Letters On The Page

Lende, Heather.   Find the good: Unexpected life lessons from a small-town obituary writer . Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2015.   A positive, upbeat, delightful read.  Heather lives with her family in isolated and remote Haines, Alaska. Haines has a population of two thousand.  Heather has for years served as the obituary writer for the local newspaper.  In this book we learn of her special way of interacting with the family of the deceased and what she hopes to convey through the written remembrances of community members.  In a town of two thousand, she may not know everyone personally, but chances are that she has met them or their family and friends at some point.  There are not many degrees of separation in a town of that size.  If nothing else, she probably has heard of them. Whether the stories or information she has heard is accurate in entirely different matter altogether, but there is a closeness in a small tow...

The July/August 2023 issue of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity arrived recently and is filled with the usual high quality, thoughtful, informative articles that it always brings.  One brief article has me thinking about future wedding gifts to the newly married.  In an article entitled Homeward Bound Books, Just Hall explains why he purchased these particular twenty books for a newlywed.  Giving books for newlyweds? While I think books are appropriate for all occasions, celebratory or not, I had not thought of giving books to newlyweds. In my experience, books are never on the wedding register for suggested gifts.  Mr. Hall begins his article with this explanation.   “I recently gave a friend a wedding gift of twenty books as a cultural contribution to his new home and personal library.  I wrote a letter explaining why I chose them.  What follows is an edited version of the letter.”  The books he gave cover the ...

 I was asked to teach the youth Sunday School this morning.  I continued the lesson which was being used.  The teacher is using the video This Changed Everything to introduce students to the Reformation.  Today's segment focused on Luther and Zwingli.  At the conclusion of the class I read them the summary statement that Luther and Zwingli signed at the conclusion of the Marburg Castle Colloquy concerning their agreements and disagreement.  First the Video, then a link to the article which has the summary statement in the appendix.  Good class with good comments and questions. Marburg Colloquy: A Textual Study

 

I had a longer than expected period of unemployment from January 27-May 15.  About January 29, I decided that in between filling out job applications and engaging in job interviews, I would restart my interest in learning the Latin language.  I have started and stopped a few times over the last few decades, but wanted to give it another try.  I am not a natural born linguist, so this is not easy work for me.   I remember from previous language study periods that when I study a language, that is all I am thinking about at that particular moment.  Whatever overwhelming concerns or issues I may be having on that day, quickly dissipate during the course of my study period. And, when I am done? Things seem a bit more manageable.   Now that I am employed, I continue with my Latin language study.  On January 23, 2023, the WSJ published a delightful little essay in their regular Friday "Houses of Worship" column on the Latin Language.   The Guiding Light ...

One of the several requirements of school and church in the 1970's and early 80's that I did not appreciate then, but sure do now, is the focus on memorization.  We did have to memorize dates and some basic lines of literature for school. But, in church, we had to memorize Scripture passages and the Small Catechism.   I was ordained in 1994 and endured a steady resistance to memory work from both kids and parents throughout my ministry.  The lone exceptions were my first congregation, Faith Lutheran in Sagerton, Tx (1994-1999) and my brief service as interim Pastor of Emmaus Lutheran Church, South Bend, IN (September 2022-January 26, 2023).    There were a variety of excuses ranging from there is no time to it's not that important. I discerned that the real reason for the resistance was not just human sloth but because the schools that the kids were going to no longer required memory work.  Historical dates were not even required anymore.   So, in the ...

Towles, Amor.   A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel . Penguin Books, 2016.   Count Alexander Rostov loves his country and he refused to flee to Paris as so many did during and after the Bolshevik revolution. In 1922, the law caught up with him and correctly identified him as an unrepentant aristocrat. Someone must have liked him or his family's service to the country because he was neither shot nor incarcerated. As he had already been staying at the grand hotel, the Metropol, in Moscow, he was sentenced to remain in the hotel for the rest of his life. If he left the hotel for any reason he would be shot on sight.   Thus begins decades of living in and eventually working in the Metropol. His life was not dull before his confinement and it certainly was not dull afterward. His circumstances provided him with the opportunity to read all the books that he had intended to read. He was befriended by many, including a young girl who would eventually grow up, marry, produce a daughter...