Not A Coincidence

The ELCA is meeting for convention in Minnesota. It is a matter of profound sadness that this ecclesiastical body has decided to overturn God's teachings on marriage and sexuality. However, just as the convention was preparing to vote, and just as one of their large churches was preparing to host a service in support of this apostasy, a tornado hit. Yes, a tornado hit. The church in question was damaged, and the ELCA convention center was hit. Nobody was injured, but it does look to me like God, who had been denied a vote, cast one anyway.

Win With Wilkie

Last summer I started scanning old and not so old family pictures. I never knew my Uncle Edward, as he died in 1941, 17 years before I was born. He was deaf, and died at age 27 in a TB sanitarium, so I was told. My father only told me little bits and pieces of his family history, doubtless because I didn't much ask about it. Dad died in 1990, and all his siblings are gone, too. So any family history will have to be learned through detective work.

I was struck by this photo of Uncle Ed. Nobody in my family owned a decent camera back in the day, and I suspect this picture was taken with a cheap Brownie. It looks like it is probably the last photo ever taken of him as he's in what looks like a hospital robe. That would be consistent with being in a sanitarium. I wondered about the "W" on the robe and his 'thumb's up' pose. Was that "W" the initial of the Sanitarium, by chance? Maybe I could locate a sanitarium in Brooklyn, NY with a "W" in it's name if I did an internet search.

With the mystery of the "W" in my mind, I decided to scan the picture at very high resolution. Once I got the picture on the computer, and I could enlarge it, it looked to me like Uncle Ed was wearing political buttons in the shape of a "W". That could only mean one thing. This picture was taken before the 1940 Presidential Election in November, and Uncle Ed was supporting Wendell Wilkie, not a third term for FDR.

The things one discovers when going through old photo albums.

My Legacy Remains

My wife and daughters took a little vacation in Indiana at the request of daughter Jennifer. She wanted to see the hometown of the actor James Dean. On the way home, Brooke and I decided we'd like to drive through our former home in Decatur. Amazingly, our name is still on the mailbox, reminding everyone who drives past who once occupied the Immanuel Lutheran Church teacherage. This fall marks 20 years since we moved away from Decatur for me to begin my pastoral ministry, so it was nice to make a quick drive through.

Proper Lutheran Vacation Accomodations

On a brief vacation trip in Indiana, we stayed in a dorm at the Seminary. We just spent the night, but before turning in, we took a little walk around the campus. Brought back a lot of wonderful memories. I never had to live in the dorms, but now I can say I at least stayed in one.

The Lutheran Study Bible

Synodical Restructuring

I tried reading through the proposals this "blue ribbon" commission is making to restructure the corporate synod. I quickly lost interest in further reading. Perhaps the following pictures will illustrate my opinion.

The synod currently looks like this.













As I see it, the blue ribbon commission wants to make the synod look like this:

New Project - Basement Waterproofing

These pictures serve as a record of our recent waterproofing project from June 2-5, 2008. All American Basement Waterproofing of Wadsworth, Ohio did the work, and I was impressed by their diligence. They stayed on the job until finished.

This basement serves as our preschool, and is in the original 1953 building. Good drainage was not designed into the plan, so we have had frequent flooding problems over the years. Not good in a carpeted preschool area. These pictures show how the job was done.

The jackhammers drilled about a foot around the outside walls, source of the leaking. Hand digging would be done to provide space to lay a gravel bed and perforated PVC pipe.






Next, holes were drilled at the base of the digging. This will permit the water that normally builds up outside to come into this new drainage area and into the perforated pipe.
















These two pictures above show the plastic sheeting that covered the drainage holes and the course of the pipe which will take the water into a sump in the stairwell.


The picture to the left shows the sump in the stairwell next to the preschool room. Water from all the pipes drain into this plastic tub. The pump is placed into the tub to send the water up a few feet into the outside rain gutter system.

In the event that a heavy storm knocks out electrical power, the pump has a battery backup as you can see to the left.











Finally, the water is pumped up and outside. The thinner pipes come from the sump, and are joined to the larger rainwater downspout system.

Complaint Department is Open Again

This is where synod's mission money is going? These billboards mock things sacred. "Jefferson Hills Church" (in the St.Louis area) is being subsidized by the synod. Most recently it received $25,000, even though it only meets in a school gym. Four billboards are expensive.

Recommended Reading

Six Frigates, by Ian Toll, is one of the finest books I've read. Toll has done masterful research on the founding of the US Navy. He writes in an interesting and engaging style that keeps the reader's attention. I served on a submarine, so anything related to life in the surface navy, much less an 18th century sailing ship, is something to which I can't relate. Toll's descriptive writing helped me relate.

Life in the old Navy was awful for an enlisted sailor. A major reason for the War of 1812 was "Impressment." The Royal Navy treated their sailors like animals. Cruel captains had sailors flogged nearly to death for the slightest infractions. They were lucky to get paid on time, if at all. Desertions were such a problem that the RN resorted to "impressement" - illegally boarding merchantmen and warships of other nations and kidnapping any sailor they thought, rightly or wrongly, was an RN deserter. (The worst thing that ever happened to me was six hours of bilge cleaning , but the less said about that the better).

I don't think you will find a better one volume layman's treatment of the US Navy's early history. Toll discusses the Quasi War with France - The Barbary Wars, The War of 1812, life at sea, and, interestingly enough; dueling. This was the leading cause of death for young officers in those days.

What makes this book very relevant is the extensive treatment of the Barbary Wars. The Islamic states in North Africa practiced piracy - an early form of terrorism. They took hostages, demanded tribute, practiced the Islamic doctrine of Dhimitude, the placing of non-muslims into subservience to their masters, legally and socially inferior. Little more than slaves.

Because the United States did not have a navy, Presidents Washington, Adams, and for a time, Jefferson were forced to pay tribute to the Barbary Pirate States. In today's lingo, the pirates were running a protection racket. They extorted hundreds of thousands of dollars per year from the USA in exchange for their promise not to attack our merchant fleets plying the Mediterrannean Sea. Toll tells of one humulating experience where Captain William Bainbridge was delivering the year's tribute to Algiers. When he arrived, the Dey of Algiers demanded he provide passage to him, his court, and dozens of animals to Ottoman Turkey. The Dey explained: "You pay me tribute. This makes you my slaves." Bainbridge had no alternative except to comply.

Even George Washington, the hero of the revolution, was powerless in the face of the pirates. It was far cheaper to pay tribute than raise tens of millions of unavailable dollars to build a Navy. Washington knew this, and so did the pirates.

The pro-Navy Federalists managed to get funding to build six frigates, which included the USS Constitution, still in commission today. The Anti-Navy Republicans, lead by Thomas Jefferson were finally left with no recourse in the face of increasing Barbary demands, except to build up the Navy and send it "to the shores of Tripoli". The rallying cry became: "Millions for defense, but not a penny for tribute!"

With our ongoing war against modern terrorists, it serves us well to read of our first war against them.

I can not recommend this book highly enough. If I were still teaching high school history, this would be in every student's bookbag.

Read this book.