Prepare Ye

This isn't going to be a full blown post, but things are going well here in the Garden. I'm settled in, completed my first solo service (preaching and presiding) and did not commit any major trespass. Well, the sermon did go 18+ minutes. But people said they learned a lot. (Key word = Lot) So here are some photos of the Garden. I'll post the sermon when I convert it from outline form. This is my "2nd office." It is my deck just outside of where I've put my office. You can see why I move outside when the weather allows. This is a view of the church's cemetery from my deck.

After chatting with a friend back in Michigan, I realized I never posted the pictures I took when I visited my internship site here on my blog. Oopsies. So, better late than never. front of the Garden's Lutheran Church, and this is a picture of the inside of the church looking from just inside the door. --> Below it is a view from the alter looking back. You can see the pulpit and the church does have a balcony. --> porch of the house I will be staying in, as is this view. ---> I plan to post more photos when I get down to the Garden, which will be at the end of this month. The Garden is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, and I'm planning on taking pictures as I go out and about in God's Thumbprint (on of the nicknames for the Garden.)

o For my Lenten disciple, besides giving up pop (I don't care what you call it here in the Commonwealth, it is pop. POP, POP, POP!), I have taken to meditating on the windows of the various churches and chapels I go to. Each Sunday, I am trying to go to a different church for worship. Each day, I try to pick a different window at The LTS's Church of the Abiding Presence. But I have become fixated on this one (the big picture to the left and/or above) that depicts the conversion of Saul. I started looking at it prior to our Internship Workshop, and have kept coming back to it. The passage quoted on the window is supposed to be from Acts 9:6 . But if you look there in most translations, like the NRSV , it's not there. It only shows up there in the King James translations (the original and any updates.) That's because it isn't in any of the Greek manuscripts . It does appear in Acts 22:10 when he is recounting this story . No matter where it appears, I am finding it a...

(Jesus said,) ‘Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.’ - Matthew 6:9-13 Why do you have to learn Greek? That was a question that I was asked more than one time before I left Michigan to come out to Gettysburg. Why do we have to learn Greek? That is a question that my classmates or I ask more than one time each day we are here in Gettysburg. Actually, it is not that bad. It is frustrating, but no more so than any of the other courses I am taking. It’s just that it is so unfamiliar. First, it uses a different alphabet. Some letters are the same, but there are some new letters in there. Then, some of the familiar letters are not who they are in English. For example, this letter “p” is the Greek letter rho, and makes the “r” ...

Friday afternoon was not a good day. I've been having troubles getting my MacBook to boot up and install Windows, and then I choked on a Greek Quiz like Mama Cass on a ham sandwich. So I went for a drive. Wound up on Little Round Top. It was a cold and blustery day with the leaves at near full color. Took some photos. Wanna see 'em ... here ya go. The title of this post comes from the Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Anytime I'm out in cold, windy weather, I think of this song.

My writer's block got cured sometime around 3:30 a.m. This is the text of my mini-sermon that I pulled a near all nighter to put together. It's not exactly what came out because I worked from an outline, but it's close enough. In case you get bored, here are some pictures of the prettiest and best seminary in the megaverse ... THE Lutheran Theological Seminary (which is located in Gettysburg, PA.) I think we should go Ohio State and add the THE (2 of the 24 ways to say it) and drop the location. After all, everyone else is just copying off of us. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the standard of faith; if service, in service; if teaching, in teaching; if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness." – Romans 12:6-8 I love coaching football. Besides missing my family and friends back in Michigan, not being able to coach this year has been the bi...

It is a tradition at LTSG for the junior class to "capture" the Luther statue on the eve of Reformation Day and the Luther Colloquy and dress him as a staff or faculty member. Here are a few photos of the capture and decoration. . . . . And the final view.. . .

Just a quick entry for my dozen of readers. I'm test blogging from a classroom because I can't get on the net with my new computer in my room. So I'm in class an hour early. I'm SOOOOOO pathetic. That, and I need my reading glasses to type on the MacBook. While you're laughing at me, enjoy some pictures.

Well, I'm in a better mood. I went shopping. And now I've got one of these! I went back to my roots and bought a MacBook. It's my 4th Mac, dating back to a Mac SE that I paid extra to have a 30 MB hard drive to go with the two floppy drives. Here's a Reformation Day preview photo of Luther's Rose on the Wentz Library here at LTSG.

Actually, the Fall Semester here at LTSG began yesterday, but that was all orientations seminars and getting free stuff. TODAY we started classes. And for most of the first-year Summer Greek surviving Juniors, that meant four classes back to back to back to back, with a side order of two worships and two meals. And being sequestered in the same room that we were sentenced to spend our penatence of Summer Greek in for most of the day. (I've been spending too much time with the lawyers in the class.) Now I have a bunch of reading to do, two or three papers to write and that's not counting the three classes I haven't been to yet. Welcome to grad school. So, I'm blogging. Why do today what you can do this weekend, unless there's a good football game on. Of course, ANY football game is a good football game. btw, I'm trademarking the title of this post and will be happy to license it to Hall Mark or any other card company. I'm a poor grad student studying languag...