Semo: a publisher's search for sales

For Father DMJ's forgotten Lutheran classics.

The 70s, man. It was a crazy time for all of us. 

St Bernadette says, "Yeah, the Lutherans published it, but how did it get into our parish library?"

66% of Christian symbols are marine, and 50% are dolphins.

Semo: A Dolphin's Search For Christ is archived by the Northern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Office of the President.

Your big chance: from the CSPP inbox

From a deaconess student doing a research project on mercy:


 I wondered if you might have any insights or suggestions of things you wish the church offered to you! . . . I would love to hear any ideas you had, or if you'd even want to pose the question to your readers, of how the church/a deaconess/other women in the church could help and support moms like you both spiritually and in day to day needs. 

What would you like to tell this lady? I'll leave my comments in the, um, comments.

Zuke the world

In the summer an aging housewife's fancy turns lightly to thoughts of zucchini and what the heck she's going to do with the 837 pounds of it sitting on her counter and her porch and her desk and her bed. Girls, I finally figured this one out.

You cut it all up and cook it in a big pot until it reaches the sludge stage. Add some water first so you don't have to take it back out of the big pot and pick out all the scorchy pieces on the bottom. :P

Drain it and puree it in the blender and then treat it like canned pumpkin. Or freeze it and treat it like canned pumpkin later. Or can it in your pressure canner (pressure canner only) and treat it like canned pumpkin later. The point is, treat it like canned pumpkin. Never buy canned pumpkin again.

WOW that's an ugly pie.

Not that I haven't used canned frosting

Have we really fallen so far that we must buy remedial cans of glop to make our food look like what we remember food looking like back when we ate food? There is a whole job about making sauce. And yet: Philadelphia Cooking Creme. Creme!

In case you run out of sawdust.

Canned frosting has somehow been made even more horrible. Well done, Duncan Hines.

Be smart

Many effects of the gender-free playworld we've fabulized are silly or stupid, but some are downright dangerous. Read any old-timey book and you will find a population of people who understand implicitly that a male and a female who are not related to each other (and some who are) should not be alone together in private. It is dangerous to both. One may accuse the other of having said or done something inappropriate, or anyone at all may make the same accusation because there are no witnesses. A damaged reputation is nearly impossible to repair, as anyone who has suffered one knows.

One or the other may actually say something inappropriate, which is even worse.

But worst of all is that one of them may do something inappropriate. Or one of them may even do something horrible, and this is where it becomes clear that the danger to women is much greater. They have so much more to lose, and so much less ability to defend themselves.

There is no law, no rule of etiquette, no Scriptural injunction, no cultural memory that tells us a male and a female who are not related to each other should not be alone together in private. But they shouldn't--even if they are coworkers, even if they are friends, even if they are not friends, even if it will save on gas, even if everybody's wife and husband are OK with it, even if it's just for a little while. It's a bad and dangerous idea. It is a courtesy to both parties to find an alternative, however inconvenient, to this situation.

Things I haven't said:


All men are or want to be rapists
Pastors shouldn't counsel women or hear their confessions

Here again, why we should promote motherhood

That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstances they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge for the ardently willing soul.

Middlemarch, George Eliot

More mysteries

Why is it that appearing in public with five children while pregnant is so much more embarrassing than appearing in public with six children while not pregnant?

Teach your children well

A very very very fine house

OK, so whenever that was we were having this talk about how to be the most perfectest homemaker and have a lovely home that everyone thinks is so lovely. And there's the, "You never know when the Better Homes and Gardens photo crew might stop by, and who can really be happy if there's grub on the blinds?" camp, and there's the, "If your house looks like a Better Home and Garden and you spend the whole time wiping microinvertebrates off the fridge handle I'm too afraid to visit" camp. And then there's me and my resignation to a house that looks the way it looks (which I think would be something like, not terrible, not great) and an inability to care that much what anyone thinks about it.

But then I visited a house, and it was Cheryl's house, and we had such a nice day even though I brought six kids with me and it was raining and we didn't do anything fancy (except, oh yeah, listen to an unbelievable concert by Cheryl's kids and bum an organ lesson off the Kantor, who happened to be having a birthday the same day a bunch of hungry urchins showed up on his doorstep), and I was like, well what was so great about that anyway?

What was great is that Cheryl is a gracious lady and her husband is a kindly lord and her mother is an honorable matriarch and her children are polite and personable and generous and patient, not to mention that you've never met a more modest group of ridiculously gifted people. I honestly couldn't tell you if Cheryl dusted before we got there or wiped all the hair off the edge of her bathtub (although she probably did). I was too busy having fun, eating a nice lunch, and getting forgiven for all the barbarisms my children were committing* at Cheryl's house to notice.

I know this doesn't totally solve the housewife's dilemma of just how sinful it is not to get the clean laundry put away before you need the basket again, but I thought it was informative.

(PS, Cheryl--I put the Dr. Seuss book on top of the Europe puzzle. Gah!)

*What were they even thinking?

How to talk polite-like

I looked this up because I was tired of feeling like a shlub. Thought you might be interested too, whoever you are.

When introducing two people, the more honored person is named first: Mr. Bigwig, this is Mr. Rug. Use the full names or titles of both people.

Younger people are introduced to older people. Dr. Staupitz, I'd like you to meet Dr. Chemnitz.


Less distinguished people are introduced to more distinguished people. Cardinal Cajetan, this is Dr. Eck.


And since we're old timey types here, men are introduced to women. Katherine von Bora, may I present to you Dr. Luther?

Also for old timeys: when welcoming a couple or a group to your home or an event of your hosting, ladies are greeted first. (Proper Lutherans always flub this. I think we think it threatens headship. :D The use of the husband's first name for the couple should help everyone relax.)

I can't wait for the oxytocin comments

An article of a lactational nature by me at NaturallyBorn.net, edited by the famous Pam:

You Don't Have To Love It

Hmmm, looks kinda boring. Except the London broil part.