speaking. I’m only finding out piecemeal just how isolated I’ve become. Books I’m listening to while I walk are usually nonfiction. Lost in the Valley of Death is about the gone-missing internet phenome, Justin Alexander. Never heard of him. I heard on sports radio the sportscaster use this phrase: “He was like a weasel on a woodpecker. That’s real thing. Look it up.” Continue reading
Posted in Big Tech Big Lie or Promise?
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Only a Wizard Could Do This
Posted in General
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