First Semester Complete

I just thought I should mention that I successfully completed my first semester of graduate word at IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) in Library Science.

So, This is Christmas

I work in retail. I sell books. This will be my sixth Christmas season with the company I work for; I worked two or three other Christmases with other retail outfits. I love what I do. I love the activity and I sell something that I love: books. Everyday is different and I get a certain amount of joy out of getting the book into the customer's hand. Nine times out of ten the whole transaction is easy and friendly, that other one out of ten doesn't often cause me angst. Every once in a while some kook or somone who is having a horrible day and decides to take it out me will ruffle my feathers, but its not that big of a deal.

I must say that I have gotten a kick out of this little controversy over what to say to someone as they leave the store. There are some who say that in order to be "politically correct" we must say "Happy Holidays," then there are those who say that we should say "Merry Christmas." As a retail dawg I could really care less. I say thank you and take your money. I usually add a "have a nice day," or a "take care and drive safe." I just don't have time to wade into that controversy and I really don't care. My ambivalence to the whole thing is almost frightening to me, I suppose I should care, but I don't. The whole "merry Christmas v. happy holidays" brouhaha doesn't even register on the "is this pertinent to my salvation" scale. Its not, so I don't worry about it.

Since I work in book trade I see alot of crazy titles. Two of my favorite are fighting over Christmas. One comes from the "right" the other from the "left." Each one accuses the other of taking over Christmas. I'm happy to report that neither is selling very well. Thought, there is one book that has been flying off the shelves called Misquoting Jesus. I'm reading that right now myself. It is actually interesting. Thought, I'm afraid it is going to quickly go he route of "Jesus couldn't of said that!" which always drives me nuts. Right now, though the author is giving the history of how the Bible came to be what it is. I never realized it before, but it thought that most of the people during biblical times were illiterate, I guess in the back of my mind I knew that, but I never made connections. The basic premise behind the book, I think, is that through human error and political meddling the text of the scriptures has changed (that is either through hook or by crook it ain't what it was meant to be...) I shall be interested to see what his conclusions are, that is if it keeps my interest. We shall see.

Tonight, as I was driving home from work I was listening to NPR and they had a story about "megachurches" being closed on Christmas day which to me seems like a contradiction and falls squarely in my "is the pertinent to my salvation" radar. Bunny Diehl has some thoughts this. You can read them here and here. One of my favorite bloggers (hat You Do, Do Quickly) has some thoughts on this issue too.

Here's what I think: there should be a church service on Christmas Day. I can remember having a service on Christmas Day and the almost literally the only people there were the pastor (my father, generally), my mother, me, and the organist. But the option was there, there were others there, but it was not the best attended service, but I still think it is important to have a service on Christmas Day. It doesn't have to be a fancy, bring down the house service (I've experienced those, usually on Christmas Eve and they are fun, but can be very distracting and too showy) but something quiet and meditative. I have always thought that a Christmas Day service can be the first subtle Lenten service.

Blessings to all.

Nania Vortex Has Sucked Me In, Sort Of

Today, before church I sat down in the living and read the newest Lutheran Witness. In the newest issue there is an article about The Chronicles of Narnia movie that was just released this past friday. Now, before I go to much further I have something to admit: I am 31 years old and I have never read the the Narnia Series. As a matter of fact I don't think I'd even heard of it until just a few short years ago. I wasn't as keenly aware of books as a kid as I am now (much to my detriment, I know. I hadn't read the Lord of the Rings series until about three years ago). I've digressed too far... let me get back on track...

I was reluctant to read the series mainly because there has been such a rumbling about it from the Christian "right" and the evangelicals that seem to be all powerful as of late. From what I could gather Narnia was a repackaged gospel with Christ as a Lion, a talking lion at that. I wasn't interested. Matter of fact, I was pretty much going out of my way NOT to read the series and I was NOT going to see the movie. It looked too much like the LOTR movies, but after reading the Lutheran Witness article I found myself changing my tune. I thought the article was a very well written and insightful piece. The article said that the series is a kid's story first and foremost and if you really want to find gospel-esque overtones you can find them, but they aren't busting you over the head.

Then in church Pastor Y took the opportunity to tie the movie release into his sermon. After church my parents and I went to Barnes & Noble because I wanted to pick up this DVD that I had had on hold for the last two weeks. While I was there I found and purchased a small box set of the mass market paperbacks of the Narnia series.

So, did I cave into popculture and hop on the band wagon? I don't know, maybe, but I think it is important to be able follow along with what's going on right now and Narnia is hot right now. When Mel Gibson's snuff film The Passion came out I saw it the only reason I saw it was I got a free ticket from somewhere-- I think my dad bought me the ticket... whatever-- that is three hours of life I'll never reclaim... dah! Me and digression tonight...

Anyway, I bought the set and I started reading the first book (The Magician's Nephew). I'm about 50 pages into it-- its not bad, I've found myself wondering where its going already and that's a good thing because I have six more books to go after that one!

A Question for the Preachermans Out There

The main I never got any further than two quarters into my "seminary career" was the language requirements. Greek was an absolute mystery to me. I was lost pretty much for the get go, Hebrew, on the other hand, was a bit different. For some reason it "clicked" all of a sudden and I just "got it." I mean I could look at a verb and parse it nothing flat, the only problem was that I didn't "get it" soon enough. Hebrew is the only language that I actually felt comfortabe with. I really, really liked learning it.

I found out that I had been "removed" from seminary because my church at the time recieved a letter from the financial aide office telling them, the church, that they, the seminary fin. aide off., was returning the money my church had sent them for my education (I went to seminary for free, basically). I never got a note from any one. Oh, and the best thing was that the letter the church received was FULL of type-oh's.

But that is really neither here nor there. The reason I opened this post with that story is because even though I had a horrible time with the languages the sem made a believer out of me in regards to the validity of having a "working" knowledge of the original languages the scriptres were written in. I do believe that it is important. Now, I still remember a little Greek, I remember more Hebrew, but sometimes if I've been reading a scripture verse or hear one that strikes me as interesting I will go back and muddle my way through a bad translation from my Nestle Greek NT.

The other day, okay, last week, when I last read my Bible, I started in on 2 Corinthians. And chapter 1 verse 5 really got me thinking. It says "For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows." Now, I was an English/Education major in college (I got halfway through my student teaching and a mini-nervous breakdown-- not pretty) and because of this eduation I received I find myself often looking at language in different ways. I latched on to the phrases "flow over" and "overflows." And I began to look at them, turning the phrases this way and that. What I want to know, if any of the preachermans out there are still fluent in their Greek is how does that verse translate? Are the words for "overflow" and "flows over" the same word or different? What do they mean in the Greek. This could be a whole lot of nothing, but it seems like it could be important, too.

Could ya help a brother out?

How I Feel

Sometimes, I wish I was a better Lutheran. Today, for example, I got out of bed and didn't go to church, I watched a little of it on tv, though (there is a Lutheran television service that comes from Ft. Wayne... its actually a really good one, too, good liturgy and everything....) but I didn't watch it all. It was cold this morning when I got out of bed and it was icey, but it wasn't so cold or icey that I couldn't go to church. This was the second Sunday, so that means that it was a "contemporary service" or do they call it a "celebration service" either way, when I realized that I really didn't want to go. I worked last night, but they let me come home early because the weather was... "unpleasant" sleet and freezing rain, I had to chip away the ice on my windows so I could drive. These are all excuses, aren't they? See, I'm no good. Nope, not me, no good Lutheran right over here. *points to self* I'm in the corner the one that says "hellbound" over head. That's me, I just wish I had my handbasket, that might make the descent that much easier. *waves* hello everyone, right here. Yeah, me. Wait, this corner is awfully full, no wonder there isn't any handbaskets all the other bad Lutherans have them, that's not fair. Oh, wait, what's this... hmm, these words... funny I seem to remember these, I've heard them somewhere before... maybe it was in a church, I dunno... but they sure sound familiar... strange, they make sense.... okay, okay, I'll do better next time. I'm human. I'm sinful and I'm in the corner... but these words... I like them

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

-- Rom. 3:22-26

Lutheran Carnival XII

Who is that guy on the left? He is my "church father" as well as my biologial father. That is a picture of him shortly after his ordination back in 1962. My father, Ernest G. Lindner was born in 1937 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, was a tug boat engineer and his mother a house wife. The words "Brooklyn" and "Lutheran" really don't go together all that well, but my father has been a livelong Lutheran. His pastor was Rev. Scaer (the father and grandfather of the Ft. Wayne Scaers), he graduated from Brooklyn College at the age of 20. He graduated from Concordia Seminary in Springfield, Illinois in 1962, his first call was in a small town (aren't they all small towns) in South Dakota. He served ther for ten years before being called the New Jersey where he met my mom and I was born. He served in the parish ministry for 40 years. In addition to serving in New Jersey, he has had churches in Virginia, New York, and Maryland. Before he retired he was a chaplain for the Bethesda Homes and Services he brought the Gospel to a group of people that needed to hear just as much as any one else: the mentally handicapped. Today, he is happily retired.

So, that's my church father for the week.

It was a light week for Carnival submissions I didn't really mind, though, I have football games to watch and school work to do.

Well, as Larry the Cableguy sez: let's "git-r-done."

Dan over at Necessary Roughness sent in this post. He describes it this way:

Responding to a question in one of his comments, "is there truly a
Christian religion follows Biblical teaching?", Dan at Necessary
Roughness examines willful deviance from Biblical teaching and compares
it with simple Biblical error. He also examines the consequences of a
particular error in Biblical teaching, the denial of infant baptism. He
also enforces why it matters to teach proper doctrine.

Right on, Dan.

From the Casa de Terr'ble Swede comes this submission (Thanks to Da Mizzuz Terr'ble Swede for this post). She writes that private confession is a good thing for Lutherans. And after reading her post I must say that I agree with her. I used think that was "too Catholic," but what do you know, she convinced me. Nice, job. I would like to note that Mssr. Swede did not send a submission (yes, I believe in guilt... lol)

Ye olde Aardvark weighs in with this submission. It seems Missouri has: "designed to expand in-state stem cell research and dumb down the definition of cloning..." go check it out. He also sends another
post regarding Kanasas State's football program.

Rev. Snyder sent in this post about the beginning of Advent, great post. Then he sent us this post about the "water from the rock" that we read in Numbers 20.

Here's an interesting post from the Unkown Lutheran Blogger over at What You Do Quickly. He writes about Lutheran Pastors forgetting the cross in their sermons, my friends, that's bad. That's not good at all. If one forget the cross, there isn't much to look to, is there? (Sorry, about the editorial comment). If nothing else, just go read What You Do Do Quickly. Just a great blog.

Rev. Stiegmeyer, who writes Burr in the Burgh has some things to say about the Christmas Season, I wish I had written this one. I wish I had written this one, too. Why is it that we can't have Christmas? I don't want to say "Happy Holidays." Here, here, Rev. Stiegmeyer... here, here.

Miss Sherrah Holobaugh wrote about how she was upset by a sermon her pastor gave "pledge Sunday" a couple Sundays ago. She asks the question "how do you quantify faith, anyways?" According her pastor it seems by what you put in the collection plate.

I give you two posts. The first one deals with some of the struggles I had in my past. The second post deals with thought that were generated from the first post as I read my bible study that evening.

Then, there's Jim. I worked with him when I was a counselor and lifeguard and basic "get-in-the-way-guy." I just thought I should add this post if for no other reason than I really like politics and I do enjoy a good beer every now and again.

And finally, Teresa who writes Be Strong in Grace writes about God's beauty in the Creation in the newly arrived Minnesota Winter.

So, there you have it. A rather short Carnival, but that's okay.

I pray the Lord's blessings on all of you during this Advent season. Oh, one more thing... Merry Christmas and may you have Mas Christ the days and weeks up the great Holiday...

Peace.

p.s. Oh, feel free to go bug Dan Random Thoughts. You know, seeing how he'd the "pappa" of the Carnival... he didn't send any submissions... haha

A Letter of Encouragement I Got From an Editor Friend of Mine Re: My Poems

Click on the pic to make it bigger, that way you can read it, I think....