Letters On The Page

Jacobs, Alan.   How to think: A survival guide for a world at odds . New York: Currency, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017.   This is the second in what became a trilogy of essays. The first was  Reading in an Age of  Distraction  and the third is  Breaking Bread with the Dead . All three books are delightful, thoughtful, essays that offer insight into the significance of literature, reading, and thinking, for communicating with fellow human beings in a civil, responsible, and respectful manner. Jacobs believes that people with different opinions can and ought to converse with one another. But, how to get past the rightness and intensity of our own opinions? Jacobs has some thoughts on how this can happen and a large part of it lies in being willing to learn how it is that we truly think.    Jacobs begins with two people who were convinced of their opinions about the rightness of their own perce...

Simeon the God Receiver by Alexey Yegorov, Public Domain Video of Sunday Matins at St. Luke, Rensselaer 2024 Christmas 1        Exodus 13:1-3a, 11-15           Colossians 3:12-17                 Luke 2:22-40 Transition Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.  A couple of years ago I subscribed to the free version of an electronic newsletter. About this time of year, all of us get a note from the editor encouraging us to move from “free” version to the “paid” version which offers more. This year the chief editor noted that this is his ten-year anniversary of serving at the newsletter. In his attempt to persuade us to enter “paid” status, he notes a number of things have occurred and changed in our American culture in that last ten years.  Jake Meador writes, ...

Thanks for the image Pixabay!                               What to read in 2025?      I was reminded last night of this wonderful essay by Prof. Jessica Hooten Wilson about essential reads:  Ten Books You Need to Read Before You Graduate College .  I am sorry to say that I somehow graduated from College without having read most of these particular books. I read lots of other books. By books, I mean, whole books, cover to cover. But, just not most of these.  Thankfully, I became acquainted with Dante and Milton while in seminary, but I have not yet read their famous texts cover to cover. Perhaps this is the year? I did read Augustine's Confessions. I have read it twice since then. I have dipped into Hopkins' poetry numerous times over the years. I am halfway through the Aeneid (Fagles translation). I have read a number of O'Connor's short stories.  Now that I have re-read ...

  In my November 28 blog post I reviewed a helpful book by Professors Merkle and Plummer called Greek for Life: Strategies for learning, Retaining, and Reviving New Testament Greek .  Merkle and Plummer are also part of an online learning organization called Daily Dose. The Daily Dose refers to a two-minute video that explicates a Biblical text, one verse at a time.  There are three daily doses. They are free. They are worth your time to investigate. Even if you have no language background, this is worth your time, because in the parsing of the verses, one gains a deeper, richer understanding of God's Word.  I subscribe to the Daily Dose of Latin and the Daily Dose of Greek.  As the new calendar year begins and you contemplate what new things you want to focus on for spiritual and mental development, this is a worthy use of 2, 4, or 6 minutes a day. Should you want dive deeper, there is information about the myriad online choices that you have before you through...

Christmas Day               Isaiah 52:7-10             Hebrews 1:1-12           John 1:1-18 Let the words of my lips and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. There are many sentiments and slogans that float around during the holiday season. Many are cute, some are schmaltzy, others we could do without. But, one thing that is for certain, many of us feel a great desire to be generous with financial and material gifts that we do not act upon during the rest of the year. Those who look upon the homeless with suspicion and fear in July, will mysteriously send a big check to the local homeless shelter. From Thanksgiving through Christmas, people purchase toys for strangers, send money and food to food pantries, and give support in many other different ways to lots of helping organiza...

   Lessons and Carols at St. Luke, Rensselaer   Christmas Eve                Luke 2:1-20                   Song of Angels One of the great pleasures of life is to listen to the music of songbirds. Some birds seem to have only one song to sing. Others have different songs for different occasions. The birds have provided entertainment to humans long before we learned how to make musical instruments. As enjoyable as listening to the birds are, I have a certain sadness that birds cannot tell stories about all the things that they witness from their bird’s eye view of the world. Nor can they pass their new songs down through generations to come so that there is corpus of stories to tell. If not for entertainment’s sake, at least for the purpose of teaching wisdom.  Well, birds can’t do that, but huma...

Image address              Divine Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer Fourth Sunday in Advent         Micah 5:2-5a                  Hebrews 10:5-10    Luke 1:39-56 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.  The Church has created a number of ways to draw our attention away from the pressing concerns of work, community, and family for a brief time so that we can focus on the coming celebration of our Lord’s Incarnation. One of those ways is the lighting of the Advent candles. There are four Sundays in Advent. In years past, the candles were purple in order to emphasize the penitential nature of the season. These days, they are blue to emphasize the sense of hope that the season of Advent conveys. In addition to reflecting upon sinful thoughts, w...

Cal Newport. Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout . Portfolio/Penguin, 2024.  Newport continues a trajectory of thought about doing good, focused, and meaningful work that is present in his previous books: Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and A World Without Email. His intended audience are knowledge workers who have some autonomy and need creativity in order to flourish. Newport consistently argues that it is indeed possible to organize one's work life in such a way as to not be carried away by pseudo-busyness and distractions. His books put the brakes on the notion that one must always be "available" and that the fast turn around is the best response to requests. Newport helps the reader identify unproductive "distractions" and habits that inhibit good, creative work.  I hope that knowledge work managers read this book and begin to implement different management techniques for their employees. Workers who are constantly harassed with...

Mother of Perpetual Help               Vespers at St. Luke, Rensselaer 2024 Third Midweek in Advent        Luke 1:46-55   Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Mary was correct when she predicted, “ For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed .” Many Christians regularly remember and recite her cousin Elizabeth’s Holy Spirit led declaration. “ Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb .” Even if we do not regular recite that Bible verse, Christians certainly agree with her statement. What a privilege to be the mother of God! As it has come to pass, we do remember Mary with high regard. We cannot speak of Jesus without also remembering Mary. For example, in the second articles of both the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, we confess explicitly that Jesus is born of the virgin Mary. The Ath...

The O-antiphons are used in the Vesper liturgy from December 17-23. These antiphons are familiar to us through the Advent hymn: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel . Each O-antiphon focuses on a Scriptural title for Christ Jesus found in Isaiah.  Wisdom - Isaiah 11:2-3  O Lord of Might - Isaiah 11:4-5 O Root/Branch/Rod of Jesse - Isaiah 11:1 & 10 O Key of David - Isaiah 22:22 O Dayspring - Isaiah 9:2 O Desire of the Nations/King of Gentiles - Isaiah 2:4; 9:6; 11:10-12 O Emmanuel - Isaiah 7:14 "The basic progression of themes can be understood this way: The framer of the Universe (Wisdom) Who gave the Law (Adonai) promised through David’s throne (Radix Jesse) to set free the captives of sin (Clavis David) and bring the Light of salvation to dawn (Oriens) not only on His chosen people but all nations (Rex Gentium) and dwell with us as one of us eternally (Emmanuel)."   https://steadfastlutherans.org/blog/2013/12/the-o-antiphons/ Here is a helpful Lutheran explanation Click here fo...

Image address        Divine Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer   Third Sunday in Advent         Zephaniah 3:14-20  Philippians 4:4-7    Luke 7:18-35 Are you the one? Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.  From his imprisonment, John the Baptist sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask a single question:  Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?  For those of us who are familiar with the background story of John the Baptist and Jesus, we may find the question rather odd. They are related. Their respective mothers are cousins. After Mary became pregnant she went to stay with Elizabeth for a time. We are told in Luke’s Gospel that John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb when Mary arrived.  As adults John and Jesus knew each other. In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, John the Baptist poi...