Happy Birthday, Augsburg Confession!

Happy Birthday, Augsburg Confession!

Granted, one finds it hard to imagine a cake with four hundred eighty five (485) candles. But I begin today's piece with a shout out to this 1530 document, originally written as a letter, to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that's essentially an outline of what became known as Protestant Christianity, what it stands for and accepts as doctrine as much as what it doesn't. I picked up the booklet from one of the booths at that synod convention Martha and I went to a few weekends ago and finally took the time to read it. Not a long read – the Concordia Tract edition covers thirty-nine out of forty-seven (47, Star Trek fans) pages and devotes the first few pages to some historical background. Often, it helps to ask ourselves what we believe. And remind ourselves.

Last night when I got off work I met Martha and the kids with several dozen church families at our local Moose Club's park with playground and volleyball field for the second and third courses of what looks to be an annual progressive dinner, where we'll arrive at different places for different courses of our meal. Last year we met in various church members' houses for each course, and this year since we're at the start of summer we met outdoors, first at Roosevelt Park next to the zoo (which I couldn't get to because I was still AT work, but I was told was an excellent appetizer of a variety of salsas and chips that I'd have really enjoyed – I'm the only salsa fan in our house) and then to the Moose where we had homemade sloppy joes (one batch made by Allan and Lesa my in-laws) followed by ice cream with all the toppings!

And nobody got chopped.

(The Food Network show Chopped has chef-contestants compete to make the best appetizer, then the best entree, then the best dessert for the judges within time limits, and whoever makes the least appealing dish is “chopped”, or out of the competition. See, Virginia, I CAN explain my references!) Now as I write this I need to play catch up and relate a little about the books I've read as well … past that tract of the Augsburg Confession (complete with Bible references to back up its positions) I have eight. And I REALLY want to return some books to the library tonight … in reverse as I've written them in my journal, I'll start with L.E.G.I.O.N. 007 Annual #5, one of DC Comics' Elseworlds stories that I admit I'm a sucker for. A step beyond Marvel Comics' What If...? exploring their characters' histories taking different paths, this places the same characters in a totally different setting.

Excuse me, sir … the casino has a no-weapons policy.

Yeah? Well, James Lobo HAS a weapons policy.

(James Lobo – think their pale skinned bounty hunter as a superspy – sticks the business end of his gun up the bouncer's nose.)
Which policy makes more sense t'you?

Uhhh … why, yours, Mister Lobo. Perfect sense.

And if you’re remotely familiar with the James Bond series complete with beautiful women, high tech gadgets, and really bad puns, “The Spy Who Fragged Me” with several of DC’s nonhuman characters reimagined as spies and thugs ought to work for you. At least you’ll get a good laugh, and I need one these days. Then, Star Wars geek that I am, I could not resist when I had the opportunity at a used book sale to pick up a copy of “I’d just as soon kiss a Wookiee!”: The Quotable Star Wars (ISBN 0345407601) compiled by Steve Sansweet – who even signed this 1996 copy (the date should tell you it’s pre-Phantom Menace, so all-original trilogy is worth it). Now I know most of these already; in fact, some of them seem one or two words off to me, but I have children who must be taught and that I must get watching the movies where these proliferate. Because I love them.

Sixty-one years, six months, and five days before the events of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (ISBN 978015101411) begin, the title character was locked up in a Scottish asylum. (It’s called a hospital in the text, but we get the impression from reading it what it really is.) Then out of the blue Esme’s sister’s granddaughter Iris Lockhart gets a phone call saying that this great-aunt (?) of hers whom her grandmother’s never mentioned needs to be picked up. Iris, who has her own business and apparently has family issues of her own including the guy she’s seeing, is left with Esme on her hands and realizes as this and Esme’s story unfolds … that she should NOT go back. Nothing quite like your family committing you to spare themselves scandal to convince you that you’re crazy … so far mine hasn’t done that, I think. Or have they and I don’t know it?

A better – but not the stellar – story that I expected; I half-expected from the title that Esme pulled this vanishing act on her own for a reason that would be disclosed in the story. I know what I said, but since I’m approaching a thousand words with this post I’m going to refer to just one more item I’ve read; the rest can wait. Until Morning Sun (ISBN 0780223497) is more of a children’s reader, but some of the stories in there are amazing, like “Cowboy Dreams” where a girl imagines herself to be a cowboy, various poetry, “Alistair’s Time Machine” about a boy who invented a time machine for his school’s science fair – but he couldn’t prove it worked because he’d already used it, and the stories of a few “accidental” inventions like the Frisbee disc, the ice cream cone, and the popsicle. Quick read, fun to share!

Now let’s celebrate!

David