You Want to Legalize What?

First, I apologize for another click-baity headline. Once I thought of it though, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. (I have the feeling that others have used it - probably successfully - before me.)

Later this year (2020), you’re going to get the opportunity to vote for the next President of the United States. Now, I know our votes don’t actually determine who the President will be - that’s left to the Electoral College - but somehow it still feels important.

You’ll have a choice from several candidates - Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and others. In all but the 2016 election, I voted for the candidate from the same party. Since 2016, I’ve become more educated about political parties. Maybe you have too.

The Stewardship of Your Baptism

The stewardship of your baptism. Now there's a topic you probably didn't expect to see here. It's one that only applies to you if you have been baptized. If you haven't (or aren't sure if you have) been, you might still find some good in reading what follows. If it prompts you to get baptized, so much the better.

What follows is the transcript (mine) of a sermon that was preached at Faith Lutheran in Sussex, Wisconsin, during Advent (2019). It is short (for a sermon) and to the point and is the best sermon I've ever heard on the topic. (I told the preacher so afterwards.)

Here it is.

Visit Lookout Mountain, If You're So...Inclined

Looking up from the bottom

There's a place in Chattanooga, Tennessee, called Lookout Mountain. Actually, the whole of the mountain crosses the border into Georgia, but the part I'm dealing with here is north of the border.

Google tells me that the highest point of the mountain is 2388 feet above sea level. From the base of the mountain at street level to the top is a distance of about 1532 feet. At least, I assume that's what it means by "prominence".

If you lived in this area before about 1895, getting from the bottom to the top was probably quite a chore. But for those of us living in post-1895 times, there's been a nifty method for getting up and down the mountain. It's called the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway.

Read the Rules (And Play by Them)

Most people like to play games. If not board games or card games, then they like to play some kind of sport. Or they may like all three or some combination thereof. In any case, most people like to play these things that have rules attached to them.

A game isn’t really a game without rules. Some people have tried to design games without rules. Can you even think of one such “game”? Probably not. There’s a reason for that. They’re not “games” that are very popular, largely due to their lack of rules.

My Bedtime LP

I bet you thought I had forgotten about this blog, eh? Nope. It just took my until last week to finish the research for this post.

Sorry about the click-baity title, but I’m not selling anything here so…. The LP in the title isn’t a record album. It’s the Lord’s Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer

On the slight chance that you’ve never heard the Lord’s Prayer, here are Jesus’ words as recorded by Matthew (NIV).

Noah Is My Hero

The Ark from a distance

You may have a movie character as your hero - Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, Clark Kent. Maybe your hero is a real life relative - your mom or dad, grandpa, cousin. Perhaps you’d love to be like Aaron Rodgers, Michael Jordan, or Serena Williams.

The list could go on.

My hero is Noah. That’s the biblical Noah’s ark Noah. The guy who built a huge ship and lived on it with his immediate family for a year along with pairs of animals while everything else on land died.